The RockStar Life

7 Ways to Ask for Referrals Over and Over (Without Being Obnoxious)

DFish — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:12:43 GMT

Receiving referrals from previous clients is a great way to build your business. It involves almost no costs, it often leads to an easier sale (because they trust the person who referred them), and it is a great testimony to the quality of service you provided your first customer. Because they are so valuable, many salespeople spend a lot of time worrying about how to get more. Most, however, spend little time actually engaged in activity to get more referrals because they think they can only ask for referrals once, or even worse, that they should just wait until the client offers to give referrals.

Below are 7 places you can ask for referrals throughout your relationship with the customer. Some of these are direct questions, some of these are ideas of how you can plant seeds to let the customer know that referrals are important. All of them can be used to increase the amount of referral business you do.

Mention referrals right away. When you first meet a potential customer, let them know that referrals are a big part of your business. It builds credibility in you and your company, and it plants the seed for asking later.

“I’ve built a lot of my business on word-of-mouth referrals, which says a lot about the quality of our service, and it allows us to spend less time looking for new clients and more time taking care of our customers.”

Drop a third person story. Third person stories are powerful sales tools, and they can reinforce that you get referrals from your clients.

“Customer Jones, who was recommended to me by Customer Smith, really liked the new features that we put on the Widget 5000.”

Ask for referrals when the customer signs on the dotted line. Their confidence is highest when they are actually committing to your offer. This is usually the only time the average sales rep asks for referrals, and it is an important step.
Ask again when the customer gets the product or receives the service. This is the second point at which the customer is really excited about their purchase, and it makes sense to ask for referrals when people are excited. It’s also a great time to tell them that you will be following up in the next week/months to check in and make sure everything is going well.
Call the customer one week after they get the product. However, I suggest not asking for a referral here. Just check in with the client and see how everything is going. Sometimes, not asking for referrals is just as powerful. Especially when you are positioning yourself as the go-to person for the client (which you should be doing anyway).

“I just wanted to call and make sure that everything is as good as you expected it to be.

Check in with them one month later. This should be another quick check in, to make sure everything is going well, and it’s a great place to talk about what a good referral would be, or to ask for a specific referral-type that you think they could help you with.

“I’m glad everything is going well. I wanted to ask a quick favor. I know that you are really enjoying the services we provide, and I was wondering who else in your industry you know that I should talk to about it.”

Create an on-going contact program with your clients. This could be monthly, quarterly, every six months, or every year, depending on your industry and the amount of client contact you normally have. This is, of course, a great opportunity to ask if they have met any new contacts that could benefit from what you sell, or if someone in their sphere of influence has new needs.

As you can see, there are many chances to continue to ask for referrals from your clients. This also gives you a great opportunity to provide awesome customer service and also get repeat business. The more you can view your relationship with your customer as an on-going partnership, the more likely you are to receive customer referrals.

Tags: referrals, recommedations, customer+referrals, prospecting, sales+referrals

Living in Your Own Skull

DFish — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:43:52 GMT

We all see the world through our own eyes. We each have our own perception of the world and how it works. But not only do we see everything through a separate pair of eyes, we also think about the world with our brain. What we think and focus and concentrate on, then, is unique to us because we have our own unique memories and experiences.

We forget that not everyone shares the same background information, and not everyone thinks about the same things as we do, to the same degree that we do. This leads to communication problems because it causes us to make assumptions about what other people think and know. Put simply, not everyone thinks about what you think about. And when they do think about the same things, they don’t think about it in the same way (did you get that?).

This has important ramifications when you are trying to sell and market. From products and services, to brand identities and corporate cultures, this can be a big challenge for sales people and small business owners, because they forget that not everyone thinks about their product or service as much as they do. I know that I often catch myself glossing over services that my company offers because I think it’s really basic, when in fact, sometimes people don’t really even understand what a coach is. They aren’t thinking about business coaching as much as I am, and they haven’t been there with each of my clients and training groups like I have; so they don’t have the same background information that I do. This leads to me missing opportunities to sell the solutions that I offer

An easy way to solve this challenge for salespeople and business owners then is to slow down and simplify. The basic information that seems boring and unimportant is usually the stumbling block for someone trying to understand what you provide. Ask yourself what assumptions you make when you explain what you do – then cut those assumptions out of the equation. The more you can remember that nobody else lives in your skull, the more you can communicate clearly and effectively.

Tags: perception, communication+skills, selling+skills

Innovate Like Edison - Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott

DFish — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:30:06 GMT

I read my first book about Thomas Alva Edison when I was in the third grade. I remember being just as fascinated by his middle name as by the long list of his discoveries. Even though I still think he has a very cool middle name, I’ve moved past that to appreciate the unique impact he still has on our daily lives almost a century after his inventive peak.

Innovate like Edison takes a unique approach to looking at the inventor’s life. It’s not so much concerned with the list of inventions that he was responsible for, or even his individual genius, but rather how he applied his genius and how it manifested in his daily work and in his team’s work. Not only does it examine the specific habits and outlooks that enabled Edison to create paradigm-shifting inventions, but it also outlines ways to incorporate those outlooks into our personal and professional lives.

Michael and Sarah organize the book around five main ideas that allowed Edison to be one of the most prolific innovators in American history:

Solution-Oriented Mindset
Kaleidoscopic Thinking
Full-Spectrum Engagement
Master-mind Collaboration
Super-value Creation

Ideas, Implications, and Questions

Edison, like me, was a big proponent of napping. I think this is becoming increasingly relevant as people take less and less time for the physical rest they need (hence the explosion of caffeinated products on the market). Take naps, get enough sleep, and your productivity will increase. (pg 120)
The idea of a solution-oriented mindset is huge. The idea that there is a solution out there, that we just have to find it, is both very motivating, and actually leads to higher performance. Not to paint too broad a stroke, but I think that this is one of the most positive American cultural traits – the assumption that there a solution to a challenge exists and our job is to find it
For business people who are bringing new products to the market, Edison’s insistence on market research and making sure that the market wants and needs the products first is a great guidepost. That Edison didn’t innovate just for innovations sake, but rather to improve people’s lives is key. I think that’s a great test for any new product or service that will be brought to market. Does this product or service make things better?
I often talk to my coaching clients about interviewing for intangible skills, and then training the right people on the specific skill sets necessary for the job. This is reflected in the systems that Edison used, and I think the three step process that Michael and Sarah outline is really effective (pg 148):

Go beyond standard job interviews and recreate the real working environment
Include the existing team in the process
Emphasize hard and soft skills

Edison’s far-reaching problem solving also encourages another question: How can I use what I know in one area of my life to answer questions I have in another part of my life?

Should you read this book?

Besides being a fun story to read through, this is a great book for any entrepreneur, inventor, or leader to use as a source of inspiration. If you are in a position where you are striving to create something new – a product, a company, or even a cultural or productive shift in a company – it’s worth using this book to generate new possibilities.

Tags: Innovate+Like+Edison, Thomas+Edison, innovation, solution+oriented+mindset, invention, inventing

52 New Networking Partners

DFish — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:27:29 GMT

How would you like to have 52 more professionals in your network? How would you like to have strong, meaningful business relationships with 52 more people than you do right now? Pretty appealing, huh?

Here’s how you do it. Find a new person to have coffee with every week for the next year. It only has to be for 30 or 45 minutes. Simply call or email and say you’d like to find out more about their business, and how you can help each other. They can be associates from work, people from an association or club your involved with, or even your next-door neighbor

The purpose isn’t to sell anything, you don’t need to have a pre-set agenda. It’s simply to find out more about another person and their business. In fact, you don’t even have to talk about your business much. Do this once a week for the next year and you will have 52 new connections and you will see amazing things happen.

Tags: networking, networking+business, sales+networking

The Power of Napping

DFish — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:22:56 GMT

“I’m convinced that if all of the world’s leaders took a nap every afternoon, the world would be a better place.” – me

I was watching my 2 year old nephew, Declan, and it got me thinking, about the naps that most small children take. If Declan, like most children, doesn’t get his nap, he gets cranky, irritable, and not fun to be around. They even have nap time in pre-school where all the kids take a nap at the same time. What I find interesting, though, is that for some reason, we don’t think this applies to adults. We think that we don’t have time for naps; that somehow as we get older, our body doesn’t need the rest.

This idea seems completely contrary to the natural rhythm of the world. If you watch animals in the wild or in your home, they rest a lot. My cats, for example, seem to have made an Olympic sport out of sleeping in sunbeams. We can stay in the human realm as well, though. Think about the Spanish and Latin American custom of the siesta – a culturally enforced community-wide rest period during the business day. There is already a lot of napping going around.

Current American culture is toying with the idea of napping, but it hasn’t really grasped it wholeheartedly. I’m going to encourage you to start taking naps this week, even if you think it’s silly. You don’t even have to lie down. Simply find a comfortable chair, put you head back, and close your eyes for 15 minutes. That’s all, only 15 minutes (it’s just a quick power nap – which is a great oxymoron if you think about it). You can even set the alarm clock on your cell phone so you don’t sleep too long.

The first few times you try this you probably won’t fall asleep (although if you try this right after lunch, you’ll find it a lot easier). Even though you might think that you don’t have 15 minutes to spare, you’ll be amazed at how you make up that time through increased productivity and concentration, more energy, and less stress. You’ll even find that you are less cranky and irritable. There is power in resting – I encourage you to find it.

Tags: nap, napping, power+napping

The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

DFish — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:33:45 GMT

The Black Swan is a rabbit hole. (How’s that for a sentence?) You can keep going farther and farther down and somehow you never get to the bottom, or as it seems, the bottom looks the same as the top. As an intellectual exercise, this book is a roller-coaster ride. What gets scary/interesting/mind-blowing, though, is when you put it into the context of the real world. Like any good book that has a philosophical bent, it makes you question how you go about your everyday life.

Nassim’s first book, Fooled by Randomness, revolved around how uncertainty and chance work in the world. In the Black Swan, he explores the idea of what he calls the black swan event – an event that has three characteristics: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (but not prospective) predictability (pg. xviii). These black swans (or statistical outliers) dictate or influence the outcome in the many of the arenas in today’s world. This has a direct effect on such diverse things as our inability to predict the future and the rise of a small number of mega-successful recording artists and book authors.

Ideas, Implications, Questions

Nassim makes a distinction between two different types of uncertainty or randomness, which he nicknames Extremistan and Mediocristan. He defines Mediocristan as an area where “when your sample is large, no single instance will significantly change the aggregate or the total.” (pg 32) This is like finding the average height of a group of people – there won’t be one person that is 50 feet tall and throws the whole thing out of wack. In Extremistan, “inequalities are such that one single observation can disproportionately impact the aggregate or total.” (pg 33). I.e., you can study incomes in the U.S. and have someone like Bill Gates show up in the sample and skew the numbers. The idea of having two different types of uncertainty environments is really powerful, especially as most social statistics (that we tend to study and have opinions about) are in the world of Extremistan.
Nassim talks about the power (and pitfalls of) scalability. Scalability is huge right now in marketing, especially Internet marketing. Nassim shows how scalability can be a great thing, if you happen to make it big. However, any scalable environment will have a lot more small fish than big fish. This reminds me to approach scalable ventures, such as selling a book or audio-program, with a bit of caution. I could be the next J.K. Rowlings, or I could sell just 4 books (and it’s more statistically probable to be the later).
I think sales and sales results are ruled by the laws of the black swan. It’s a bigger discussion than this bullet point, but it does have some interesting ramifications. For example, this idea has let me see the sales process as non-linear, which is the exact opposite of what most traditional sales approaches predict. By accepting the non-linear nature of sales, it allows me to relax, even if the results are not exactly as expected in the short run. More about this in a future post.
There is a problem with prediction: We actually can’t be predictive in many areas that we think we can. I think we turn a blind eye to the ineffectiveness of predictability in these venues. Nassim has no problem exposing this inadequacy and by being aware of this predictive shortfalls, we can be better prepared for all the possible outcomes.

Should your read this book?

Absolutely. Before you do so, however, make sure you have some time, and preferably people to talk it over with (a support group that meets in a bar is good). At it’s heart, this is a philosophy book, so it’s dense and it will make you think and ponder a lot. It will also give you a refreshingly new perspective on how our modern society works, and some practical ways to cope with the black swans that do exist in our world.

Tags: Nassim+Taleb, Nassim+Nicholas+Taleb, The+Black+Swan, uncertainty, Extremistan

Selling More Through Product Conviction

DFish — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:38:43 GMT

A common question in the mind of salespeople is how to “close” more sales. Obviously, the more sales you have, the more successful you are, and so when you go through the sales literature – the books and tapes and seminars - it offers a slew of methods to “close” better. From the simple to the complex, the subtle to the direct, the passive to the aggressive, there are almost as many closing “techniques” as there are salespeople.

There are a few basic closing tools, however, that fall outside of the category of technique and are much more fundamental. One of the most important and powerful closing tools available is very simple and very powerful: product conviction. You must like the product or service you are selling. In fact, to be really successful, you must straight out love it.

Why is believing in what you provide critical to sales success? Sales is really a transfer of enthusiasm from salesperson to customer. All of the different communication techniques that salespeople use are really designed for one main purpose - to convey the enthusiasm for the product or service to the customer. It’s very challenging to transfer something that is not there; therefore the stronger that product conviction is, the more effective the salesperson can be at communicating it to the customer.

Enthusiasm, by the way, does not mean that you have to be super-excited and bouncing off the walls, that is a common misconception. What it does mean is that you have a rock-solid core of belief about what you provide to your customers and its benefits to them. You can’t fake this belief; it is easy to tell when someone is trying to sell you something they don’t believe in themselves. It doesn’t mean that you are blind to reality; you don’t have to think that your product or service is perfect and that it can do anything and everything. What you have to believe is that you have the best option available for your customers to solve the challenges that are facing them. You have to believe that you have the best solution.

There are a lot of ways to increase your product conviction. Really learning your products and services inside and out is the first step. Become an expert in your product, and then go beyond to become an expert in your industry. Know where your products and services fit in. Use your product or service as much as possible yourself. And talk to people that are your biggest fans – your customers. They are the ones that give you their money in exchange for your products and services – so they obviously have value for it. They are the ones that use your products and services a lot and the more you talk to your current customer base, the better. Their stories will be an effective way of building your confidence, and also a great way to convey that confidence to others.

When you have rock-solid belief about the products and services you sell, you don’t have to be as concerned with how good you are at “closing” techniques. Yes, you still have to know how to communicate effectively, but once you have transferred your enthusiasm, it’s not a matter of if they would like to buy, but rather when and how much. Letting them invest in what you offer becomes a natural extension of them understanding how great it really is. And that is a powerful close.

Tags: closing+sales, closing+techniques, sales+skills, product+conviction

Idea Sheet

DFish — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:43:31 GMT

I have found one of the biggest challenges that I face when working on a project is focus. Whether it’s writing a blog article or cleaning the house, it is so easy to get distracted. Our minds, which keep thinking of stuff not associated with what we’re doing, don’t help. We are constantly having thoughts pop into our head: “I have to remember to call Bob.” or “I need to buy more paper towels next time I go to the store.” or “What was the name of the guy who sang that song?”. We have two choices. We can ignore the thought that pops in our head and focus back in on our current project, or we can stop what we’re doing, act on the new thought, and then get back to the project. This costs us time and it’s hard to get back in the rhythm of what we were doing.

An easy solution to this is to create an Idea Sheet. It is very simple to implement and using one creates huge benefits. Actually making an idea sheet is easy. Take a piece of paper (bigger is better), and put it on your desk or table, wherever you are working the most. Write “Idea Sheet” somewhere on the piece of paper, and you now have an Idea Sheet. To use the Idea Sheet, simply write out any ideas or thoughts that aren’t topical to what you are currently working on but that you want to remember or act on in the future. It’s that simple.

Although very simple, it is also very powerful. The idea sheet has three main benefits:

First, your mind only has so much conscious thinking ability, like the RAM in a computer. When you try to keep things stored in your conscious mind, it tends to prevent you from using that brain-power for something else (this was well explained in David Allen’s Getting Things Done). By writing down the thoughts in your head, you are allowing them to clear out of your conscious thinking, and this gives you the ability to focus better.

The second benefit of the Idea Sheet is that you don’t lose the good ideas that you have and the important things that you want to remember. For example, if you are at work finishing up a quarterly fiscal report, and you suddenly remember that you need to pick up the drycleaning on the way home, you can put it on your Idea Sheet and you won’t forget it. Also, when you are working on a project, it’s common to have great ideas about other projects associated with the one in front of you at the moment. It’s easy to jot those thoughts down so that you can work at them another time.

This brings us to the third benefit, which is that the Idea Sheet prevents you from getting distracted from the project you are working on. If you acted on every thought that popped in your head, it would be hard to get any one project done, as you bopped from doing one thing to another. Even if you just take care of something for a few minutes, it can easily take 5, 10, or even 15 minutes until you are refocused on what you are doing in the first place. The Idea Sheet gives you a way to take just a few seconds, jot down a note, and then get right back to the matter at hand.

The Idea Sheet is especially handy because it keeps all of these random thoughts in the same place. You can then process these notes when you have the time. I suggest you do it regularly on a daily or weekly basis. This prevents good ideas from slipping through the cracks. If you have more than one Idea Sheet, you can use this time to consolidate them into one, and choose when you are going to act on each idea.

In this way, you can stay focused and capture all of your ideas – think of what that will do for your productivity!

Tags: idea+sheet, time+management, David+Allen, productivity, focus, time+leadership

Business Networking - Asking Good Questions

DFish — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:41:50 GMT

One of the secrets to business networking and building relationships is to become an expert at asking questions. This is especially true when you are first finding out about someone’s business. You want to become a detective and really dig into what’s going on in their professional life – because then you can find areas of opportunity where you can help them.

Once you’ve established a basic foundation with someone, you can take the time to find out the specifics about their business. There are a variety of specific questions you can ask someone to find out more about how their business operates and how you can help them:

§ Develop their business

§ Solve professional problems

§ Create partnerships

§ Refer people to them

What is your biggest opportunity?

How can your business grow right now?
What obstacle is holding you back?
What is your biggest challenge?
What is your biggest headache?
What is causing you a lot of problems right now?

What are you the best at?

What is your primary service?
Why do people like to work with you?
What are you famous/known for?
What would your customers say you are best at?
What do you love doing?

How can I help?

Who are your best customers?
How can I best explain what you do?
What do you look for in a partner?
Where can outside support help you?
How have people in my position served you before?

Remember, the more you can help other people, the more help you’ll get in return.

Tags: business+networking, small+business+networking, business+marketing, guerilla+marketing

The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss

DFish — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:32:18 GMT

I’ve read the 4–Hour Work Week twice now, in detail. The first time I read it I was so blown away that I had to put it down, digest it, and then come back for a second go. I think I was checking to see if I would still think it was great – which I did. Timothy is basically starting with the premise that the way we work, the 9–5, forty year grind, is rarely in alignment with what we want to get out of life. His goal is to show how to live like the “New Rich”, a group of individuals he feels shares common goals and lifestyle choices – such as working less hours, but being much more productive with that work time, and living a full life in the present instead of delaying it until after retirement.

Don’t get me wrong, this book doesn’t have all the keys to living the idyllic life. I have to say that I think there are parts of the 4–Hour Work Week that are completely brilliant and that other parts are horribly and painfully wrong. I found that there were three types of ideas in the book: 1. Ideas that fired me up, 2. Ideas that initially put me off because they challenged me to get out of my comfort zone (which I think is good), and 3. Ideas that I think just don’t work. This doesn’t detract from the book -actually it’s one of the most important things about it. You learn from the books you disagree with just as much, if not more, than the ones you agree with.

Ideas, Implications, and Questions:

There were a lot of things I took away from Timothy’s book, so I’m not going to write out everything (this review would be way too long), but really, Timothy is examining what is important in our day to day operations to get us to our larger goals. By even focusing on the idea of the value of my daily activities, by making me hold a mirror up to myself, I was able to make some powerful changes.
“Challenging the status quo vs. being stupid … different is better when it is more effective or more fun.” (pg 30). Too often we try to be different just to be different. I think this is a great formula for measuring when you should buck the trends, and when you should go with the flow.
The idea of having many mini-retirements in life instead of waiting until the end of your career makes a lot of sense to me.
His focus on the 6 month goal deadline (or dreamline) as opposed to the really long term goals makes sense to me. While I think there is some value in having a general idea of where you want your life to go in the far future, it’s hard to conceptualize. Also, many people don’t make long-term goals because they know intuitively that their goals will change over time. Thus, they get stuck with no goals and no direction. The six month timeline is long enough to focus your energy but not so far away that it loses its vitality. I’ve made some 6 month goals that I find are stretching me but also keeping me motivated and active
I think he misstates the Pareto principle a little for effect, but the points he makes about how we spend our time are invaluable. I often recommend clients read his thoughts about how to focus on the best customers because I think he explains effective time use well.
“There should never be more than two mission critical objectives to complete each day” (pg 79). Get those two things done each day (and do them right away) and your business will thrive.
He assumes that when you start your own web business – your muse – that it will be successful and you’ll make lots of money. He pays lip service to the idea of experimentation, but he makes it seem like it’s a simple and quick process that will lead naturally to something that will help you make a lot of money. It’s nice that it happened for him, I’ve just found the real world to be a little more messy and uncertain – and that’s OK.
His ideas about reducing how much information you take in reinforce my own ideas about how to deal with the information glut in our culture right now.
There’s a lot more that I got from it, but instead of me telling you – go read the book yourself.

Should you read this book?

Absolutely yes. There is something here for everyone to learn. Different people will definitely be attracted to different parts of the book; but I feel that Timothy elucidates some of the main obstacles that people run into when they are trying to break out of the “rat race” (and how to avoid them). I know that this is a great reference book for me to have in my library, and I suggest you put it in yours as well.

Tags: four+hour+work+week, timothy+ferriss, 4+hour, four+hour, 4+hour+work+week

4 Reasons Customers Give Referrals

DFish — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:59:46 GMT

Imagine this scenario. You pick up the phone to call a prospective customer. You dial the number and wait as the phone rings. When they pick up on the other end, you identify yourself and the company you are with. Instead of a string of objections you hear, “I’ve been waiting for you to call. When can we meet?”.

That’s a common occurrence when you are calling a prospect who has been referred to you by a previous client. When you are calling referrals the many layers of resistance and stalling have already been stripped away because you have a connection with the prospect – you know someone they trust.

One way to increase the number of referrals you get is to understand why your clients want to give you referrals. If you keep these reasons in mind, you’ll find that you can get more referrals and build your business faster and easier.

1. People like helping other people

We all have a natural instinct to help others. It makes us feel good and connects us with the people around us. Think about the time and money people donate to non-profit charities – this demonstrates that people like to give help to others. You might not be a non-profit organization, but you can let your clients know that giving referrals is a way they can help you out. Don’t be afraid to share the fact that referrals are a big help to you as you go about your business life.

2. The client likes the salesperson

If someone has purchased a product or service from you, there’s a pretty good chance they like you as an individual. It’s very rare that we buy from people we don’t like. These positive feelings further support the above idea that people enjoy helping others; we get positive feelings out of helping people in general, but especially out of people that we like. Remember that the personal relationship you have with your clients is a big part of why they will give you referrals.

3. The customer likes the products

Most salespeople mistakenly think that this is the main reason that people give referrals. It is important, but as we’ve already seen, there are other powerful reasons as well. People are most excited about the products and services they invested in right when they choose to buy and right when they receive what they purchased. Use these times of natural excitement to leverage the good feelings the customer has about you – these are the best times to ask for referrals. Also, make sure the customer is happy with their purchase before you ask for referrals; if there is a problem, find it and solve it first.

4. The customer is asked for referrals

This is the most important reason people give referrals – you ask for them. Too many salespeople just assume that the customer will volunteer referrals because they are so enamored with the product and the representative. Not true! Don’t leave referrals “on the table” because you didn’t ask for them. Often it doesn’t matter how you ask for referrals, just as long as you do ask for them. Referrals are on the top of your mind, but they aren’t on the top of the customer’s list of things to think about. Be sure to take the time to ask for referrals.

By keeping these four points in mind, you’ll find that you increase the number of referrals you get from your past customers. Learn to look at things from your customer’s point of view, and you’ll find the referral process simpler. The “hows” are always easier when you understand the “whys”.

Tags: referrals, recommendations, customer+referrals, networking, prospecting

What Do You Mean by That?

DFish — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:21:07 GMT

Words are funny things. In a society that is fanatically obsessed with developing new technologies for communicating (cell phones, blogging, etc.), we spend little time actually considering the words we use. And more importantly, the meanings they have. Think about the following words:

Wealth
Freedom
Happy
Clean

There are two interesting things to realize about the meanings you just came up with. One is that they are your meanings, a unique amalgamation of every experience you had with that word. You continually change your meanings, develop them, abandon them. And secondly, because each meaning is uniquely yours, your meaning for every word is different from everyone else's experience of that word.

This is important to remember when you are trying to communicate with others. For example, I am positive my mom and I had different understandings of the word "clean" when I was growing up. In our business and personal relationships these different meanings can cause miscues and even conflict. And how about our internal conversations with ourselves? The meanings we attach to words can prove to be a help or a hindrance. Is your definition of the word "successful" so constrictive, for example, that you can never achieve it. That might motivate you - or it might make you miserable.

So what words are causing confusion in your life and in your relationships? Are your meanings for words like "commitment", "integrity", or "punctuality" not quite clicking with someone else's? Is a definition you hold not serving your long-term goals? And are you willing to do something about it today?

Tracking your Phone Calls

DFish — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:46:42 GMT

The phone is a common source of anxiety for salespeople. Whether making cold calls, warm calls, or just following up with existing clients, being on the phone can be stressful. From setting up sales appointments to making sales over the phone, it is also one of the most important part of the sales process. This also means that the phone is where most rejection happens, and therefore it’s easy to want to avoid it. Most salespeople are looking for ways to improve, not only their skill on the phone, but their level of enthusiasm for making calls.

A simple tool to both improve results on the phone and make it less stressful is to track the results of your phone calls. Most salespeople have an anecdotal relationship to making phone calls. That means that they think in terms of stories. They have a narrative about how their phone time went the last time they made calls, and about their skill on the phone in general. What happens is that small pieces of their experience (possibly a really mean customer or a bad result) expand in their story, way out of proportion to the actual phone activity, you can deflate the power of the negative stories and also find where you can improve your business results.

All it takes to track phone calls is a piece of paper in front of you when you make phone calls. Put the date and time you are making phone calls on the top. Put a row of hashmarks on the first line – one for each call you make. Underneath the first row of marks, put a second hashmark if you talk to the person you were calling (voice mail or messages don’t count). And you can put a third row of hashmarks that indicate success – an appointment or a sale, for example.

There are a lot of ways that you can modify this basic system, and you can capture a lot of different types of information. Remember, though, the simpler it is, the more likely you’ll use it. And by tracking this information, you’ll have a snapshot of how your calls went – not how you feel they went. If you keep these call tallies you can even build up a solid body of data about how your calls go over time. This lets you find out the most efficient times to call, or you can see the effects of a different phone approach. You’ll know how many calls you made exactly, and how many people were there (no more saying “no one was available".

There is an old sales adage that says “performance measured is performance improved”. Tracking your telephone activity will allow you to take away the fear and replace it with evidence – which will make your calls that much easier and that much more effective.

Tags: sales+calls, sales+results, sales+telephone

D. Fish Koan

DFish — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:28:47 GMT

Was the Buddha wise because the Buddha quoted the Buddha?

Think about it.

Tags: modern+koan

Relationship Selling - Jim Cathcart

DFish — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:00:40 GMT

It’s pretty obvious that there are a lot of sales books on the market. If there is any doubt in your mind, just look at the bookshelf full of them at your local Barnes and Noble. I tend to read less and less of them, because once you’ve read twenty, you realize they all say the same thing. I picked up Jim’s book because I was recommended to it by a client.

Most of my work is focused on improving the person beyond the sales process, but it’s still important to look at the process itself. Written in 1990, this book would have been in the forefront of the evolution of sales from a transactional process to a relationship process (it’s called Relationship Selling, but it’s hard to say that this was the seminal book). Even though relationship selling is a buzzword that has been and gone, the concept remains incredibly valuable

Implications, Ideas, and Questions

A powerful concept Jim talks about is how both customers and salespeople have different personalities. This is pretty much a given, but he points out that often salespeople expect the customer to adjust to their personality, and not the other way around. This is backwards – a sales rep should adjust to their customer.
He talks about using questions and he created some categories for questions that were very effective (pg 61–62):

Clarifying – to bring your information together to see if you’re on target
Verifying – to check your conclusions, data, or facts or to confirm an existing conclusion
Expanding – to seek new information on a subject you are already discussing
Directing – changing the direction of the conversation or bringing up a new subject

I teach my clients about how to find an individual’s “hot button”, or what’s most important to them in their decision making process. Jim calls this hot button the dominant buying motive (pg 67) and I think that’s a fantastic name.

Should you Read this Book

If you are looking to refine or define your sales process, yes. A lot of the material seems obvious in most current sales cultures, but when this book first came out, it was probably a little more on the edge. The marketing and prospecting material is a little basic and not as helpful, but it’s a great foundation if you are trying to build more relationships through your sales process.

A great quote from his concluding thoughts (pg 119):

“We judge ourselves by our intentions, but others judge us by our actions.”

Tags: relationship+selling, sales+process

You Need to Read More

DFish — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:21:34 GMT

You need to read more. No, I haven’t been stalking you and writing notes about when you read, what you read, and how many pages you read. It’s just a general statement that I think pretty much applies across the board. People don’t read enough – and there are some significant advantages if you increase your consumption of printed material. Reading is the fastest and most direct way of expanding your abilities by accumulating knowledge.

Not just any printed material, though. In some ways, we are reading more than ever. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of magazines, new websites pop up every second, and the latest blockbuster novel easily sells into the millions of copies. Barnes and Noble stores dot the landscape and Amazon.com lists millions of titles. So maybe I’m not talking about the quantity of your reading; I’m talking about the quality of what you read.

I’m not trying to be elitist, but reading fluff doesn’t help. There’s nothing wrong with reading for entertainment, but if that’s all you do, you’re in trouble. It’s like TV – there are some fascinating shows on PBS, but if all you are watching is reality shows on MTV, it doesn’t matter. You have to be aware of what you are letting into your “sphere of attention”. If it’s just the latest celebrity gossip, there might be some room for improvement.

There is so much information out there; it is getting harder to sift through everything to get to the good stuff. The signal to noise ratio, the amount of “static” to the signal, is incredibly high. Because there is a glut of information – most of it vacuous – you have to be much more deliberate if you want to get to the valuable material. It’s like listening to an old AM radio station; sometimes you really have to tweak the dial to get the signal.

So what do I think you should read? Things that make you think. I’m not talking about reading a newspaper to find out the latest soundbite about politics and thinking you are informed. There are a lot of great books, magazines, and websites out there that offer you the opportunity to work your brain a bit. If you like reading fiction, for example, there’s nothing wrong with reading the latest Crichton book, just balance it with some of the classics that will challenge you (as a side note, those books they made you read in high school are a lot better when no one is making you read them).

Why do I think you should read more? You have to exercise your brain. Reading is a great way to gather information so that you can have more options when you respond. “Respond to what?” you might ask. Life, the universe, everything. You don’t have to agree with everything you read; in fact the more you read, the more you’ll be able to decide whether or not you do agree with the author. Being educated isn’t based on a diploma, it’s based on continually learning. Reading is a way to continually re-examine the way you are navigating through life.

Instead of coming up with ideas all on your own, you can get input from wise people. Some of those wise people are individuals in your life, some of them are at the local library.

Award-Winning Chili from Mom's Kitchen

DFish — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:50:44 GMT

A lot of people were asking about my mom’s award-winning chili. She was generous enough to share the recipe so you can make it in your kitchen. Thanks, Mom!

Black Bean Chili from Mary Fisher's Kitchen

Ingredients

3 pounds ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup green pepper
2 or 3 cans black beans - rinsed and drained
2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilies
1 can tomato sauce
1 large can crushed tomato

Spices

5 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cumin
2 teaspoons dried minced onion
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ginger

Mix spices together and add to browned meat, onion, green pepper, beans and tomato products. Simmer for hours or until really hungry.

ENJOY!

Things I’ve Learned

DFish — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:58:44 GMT

Things I’ve learned this year:

Always buy pets in pairs – they keep each other company.
I deserve to get as good as I give.
I am a powerful creator of my life.
Your health really is important. When you are sick or hurt it’s hard to concentrate on anything else.
Everything happens for a reason, and if I can’t see the reason, it’s because I’m not sophisticated enough to see it.
Naps are an integral part of personal happiness.
There are very few things worth getting worked up about.
Homemade candlelight dinners are more romantic than expensive dinners out.
Life is like Midwestern weather – always changing.
I’d rather be a participant than an observer, whether that’s on stage, in a conversation, or in life.
Good friends are irreplaceable – treat them like gold.
Petting a cat until it purrs is great therapy.
So is rubbing a dog's belly.
I can’t fix other people’s problems, but I can work on mine.
Hugs are fantastic.
Being happy is cool.
There is nothing weak or vulnerable about crying.
Too many people try too hard to be someone they’re not.
Good grammar will never go out of style – text messaging and ee cummings be damned!
This moment, right now, is my life. I need to do the best that I can with it and enjoy it for what it is.
The older I get, the smarter my parents get.
It takes less time to put something away than it does to step over it again and again.

4 Questions for Better Communication

DFish — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:51:47 GMT

The following questions are taken from Crucial Conversations, a book I’ve reviewed on this blog. In Chapter 3 “Start With Heart”, the authors suggest answering these questions when the conversation topics get crucial:

What do I really want for myself?

What do I really want for others?

What do I really want for the relationship?

How would I behave if I really wanted these results?

4 Ways to Get More Referrals

DFish — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:01:08 GMT

In today’s business world, getting new customers and clients is on everyone’s mind. Talk to the average small business person, for example, and prospecting for new customers is probably their top concern. There are a lot of ways to create new business, and one of the most effective remains receiving referrals from your existing client base.

Customer referrals are so powerful because trust is one of the most important aspects of deciding who to do business with. When a potential client is referred to you by a friend or colleague, that trust is already there. Here are 4 quick tips to improve the number of referrals that you receive:

Preface that you will ask for referrals

It’s helpful to let clients know that you are going to ask for referrals before you actually do so. It can be direct: “Later I’ll ask you if you know of anyone else who I can help out”; or it can be indirect: “One of the most powerful ways we’ve built our business is through referrals from happy customers”. It works best to put these statements at the beginning of your sales presentation.

Simply Ask

Most sales representatives lose out on potential referral business simply because they don’t ask. They get caught in the mental trap – they think that their customers will overwhelmingly happy and volunteer referrals on their own. You’ll always receive more referrals when you ask for them. You’ll often hear from your customers, “Now that you mention it, I do know someone…”. Don’t lose that business just because you were reticent to ask.

Ask Again

Don’t ask for referrals once, ask over and over. You don’t want to become an obnoxious bore by asking the same question over and over, but you can vary your approach and get a great response. For example, ask when you first close the sale, and then ask again when they take delivery of the product or service. Then ask again in a month when you make a follow-up call to make sure they are still happy.

Ask Who, instead of Do

Instead of asking “Do you know anyone who…?” ask “Who do you know who…?”. By asking an open ended question, you are much more likely to get a positive response because you are encouraging the customer’s brain to find an answer to the question.

Tags: referrals, recommendations, prospecting