It is quite natural to assume that others will share your enthusiasm for your business.
Natural, but wrong. They might look to acquire more knowledge over time but on first meeting what they actually want is a simple soundbite.
Here's an experiment - ask a few people linked through business (not colleagues or customers) what it is you do - I'm guessing you will be surprised by how many are off the mark.
As a sales person for your business - the fault lies squarely with you - and is almost certainly because you have told them too much, not because you have been too brief.
Unfortunately, concepts like the 'elevator pitch', or 60-second intro exacerbate the problem - whilst it sounds brief, 60 seconds is actually a long time to talk about something the other party isn't engaged with.
Straplines can seem crass - particularly if too much effort goes into making them 'clever' - but the value of creating a strapline is the thought process involved in condensing what you do into a short snappy phrase - whatever you may think - that is what the other person wants.
So next time you are in an elevator, deliver your strapline, swap cards and talk about the weather, the World Cup or - of course - their business.
Believe me - they don't care how many people you employ.
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
Friday, 19 April 2013
Your marketing prospect is a Goldfish!
Many years ago I attended BNI breakfast meeting regularly - ultimately it wasn't my style but it did teach me some very valuable lessons - most of all the one-minute presentation.
Young and eager I did my best to squeeze the minute full of 'interesting' facts and benefits.
Afterwards, the friend who had introduced me gave me a free and frank assessment which amounted to 'no-one is interested and you did nothing to make them interested'. I love my business., so why doesn't everyone else?
Now, two decades later I try to press this same message home on a weekly basis - At the early marketing stage your prospect isn't interested - and the more you tell them, the less interested they become!
It is a hard thing to take in - but an invaluable one in the early stage of marketing - stage performers use the adage 'always leave them wanting more' which also works in this context.
To get a clear visual of your early prospect just picture a goldfish - swimming around his little bowl happily admiring the model castle each time he passes thinking 'that's a nice castle'.
In this case however, the goldfish is particularly selfish and greedy so all he swims around thinking is 'what's in it for me?'
The instant you get the goldfishes attention you have to deliver the response to 'what do I do now?' - if you don't capture that moment you will revert to 'what's in it for me?'
The 'what do I do now?' will of course depend on your medium - phone call, email, exchange cards etc. But you must harness it and you must make it as easy as possible for the lazy Goldfish before he swims off.
Young and eager I did my best to squeeze the minute full of 'interesting' facts and benefits.
Afterwards, the friend who had introduced me gave me a free and frank assessment which amounted to 'no-one is interested and you did nothing to make them interested'. I love my business., so why doesn't everyone else?
Now, two decades later I try to press this same message home on a weekly basis - At the early marketing stage your prospect isn't interested - and the more you tell them, the less interested they become!
It is a hard thing to take in - but an invaluable one in the early stage of marketing - stage performers use the adage 'always leave them wanting more' which also works in this context.
To get a clear visual of your early prospect just picture a goldfish - swimming around his little bowl happily admiring the model castle each time he passes thinking 'that's a nice castle'.
In this case however, the goldfish is particularly selfish and greedy so all he swims around thinking is 'what's in it for me?'
The instant you get the goldfishes attention you have to deliver the response to 'what do I do now?' - if you don't capture that moment you will revert to 'what's in it for me?'
The 'what do I do now?' will of course depend on your medium - phone call, email, exchange cards etc. But you must harness it and you must make it as easy as possible for the lazy Goldfish before he swims off.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Strategy is not a big word!
When the word 'strategy' is mentioned to a small business owner, the reaction all too often is a mixture of shock and disbelief - best summed up in the reply 'I'm just a small business, I don't need that sort of thing'.
Quite simply every business needs strategy - or strategies - covering marketing, collections, 'paperwork' and other business facets.No need for spiral binding, no need for lots of graphics and images - frankly the back of beer-mats will do as long as it is comprehensive, cohesive and workable..
Strategy is what guides your business - more importantly, it is what differentiates you from others who are just doing a job.
Take time out from doing the job and look at your business from an outsider's view (perhaps get an outsider to do this with you) this will provide the foundation for your strategy.
It isn't a big word and it isn't time wasted - it is your route to success!
Quite simply every business needs strategy - or strategies - covering marketing, collections, 'paperwork' and other business facets.No need for spiral binding, no need for lots of graphics and images - frankly the back of beer-mats will do as long as it is comprehensive, cohesive and workable..
Strategy is what guides your business - more importantly, it is what differentiates you from others who are just doing a job.
Take time out from doing the job and look at your business from an outsider's view (perhaps get an outsider to do this with you) this will provide the foundation for your strategy.
It isn't a big word and it isn't time wasted - it is your route to success!
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Target marketing - catch your zebra..
The more I contemplate niched marketing, the more clear it becomes that this is the only way forward for small business.
In fact my first experience of this (though I did not recognise it as such) was many years ago through a builder friend of mine. Based in a wealthy Surrey town the friend worked alone as a general builder - he did OK, but complained that he was constantly quoting blind and missing out on jobs, plus he had to do a lot of jobs that didn't suit his skills.
Apparently on a whim, he decided one day to become a specialist in Victorian property renovation We all thought he was mad - why miss out on all those wonderful '70s avocado bathroom suites and huge aluminium windows that needed replacing?
He was right of course. Literally overnight he eliminated 70% of his competition. within a year he had stopped marketing because order book was full - without discounting his rates. If only I had recognised at the time the cunningness of that plan!
In my role as mentor & trainer I am constantly faced with starters who - quite understandably - see their market as 'everyone' and their range of services as limitless. It is very comforting to think of the universal market opening before you.
The best way I have discovered to explain why this is wrong is to use the analogy of the zebra & the Lion.
Zebras, you will probably appreciate, are covered in black stripes (or is it white stripes?). One reason given for this striping is that is confuses their natural predator - the lion.
What the lion sees is a feast a huge blob of moving stripes; what he fails to do is identify the meal - the single zebra that will actually feed his family. The rest will wait for another day.
Often a weaker zebra will fall from the pack & the lion will get his meal - but often they will not and he will go hungry.
If you randomly market everyone, you too will pick up a few stragglers and you might well keep yourself fed - but you will never be certain of results and you will never be able to milk the formula of waiting for one to fall off.
It takes a lot of courage to turn away from the perceived feast and focus on what looks like a small meal but like the lion - unless you want to spend your career chasing a load of stripes - you really need to select your zebra...
In fact my first experience of this (though I did not recognise it as such) was many years ago through a builder friend of mine. Based in a wealthy Surrey town the friend worked alone as a general builder - he did OK, but complained that he was constantly quoting blind and missing out on jobs, plus he had to do a lot of jobs that didn't suit his skills.
Apparently on a whim, he decided one day to become a specialist in Victorian property renovation We all thought he was mad - why miss out on all those wonderful '70s avocado bathroom suites and huge aluminium windows that needed replacing?
He was right of course. Literally overnight he eliminated 70% of his competition. within a year he had stopped marketing because order book was full - without discounting his rates. If only I had recognised at the time the cunningness of that plan!
In my role as mentor & trainer I am constantly faced with starters who - quite understandably - see their market as 'everyone' and their range of services as limitless. It is very comforting to think of the universal market opening before you.
The best way I have discovered to explain why this is wrong is to use the analogy of the zebra & the Lion.
What the lion sees is a feast a huge blob of moving stripes; what he fails to do is identify the meal - the single zebra that will actually feed his family. The rest will wait for another day.
Often a weaker zebra will fall from the pack & the lion will get his meal - but often they will not and he will go hungry.
It takes a lot of courage to turn away from the perceived feast and focus on what looks like a small meal but like the lion - unless you want to spend your career chasing a load of stripes - you really need to select your zebra...
Saturday, 23 February 2013
DIY threat. Or not?
It is an established cliche in the world of sales that in every threat lies an opportunity. In fact it is so established that it has been rendered almost meaningless.
However this concept came to mind in a recent discussion with 2 web designer - both of whom shared the view that free websites were a major threat to their livelihoods.
the optimist in me immediately pitched in to point out the enormity of the market for people who were happy to pay - many 100s of thousands of potential clients - why worry
about the ones you can't get when there are so many you can?
However following the discussion my mind turned to the nature of DIY - in any context, from wallpapering your hallway to building a website.
Start-up DIYers follow a simple process:
1. Read up about it
2. Do it
3. Pat yourself on the back
4. Compare (perhaps some time after the event).
From comparison you might either pat yourself on the back again, console yourself and put up with inferior quality or change things.
And so it is with DIY websites. For the sake of simplicity lets say that it is 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 between these categories.
On subsequent meeting I bounced this off one of the designers:
However this concept came to mind in a recent discussion with 2 web designer - both of whom shared the view that free websites were a major threat to their livelihoods.
the optimist in me immediately pitched in to point out the enormity of the market for people who were happy to pay - many 100s of thousands of potential clients - why worry
about the ones you can't get when there are so many you can?
However following the discussion my mind turned to the nature of DIY - in any context, from wallpapering your hallway to building a website.
Start-up DIYers follow a simple process:
1. Read up about it
2. Do it
3. Pat yourself on the back
4. Compare (perhaps some time after the event).
From comparison you might either pat yourself on the back again, console yourself and put up with inferior quality or change things.
And so it is with DIY websites. For the sake of simplicity lets say that it is 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 between these categories.
On subsequent meeting I bounced this off one of the designers:
- Find (say) 1000 DIY business websites, focusing on businesses which are up and running (albeit only for a few months)
- Run a quick critique of the site and its value to the business
- Contact the business owner and engage them - asking for their thoughts on the site
Based on the above, you will find - very pessimistically 200 users who are not entirely happy with their DIY project. If 20% of these want to do something about it you have immediately 40 RED HOT PROSPECTS, who:
1. Have identified a need for your services.
2. Understand the value that your skills can add
3. Have a running business and -hopefully - the means to pay.
That is from day 1! More of your pot will become disgruntled with their attempts and the pot will get every bigger
Surely more of an opportunity than a threat?
Sunday, 13 May 2012
The Business Funding Plan - as you've never seen it before.
Received wisdom will tell you that you should never make assumptions (as put in Police Academy 'when you assume, you make an ass of u and me'); in the real world of course assumption form an integral part of every day life whether it is for basic self preservation, to save time or simply to test our understanding - it is simply too complicated to only act when you know for sure.
The most frequent wrong assumption that people make about my businesses is that the start up business feeds the finance business - they will say 'I see, so you set them up, then go get the funding they need'. In actual fact the funding business feeds the start up business; I am privileged to have a detailed insight to what a lot of businesses do - where they go wrong and where they go right - this insight is hopefully passed on to start ups to help them avoid those mistakes. Funding? If I can help you start with zero funds then I have had a success.
Whilst we are dealing in cliches, my dear Grandmother always used to tell me 'you won't get there any faster by speeding'; one of my more destructive traits is a compulsion to speed on motorways. Whilst in many cases I can directly prove Grandma wrong, the truth of the matter is that she could more accurately have re-worded her caution as 'you won't achieve an more by speeding'. Put into context, because I like to drive fast on motorways, I assume that on a journey of any real distance I can average 60MPH. Ignoring the rising improbability of this happening, I am of course increasing the cost per mile covered and incurring secondary risks such as being caught for speeding (time consuming and expensive), accidents (potentially fatal) and, because I insist on using motorways I often actually travel further than I need to. Do I make extra time? Not really - I might get there sooner but then I spend 10 minutes waiting for the other person to turn up.
Where was I going with this? Oh yes..
By far the most common business start-up mistake is the belief that more cash equals more chance of success; in very many cases this can be the very opposite of what actually happens. Like the risk incurred by speeding, having too much cash in hand carries inherent psychological risk - witness the lottery winner who feels they should now start a business, lurching from franchise to dodgy 'opportunity' like a drunk in a casino, with neither plan nor realistic chance of success.
Alternatively, like my spare 10 minutes the cash will just sit there waiting for something to happen.
A successful business will be planned then capitalised, not the other way around, so here is my very simplistic Business Funding Plan:
STEP 1: Compile your plan and cashflows on the assumption that there is no capital available.
STEP 2: Look at where you go into deficit and ask yourself is there a realistic way that you can avoid or postpone expenditure without fundamentally damaging your business.
STEP 3: Look at ways of improving cashflow rather than introducing capital.
STEP 4: If you are certain that capital is required, build it into your plan as a loan, with repayment terms. (Even if it is your own money that you are happy to inject).
Remember, having cash in your business might get you to your goal quicker, but will it actually be any better?
The most frequent wrong assumption that people make about my businesses is that the start up business feeds the finance business - they will say 'I see, so you set them up, then go get the funding they need'. In actual fact the funding business feeds the start up business; I am privileged to have a detailed insight to what a lot of businesses do - where they go wrong and where they go right - this insight is hopefully passed on to start ups to help them avoid those mistakes. Funding? If I can help you start with zero funds then I have had a success.
Whilst we are dealing in cliches, my dear Grandmother always used to tell me 'you won't get there any faster by speeding'; one of my more destructive traits is a compulsion to speed on motorways. Whilst in many cases I can directly prove Grandma wrong, the truth of the matter is that she could more accurately have re-worded her caution as 'you won't achieve an more by speeding'. Put into context, because I like to drive fast on motorways, I assume that on a journey of any real distance I can average 60MPH. Ignoring the rising improbability of this happening, I am of course increasing the cost per mile covered and incurring secondary risks such as being caught for speeding (time consuming and expensive), accidents (potentially fatal) and, because I insist on using motorways I often actually travel further than I need to. Do I make extra time? Not really - I might get there sooner but then I spend 10 minutes waiting for the other person to turn up.
Where was I going with this? Oh yes..
By far the most common business start-up mistake is the belief that more cash equals more chance of success; in very many cases this can be the very opposite of what actually happens. Like the risk incurred by speeding, having too much cash in hand carries inherent psychological risk - witness the lottery winner who feels they should now start a business, lurching from franchise to dodgy 'opportunity' like a drunk in a casino, with neither plan nor realistic chance of success.
Alternatively, like my spare 10 minutes the cash will just sit there waiting for something to happen.
A successful business will be planned then capitalised, not the other way around, so here is my very simplistic Business Funding Plan:
STEP 1: Compile your plan and cashflows on the assumption that there is no capital available.
STEP 2: Look at where you go into deficit and ask yourself is there a realistic way that you can avoid or postpone expenditure without fundamentally damaging your business.
STEP 3: Look at ways of improving cashflow rather than introducing capital.
STEP 4: If you are certain that capital is required, build it into your plan as a loan, with repayment terms. (Even if it is your own money that you are happy to inject).
Remember, having cash in your business might get you to your goal quicker, but will it actually be any better?
Friday, 24 February 2012
More networking - sometimes it's best not to know!
Having set (and not met) my January challenge, I have ended up a month later still exploring and discovering new network events.
This lunchtime was spent in a riverside pub venue at the delightful Peal Network - a very usable mix of informal chatter and a sit-down 'meeting' featuring 1-minute presentations (no silly bells) and an agenda item of 'other network events you would recommend'.
Unfortunately I have now added the TWM Curry club to my schedule - thus moving further from my original goal.
Anyway, having attended events for 2 months solid, I am now obviously a world authority on face-to-face networking, so will share a few practical tips with you:
Tip 1: Never sell at a networking meeting. EVER. Introduce yourself; a brief sentence about what you do and back to them 'how about you - what do you do'. This is entirely counter-intuitive but believe me, it will work. The person you are chatting to might well ask more about your business, which is an invitation to elaborate, but doesn't open the door for your best sales spiel. Keep with me here...
Tip 2: Where possible, target your 'meetings' - quality rather than quantity. 3 good quality conversations can be better value that 12 encounters.
Tip 3: Think about your message. If you have committed to regular attendance (particularly on a weekly basis), you need to evolve your message - sometimes even straying a long way of your normal territory.
The temptation is to provide effectively a list of your products or services. Don't. Take a risk, and tell them just one thing that might be interesting & they will remember you (as someone who said something interesting, rather than the bloke or woman with a list).
Tip 4: Swap cards. Giving out your card is unlikely to yield results but convention dictates that they will reciprocate by handing you theirs - Thereby providing your with valuable information and an invitation to keep in touch.
Tip 4: Follow up! Think about what you want to achieve and go for it. Because you haven't already bored their socks off, you have plenty left to discuss. In a one-to-one meeting, where they won't be looking over your shoulder to see if their colleague / friend / customer has turned up.
They have given you information - use it to target your marketing and database - this is the warmest contact you will ever have!
Obviously I sometimes forget to follow this advice myself, but trust me, it works!
This lunchtime was spent in a riverside pub venue at the delightful Peal Network - a very usable mix of informal chatter and a sit-down 'meeting' featuring 1-minute presentations (no silly bells) and an agenda item of 'other network events you would recommend'.
Unfortunately I have now added the TWM Curry club to my schedule - thus moving further from my original goal.
Anyway, having attended events for 2 months solid, I am now obviously a world authority on face-to-face networking, so will share a few practical tips with you:
Tip 1: Never sell at a networking meeting. EVER. Introduce yourself; a brief sentence about what you do and back to them 'how about you - what do you do'. This is entirely counter-intuitive but believe me, it will work. The person you are chatting to might well ask more about your business, which is an invitation to elaborate, but doesn't open the door for your best sales spiel. Keep with me here...
Tip 2: Where possible, target your 'meetings' - quality rather than quantity. 3 good quality conversations can be better value that 12 encounters.
Tip 3: Think about your message. If you have committed to regular attendance (particularly on a weekly basis), you need to evolve your message - sometimes even straying a long way of your normal territory.
The temptation is to provide effectively a list of your products or services. Don't. Take a risk, and tell them just one thing that might be interesting & they will remember you (as someone who said something interesting, rather than the bloke or woman with a list).
Tip 4: Swap cards. Giving out your card is unlikely to yield results but convention dictates that they will reciprocate by handing you theirs - Thereby providing your with valuable information and an invitation to keep in touch.
Tip 4: Follow up! Think about what you want to achieve and go for it. Because you haven't already bored their socks off, you have plenty left to discuss. In a one-to-one meeting, where they won't be looking over your shoulder to see if their colleague / friend / customer has turned up.
They have given you information - use it to target your marketing and database - this is the warmest contact you will ever have!
Obviously I sometimes forget to follow this advice myself, but trust me, it works!
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