Judging by the increased number of emails, junk mail, and cold calls I’m getting I would say, “It’s a jungle out there.”

With the unemployment rate where it is now business owners can’t fall back on the old, “I’ll just have to get a job” safety net because getting a job is every bit as difficult as selling your services.

Anyone thinking about starting a business places a lot of attention on:

• What you do
• How you do it

I’m not saying you shouldn’t think those things through because you certainly should.  However, before you quit your job, or further risk your resources realize your attention should be on:

• Who would be willing to pay for this
• How will you sell your services to those people

The old sales adage goes, “Nothing happens until somebody makes a sale.”  To a certain extent that’s very true.  You can get everything in your business ready to serve customers, but until you actually have paying customers none of that is really important.

Once you realize things just aren’t working out the way you thought they would many business owners will think, “Well, I’ll just hire some sales people to go out and bring in some customers.”  So they place an ad and hire some sales people.

Once they discover the sales people they hired aren’t selling enough to cover their cost most business owners will think, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to hire a Sales Manager to whip these sales people in shape, and get them out their selling something.”

Sales Managers don’t come cheap so you expect immediate results.  Most Sales Managers end up falling in one of these 4 groups:

• Task Masters - Task Masters are great at creating reports and generating data, but those reports and data don’t put money in the bank.
• Corporate Climbers - Corporate Climber view working for you as just one more step on the rung to the job they really want.
• Team Players - Everyone likes a team player they are so friendly and great to talk to; however, all that warm chatter isn’t putting money in the bank.
• Scalpers - Scalpers get your sales people to bring the red meat to them so they can close them one way or another, and then demand a cut from the sales person’s commission.

When the business owner finally realizes hiring a Sales Manager didn’t really help much it’s often too late to make a recovery.

Bottom line none of those decisions were decisions that were based on a real Sales Plan.  Each decision was a desperate effort to make something happen.  Each decision led to increased frustration and a lighter bank account.

A real Sales Plan demands:

• A clear definition of your best potential client
• A clear understanding of what those people are already looking to buy
• A succinct message relevant to those potential clients
• Knowledge of the process buyers use to make a buying decision
• The skills required to implement a sales process
• Defined daily actions
• Proven results from those actions

Bottom line if you can’t sell whatever you’re selling you won’t be able to hire a sales person to sell it either.  I should know because I made that very mistake myself at one time.  So before you invest dollar one in a business idea, or before you invest another dollar in your business make certain you have both the knowledge and skills required to sell whatever you’re selling.  Then and only then will you have the money to actually run a business and call yourself a business owner.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: GDS Digital

Daniel Levis is a wonderful story teller.  Read this quick story he tells about a visit to the grocery store that provided an excellent marketing example…

“Upon getting out of my truck and making my way across the parking lot, I am uplifted by the gentle scent of apple and cinnamon wafting into my nostrils. This is weird I’m thinking …

As I approach the store I am greeted by a half-dozen smiling people.

Seated comfortably on bales of straw, the butcher and baker appear to be engaging customers in casual conversation. Everyone is sipping apple cider and clearly enjoying the ambiance of plump orange pumpkins plunked here and there among antique farm implements.

The sights and sounds and tastes are deliberately designed to evoke warm fall fair memories and the associated desire for pies and preserves and smoky bacon which just happen to be on sale inside the store.”

Could marketing get any better than this?

Yet, how many times do you miss the opportunity to use what you have to produce the results you want?

I Can’t Do that BECAUSE…

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Well, that’s a really great idea BUT I can’t do that because I don’t have (whatever the person speaking thinks they need to have to market themselves).”

A Lesson from Mother

My Mother was hands-down one of the best cooks ever.  Yeah, I know everyone thinks their Mom is a great cook: however, my Mom had the proof to back up my claims in the form of a herd of raving fans packing her restaurant throughout the day on a daily basis.

You know another way you can tell a great cook from someone who just cooks?  Great cooks don’t use recipes or measuring cups.

The rest of us approach cooking by thinking of something we’d like to eat, finding a recipe, then rounding up the ingredients so we can tackle the job.

Not Mom.

Mom exemplified the other trade mark of a great cook.  Great cooks create delectable delights from the ingredients they have on hand.

Like any good restaurant Mom’s restaurant had a menu with the staples you could get every day any time of the day, but that menu isn’t what brought in the crowds.  Nope, what brought all those people to Mom’s restaurant every day was the “specials”.

I don’t think even Mom knew what the specials would be until that very day.  Mom searched her larder (for you city folk that’s where you keep all the grub) and chose ingredients that she transformed into something heavenly.  Her “special” included a main dish, side dishes, AND desert.

Once the ingredients were chosen she began to saute, stir, and season with conviction.

This all started at least 2 hours before lunch.   The smells wafted for miles in all directions.  You should have seen the faces on the diners as they entered.  They entered nose first with a big anticipatory smile.

She had customers who regularly drove over 60 miles just for her specials.

Now had Mom thought she couldn’t cook a particular dish because she didn’t have this, or she didn’t have that a lot of hungry people would have been sorely disappointed.

Mom’s Lesson in Action

So, for example, the next time you think you can’t introduce yourself to a potential client BECAUSE you don’t have some fancy smancy brochure let me ask you, “Do you have paper and something to write with?”

I don’t care how great your fancy brochure, odds are no one will ever even pause to look at it much less read it.  When you send a brochure in the mail it hits file 13 faster than a wild fire on a windy day.  Yet, when was the last time you threw away a handwritten note without reading it first?

Did a brochure ever make you feel good about the company sending it?  If it left any kind of  impression at all it probably wasn’t pleasant.

How can you help but think well of someone who takes the time to send you a quick handwritten note introducing themselves and offering something helpful?

Would you ever want to work with someone who didn’t appreciate your thoughtfulness anyway?

Take stock.

What can you use to reach out and make a connection with someone you’d really like as a client?  What are you waiting for?  Use it.

Coach Cheryl

When I ask new clients, “What’s the best most cost effective way for you to get new clients” they respond…

• Networking
• Cold Calling
• Referrals
• Purchased leads
• Direct mail
• email
• etc.

How Do You Know?

Then I ask, “How do you know?”  Now I get a puzzled look, a long pause, and then I hear “Well, that’s what I do.”

Next, I’ll ask, “What’s the worst most expensive way to get new clients?”  Again I get that puzzled look and then they’ll tell me they tried one of the things on the above list, and they didn’t get a single client from it so that must be the most expensive worst way to get a client.  Again I have to ask, “How do you know?”

My goal isn’t to annoy you.  You see most people DO NOT know either the best way or the least effective way to get new clients because…

• they’ve only tried a limited number of things
• they only try to get clients one way
• they assume certain things work and other things don’t work

All because they don’t gather the hard cold data required to correctly answer either question.  So rather than focusing 80% of their efforts on the 20% of the ways to get new clients that work… they do one of two things.

1. They put all their eggs in one basket and depend on one way of getting new clients
2. They try everything at once and don’t gather any data to determine what works and what doesn’t

Plus just because you tried something ONCE and it didn’t produce the results you want doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it means it doesn’t work the way you did it.  Yet, there’s a very strong possibility that it could work very well if you just knew how to do it right.

Track as it Happens

The only way you can know what works and what doesn’t…

if one change makes something work better or worse…

if you need to do more of something or less of something is…

to track exactly what you’re doing and the results those actions produce AS IT HAPPENS.

Here’s what most sales people do.  They run full bore all week.  At the end of the week they look back through their day planner, receipts, and sales sheets to try to recreate everything that happened so they can fill out a weekly sales report.  The net result is a big waste of time.  Neither the sales person nor the person they handed the completed report over to actually learned a damned thing that will help that person change their results.  Here’s why.

Learning something so you can get better results wasn’t the objective of filling out the weekly sales report as far as the sales person is concerned.  They’re just doing it to keep their sales manager or whomever off their back.  They aren’t paying attention to the details of actions and results, they’re paying attention to the details of how they get paid and reimbursed.  And that’s why it’s so important that you track the actions you take in real time.

The reason you track in real time is so you can gather the data you need to make an informed decision about what works, what doesn’t work, and what doesn’t work when you do it the way you’re doing it now.  So let’s take something you might do to get new clients and use it to learn what to track, how to track it, and why you even bother tracking it.  How about networking?

Before you attend a networking event you must first evaluate whether the event meets your requirements.  Your requirements might include…

• most attendees fall within your criteria for an ideal client
• there will be opportunities to speak with other attendees
• you are prepared to communicate your unique market position
• you have an offer to advance your connection with the people you meet

With all your criteria met you are prepared to attend the event.  As soon as you leave the event you need to track your data.  I recommend you track your daily numbers on your To Do List.  So what data would you record?

• number of attendees you interacted with (a)
• number of attendees who positively reacted to your unique market position (b)
• number of attendees who responded to your offer (c)

From just this simple data you can now calculate the effectiveness of your unique market position message.

Message effectiveness = (b/a)*100

Plus your response rate.

Response = (c/b)*100

As you continue to track the people who responded in your sales funnel you gather more data that will help you know which networking events truly are cost effective and which aren’t.  That comes later though.  The most important number initially is the effectiveness of your message.  That’s what you would work on tweaking first.

You have the data for the effectiveness of your message stated one way.  The next step is changing your message just a little and testing that version of your message against the previous version choosing a winner and then trying another little tweak to your message.  You keep doing this until you can’t beat a particular version of your message.

This may sound tedious to you, but just how tedious is it doing the same things over and over and getting crappy results.  I’m a little ahead of myself though.

Weekly Review

Because you’ve tracked all your actions and all your results in one place, on your To Do List, at the end of the week everything is easy to review.  Every time you took an action you recorded the results from that action so you have a running tally.  Compare this week to last week.  Results should either be the same or better.

Please note you must not make changes on the fly, you must do things consistently for the entire week.  So for example, you can test one version of your unique market position in all your interactions for the week and obtain data on that specific version overall not just from one networking event.

Adapt and Thrive

At the end of the week after you review your data then, and only then, can you choose what you plan to adapt and how you’ll adapt that.  That’s how you would learn whether one version of your unique market position was more effective than another version.  No guessing, no knee jerk reactions allowed.

Continue tracking and adapting each week for a full quarter.

Quarterly Review

Once a quarter track % completion on your “Strategic Sales Master Plan“.  You recorded your top 3 goals for each critical factor in the table.  For each goal there is an entry for date and % completion.  The date represents the target date for completion of the goal.  Once a quarter evaluate how far you are toward the completion of that goal and enter that number on that line.

Ideally you should make consistent progress or complete goals on target.  When that doesn’t happen you have to pinpoint why it’s not happening, what you need to do to get back on track, and implement the new actions.  Bottom line when something doesn’t work it isn’t something to get all upset about.  As Henry Ford II said “… just deal with it.”  So what, you now know one way something doesn’t work.  You are just one step closer to what does work.

Some things will work better than others.  Some things will reveal themselves as the most cost effective ways to get new clients.  Do more of those things.  Some things will reveal themselves as the least cost effective ways to get new clients.  Perhaps you simply just stop doing those things.

What’s important is that you know exactly what works, how it works, and why it works.  Because once you know that information you have uncovered repeatable, reproducible, and cost effect ways to achieve the sales you want.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

No matter what you have, or what you want it will take resources to get that.  The resources required to do most anything are time, talents, treasure, and manpower.  Of these time is the great equalizer.

All of us are either born with, or have developed varying degrees of different talents.

We have different amounts of treasure.  The treasure you have is either in a liquid (usable) state or it’s tied up and not immediately available for use but can be leveraged to acquire usable treasure.

Perhaps you provide all the manpower for your efforts, you outsource work, or your hire manpower.  That manpower provides varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency.  You may have more manpower than needed or too little.

I say time is the great equalizer because we all have the same amount of time.  No one gets more time, or has less time than anyone else.  It’s the way you use your time that makes all the difference.  Most business owners and sales people think they never have enough time.  The reality is everyone has enough time to do the important things when they use their time wisely.

The way you use your time is so important I wrote The Race To Success  When you can master the way you use your time you can master the way you achieve anything you want.

The way you use your time plays a critical role in the “Strategic Sales Master Plan” we’ve been working on.  Your vision, your mission, your goals are all time bound. Would you agree when it comes to time parameters there’s both a start time and an end time?

Which time parameter is more important, the time you finish or the time you start?

photo credit: alancleaver_2000

Most people will answer the time you finish is the most important time parameter.  I disagree.

How many times have you set a goal to do something by a specific time, yet that time came and went but the goal was not accomplished?  Here’s what happens when you focus on the end time rather than the start time.

At first that time seems far off.  Because the end time isn’t eminent it’s easy to think, “I’ll get started on that later.”  It’s easy to keep putting the actions you need to take off.  Then you reach a point in time where you decide there’s no way you can ever take the actions you need to take to finish the goal by the stated end time.  At that point you give up… and decide you won’t even start.

That’s why the most important deadline for any and all sales goals is the date you will start taking the action or actions you need to take.  You can’t finish anything until you start, so why focus on the end when you can’t get there from where you are now.  Thinking about everything you have to do to accomplish a goal can feel draining.  When you just focus on taking one action (starting) anyone can do just one little thing.  It doesn’t feel like a big deal.  Plus once you start something it’s far easier to maintain the motivation to keep going until it’s done than it is to dredge up the motivation to start in the first place.

Deadline for Starting

Now that you have your 3 most important goals identified from the previous post take those goals out and DECIDE what date you will start taking action for each goal.  Get those actions on your To Do List (aka action list) and starting checking those actions off as done by starting with one action at a time on a specific date.

Today seems like a good START date to begin taking the actions you need to get the things you want.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

Previously as part of the “Strategic Sales Master Plan” you defined your mission.  As you recall your mission describes how you will move your hands and feet.  While your vision is long-term in nature something you work toward over several years your mission is what you absolutely must accomplish this year.

Your Mission is Your Line in the Sand

Your mission represents the line in the sand defining what you will accomplish within the next year no matter what because it’s that important.

You can’t achieve your mission without successfully accomplishing the 5 critical factors.  And you can’t fulfill the critical factors without the goals you’ve written down.  In combination each piece provides the foundation required for a successful service business.

Goals represent the actions you will take to fulfill the critical factors.  You have a list of goals.  If you’ve done a thorough job you probably have at least 5 goals listed in relation to each critical factor.  Doing the math that means you have a goal list with at least 25 goals.

Now that could feel a little overwhelming.

Goal Playoffs

If you’re a sports fan this next step will be an easy one.  You can’t focus on so many goals at once because it is just too overwhelming.  So we need to whittle your list down to your top 3 most important sales goals, and put all your focus on those goals first.  Once one goal is completed you can then move another goal into your top 3 list.  So here’s how to play the goal playoff game.

Get all your goals on one list.  Now compare the first goal on your list to the last goal on your list and choose which goal is more important right now.

Place an asterisk next to the more important goal between the two.  Keep working your way to the middle of your page putting an asterisk next to the more important of the two goals.

photo credit: Sweet One

The last one may not have another goal to compare it against so that goal gets an asterisk by default.

Next start at the top of your list and compare with first goal with an asterisk to the next goal with an asterisk and decide which of those two goals is most important and place a star next to that goal.  Continue until you run out of goals.

photo credit: Lummmy

Now rank order the goals marked with a star from most important (1) to least important.

At this point you now have your 3 most important sales goals.

Making Progress

You really need to accomplish most of your goals to accomplish your mission so simply completing these 3 goals is not enough.  You must continue to make progress throughout the year.  So when you’ve successfully completed a goal you mark that goal as completed, and select a new goal from your goal list to put in your top 3 most important sales goals list.

Some of your goals are never actually completed because you will always need to take that action.  For those goals accomplishment is defined by your ability to successfully take those actions, and produce the intended result.  When you get to that point you continue the action and add a new goal to your top 3 most important sales goals because those actions are now just part of your normal behaviors.

Okay, get to work and pick your top 3 most important sales goals.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

“Don’t complain, don’t explain, just deal with it”

Henry Ford II

In a recent Geico commercial you seem to be spying on a sales meeting.  One of the members of the meeting comments, “I suppose I could sell insurance if I were cute and green with an Australian accent too.”  The ad reminded me how often I hear people make the excuse, “Well if I had (insert whatever supposed benefit you want) I could accomplish whatever the person with that benefit accomplished too.”  As if the successful person had somehow been granted some special favor from the world.

No one is granted any special favors from anyone.  Successful people take Henry Fords advice to heart they simply deal with whatever they are handed as it comes, and do whatever they have to do to work around it.  There are no special miraculous skills or talents required for that.

As we continue working on your “Strategic Sales Master Plan” the next thing we need to consider is resources.  I’ve yet to meet a single person who already has all the resources they want, or believe they need.  Plus you probably can’t have every resource you can imagine, so let’s narrow those resources down to the most important resources you will need to produce the sales results you want.

Resources You Have vs. Resources You Need

There’s no need to make things complicated.  Simply grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center.  Label the left column “Resources I Have” and the right column “Resources I Need”.  Now we need to evaluate what those resources might be.  One way to do that is to think about the 5 critical factors and your particular goals for each factor.

Significance:  Some resources you needed to develop significance include…

• Information & Knowledge - Required to help you identify who wants to know you and why.
• Money - The investments you will make to get your SOLUTION in front of the right people making it easy for those people to find you.
• Skill - The skill required to engage the right people and help them uncover their motivation to act.
• Manpower - The required man hours to set-up, implement, and follow-up with the approaches used to get your solution in front of the right people.

Connections: Some resources needed to develop connections include…

• Information & Knowledge - Required to set-up and deliver communications that produce action from your best potential clients.
• Soft assets - Automation so the connection process becomes a set it and forget it easily expandable process.
• Skills - Required to know how to implement a process that triggers action.

Relationships:  Some resources needed to develop relationships include…

• Time - The time required to manage the sales cycle.
• Information - Required to understand what your best potential clients are already looking to buy, and how they perceive getting that.
• Knowledge - The knowledge to know what to do to create a relationship process.
• Skills - The skills required to know how to implement a relationship process.
• Soft assets - The automation to make the relationship process a set it and forget it easily expandable process.

Transformation:  Some resources needed to create transformations include…

• Information - Information about your potential clients and their needs.
• Knowledge - Knowledge to know what to do to develop and deliver a sales process.
• Skills - The skills to know how to implement the sales process.

Expansion:  Some resources needed for expansion include…

• Money - The investment you will make to implement a referral process.
• Knowledge - The knowledge needed to know what to do to create a referral process.
• Skills - The skills needed to know how to implement your referral process.
• Soft assets - The automation needed to create a set it and forget it easily expandable referral process.

What About Your Goal Resources?

Now look over the goals you wrote and identify the resources you have, and the resources you need to put those goals into action.

Okay, now I want you to focus on the right column representing the resources you don’t have as listed on your sheet.  Would you classify any of the resources you listed as optional?  If so, mark them off your list.

Could you substitute a resource from your “have” column and use it as a work around for a resource you don’t have?  If so, mark this resource from your column representing the resources you need.

At this point you should be left with a bare bones list of MUST have resource.

How Will You Get Those Resources?

Is there a way to get a particular resource for free?  It is absolutely amazing what you can do with zero investment.

Is there a way to borrow, barter, or trade for a resource on your list?

Which of those resources will you have to man-up and get even though it might be painful to make that upfront investment?

These hard to make investments are quite often game changers.  Until you are willing to commit you end up wasting far more time and money than you would if you just bit the bullet and did it.  I vividly recall one such investment.  The investment was a little over $20,000.  At the time that was a pretty big deal to me.  It made my stomach hurt just to think about writing that check, but I did it.  I did it because if I hadn’t done it I never would have gotten off the ground.   I would have fizzled out just like so many small businesses who fail before any one even realizes they exist.

What’s that game changer investment you need to make?  What will you have to do to get that resource no matter what?  No excuses, no complaining, just deal with it…

What if…

I fully empathize with how hard that is for most people.  You wonder what if… you are making a mistake.  You wonder if… there is another way or a better option.  You wonder if.. you can wait and do it later.

All that wondering means you are avoiding a decision because you are afraid of all the things you are wondering about.  Here’s what I’ve found from my personal experience and my experience with countless really successful people.  Highly successful people…

• make decisions quickly
• they change their minds slowly
• and once they commit they take massive action

What if you started behaving like a successful business owner, and fully committed to yourself and your ability to achieve what you set out to do?

What happens if you do nothing?

Are you more willing to take that risk, the risk of the consequences of doing nothing, than the perceived risk required to get the resources you believe would change everything for you and your business?

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

photo credit: Vali…

The next step in your “Strategic Sales Master Plan” is identifying your top critical factors.  Overall there are a lot of critical factors that can impact your business and its success.  Typically those factors are related to time, talents, treasure, and manpower.  In general; critical factors are broad categories like customer service, finances, etc.  Our focus here is the 5 most critical factors when it comes to SALES.

All you need to do at this point is understand each critical factor and how it impacts your sales success.  Right now you don’t need to identify specific ways to fulfill each critical factor because that comes later.  Here are the 5 critical factors.

Significance

The first critical factor is significance.  Significance is what makes you findable by the right people for the right reasons.  Your ideal future clients won’t be able to find you unless you can answer the question…

Who wants to know you and why? 

For example, a commercial Realtor might say, “Owners and people looking to own a 12-plex or larger apartment building come to me because I’m an expert when it comes to helping them increase their profits from the properties they own. They know when they buy or sell a building with me they will earn more.”

Significance is what makes it easier for the right people to find you.  When you hold significance whether you…

• Make calls
• Network
• Run ads
• Send direct mail
• Capture leads through your website

The potential buyers who come to you are far more likely to be the right people.

Typically when people have a website they have one of two experiences.  They get almost no traffic to their website, or they get a ton of traffic to their website yet neither results in clients.  This typical experience is a result of their lack of significance.  The right people can’t find you, meaning whether you get a lot or a little traffic those visitors leave without connecting with you.  It’s not the amount of traffic you get that counts.  It’s not the amount of suspects you get from those other prospecting efforts that count.  What counts is the relevancy of those visitors and suspects you attract.

Connections

Connections is the next critical factor.  Connections represent the first step in the relationship and sales process.  Most people mistakenly think the most important action is the action they take.  The reality is the most important action is the action a potential client takes.  Once you have significance more of the right people find you and more of those people are willing to take an action.

Once they find you it’s up to you to present those potential clients with the motivation to take the first action.  That action makes your first connection.  When a potential client takes that action they are, in essence, raising their hand and telling you, “Hey, I’m someone like that and that’s what I’m looking for too.”  A potential client would be telling the commercial Realtor I either own or want to own an apartment complex and I want to make sure I profit from the experience.

This first connection is the key to setting the stage so you are the one sought after rather than the one doing the chasing and begging.  This critical factor makes certain you never have to chase after people who don’t want to talk to you, or beg for an appointment with people who will never become your client.

Relationships

Relationships are the next critical factor.  Relationships are what help you build the trust and appreciation required to have an open and honest sales conversation when the time is right.  Even though many people treat relationships like they are something that just happens that’s a big mistake.  Building relationships is a predictable and repeatable process.

You have the power to control every step in the process.  The magic comes when you understand how to automate that process so you can initiate, nurture, and maintain a relationship with a limitless number of ideal potential clients and existing clients.

The relationship process eliminates the skepticism that creates those stilted difficult conversations about working together that happen as a result of potential clients viewing you as a typical sales person.

Transformation

The fourth critical factor is transformation.  Transformation represents the successful progression through the sales funnel transforming a complete stranger into a paying client.  It’s a smooth step-wise process for both you and your new client.  The transformation process honors and respects the stages of buyer readiness, and helps you focus your time on the people who are ready to buy now while nurturing the people who will become ready buyers at some point in the future.

Expansion

Expansion is the last critical factor.  Expansion is the result of significance combined with leverage.  The outcome of expansion is referrals.  Expansion produces referrals from both clients and business partners.

Most people treat referrals like an unexpected gift.  Expansion helps you develop a process that predictably produces referrals.

This will be an easy step for you.  Take out your “Strategic Sales Master Plan“  and fill in the 5 critical factors with the words:

1. Significance
2. Connections
3. Relationships
4. Transformation
5. Expansion

Then start thinking about what you could do to produce those outcomes in your business.  Just think, nothing more nothing less.  Allow your mind to explore things you may never have done before.  Question the way you’ve approached these things in the past.  What might you do?  What have you done that you shouldn’t be doing?

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

There’s a lot of talk about “finding your purpose” and just as many books on the topic.  Due to some outright miscommunications along with some misunderstandings the concept of finding your purpose has taken off on this froo- froo tangent that isn’t doing anyone any good.   Many people are expecting some mystical revelation of what their purpose is.

News flash.  Your purpose is whatever you declare it is.  This is true on both a personal and professional level.  When you lack clarity of purpose on a business level you have big trouble because neither you nor your potential clients understand why your business exists.

Purpose = Reason Your Business Exists

Purpose represents the reason your business exists for the people willing to pay you money to get what you sell.  If your business does not exist for a specific valuable reason there is no reason for your business to exist.  Many  businesses conduct daily operations without a clear purpose.  Those businesses have trouble attracting clients, trouble keeping clients, and almost never get a referral.  Daily operations are more like fire drills than real functioning businesses because the business never focuses on a clear set of objectives.

In order to clarify and refine your purpose you must answer these 3 questions:

1. What do you DO for your clients?
2. What problems do you solve, outcomes do you produce, or results do you get for those clients?
3. What are your clients reasons for buying from your business?

Sometimes businesses incorporate their purpose into their mission statement.  I don’t like to do that because I believe your purpose is far too important, and deserves your full attention.  Understanding the purpose of your business is key to the clarity that makes it easier to increase your sales and get more clients.

When you are clear on the purpose of your business you can focus on the best way to stay on purpose and do what your business exists to do right now.   Meaning you waste fewer resources on the things that aren’t part of your purpose than you probably do now.  Meaning you gain a greater return from your resources because you wisely use those resources in ways that fit your purpose.

Purpose comes from knowing why you are doing what you are doing.

Clarity of purpose helps you see the challenges you face as opportunities to learn and grow stronger.

To give you an example, the purpose for my business is “To help professionals get clients so they have the time and financial freedom to enjoy the things they love.”

To clarify and refine the purpose for you business start off by answering those 3 questions above.  Next condense and simplify those thoughts into a powerful statement of purpose.  Record that statement on your “Strategic Sales Master Plan“.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

At one point Microsoft created a vision stated simply as, “A computer on every desk.”

Notice how simple that statement is.  That simple statement was both motivating and inspirational to Bill Gates AND his employees.  It was personal.  Every member of Microsoft from the lowliest employee to Bill Gates himself could easily extract exactly what accomplishing that would mean.

At the time Microsoft wasn’t the behemoth it is now.  Microsoft like all large companies in the beginning was a small company.  Small companies are just big companies waiting to happen after all.

If you read the vision statements of some of today’s big companies you’ll immediately notice a big difference.  Quite often those vision statements are convoluted and incomprehensible.  If you can’t understand it you certainly won’t gain either motivation or inspiration from it.  Therefore it isn’t a vision it’s simply a wasted effort.

Interestingly enough the international conglomerate I worked for years ago put out incomprehensible vision statements every year.  Today that company doesn’t even exist.  Any wonder.

Your Vision is Like Your Own Green Arrow 

Fidelity Financial Services has a commercial involving a conversation between a client and their advisor.  During the conversation a green arrow pops up on the ground showing the client a clear pathway to the future they want.  That’s what your vision needs to do for you.

Your vision statement should be short.  Ideally it should be no more than 1-3 simple sentences.  Save the big words and fancy terms because you don’t need them.  This vision statement is for you and you alone.

You are investing the time to write a vision statement because this statement will serve as your guidepost to make sure you stay on the path following the green arrow you’re creating for yourself.  When faced with a choice or decision you will remind yourself of your vision and evaluate how this decision aligns with your vision before taking action.  I want to make another point about your vision statement.

As you think about your vision statement I want you to take your entire life into consideration.  No one’s life is cleanly sliced between their personal life and the way they earn a living.  So when you are thinking about your vision think about how you want your business to live.

What do you want your business to live like?

The vision you create for your business must respect both the personal side of your life, and the professional side of your life.

Okay, having said that let’s use our example from Microsoft to help you create your own vision statement.  The criteria for a great vision statement is pretty simple.  A good vision statement:

• Focuses on outcomes
• Inspires
• Creates an image
• Set a clear direction for action
• Is memorable and repeatable

A computer on every desk is definitely an outcome.  You can count, track, and measure progress.  Interestingly enough Microsoft did not include a count in their vision.  Perhaps a count or a time frame for completion would have actually slowed or limited their success.  On the one hand they couldn’t fail because there wasn’t a specific count.  On the other hand they almost couldn’t help but succeed because there wasn’t a specific count.

No matter who you are or what business you are in there will be times when you need inspiration and motivation to do the things you have to do to succeed.  Microsoft understood people had to buy computers if they were going to sell their software.  They also understood people would not buy those computers unless their software made it easier for people to use computers and helped those people accomplish some form of work.  Each person was inspired to contribute in some way to producing that software that could accomplish this task.  The idea of simple to run software was their inspiration to act.

When you read or hear the words, “A computer on every desk” your brain actually creates an image of A desk with A computer sitting on that desk.  Perhaps your mind sees your desk with your computer sitting on it.  We as humans naturally think in images.  Messages presented in a way that creates images are far more powerful.

When your brain sees the word kitchen your mind does NOT think k-i-t-c-h-e-n.  No, your mind conjures up the image of A kitchen.  Perhaps you see your kitchen, your Mothers kitchen, a picture of a kitchen you’ve seen in a magazine.  The image is far more meaningful and inspirational than the word.

For every decision every person within Microsoft faced they could simply ask themselves, “Does this decision take me closer to putting a computer on every desk, or would it move me away from that objective?”  If the vision is “A computer on every desk” each person, department, and the company as a whole can delineate the steps that would make that vision a reality.  The vision sets the direction for all work, all decisions, and all actions.

It’s clear “A computer on every desk” is both memorable and repeatable.  If you hadn’t heard it before I doubt you’ll ever forget it.  You might wonder why memorable and repeatable is important if you’re the only one who knows what your vision statement is.  The reason it’s important for your vision to be both memorable and repeatable is because you have to own your vision every waking hour of every waking day.

When you’re faced with an important decision you can’t stop and say, “Now wait a minute before I can make this decision I have to go dig up where I put that vision statement and make sure I’m on the right track.”  Before every action you take you should be thinking this action is the next most important action I can take at this moment in time toward accomplishing my vision.

Get out your “Strategic Sales Master Plan” and start working on your first draft for your vision statement.  Using the criteria above start jotting down some thoughts related to each criteria.  Formulate your first sentences.  Then go back and cut out all unnecessary words.  Think of ways to state the same thing in simpler words.  Keep working at it and on it until it becomes a statement you can own.

This statement should bring about strong feelings for you.  It should mean a lot to you in terms of who you are, the kind of life you choose to live, your values and believes, and the business you want to create.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

photo credit: Hello Turkey Toe

Blogger Lela Davidson shared an excerpt from an article written by Michael Shrage a researcher who questions how far a company should go to improve its workforce.  He questions if companies should encourage their employees to pop a pill, get the surgery, get the technology, or whatever is needed to increase their productivity.

At first it may sound shocking to think a company would push their employees so hard to perform that they would seek controversial ways to increase their productivity.  Yet, when you think about it a little longer…

photo credit: Mutasim Billah Pritam [EWU]

Aren’t we an instant society always seeking the instant fix?  Doesn’t every overweight person want to pop a pill and wake up thin in the morning?

Aren’t you looking for the magic bullet that opens doors, secures appointments, and closes business?

Aren’t you willing to risk your hard earned money, even your health, if there is an option out there that produces the results you want?

Unfortunately, the answer is “yes” for a huge portion of our population.

The sad truth is pills, surgeries, tricks and techniques, instant fixes address the symptoms not the problems.

I personally know someone who underwent bariatic surgery, and lost over 150 pounds… But then after having lost all that weight… gradually over a span of about 3 years she began to rapidly gain back all the weight she’d worked so hard to lose and more…

The surgery fixed her physical ability to eat, at least temporarily… it did not fix the reason she ate in excess… So, she regained the weight… her health was worse than when she started… and now she faced serious life threatening consequences.  Her stomach could literally explode dumping the toxic contents of her stomach and intestines into her body cavity causing an infection that would kill her.

While this is an extreme and graphic example the same thing happens whenever we try to reach out for an instant fix.  Instant fixes can only address the symptoms not the root cause.  What happens is the instant fix covers up and masks the real problem.  The problem doesn’t go away it either shows up in a different way or it returns with a vengeance.

Adapt or Die

Oh, I know that sounds so dramatic and frightful.  But it’s true.  You have to adapt what you’re doing, saying, and offering to fit the market today or you won’t be around to worry about it tomorrow.

You can’t waste your time or resources on band-aids when you need a real plan to increase sales and increase the number of people you have to sell your stuff to.

No Magic Pills Just Magic Processes

You need a process you can repeat over and over again to adapt what you’re doing, and how you’re doing it, to fit the current market.  It doesn’t matter how great your marketing and sales efforts are working today things will change… and you will have to adapt once again.  However, it won’t be had to make those adaptations when you can follow a process to increase sales.