"I am finding the focus, direction, accountability, encouragement and support that I get from The Boas Group to be exactly what I need to take my professional enterprise to the next level! I always had that 'something' but just didn't know how to maximize it to reach my dreams. Today, I am actually reaching my goals and setting even more amazing ones... I'm excited to see what the future holds!"
I love to blog because I love to write. I have been journaling life since I was about ten - simply telling the stories of my days, experiences and overall life. The writing is for me and only me as I have found it to be a very inexpensive therapist over the years - as well it doesn’t argue with me or tell me I am wrong or right.
I have on average 60 journals filled with my life and another 50 that just sit on shelves waiting for me to use them or for me to find someone else that could benefit from journaling their life.
But I will admit that the need to consistently type and blog on business subjects as well as personal topics that would be valuable to my readers, I have found it to be difficult over the last several months as other activities and work have taken priority…. so I am ashamed to admit that a couple of weeks have gone by without me sharing and educating my blog readers.
Have you run into that same challenge - finding the focus and consistency in your blogging?
We all know how valuable it can be for both the readers and for the blogger - so why don’t we do it?
I can only tell you why i do not - and yet I do not want to make excuses so I will not focus on that. What I will share with you are tips that have helped me stay focused and consistent with my knowledge sharing and educating:
Block time out on your schedule daily or 3 times a week for writing your blog
Block out a larger time block and focus on creating content for multiple blog entries that you can have done and ready to go for the week
Create a monthly theme or topic that all of your blog postings would involve - that will help you to focus on a specific topic
Examples of topics I wrote on - 30 Days of my own quotes, 30 Time Management Tips, 20 Traits of an Entrepreneur, etc….
Read other blogs, include comments to theirs or use theirs to stimulate ideas of your own that you can use
Sit down, give yourself 10 minutes with a timer, and write out any and all topics, subjects, hobbies, business ideas, etc.. that come to your mind - without giving it much thought. Just write…..scribble out one or two words to describe it - and try to create as many one liners as you can come up with. That can serve as your list of blogging ideas.
I promise to you and myself to practice what I preach and re-energize myself to focus on the above as I am always interested in educating and training you and others on various topics of business and life.
People want to hear from you as well! So if you are ever challenged with consistently writing your blog - consider the above.
Have you ever really considered just how powerful your mind is to the success or failure of your life, your business, your relationships, your career…..basically everything you touch? Have you realllllllly thought about it?
I have to admit until the last few years I really didn’t. Sure I know about the little voice in your head, like the devil on your one shoulder, that can down talk something, anything, that you are attempting to accomplish. But I basically always ignored it as if it was just something I have to deal with, something I have to live with.
It wasn’t until I really started paying attention and observing what others around me, especially clients, were allowing their little devil to do to them; physically, emotionally, spiritually. As more and more business clients were coming to me to help solve their business issues did I realize that the majority of the help they wanted was not for me to fix the lack of processes they had, or the marketing programs they had in place, or the operations of their company. They needed help in managing and squashing the devil in their head that was preventing them from taking the risks they needed to take, going after the deals they really wanted, making the changes they needed to make; that they knew they had to make - in order to be successful.
They also brought me the outside personal influences that were severely impacting their business life - the family, the bills, the honey do list and more.
There was no avoiding the fact that the little devil on business owners, executives and entrepreneurs shoulders had to be squashed, or at least shrunk, in order for them to get the results they wanted from all of the hard work that they were putting in.
Fully understanding myself that squashing that little voice or devil would not be easy and it does take time, I would always have them consider a few tricks and tips that would at least mute the voice:
Set the morning alarm 5-10 minutes early than when you MUST be up
Use that time to quietly lay there and assess your physical and mental state
Whether you pray, meditate, or simply sit quietly, clear your mind of all thoughts (good or bad)
Affirm for yourself (over and over) that “You deserve greatness is your world”, “This is going to be a great day!” “I am ready to conquer my day!” “The world is going to step aside for me because I know where I am going” - or any other affirmation or prayer that you may use to focus
Resist getting up until your mind is clear and your body is calm of any negative, stressful, or self-damaging beliefs
As you go through the day, anytime that little voice starts to rant or the devil appears, stop / breathe / affirm and then keep moving. Because as you know - you can let those little voices and devils hold you down, keep you from succeeding, and prevent action OR you can acknowledge it, squash it, and keep moving forward and up. THAT is something you can control!
Don’t let the devil win…… pay attention to what is going on between your ears and you will be able to control anything that YOU are manifesting in your mind!
Although the recession is officially over, it doesn’t much feel like it. To survive and grow in what remains a challenging economy, you need a high-functioning sales team.
How do you achieve this without breaking the bank? The bad news is that it will take effort, time and diligence. The good news is that it really won’t cost much. And there’s more good news: you don’t have to come up with any new tactics. Instead, the most effective way to build an effective sales machine is by adopting a number of classic tactics—ones that are classics because they work, and because your competitors likely aren’t using them.
Here’s what you need to do:
GET CLOSER TO YOUR CLIENTS
You’re more likely to make a sale if you understand how your clients see the world these days. How are they feeling? Here’s a way to find out: ask them. Want to know how to do this cheaply and effectively, and to put a sale on the board? Pick up the phone and call the client yourself. Five minutes of effort and a lifetime of value. Imagine how you’d feel if one of your own suppliers were to call to ask you what you thought. Why not be that company?
If you can’t or don’t want to do this, organize a focus group. To make sure it’s worthwhile for your customers to attend, don’t make it an overt sales pitch. Instead, generalize things by asking your clients—or have a professional facilitator do the asking—questions about trends in their industries and how your company will factor into these.
Another proven way to build and insulate client relationships is to get the big guys talking. Make it your goal on your key accounts to get someone above the level of sales rep involved in the sales process—anyone from the head of a department that’s key to servicing the account on up to you, the CEO. Involving one of your big guys — or gals — is convincing evidence that you consider the client more than just a number on your income statement.
Ensure that this tactic doesn’t eat up too much of your time by having the salesperson manage the introductions and information flow. For the modest time-investment of an off-site visit, the potential return is huge.
You should also consider another classic tactic that’s especially relevant now that it’s even tougher than normal to land new business: the 3-by-3. The idea is that when a rival strolls in with a lone sales rep and tries to compete, she’ll run into three guards at the gate—all of them yours.
The idea is dead simple: have three of your top people meet with three of the client’s top people. For instance, your sales rep would, as usual, work to build a relationship with the client’s decision-maker—the department head or whoever signs off on purchases. But then you’d build two other pairs of relationships between people each at about the same level. Your VP of engineering might build a relationship with her equivalent who runs the client’s product-support group, and your VP of customer service might build one with his counterpart who manages the front-line users of your product.
By cultivating these relationships, you’ll add value for the client by understanding its needs at a host of levels. And you’ll make it much harder for your competition to break in.
How do you get your clients to agree to 3-by-3 relationships? The key is to find a way to share information that crosses the buy-sell boundary, that offers your client insights and analysis helpful to running and growing its business. For example, your VP of operations might invite the client’s support-team manager to an upcoming conference on customer service. (Of course, this is a good idea only if your firm’s own customer service is top-notch.)
Work your sales team smarter
In such a tough market, you can’t afford to run your sales department in a loosey-goosey manner. What the times call for is good old-fashioned sales discipline.
Start your sales meetings on Mondays at 8 a.m. or Fridays at 4 p.m Anyone who has ever been a salesperson will know the reaction you’ll get when you announce this plan: your reps will hate it. But it works, because it sends a clear message that it’s time to get down to some serious work.
At these meetings, you should talk about the basics that lead to sales, such as how to get appointments, objection handling, soft and hard closes, the steps in the sales process and your firm’s competitive advantages. You might think your sales team already knows this stuff. Think again. Unless you truly drive these ideas home, your reps won’t deliver any consistency out in the field.
Allow me to tie this down with a sports analogy. No doubt your favourite hockey team already knows how to play the game. Yet how would you react if you were to learn that it didn’t plan to practise at all this week? It’s the same thing with sales. Your investment: 52 weeks of coffee and donut runs. Your ROI: a disciplined sales team that delivers on your bottom line.
It costs nothing to have your team practice their sales scripts, yet the return can be enormous. Since every lead is precious right now, wouldn’t you feel better if everyone on your team were to follow the playbook, instead of making it up every time out?
Want proof? Depending on where you live, you might have heard the annoyingly effective radio ads from Spence Diamonds. But unless you’ve set foot in one of their stores, you won’t know about another key to this retailer’s great success. If you were to visit a Spence outlet, you’d be sure to meet a highly trained sales pro. That’s because every day its salespeople are required to do a one-hour practice session before they hit the shop floor. They form into pairs, with one rep practising pitches to the other for half an hour. Then they switch roles. It’s no accident that Spence leads its sector in sales per store visit.
Here are some other classic tactics you should adopt if you’re not already using them—or return to if you’ve stopped using them:
Measure what’s critical to your success Do you collect, share and discuss your critical numbers with your sales team? As the expression goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. This is such a simple sales-improvement method, because once you and your team know the numbers it’s easy to figure out what to tweak. Every firm is different, but ramping up sales usually comes down to selling to more companies or selling more to the clients you already have.
Focus on setting new appointments
This should be the fattest part of the sales funnel because it’s the easiest to control. Make this one of your new critical numbers with your team. It’s no harder to make appointments in this economy, but it takes an approach that respects the need to make an ROI. Get your team to understand that it’s about setting appointments and getting face to face with a decision maker—full stop. In your sales meeting, there’s no need to look for new strategies. This is a time to revisit the appointment-setting strategies that work.
Have your sales manager meet with each rep for a weekly one-on-one Your sales head needs to be very close to the ebb and flow of leads and accounts to help your reps stay on track.
Love your current accounts The easiest place to make new sales is to existing customers. Don’t let your firm get caught in the trap of valuing new customers more than existing ones.
Cull the herd Does your sales team wait for the phone to ring, or is it out there proactively pursuing new deals? These days what you really need is hunters to chase new business, not farmers to tend your existing business. Take a hard look at your team and ask yourself who’s up to the task at hand: generating new business from new customers and, especially, existing ones.
In today’s market, you can afford to have fewer but higher-producing people on your team. If you have underperformers, now’s the time to let them go. The upside is that there are a lot of great experienced people on the market who, just 12 months ago, you wouldn’t have been able to find. Don’t miss your chance to get them on board.
Dominic Rubino is a Vancouver-based sales and management trainer. As executive vice-president of FocalPoint International, he is the global franchisor of a business-coaching program based on the content and methodologies of leading coach and author Brian Tracy.
The Shortest Distance between YOU and $$$$? Network Calling!
Did you notice I did not say Cold Calling? I said Network Calling….more on that in a minute.
Like so many people, when I went out on my own, I knew that my marketing plan would include various techniques; definitely networking, one-one close contact lead generation, referrals, partner programs, direct mail (maybe), third party telemarketing (maybe). But one technique I was not prepared to do, nor did not want to do was the infamous Cold Calling.
Whether knocking on doors, or picking up the phone, cold calling was just that. COLD!
Digging deep to understand my angst towards it, I realized I did not want to be one of those intrusive ‘dinner time’ phone callers, intruding on my dinner or family time. It was rude, and I would become rude, often hanging up on them. Why would I ever want to become ‘that person’?
Then three different experts gave me three different pieces of advice that changed my entire view on this specific technique:
The first, Nancy Davis, President of Be Healthy, Wealthy & Wise – Nancy had me play out in my mind all of the various (nasty, rude, abrupt, nice, easy) responses from ‘business owners’ that I expected to hear. Then she had me replay those images through a second, third, fourth, even fifth time. To my absolute surprise, by the second time, and definitely the third, the nasty, rude and abrupt (hang ups) responses I was receiving no longer had an effect on me….they were no longer a big deal, they no longer mattered. WOW!
The second expert, Leslie Wells, of L Wells & Associates made me realize that ‘cold calling’ was NO different than the Networking that I was doing on a regular basis:
Walking into a strange room, restaurant or office, walking up to complete strangers and having a conversation with someone using my 1-3 minute introduction to inform and qualify someone as a prospect. I realized the approach was exactly the same on the phone, or walking through the door. And on the phone, you DON’T have to be face to face. That’s easy, right?
Lastly, the third expert, Linda Bishop, President of Thought Transformation, gave me the most impactful advice, as it hit where it means the most – my BANK ACCOUNT
She simply told me that ‘the shortest distance (and time) between me and $$$$ was a phone call!” When push comes to shove and you need to make money and get clients, get on the phone and get an appointment (or sell something). Plain and simple…it cuts out the time, travel and smoozing that go on with traditional networking. WOW!
So, my advice to you, get over the angst of Cold Calling and consider it Network Calling. Put your networking skills to work. And, if you do struggle with this, consider the Power of Mind workshop with Nancy Davis and Leslie Wells, two of the experts who helped me see the light. It will be a great investment that will return much greater results!!!! CHECK OUT THE EVENTS SECTION.
And let them know The Boas Group referred you……like anyone, they love referrals.
Lastly, check out Sandy Weaver Carman’s blog for a related posting on Getting Past the Gatekeeper…….http://www.voiceworkondemand.com/articles.html
GOOD LUCK, Bernadette Boas - President The Boas Group
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I have to confess:
Although the recession is officially over, it doesn’t much feel like it. To survive and grow in what remains a challenging economy, you need a high-functioning sales team.
