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Category: Personal Development

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Best Practices Investing Marketing Negotiations Sales

The Five Kinds of Differentiation

Sales professionals know to find and leverage differentiation.  The problem: far too few know that not all differentiation is equal.  Yep, differentiation is differentiated

Remember, differentiation only becomes value once a customer understands it and connects to a customer-desired outcome. It only turns into differentiated value — that moves a buying decision – when that value is offered by only one seller…when it’s different.

A key point that many sales and marketing professionals often miss is that non-differentiating information drowns out your unique aspects. If you squirt a little valued differentiation within a geyser of “same as everyone else” features and benefits, you’re asking your customer to play “Where’s Waldo” with your value.  What do you expect them to do with that…buy?

Perhaps most importantly, my clients learn that a single product advantage often drives value in multiple value “landing points” throughout an organization. For example, several departments (not just the one with a budget to buy) care that your product lasts longer, and for different reasons. Unfortunately, most sellers work to leverage only the most conventional and expected of these “landing points” in their selling strategies, and never discuss or leverage the other value points.

A quote from my upcoming book:

If you differentiate using the same properties as your competitors, you aren’t differentiating as much as you think. 

If you differentiate only in ways your competitors have countered before, you aren’t doing much better…

Companies – and sales professionals – fight commoditization with differentiation.  They often lose sight of the fact that some differentiation is more effective with a customer than others.

Five Layers of Differentiation: 

The graphic above represents different ways that organizations differentiate their value. I refer to them as layers. Let’s go through them from left to right.  As you read these, give yourself a good hard look in the mirror.  Do you recognize and use all of these layers?  Purposefully?

Table Stakes Differentiation

Confirming the basic function of your product or service often a part of selling; for example, in RFI/Q/P responses.  There are personas (Buying Influences) who need to verify that your offer “checks the boxes”.  Such requirements are only “differentiation” insofar as they prevent you from being excluded; hence the term “table stakes”.  They have little role in a final buying decision, because they don’t differentiate you in the final decision.

To keep from having all other buying personas “geysered” in decision-clouding sameness, partition your sales approach whenever you can.  Enter sales conversations and demonstrations with table-stakes personas separately if possible – including offering to take those specific questions offline.  Best practice:  get these out of the way early, so that you can report to other personas that your offer meets basic requirements.  “Yada yada” these differentiators as much as you can, then move quickly to decision-moving value.

“3 Sellers, 3 companies, Same Product”: False Differentiation

This kind of differentiation is like being a hipster: you’re different…just like everyone else.

I often hear customers (and insightful sales leaders) complain that the main competitors all claim the same advantage.  A customer once told me  “I have three different reps’ business cards on my desk, but they all sell the exact same product”. Brochures and websites are often big culprits: “decades of experience” and being “an award-winning leader in this market”, aren’t differentiation when multiple companies can claim the same basic thing.

A leading provider of sales training to Realtors tells students to claim some version of “leading producer” or “most experienced” at the same point in every client’s script.  I once got 39 calls from 39 different people who were all the best realtor in Arizona…in less than three hours.  By all being some version of “the best”, none of them differentiated themselves.

Sellers lulled into using False Differentiation messages harm their chance in two ways:

  • False differentiation communicates a dangerous message to a prospect. Best case, it’s “I’m proving to you that I don’t offer any real advantages. Feel free to grind me down on price.  We both know that’s my only hope.”
  • At best, false differentiation crowds any true differentiation out, forcing the customer to pick your genuine value out of a pile of sameness. You’re making them play “Where’s Waldo” with your value. That’s making them work too hard to buy from you.

False differentiation actually harms your chances…it has a negative value in your selling process. Stop. It.

Fist fighting In a Phone Booth: Conventional Differentiation

The middle layer represents selling to obvious/conventional advantages.

  • The obvious advantage: customers easily absorb conventional pitches because they’re well-trained in them. You don’t have to work very hard to get even a newbie purchasing agent to comprehend them.
  • The pitfall: Your competitors are usually expert in countering conventional differentiation. When all competitors use a predictable approach, selling has the feel of fist fighting in a phone booth. Nobody can land a solid punch, and buyers start using price to decide.

You can win sales in this area, but seldom at satisfactory margins, because “value premiums” of the different offers are small enough to be vulnerable to competitor discounting.

It gets even worse.  In complex selling, sellers often try to find a person or people in the buying organization to provide leverage/insight into the group buying dynamic. These people are called guides, coaches, champions and the like. Question: If your differentiation is merely “in the phone booth”, who at the customer cares enough about small differences to become your guide that they’ll risk their internal credibility on you?  (cue the crickets sound effect here.) Without strong internal advocates, your tough sale gets even tougher.

That’s the trap of the middle layer:  easy to sell, hard to differentiate. Its yellow color denotes the hazards of selling in the phone booth.  This is your basic, least imaginative…yes, mediocre…value proposition. It is one level better than table stakes: the minimum acceptable requirements to play, but at least it fights through the delusion of false differentiation.  You can win deals in this layer, but seldom at impressive margins, or with high customer preference for your offer.

Trusted Advisor: Predictably Finding Unconventional Value

The fourth layer is where greatness starts. Elite selling organizations build the muscles to operate consistently in this differentiation layer.

In this layer, sellers leverage unconventional, yet predictably-found differentiation. Combining general business acumen with an understanding of their offer’s differentiation, sellers find more “landing points” for value. Value networks (an entire chapter in my upcoming book) help sellers predict ways in which their product or service’s unique attributes affect a customer’s business. Some landing points will be conventional and fit in the layer described above. Many, though, address previously undisclosed (at least by your competitors) value. This layer is all about uncovering fresh selling approaches that your sellers can use predictably, with many of your customers. Any tool which makes unconventional value discovery more systematic and predictable will help your sellers improve results.

Because uncovering unconventional value puts a seller’s general business acumen on display, they build credibility as a trusted advisor, someone who can provide insight and perspective into the customer’s broader business issues. This creates a cycle of credibility-building for both the seller and the selling organization.

Differentiators that produce compelling value for the customer invite somebody in the buying ecosystem to become a decision lever. Thus, you can build marketing and predictive sales strategies around them.

Elite Selling:  Personalized and Situation-Specific Value.  

Far right layer refers to differentiation and insight that wins opportunities, but rather than predictable, systematically replicated value propositions like in layer four, sellers uncover and leverage personalized, or situation-specific differentiation.  Often, these differentiators are personal rewards or wins.

An example: A commercial real estate loan was structured to save a business owner almost $80,000 in resolving a particular estate-planning issue. Obviously, this had nothing to do with his business, the property, the underwriting criteria or the structure of the loan, but had a huge personal impact on one (highly important) persona.

Individually, this category of differentiators aren’t anything to build a repeatable business on, but, sellers who know how to consistently uncover and recognize them are able to take advantage and use them to win opportunities. They are just as leverageable as layer four impacts when they are uncovered, but uncovering them takes slightly different skills. These highly individualized value drivers further cement the seller’s credibility as a true partner:  somebody with deep insight into the business as well as the individual interests of those involved in the decision dynamic…and who brings value to the client.

So…How Are You Differentiating?

A Seller’s job is to find value that competitors don’t, and sellers with a keen “nose for value” regularly go into upper layers to bolster the Full Value Picture (read the book), and achieve higher win-win prices with stronger customer preference.

The interplay between these differentiation layers and business acumen. That is sellers who rapidly assess high-probability value hunting spots can efficiently position themselves as trusted advisors and true partners.  Each selling company has its own hi/low/obvious layers, and you and your company need to figure those out (although I’m happy to help you work through it).

Share your thoughts below, and reach out if you would like to discuss if more detail.

To your success!

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Investing Management Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

Not Thinking Right Can Lead to the Wrong Outcome

“You affect your thoughts by the order in which you think. Always think about the way you think.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

He was flying to Toronto from the U.S. He noticed a $250 difference in the airfare when flying into one airport versus another. He also noted that the two airports were only 13 miles apart. So, he thought, for a $250 savings, I’ll fly into the less expensive airport. That was the beginning of a bad decision! It was not the #right #outcome that he’d hoped for.

When you think about maximizing your outcomes, do you consider the order of your thoughts and how that influences your thinking? At what point do you consider you’ve received enough information before deciding to take action? Those are very important questions to ponder. Because, based on the order of your thoughts, you’ll adopt one action versus another. That, in turn, determines the degree of value you add or subtract to the outcome.

To improve your thought process, consider the following.

The Story:

In the situation with the airports, the ground transportation from the less expensive airport was $250 roundtrip, to get to the hotel and back to the airport. That negated the savings of flying into the less expensive airport. Plus, more time was required to get from the less expensive airport to the hotel. Yuck!

Mistakes in Thinking:

Our friend made the following misjudgments in his thinking:

  1. He figured, since the airports were only 13 miles apart, ground transportation wouldn’t be more than $60 roundtrip – he made that assessment based on travels he’d undertaken in the U.S. – he missed that guess by $190 – ouch!
    • A lesson to observe – everyplace is not like every other place. Unless you have factual data, don’t assume what was true in the past will be constant with the situation you’re considering.
  1. Our friend did not consider calling the hotel and asking for information about its proximity to airports and ground transportation.
    • Had he sought further information – our friend would have received feedback that led him to make a better decision. He would have recognized the value he thought was in the less expensive hotel was a mirage.
  1. Our friend was in a hurry to book the flight and move on to other activities.
    • Sometimes, you should let information simmer before acting on it. In that time, you may consider additional thoughts that alter the value of that information. Our friend’s hasty decision created more angst than he initially realized. Don’t let that happen to you.

Action item:

The lesson offered from this information yes, when making important decisions, you should take note of your thinking process. Pay special attention to outcomes that may leave you in a place that you’d rather not be in – or one that could have been better.

Before committing to an action, consider thoughts you might engage, the order of those thoughts, thoughts that might serve you better, and why you weren’t thinking about those thoughts before the outcome you arrived at. Doing so will lead to more fruitful and happier outcomes … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

If you’re unprepared for a negotiation situation, your assessment, and the way you respond may later become deemed as being irrational. Thinking about situations you might encounter ahead of time and preparing for them will temper possible negative outcomes – it will also give you more opportunities to consider how to think differently and/or better about the situation.

Therefore, in a negotiation, the order of your thoughts will have a drastic effect on the actions you take per the offers and counteroffers you make – that will determine the outcome of the negotiation. Thus, you should consider what’s motivating your thinking, why you’re motivated to think that way and where those thoughts may lead. By doing that, your thought process and how you order your thoughts will become your greatest assets.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#right #outcome #wrong #Negotiate #Process #Power #Powerful #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

Categories
Biography and History Culture Growth News and Politics Personal Development

Will the Draft End at the Hand of 18-Year-Old Women?

Recently, we learned that a Houston Southern District Court Federal Judge ruled an all-male draft to be unconstitutional since it violates equal protection principles. All males must register with the selective service once they turn 18, despite nobody being conscripted for more than 40 years. One would presume this requires 18-year-old females to register as well.

This development brings up a series of debates about female equality, women in the military, and changes in military tech, but an even bigger debate is whether or not we even need a draft.

The Dreaded Draft

Michael lived in fear of being drafted throughout his entire college career. Thankfully, he never was. Vietnam wasn’t exactly a popular war among the young soldiers who were forced to fight it. Most were drafted against their wishes—taken from their classrooms and put right on the front lines with barely any training. Many died, and many of those who didn’t come home with lost limbs, PTSD, and/or drug addiction.

Despite the fact that many women enlisted and served, they weren’t drafted against their will—only men were. This, combined with the war’s unpopularity, ultimately ended the draft.

Both of Michael’s brothers voluntarily joined, hoping for a choice of duties rather than waiting to be drafted. Michael filed for student deferments, which became less and less effective as time went on. His classmates were being drafted and sent away to Vietnam. Many people left the country and were therefore branded as draft-dodging, and “un-American”. Imagine that—being too young to vote, yet you could be drafted at any time against your will to fight a war that you don’t have a say in.

Eventually, the Selective Service hosted a lottery and actually had a woman on TV pulling Ping-Pong balls out of a huge bowl like she was hosting Keno or Bingo. There were 366 balls with a birthdate printed on each. The first balls drawn represented the birthdates of the first young men drafted. Thankfully, Michael’s birthdate was drawn toward the end. But the draft ultimately ended, and so did the war—and the US stopped punishing “draft dodgers” in 1977. What a relief!

Reconsidering Our Votes When it comes to Drafting

What’s most interesting about this story, as scary as the draft was, is that it forced the US to take an interest in the way their officials thought about the draft and the war. The draft was solely responsible for numerous casualties of those who were ripped from the general public to be conscripted into duty.

Today, the debate to eliminate the draft is based on the idea of volunteer-based armed forces—a professional army. While we are eternally thankful for volunteer soldiers’ sacrifices, we worry about the possibility of apathy and a disconnect with the general public.

Wars with a draft did not exceed 4 years, for the most part. Now, they can apparently go on forever! Why? With the draft, it hit too close to home. Now, it’s “someone else’s job.” With the draft, sons were torn away from their careers and families without their consent. But now, with volunteering soldiers, people may say, “They knew the job was dangerous when they took it.” Some folks are even discussing turning certain wars over to private businesses to avoid repercussion.

As awful as the draft was, it forced people to be opinionated and speak publicly about the wisdom of the war. When officials fought for reelection, the vigilant and motivated majority held them accountable. The draft was on everyone’s mind.

But having said all that—we are not in favor of the draft. We are, however, against the kind of apathy that encourages warfare without accountability. Maybe with women now subject to being drafted, we’ll come up with a way to end it all without starting endless wars. Our servicemen and women deserve civilian oversight and constant awareness of the important decision-makers that put them in harm’s way.

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

Beware Silly Provocations – How to Hack Crisis Negotiations

“Never fall prey to a silly provocation. It can be the prelude to a contrived crisis.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

She wanted everyone to know that she was upset. Her language was foul, loud, and silly. She presented it as a provocation to induce hot drama. Its delivery occurred in a cool and calculated manner with the intent of inciting a crisis. One might think that occurred during a nasty negotiation – it happened in a small bank branch. And the occurrence was the pronouncements of a customer who at first demeaned a bank teller and then the branch manager.

In a negotiation, there are ways to hack situations such as what occurred with the foul silly-mouth customer. The following are a few of those hacks.

Environment:

The individual in the bank repeatedly complained aloud about the possibility of her ‘personal’ information being overheard by other customers – note that she meant her personal information – she claimed the teller asked for it to determine her identity. To the customer, that was an offense.

Hack: When dealing with people that appear to lack lucidity, assess if their demeanor is an act. Based on your assessment, be logical or illogical with them. Then, note the change in their demeanor. If they begin to use logic to strengthen their position, use logic in addressing them further. If they’re illogical, ask what they would do if they were in your position with the guidelines you’re working with. Either way, they’ll give you the solution to the problem. Thank them for it. And if it’s to your benefit, use it. If it’s not, excuse them or yourself from the surroundings.

Had the customer been in a different environment (e.g. church) and she’d not received the outcome sought, her demeanor more than likely would have been different. Thus, always consider the environment that one is in when they project certain conducts. And question if it would be the same if not in that setting.

Personal Assessment:

In a negotiation, always consider the type of individual you’re dealing with. Evaluate to what degree she’s educated, a bully embarrasses easily, or someone that never adopts shame for an action. That insight will give you a measure of understanding as to what type of personality you’re dealing with. That, in turn, will give you clues to how best to deal with that individual.

Educated – Everything being equal, people with higher levels of education can be dealt with at higher levels of reasoning.

Hack: Thus, if negotiating with someone of this ilk, try using logic to reason with them. They may not succumb to your behests. But you’ll have a greater chance of calming them before they become more irrational acting.

Bully – People with bully tendencies seek attention. They want to be perceived as someone that demands respect – in their mind they’re someone that others should not trifle with. Some negotiators will use bullying as a tactic – they’ll do so to determine how far they can push you.

Hack: If you sense someone’s attempting to use provocation as a bullying tool, stand your ground – act bravely! If you give in, they’ll push you harder and further.

Embarrassment – The person that embarrasses easily is on the opposite coin of the person that never adopts shame for her actions. The shameless person will attempt to project her antics to burrow into your psyche. By doing so, she assumes she’ll enhance the probability that you’ll acquiesce to her demands.

Hack 1: For the shameless person, don’t let her tactics effect you. Suggest aloud that you’re aware of her attempts – do so boldly! Then note to what degree she escalates or de-escalates the situation. If she escalates, she may be testing your resolve to determine its validity. What you do next will impact the rest of your interactions – choose wisely between upping your stance again or deflating it. If she de-escalates, she will have given you control. Make haste with it while softening your behavior as her reward.

Hack 2: For the person that embarrasses easily, temper her antics by raising the stakes – deal with her sternly but in degrees. She doesn’t want others judging her harshly. Thus, she won’t escalate a situation that causes her embarrassment – therein lies her vulnerability. Be cautious about appearing to take advantage of her. Anyone can become irrational when pushed too hard. That’ll make them less predictable, which could make a negotiation more difficult.

Provocations, silly or not, can occur in any negotiation. Controlled provocations are tools that good negotiators employ as a tactic. Having greater insight into hacking their efforts will prevent you from falling into their traps, while agilely avoiding hidden crises … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#Provocation #Hack #Crisis #negotiator #BodyLanguage #Liar #Beware #Negotiate #Process #Power #Powerful #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #BodyLanguageSecrets

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

Attract New Clients Through the Words of Your Current Ones

Want to know how to attract new clients into your online ecosystem?

Have conversations with your current ones and share them with the world.

It’s no secret that the key to building and maintaining a sustainable business model rests with your ability to attract and gain consistent attention from those you serve.

That’s why posting informational, entertaining and inspirational image content is essential in helping lay the foundation for building trust with those you serve.

But image content is just the start.

Bearing this in mind, I’ve recently started to incorporate video into my content creation strategy.

Although there are many ways to leverage video – behind-the-scenes footage and direct addressing camera to share an informative message, to name a few – I’ve been focusing solely on one specific, and simple, type of video content:

One-on-one conversations with my clients through video conferencing software such as Zoom or Skype.

(Here’s one way that I’ve been leveraging these conversations.)

No crazy equipment. No need for hours to set up the shots. No high-level producing required.

Just a nice conversation with someone that you’ve helped get over some things that were holding him/her back, 🙂

What Do We Talk About?

The goal is to record a 30-60 minute conversation that lays out the what, why and how behind their decision to hire me for my lifestyle photography and content creation services.  

As for the conversation itself, I’ve created a simple format that I follow for each:

  • Introduce who they are, who they serve, and why they do what they do
  • Ask them why they felt the need to invest in branded lifestyle portraits
  • Was there any objections or apprehension before they decided to work with me
  • We then talk about the experience:
    • Strategy sessions
    • Portrait session
    • Post-portrait session
  • What are the results that they’ve received from working with me – could be tangible and intangible benefits
  • What would they say to someone on the fence about working with me to illustrate the value of the session

Now, these are the basic topics I steer the conversation towards, but I often freestyle follow-up questions based on their answers.

Either way, this is an initial framework for you to figure out the specific questions you’d want them to answer.

The Benefits of Conversations With Your Clients

Although a pretty simple setup, there is work involved when creating these videos, fortunately, the juice is worth the squeeze, 🙂

Here are some of the benefits of recording these conversations with your clients:

Show how you solve your client’s pain points in their own words

Although you’re already sharing this through your written content, and in some cases, your other video content, it’s much more impactful and powerful when it comes out of the mouths of those you serve.

If a potential client listens to the conversation where your client is laying out their why for hiring you, that will resonate much more deeply with them.

Why?

They emotionally connect with your client because their success gives them hope that they, too, can get over the hump with their own issues and challenges.

And, here’s another fun wrinkle:

The more clients with whom you have recorded conversations, the more opportunity you have to relate to a wider group of folks within your specific niche of service since everyone’s reasoning for hiring you has their own unique spin on it.

The moment they connect the dots and discover that you’re a viable option to offer them the specialized help that they need, they immediately lean in more and pay closer attention to the posts that you share and the services that you provide.

Although they may not be ready to invest in your services at that particular moment, the nurturing process has officially begun.

And, when they are ready, guess who’s on top of mind, 🙂

Share the “Client Experience” Through Your Client’s Eyes

When you’re running a business and looking to invest in help, the bottom line results are what we’re after, but, the processes, experiences and hand-holding that produce these results are just as important.

This is something that you can deep dive into with your clients during the conversation; talk about the onboarding process, frameworks, strategy sessions and self-reflection work that led your client from where they were to where they are now with their businesses and lives.

Not only is this informative for your potential clients watching these videos, but, it’s also a jolt of inspiration to show them that working with you leads to positive change and results that matter to you.

That’s solid social proof right there.

When your clients share their experience working with you, it demystifies and highlights the process for everyone watching, giving them a clearer picture of whether or not you’re the type of person with whom they want to work.

Showcase Your Personality as a Qualifier for Potential Clients

When you share a long-form conversation with a client on video, that offers potential clients an in-depth view of how you communicate with those you serve.

Yes, your audience gets a taste of that through your written posts and articles, but on video, that impact is magnified exponentially.

Unlike a written piece of content, you’re talking with your hands, speaking in your own voice, making jokes and illustrating the unique way in which you create rapport with your clients.

Either your personality tunes people in or they’ll tune out.

Regardless, video leveraged in this way is a wonderful qualifier that will help save you time from having exploratory conversations with people who aren’t a good fit if your personality doesn’t mesh well with theirs.

Learn the Value of Your Services in a Way That You’ve Never Thought of Before

Although you have your own ecosystem with your own lingo that illustrates the various elements of your expertise, your clients aren’t you and they interpret your value through their own lexicon that lives inside their own heads and within their own communities.

Pay close attention to the way that they do so and share it through your own content.

Rather than doing keyword research online in order to create content that will resonate with those you serve, conduct it with those that have already paid you money for your services!

It’s a much faster and way more personalized process when you do it in this one-on-one setting.

Strengthen Your Relationships with Existing Clients

Before I committed to recording these videos, I had a ton of negative mind-chatter surrounding how much of a burden this will be for those I ask.

I mean, who’s going to want to spend an hour BS’ing with their photographer, right?

Not one person has said no thus far, and several, in fact, said it was an honor that I asked.

Well, guess I was wrong on that one, 🙂

These are your people. They are part of your community. They’ve paid for your specialized attention and are a much better person for it. You’re not a burden – you’re a game-changer.

And once you’re talking, the rapport that you had while working together will be reinforced and strengthened throughout this conversation.

If you feel like you’d be imposing on someone to have them take an hour out of their day to talk with you, stop it right now!

Of course, some people’s schedules are tough with which to coordinate, but, keep in mind how valuable this video is in the long-run and keep asking former clients until you get as many yes’s as you wish.

Amazing Content Assets to Leverage Everywhere

If you’re going to put in the work, you better leverage it everywhere in order to truly maximize the effort.

In addition to the client page that I created on my website, I’ve also leveraged these video conversations with my clients in the following ways:

  • Blog
    • The full conversation sent out in a blog article to my email list
    • Soundbites that have been taken from each conversation and sent out to my email list
  • Social Media
    • Posted selected soundbites on all social platforms – IG, FB, LI, Twitter
    • Created content from some of the insights my clients’ shared about the experience
  • Drip campaign
    • Re-worked my “Welcome Aboard” email sequence to incorporate soundbites taken from 5 of the conversations I’ve had in order to nurture new signups into my process through the words of those I serve

Give me another week, I’ll probably come up with a couple more avenues to leverage this content, 🙂

Either way, you can see the value that this type of content offers you.

Empowering your clients to do the heavy lifting for you when it comes to promoting your services is an amazing way to draw attention to the magic that you do.

It’s a wonderful compliment to the work that you’re already doing with your social posts and blog articles.

And, it gives your potential clients hope that they’ve found the person that will help them get past what’s holding them back.

Pretty magical, if you ask me 🙂

John DeMato is an NYC branded lifestyle portrait photographer and content creation expert who serves speakers, authors, coaches and high-level entrepreneurs across the country. His 50+ page e-book, S.H.A.R.E. M.A.G.I.C.A.L. I.D.E.A.S., lays out the how what and why behind creating a memorable and referable online presence – sign up to get your FREE copy today.

Categories
Best Practices Economics Entrepreneurship Industries Management Personal Development Technology

Use Anticipation to Turn Disruption Into Opportunity

For the longest time, cable television was a miraculous technology that not everybody had in their homes, mostly because not everybody could afford it. Now, not everyone has it in their homes because YouTube TV, Sling TV, and other new, emerging technologies have disrupted the broadcast industry. So why didn’t Spectrum think of it first? Why did they become the disrupted and not the disruptor?

At some point, Spectrum and many others established a cash cow — a product or service that generates the majority of your income and profits — and got comfortable building a successful business around it while protecting and defending it. The fact that most of us are all busy, focused, and need to meet or exceed our quarterly numbers keeps us from looking far enough ahead in our industries to see disruption.

In order to thrive in this time of exponential change, it is imperative to actively scan far outside of your industry looking for new ways to disrupt yourself first. When you discover a new technology or disruptive technology-driven trend, it is important to separate what I call the Hard Trends that will happen from the Soft Trends that might happen.

Anticipating disruption before it happens defines whether you’ll be the disrupter or the disrupted, using predictable Hard Trends to create the new cash cows that will disrupt your competitors and grow your future.

Another reason so many companies fail to see disruption is that the strategy most often invoked is to protect and defend the status quo. The amount of time and money organizations spend protecting and defending their current cash cows is astounding, as in the past, this was a valid strategy producing good results. However, digital disruption is different, as it tends to be game-changing with a low cost of entry.

A key to success for an established company that’s facing early-stage disruption is to adopt a strategy of embrace and extend. Spectrum continues to spend millions on bringing in customers for cable, Internet, and phone packages, mostly campaigning on the grounds that you can’t watch sports without cable. Unfortunately, Spectrum and other cable providers saw Internet TV like YouTube or Sling as a Soft Trend, much like Blockbuster viewed Netflix, that could be protected and defended against. It was definitely a Hard Trend. YouTube and Sling have conquered broadcast sports and are quickly leaving Spectrum in the dust.

The assumption that disruption won’t happen to you and your business is dangerous. Today, there are many industries still ripe for disruption. Taking the time to look outside of your industry at the Hard Trends shaping the future will amaze you. Understanding that digital disruption will happen to you if it has not already happened is important.

Ask yourself if you are looking inside and outside of your business. What are your blind spots? What fundamental assumptions about the “way things will always be” do you operate on? And what are you doing to become your own disruptor?

What is a hotel? What is a taxi? What is a bookstore? Companies like Marriott and Barnes & Noble, and even government agencies like New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, though they knew the answers to those questions, and Spectrum and other cable providers are currently thinking the same way.

What do you think you know about your industry?

The connectivity of the Internet has changed so many industries. The emergence of Netflix, Hulu, and even Spotify for music has not only revolutionized the entertainment media industry and consumers’ consumption of said media, but it has also closed up some of the loopholes that fostered piracy of content. They are problem solvers, and now they are solving the problem of customers having to pay exorbitant fees to companies like Spectrum and DirecTV to merely cling to one favorite sports channel.

If these cable providers offered a cost-effective alternative with a price and framework similar to YouTube TV’s, they would be using this current disruption to their advantage. But is it too late for them? Are the days of cable as we know it over? Better yet, will Spectrum shrink exponentially until it’s merely an Internet provider? If so, it’d be foolish to ignore the possibility that a more affordable means of accessing the Internet is on the horizon as well.

Letting your ideas about consumers calcify and ceasing adapting or anticipating is when you start inadvertently digging your own grave, no matter how outlandish the disruption may seem. Believing that your business is immune to changing circumstances is the common thread between all disrupted organizations. The fundamental assumptions of so many industries have turned out to be wrong.

You need to become your own disruptor, your own best competition. Don’t get comfortable. Disrupt yourself, or someone else will.

Which technology innovations could be a game-changer for your industry? Learn how to tell with my latest book The Anticipatory Organization.

Categories
Best Practices Investing Management Marketing Personal Development Sales

The CEO Blues: “Winning Sales”​ vs. “Winning Profitable Sales”​

The “winning more sales” industry is huge, crowded, and noisy; the “winning more profitable sales” industry is, well…disturbingly quiet. There are a few sales performance companies who put terms like “profitable sales” into their advertising. Unfortunately, precious few know how to turn tagline into the profit line.

To a sales leader, the difference between those two may be a secondary concern.  However, there is nothing a corporate leader cares about more. Corporate leaders:  here are the organizational differences between the two.  Sales Leaders:  I want to prepare you to have this conversation with your CEO.

World Class Sales is a Real Achievement.

Building a winning sales organization isn’t easy. According to CSO Insights, “world class” sales organizations make up only about 5-9% of companies each year. Without diving into research methodology (I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a research wonk), suffice it to say that I think this year’s definition of “world class” is as good as any they’ve ever come up with. This year, the world-class label applies to companies who (I’m paraphrasing below. If you want a copy of the report, contact me):

  • Add value to every customer interaction, every channel.
  • Build persona-specific customer value consistently, through the customer’s journey.
  • Align Cross-functionally (although CSO Insights takes a narrower view than I do of which functions they include ) to deliver a consistent experience.
  • Continuously learn and improve by building a great coaching infrastructure.
  • Enforce rigor around call planning and forecasting.
  • Leverage their sales analytics as a sales improvement tool, not just a sales monitoring tool.
  • Use a purposeful talent strategy.
  • Have built a system of finding, harvesting, and replicating best practices.

Building an organization with all of these characteristics is a challenge. Disappointingly, achieving “world class” might simply be causing the CEOs Blues: winning sales, but not profitable ones. While world class is a huge achievement for many companies, most CEOs want more.

Selling Profitably Isn’t Much Harder. But it’s Very Different.

Selling profitably means selling at a win-win price reflecting customer value. Most sales training companies help sellers build enough value to win a sale, but not to win it at a value-based price. When done correctly, the higher value-based price actually coincides with higher customer preference.

Let’s look at some of the differences between world-class sales, and world-class profitable sales. Comparing/contrasting with the list above:

  • “Adding value during every interaction” goes from “figure perspective out for yourself” or “use the persona-based value propositions we give you” to developing a deep organization-wide understanding of customer value and specific tools for salespeople to build it.
  • The entire customer experience evolves beyond providing persona-specific value messages. Besides messaging, value-enabled sellers gather customer insights and build customer value from first web click-through customer’s end of product life.
  • Cross-functional alignment extends beyond the walls of the sales and marketing silos. In contrast, everyone who touches a customer has a value-building and value-insight-gathering role.
  • Great coaching culture is equally valued. What’s coached, plus who all is coached expands.
  • Customer value shapes call planning and forecasting more directly. Think about it: if you know clearly just how highly a customer values each offer you will make next month, how much more accurate do you think forecasts will be?
  • Sales analytics are even more focused, emphasizing how sellers focus on value.
  • The talent strategy is every bit as important.

A few years ago, a VP of sales with a Fortune 500 company described this as “elite level” selling. I can’t argue and maintain that it’s within the reach of most sellers. As your organization begins building a value culture, it takes on these characteristics.

Pricing is Profit. Value Shapes Pricing.

As your company masters elite selling, you have the tools to price with confidence, with your customer’s blessing.

Ask your CEO if he/she’d like more profitable sales. In preparation, do yourself a favor and do a quick exercise: calculate 1% of your company’s revenue, then add that number to your net income line. Next, calculate that increase in profitability as a percentage. You just calculated what your CEO could report to your company’s owners if your sellers simply added just 1% to your company’s pricing. Phrased differently, this is how profits would increase by discounting just one percent less.  Heck, do the same calculation for a 1/10th of 1% reduction discounting.

When your CEO indicates that it seems worth pursuing further, dig a little deeper. Ask:

  • Does everyone who touches my customers (aka sellers) regularly conduct commercial/value conversations with their customer contacts?
  • Do my sellers know how my customer makes money…and all the ways my offer can help them (hint: most “world class” selling organizations don’t)?
  • Do my sellers know how to measure customer value with a customer?

Contact me with your answers, and let’s see if we can have some fun together building your business…profitably.

To your success!

Categories
Best Practices Culture Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

How Long Will You Carry Your Burdens?

“Burdens will enslave you. Set yourself free by releasing them.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

The rod broke! It was repaired – clothes were placed back on it – it broke again, was repaired again and now it had fallen again. The rod gave way to the burden of the weight it carried.

In life, you too carry burdens. They come in the form of anxiety, stress, disappointment, perceived rejection, lack of perceived success, and what may appear to be mayhem. When encumbered by them, you’re delayed from swifter movement until you’re able to rid yourself of them. Between those points, those burdens weigh you down – they cause you not to be as efficient as you otherwise would be – they wreak havoc in your life, which spills over to those closest to you. They cause your life to be a hell on earth. Stop the madness! Control your burdens.

Extended Time:

Over an extended time, the rod was slowly bending to the will of the weight it bore. The slowly yielding process that sapped the strength of the rod occurred at such a leisurely pace, the naked eye couldn’t recognize what was happening. That’s what occurs to you when you have too much of a burden to carry. The weight of it slowly causes you to denigrate into a state of decline. If recognition occurred sooner, you could address the situation before it sapped you of your vitality.

Comfortability:

So why don’t you recognize when a burden is becoming too uncomfortable to endure before it becomes too uncomfortable to endure? The answer is, your psyche tells you that you can bear the discomfort – you can take the pain. It won’t last much longer – be tough! While that can serve as a great source of motivation in the right situation, it’s a double-edged sword. Thus, if not controlled, it can leave you in an uncontrollable state.

Caution:

When you’re besieged by heavy burdens, don’t let them weigh you down – you already know the consequences of that. When you’re beleaguered by thoughts of uncertainty that assail your mind, listen to those signals. They’re warning you that your load is too heavy – it’s akin to your engine light flashing red. At a minimum, recognize and acknowledge that you’re in an area that may be fraught with potential danger.

Action Time:

The rod broke because the heft upon it was too great a load to sustain. Like the rod, your life will also break if you don’t castoff burdens that are too great for you to the harbor.

If you sense too many obstacles are creating too many burdens for you to bear, shed them from your life. Your load will be lighter. You will be able to move more freely as you move towards greater goals that will improve your life. You will have freed yourself to be freer to achieve more and be more of what you were meant to be … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

Negotiators bring their burdens into the negotiation. Those burdens cause them to react in different ways depending on the gravity of them. Thus, their burdens impact the negotiation process.

Just like people move quicker away from something that’s too painful and more slower towards pleasure, so will they release a burden when it becomes too cumbersome to bear in a negotiation. What that suggests is, depending on the negotiator type that you’re negotiating with, you can use the weight of a burden or the release of it (pleasure) to motivate him to adopt one position versus another. The one you choose would be dependent on which served you best. And that would be dependent on the situation and the individual.

While burdens can be cumbersome, recognizing the value of using them as a tool during a negotiation can work to your benefit. Thus, if your burden is too heavy during a negotiation, attempt to transfer it to the other negotiator. You’ll get a reaction from him – note it. If he displays discomfort, extend an offer to relieve him of that burden. He’ll be grateful to you for having done so. You will have taken the burden that you gave him back. But you will have also gained a better position in the negotiation for doing so.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

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Categories
Growth Personal Development Technology

Disruptive Breakthroughs in 3D Printing

2019 is looking to be a big year for new, disruptive technology. The business sectors that will be most dramatically affected will be healthcare, manufacturing, construction, transportation, aerospace, and life sciences. One industry that is always growing and shows no signs of slowing is 3D printing. It is going to continue to be hugely disruptive to every industry — including yours.

The newest 3D printing technology enables the use of dozens of different materials simultaneously in one print run. Materials range from the biological filament and living tissue to chocolate, rubber, metals, plastics, clay, and wood fiber.

We have reached the point where 3D-printed electronics can be successfully integrated with multiple materials and complex shapes. In short, we have entered a world in which many things can be 3D printed — right in front of you. And now the speed at which printing can occur is where we are headed next.

The newest types of 3D printers are up to 40 times faster than original additive manufacturing machines released in the past five years. These astounding devices can reduce production timelines of very functional pieces of equipment from days to mere hours. The possibilities are endless.

A known 3D printing example in the medical field is dental implants or 3D models of teeth orthodontists use to determine the care needed for braces. Likewise, the mechanical design process of 3D printing will become more autonomous in the coming years, taking elements from pre-existing designs to create new ones.

Using 3D printing, sophisticated engineering projects like printing a car can be designed, built, and brought to market faster than ever, rather than the typical year or multiyear-long development cycle. This concept is being referred to as 4D printing, where time is a factor in the process. But with all this shortening of what used to be long-term projects, many fear that this means sacrificing quality to the machines. This is not true.

When breakthrough technologies arrive, they do not simply replace older ones. We integrate the old and the cutting edge to create new value, and that in turn alters how we relate to the older technology without erasing that older technology completely. Transformation is seldom a simple case of new tech replacing old tech.

3D printing has not and will not fully replace traditional manufacturing; it will instead be integrated with it to provide even more value. Jobs of years past will be repositioned in new ways to work alongside 3D printing in manufacturing, especially given the speed at which 3D printing increased coupled with the importance of the parts 3D printers are creating. This increases the need for employees to review and ensure the quality of the items created.

Technology-Driven Change Coming to a Market Near You

We’re about to witness an explosion of new applications. Rapid prototyping, as well as personalized manufacturing, has allowed manufacturers to innovate with new materials and new designs. The spectrum of products from 3D printers has reached household goods, jewelry, clothing, human implants, jet engine parts, and much more to come. Mainly, healthcare has become one of the bigger ones in the past five years.

I’ve spoken a lot about the Hard Trend — a future fact that is inevitable — of the aging baby boomer population. Personalized medical devices will fit better, perform better, and perhaps reduce medical costs, enabling us to replace everything from pacemakers and pins to old organs with new organs created out of organic tissue. Even replacement bones have been 3D printed recently. These are good examples of a technology that will help us meet the needs of a generation getting older.

But the technology and processes have been refined in the past few years — in 2019, they will become even more disruptive in multiple industries. 3D printing truly excels in its ability to enable personalization. This ability to economically create a very limited run of widgets or entire devices — down to a single part run — is what makes 3D a truly disruptive technology. Add in the sheer speed of the process and you have a technology that will drive change.

It’s your turn — how do you envision using 3D multi-material printing? Don’t fall into the trap of seeing this as overhyped, a fad, or something that’s just going to go away. Instead, ask yourself: How do the potentials of this technology excite and inspire you? What will you make of it? And how will it disrupt your industry so you can learn to be more anticipatory?

If nothing else, 3D printing has closed the gap between imagining something and building it.

Which technology innovations could be a game-changer for your industry? Learn how to tell with my latest book The Anticipatory Organization.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Women In Business

How to Stop Crazy Negotiators from Killing Negotiations

“To stop crazy negotiators from acting crazy, preempt them before they do so.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“That #negotiator was crazy. He made offers and then took them back. Worse, when you mentioned it, he acted like he didn’t know what you were referring to. I thought his antics would kill the #negotiation. How did you learn to deal with such crazy negotiators?” – said a junior member of a negotiation team to his team leader.

Everyone has encountered an experience such as mentioned. You engage in a negotiation assuming the other negotiator will act rationally. And instead, that person risks killing the negotiation because of his craziness. Such antics can leave you wondering if you’re dealing with a sane individual, someone that’s attempting to use ‘crazy’ as a tactic, or someone that’s just full of buffoonery. In either case, the following information will give you a format for dealing with such people.

Form of Communication:

If based on prior behavior, you believe you’ll be negotiating with someone that’s erratic, put as many components of the negotiation in place before sitting at the negotiation table. You want to leave as little to chance as possible. To do that, consider using written communications to outline what will be negotiated and to set the conduct boundaries before agreeing to meet. He may act unreasonably face-to-face. But if you’ve set prior parameters, you can point to them to illustrate when he’s out of bounds.

Team Environments:

When dealing with an opposing team, the dynamics can be a little more daunting. That could be due, in part, to the team’s leader not having the control to manage it or any number of other variables.

Nevertheless, if you sense irrationality due to inner bickering amongst the opposing team, consider a divide and conquer strategy – play the strongest against the weakest and the weakest against the strongest. To do that, lend more credibility to an offer made by a weaker member – they should be speaking with one voice but remember, they’re bickering. You’re endeavoring to get the team to bicker more with one another to sow discontent.

Individuals:

When dealing with an individual, you need to know more about the forces that are motivating his actions. As an example, he may have been told to close a ridiculously difficult deal or lose his position with the organization. He may have inferred that he’d get a long-awaited promotion if the deal is within certain parameters. He may also be the setup for the next phase of the negotiation and not even be aware of that. Thus, he’s told to hammer you hard for a deal, only to have the deal supplanted by his superior who will assume the role of lead negotiator in the next phase. You think you’re dealing with one person that’s acting irrationally when, you’re really dealing with a team that could be playing good cop/bad cop – you just don’t know it. And that’s to your detriment.

To insulate yourself from such tactics:

  1. Inquire about others in his environment that might be interested in the deal.
  2. Have him confirm in writing that he has final approval to agree to a deal (watch his body language when doing this – if he displays any form of hesitancy, he may be sending a signal of discomfort. That could indicate that he’s not the final arbiter.)
  3. Get him to commit in-writing every understanding that you have about a deal. Do this as you move from one phase of the negotiation to the next.

The point is, if he’s acting crazily, you want to identify the reason for such actions and eradicate them before investing a lot of time in the negotiation.

Conclusion:

There are multiple numbers of ways to control a negotiator that appears to be crazy, irrational or one that attempts to bully you during a negotiation. When dealing with such, point out what’s at stake. Get their buy-in for the agreement and state the consequences as being huge and painful if broken. Doing so will lessen the chance that the crazy type of negotiator will get the best of you … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#Crazy #negotiator #BodyLanguage #Liar #Beware #Negotiate #Process #Power #Powerful #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #BodyLanguageSecrets