Mental downward spiral

Working for myself one of the biggest challenges I seem to face is not understanding when I have done a good job.  Why do I find this a challenge?  By not acknowledging the good things I do I generally get caught up in the general problems of my world, where am I going to find the time to do that? Why hasn’t that person paid me yet? Where am I going to find the people for my next seminar?  Will I have enough cash flow to pay my bills? Will I be able to spend this weekend with my family or am I going to have to work again …. and the tail spin continues, day in, day out, week in and week out.

As any business owner will tell you, there is only one place you go when your head is in that type of tail spin and it isn’t a good place, I had one of these moments a couple of months ago, when a good friend of mine asked the question “when was the last time you acknowledged you did a good job?” on stopping to think about this I honestly couldn’t remember a time when I said to myself “well done”!!  OMG I had become the type of boss I always hated, complained about all the problems but never acknowledged the good, the only consolation was it only impacted on one member of staff ME!!

My friend asked me how my business was going, how many new customers did I bring on board this month so far?  How many quotes have I sent out?  How many people have I talked about my business too?  By the time I had answered his questions he turned to me and said “I thought you said there was nothing good happening in your business?” I felt so stupid, here’s me, motivator of businesses falling into the very trap I tell and show others how to avoid, I wasn’t practising what I preach!!  To me this is one of the biggest challenges a business owner or sole operator faces, a lack of gratitude for the work they do!!  So how do we over come this?

Regular Reality Checks

My friend had it sorted, although he worked on his own, he and his wife would sit down at the start of each week and do a reality check and discuss  all aspects of the business.  Having gone through this process myself, I can tell you it is a great way of acknowledging the work done as well as providing a focus for the work to come.  Here are some of the areas I have looked at and acknowledged:

• I talked to 50 new people about my business helping to build its’ awareness in the market place.
• I secured 6  new customers this month so far.
• I have sent out 5 proposals last week for new business
• I outsourced an aspect of my business that I just could not do, I gave it to an expert who in turn helped my business!!
• I co-hosted a seminar last week to a group of people who had never heard of me whose feedback afterwards was great.
• I have been asked back to present to another like minded group of people the following week
• Most of my clients paid their invoice on time.
• I set aside some time to complete my admin for the month to date and completed everything I needed to.

It doesn’t matter how small the good thing is, it is worth acknowledging, keeping the positive in focus makes it easier to continue to drive positive results in the business and this particular exercise allowed me to sharpen my focus on all the good things I bring to the business and the good things the business brings to me!!

What do you do to stay positive in your business?  Do you even find it an issue?  Do you do something similar to this or have you other techniques that you use and if so what are they?  Please let me know, if I can pass on some of what you do to make another business owners life just that little bit easier then it is another job well done

Before you start really thinking about your products and the needs of your clients  its important to understand why people buy products (or services) in the first place. Now there are many theories on this but I would like to talk about a favorite of mine that I came across several years ago and that is the Customer Value Hierarchy Theory.

This theory talks about a product not just in a physical sense but also in a psychological sense meaning that your product not only needs to fulfill a physical need or benefit to the customer it also must meet the emotional needs and wants of the customer. This theory breaks the process down to three levels of need and if all these levels then the reasoning for the customer to buy the product will be easily justified.

Core Benefit Level

This is the first level, customers will purchase your product because of the functional benefit your product has to offer e.g. if you sell cell phones they will buy your cell phone so they can talk / text to others. This satisfies their basic needs of communication when on the move. Most products (including a cell phone) will do much more than allowing the user to talk or text, when a customer is considering more than just talking or texting they then look at the product from the Expected Product Level.

Expected Product Level

At this level other features and associated benefits of a product get taken into consideration, can the cell phone take pictures and to what quality, can I browse the internet, can I check emails or can I play music or videos; the list goes on. If your product addresses the needs of the core benefit and can also address the needs of the expected product level then you are well on your way to achieving the sale but there is one more level that can have a deciding factor on whether they buy the product from you and that is fulfilling the Augmented Product Level.

Augmented Product Level

This level time and time again is often the deciding factor for any potential customer when they are looking at purchasing your product why? The customer considers the value they receive from your sales team and after sales support, any warranties, free deliveries, maybe free installation, any service that can enhance the product or make their life that bit easier.

By looking at each of your products / services using this particular model it will give you a far better understanding as to whether or  not your product meets the physical needs of the customer and by understanding the value to the customer at the Augmented Product Level you will be in a far better position to a) understand the true value of your product / service to the client and b) use that information in the sales process to resonate better with your future client.  Ensuring all your products and services meet your clients needs in all three areas will ensure a happy client thus a loyal client.

... of course you can sell ice to Eskimos ...

I know what you’re thinking this is just a simple plug for my Sales Training courses, and yes I admit whole heartedly there is a potential connection (feel free to make that connection ) but on a serious note I hear all to often of companies big and small not doing the basics when it comes to sales and customer retention and because of that I feel the need to part with some general advice and things for your to think about.

Sales Techniques

There is enough information out there to sink the titanic regarding how to sell something and what you are about to read is not going to re-write the book, but I want to remind all you business out there that whether you have a full sales team or whether you are a one man band peddling your wears these techniques still apply!!

• Opening the Sales Process – First impressions count, our brains are such powerful mechanisms that they can asses a person, situation, object in as little as 3 seconds and by 20 seconds the brain will have decided what type of person it is looking at, are they a threat or not, is the situation itself hostile or safe and is the object being observed look as if it will harm me or benefit me.  That is why you have such a limited window of opportunity to make that right impression, if successful you will be off to a great start, if not you’d be as well going home!!

• Identifying needs not wants – One of the hardest part of the sales process (next to closing the sale) is to properly identify exactly what it is your customer needs. What is the real reason for them to come and see you, how do you stop yourself making assumptions about your customer, can you distinguish the difference between what your customer wants as opposed to what they need or are they one of the same thing, you get this right and the sale will be all but secured.
• Add on Sales –  It is more cost effective for any business to sell more than one product at any one time as the business only has to pay for the one sales process. If done correctly you may be helping your customer too!
• Closing the Sale – For many professionals who are not in the sales industry this part of the selling process tends to be the most difficult, asking someone for the business.  This can be made less daunting especially if you know what type of buying signals to look out for, for example if the customer continually agrees with what you are saying, they may start inquiring about other products that go with the main item, they may ask about warranties and they may even take their wallet out!!  Read the signs and take appropriate action immediately.

There are other process that go on during a sale but get the basics above right and you’ll find you and your team will convert more and more sales, once you have the customer you then need to look after them but more about that on my next blog.  Happy selling

The Sales Rep

Every business owner loves to hate the sales rep “we have a few coming through every week always pushing their products, I refuse to see them now” and often as a sales rep you’ll come across signs outside office buildings “No Sales Reps unless  by prior appointment”; and how hard is it to get that prior appointment!!  To me sales reps are the “hunters” of the sales world, they are focused on generating a predefined income for their employer and where ever possible they will over achieve because of the typical financial incentives that make it worth their while.  Because of these financial incentives and the pressure they put the sales rep under their ongoing customer service tends to be lacking (I am talking generally – if you are a sales rep reading this that does have great customer service then I apologise but I challenge you with one question, I bet you know many other reps that are like this!!) why, because they are after the next sale, the next new customer, their targets do not give them the time / luxury to spend much of their time looking after existing customers …….. that’s the boss job, right?

The Account Manager

Often businesses will categorise account managers long side sales reps and try to avoid them as much as possible, in my mind account managers differ from sales reps in that they are the “farmers” of the sales world, there focus is as much on retention as it is on new business.  More often than not an account manager’s financial package will have an element of new sales targets and current customer retention targets, making the account manager’s focus on ongoing customer service and relationship building far more important than that of the sales rep.

As an employer of a sales team you need to decide what it is exactly that you want from them and create a job role that compliments the goals and objectives of your business, if you own a car yard for instance, there will be less value in hiring an account manager over a sales rep because the vast majority of the work required is selling the next car, you couldn’t afford for your sales reps to be off visiting your customers to make sure the car they bought last year is still running well.  Equally if you are running a communications network an account manager would have more value than a sales rep because once that customer is on your network it makes sense to have them actively managed to ensure the competition don’t win them over and steal them on to their network.

In summary, a Sales Rep is a one hit wonder, they make the sale and move on to the next potential customer whilst the Account Manager makes a sale but is also responsible for retaining that customer in the longer term.

Agree or disagree, I would be interested in your thoughts.

If you are going through a similar dilemma in your business please feel free to contact me to discuss further.

How many of you out there have bought into a business and spent the same amount or more without knowing the first thing about managing a business, yes put your hand up and no you are not alone!!

In my capacity as a Small Business Development Specialist I recently came across a business owner who openly admitted that he thought he had a natural ability as a leader but he continually put himself down because he could never be a manager.  There is a couple of points here, firstly what is a “natural” leader?  If he thinks he can lead why can’t he manage?  What is a leader and how does that differ from being a manager is a discussion for another blog, today I want to concentrate on how to become a manager.

Firstly, managing is a learned skill, to continue my analogy with driving a car, yes sure you could jump into a car without first learning to drive and you will probably have a vague idea of how you think it should be driven because you have watched plenty of other people do it in the past.  The reality is that once you have started the car and your out on the road there is a good chance you may get to your destination but in the process you may have an accident or two, you may upset a lot of other drivers on the road but if you are lucky you may get to where you are going, if you are not, you may end up in a serious accident with your car being written off.

This really is no different to owning and running a business, you are good a what you do, you decide to invest into a business (whether it is existing or a new business, it makes no difference) put all your hard earned savings into it and off you go.  Now if you have never learnt the basic principals of management the chances are your business will bumble along slowly, you may upset a few customers on the way, you may even run into trouble with suppliers, your bank or your staff and you may come out the other side successfully ……. or you may not!!

Learning to manage a business is not too hard, it is a skill, it must be learnt, it isn’t natural and yes anyone can do it.  There are plenty resources out there to help you learn the basic (and more advanced) principles of management, some of which are as follows:

Time Management - Plan your day, week, month and year.  Know what you need to be doing and when you need to do it.  Schedule your regular meetings, plan some time for the paperwork, plan regular time to work on your business as well as in your business.

Man Management - Know the true cost of a single man hour of work, how does that differ amongst your staff, do you have the right staff member doing a particular job, could another do it that does not cost as much.  Know how many man hours it takes to do key tasks or provide your customers with key services and understand how you can manage your staff to get the greatest productivity for the lowest man hour cost. Are you doing too much, can you delegate to others, indeed should you delegate to others.

Delegation - Know how and when to delegate, take into consideration, who has the proper skills to do the job, who has the time to do the job, if I give the job to that person how will it affect their stress levels thus their ability to do the job?

Motivating Your Team - What makes your staff tick, how do you find this out, how will it affect how you work with them and incentive them.  what works for some may not work for all so how do you keep all your staff happy and motivated.

There are many other aspects of managing your business and the people in and around your business so don’t be upset if you don’t know how to manage but do take the steps to begin learning how to become an effective manager.

Unique to Dave Sewell Training & Support for Retail & Small Business are a series of management training courses designed to be held at your work premises, each lasting no more than one hour and collectively are designed to take you and /or your staff through a broad understanding of management  processes, giving tips and skills to ensure you can maximise the general operation of your business

I spent my entire career trying to give all my customers excellent service with products that more than meet their needs, I have helped businesses in more recent years do exactly the same thing, but in all that time I have never met an individual / company pull off everything exceptionally well that left me looking for an excuse to go back for more …….. until now!!

Recently my wife gave birth to a baby boy, Lachlan, one week before our first wedding anniversary and three weeks before my wife’s birthday.  I try to be a bit of a romantic for occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays but I was thinking this year there is just no way we were going to be dining at any swanky restaurant or jetting off for a weekend away  so then I got to thinking ……………. “if I can’t get my wife to the restaurant, I’ll get the restaurant to come to our house!”.  I looked in the yellow pages, I tried Google, I tried several online business directories but I couldn’t find anything, the closest I got was a company pre-making the meals so all I had to do was heat them up ……… hmmm not quite what I had in mind, I could pull out something from the freezer and cut out the middle man if I was going to go down that line!!

The sauce was a secret but it was incredible

I was just about getting to the point of giving up when I spoke to one of our friends from our anti-natal class about my little dilemma and low and behold did they not know someone that did just what I was looking for, usually for groups of 10 -12 but she does small parties from time to time!!  They sent this lady, Marie our contact details to which she promptly emailed us with some suggestions, to cut a long story short after swapping some emails we had the menu sorted, cost per head agreed and the date booked … my wife’s birthday, to make it a little bit more special I also invited our friends along from the anti-natal class as they also had a new born son, so would be able to relax in our home with our boys and neither couple would have to worry about them crying etc.

The evening came, Marie turns up with EVERYTHING, including plates and pans, within 30 minutes of her arrival we were sitting around the dinning table tucking into our breads and dips, and boy were the dips amazing, not sure exactly what was in them (Marie could tell us but she’d have to kill us!!) but what a way to start the meal.  Then came the main course of steak (for the boys) and salmon (for the girls), all the dishes were cooked to perfection, the salmon had the most amazing sauce with it, we asked what it was (again Marie was going to kill us, so we asked no more!!), now this is where Marie went the extra mile, on starting our main course Lachlan decided to get a bit grumpy, Marie picked him up from his bed and calmed him down letting his parents continue with their meal, again awesome!!

On to deserts now and what a finale, heart-shaped berried ice-cream atop a chocolate and chai scented biscuit base, drizzled with honeycomb chocolate topping and served with a berry jus; does your mouth not water just reading that, again awesome and as we were tucking into our deserts, Marie cleaned the kitchen, packed up everything into her car and left, it was as if she had never been at our house (other than the fact we just had a meal to die for!!).

My wife and I along with our guests had such a relaxing night (considering there was two children in the house only about a month old!!), it’s something I will be raving about for a very long time to come.  What a great product, a restaurant quality meal in your home (the food was to die for) with no cleaning up to do, great service (yes Marie served for meal to us at the table), friendly and well priced.

If you are in Christchurch, want to celebrate something special but can’t or don’t want to go out, get in touch with Marie you wont be dissappointed!!

Marie’s company is called EmJay Catering and her email address is mariejenkins@xtra.co.nz

Lachlan at 1 week ..... cute;-)

I have recently gone through a life changing experience; my first born son arrived this month, there were complications, nothing life threatening and mum and son came through the whole process well, my son Lachlan is feeding sleeping and growing well and my wonderful wife Kirsty is recovering quickly at home.  When people ask me how it all went, I can’t say it was entirely awful but I can’t say everything was great, why, because the whole process had so many inconsistencies that it really does detract from the awesome job most of the people did in the hospital.

Why am I writing about this, one I get to put a picture of my wonderful new son on my site; secondly this is typically why so many businesses either fail or never reach their full potential ………… consistency, if you are going to be great, you need to be great EVERY time, if you are all about quality then you better produce quality EVERY time, if you are all about service then you better produce great service EVERY time.

Consistency is what will set you apart from your competitors, remember you are only as good as your last book, your last blog, your last meal cooked, the last widget you sold, the last vehicle you repaired.  It does not matter what business you are in if you do not deliver consistently what your clients expect they will not come back and worse they will stop recommending you to others.

Let me go back to my hospital story as an example of how a clients impression of your business can be skewed by inconsistency.  Labour has started, our midwife is on hand to help us through the process, the hospital staff are checking in on us, for various reason an epidural has to be administered, this is done, the person how did it explained fully what is supposed to happen and also what may go wrong (expectation set), the procedure goes ahead and all is good, until it wears off on the left side very early, another attempt, it’s a little better, all through the process the professionals are giving Kirsty options and expectations all really good ….. until, the epidural starts to fail completely and this is where the service falls over, there seems to be a bit of organised chaos, forms to be signed (whilst under excruciating pain for Kirsty) before more drugs are given, an emergency C-Section must be performed, Kirsty is taken immediately to theatre where Lachlan is born within 15 minutes.  It is during this time the communication stops from the hospital staff to the new parents, because of this confusion and frustration set in because mum can’t see or hold baby, there were valid reasons, none of which were explained …….. leaving a very bad impression with us.

On return to the ward the on duty midwife, provides plenty of support and advice and helps Kirsty whenever she needed it and even after shift change this continued with the next midwife. This continued well into day two until a shift change in the middle of the afternoon, well this midwife was quite frankly awful, she had little or no time for us, did not keep Kirsty’s medication up to date and when asked about several things regarding feeding the baby she could not help!!  Come the evening shift again, the previous evenings midwife was back on and she was like a breath of fresh air, she answered Kirsty’s questions regarding feeding Lachlan, had plenty of useful tips for her and helped her through the night when problems occurred.

All through this time nobody picked up the fact that Kirsty had a problem with her stomach until our own midwife came to see us, this lead us to have another night in hospital!!

As you can see a very mixed bag of standards of service, there was some very good work done, help given and advice offered but much of it was lost with the poorer service, lack of communication and in some cases a resistance to help.  What does this do to my view of the hospital, I would not rave about it, I would say if you have to go there then do so, otherwise use another birthing centre instead and absolutely find your own midwife rather than relying on the hospital’s midwives.

Relating this back to any other business, it is ultra important to ensure that all aspects of your business is up to speed with what you do, your product must work, your staff must be able to support it and the service given must be consistent to ensure the continued success of any business.

Are you struggling with consistency within your business, want a fresh set of eyes to look at your business to see what can be done to improve the overall consistency, give me a call or contact me through this site, remember my first visit is always free.

Look back on events, what did you learn from them, write it down, if the event is positive can it be replicated in the coming year, if it was negative how can you avoid something similar happening this year?  At the risk of boring you, let me give you a snap shot of my year in 2009:

• 

  The Happiest Day of My Life

  January - Got married, my family travelled half way around the world for the big day, the weather was beautiful, the day perfect what a start to the new year!

• February - On honeymoon in the Bay of Islands, experienced Waitangi Day at Waitangi an experience that will stay with me for ever, watching the wakas launch and soaking up the carnival atmosphere, awesome.
• March – A month of recovery from the last two months of excitement, knuckling down to work.
• April / May - The low time of the year, redundancies at work, in my office a sacrifice will be made, the working environment was terrible.  On a personal front I find out my wife is pregnant
• June / July - Survive the redundancy process as a result job roles change and that comes with a realisation that my time where I work is coming to an end, I begin the process of really evaluating what I want and where I need to be, I re-evaluate my goals.  I see my baby for the first time in a scan, the wonders of technology.
• August – With new goals in place I start the ball rolling, I find myself a web designer who will build a site for my new business.
• September – My web site is launched, I find my first customers, I experience my first little wins which cements in my mind that I am finally on the right track regarding my career.
• October – I start networking and spreading the word for my business, I’m blogging furiously, my web site is being found in search results and I find another new customer.
• November - I see my baby with a 4D scan, truly amazing and very humbling, I get accepted into a business networking group and pick up another couple of clients.  Towards the end of the month I secure my first big contract lasting 6 months, it’s the job I need to finally go out on my own.  I hand in my notice with my current employer.
• December -  I send out my first invoice for my business, I find I get extra work from my old employer, Xmas is here and we enjoy our last quiet Xmas without children, a wonderful end to a wonderful year.

My year was full of personal highs, work was a different matter completely, there was a good deal of change, change which I new I could not live with longer term, but it was the catalyst to change everything that I was doing, I had to review my goals, which I did, set myself some new ones and off I went.  2010 is looking very bright, goals have been reviewed and adjusted for the changes that will inevitably come with a new family but an exciting year it will be and one that I can’t wait to experience.

Whatever you do, review your previous year first, learn from your mistakes, hold on to the things you did well and remember when you’re setting your goals make sure they are realistic.  Have a wonderful and prosperous 2010

What happens at these crucial points, how do we overcome the hurdles put in front of us and what affect does this have on the business owner and their staff?  Every life coach, motivational speaker, sports coach, school teacher and of course business consultant will preach the importance of having goals in pretty much every facet of your life, and I agree they are vital to improve, move forward and to be able to assess any given strategy but equally important is to have a contigency plan for the day the goal does not get reached; why?  because when a person or business does not reach it’s goals it very quickly turns from the major motivating force to a major demotivating force having the exact opposite affect of the strategy put in place to achieve the original goal.

It is at this point a good life coach, motivational speaker, sports coach, school teacher and of course business consultant will have a contingency plan to ensure the person / business gets back up on their feet immediately, they re-focus, adapt the goal (in line with the ultimate goals for the person / business) and take steps to get to where they need to be.

Let me give you an example ….

I had been working recently with a company that wanted to increase their turnover; we set some goals; we put some sales aids in place; we had a figure we needed to reach; we let the staff choose their own incentive; everyone in the business was highly motivated and things were going great guns, they had a successful quarter up to month 2 and were well on their way to reaching their target.  Come the last day of the month for the invoicing to be completed I was fully expecting a phone call from this company to say how well they had done but the phone stayed eerily quiet.  I called the following day to be greeted by a very low sounding boss who talked about everything other than the target, I knew straight away they had not reached it, the whole team were down.

On meeting with the team we reviewed the performance of the team in that last month, the work was there, their productivity was sitting at between 69 & 75% but the revenue alluded them not because they didn’t work hard enough but because their customers still had things to do before the jobs could be finished.  How did we turn this around ………… quite simple in the end, we looked at the jobs that didn’t get completed and asked the question how long will they take; we looked at the pipeline to see how much we could complete there, we combined the two together and this was the new goal for the month immediately after the quarter, it was decided the staff would still get their incentive because of the very high productivity.  This ensured the motivation remained high and the productivity remained high for the rest of the month, this ultimately worked and their targets were reached; this had a direct (positive) impact on the businesses cash flow which kept the business owner happy too.

To summarise, it’s great to have goals but it is just as important for whoever sets them to have a back up plan just in case things don’t go according to plan, this is especially important for us consultants as it is our job to take your business to the next level.

If you have suffered from demotivated staff or struggling to reach your goals then please contact me.

There is no definitive time line for this Road to Success to be achieved by, it varies considerably on where the business is; I have had a business that had a 12 week goal to reach and if the business did not achieve it, it would close down; likewise I have worked with companies that have a 5 year plan and the “Road to Success” has evaluations every quarter and annual reviews but has weekly meetings to ensure everyone is on track.

The important thing about setting the ultimate goal for a business is that it gives the business purpose and direction and for this reason can be bigger than Ben Hur; breaking that ultimate goal into manageable pieces is what the “Road to Success” process is designed to do and will allow everyone within a company to actively work towards the ultimate goal in a manner that wont burn them out or drive them from the business.

This process is very much a collaborative process with suggestions coming from all parties concerned until a path is created that the business owner and their staff are comfortable with; this point is very important; if there is not a willingness from the business owner or the staff the whole process will grind to a halt so whatever strategy is put in place it absolutely needs to work for the company.

It is then my job to continue to keep everyone within the company focused and be available to help them get through any hurdles along the way.

If you think your business might require help in gaining some direction please feel free to contact me.