Posts Tagged ‘strategic planning’

Content marketing begins with relevant value which emanates from strategic planning as demonstrated through market research.  Potential customers, prospects, centers of influence or strategic partners are seeking new information.  Your goal is to become one of the top resources in this quest for this endless flow of information. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  To engage in content marketing without having a strategic plan has you in the role of Captain Wing It where you spray your efforts all over the place and then pray something will stick.

Of course there is a problem with all you can eat information, there is just too much of it. This is why relevant value is so critical.

Value as Marc Miller writes in his book A Seat at the Table truly comes from the client or prospect’s viewpoint.  In other words, people buy on value unique to them. This is my sales buying rule #3.

Yes, there may be some generic value in specific industries or specific roles, however each organization has a culture of decision making based upon certain usually unknown values. The challenge for those in sales is not to have their perception of value supersede the potential customer’s reality of value.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Miller’s book is probably one of the best books on how to increase sales in today’s market place as well as to how to understand value.

Relevancy specific to value is what is most critical at this point in time and works with the two sales buying criteria of commitment and urgency. For example, if the organization  is looking at compliance costs even though they also believe in building customer loyalty, what is more important to them right now?  For whatever is more relevant will also be where there is greater urgency and a greater commitment to take action.

Writing numerous postings on this sales blog as well as a weekly column for the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana, regular contributor for NBiz Magazine based out of Houston, Texas, not to mention thousands of other articles, I am continually reviewing what the readers are seeking based upon metrics such as reads, retweets, etc. Even though I sincerely believe in strategic planning, leadership, business ethics and consistent goal setting, those articles do not receive as much attention as ones on:

7 Top Tips to Car Salesmen’s or Car Saleswomen’s Success – 52,583 reads published April 25, 2007

7 Tips to Real Estate Agent’s Success – 41,978 reads published May 16, 2006

What is Passion? – 17,630 reads published May 29, 2005

Content Marketing a Competitive B2B Advantage – 307 tweets since January 8, 2012

Uniting See Level with Sea Level to Reinforce an Engaged Workforce of Thinkers and Doers – 31% click through rate since August 1, 2011

Can Your Business Ethics Stand the Newest Wave of Bombardment, Social Media? – 7 reposts through EzineArticles since August 17, 2010

The challenge even though relevant value may work in tandem with two of the 5 sales buying criteria, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee a sale.  Returning to the example of the first two articles about car sales people and real estate, many of these  sales people do not have the allocated dollars to hire a sales coach. However the article still gives provides the opportunity to attract more attention and build more relationships.  Yes I have earned dollars through these articles. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Determine your niche in content marketing.

To determine relevant value begins by listening to what your customers are saying; by listening to what others are saying; by listening to what is happening within your market place, your community and even the world. Also engaging in keyword research supports relevant value in content marketing.  Keyword research can be your secret weapon to Be the Red Jacket, to stand out in the crowd with your blog postings to articles to even keynote speeches.

In today’s very crowded market place, does demand that you do stand out if you wish to increase sales. Content marketing based upon relevant value just may help you stand out a little quicker, may increase sales and may expand your market influence.

Years ago, the first how to increase sales marketing action a small business took was to take out a paid local advertisement in the Yellow Pages because local customers used their fingers to walk through those hundreds of yellow pages. Now the Internet has replaced many of those heavy Yellow Books, but local marketing is still the mountain top. A recent study from the CMO Council reaffirmed how critical the localization of messages, images and interactions are to build customer relationships as well as overall marketing effectiveness.

Credit www.flickr.com

What was impressive in this survey was 86% of national marketers are looking how to improve their local marketing content to increase sales.  However the execution of these actions has only satisfied 52% of those surveyed.

What this means is smaller businesses without internal marketing departments or big budgets for marketing agencies or consultants will need to revisit their marketing asap to ensure they are tapping into the local market searches so that they too will increase sales.  Additionally with voice search such as through Apple’s Siri, even the more traditional web searching will change.

The advantage is small business owners can leverage social media through a variety of free tools to compete with the national companies. By taking the time to invest into a solid strategic planning process including both marketing and sales plans, these crazy busy forward thinking leaders can get ahead of the local search flow and actually capture part of that market fairly easily. The goal of how to increase sales is suddenly far more simple than it was.

No longer does a small business need to advertise in this telephone directory or that one based upon geography. With the right key words and a mobile friendly website, small businesses can now reach those very vocal local customers.

Checking progress through quarterly sales goals reflects an applied MBA learning objective in many instances.  In today’s world where change is sometimes faster than SuperMan, this MBA learning objective is old school and not does help small business owners, sales professionals to C Suite executives stay with the flow less alone ahead of the flow of business.

With so much emphasis on each organization having its own dash board depending upon its business model, sales goals require a weekly if not monthly check. To wait three months to determine where progress has been made or not made is foolhardy and fails to capitalize on potential new opportunities.

Now for some crazy busy small business owners, they may check revenue through increase sales, but in many cases the revenue is not tied to specific goals because these folks lack a solid strategic business plan from which to take action.  These individuals are engaged in the role of Captain Wing It where they spray their behaviors all over the place and then pray something will stick. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Most people place more value in the written grocery list than they do planning their businesses or professional careers.

Recently after speaking with several potential clients (all of whom shared with me that they had MBAs), I recognized this check in of quarterly sales goals was definitely old school MBA and signaled a cruise control mentality. Even with businesses that have good quarterly growth, what would happen if the small business owners tightened the goals and directly connected them to monthly sales growth projections?  Would changes in the marketplace be easier to recognize? Would they be off cruise control and taking advantage of opportunities not recognized or passed by?

The marketplace is different mainly because technology has made it global.  Now with the ever growing influence of mobile technology such as searching using artificial intelligence like Siri (iPhone) today’s landscape is being quickly altered in weeks if not months. If as Google suggests 50% of all mobile searches result in a purchase, waiting three months to determine if quarterly sales goals are being met may ignore this new revenue opportunity.

Forward thinking leaders of today recognize that monitoring all key metrics from their business dashboards to balance scorecards identified within their strategic planning process is critical to go beyond surviving and into thriving. With the end of the year fast approaching, possibly now is the time to rethink the how, the why and the when for checking quarterly sales goals.

The passing of Steve Jobs for me reflects how vision,  innovation and emotion when united can increase sales, develop very loyal customers and ultimately be the winning formula for business success.

Vision

Vision to see what others have failed to see is the first step.  There have been many visionaries in our history from the early scientists who were punished for what they saw to the Founding Father of United States of American to individuals such as Mother Theresa.

Years ago I came across this Chinese Proverb and it is one I repeat regularly to my sales coaching and strategic planning clients and when I am asked to deliver a keynote speech.

Vision without Action is a Daydream;

Action without Vision is a Nightmare.

Each of us can be visionaries like Steve Job. Our success financially may never equal his, but that should not stop us from thinking towards the future.

Innovation

Innovation is truly about having a vision and taking action to as Captain Picard of star Trek so often said:

“Make it so!”

Yes, others created the successful products of Apple. However, Jobs role was to be the forward thinking leader who challenged what could not be done.

Emotion

Jobs understood the second sales buying rule extremely well:

People buy first on emotion; justified by logic.

Technology customers wanted products that were reliable; that were cutting edge; that worked with their lives and that were functional and yet had a unique form. This want was 100% purely emotional and that emotion created a very strong and loyal customers’ bond between Apple and the users of Apple products.

Job’s complete understanding of this second buying rule worked not only with the third sales buying rule, but helped to overcome the fourth sales objection – Price.  Customers were willing to pay more for an Apple product.

By uniting an incredible vision, innovation and emotion, Jobs was able to craft a winning increase sales formula. And beyond being an individual of value, my sense is this is his greatest legacy.

Seth Godin in a blog post nailed the issue of business ethics by discussing that organizations are comprised of people. Sometimes, we forget that an organization or even a team is comprised on individuals who are united to achieve a common goal that could not be achieved by just one person within the given time frame.

My take on Godin’s posting was simply:

“business ethics are personal ethics”

When working with clients either as executive consulting or sales coaching, one of the first actions is to discuss the values of the organization and for that individual.  Within the strategic planning process, the creation of a values statement is one of the outcomes and in my humble opinion is the fulcrum for later successful execution of organizational goals and objectives.

So what are your personal ethics or better yet have you committed them to writing.  On the main website for ADVANCED SYSTEMS, the values statement has been clearly articulated. Here is it:

ADVANCED SYSTEMS’ values will continually raise the B.A.R. for our clients and stakeholders.

• Build long term relationships
• Achieve sustainable results
• Results that deliver positive return on investment

Daily behaviors will demonstrate creativity, faith, gratitude, intelligence, innovation, intuition, learning, patience, quality work, reflection, respect, risk taking and thoughtfulness as we work with our clients and meet new individuals.

When we as individuals fail to describe in detail what behaviors based upon personal ethics are acceptable and what are unacceptable, then the anything goes attitude or belief takes over.  For it is our beliefs that drive the actions (behaviors) creating the results. What these personal ethics look like varies from the Ten Commandments to the Golden or even Platinum Rule. However the critical element is committing them to writing and then letting everyone know that violation of these positive core values is subject to disciplinary actions and possible termination.

By remembering business ethics are indeed personal ethics may change the discussion and actually improve the interactions between organizations and their customers both internal and external. And  wouldn’t that be a good thing to have happen?

After delivering another workshop on marketing to small business owners and even some crazy busy sales people,  I am even more convinced that many of these individuals are clueless because they are functioning in the role, as identified by my colleague Bill Napolitano, of Captain Wing It. They spray their behaviors all over the place and then pray that something will stick.

Courtesy www.LutheranCore.com

No where is this more evident than in marketing. Probably the second area is a tie between strategic planning and  people development. Those are topics for another day.

Almost 6 years ago, I realized I too was clueless about marketing. My logical brain told me that there had to be a better way to expand my market presence than attending business to business networking events or sending out a direct mail or even electronic newsletter.

So I did my homework and revamped my marketing plan using an education based marketing approach. The goal was to educate not sell and to build credibility. I set WAY Smart goals, started monitoring those goals and measuring the results.  Then I made any necessary course corrections and repeated the process. The results to date include greater search results for my name, Leanne Hoagland-Smith, almost 49,000 unique visitors in 2010, 7000 unique visitors to my website for the month of January 2011  and additional passive income.

What is difficult is that many of the sales training coaching programs do not focus on marketing in any depth.  These programs may talk a little about engaging in business networking, having a website and including  some information of social media. Yet the purpose of marketing, that being to attract attention and build a relationship appears to be secondary to selling or “always be closing.”

Unfortunately, until someone knows about you, no one can buy your solutions (products or services).  And after they know you, they must trust you if you want them to make a buying decision in your favor.  (Sales Training Coaching Tip: Know the 3 Sales Buying Rules)

With the continued focus on selling or sales skills, this only reinforces this “cluelessness.” One proven strategy to improve not only marketing, but selling as well is to better understand emotional intelligence and its impact on your ability to increase sales. Daniel Goleman’s book, Working with Emotional Intelligence is a great place to begin.

If you want to increase sales, then develop an integrated marketing plan (combination of traditional marketing such as advertising and non-traditional marketing such as social media). By taking this action, you may just remove some of that cluelessness and begin to Be the Red Jacket. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  The sales process is really combined of 3 phases, marketing, selling and marketing.

With only 3 days until you close the business doors on 2010 and open new ones for next year,  now is the time to consider your big goals for 2011 or what some call a mission statement.  Unfortunately, most mission statements are way too “loosey goosey” and deliver no results.

The picture above shows one such mission statment. One of my clients sent me this from a trade show that she was attending. Her comment in the email was “They need your help.”

Looking at this possibly very expensive mission statement since many are constructed within an expensive strategic planning process, the question is how do our employees know their behaviors (think effort actions) are working to achieve the mission? Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Many if not most mission statements are actually vision statements.

So if you truly want 2011 to be better than 2010, your mission statement should only contain three (3) critical measurable goals that are necessary and sufficient for you stay in business.  All other goals can be grouped within one of these three (3) goal categories or critical success factors.

#1 – How much money do you want be it sales or in the bank by the end of 2011? For without sales or revenue you will not be in business. This goal may include reference to profitability such as “maintaining existing levels of profitability” or “with a 5% increase in profitability.”

#2 – What continuing education units or professional development units (think mandated training and development) do you require to stay in business? This is critical for many engaged in professional services such as insurance agents, realtors (real estate agents), financial advisors, lawyers, engineers,  physicians and health care practitioners.

#3 – What  professional standards (including city, county or state mandated standards) must be maintained? If you are a health care facility, restaurant or business with ISO certification, you must maintain professional standards.

By embracing the well known KISS approach – Keep It Simple and Succinct – your mission statement will deliver far more bang for the book.  Yes 2011 can be the best year yet to increase sales and all you must do is put together a simple goal driven action plan to make it so.

P.S. You may find this business planning workshop or teleclass of interest.

One of the absolutely most evil words in the human language respective to human performance and success is “try.” This one word and its derivatives such as trying give individuals the opportunity to back out of their commitments and potentially creates a negative self fulfilling prophecy. I am reminded of Yoda in the Star Wars saga who tells a young Luke Skywalker:

There is no try; just do!

During these turbulent economic times, I hear a lot of trying being expressed such as:

• I’m trying to increase sales
• I’m trying to lose weight
• I’m trying to get my time management under control

The “Trying to List” goes on and on and on much like a broken record. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Now is the time to dump all those Try Records!

Today, I received this article about “the driving force of personal goals.” The author is so right on the money and reinforces Yoda’s words about “there is no try.” As Tammy writes at the end of the article, “success is not chance.”

Last night I had the opportunity to attend an event honoring numerous companies here in Northwest Indiana sponsored by the Michigan City Economic Development Corporation.  One of those honored companies is a client of mine – Integrative Flavors.

Georgeann Quelaly, President, and her husband Brian, CFO, have been working on a multiple year growth and innovation plan with their strategic planning process to move their small food manufacturing business from a limiting 6,000 square foot facility to a much larger one.  As they worked their plan, they encountered numerous unforeseen obstacles. And yet they continued “to do” by making course corrections from location, financing, plans, etc.  Finally from all of their “doing.” they moved this summer into a 25,000 square foot facility which will allow them to have managed and sustained growth well into the next 10 to 20 years.

Georgeann and I met during a strategic planning and sales development workshop I delivered at the Entrepreneur Center of Michigan City. We then began to work together. Never once did I hear Georgeann utter that “try” word. Her focus was always on DO! From all those doing efforts, Integrative Flavors is in a state of the art manufacturing facility. What is even better she and her husband renovated an existing unused building.

The Quelaly’s success is because of they shared a driving force of personal goals and a commitment to achieving those goals.  A bad economy, unsure financing, land deals that went south, increased government regulations all were viewed as obstacles to be overcome.

So if you are tired of the existing status quo and want to make 2011 better than 2010, you must take action, you must do to achieve those personal goals! Forget the word try or trying and in the words of Captain Picard – “Make it so!”

P.S. If you are unsure where to start specific to your personal goals or even sales goals, you may find this teleconference a get place to move into a new status quo for 2011.

To get from where you are now in sales to where you want to be requires you to reflect to think about what has happened, what is happening and what may happen.  The capability as well as capacity to increase sales truly begins with investing the time to think strategically, to put together a researched and goal driven strategic plan, execute, monitor and make any necessary course corrections. These behaviors all begin with the ability to reflect.

Harvard Business Review recently posted an article entitled, Making Room for Reflection is a Strategic Initiative. The author once again echoed the written and spoken words of other noted business experts about being busy is not an excuse for not investing time in working ON the business.

To gain greater clarity regarding working ON the business does require some organizational tools. One of my most favorite tools is the 5 Star Model by Jay Galbraith. In this publication that is really a workbook, he states:

“strategy implies a set of capabilities at which an organization must excel in order to achieve the strategic goals.”

The word, strategy, is Greek in origin and means for a general to deceive his enemies. In business what this means is for leaders to invest the time to reflect (think) about what happened, what is happening and what will happen. Then leadership looks at the capabilities from which to build the necessary capacities through specific goals.

For many, reflection is viewed negatively because of childhood memories of being caught day dreaming and then being reprimanded for such “foolishness.” Yet if time is not invested in reflection both of what has happened (goals achieved or not achieved) and what might happen (dreams to be achieved), then those in leadership roles are potentially committed to making the same mistakes.

From those reflections, the strategic business plan is molded and even remolded. Within this plan are sub action plans for departments or specific areas for business success such as:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer Loyalty
• Leadership & Management
• Growth & Innovation
• Financials

To increase sales does require a great deal of reflection especially for those crazy busy sales people to small business owners to even C Suite executives. These 5 simple steps may help you do just that.

1. Make a commitment to invest the time necessary for this action.
2. Schedule it weekly in your calendar
3. Honor each of those appointments with yourself without exception and be very focused when engaged in reflecting
4. Identify goals achieved as well as those still a work in progress
5. Make any course corrections by adding new action steps to writing new goals

Then repeat these 5 steps during each appointment with yourself or your team.

By taking these actions, you can not only increase sales, but improve your overall organizational capabilities and capacities.

P.S. If you are interested beginning this reflective process whether you reside in Northwest Indiana, near Chicago, IL or anyplace else, then consider the Triage Business Action Plan workshop.

Graphic Courtesy of Bing Images

Two weeks into the challenge and I have averaged one article per day.  This marketing activity is not where I want to be, but it will allow me to complete the challenge on time.

Part of the reason goals are not achieved is that unforeseen obstacles happen.  For me, that has been the product launch of IntroMojo a new Internet delivered sales tool to help secure more detailed ideal customer profiles from those new business sales leads. Also, I had some dental work which has dramatically affected my productivity. However, I have revisited my goal setting worksheet and have made some course corrections.

Today I submitted another 4 articles and will submit another couple before the day is over.
Again, I will honor this article marketing challenge commitment as I know that very few achieve their goals and I will be one of the few instead of one of the many.

Previous post of September 23, 2010

Today I began my fifth HAHD challenge being offered by Ezine Articles. The goal is to write 100 articles in 100 days which equals just one article a day. Since I have engaged in article marketing for the last 5 years, I have received incredible value through:

• Increase traffic to my website and this blog (unique customers as of this am was 3,413)
• More sign ups to my various lists such as free sales skills, leadership audit

or strategic planning checklist.

• New customers
• Establishment of new strategic partnerships
• Greater clarity of thought (the more one writes, the better one thinks; the more one thinks, the better one writes)

This morning I submitted my first 10 articles that had been written during the last couple of days as a way to give me some additional motivation.  Just think not even one day down and 10% of this maketing challenge is complete.  What a great feeling!

As someone who has successfully complete the last four marketing challenges offered by this great article directory website, and with over 40% of all traffic coming from Ezine Articles to my website,  I decided not to continue would be a poor marketing and selling business decision.

So for the next 100 days, I will be updating this entry as my journal sharing with you what is happening. Knowing that I have some commitment with clients, I realized that the sooner I started submitting articles, the less pressure and stress I would be experiencing during the last 10 days.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Stress for the most part outside of significant events is a direct result of not achieving goals or having a goal driven action plan.

My challenge to you is what significant marketing, sales or business goal will you achieve in the next 100 days? With the year quickly coming to a close, are you where you want to be?  If not, why not?  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  If your response includes any of these words:

1. Would of
2. Could of
3. Should of
4. Try
5. Maybe
6. Might
7. Think
8. Yeah, but

then you are speaking Weasel Word Language as one of my coaches David Herdlinger as often called the first five. Just imagine what would happen if you achieved even 50% of your goal?

• Would you be in a better place financially, physically, mentally, spiritually, socially?
• Would you be happier about yourself?
• Would you stop beating yourself up?
• Could you use your success as a springboard into the New Year of 2011?

I encourage you to determine what results you want by 12/31/2010 and then write a very aligned, specific measurable, attainable, realistically set high, time driven (you already have that 12/31/2010) goal that is yours. I call this a WAY SMART goals or goal.

So revive up your productivity engine, fuel it with your key values and drive it is using your best talents.  Share you results in the comments below. I look forward to hearing about everyone’s terrific results.

P.S. There is no prize except the internal ones of improved self-confidence, self-esteem and personal accountability. And truly isn’t that more than enough?

Graphic Courtesy of Ezine Articles