Finding Your Next Great Employee
07 Nov 2014 Leave a Comment
in Services, Uncategorized Tags: employees, staff
“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.” – Doug Conant, CEO of Campbell’s Soup
Great companies need outstanding employees in order to grow. The problem is finding and retaining that caliber employee. Most small businesses don’t fully understand the process of hiring top-notch employees.
“Effective organizational leadership is simple: 1. Have a vision of where you want to get to. 2. Clearly and persuasively communicate that vision to employees. 3. Be consistent in your behaviors as you strive to achieve that vision.” – from A Roadmap for Employee Engagement by Andy Parsley
Many make the mistake of hiring an employee without clearly thinking the process all the way through. They neglect to think about what they actually want from the new hire. Hiring in this way sets the new employee up for failure before they ever walk in for their first day of work. This turns out to be a waste of time and resources for everyone.
To help avoid this, you need to go through the interview process. The first and most critical step is to write an advertisement that attracts great people in the first place — one that encourages the kind of candidates who want to work for your company.
Thinking this through will also make you consider the short-term and long-term responsibilities and tasks required for this position.
The challenge of finding great job candidates starts with the ad itself. Mediocre job ads attract mediocre workers. To improve your placement ad, you should incorporate the following in the description.
- Make your company sound innovative and interesting. This will help attract more dynamic applicants who want to work for a fascinating company.
- Let the applicant know with whom they will most likely be working. Candidates will look forward to learning from someone who is the expert in their field.
- If the location of your company is a plus for applicants, make sure to mention it. The more benefits you can mention in the ad, the more attractive your ad becomes.
- Make sure to mention that the position offers growth for the right candidate. Everyone wants to know that they can grow with the company. This also implies that they will be able to make more money as they grow.
- Include the total compensation and benefits in the offer. Paid holidays, flexible hours, and other perks can be very attractive.
- Mention that the position requires hard work and dedication. This can help filter out the lazy applicants before time is wasted with the interview.
- The ad should stand out from all the others. If you want creative, superstar applicants, the ad should be creative, too.
Finding and retaining top talent is one of the most important tasks for any growing company. A strong recruitment ad is just the start but one that can’t be overlooked. Include these tips in your next ad, and hopefully you will attract the type of superstar employee you desire.
6 Steps to a Referral Strategy
13 Aug 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: referrals
Referrals are one of the best ways for growing a small business, yet most companies have no formal process in place to make sure this great source for quality leads continues.
Waiting for leads to fall in your lap is not a systematic referral-generation strategy! Some people feel guilty about asking for referrals because they falsely believe they are simply asking for favors. The truth is, if you believe that the products and services you provide deliver real value to people and will benefit those who use them, you’re the one who’s doing the favor in asking for referrals… not the other way around. Achieving that mentality is the first step toward building a solid foundation for your lead-generating referral system.
Here are six steps to turn up your referral-generation machine.
- Define your most ideal referral. Your chances of finding referrals increases if you know who you’re looking for. The tighter you can articulate the demographic characteristics of your most ideal referral, the better. What are their business needs? What problems do they have that you can solve?
- Team up with matching referral partners. After defining your ideal referral, identify who would be ideal referral partners for you. Who’s already doing business and in contact with people that fit your most ideal referral profile? Find ways to provide value for them and make it easy for them to refer you.
- Build a database. Create a contact list of potential referral sources and contacts. This can help you focus your referral-generating campaigns on people who can help you the most. Great communication starts with a focused list of ideal referral partners.
- Create an incentive. Most people want to help others. You can encourage them to do what they already want to do by giving them an incentive to refer you. Incentives can be something tangible like gift cards, discounts, commissions, and other perks. A simple thank you card and other positive reinforcement goes a long way to building the goodwill generated from helping others.
- Have a referral script. It’s comforting to know what you’re going to say ahead of time in asking for a referral. Your script should be adapted for face-to-face networking, email communication, phone conversations, and mailed letters. Practice until it becomes natural and not forced.
- Set goals. An effective system includes a way to measure it. Setting referral goals and tracking results weekly is a great way to build and sustain continual momentum. Tracking your referrals also allows you to see how many referrals it takes to get one new client.
No system works without action. Start your referral-generating system by implementing and tracking the results. Ask your current network for referrals. This will give you something to build on. As you practice and gain confidence, refine your tactics and branch out to get referrals from other sources. It’s easier than you think.
Your VIP Clients
02 Aug 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: customers
Even if you’ve already heard these statistics before or intuitively know them to be true based on your own experience, it may still be a bit startling to see them here again:
- It can cost up to 7 times more to acquire one new customer than to keep a current one.
- The likelihood of a prospect buying from you is between 5 and 20%. The likelihood of an existing customer buying from you again is between 60 and 70%.
Based on these numbers, it’s clear that nurturing and cultivating your existing client relationships can go a long way toward improving the health of your company’s bottom line. However, many companies devote most of their marketing budgets to new customer acquisition, rather than trying to keep existing customers coming back. New leads and customers are important, but your existing customers should also hold a very high place on your list of marketing priorities.
How can you keep customers coming back?
Sending simple thank you cards to show your appreciation is one idea. A monthly printed newsletter that informs, educates, and entertains is another. Picking up the phone and having a real conversation is perhaps the least expensive, yet most powerful way to retain existing clients.
There are many ways to show your appreciation, but timing is essential if you want to maximize the effect. The first 30 to 90 days after your new customer comes on board is the most important time to begin showing them your appreciation. If you haven’t done so already, create a blueprint for your remarkable customer experience plan that must be followed throughout your organization. Place one or two key people in charge of overseeing this plan to make sure it is implemented and followed through with every new customer.
This plan should have tasks and due dates attached for each activity. For example, your plan might call for a thank you card to be sent the day after a new customer comes on board. Gifts, lunches, coffee, phone calls, newsletters, and personal visits can all be part of the plan, as well. Make your customers feel like VIPs. Listen to their needs and respond quickly. What’s critical here is that you have a plan, that you have someone who is accountable for implementing the plan, and that you include due dates for each task in the plan.
Creating a remarkable customer experience can be as simple or as complex as you would like it to be. The more remarkable and unique you can make it, the more memorable the experience will be. The key is to have a plan and to always remember that it is much less expensive and profitable to keep an existing customer happy than it is to acquire a brand new customer.
What is Your Sales Process?
23 Jul 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: selling
You may have the greatest service or product in the world, but if you can’t sell it, how much good will that do?
The good news is that small improvements in your selling can have exponential effects on your bottom line. Focusing on the factors that can increase your selling efficiency or selling effectiveness will have a far greater impact than changing prices or reducing overhead.
The path to selling efficiency and effectiveness starts with proper planning. Begin by focusing on the factors you have the most control over:
- The quality of your prospects
- The quality of your sales pitch
- The cost of the sales process itself
- How you use your time
- Your sales process
The quality of your prospects depends on how well you qualify them. This is one of the most important factors in improving your selling effectiveness. You have complete control over this part of your process. Begin by asking if the prospect truly is a good fit for what you sell.
When determining the quality of your sales pitch, remember that your prospects are too busy to pay attention to generic sales speak. Find a way to quickly show them how your product or service has delivered measurable results for people just like them. You need to prove that you know your stuff and that you can help them solve their problems.
The cost of the sales process is another area where you have control. Tracking expenses in both hard costs and time spent provides benchmarks that will help you determine just how much it costs to acquire a customer. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
Effective time management skills separate the top sales superstars from everyone else. Finding the right customer acquisition techniques and tools is essential… and well within your control. Nothing is more valuable than your time. Learn to use it wisely.
Do you have a sales process in place, or do you handle sales in a piecemeal and patchwork manner? A strong, systematic sales process can take much of the mystery, magic, and waste out of selling. Track it, measure it, and tweak it until you have a dynamic process that can be replicated by every new salesperson.
There is one last item that binds all of these together, without which none of them will work. That is productive activity. Nothing can replace the actual work it takes to generate a sale. Phone calls, direct mail, networking events, emails, and in-person sales calls are all productive sales activities. They all work when they’re part of an overall strategy and plan that leads a prospect to a sale.
Sometimes it only takes small improvements to get big results. Take a closer look at how you’re currently selling. Shorten your sales cycle by improving your process, and watch your sales grow.
Is Your Business Sellable?
02 Jul 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: business worth selling?
One of the goals of every business owner should be to build a company that is worth selling. Whether it is actually put on the market or not is another matter.
A business that is worth selling is growing, vibrant, and healthy. That’s why it’s in the best interest of everyone involved in the company to continually work toward building a sellable business.
Many metrics are used to measure the worth of a sellable business. One of the key metrics is the ability of the business to generate recurring revenue.
There are several ways to achieve a consistent, recurring revenue stream. Not all will work for every type of business, product, or service. Here are a few ideas to consider, depending on the types of services and products you provide.
Long-Term Sales Contracts
One method of building recurring revenue is to offer contracts that tie a client to a long-term engagement. A customer could be enticed to sign a contract if they are offered preferred pricing and services. An example of this can be seen with most cell phone contracts. The multi-year contracts are offered as a way to get a free or discounted cell phone in exchange for signing a two or three year contract. The buyer gets the cell phone quicker, and the cell phone provider locks in a guaranteed, predictable revenue stream.
Service and Maintenance Contracts
Some businesses can offer service contracts for after-sale support. For example, an IT company will charge for installing and setting up a network in a business but could also charge a yearly support fee to keep the network up and running free of viruses. Maintenance contracts can be a great source of additional revenue throughout the year. In many automotive dealerships, the service bays bring in much higher profits than the car sales departments.
Product and Service Training Fees
If your product or service involves a learning curve, customers would get more value from their purchase if you also offer training and certification after the sale. Product training becomes a true win-win, as the customer gets better use of their purchase, while you get additional revenue from an existing client. Many software companies offer training for their products to help their buyers understand and use the software to its potential.
When your business can generate sales from multiple revenue streams that support each other, the risk to a potential buyer is reduced dramatically. The business becomes a much more attractive candidate.
Predictable, recurring, multiple income streams make a business seem less risky to a potential buyer. So the sooner you start building recurring revenue streams in your business, the better your position will be if and when the time comes to sell.
Why Sales Should Be Your #1 Priority
28 Jun 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Sales
One of the keys to a successful business — and a fulfilled life in general — is to not only have a plan but to also have forward momentum pushing you in the direction you want to go. Many times, the problem in moving forward isn’t the goal but the struggle to generate the drive needed to accomplish what needs to get done.
When the momentum is lacking, it’s easy to become disheartened and slack off or abandon the goal altogether in favor of looking for a new magic bullet. In almost all cases, the missing ingredient is very close. Typically, that missing key involves taking massive action. Not just any action, but action that is focused on the fundamental steps needed to drive the company forward. More often than not, that action revolves around sales. After all, if there are no sales, there is no business.
“Nothing happens until a sale is made.”
Every business and industry has its own subtleties and nuances when it comes to sales, but there are core activities that apply to all.
What are these core activities?
Generating sales momentum is not as complicated or difficult as you might think, but you must have an effective plan for prospecting every single day. Begin by dedicating time on your calendar for prospecting and getting new clients. Nothing should interfere with this. Focusing on prospecting and sales is what creates forward momentum for the entire organization.
Sales should be the number one focus, whether you are a one-man show or a company with hundreds of employees. If sales activities aren’t the focus and the priority, they’ll be too easy to put off until tomorrow. You’ll always have fires to put out and other tasks to attend to. Making sales the number one priority for the whole organization creates the momentum to move the entire company forward.
If sales is not the number one priority in your company, try this approach. For the next 30 days, make sales your number one priority every day. Don’t stop selling even when you pick up new clients.
Create a dedicated time on your calendar every day for prospecting. Create and send direct mailers, make phone calls to reach out to prospects, attend a networking event, give a talk, send personalized emails, and visit top clients, asking for referrals. Seek momentum. It’s the wind for sailing the ship forward. Dedicated, laser-like focus on prospecting and selling activities creates that momentum.
If you perform these activities without fail for 30 days, you’ll be amazed at the positive energy you create. That activity and the results it brings will give you the boost and motivation to continue. Success and growth in business comes from focused sales momentum. Dedicate the next 30 days to making a permanent shift toward becoming a sales-focused company.
How to Be the Master in Your Field
25 Jun 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: meticulous practice, Picasso
Pablo Picasso created paintings the world has marveled at for decades. Looking with awe at these masterpiece creations, it would be perfectly logical to imagine that the distinctive brush strokes were made by someone with a natural gift — a gift not achievable by most.
Although Picasso’s talent is undeniable and his style unmistakable, that genius was actually developed in a surprising way that many don’t realize.
From the time Picasso was a young boy, he was formally trained by his father in oil paintings and figure drawings. And what method did his father use to train young Pablo? Jose Picasso was an artist who believed the best training for his son required formal and disciplined copying of the masters’ work. For many years, young Pablo Picasso fervently reproduced paintings, drawings, and plaster casts of the masters. He not only copied religiously but also experimented with a variety of styles, theories, and ideas, until he developed his own voice and distinctive style.
So what does this have to do with business?
The ideas of meticulous practice and of learning a skill by emulating the leaders in a field are not as common today as they were in the days when apprenticeships were more common. In a world that craves instant gratification, people often overlook the hard work required to develop any talent and simply assume it just comes naturally to those who are gifted.
The good news is that there is a short-cut. The bad news is that even the short-cut requires some sweat equity.
Not everyone can become a Pablo Picasso. Not entirely because of the natural talent gap (though that’s part of it), but also because of the not-wanting-to-put-in-the-
There’s incredible power available to you in muscle memory. Muscle memory is “consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition.” When any task is repeated over and over, a muscle memory is created which allows one to perform the task almost effortlessly.
Olympic and professional athletes, concert pianists, and all other performers in the top of their field are perfect examples of muscle memory in action. They have practiced and performed so often that their performances seem to be effortless. That is the power of muscle memory.
Muscle memory can also apply to business mastery. It requires finding the leader in the field, analyzing and dissecting what they have done, and then recreating and reproducing those skills, often while adding your own unique style and flair. Practice often until muscle memory takes over. If it worked for Pablo Picasso, it can work for you.
The Five Dollar Workday
11 Jun 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: employees, managment
What Ford did to the work week, was remarkable!
Henry Ford, the famous Ford Motor Company founder, was known for many things. Among them was his role in promoting the assembly line as a viable means for mass-producing automobiles, a process that made cars more affordable for middle-class Americans.
Ford had a global vision with consumerism as one of its centerpieces. He had an intense commitment to lowering costs through systemization and building a more process-driven company.
This focus made his next move (which is not as well known) quite a shock at the time.
The Five Dollar Workday
In January 1914, Henry Ford made a radical decision. He increased Ford Motor Company employee wages from $2.34/day to $5/day (equivalent to approximately $110 today) and reduced the workday from nine hours to eight.
While this was one of the most generous pay hikes of its time, Ford didn’t do this simply out of the goodness of his heart. At the time, the Detroit area was already becoming known for companies offering higher-than-average pay. In addition, the boredom of repetitious, assembly-line work led to higher employee turnover rates. One of the underlying reasons behind Ford’s move to increase wages was the desire to attract and retain top-notch employees by effectively creating golden handcuffs.
Ford used his PR machine and news journalist contacts to spread the word about the generous pay. Soon, there were thousands of applicants at every Ford factory, which allowed the company to hire only the best applicants. The fortunate hires stayed with Ford much longer than they otherwise might, since they couldn’t get similar pay elsewhere. In one bold move, Ford had managed to solve most of his company’s labor problems.
But higher employee retention was only one benefit of Ford’s plan. Within two short years of the pay raise, Ford’s profits increased by 200% to $60 million per year. Within five years, Ford Model T’s were rolling out at the rate of one every 24 seconds, much faster than the 12 days each had initially taken to produce. By the end of 1914, the 13,000 Ford Motor Company employees were producing 260,000 automobiles annually, while the rest of the automotive industry produced 280,000 combined.
At the time, much of corporate America did not view employees as an asset. Instead, they were seen as part of a company’s expense. With this single move, Ford was able to open the eyes of the corporate world. Ford had created a workforce that became a model for the eight-hour workday and HR departments of today. More importantly, he set the pace for the eventual rise of middle-class America. Ford employees could actually afford to buy one of the cars they produced.
With the $5-per-day pay hike, Ford was able to reduce employee turnover, increase the pool of high-quality applicants, reduce absenteeism drastically, and attract top-notch employees. The corresponding morale increase led to the highest productivity rates in history.
So what’s the moral of this story? What can we glean from it and apply to our own companies in the 21st century?
When companies shift their mindset from viewing employees as an expense item on the financials to an asset with vast potential, they can begin to see brighter possibilities for the whole company as well. Employees who truly believe they are appreciated and feel valuable to their company are much more likely to be highly productive and happy with what they are doing. Content employees are much less likely to actively seek opportunities elsewhere. Loyal, long-term employees lead to stability and customer satisfaction.
Henry Ford made a big splash with his five-dollar workday. The same kind of impact can be made today by implementing innovative ideas that show employees you appreciate what they do.
Studies and surveys have shown that higher pay is not the top motivator for employees to stay with their company. Feeling valued, being content in their role, and accomplishing larger goals are more important criteria. Find effective ways to instill those feelings in your employees, and you can make your own splash.
8 Skills Successful Entrepreneurs Have That Others Don’t
04 Jun 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: communication, skills, Start up business
There are skills you can learn from textbooks, skills you can learn in business school, and skills and lessons passed down from mentors and peers. Then there are the skills that can only be learned in the school of hard knocks and the real world. An entrepreneur who wants to be a true leader must understand which skills are the most important in order to lead a healthy and growing business. Here are eight of the most critical skills which differentiate successful entrepreneurs from others.
1: Patience and Persistence
The life of an entrepreneur includes facing many closed doors. Successful entrepreneurs have grit. They focus on the end goal and have the patience to see it through to completion despite the roadblocks.
2: Planning Skills & Time Management
Entrepreneurs must wear many hats and are often pulled in many different directions throughout the day. It’s critical, therefore, that plans and goals are flexible enough to handle unexpected surprises when they occur. Successful entrepreneurs set the GPS for their lives and businesses so they know where they are going every hour of every day.
3: Communication & Persuasion
Whether speaking with a prospect, a customer, an employee, or a stakeholder, it’s critical that the message and key concepts are presented clearly. When the point is made with focus and clarity, the chance for ambiguity falls by the wayside. Leaders know how to communicate and how to persuade.
4: Confidence & Sales Skills
Successful entrepreneurs are able to sell their products, services, ideas, and passion not only to the outside world of customers but also to their internal team of employees. That requires confidence and sharp sales skills. Successful entrepreneurs can sell anything.
5: Knowledge and Learning Skills
Successful entrepreneurs are passionate about continuous growth and improvement. When others think they know all there is to know, these leaders will push themselves to expand their horizon. They set aside an hour or more each day to read and learn about new, noteworthy industry advances they can apply to their business.
6: Realistic Optimists
No one can avoid bad news. Losing customers and having employees quit is part of life for any entrepreneur. The difference comes in how people view these challenges. The successful entrepreneur doesn’t hide bad news under the rug, but has learned instead to deal with it quickly and move on to the task at hand without being dragged down.
7: Resourcefulness and Managing Cash Flow
Resourcefulness is a great trait for any entrepreneur. The ability to think creatively and come up with out-of-the-box solutions is a must-have skill. This goes hand in hand with being able to manage the cash flow of the business. It’s a skill that shouldn’t be outsourced and one that the most successful entrepreneurs have learned very well.
8: Intense Focus
What separates the most successful entrepreneurs from others is their ability to focus intently on the goals and tasks at hand. In a world of short attention spans and constant noise, these leaders are able to put blinders on when needed, unplug from all the unnecessary distractions, and see the task all the way through. That is perhaps the biggest difference between successful and ultra-successful entrepreneurs.
Becoming a successful entrepreneur is not about what you are now, but what you do today and tomorrow. You now know eight critical skills to work on to be what you are meant to become. Start working on them today.
You Have to Be Easy
30 May 2013 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Apple computers, selling, Steve Jobs
Making it as easy as possible to do business with your company seems like a logical and simple concept, yet many businesses unwittingly create hurdle after hurdle for their customers to jump just for the privilege of doing business with them.
Customers are already overburdened with complexities, rules, and regulations. Companies that deliver with the least hassle win more business than others.
To be sure, there are some necessary steps and processes for each business transaction, but the task for every business should be to do away with as many of the unnecessary ones as possible.
Let’s take Apple computers and their packaging as just one example. An Apple product comes in a package that combines elegance, simplicity, and art. When you hold the typical Apple product package, you realize before even opening the box that this is a different kind of product. Everything has a place and reason. Much thought has gone into what is usually an afterthought with most companies.
Steve Jobs was known as an obsessive person. A big reason for his success was his obsession with removing complexity and simplifying. He knew that the company which removed the most confusion actually ended up gaining the most customers. Jobs wanted his products to be so simple and intuitive that they didn’t need an owner’s manual.
If you want to grow your business and for your clients to actually enjoy the buying process, you must obsessively work to continually remove as many obstacles as possible, while at the same time simplifying how customers buy from you.
Start by regularly asking yourself: “How can we make ordering from us even easier?”
It’s a process. You’ll know you’ve arrived when your customers actually have pleasant thoughts and smile when ordering instead of the typical angst most experience. Being the easiest to do business with will bring many long-term rewards.
