Only 10% of salespeople

make more than 3 contacts

with a prospective Customer.

80% of sales are made

on the 5th to 12th contact.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the message behind these stats from the National Sales Executive Association, as brought to the surface on LinkedIn by

Douglas Green, National Field Market Manager, Healthcare at LanguageLine Solutions, Austin, TX.

Take the bitter pill! If you own or manage any part of a small or medium-size business, or if you are part of an individual or group professional practice, like it or not, you ARE a salesperson! If you can’t accept that and move forward, your business or practice won’t move forward. It is that simple.

So let’s explore this for a minute:

As a salesperson, what keeps you from making more than three contacts with a Customer or prospective Customer? What makes you stop short? Hint: It’s not likely to be the prospect or the circumstances. It’s your CHOICE — active or past– that’s holding you back!

If you’re so easily discouraged in representing your ideas/products/ services more than three attempts, imagine your credibility–never mind the credibility of your ideas/products/services–plummeting in the eyes of someone or group or entity after you’ve made only three attempts.

But whom, you may ask, wants to visit with someone five to twelve (12!!!) times to make a sale? A top performer, that’s who! The top performer you are capable of being, if you CHOOSE to be!

Frustration doesn’t fall from the sky and land on your shoulders. It’s something you intentionally or inadvertently CHOOSE.

Here’s a cage-rattler for you, from the good-fortune experiences I’ve had working with and learning from some of the world’s greatest salespeople: IT IS at least AS easy to choose to make the challenge of 5-12 contacts easy as it is to choose to make the challenge be hard.

And you must be lost in the Stone Age if you interpret “contact” or “visit” as a physical movement of your being back and forth to a prospect’s space. It’s true that physical back-and-forth trips may actually be called for in the case of high-ticket projects, but most of the time, contacts and visits take the form of phone calls, emails, text messages (when requested or agreed to ahead of time), or –Heaven Forbid!– a handwritten note or two (Huh? Handwritten?). Yes really! It’s all about Communication.

It should go without saying, but I’ll pop the comment in anyway: It’s not probable that 5-12 prospective Customer contacts will succeed if they constitute a bombardment or avalanche anymore than if they are as far apart in time as most dentist visits, so common sense must be paired with choosing persistence.

The bottom line: If you want to rise above the rubble, make a conscious choice to rise and a conscious choice to not be sidetracked.

Play the 10%-80% odds! Remember that Consistency Sells! And guess what else? Repetition sells, repetition sells, repetition sells. Repetition . . .

# # #

 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US        or comment below

If what’s inside

isn’t shining outside…

your business is in trouble.

You’ve known this since you were a kid and first became interested in business. Your lemonade and comic book stands sold more when you gave that missing tooth smile. Well, you might still be missing a tooth or two, but hopefully you haven’t allowed yourself (chosen) to get lazy about wrapping your bright light around your venture.

I’m not going to lecture you about taking stock and personal inventory and making the most of your charm and all that other stuff that I’ve already printed here at one time or another. You can find it with a couple of the links here and in the search window. I AM going to tell you that there’s no room in entrepreneurship for (choosing) laziness.

If you’re not feeling charged up every day when you jump out of bed, something is not right. 

Have you lost touch with your mission?

With reality?

With those who support you?

With why pursuit of your idea must outweigh your pursuit of money?

Have you become (chosen to be) sidetracked with issues that pull you away from the burning desire you once had to make your ideas work? A family situation? Health problem? Staffing upsets? Investor edginess? Sales failings? Equipment not performing? Well, hey, you got trouble, right here in River City.

Now you can see why “poor management” is the number one reason for business failure? Why, sure: management of personal life, management of employees, management of financial support, management of marketing, management of operations. Trouble is only YOU can fix the ways you deal with any of these issues. And that takes focused energy.

You can never start a fire with a magnifying glass as long as you keep moving the magnifying glass.

Neither is it likely you’ll start a fire by keeping the magnifying glass fixed on a huge fresh-cut tree trunk. Your grip and wrist will give up first. Keep your focus steady. Keep it on paper or kindling and gradually build your fire by adding more and bigger pieces of wood or coal, a little at a time. Keep your energy channeled. Use patience.

Entrepreneurship –contrary to popular belief– is not about leaping wildly from one fire to another. If you could ask Ford and Gates and Oprah and Edison and Jobs and Carnegie, you’d be reminded that they each succeeded by: 1)staying focused, 2) by taking one step at a time, and 3) by believing in themselves!

Can YOU do all three of these things consistently, tenaciously, without giving up on yourself?

If you can–and here’s the simplicity of it all– you will succeed. Period. If you cannot (or are not willing to choose to), don’t whine and cry. There’s plenty of good space for you in government work, and with corporations, where loyalty and CYA behaviors are rewarded over innovation and taking action. Weird, isn’t it?

It’s weird considering America runs (with apologies to Dunkin’ Donuts) on Entrepreneurship, and we have a White House that doesn’t get it. Ah, but less than 19 months left to change “the change.” As for changing what you’re dealing with right now, choose forward motion, then take a step. Now. You can, you know.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

Higher impact. Lower costs.

——————-

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

Life is complicated enough.

Business owners whose messages add temporary 

 confusion lose permanent customers.

• From misplaced marketing messages to lousy operational instructions
• From squirmy small-type warranties to smoke-and-mirror contracts
• From jargon-filled business plans to sales spiels focused on I/Me/My/We
• And with totally non-communicative website content

. . . America’s businesses are strangling themselves with bad word choices that are costing more business every day than they are intended to create.

Contrary to popular opinion, one

word is worth a thousand pictures!

Pictures set up customers, but WORDS are what sell them!

The words you choose to use to sell and promote your business’s interests –to give your business consistency, backbone, and a customer-centric sense of enlightened self-interest– can produce revenues, new revenue streams, profits, and a positive reputation.

But the wrong (e.g., too complicated) words used in the wrong places at the wrong times, will demolish all you’ve worked to build, in one fell swoop!

Are you selling products or services that are —for example— manufactured or fabricated in China? Are user instructions written by the manufacturer or fabricator?

Odds are pretty good that they might as well be in Chinese!

“Getting lost in the translation” is not an empty phrase. It’s truth is found in those 27-language fold-outs for practically every tool, electronic device, and self-assembly item.

And THAT translates to lost return-visit sales, both online and in-person.

If your business depends on customers coming back to buy more, you cannot afford to lose them to competitors AFTER they struggle with a poorly-explained purchase that you are not likely to ever hear about (until AFTER your accountant tells you about last quarter’s diminishing cash flow).

Unless you’re committed to losing repeat-sale business, STOP buying goods and services from other countries to sell or resell in America that come packaged with unintelligible, non-communicative directions. Demand that instructions be clear or refuse purchase. Customers will not separate sources. Disgruntled, frustrated buyers will blame you for being stupid and insensitive, not China!

You know the “Keep it simple” formula. It works. As the slogans go: “Do It!” and “It’s In You!” and “I’m Lovin’ It!” . . . There’s definitely something to be said for “It” . . . got it?

Does an eight-year-old (or eighty-year-old) have trouble tracking down information on your website? Is the sales message obscured with meaningless verbiage? Does your branding message or theme beat your business chest, or focus on the customer? Is what you are trying to communicate too lost in the clutter of features to ever get around to selling benefits?

Are you communicating too much, too little, or just the right amount of information? Do your news releases start to sound like a back-seat driver? Do they get published? Are you making the most of them with direct mail and email followup? Does your social media program emphasize Twitter, LinkedIn, PRWeb and BizBrag? Why not?

Facebook may be great for socializing, but doesn’t cut it for business simplicity: You direct people to Facebook so you can then direct them from Facebook to your website? Send visitors direct to your website!. Life is complicated enough.

# # #

931.854.0474 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Giddy-up Gone?

Talking to yourself

too little too late?

Have you been secretly worried about talking to (and even with) yourself? Has it crossed your mind that you were becoming one of those “men-with-the-white-jacket-are-coming” basket cases? Take heart! Yes-sir-reebob!

You are, instead, probably (notice I leave a little squeeze room for those of you on the cusp) about as normal as blueberry pie. Actually, the worrying part is what hangs your mind in the balance. In other words, if you have to worry, worry about your worrying!

Bottom line is that all of us talk to and with ourselves (no,I am not referring to those who spend hours a day at it). We do this because verbal expression (like a pilot reciting her or his checklist out loud before taxiing onto the runway) serves to clarify and enhance, and prompt focus. I never knew a good writer who didn’t speak out loud what she or he had written before calling it “a wrap.”

“So, self, here we go. It’s time to share one of life’s great secrets.”

“Okay, I’m game. Let’s hear what your J.K.Rawling/Dan Brown tangled web of mysticism can reveal for all us normal folk who chatter away at ourselves in cars, closets, beds, and walking down the street.”

Hey, I don’t know much about

Harry Potter’s chambers or DiVinci’s codes,

but I discovered 35 years ago that “self-talk“

motivates, heals, humors, and strengthens.

Not sure? I’ll give you a quickie to try –improvise as you see fit to adapt it for yourself. I’ll also offer you a pack-on promise that if you say and repeat what’s below (or your own version) out loud, to yourself, like you truly mean it (even when you don’t feel up to it) three times a day, every day, for 21 days, you will be happier, healthier and more productive.

You will feel better!

( . . .and it’s free; in fact, you’ve nothing to lose but stress and upsets; how hard is that to argue with?)

Recite/Chant it exercising, or laying down, or standing on your head while spitting wooden nickles. Do it any time or place (except driving or operating heavy equipment, or with drugs or alcohol in your system). Concentrate on each word as you say it. It works. Period. Free. No charge. Me to you. Make it happen:

Healing energy into my body.

Healing energy into my body.

Stress and pain and tension out of my body.

Stress and pain and tension out of my body.

I am my body — left, right, center. (and think it!)

I am my body — left, right, center. (and think it!)

I am relaxed, happy, alert, and weigh the weight I want to weigh.

I am healthy, wealthy, painfree, safe and sound, and physically fit.

Today (“Tomorrow” when reciting at night) is the first day of my new life and I’m going to make (“am making” when reciting midday) it count.

I will make today (tomorrow) special for someone!   

All the great motivational and self-development gurus who ever lived share and practice similar methods. . . from Brian Tracy to Napoleon Hill and Wayne Dyer.

Try Zig Ziglar’s prescribed daily morning ritual recitation which starts with two hand claps as soon as you open your eyes in the morning:

(Clap, Clap) “Oh, boy, what a GREAT day to wake up and get going! I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me today!” 

Saying it like you mean it, from your heart, and concentrating on each word is –again– the key to success. Doing it consistently even when you would rather sleep or eat or play games on your computer, is your insurance policy that it will indeed produce results.

I am assuming of course that you ARE interested in producing results?

TOMORROW: Self-Motivation (Part 2 of 2)

– Same time, same channel.

# # # 

931.854.0474 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

If you didn’t know you,

would you buy

what you have to sell,

from you? Are you sure?

MacDonald’s sells consistency, not hamburgers. Golden Arches customers know they can get the exact same fare prepared the exact same way at any of their “I’m Lovin’ It!” locations in the world. It’s like a security blanket for your stomach (assuming your stomach can stomach what’s served up!)

Revlon’s founding family president Charlie Revson was often quoted as saying “We don’t sell cosmetics; we sell the promise of sex to single teenage girls!” Airlines don’t sell seat rentals; they sell destinations. Churches sell redemption and hope. Disney World sells brain escape. IT businesses sell “solutions,” but often just add more problems.

Self-appointed SEO and Social Media “experts”? They don’t seem to know what they’re selling. But –by now– YOU must have a pretty clear idea of what works for you, or maybe not . . . 

How about YOUR business?

• Are you putting out “mixed messages”?

• Do those people you seek to attract as customers get it?

• Are you presuming or have you actually asked them?

• Do your customers buy what you have to sell, or what you claim to be selling?

• Are you selling real products and services or images of what the benefits are that one gets from buying your products and services?

• Have you made your marketing effort an exclusively online production?

If you are selling benefits (and you SHOULD be, by the way), does that represent some sense of ethical compromise to you? If you’re not doing that (and instead emphasizing and selling features, for example), has it occurred to you that your competitors surely are or will be selling benefits?

Do you think you would have lasted long in the passenger airline industry selling short-term rentals of seat manufacturing components while competitors sell happy couples skipping through the Caribbean surf or exploring Mediterranean fishing villages, or visiting Hawaiian mountain waterfalls, or diving off Mexican cliffs, or singing and dancing in Austria’s Oktoberfest?

When did you last sit still long enough to really take apart your sales message and examine the pieces?

Do the words work? Do they sell? Is there one word too many or too few? What you think you’re saying and what in fact communicates may be two separate things. How does your sales message look? How does it feel? What’s the intent? What did you discover by answering these questions?

How can you tweak or adjust or revamp or update what you have to make it better? To make it sing? To make it reach out and grab? If any of this leaves you puzzled and you are earnest about improving the process of selling what you’re selling, call me. No telephone fees. No strings attached. I’ll give you ideas. If you want more than ideas and I can’t help you, I can point you in the right direction.     

# # #

302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

It’s YOUR business, but

everything doesn’t have

to get done YOUR way!

One reason brand new and struggling old businesses fail is that the entrepreneurial founders feel like they have to do everything themselves, or else . . .

Or else WHAT? 

Or else it won’t get done right?  What is “right”?  Who says what is “right” and what is “wrong”?   

Are you really meaning to say that “No one else will do this task the way I would do it”? 

Start with this: It’s unlikely ANYone will ever do ANYthing exactly the way you do because no one else could possibly be as motivated as you, because it’s not her or his business.  It’s YOUR business. But there comes a time for trusting the babysitter.

So what’s the next best way to deal with things? Here’s some “SHOULD” reasoning . . .

If you’re lucky and have been careful in recruiting and hiring, you should be able to expect that someone else really is capable of doing whatever task that’s needed.

And that individual should be able to get it done in a manner that you should be able to live with (assuming that the end result is the same as it would have been had you done things your way). 

Ah, but, you know what? There are a lotta “shoulds” there!  If you can’t tolerate someone else’s method (assuming the other person’s time and expenses are not totally out of whack), you need to simply get on with doing the task yourself and not bitching about it. 

Of course if that’s the case, you need also to realize that you’ve stumbled onto a roadblock to your business’s growth: namely, YOU! (Hey, there’s another choice, btw: you can always turn your business over to someone else and just go get another life!) 

Let’s face it, delegating is not easy when you’re used to doing everything yourself, but your business can’t grow if you can’t get others to get the job done. It’s called leadership. And motivation. And trust. And transparency. And consistency.

Delegation requires encouragement, training, back-up support, and incentives. 

Small frequent rewards work wonders. 

So does a physical pat on the back for a job well done (regardless of whether it was accomplished in exactly the same way you would have done it or not), a handwritten note, recognition in a news release or on a plaque or certificate.

Cash, in other words, is not always the answer. A special bonus or reward that fits that person’s needs usually is. 

Only you can decide what motivates best and you can only do that by getting to know what makes each individual tick!  That means you need to get to know those who work for and around you well enough to help them achieve what’s important to them! 

Oh, one parting thought: You can delegate authority, but you can’t delegate responsibility! So don’t hand it all off and walk away. Stay tuned in. VOTE NOVEMBER 6, 2012.

HELP SAVE THE ECONOMY

. . . Support those who endorse

free market competition healthcare 

and job creation tax incentives

for entrepreneurs! 

____________________________________ 

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!