Tips and techniques for achieving success in business.

You Need More Time? Impossible!

We all have the same amount of time to use in a day and yet I always hear from people I talk to that “I don’t have enough time!” or “I wish I had more time!” We all have 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in every hour and 60 seconds in every minute. We all have 86,400 seconds per day to invest in making our lives and businesses more meaningful and productive.

Keep 'em Coming Back

Many businesses spend a lot of time and money trying to get new clients. It seems to be an ongoing process. So much time is spent generating leads, having conversations, submitting proposals, trying to close the sale. Unfortunately, I witness many businesses not spending as much time trying to get their existing clients to return. Once you have a customer why not spend some resources to get them to spend more with you?

Seal the Deal

You have generated the leads and set up appointments with qualified prospects. You have read all the sales training books and are ready to close some sales. You go on your appointments and follow the process you’ve learned. You build rapport, you ask the questions, you expose their pain, you offer the solution, you deal with the objections and you ask for the order. After all of that you still get “I want to think about it.” Or “I’m not sure this will work.” Or “I have to review this with my (boss, spouse, colleague etc). In the end you have difficulty sealing the deal.

Warm Up to Cold Calling

Most business people hate cold calling. Why is that? Primarily it is fear. Fear of rejection. Or maybe fear that you will be perceived as being aggressive or pushy on the phone. Or just that you are uncomfortable interrupting someone during their busy day. Whatever the issue is, I highly encourage you to get past these uncomfortable feelings.

The Bad Perception of Salespeople

In a recent workshop I facilitated I openly asked the business people in the room what they thought of salespeople. Now, mind you, most of the people in the room were business owners or employees all of which had a major role of growing their respective businesses. Here are some of the things I heard. “They lie.” “They’ll do anything to get the sale.” “All they care about is their own commission.” “They are irritating.” “I feel like I need to take a shower with antibiotic body wash after I deal with one” (actually, I made the last one up myself).

Do You Own a Business or a Job?

I’m sure you have heard these statistics before. Fifty percent of all businesses fail within two years, 80 percent fail within five years, and most businesses never come close to the original projections for revenue and profit.

Dealing With Employees During Hard Times

Managing your business during hard times is difficult. But managing people, the culture, the emotions, the behavior, can be doubly difficult when the business isn’t doing that well. Especially if you had to let some of the staff go. How do you keep the team upbeat and motivated when all there seems to be is bad news? How do you get the best out of your people during such times? There is so much uncertainty that employees seem to be constantly looking over their shoulder. Here are some ideas that may help you.

Staying Focused

How many of us have vowed to get back in shape? We want to start working out on a regular basis and lose that extra few pounds. So we join a gym or start an in home exercise program. We are gangbusters for the first couple of weeks but there is that one morning when we wake up and say, “maybe I’ll skip today, I just don’t feel like I have it this morning.” Then you try to get back into your exercise routine but you start exercising only three days a week instead of four. Then it goes to two days a week and then you get to the point you haven’t exercised in over a month.

How to Take Risks

As many of the people I have met know I am an avid golfer. Playing golf in this part of the country is primarily a summer sport unless you’re willing to layer up and confront the cold, which I am not. So what do I do in the winter months? This is where many people that I know are not aware of another passion I have. That is playing pool. I have played pool since my teenage years (some would say an ill spent youth) and take it very seriously. I have played every game imaginable on a pool table and constantly seek to increase my skills at the sport.

Making Mistakes

Who hasn’t made a mistake? We all have at some point. We would all like to think that we are perfect but we all know that is impossible. Yet we all try our hardest not to make mistakes. Some of us even get very anxious about it to the point it paralyzes us from doing things. We get fearful of making a mistake. It might make us look bad and maybe even embarrass us. These thoughts, of course, come from deep beliefs that were probably ingrained in us since we were young children.

How to DELEGATE

As a business owner are you exhausted at the end of the work day? Are you tired of doing everything yourself? Are your team members unwilling to make decisions and are coming to you for even the smallest of issues? The truth is that most business owners, who are skilled at just about every task in their company, struggle with the one thing that can make a big difference . .