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Best Practices Leadership Marketing Skills

30 Networking Questions to Make You Memorable

You walk into a room filled with people that is buzzing with conversations. Carefully you look around until your eyes meet a person by themselves and you smile. You walk over to them, introduce yourself, and shake their hand. Then, for many, the hard part begins. How does one have an engaging and memorable conversation with someone they just met?

For many, we tend to freeze up in these instances. Sure, you can visit about the weather or some current events, but that does not help you to understand who they are and the value they can add to your professional life or vice versa. Instead of asking the typical questions, try one of these 30 networking questions to help you get to know someone better and make the overall conversation meaningful and memorable.

30 Networking Questions

  1. What is the number one takeaway you hope to gain from this event?
  2. What did you learn from today’s speaker?
  3. How did you learn about this event?
  4. What type of connections do you hope to make today?
  5. What other events similar to this have you attended?
  6. If there is one thing I can help you with, what would that be?
  7. How can I help you succeed?
  8. What project(s) are you working on?
  9. Why did you decide to go into your field/business?
  10. What problem do you/your business solve for others?
  11. What is the biggest challenge you see happening in your industry?
  12. What is the latest news in your industry?
  13. What trends do you see in your industry?
  14. What’s the toughest part of your job?
  15. What kind of education/training do you need for your job?
  16. What is a typical day like for you?
  17. How did you come up with the idea to start your business?
  18. What book are you reading now and what is the one thing you have learned from it?
  19. What volunteer work do you do?
  20. Do you serve on any boards?
  21. What do you do for fun outside of your work?
  22. What is one interesting fact about you that may surprise me?
  23. Are you originally from this area and/or how did you end up in this city?
  24. What is the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
  25. What advice do you give to others in your industry?
  26. How do you stay motivated?
  27. What skills are essential for anyone in your industry to have?
  28. What are some of your favorite life hacks?
  29. What is the one app you can’t live without?
  30. How do you feel you or your company makes an impact?

How to Leave the Conversation

At the end of the conversation, there is always the business card exchange. Take this time to tell them how much you enjoyed visiting with them. Be sure to repeat their name as you thank them, and state one thing about them that stood out or that you enjoyed learning from talking with them. This last piece shows you actively listened and were engaged, and it will help you to remember an interesting tidbit about them the next time you are together or think of them. It will make you and the other person memorable.

I help executives create a powerful image and brand so they look and feel confident wherever they are. Contact me at sheila@imagepowerplay.com to schedule a 20-minute call to discuss how we can work together to grow your visibility through my return on image® services.

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

Always Be Closing – Get a Decision, in Place of Leaving a Brochure

I thought I’d tackle one of those challenges that we’ve been faced with time and time again in our business career. When we receive the objection early on in our sales process, such as “Can you send me the details?” This prevents you from getting down to the detail where you’ve given them enough information to make a full decision. You’ve got a conceptual yes, they’re reasonably interested in what you do, but not specifically interested enough to give a decision. 

As the brochure is stereotypical, what happens when we send them out? At best it sits on a coffee table for a period of time. Does it really get digested or discussed or lead to a decision, picking up the phone and taking action? Sometimes it does, but typically no further action happens unless we make it happen.

When we had customers interested in an overseas investment property, I heard “would you leave me a brochure?” so often that I knew I had to find a way of tackling it. I had to get into the position where I could spec something in detail–the specs they would want if they did proceed. Now you know how much better we are at looking at things in hypothetical circumstances rather than in reality, and this is exactly what we do here when faced with this scenario. I’ve developed what I call the “Devil’s Advocate Close”, the opportunity where we spec something in a hypothetical circumstance.

What I decided to do was every time somebody said ‘Can you leave me a brochure?’ I’d say “Absolutely, but why don’t you play devil’s advocate with me for a second, so you know what it is that you’re saying ‘no’ to. I know you’re not going for one of these right now, but if you were to invest in one of these properties, just hypothetically speaking, would it be for–lifestyle or investment?’

Let’s say I get the answer “investment”…

“If it is investment, you’re looking at maybe something that’s going to bring you the best possible returns for the smallest amount of outlay?”

“Yeah that’s right Phil.”

“Let’s say you were going to go with it and use that property anyway, how many of you would be using the property?”

“Well it’d be me, the wife, and the kids.”

“So you’d be looking for at least two bedrooms?”

“Yeah that’s right Phil.”

“So if it were a two bedroom apartment and investment was in mind, I guess you’d be looking at a two bedroom, first floor apartment, because those are the cheaper properties and they rent for the same as a ground floor, hence your yield is slightly higher. It makes sense to go for a two bedroom first floor.”

“Yeah that’s right.”

“Assuming, with investment in mind, that you may want to sell this on one day and be able to get some use out of it, so you’re probably going to be wanting something with a nice outlook or pool-facing view.”

Yeah that would make sense Phil.”

“Then let’s have look at what’s still left on the development – two bedroom, first floor, pool-facing. Well I’ve got this apartment here, it’s apartment A202 and it’s 74sqm and here are the two bedrooms and the two bathrooms. Here’s the en-suite and the large open plan kitchen and here’s the balcony, and on the balcony you can see you’ll be overlooking the beautiful pool area. Now I know you’re not in the position to move forward with one of these today, but again just playing devil’s advocate and so you know what it is that you say no to, would you be open-minded to take a look at what the figures look like so that you would know what a yes would look like if you were ever in that position?”

“Yeah absolutely Phil.”

So I would walk them through the payments, I’d walk them through exactly what their investment for apartment A202 would look like, and funnily enough, their final decision in order to secure that property was just a small reservation fee. At the end of that presentation, I would say to the customer, “Well in terms of what we’ve gone through, obviously we’re showing you the best of our available stock. I’ve got a number of appointments later today, as have the rest of the team, and two bedroom apartments are the most popular because they’re the best rental option. No doubt the next person who reserves a two bedroom first floor apartment will probably come to the same conclusion that you have that A202 is the best apartment. So if you were to look to reserve, then all we need is a $1200 reservation, and we take cash, cheque, and credit or debit card.”

Where people have previously said, ‘Leave me a brochure’, we’ve now prompted a discussion between decision makers. Now let’s say we did that ten times in a week…most people would continue with the “Can you leave me a brochure” along with the numbers and the floor plans for the specific apartment in question–but two or three people out of the ten would genuinely move forward with a transaction that they would have previously have asked you to leave on.

We know how hard it is to create opportunities to sit in front of people and then create a genuine opportunity for them to make a buying decision with us. Just ask yourself this, is it easier to hang in there for another five, ten, fifteen minutes to give them enough information to make a decision and help them see what they could buy from you, or easier to start again with somebody new? Because purely by playing devil’s advocate you can get some great information out of people – valuable information that puts them in a position where they can make a decision.

Categories
Growth Management Skills

Don’t Talk to Strangers

When many of us are looking for new business, we can find ourselves in the mysterious world of business networking; for most, attending open networking events is a less than enjoyable experience.

We all know that to find new customers we must speak with more people, so why do so many of us find this such a daunting task?

The reason we find this difficult is that we were all conditioned as children by a simple sequence of words – “Don’t talk to strangers”. The first challenge is to defy that conditioning, and I’ve found that the easiest way to resolve this is to understand that pretty much everybody else is feeling the same as you. Getting over the initial “fear” is one thing; however, to succeed in a network, here are some simple rules that have worked for me, and I am sure if you choose to employ them they could have significant benefit to you too.

Have a plan

Regardless of the size of the event, it is unlikely that you can develop lasting business relationships with all in the room, and I am certain that there will be some people who will be of considerable more value than others. Set a goal and stick to it. It may be to make a number of new connections or to set a meeting with a specific person. Just turning up and seeing what happens is leaving your success to chance.

Know what you are going to talk about

Starting a conversation is the hardest thing to do when entering a room full of strangers. To open conversation, the easiest place to start is to talk about a subject that you all have 
in common. The one subject that you all have in common is the event you are at. As such, plan a series of questions related to the event.

Talk of how you help people

“So what do you do then?” This is a question that you are almost guaranteed to be asked, yet each time I witness it, 
the receiver of the question looks startled and bemused
, hesitantly giving their job title or profession as the answer. Your goal from this question is to open a conversation by being interesting to them. So when asked this question please rephrase it in your head to “How do you help people?” And answering that question instead.

Sell to the room

This goes against what you are often told when networking, yet is based on the simple reality that your best referrals come from existing customers. Therefore to gain a quantity of referrals, you need a good number of customers within your network. Now this does not mean forcing your products or services on people, but simply having a simple entry-level offering that makes it easy for people to try your offerings.

By utilizing some, if not all, of the above tips I am sure you will reap significant returns. Good luck in your networking!

Categories
Growth Management Skills

The World is Shrinking!

The biggest change in the way we now communicate globally is the revelation of social media. Its impact has been so huge that we can now communicate across the planet with such ease that our marketplaces have got significantly larger, and our networks are now much easier to reach.

For those unaware of what the term ‘social media’ relates to, it is the collective term of platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, and these forms of media are changing the way that we now communicate. This shift in communications sounds drastic, and for many we are fearful of change – particularly when there is technology involved. However, this is nothing new; this is just modern day word of mouth, and as a tool for building business is like stepping back in time. This is about building relationships with your customers and community, as well as understanding what others are saying about you, to build your brand and grow your business.

In this article, I want to give you the basics in a simple process that all can follow, get you off to a great start with social media and ensure that it can start to help you and your business. One thing I am not is an expert. However, I have used social media with great results for both my own business and for clients, and I am happy to share those lessons with you.

First Impressions Count!

Just like in the real world, you never get a second chance to make a first impression when it comes to social media. Before you open for business, I would seriously recommend that you take the time to fully complete your profiles.

On LinkedIn, this means completing all fields from start to finish. It serves as your online CV, and if you were looking for a new job then you would certainly make sure that your CV shared the right message and was complete. On Twitter, you only have a few characters, so ensure that your biography delivers a strong message that intrigues people to find out more.

On all platforms, the visual appearance is also critical. You can use certain areas to apply your brand identity and convey your business message. This can be done simply and easily by speaking with your designers to create the correct sized artwork. Consider your photography. These are social platforms, so images should be warm, friendly and not too corporate, and I believe should always include the image of a person and not just that of a company logo.

Build Audience

Once you are all set up most people start to worry about their outbound content. Now your content and posts are important, yet only when people are listening. Social media is particularly useful as a communication tool to the people that already know you, so I would start there. If using it for business, then my first action would be to connect with as many of your existing customers and contacts as possible. You can do this by uploading your contacts as a database and sending out an invitation. Additionally you should look to use all current communication tools to let people know that you are active on social media. This means adding social media icons to your e-mail signature and stationery, informing all your customers when you write to them, making it a news story on your website and adding leaflets or posters in the view of your customers to entice them to your profiles. To actually get them to your profiles is harder than just asking though, so running a competition or great offer to reward them for visiting your profiles, and connecting with you, will drastically improve your chances. Remember that investing in this audience is critical in achieving social media success; without an audience, your great work could be wasted.

Be interesting

When it comes to content, the key is to remember that these are social platforms. Very few people are enjoying times on social media because they want to be sold to. To be interesting, you need to be varied with your communication and show yourself as human. If your message becomes
monotonous, you become boring and people stop listening, so keep your outbound content varied. For me this means posting in 3 areas:

    • Firstly, commenting on or sharing useful information relating to your wider industry as a whole.
    • Secondly, presenting your products and services but only with customer focused offers relating to the action that precedes the sale and not the sale itself. For example, if you were a car retailer, you should provide an offer to get people to visit the showroom and not to buy the car.
    • Finally, be human. To succeed in Social Media, you must be prepared to share some personal information. Life and family events, as well as successes and failures, are great ways of starting dialogue.

Please remember that the aim of posting content is to start a conversation or encourage debate. Starting conversation with your contacts opens you up to their contacts and then your network grows!

Categories
Growth Management Skills

Account Management

We All Spend Time, Money And Effort Finding New Customers So We Can Grow Our Business. However, The Opportunity Of Growth Is Typically Among The Customers We Already Have.

Getting the most from our existing customers is a skill that is often overlooked, but can bring incredible results when perfected. I believe that the reason new customers are pursued with such vigor is that they always appear more exciting. The thrill of the chase can be addictive and emotionally more rewarding. By adopting this technique, we are not only overlooking our existing contacts, but missing substantial opportunities.

Ask yourself the following questions:

    • Are you aware of your customer’s future plans?
    • Do your existing customers know all the services you provide?
    • Do you review your customer accounts at least every 6 months?
    • Do you make regular contact with your contacts who never became customers?

If you have answered NO to any of these questions, you are losing out on winning business and making money.

Develop a systemized process

Great sales procedures avoid the requirement of individual brilliance. Integrating your process with a CRM (contact management system) will ensure that nothing gets missed and all promises are kept.

Design a method that details your ideal customer experience. Play out every eventuality from initial contact through to first meeting and onwards to close. You will know how to arrive at the desired outcome and how that is best achieved. Create a template for each e-mail and letter at each stage and develop a flow chart to record your process. Attach the relevant communication to each stage of the process and ensure this policy is followed. Also consider what happens once the prospect has made a decision. Continue this process with a number of scheduled communications, and integrate this into your CRM system.

Create a product matrix

Consider every product and service you offer and every customer you do business with. Plot this information on a matrix.  Can you see the gaps? Now you know exactly the potential new business within your reach and what you need to discuss with each client.

Vary communication methods

Continually change the way you communicate with your clients and prospects. Every method has its place, but bear in mind that all will lose impact and minimize effect if used consistently. Consider social media tools, email with images, text messages, direct mail, pick up the phone or speak face to face. Variety will keep your contacts interested and engaged.

Hold review meetings

Your customers are your most valuable asset. They should be cherished and nurtured. Holding regular meetings with your customers presents you with the opportunity to under sell and over deliver. Introduce them to valuable contacts, techniques and processes that will help them develop their business or reduce costs. The key purpose of the meeting is to establish opportunities and discover how you can help them further. Determine problems you can fix or goals you can help them realize. Understanding your client’s plans and challenges presents you with an abundance of ways you can help them.

These are all practices you can implement immediately.

What are you waiting for?

Categories
Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Skills Women In Business

Listen Different

Typically, I write about speech. But today I want to take a new look at the role of the listener in leadership communication. As Apple might say, you have to “Listen Different.”

Of course, as the speaker you need to present your information in a way that will make sense to that particular listener, which is an important leadership skill. But that’s only half the story.

Not everyone is going to be good at adapting their speech to fit your expectations for what good communication sounds like. That’s why it’s important to learn to listen differently, so as not to be at risk for missing some of the most valuable pieces of information.

As an example, I work with a lot of women’s groups, and one of the most common frustrations I hear is when a woman makes a comment in a meeting, which gets glossed over, and then five minutes later one of the men at the table says almost the exact same thing, but he is praised for the contribution. The following cartoon illustrates the sentiment.

Gender-bias issues aside, why this is such a common experience, and how can it be changed? The underlying principle stands for everyone – women and men alike. The truth is that the responsibility for change is shared by everyone present Here’s one reason why:

Sometimes the way a comment is framed makes it “fly under the radar” if listeners aren’t tuned into that frequency, so to speak. For example, they say something like “What about X? Should we look at that? Would that work?” If you heard this at a meeting, what would your response be?

While the person is technically making a suggestion, you might not register the value of the suggestion because it is framed as a series of questions that – on the surface – seem to be seeking validation or approval.

Believe it or not, many listeners don’t understand the nature of what they’re really hearing, and need to recognize the speaker’s intent

You might wish they had just said, “We haven’t tried X yet; let’s take a look at that option,” but they didn’t. So you need to learn to hear the message, no matter how it is framed. Make sure you’re fully present when someone is talking, because we first process tone and instinctive feeling before we process actual meaning. Otherwise, you risk missing out on critical information.

But even if you are just a participant in the conversation and you realize that you do hear the someone’s real message but believe the others in the group somehow missed it, or if “Ms./Mr. Triggs” offers an idea that is only praised when repeated by another person, it becomes your responsibility to diplomatically draw it to everyone’s attention: “Yes, Pat, I think you’re reinforcing what Chris said a moment ago about…” After all, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, right? Passive listening and lack of proactive participation are not qualities of effective leadership.

It may be frustrating to feel like you need to work harder at listening, that people should just “speak clearly,” in the end, communication is a two-way street, so if you want to be an effective communicator, learn to listen different.

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Do you have trouble communicating effectively with someone, or feel like your contributions are often overlooked? If you have other questions or feedback about this issue, contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to schedule a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Leadership Marketing Skills

How to Prove Your Future Worth to Customers

Many of us are great at what we do, and the very fact that you are reading this article demonstrates your desire to continue to grow.  However, many of us do a great job of keeping our fantastic track record a secret from our potential customers.

Sporting greats are judged by what they achieve, and clubs recruit new managers based on their previous results. The same can be said when looking for new suppliers.  If you can demonstrate that you have done a fantastic job for others in the past, it goes a long way towards suggesting you will do a good job for them too.  This is more than having testimonials hidden away on your website, in a filing cabinet or in a folder in your bottom drawer, along with your customer letters.

In today’s age, social proof is one of the best convincers you have and growing your social proof can be a huge contributor in helping you win more business.  Now, the distribution of your social proof is important. However, before you can showcase it, you must ensure that you collect it.

The first bit of advice I would give is that if you don’t ask, then you don’t get. We are all busy people, and taking the time to say nice things about each other in a usable way is rarely top of the list; therefore, we have to help jump it up the list.

Asking after you have delivered your product or service is likely to bring you a better response than after that moment has passed.

Asking in a format that makes it easy for them is also highly likely to bring a better return. The two forms that have worked well for us are video and of course, LinkedIn.

Just asking will bring you huge results, but being prepared will help even further. The ability to record video on the spot will have you leaps ahead of your competition, and asking at every opportunity will give you heaps of great video to showcase what others say about you.

Once you get good at asking you’ll have so much content that you’ll want and need to get in front of people. This is some of the stuff that we do which has had fantastic results, and could work for you too:

  • Point people from emails to your Linkedin profile to read recommendations
  • Leave written testimonials in a folder in the office reception
  • Photograph written testimonials and post on Facebook
  • Distribute video testimonials across the social networks
  • Encourage others to post their positive comments on Facebook and Twitter
  • Update website testimonials as often as possible and ensure they are easily visible
  • Utilize the words of others in marketing literature

The simple lesson in all of the above is to put your social proof in front of as many people as possible. However, the real trick is to ensure that every testimonial can be traced back to its source.

Ensuring that your future customers can see the credibility in the source of your social proof will add to its effectiveness which is the bit that makes it all worthwhile.

Categories
Growth Leadership Skills

Winning Language: What to Say on Social Media Platforms

In the world of sales, often the only distinguishing factor that we have is the words that come out of our mouths or the ones that we type. There’s one challenge that I bump into time and time again for nearly everybody in business, and that is to have more useful conversations with people who fit their target market, that have qualified in and which will bring better results.

There are stacks of people right now using the social networks to try and promote their business, and one of the most common mistakes is all that they are doing is trying to sell. They are broadcasting messages left, right and center saying “buy from me, buy from me, buy from me, buy from me” creating a monotone approach that certainly doesn’t engage.

In terms of different platforms, I’m talking about what we do on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube for the purpose of lead generation.

It’s unlikely in your business that somebody’s going to read a Facebook post, watch a short YouTube video, read a tweet or a LinkedIn update and instantaneously jump to the position of wanting to be a customer.

You will rarely win business directly. If we get our minds right, the best strategy for those tools is to generate conversations with our target market. We’re looking to start a conversation, and that’s what our language should dictate. This means asking questions of people as opposed to making statements.

I was working with a business a short while ago that helps people save money. They said “Phil, how do we use Facebook to generate more of the right kind of people to speak to?” What they were doing was making broadcast after broadcast of case studies of people and how it would save them money, hoping that that was going to capture attention. I said “let’s just try something by alternative. Let’s just try a question”.  The question I asked them to try was “if I could show you a way to save $500 a month, then what would you spend the money on?” That was the question I asked in a social context, and rather than the typical response that this client had, add one or two random comments, within 45 minutes the post had 70-80 comments on it. This created an instantaneous prospect list for that  person to follow up.

A travel company wanted to speak to more people about their holidays (I’m pretty sure we could all think of somewhere we would rather be). So the post that we put out on Twitter and LinkedIn and on Facebook simply said “if you could be anywhere else in the world right now, where would you be and why?” A stream of people shared places that they would rather be and why they would be there, which allowed the company to make direct contact with those people to help them to make those dreams into reality.

Instead of making statements, we’re better off asking questions. Not talking about what we do, talking about the results of what we do. Accept that people probably won’t buy from that award winning post but, if we ask them a good enough question, they will join the conversation. We can then educate and understand more about their circumstances and then we can start to recommend our product, service or solution to help them achieve they want.

If you want to succeed in these platforms, be a great conversation starter. Stop trying to do the whole job in one sitting, and you’ll be amazed on what happens onwards from there, purely by starting more conversations, keeping those conversations going and then enjoying the rewards that they bring.

Categories
Growth Leadership Skills

The Perfect Pitch

Most people believe that this is the most important part of the sales process; however, in my experience, I believe it to be vitally important however is only a tiny piece of the puzzle. The sales presentation has nothing to do with having a fabulous company brochure, proposal document or a fantastic company website.

By the time you deliver your presentation, your prospect should be 80% of the way towards making a buying decision. They will have typically decided “if” they are going to buy from you, you are simply now presenting “what” they are going to buy from you.

Selling is a transfer of enthusiasm. It is creating a ball of energy and passing that to your prospect, so that your customers are as excited about receiving it as you are delivering it. Being enthusiastic talks straight to the subconscious mind and promotes enthusiasm in return, which itself is a catalyst to a buying decision.

In theory you should be able to present your products or services with no major props. I am not saying that this is the only way you should present. However, if you can do that, you will then only add marketing material that supports your presentation and not hide behind your literature.

Now every successful presentation follows a structure. Be it a quick elevator 60 second pitch, or a detailed sales proposal, the same structure applies.

Every presentation should include a beginning, middle and an end. This sounds simple, but the number of presentations that I see that are all middle is still in abundance.

Beginning

Your beginning is really your chance to set the scene and educate your prospect that your meeting has moved on and they will soon have a decision to make. The two main ingredients for your beginning are always to make a powerful opening statement that sets the scene.

“Its great to talk with you today and demonstrate how we can help create your perfect…”

To then put your audience at ease by letting them know what to expect by sharing your agenda with them.

“I will share with you a little about how we work and what makes us different, explain our range of services and give you 3 different options for your desired holiday. I will then find out what questions you have before you make a decision on the way forward”

By giving them a verbal or written agenda they understand what to expect and it helps you to keep control.

Middle

The middle of a presentation is where the main responsibility is to give your audience enough information to make a buying decision. I would always look to consider three main areas.

  • Your history and credibility – Let your listeners understand all about you and your company. Share the type of companies that you work with and instil confidence in your audience that you are more than capable of delivering for them. This is not a huge section but is vitally important. Drop in names of existing customers and words that others have used to describe you.
  • Product or service overview – Always provide a shopping list of all your products and services in every sales presentation. You never know what they may also be interested in buying from you.
  • The one product/service for them – Finally give them your recommendations for the solution that they make a decision on today. Remember to keep this as simple as possible.

You will need a powerful opening and close to your middle to keep attention. Keep questions to a minimum throughout your sales presentation and if necessary they must be simple, closed and bring positive engaging answers so as not to lose control.

End

Providing your presentation was interesting enough, at some point you will have lost the full attention of those listening. This is because something you said had interested them and they started to think about applying your solutions and may have missed something.

Because it is paramount that they feel they have all the information before they make a decision, it is essential that you summarize before closing. Your summary is simply telling them what you have told them. Once you have summarized, you must then close by asking for a decision.

I would encourage you to prepare a default presentation for each of your products and then tailor it each time you need to use it. That way you are always perfectly prepared.

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

Process Focus: Finding Your Needleshop, Not a Haystack

Process focus is all about giving you a system, strategy or scenario that can lead you through understanding a key area of your business, helping you get more of what it is that you want. 

I’m pretty sure one thing you really want is more new business. If you want new business, start at the beginning. I’m sure many of you spend a lot of time, effort and energy on marketing your business. 

However, there’s a key difference between sales and marketing. Marketing is all about getting bees around the honey pot. Your business is the honey.

The difference with sales is that we get to choose our customers. Provided we go looking. The art of great salesmanship is like fishing. It’s knowing what fish you’re looking for, where to find them and what bait to use. That way, when you go fishing in the right place at the right time with the right bait, you catch the right fish. That’s what Process Focus is all about this month. It’s about getting what you focus on.

We communicate it to you in so many ways. The brain is processing so many pieces of information. If you’re looking for anybody and everybody at the same time, you’ll find nobody. If you get specific on what it is you’re looking for, you’re far more likely to spot opportunity. A simple test on this, might be anytime in your life where you’ve looked at buying a new car. When you’ve looked at buying a new car, what’s often happened, is you’ve decided what it is that you’re buying. And in the period of time between you deciding and collecting the said vehicle, you can’t help but see tons of those vehicles everywhere you look on the road. I promise you that it wasn’t the strategic marketing campaign from the company you were looking to buy from. They were there already. It’s just that you’ve set a part of your brain to be able to identify, spot and look for them. This is exactly what we need to do to find more of the right kind of customers. So please take time to consider exactly who your target customer is. How many of them are you looking for?

Consider how many new customers you’d like to acquire in the next 12 months. Maybe break that down to how many new customers you’d like to have per month. And then define exactly what they look like because then you can go looking for them. Some of the things that you might want to consider are:

Where are they located? 

If you have an account management or a servicing responsibility, look for those customers in a simple geographic region. That way getting face-to-face to them adds value to them, then being able to access you easily adds value to them. Could you have enough of the right kind of customers purely located around the simple geographic region that you can service correctly?

How big are they? 

Are you targeting single person micro businesses? Are you targeting Fortune 500 companies? You might even be appointing your business where you’re looking to make a step change, to change the type of customer that you’re looking for.

What industry are they in?

Getting industry focused can really help you find what you are looking for.

Who exactly is the decision maker within that type of business? It might be one person. It might be more than one person. But really define who that is because actually, what you’re not looking for is an organization or a type of organization. You’re looking for an organization in a certain location of a certain size, and a certain person within that organization, because without that person you’ll never get the decision.

The more focused you get and the more you define your target market then you might realize that you have more than one target market. But the more you define it, the easier it is to find it. Coupled with the fact that once you know exactly who it is that you’re looking for, you can share it with others more easily, and they can help you find more of the right kind of people.