Maximizing Your Potential! » Job

The First Step to Success is…

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:05:37 +0000

The First Step to Success is Your Business Plan

It all starts with your business plan.
Your business plan is the foundation and blueprint for your success.

Your business plan is not something that you write as an exercise and put in a drawer.
It is a living, growing, developing and changing document that you must constantly keep in mind, re-visit, edit and add to.

If you want to have a business that grows and succeeds, you simply must start with a business plan.

If you don’t have a business plan you don’t have a business.

It doesn’t have to be complicated and it doesn’t have to take you a long time to create.

But if you don’t have one, you don’t have a business.
At best, you have a job.

How to write your business plan
Keep it simple and don’t worry about it or make it complicated.
It’s your plan and you can always change it.
Remember, it is a living, growing document.

Product or Service

First, you want to clearly define your product or service.
And you want to define exactly who your target market is.
You want this specific and clearly defined.
“Who am I selling to and what am I selling to them that they WANT and need?”

If you try to be all things to everyone, you won’t succeed.
You need to identify and define a specific target market or niche that you can provide and sell a product or service to that they want and will pay you money for.

An example of what this is not: “My target market is elderly women and I’m going to sell them tatoos.”

Answer this question, “What does my business deliver to my clients/customers that has value and worth what they pay me?” or, “What exactly do I give my clients or customers in exchange for what I get paid?”

Examples:
For an entrepreneur or business owner: “A growing, profitable business.”
For a real estate agent that sells homes: “A home sold at the best price in the least amount of time” His target market might be a geographical farm, senior residential owners, etc.

Metrics

These are the key things that your are producing in your business that are measurable.
These are your statistics – numbers you can put on a graph and see if things are going uphill, downhill or sideways.

Statistics are like the dashboard in a car. It’s how you know how fast you are going or what you are trying to accomplish. Baseball players keep statistics. Most companies do it. You have to treat your business like a business and one of the ways you do that is to monitor key metrics – statistics.

Figure out what the key statistics are that you need to monitor. Try not to have more than 4 or 5 at the very most because you don’t want to be overwhelmed by the number of statistics you have to keep.
Examples:
Income
Net Income
# of prospects
# of customers
# of appointments.

Vision

You now want to get a clear, specific vision of what your business will be when you have built it out to a level higher than it is now. We aren’t looking at the ultimate here. Just a picture of what it will be like when it has reached a specific achievable level above what it is now – maybe a year from now. A vague goal such as, “I want to get rich” or “I want to be really successful” will not get you where you want to go. It is too general. You need to have a very specific detailed outcome that you envision. Know your outcome and begin developing a plan to get it in the planning steps. This should be something that you KNOW deep down and deeply believe is achievable.

You want to visualize it as if you are there. “My business is now doing $40K a month. I have one employee. My clients/customers are routinely pleased beyond their expectations… etc.”

Write this down.

This gives you a comparison point for looking at your business as it is now. It will give you some ideas for what specific steps you need to take to move toward your goals.

Goals

Next is your goals.
You are 100 times more likely to achieve your goal if you put it in writing rather than keeping it in your head.
These can be one-year goals, three-year goals or five-year goals.
For example: “In three years, I want to have a million dollar a year business.”
You can then figure out sub-goals that are steps toward achieving your long-range goal.

Purposes

Then figure out what your purposes are.
Your purposes are on-going.
You should be able to see that you are working on or fulfilling your purpose every day.
These are the reasons you are doing what you are doing.

This is not “To make me a lot of money and give me a lot of free time.”
It is the purpose for your business.

Examples:
“The purpose of my business is to exceed my clients’ expectations.”

A real estate agent: “To help first-time buyers get the best house for the best price.”
A dentist: “To help my patients get and maintain optimum oral health and a beautiful smile.”
A merchant services agent: “To help merchants save money and make more money with merchant services.”

Plan
Now you are ready to write your plan.
It doesn’t have to be complicated or take a long time.
Remember, you can always revise it or change it or even throw it away and make another plan.

This is your system or scheme of how you are going to accomplish your goal, fulfill your purpose and produce, sell and deliver your product or service. This is where you work out and write down how you are going to reach your goal and accomplish your purpose.

You can even sketch it out on a napkin.

This is the layout or design of your business – your business model.

Program

Now you want to write out a series of steps to achieve your goal or a sub-goal.
Your goal might be something that you want to achieve in five years.
Breaking it down into chunks, or sub-goals, you can see the major things you have to achieve on the way.
The sub-goal you want to go for to start out might be a milestone you want to hit in one month or three months.

Summary

Look over your business plan on a regular basis to make sure you are making progress on the steps of the plans and programs you set out.

You might need to course correct or change a few things as you go along. Nothing is cast in stone.

Let’s say you are launching a space shuttle toward the moon. You have a certain trajectory but the people at Houston are constantly changing the speed and direction of the ship as it is going toward the moon because it doesn’t stay on course exactly. So they have to do a booster here or a booster there so that it is going to hit its mark.

Come up with your big plan. Then break the it down into small do-able steps. And those are your program steps.

I could go into a lot more detail for each of these steps but here are the simple steps:

1. Clearly define your product or service and your target market.

2. Write down a few, key metrics to keep.

3. Write down your goals and sub-goals.

4. Write down your purpose.

5. Write your plan.

6. Write down a step-by-step program to achieve your first sub-goal.

7. Get to work on your program.

8. Keep a log of your metrics.

9. Re-visit your business plan often. It is your blueprint for success.

Technorati Tags: Amount Of Time, Blueprint, Business Owner, Business Plan, Elderly Women, Entrepreneur, Exercise, Job, Long Time, Metrics, Money, Niche, Profitable Business, Real Estate Agent, Residential Owners, Success, Target Market, Tatoos

How to Keep Your Clients & Add More!

admin — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:18:43 +0000

Fact: It costs 5 to 8 times more to get a new client than it does to keep an existing client.

Fact: A happy client will tell 2-3 people about you and your awesome product or service. An unhappy client will tell as many as 10 people how dissatisfied they were with you and your service.

With that in mind it is extremely important to keep your existing clients very happy. Here are 10 sure fire ways to do that!

1. Confidence is the ultimate ingredient in selling – Your client must understand that he can count on YOU, not some customer service rep within your organization. They must feel confident that you will be there for them, reassuring them that they were right to put their trust in you.

2. Take entire responsibility for your client – Once you have closed the deal, tell your client that NOW is when your job starts. Too many salespeople consider that the job is done once all the paperwork is signed and the money is collected. Bbut top salespeople consider that they’ve only just begun!

3. Communicate regularly with your clients, current and past – Regular follow-up is imperative. Whether it is faxes, phone calls, emails or a visit, you need to stay in touch with all of your clients. I recommend mailing monthly and calling quarterly. It’s truly up to you. The main thing is to be consistent!

4. Have your happy clients sell you to others – Always check with your client to ensure that you are exceeding his/her expectations. If you are, ask for referrals. If you aren’t, find out why and get back on track with them so that you can get referrals on the next visit!

5. Always confront and handle ANY upset which occurs – Never let a client stay unhappy with you and your product or service. Find out what is going on and handle it immediately!

6.Keep informed and interested in your clients – Know what’s happening in the market and share that information with them, especially if you feel it will help them grow their business.

7. Avoid ‘false sales’ which can crash your morale – If your newly acquired client suddenly has second thoughts, find out what is going on immediately and take them back to their original reasons for moving forward. Never let them go, if they were closed once, they can definitely be closed again!

8. Make your customers your ambassadors - Don’t hesitate to ask for referrals and be sure to get a testimonial right there as soon as you close the deal. You’ll be glad you did!

9. Keep your database updated – as soon as a client changes there email, mailing address or numbers, be sure you take the time to update your records. You’ll be glad you did. I have been guilty of this one and could kick myself as I lost the data and have lost touch with someone I really cared about!

10. Remember: Communication is the universal solvent – It is your greatest success tool - this thing called communication. Use it to help you and your clients and you will never go wrong. The wrong thing to do is nothing. Whenever an upset occurs find out why immediately and talk through it until there is resolution! You and your clients will be happy you did.

Good luck!

Technorati Tags: Confidence, Crash, Current, Customer Service Rep, Emails, Faxes, Job, Money, Mor, Organization, Paperwork, Phone Calls, Referrals, Sure Fire, Top Salespeople, Unhappy Client

What the Heck is Good Time Management

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:40:07 +0000

All of us have some concept of ‘Good’ time management.

Make a list of things to do, block out the time required to do it and then take the steps necessary to achieve the desired result. Right????

So, why, oh why are people spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year to become better time managers???

Let’s face it, opinions vary on exactly why people do not actually DO the above mentioned steps but the fact of the matter is that this is a HUGE problem for some people and they can never seem to get a handle on it no matter how much money they spend.

I’m going to take a few minutes to very quickly educate you on what Time Management IS and then how to apply these principles to your life.

First, let’s define the words…

Time - ‘Any specified or defined period.’ From World Book Dictionary

Management - ‘The process of dealing with or controlling things or people.’ From Oxford American Dictionary

What is Control?

It is defined as, ‘The power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.’ Again from Oxford American Dictionary

Control could further be defined as the ability to start, change or stop people or things related to life.

OK. So, how do we use this to help us to be better time managers.

Each of us has 24 hours in the day and 7 days in a week. How is it that I could help one gentleman go from doing 44 deals per year as a Realtor to 110 and still have more time off? I did not wave a magic wand and make all his paperwork disappear. Nor did he hire ten additional staff to help him get everything done.

The God’s honest truth, we removed all the distractions from his life. We handled anything and everything that was preventing him from getting the job done and then we focused on getting the job done. Simple, right???

The biggest drain on a person’s ability to stay focused and get stuff done is all the backlogged and incomplete projects hanging around the person.

I’ll never forget working with another gentleman. He was in a very cramped office and he had tons of clutter and incomplete projects around him. I spent a full day and helped him clean it ALL up. He was so thrilled that he raced home and cleaned up his office and the garage. His wife called to thank me. Needless to say, he was twice as productive that year and made more money in that one year than he had in the previous three years.

Of course, you can do this on your own but most people that I know are too easily distracted and fail to handle every thing. It really helps to have someone there to help you sort out what you should do with each and every thing you come across.

Next I’ll teach you about the 4 D’s of good time management!

Have a productive day!

Technorati Tags: Better Time, Dictionary Management, Distractions, Fact Of The Matter, Few Minutes, Gentleman, Good Time Management, Honest Truth, How Much Money, Job, Magic Wand, Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, Paperwork, Realtor, Time Managers, Time Off, What The Heck, Why Are People, World Book Dictionary, World Dictionary

The Art of Closing Big Sales

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:41:18 +0000

There was a survey done by the New York Sales Club a while back as to what a salesperson’s success rate was after each attempt to close. The results were pretty interesting:
1st Attempt to Close 8% said Yes
2nd Attempt 14% said Yes
3rd Attempt 18% said Yes
4th Attempt 27% said Yes
5th Attempt to Close 44% said Yes

Now, if you continued to carry this forward you would get up close to 80%.

But let’s face it you will probably never make it to 100% closing because there are many factors which are out of your control, such as, the person has just lost their job or any number of other unforeseen factors.

However, there is an interesting correlation here. Another survey was done that showed that 80% of salespeople gave up after the third attempt to close. The 20% who persisted beyond the third attempt got 80% of the sales.

So, what happens is that the salesperson seeks to interest the buyer and meets with a person who is trying to pretend that there is no sale. He’s got his attention on other things and is trying to ignore the sales person.

Then the sales person starts to really desire the sale. He’s desiring to get the sale done but the prospect is doing his or her best to inhibit the sale. They may say something like,

‘I’m just not sure if now is the right time.’ or ‘We have decided we need to think about it.’

They are trying to put on the breaks on this process.

The salesperson then tries to pressure the client, ‘This is the best time to purchase this product,’

And get’s pressure back from the prospect, saying, ‘We said NOW is not the right time!’

And right about the time the prospect starts to desire the product or service the salesperson starts to inhibit the sale saying something like, ‘You are probably right. This is not the best deal for you.’

Here the poor prospect is ready to buy and totally interested and the salesperson is ignoring the prospect. You think this seems to far fetched but it happens all the time.

Remember, 80% of sales people give up at 3 above, when both of them are at enforce (the sales person pressuring the prospect and the prospect insisting that he’s not interested.)

All the salesperson has to do is stay at interest and let the prospect move up the scale to meet him or her. This is super simple and super powerful!

Good luck!

Technorati Tags: Art Sales, Best Time, Control, Correlation, Desire, Job, Right Time, Sales Club, Sales People, Sales Person, Salespeople, Salesperson, Success Rate, Survey, Third Attempt, York Sales