Your 30 Second Presentation

I attended a trade show today. Have you noticed how some people can make a great and memorable impression in 30 seconds while most of us feel like we are babbling?

The key to a memorable impression is to have a statement that defines you. This definition must be short, memorable and specific. It must not have been already taken and it needs to be very focused. For instance a friend of mine has the statement that, “Technology does not create productive people. We do.” He then explains that through proper training on Word and Excel users can save 15 to 30 minutes a day. He finished by demonstrating with a real world example about a law firm that through training was able to generate thousands of dollars in additional billable hours.

Short and memorable. Make a point that can be remembered and then follow the point by an interesting story.

Can Time Stand Still
I am sure you have had the experience of going into a car or bike crash when you were driving and it seemed like time slowed down and hundredths of a second become minutes.

To a lesser extent time seems to go very slow when you are not interested in something you must do. It speeds up when you are doing something you really enjoy.

By meditating about something you need to resolve you slow time down giving yourself more time to solve the problem. When you meditate think about the problem. Think about what a great solution might be but do not become attached to that one solution. Then clear you mind and try to keep it completely clear for 15 minutes. Often the answer will appear. Once you understand the solution implementing it is easy. If the solution does not appear at that moment it usually will appear later that day.

This is a way to slow time down so you think more effectively. Try it. You will be amazed by the results.

Fish in a Pond With Fish

The first issue in sales and marketing is to fish in a pond with fish. If there are no fish, you will not catch one. While this sounds elementary it is an easy mistake to make both when fishing and selling. If you have told your story to 50 prospects and none have bought, go back and ask them detailed questions on why. If none have bought after friendly questioning, and they all have valid objections, find a new market.

For instance a friend of my who had a decorating company was convinced that her niche was going to be preparing resale homes for market. She could show you how by spending a few thousand dollars to improve a homes interior appearance you would get ten to twenty thousand dollars more in sales price. Unfortunately she picked a very strong “sellers market” to do this in. Homes that had not been painted in 10 years were selling for record prices.

She spent a lot of time logically telling prospects why they should hire her. While these reasons might be true, when homes were selling in a week, for above initial asking prices, the sellers were not willing to pay for the services.

Finally she decided to seek another niche. She is now happily decorating high end new homes to create a regal feel.

Who are your best customers?

One of the most important value creation techniques over time is to improve your customer base. By moving to more profitable customers you can significantly rev up your profits. To do this you must identify your best customers. Once you identify these best customers you then need to learn more about them. Finally you take this knowledge and modify your offerings to attract more of them.

Your best customers are the customers that are easy to work with and order good quantities of profitable products. Namely they are high margin accounts. You can identify them by going through your sales records and your accounting records. Another way to identify them is to ask your salespeople. Customers who are profitable but make everyone tense or put the office in a constant uproar are not your best customers.

Once you identify your best customers you should ask them questions that will help you better understand them. By understanding them you can adjust your marketing and sales practices to obtain more of them. Appropriate questions are; why did you choose to buy from us? What features do you like the best? How have you bought these types of products before? Who else have you bought this from?

You also study them demographically and psychographically. Try to find similarities amongst you best customers. Then look at how other products they buy are marketed. Try to understand how they see themselves. Then take this information and modify your product offerings and marketing propositions based on your new understandings.

As always we suggest you try these new concepts within controlled tests wherever possible. Take one product or one service and make modifications and learn from it. As you begin to work out the bugs and sales improve with your desired groups then pull out the stops and watch margins jump.

Smile
Moping about feeling the pressure of the day, or even worse yet, feeling sorry for yourself does not move you forward. Feelings follow actions. To feel better about what is going on “force” yourself to smile. Get up and stretch your body. Do something for ten minutes (don’t allow it to become a device for procrastination) to warm up your mood. Then get back to your task at hand. And carry the good attitude over.

Smiling also makes everyone feel welcome around you. They respond favorably to you and to the things you are doing without prompting or effort. At first I didn’t realize the power of a smile until one day I was with my 13 year old son. He was meeting a new adult, up to that time always a stressful thing for him. He shyly said hello and then broke into a big goofy grin. Well that grin broke the ice for everyone, loosened up the room and allowed him to successfully take center stage.

This works at home and at the office.

Never underestimate the power of a smile!!!

Remember the 80 / 20 Rule

The best way to improve your business is to improve your own time management. Big picture time management means doing the right things. It is too easy to be busy but not productive. Delegate small tasks. Do the important tasks that take thought.

Remember the 80 /20 rule. Most of us only spend 20 % of our time doing important things. Important things if you are a salesperson is time prospecting on the phone and in front of clients. It is moving your deal forward. For a business owner important things means planning, positioning, systematizing, and otherwise figuring out how to make major gains in sales, productivity, and moral.

If you can increase your time doing these things from 20% to 30% you will spend 30% more time on important things. This is a huge gain when spread over months and years.

Anyone can be the receptionist, the machine operator, and the bookkeeper. Find a way to do the higher level things and watch your business take off.

Selling Your Business – Step in the Buyer’s Shoes

One of the most important acts you as a business owner can do in determining the value of your business is to honestly ask yourself what you would pay for your business.

Try to step out of your emotional attachment to what you have created and into your accountant’s fun world. How much debt can the business carry and continue to pay a suitable salary. Are there any unusual risks such as a major client making up more than 20% of the revenues, reliance on a lease or license that is ending soon, or perhaps the failure to create systems that can be passed on? How many dollars are going to have to be spent to improve the equipment, facilities, and other infrastructure to get the business where it should be if you were buying it?

Finally does the business feel good? Are things like paint, carpet, signage, and furniture fresh? Do your employees have spirit and can you feel their pride? Remember, people buy on emotion and justify with facts. To sell a business both parts of the human equation, emotion and financial facts must work. Don’t expect anyone else to pay more for your business than you would or could.

Managing People

Mary worked as part of a committee at a local association. She frequently volunteered for committee work and was devoted. Mary would dive into the projects and produce volumes of outlines, plans, and specifications. She then sent the work-product out on an email listserve as committee mandate without obtaining any approvals. When questioned she made it clear that she felt that she should not need to get approval. When she was told she needed approval, it was a committee she began to attack everyone who questioned what she was doing on the same public listserve. Even after this happened several times she continued to march off into the sunset without pausing, getting approval, and in general conforming to committee life.

Needless to say Mary is no longer part of this committee.

The best news from this difficult situation is that management is now free from spending time on Mary and the committee has come back together stronger than ever and is able to move forward as a group. Everyone is relived and more productive. There must have been more tension and conflict being generated by the situation than anyone realized.

While this was an extreme case, do you have a Mary in your group? Someone who causes disruptions and always has three other problems stirring? Someone who tries to cut of dialogue by attacking people instead of ideas?

If you do have a Mary you need to take action to fix the problem. Let your Mary know what she is doing wrong and what proper conformance looks like.

If she cannot conform then let her go. While this always produces a sense of loss it is far better to loose a part rather than loose the whole. When done you will feel better and you will probably learn how little this person was actually accomplishing.