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Category: Marketing

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Entrepreneurship Management Marketing Personal Development

Strategy and Strategic Thinking

When starting or expanding a business, having a strategy is important. A strategy is simply an action plan. It may be as simple as how will I get my first paying customer or how will I / we penetrate a new market with an existing or new product or service.

To develop a strategy – you need to continually get better at strategic thinking. This simply means how does your community, region, state and the country perceive your product or service. What’s in the news – real or fake – what are people believing and talking about? Understand what is going on around you. Then decide if you want to join in the flow or you want to “go against the grain”. Strategic thinking is what you will build your strategy or action plan around.

Learn for many sources. Ian Bremmer is a great source to learn about global issues, Tom Friedmann has his finger on the pulse of world and the United States politically and culturally, Mark Sanborn helps you become a better leader, NPR delivers great news updates and Ari Weinzweig is the best in the world at helping you develop a vision for your future. And, of course choose your own industry information sources. All this will help you to join in the flow with your startup or business expansion, or to decide to stand out from the competition by going against the tide.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

You May Not Be As Influential As You Think You Are – 4 Steps to Increase Your Self-Awareness

Click here to watch You May Not Be As Influential As You Think You Are – 4 Steps to Increase Your Self-Awareness

Have you ever given thought as to how your communication may be sabotaging your influence without you even knowing it?

Most leaders haven’t given thought to this question, much less taken the steps to increase their awareness of how their listeners hear and see them rather than what they believe to be true.  That is why self-awareness is the first step to greater influence Monday to Monday®.

To enhance your influence, you need to evaluate your communication based on facts, not feelings. You need to get to the heart of what is really going on by experiencing your communication through the eyes and ears of your listeners and readers.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development

The Value of Reading Body Language to Gain Influence in Negotiations

“The value of reading body language is like possessing the keys of influence to unlock someone’s mind, by gaining unguarded access to their hidden thoughts.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

www.TheMasterNegotiator.com

You can gain the value of influence in negotiations by reading body language accurately.

Momma told me not to run. Don’t move too quickly! You might miss something right in front of you. No, that’s not an oxymoron. Such were the wise words then and now related to the value of reading body language to gain insight and influence in negotiations.

Take the following insight I gained from my mother on just that topic.

I recall a time when I was 17; I’d saved my money to buy an advertised car I saw at a dealership. My mother and I went to the dealership only to find out that the car had just been sold. The salesperson said ‘not to worry’, as he showed us another car; it cost slightly more than the original car that was advertised.

My mother attempted to get a lower price for the car, but the salesperson only budged a little and wouldn’t go any lower after that. He said that was his best price. After sparring in several negotiation sessions after that, my mother got up to leave; I was dejected, dispirited, and disappointed at not getting a car, and it showed on my face. The salesperson looked at my face and said to my mother, “You don’t want to disappoint your son, do you?” To which my mother replied, “You’d be the one disappointing him. He came here on good faith to buy the car you advertised. Now, you’re telling us the car was just sold (defiant look of disbelief). How does that sound to you? Would you want someone to do that to your son or daughter?” The salesperson replied, with a fallen-face, “You can have the car at the same price as the one advertised.”

Is was at that moment that I observed the effect that body language could have on a negotiation, along with how to utilize a negotiation strategy based on the body language being discussed. With one-fell-swoop, my mother turned the body language strategy the salesperson attempted to use on us (i.e. my sadness/disappointment) against him and into one of reflection. She did so by invoking fairness when she asked the salesperson if he’d like that dejected feeling I was displaying thrust upon one of his kids. She went deeper into his emotional psyche when she implied, with added emphasis via her body language, the disbelief she possessed that the advertised car had just been sold. Note that she didn’t confront him by saying so, she let her body language speak for her.

From the time two people shake hands at the start of a negotiation, they’re negotiating. Actually, they started negotiating before they reached the formal negotiation via any communications they’ve had. That occurs even if it was in the form of one person gathering information about the other and developing strategies based on what was gleaned.

If you wish to gain influence in your negotiations, learn to read body language more accurately. You see and sense the appropriate times to employ negotiation strategies, based on the body language signals you see. Once you add reading body language to your negotiation rapport, you’ll become a more dynamic negotiator … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 

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Marketing Personal Development Technology

Are You Missing the Third Kind of Search Marketing?

Most marketing teams know about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC). You have teams devoted to getting searchers to your site from Google and other search engines. But what happens after they get there? Do you focus just as strongly at getting them to convert? Do you focus on the third kind of search marketing–site search?

Site search–that box in the upper corner of your website–finds pages on your own site. It’s a critical way to convert those searchers who find your site into customers. Here’s why–the folks who search on your site are your most qualified visitors. Think about it. If you land on a website and don’t find what you are looking for, you probably bounce back to Google and search again. But what if you really want to buy from that company? What if you really think that company has what you are looking for? You stick around and perform a site search.

That’s why reports show that site searchers have conversion rates anywhere between 43% and 600% more than other site visitors. So, the question becomes, “What would they find with your site search?” Would they find their answer? If you’ve been ignoring site search, probably not.

If you’re spending precious resources on attracting searchers to your site because you know your customers use search, why would you ignore site search once they get to your site? But most companies do.

Get ahead of your competition by focusing on the third kind of search marketing, site search. Instead of just attracting searchers to your site, you will turn searchers into customers.

 

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Management Marketing Skills

Business Builder – A Tool to Help You Acquire More Customers

The business builder is a chance to find out a simple strategy or technique to acquire more customers, get customers to spend with you more often or get them to spend more money when they shop.

This is about creating opportunity from what otherwise would be wastage. We’ve all had opportunities where we’ve met with customers, we’ve introduced what we’d like them to buy from us and it’s been too rich for them at that period of time–too big a decision. They were interested, but couldn’t say yes at that moment in time. Typically in those scenarios, we leave with our tails between our legs and we put it away for another day to revisit in the future. You’ve all heard about how effective it can be to upsell, to add to people’s purchases, to add stuff on top, to increase the average transaction value. But what I’m talking about here is the power of a down sell, the opportunity to acquire a customer when otherwise they would have said “no”.

Let me give you an example of an incredibly effective down sell that happened with a client of mine around 12 months ago. The client in question runs a relatively new start up accountancy practice looking to acquire new customers. The key service she was looking to introduce was a high-level accountancy, non-exec financial director position, a fair sum of money, a fair size investment. She’d meet lots of people who were interested in the proposition, they would show a level of interest, maybe ask for some details to be sent or written down, and then she’d typically get a response of “I’m going to need some time to think about it.” This happens in all of our businesses.

What’s the simple thing that could’ve been introduced as a product or service to get them on board as a customer right now so we could build their value over a period of time? What she chose to introduce was some fabulous online accounting software. In fact, it’s the same accounting software that we now use ourselves, and she’d introduced it to these clients for a low monthly fee for an initial start-up, and they took this product on board because it was a no-brainer.

Introducing your down sell is what I call your “Columbo Moment”. Columbo was famous for saying “Oh, just one more thing.” That was his chance to get his real golden piece of information.

You’re going to introduce your down sell almost as you’re heading out the door, as if it’s a no-brainer, so that you get more customers from your activity that you can then revisit to grow into the size and scale of customer that you would like. But a customer at a low value is far better than no customer at all.

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Management Marketing Skills

Magic Words: Increase Your Average Transaction Value

If you sell a number of anything, then there are magic words to increase the number of items, objects, or hours upwards. You’ll typically get people stuck in indecision between two options based on size, and we want them to pick the top one, the bigger number, as this is the one that rewards us most.

Let’s imagine it was numbers of people in a training course. You were speaking to the training department and they were unsure whether to send three or four people. They need help making their mind up, and they’re almost about to say we need time to think about it. Ever heard that before? Knowing you’ve heard that before we want you to try and bring them to a decision, and we want them to choose four.

The magic word that I’m going to share with you is the magic word, ‘enough’. It might sound simple; it’s a tiny little word with only a few characters in it, but if you say to people at the very right time ‘Would the four places be enough for you?’ Provided you’re reasonable, people will take the higher option, because the brain asks itself the direct question that you’ve asked it: “Is four enough? Yeah four’s enough so let’s move forward with four”.

So what about if you sold on quantity and maybe you were selling print? You typically sold 500 letterheads, but you’d like to sell 1000, and they couldn’t choose between the two. Imagine what a difference it could make if you said, ‘Would 1000 be enough for you?’ Imagine you were selling consultancy services and you were selling days of your time over a month and they weren’t sure to have you for one day a month or two days a month. ‘Would two days a month be enough for you?

The beauty of ‘enough’ is it’s difficult to go backwards from, provided you’re reasonable. So try this today, tomorrow, or the day after. The next time you’re speaking to somebody, ask how many they’re looking for, and using the higher number, ask them ‘is it enough for you?’ You might be amazed at the response.

I do hope that’s been enough for you, and until next time, keep moving forward, keep picking up pace and let your momentum carry you as far as your ambition guides you.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing News and Politics Personal Development Women In Business

How to Read Body Language to Negotiate Effectively

“The better you read body language, the better you’ll be at understanding someone’s mind.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert.

 

“How To Read Body Language To Negotiate More Effectively”

When you negotiate do you know how to read body language? When you read body language, do you know what to observe?

The following are some examples of body language signs you can observe to negotiate more effectively.

  1. Forehead Wrinkles – When someone displays a wrinkled forehead (unnatural wrinkles) it’s a sign of stress. Thus, the absence of wrinkles is a sign of calm and easygoingness.
  2. Eyes (wide opened versus closed and narrow) – Wide-eyes indicate someone’s attentiveness, interest, and open-mindedness. A narrowing of the eyes signals a higher degree of focus on the subject, which is usually accompanied with a furled brow/forehead.
  3. Smile – A genuine smile is denoted by turned up corners of the lips.
  4. Hand movements – Hand movements give insight into the mental thoughts you’re experiencing at the moment the hand gestures are made. Thus, open hand gestures are usually displayed when someone is not fearful. When hand gestures become closed (i.e. kept close to the body, rubbing each other, rubbing other parts of the body), that’s more of a mental display of being guarded, anxious, and/or cautious. When you see such actions in others, take note of what might have brought about a change from open to close. In situations in which you seek to impress others, keep hand gestures more in an open mode and don’t make gestures that might be perceived as manic, indecisive, and/or not in rhythm with the words you speak. Doing so will detract subliminally from your likeability and persuasiveness.
  5. Feet – When the feet of two people engaged in a conversation are facing one another, the individuals are mentally engaged in their conversation. When one person turns a foot away, that’s usually the point at which that individual has mentally begun to disengage in the conversation and soon they’ll exit it in that direction.
  6. Touching – The degree you touch someone and where you touch them conveys a sense of familiarity. Thus, you should be mindful of what someone might perceive as too much familiarity per you touching them too much. To gain insight as to whether you’re touching too much, take note to what degree the person you’re touching flinches and/or slightly pulls away/back when you touch them. That’s a nonverbal sign that you may have overstepped a boundary. Pay very close attention to such feedback. It will be the gauge from which you’ll gain insight per how well you’re being received.
  7. Voice Inflection – Since 80% and more of your message is conveyed nonverbally, take note of how your words can possess different meanings based on the way you announce them. Thus, note the inflection and tonality you convey with them. Ending a sentence on a high note can turn a statement into a question, which could make you appear less authoritative than what you intended.

 All of the above body language and nonverbal gestures impact the perception of the words you use to represent your thoughts. Thus, the meaning of your words can be altered by the body language signals that accompany them. As such, you should be very mindful of the signals you send to make your body language work for you and not against you … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

Categories
Management Marketing Skills Technology

The Social Devolution of Business

Since the mainstream takeover of the social networks in 2008, every small business owner has been nudged, persuaded and cajoled into adopting a presence on all major platforms, and for many the results are perhaps not what you may expect.

We all hear and read of the massive success achieved from the small independent business that blew up from their inspiring Instagram account or the personality-led business that became an overnight success with their viral YouTube channel. These meteoric results create a desire that you must heavily invest in your presence on social media to have any success in a modern business landscape. The reality is, many small businesses are performing mass self-sabotage from their current efforts and their involvement in social media marketing is causing their business to go backwards.

Before I get into the dangers I want to make a very clear and simple point. I am a HUGE supporter of how digital marketing and social networking can have a MASSIVE positive impact. It is just the practices that I see adopted by the masses are quite frankly embarrassing.

The primary problem is that the “dark-arts” and “ninja tactics” orchestrated by some of the world’s most creative marketers have delivered results beyond expectation and suggested to the masses that these tools provide the answer, missing ingredients or short cut to success. So much so that they now have forgotten many of the core principles of building a business.

In all of my experience to date, the one thing that has been the single driver of every single successful venture, project or campaign has been the following of my personal mantra for success.

“Do the basics, to a high standard, consistently.” 

What is happening in thousands of businesses right now is that the core principles of sales are being forgotten in favor of rolling the dice with the next magic campaign, social post or viral video attempt looking for short-term success.

In the real world, there are no short cuts and developing a sustainable customer base is created over time and built on trust.

Business developers know that questions lead to conversations, conversations create relationships, relationships create opportunities and opportunities result in sales.

Slowing the process down often speeds the outcome up. I often draw comparison here as looking for a partner for life as opposed to sex on the first date.

Back to the self-sabotaging behaviours that are costing businesses a fortune.

1. Pissing in the Wind

I do not understand why thousands of independent business owners rush to build their social platforms, invite a handful of friends to like or follow their page and then never plan anything else to build their audience. Worse than this they spend fortunes on creating graphics and then invest bucket loads of time into collating and creating content to post regularly and nobody is listening! They are just pouring productive time and effort down the drain and could have gained more success by opening their front door and shouting their offers into the street!

2. SPAM

We are all in the “people” business and to gain true influence it is important that both visibility and credibility are established before any opportunity to do business ever exists. Yet daily the prior trend of spamming people’s email inbox has been replaced with sending 500 word messages with links to videos or squeeze pages via Facebook messenger, direct messages or as an auto-response to a new follower. Please, please pretty please can people put a stop to this blindly unsophisticated intrusion of privacy and if you have something that may benefit me – please get to know me a little first.

3. IDGAF

I am pretty certain that most people do not want to read some of the mindless drivel that people are sharing on their social streams. Ask yourself before you hit the “post” button, will this represent me and my brand well? Can people engage with it? Does it serve others? Everybody now has the ability to be a full media production unit – great that you can be the journalist, please do not forget that you need to hold the role of editor too! In this age of information we are awash with content to consume – if you want yours to stand out then please make it good enough.

4. Egocentric Results

Yes, you are the most important person in your life – I get it! Unless you are Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump or Selena Gomez then the likelihood of people being that concerned about what is happening in your world is slim to none. Make your contact about your audience, understand them and provide them with things that serve their life, make their day easier, and things they love to talk about.

5. Aimless Distraction

Whether it is the thumb on your iPhone, the index finger on your mouse wheel or two fingers on the trackpad, the action of mindlessly scrolling through the sea of nonsense on your social walls is causing a tragedy in lost productivity. For many a homebased worker, high pay off activity such as prospecting, serving customers and planning marketing campaigns has been replaced with the vacant distraction of the soap opera of social media.

This article is delivered with the purpose of holding up a huge STOP sign and helping you to re-evaluate your activity and ask yourself if it is really working and genuinely driving results or is it simply draining from your limited resource and standing in your way of building a solid business foundation.

Perhaps the shift could move back to understanding the biggest value in these tools is how they can increase productivity, reduce geographic constraints and accelerate the building of new relationships.

Build your audience, serve your audience, engage with your audience and be prepared to bring the conversation “offline” and work the old fashioned way if you would like to see some true returns.

And if you can’t wrap your head around it to make it pay for you, stop it and get back to delivering the basics, to a high standard consistently.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Does Changing Your Speech Style Sacrifice Your Identity?

This morning a client made a comment that echoed the misguided frustrations of many people I encounter, when concerns about authenticity come up. After we had identified a vocal habit that was sabotaging her ability to project authority, and worked on skills to improve it, she said:

“Well, but I guess our bad habits are a part of our identity, right?”

The answer is a very simple yes… and no.

Your bad habits are a part of your current identity, but certainly don’t have to limit or otherwise dictate the identity you can grow into if you choose to do so.

Let’s look at it another way. Your current knowledge, experience, and education make up a part of who you are today, right? But if your boss told you that you weren’t eligible for a promotion that you really wanted because you lacked Six Sigma certification, it wouldn’t occur to you to say, “Well, but that certification isn’t part of my identity. To learn those skills and employ them when needed to succeed at the job I have or want would be inauthentic.” It sounds ridiculous in that context. You’d be scanning the internet for the next time a course was available to get that line item on your resume, wouldn’t you?

Similarly, while nobody wants to have to change their eating habits, if your doctor told you that your blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol levels were off the charts and caused a serious risk to your health, you wouldn’t argue that you can’t change your eating habits because they were part of your identity. Sure, some food preferences are foods we grew up on and are linked to our family culture. But if you want your identity to be someone who plays an active role in your children’s and grandchildren’s lives, instead of someone who might not be around to play any role, active or inactive, you’ll find ways to make small lifestyle changes that don’t require you to live on salad.

In case a “Yeah, but…” is creeping its way to your lips, let me reassure you: there is no difference between getting certified in Six-Sigma, adopting healthier eating habits, and learning to speak with greater breath support or tonality, regarding the impact the change will have on your degree of choice, authenticity or identity.

Sure, you are partially a product of your environment, upbringing, etc., but identity is equally a very personal choice.

If you know that your current speech style sounds about as energized as Ben Stein’s portrayal of the economics teacher in the movie Ferris Buller’s Day Off, putting people to sleep as you run the meeting or give your presentation, you have two choices: You can shrug it off and claim, “Well, that’s just the way I talk,” essentially blaming it on your identity, and resign yourself to the fact that nobody will ever want to hear you speak. Or, you can decide that you want people to pay attention to you, to be inspired by you, and choose to take control of the situation. If you want to do the latter, to have that positive, inspiring effect on people, you’ll choose to learn how to modify your delivery in a way that appropriately captures their interest, because you want that to be part of your identity.

Let me clarify: I’m not suggesting you take acting lessons to play the part of some character who is different from you. And a learning curve is to be expected, so any new skill or knowledge may feel awkward and clunky until you get used to using it, and it becomes second nature.

That’s the real goal: that the new speech habits (or eating habits, or management techniques) ultimately become second nature, and a new part of your chosen identity that makes you feel confident in yourself and your abilities, and gets the results you want.

************

Do you have trouble finding the balance between speaking in a way that feels authentic, and in a way that gets the results you want?  Or do you have other questions or feedback about this issue? If so, contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to schedule a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally!

 

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

The Easy Way to Gain More Referrals

Since people of the world started trading with each other, the number one activity and action that would drive future success was gaining new business from the word of mouth of others.

Despite all the modern marketing methods and new lead generation strategies it is still the creation of referrals from your network that brings you the biggest, quickest and most authentic return on your marketing investment.

I know that you would LOVE to have an endless stream of referred clients and would do anything to make this happen. Yet for the majority of business owners and sales professionals there is just one HUGE reason why they fail to gain the referrals they deserve.

They simply do not ask their existing contacts to open the doors into their contacts.

What could be stopping you from asking?

For me it comes down to one of the following 3 things:

    1. You’re too LAZY, bone idle and cannot be bothered…
    2. You don’t know WHEN to ask …
    3. You don’t know HOW to ask…

My guess is that option 1 does not apply to you – because if it did then you would not be reading this article. Therefore – if you knew the answer to the other 2 questions then you could probably ask more often.

Timing is everything and for many, the fear of finding the exact right moment to introduce an idea is the primary reason that stops the idea being mentioned. In my work I am renowned for helping others to know exactly what to say, when to say it and how to make it count. Let’s see if today we can help you understand how this relates perfectly to referrals.

When is the right time to ask?

The short answer to this is at the point that your prospect or client is happy. The difficulty in this answer is that there are literally dozens of examples where this could be the case. At the point of sale, the delivery, at a success milestone or even at the point of resolving a complaint, to name but a few. This abundance of opportunity creates a chaos of confusion and typically results in an inability to ask the key question of the other person.

The better answer is to set the small antennae on the side of your head (AKA ears) to listen out for one simple phrase. This phrase is a coherent clue to the fact that the other person is not only happy with what you have done for them, but also in that precise moment feels indebted to your actions to a point they may even feel like they owe you. There is no better time to ask for something than when the other person feels indebted.

The words you must listen for are the words…

Thank you.

When you receive this sign of appreciation please do not pat yourself on the back and think “I’ve done a wonderful job”. Understand instead that this is your perfect moment to ask for more.

Now that you understand the precise timing for the request we should probably explore a structured and powerful way of asking…

How to ask for referrals

The subconscious brain is a powerful thing. Particularly in the sales process. Why? Because it works a little bit like a computer.  There is only “Yes” or “No”. There is no “Maybe”. Having the ability to trigger instant decision from your client or prospect delivers you a fair advantage in communication and can often allow you to get your own way more often.

The subconscious cannot stop itself from working. It’s like our human autopilot. When you drive to a familiar destination, you don’t always remember the journey between getting in the car and out of it again. That was the subconscious brain taking over.

To lead you into this precise set of word choices you must learn the power of a simple set of “Magic Words” that can be used to get people to agree to an action before they even know what the action is.

So they have said “Thank you”. And this provides your cue to ask your first question.

“You couldn’t do me a small favour could you?”

This simple question gains an almost certain agreeable response and gives you instant permission to continue with the rest of your request.

You can then go on to say:

“You wouldn’t happen to know…”

(This throws down a challenge, which makes people want to prove you wrong)

“…just one person…”

(Just one because it’s reasonable and seems a simple ask they’re more likely to think of someone by name)

“…someone who just like you…”

(Has the person narrowing down the options and gives you more of the right prospects plus pays a subtle compliment)

“…would benefit from…”

And then emphasize the specific benefit or positive experience they have just thanked you for.

Then…

Shut up!

When they have thought of somebody you need to know where to go next. You will probably see in their body language and movement when they have thought of somebody.

At this point you say:

“Don’t worry. I’m not looking for their details right now, but who was it that you’re thinking of?

This automatically takes the pressure off and the “but” helps them to only recall the final part of the sentence.

Find out then when they’re next likely to see the person they are thinking of.

“You couldn’t do me a further favor could you? (I mean they said “Yes” the first time)  Next time you see Steve could you share with him a little bit about how it was doing business with me and see if he’s perhaps open minded to taking a phone call from me to see if I can help him in the same way I helped you?”

Your prospect will almost certainly agree.

“Would it be ok if I give you a call next week and find out how the chat went with Steve?”

They will most likely, again, be agreeable.

You then call him when you said you would and ask:

“I’m guessing you didn’t get around to speaking to Steve?”

As a person of their word they will either proudly say how they have spoken to Steve, or will be embarrassed and tell you how they will go on to complete the introduction.

The magic in this process is that if you slow the process down you can often speed the outcome up.

It provides you with qualified future customers who already have third party experience of your offerings and permission to make contact. I would take that over a name and a number any day of the week.