Marketing

   Small business owners often find sales the most difficult part of being in business. In fact I have found they don’t want to be categorized as “sales” people. Often during Mind Masters meetings I suggest they reframe how they see the process.

   Selling in today’s environment requires an inquisitive mindset. So the consultative sales process is a way to gather as much information as possible about a prospect and then be able to prescribe one’s product or service solution to the prospect’s problem/issue. If this process is followed carefully, the close (asking for the “order”) will follow easily also keeping in mind the following:

    1. Use closing as an opportunity; attitude affects performance.

    2. Closing a sale begins when the sales process starts; see it as part of the whole.

    3. Use trial closes; they help you take the “temperature” of a prospect.

    4. A successful close flows naturally from a well-planned presentation.

    5. The right information about the prospects needs or problems and a solution to them give you the “right” to ask for the order.

© 2010 Mind Masters, Used by permission

How many times has someone let you know there was a misspelled word on your flyer, brochure or web site? Those mistakes affect how professional you are perceived you to be. Again, when Mind Masters members’ have an expertise, they willing share it so their fellow members can gain some insight. Since small business owners do it all, Laurie’s editing tips were the perfect information we all could use.

Quick Proofreading Tips

Let’s face it: spell-check isn’t enough. Word processing software just isn’t smart enough to distinguish between “to,” “two,” and “too”; only a human brain can do that. The following trio of tips will help you use the spell-checker between your ears:

1. Read s-l-o-w-l-y. Your brain is an organ of efficiency, and it will insert letters and words that aren’t actually on the page or screen. Outsmart yourself by slowing down when you’re proofing; this will give you a better chance of catching what’s missing.
2. Mumble. Yes, that’s right—mumble! By sounding out the words as you read them, you’re using your mouth and your ears in addition to your eyes. The more senses you can use when proofing, the better job you’ll do. Mumbling helps you hear when a sentence “just doesn’t sound right.”
3.  Put it in Reverse. Reading backward will help you find typos because it forces you to focus on each word, not sentence structure or content. Use a dictionary to verify spellings and definitions. (Note: Your brain might resist when you first start reading from right to left.)

These tips will help you fix mistakes that spell-check can’t even find. Keep up the good work! Remember: Spell-check isn’t enough. Really.

*Laurie Gibson is an editor, writer, instructor, and proofreader with 15 years of professional experience. Her editorial repertoire includes books, newspapers, magazines, and corporate Web sites, reports, and proposals.  E-mail wordworker1@earthlink.net for more info.

Mind Masters members’ have skills, experiences and expertise that they willing share with fellow members each week. Again how you present yourself to your market creates a perception. With a highly visual audience, a good photograph is on of the essential tools. Our member Barbara Steinberg shared her expertise, so we all can manage the perceptions we want our market to have.

Tips from a professional photographer for a successful portrait session.

• Review the photographer’s portfolio to see the style of his or her work.
• Request a variety of expressions. Include a fun smile, a warm friendly smile, or a professional expression.
•  Ask the photographer for a clothing guide to help you select the right wardrobe for your skin tone and body style.
•  Include at least two wardrobe changes. Bring a “casual dressy” outfit and an everyday look outfit. Depending on the purpose of your photograph, you may want to bring a business suit. Bring several changes to the studio.
• Request a professional make up artist /hairstylist to be at the studio when you arrive. For women, it’s fun to pamper yourself and have a professional recommend colors or looks you may not have thought of. You can also incorporate the same techniques in your everyday look.
• If you do your own make up and hair, spend time on getting yourself ready. Apply a good foundation and select colors that bring out your eyes and lips. Use hairspray to set your style.
•  Include a close-up (head and shoulders) pose, a three quarter (head to knees) pose and full length if needed.

All these elements are vital for an effective photograph. You don’t have to look like a model to create a beautiful or handsome photograph, so invest the time and money to make it your personal best.

Barbara Steinberg, owner of Premier Photography, has been a professional photographer in San Diego for over 20 years. She’s a member of the Professional Photographers Association of San Diego Count. Call her at 858.272.9925 or visit her web site at http://premierphotography.com

When you have a team of people who support each other in getting clear and sharing ideas, great information is produced. This of course has produced tremendous power in our Mind Masters groups. Napoleon Hill commented about it in Think and Grow Rich, when he wrote “Power is essential for success … Gaining power through the … coordination of knowledge and effort. . . .”. I want to share with you some of the knowledge that members have shared, that if used can affect how you show up in your market place for a more powerful brand.

Communication is one of the necessary skills for branding ourselves in the market place. One of our members shared her communication tips which highlights the kind of expertise that members share.

5 Power tips for Communication:

1. The Power of a Story: A compelling story can grab attention the hearts of your audience. What personal story can you tell that connects you to your topic and audience?
2.  The Power of the Pause: Most compelling speakers are masters at the Pause. They know just when to use silence to draw you in. Unfortunately, many business speakers just want to finish their presentations quickly – so they rush through and leave themselves breathless. Don’t be afraid of silence – it’s powerful!
3.  The Power of Inflection: Use vocal variety in your speech. Change up your volume, emphasize key words, see if you can color your speech with your own emotion and passion for your topic.
4. The Power of Animation: Let your body move naturally during your presentations. Get rid of the extra energy that you feel by moving around. Don’t pace or rock back and forth – but do move your feet. Plant your feet and look at the audience when you are making a point. You’ll have a much stronger impact.
5. The Power of Eye Contact – Look at people directly in the eyes. Remember, you can only talk to one person at a time no matter how many people are in your audience. Connect, one to one.

About the author

Dana Bristol-Smith is the founder of Speak for Success, an organization that works with companies that want their people to communicate with confidence and credibility. You can contact Dana  here.

Over the winter perhaps it has been easy to slip into the habit of staying in the office and doing business by phone and email. But Spring is here and in these economic times it is important to lock in customer loyalty and make customer satisfaction your number one priority. Drop by or schedule a time to meet with clients. Listen for opportunities where you can offer a solution for their problems.

Not only do you need customer goodwill but you need to understand customer problems. Get as close to your customers as possible. Call and ask your customers how they are doing and what they might need from you.

Customer relationships are often taken for granted, but if you look at how you got referrals in the past and achieved your business goals, I guarantee you the greater percentage came from the relationships you have developed with your clients/customers.

In his book The Referral of a Lifetime, Tim Templeton talks about the fact that “your customers and clients already know every new contact you will ever need to succeed”. If you take those relationships for granted you may lose your market advantage, your customer relationships are something within your control. When you develop and nurture them they eventually cultivate greater fruits over time. How do you grow them?

♦ Send a thank you note to every person that gives you a referral. People love to be appreciated.

♦ Develop an attitude of gratitude in everything you do….and you will be amazed how your business will explode. You don’t want your past clients to forget you when they or their friends need your services.

♦ Be real with those you come in contact with (personal or professional) and you will create a life-long stream of customers to serve.

Wake up! Shake off the winter hibernation, reconnect and bring new life to your business.

The Challenge: What 3 changes can you make immediately in your business that will solidify your relationship with the customers you already have?

It’s March Madness! When a basketball player is in a slump of getting the ball through the hoop, there is one thing that will change that, practice, practice, practice. Selling has the same requirements. Mind Masters Entrepreneur Association wanted to share another key that when committed to and practiced consistently produce success.

As an entrepreneur, one of your most valuable business assets are your customers.

Dying has made Michael Jackson’s music even more popular now then when he was alive. What can we learn from this legend? Well, when it comes to marketing, it pays to build a buzz and then back that up by being the real deal. It’s important to get the word out about who you are and what you do. Jackson did it through record releases, public appearances, concerts, interviews, and fan clubs.

Yeah, but that was Michael Jackson, you say. It was easier for him. Is he really that different than us? If we build a buzz about our business, position ourselves as a leader in our field, deliver quality products and services to our target market-and are promote-able and likeable, what’s to stop us from changing the world-or at least make our mark in our area of expertise?

Be consistent in how you present the business/YOU.

By identifying and following a set of core values, you will have the foundation for the kind of visibility and credibility you want. From these values come the behaviors that create consistency, integrity and measurement for how you are doing as a business and business owner.

The most important step to positioning yourself in the market is defining yourself. This includes taking stock of your strengths, values, goals and personality to determine the personal messages you want customers to take away from their encounters with you.

When you have taken the time to be consistent to your targeted audience then:

1. You are perceived as an authority in your field, you gain credibility.
2. Your performance brands you as highly experienced, talented, proven to get results.
3. Recognition starts to come from leaders in your domain and adds to your credibility.
4. You find ways to differentiate what you excel in.
5. You will form alliances with those who are already perceived leaders in their domain.

You must be perceived as truly special, with attributes unique enough to create a strong and lasting market position, being consistent does that. Otherwise, when money is tight, consumers will make a necessary if unpleasant choice: They simply won’t look to you to fulfill their needs.

The Challenge: Review your week, how consistent were you staying focused to your goals, how about the behaviors that identify your values – what needs tweaking?

As I have worked with Mind Masters clients over the years, I have always stressed the importance of having 3 marketing tactics that you do consistently.

There are many perspectives on what marketing is, let me illustrate – a first definition of marketing: the business activity of presenting products and/or services to potential customers in such a way as to make them eager to buy. And there is: Marketing – the management of perception.

But what I have learned is that most marketing is haphazard. We’ll try a little of this, a little of that, then a little more of this. What I really got from all of the experts is that if you want to be successful in marketing and sales, you need to have a system: a repeatable process that consistently produces a successful result.

Jay Levinson & Seth Godin in “The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook” discuss 73 low cost, high impact ways to get your marketing message out. Most of them are activities that support other marketing tactics. Barbara Lambesis has a list of 101 tactics in her book 101 Big Ideas for Promoting a Business. There are plenty to choose from as long as they are an activity that creates a connection between you and a prospective client, which moves them closer to doing business with you, and you use those tactics consistently to build trust.

A friend shared an experience with me about a tactic she used that might illustrate what consistency can really do for your business. She had been in her business for awhile and thought about doing some other things with her life, so she decided to have her business appraised to see if it were saleable. To her shock it was not worth close to what she had poured her blood, sweat and tears into up to that point, so she set out to make it more valuable. Over a 5 year period the tactic she chose was speaking, she spoke anywhere they would listen, she did classes and workshops, she spoke to business groups all over the city.

From her one topic (she said at times she felt like a broken record) she was able to grow the business to the point that when she sold it, it was worth substantially more than that first appraisal. She became known as the expert and people came seeking her out because she had developed a relationship with them.

What tactics do you use and how do they combine to fit your situation on a consistent basis so they become your basic game plan? There are no miracle tactics. Marketing is all about communication. When your marketing is inconsistent, and you are trying to do too many things your potential clients don’t get your message, they don’t respond or buy.

There are many things to consider when developing your marketing, the message, the benefits, how you are different, are you credible, do you do what you say you will do, but the component that is essential is how consistently you use those key tactics that say “I can trust that person”. Remember people have to trust you, to do business with you.

The Challenge: Take a step back and asses what tactics you are using, and track how consistently on a weekly basis you are working with them.

Business is all about relationships. In the rush to get something done, small business owners often find themselves with less then perfect outcomes. Too often I hear the complaints and laments of clients because doing business with a vendor, independent contractor or performing the work themselves required accountability on both sides but somehow got overlooked. Relationships are built on trust, trust is built when commitments are fulfilled to the satisfaction of all parties. Creating the agreements that go with the commitments is a fundamental skill. Unfortunately, most people have never learned how to articulate their desired results.

Recently a client of mine decided to hire a public relations professional. Three people were being considered for the project. I was invited to sit in on one of the interviews. The PR contractor spoke only in very general terms, used the daily news to see where my client might be able to “fit” in and could make no commitments for positioning the client. The result was, my client moved on to the next 2 people.

The contractor hired presented a complete PR program outlining areas she would pursue and what my client needed to do to support the program. Together they developed a document accepting full responsibility for performing the required work and achieving results. With the agreement in place my client has a roadmap for things to go right.

In all of our business relationships we hire people or are hired to perform a service or deliver a finished product. Usually the cause of challenges is a lack of clear agreement; agreement of the work to be done and the results to be achieved.

In my experience I find small business owners are so eager to make the sale or get the work done, that they do not take time to do the due diligence. Important for creating relationships that work:

1. Decide what the Goal and end result will be.
2. Agree on When it is to be done.
3. Agree on How it will be done.
4. Be prepared to resolve any issues that arise

When you have policies in place and are consistent in how you work, business grows because people know what to expect from you and trust you to fulfill your commitments.

The Challenge: Review your own policies and procedures, make sure they are clear and visible to your customers and before hiring an outside company use that same criteria for choosing them.