Beware the Cycle of Doom

The cycle of doom is the nightmare of every business owner and salesperson who works to attract prospects and customers. It occurs when you find yourself without a steady, predictable stream of high-quality prospects that turn into customers. As the cycle progresses, every day can feel like a challenge. Where are the next leads coming from? Where are the customers you're looking to gain? "Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start." - Nido Qubein If you're stuck in a cycle of doom, you need to establish a system for attracting your ideal leads -- the people in your market who are looking for what you sell. Rest assured, such people do exist. The problem is that not enough of them know about your services and products. That's where your lead-generation system will come into play. "The fact is, everyone is in sales. Whatever area you work in, you do have clients, and you do need to sell." - Jay Abraham Thousands of books and articles are written each year about the marketing and selling process. There are many variations and specific nuisances, but most of these resources can be distilled down to three relatively simple, uncomplicated steps. The first is to determine exactly who your ideal customer is. The next is to make them aware of the solutions your products and services provide to solve their pain. The final step is to engage and answer any questions and objections before closing the sale. Any lead-generation system you create needs to employ these strategies in order to make it a predictable source of continuous, high-quality prospects. Testing and measuring for what works best for your business is a never-ending and continual process. The important thing is to have an actual framework and base system in place to build upon. Outbound marketing (direct mail, telemarketing, and traditional media) still works today, but you need to have a strategy in place first to attract and convert the type of audience you are hoping to reach. Blasting out unwanted information to the wrong audience didn't work well in the past, and it doesn't work today either. Many businesses have learned that non-strategic social media posts and email blasts have the same characteristics as any other marketing fail. Offering low-value content leads to non-engagement, which ends up producing low-quality leads and zero customers. The scariest feeling in business is not knowing where your next sale and customer are coming from. Everything is unsettled. You don't have the necessary confidence, and you don't control the conversation. As a result, you end up bending and twisting on price just to get a sale. "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments." - Jim Rohn Getting out of the cycle of doom requires strategic thinking. Who do you want as a customer? What does this customer need in order to make decisions before they purchase what you sell? Where are the places you can communicate these messages with this customer? Creating a system sets the groundwork for a predictable pipeline -- one that allows for a reserve of prospects and suspects you can rely on and pull from as needed. It also has the added benefit of giving you the luxury of turning down prospects who are not a good fit for your business. When you have a systematic approach and tweak it until it works predictably, you control the process. Your business is in demand, and your services are valuable and scarce. Become a valuable resource for the prospects you seek. Let them know on a consistent basis about the value you provide. Make it easy for them to find your valuable information. Systematize your process, and the cycle of doom will be an old nightmare that gets buried for good.

Is Your Business Sellable?

One of the goals of every business owner should be to build a company that is worth selling. Whether it is actually put on the market or not is another matter. A business that is worth selling is growing, vibrant, and healthy. That's why it's in the best interest of everyone involved in the company to continually work toward building a sellable business. Many metrics are used to measure the worth of a sellable business. One of the key metrics is the ability of the business to generate recurring revenue. There are several ways to achieve a consistent, recurring revenue stream. Not all will work for every type of business, product, or service. Here are a few ideas to consider, depending on the types of services and products you provide. Long-Term Sales Contracts One method of building recurring revenue is to offer contracts that tie a client to a long-term engagement. A customer could be enticed to sign a contract if they are offered preferred pricing and services. An example of this can be seen with most cell phone contracts. The multi-year contracts are offered as a way to get a free or discounted cell phone in exchange for signing a two or three year contract. The buyer gets the cell phone quicker, and the cell phone provider locks in a guaranteed, predictable revenue stream. Service and Maintenance Contracts Some businesses can offer service contracts for after-sale support. For example, an IT company will charge for installing and setting up a network in a business but could also charge a yearly support fee to keep the network up and running free of viruses. Maintenance contracts can be a great source of additional revenue throughout the year. In many automotive dealerships, the service bays bring in much higher profits than the car sales departments. Product and Service Training Fees If your product or service involves a learning curve, customers would get more value from their purchase if you also offer training and certification after the sale. Product training becomes a true win-win, as the customer gets better use of their purchase, while you get additional revenue from an existing client. Many software companies offer training for their products to help their buyers understand and use the software to its potential. When your business can generate sales from multiple revenue streams that support each other, the risk to a potential buyer is reduced dramatically. The business becomes a much more attractive candidate. Predictable, recurring, multiple income streams make a business seem less risky to a potential buyer. So the sooner you start building recurring revenue streams in your business, the better your position will be if and when the time comes to sell.

Do You Have Customers or Clients?

Most business owners and company executives use the terms "customers" and "clients" interchangeably without fully realizing that there is a meaningful difference between the two. Understanding the distinction and setting your plans accordingly can help you build and grow a more profitable business. Let's start with the definition of each term according to the dictionary. Customer: "a person who purchases goods or services" Client: "a person or group that uses professional advice or services" Examples of companies with business-to-customer relationships include Wal-Mart, Apple, and your local grocery store. Examples of companies with business-to-client relationships include service-oriented professionals such as accountants, attorneys, advertising agencies, architects, and the like. There are pros and cons to catering to each type. Customers will typically do business with you based on convenience, value, and price. They're loyal as long as you meet those parameters, and they don't require as much personal interaction as clients do. Clients, on the other hand, are looking for more. Clients are seeking professional advice on how to get something accomplished in the best way possible. They're willing to pay more for that type of expertise than a customer would, but in return for that premium, they require more attention and hand-holding. A business-to-client engagement is typically a longer-term relationship than a business-to-customer scenario. Every business has customers. Fewer have clients. So, is your business built around customers or clients? There is no right or wrong answer. It matters only that you know the difference and set up your business to serve whichever type you are seeking.

Introducing: Your Next Sales Super Achiever

We all want to increase sales and grow our businesses. We also know that hiring and grooming a sales superstar is one surefire way of achieving those goals. Unfortunately, finding and retaining a sales superstar is a difficult task. Until you find the secret to make that a reality, here's an alternate path to consider for reaching your sales goals. Self-publish a book! You read that correctly. One of the best ways to increase your sales and grow your business is to author and publish your own book. Self-publishing your book allows you to present your points to your target audience in an authoritative way -- just like a sales superstar would. Now, to be clear, we aren't talking about writing a novel the size of War and Peace. Nor are we talking about writing a prize-winning book. This type of book is written specifically to bring you leads and the types of customers who are looking to buy what you sell. They say everyone has at least one book in them, but no one tells you how to go about writing it. Being an author is on many people's dream lists, but few go about actually accomplishing the tasks needed to bring a book to life. Perhaps that's because writing a book seems so overwhelming. "It will take many years." "I don't know how to write a book." "I don't know what to write about." These are some of the many excuses that stand in the way of making authorship a reality. It doesn't have to be that way. Here are five simple steps to get you going: Pick your topic title. Make an outline of your main topic and sub-topics. Choose three main subjects to write about. Think about ways you or your products/services go about solving your customers' problems. Come up with 10-20 solutions. Write about and expand on one of those points one hour every day. It really can be as simple as that. Within a few weeks, you'll have the main part of the book finished and ready for editing. Finding nice cover graphics and having it printed is not difficult. Imagine being able to hand a prospect your own beautifully printed book. Do you think that would establish credibility and open some doors? Your own self-published book is the ultimate business card -- and the sales superstar you can use to grow your business in ways not otherwise possible. What's more, this kind of sales superstar has no ego and doesn't call in sick either. There's at least one book in you. Start writing it today.

Why Sales Should Be Your #1 Priority

One of the keys to a successful business -- and a fulfilled life in general -- is to not only have a plan but to also have forward momentum pushing you in the direction you want to go. Many times, the problem in moving forward isn't the goal but the struggle to generate the drive needed to accomplish what needs to get done. When the momentum is lacking, it's easy to become disheartened and slack off or abandon the goal altogether in favor of looking for a new magic bullet. In almost all cases, the missing ingredient is very close. Typically, that missing key involves taking massive action. Not just any action, but action that is focused on the fundamental steps needed to drive the company forward. More often than not, that action revolves around sales. After all, if there are no sales, there is no business. "Nothing happens until a sale is made." Every business and industry has its own subtleties and nuances when it comes to sales, but there are core activities that apply to all. What are these core activities? Generating sales momentum is not as complicated or difficult as you might think, but you must have an effective plan for prospecting every single day. Begin by dedicating time on your calendar for prospecting and getting new clients. Nothing should interfere with this. Focusing on prospecting and sales is what creates forward momentum for the entire organization. Sales should be the number one focus, whether you are a one-man show or a company with hundreds of employees. If sales activities aren't the focus and the priority, they'll be too easy to put off until tomorrow. You'll always have fires to put out and other tasks to attend to. Making sales the number one priority for the whole organization creates the momentum to move the entire company forward. If sales is not the number one priority in your company, try this approach. For the next 30 days, make sales your number one priority every day. Don't stop selling even when you pick up new clients. Create a dedicated time on your calendar every day for prospecting. Create and send direct mailers, make phone calls to reach out to prospects, attend a networking event, give a talk, send personalized emails, and visit top clients, asking for referrals. Seek momentum. It's the wind for sailing the ship forward. Dedicated, laser-like focus on prospecting and selling activities creates that momentum. If you perform these activities without fail for 30 days, you'll be amazed at the positive energy you create. That activity and the results it brings will give you the boost and motivation to continue. Success and growth in business comes from focused sales momentum. Dedicate the next 30 days to making a permanent shift toward becoming a sales-focused company.

How to Be the Master in Your Field

Pablo Picasso created paintings the world has marveled at for decades. Looking with awe at these masterpiece creations, it would be perfectly logical to imagine that the distinctive brush strokes were made by someone with a natural gift -- a gift not achievable by most. Although Picasso's talent is undeniable and his style unmistakable, that genius was actually developed in a surprising way that many don't realize. From the time Picasso was a young boy, he was formally trained by his father in oil paintings and figure drawings. And what method did his father use to train young Pablo? Jose Picasso was an artist who believed the best training for his son required formal and disciplined copying of the masters' work. For many years, young Pablo Picasso fervently reproduced paintings, drawings, and plaster casts of the masters. He not only copied religiously but also experimented with a variety of styles, theories, and ideas, until he developed his own voice and distinctive style. So what does this have to do with business? The ideas of meticulous practice and of learning a skill by emulating the leaders in a field are not as common today as they were in the days when apprenticeships were more common. In a world that craves instant gratification, people often overlook the hard work required to develop any talent and simply assume it just comes naturally to those who are gifted. The good news is that there is a short-cut. The bad news is that even the short-cut requires some sweat equity. Not everyone can become a Pablo Picasso. Not entirely because of the natural talent gap (though that's part of it), but also because of the not-wanting-to-put-in-the-hard-work-required gap. There's incredible power available to you in muscle memory. Muscle memory is "consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition." When any task is repeated over and over, a muscle memory is created which allows one to perform the task almost effortlessly. Olympic and professional athletes, concert pianists, and all other performers in the top of their field are perfect examples of muscle memory in action. They have practiced and performed so often that their performances seem to be effortless. That is the power of muscle memory. Muscle memory can also apply to business mastery. It requires finding the leader in the field, analyzing and dissecting what they have done, and then recreating and reproducing those skills, often while adding your own unique style and flair. Practice often until muscle memory takes over. If it worked for Pablo Picasso, it can work for you.