Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

If you haven’t see this video yet, watch this one below. I believe this is the best motivational video I have seen and is so true. Question – do you push your leaders on your team? Do they influence others in a positive or negative way?

Do you want to be the best at your craft?
Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUAvvNyjeNQ

Will Smith makes a lot of good points. Here’s what I came away with after watching it.

First, you have to want it! Second, you have to believe it! Third, you have to work at it.

Work harder than everyone else. Also, why be realistic? Think BIG. Dream BIG. And Work Big.

You want something — go get it!

Here’s an excercise for all those that have an outside sales team. Set up a call (it can be conference call if you have reps in several states) and review how they prospect.

Ask the following:
1. Is your process different for different size opportunties
2. Do you call on the same type of people/departments
3. Do you have a strategic process or do you wing it
4. What is your process

If your sales teams are like most, the reps have a similar process they use for all accounts and then to call on the same type of person in each account.

And in my opinion, this creates an opportunity for you to make some improvements and grow your business.

Here’s what I have learned:
1. Your process should vary depending on the personality type of the person you are calling on

2. Your process should include multiple medias and multiple touch points

3. You should spend the most time on Tier A opportunities

Getting reps to spend time with their A prospect list vs just spending time where they are liked and wanted is very important. It’s easy to go where you are liked, appreciated and wanted. It’s much harder to go “try and build” relationships with those that don’t know you, trust you or even want to see you. Yet, if they are a Tier A candidate for your product or service – you should make them a priority!

In addition to the top 10, the demands placed on sales people are rapidly changing. The way they communicate is changing. The way they get paid is changing. The skill set also is changing, in terms of what makes a great sales person.

Question for you. Have you evaluated the skill sets of your sales people lately?

Also, ask them how they have changed the way they sell and ask them what motivates them today. What kind of rewards to do they like today?
Here’s my 2 cents::

1) Create competition by offering a mega award. Sales people have egos and don’t like to leave mega dollars on the table. So create a competition that offers a big incentive to the winner and you can base it on percentage of sales or percentage of margin or whatever. Don’t make this reward a work function trip. Make it a all paid vacation to Moon Palace in Cancun for their family or something that gives long lasting memories and gets them recharged and excited.

2) Create marketing actions that fit the sales style of your reps vs a promotion that may or may not work. I recommend asking them what they think and really listen. Then, test what they said with the other top reps in your company.

3) This is odvious however make sure you give them verbal and $$$ credit. If you see something amazing or incredible effort, reward that in a big way. That will enable not just repeat behavior, it will spread to others.

Have you ever made a list of ideas you want to incorporate into your day to day? These are the top 10 things that I will be trying to add to my daily activities

1. Be More Active
2. Avoid Getting Sloppy
3. Follow Up with Customers
4. Identify Top Tier A Prospects
5. Create Strategy for Prospects
6. Engage Additional Resources
7. Have Fun
8. Create “2013/2014 Preview”
9. Idenify Three New Ideas
10. Review Daily Two Times

Be More Active:
It’s really easy for my manager to tell me to work harder. To sell more. However, what if I already work 60 hours? The idea here is to not work more hours (you already work 60), however the idea is to be more active on whats important and less active on whats become “normal activities”. For example, replace a few internal meetings with “customer appreciate phone calls.” Here’s a habit for you to consider: pick a 60 minute meeting you normally have on Monday and replace it with a 30 minute customer appreciation blitz and 30 minute prospect blitz.” You could do this via email, phone, text or all the above. Don’t make any assumptions that your customers won’t appreciate the non selling call. There are lots of ways to “Be More Active” with your customers and prospects and year end is the most important time of the year for this.

Avoid Getting Sloppy:
Yes, I am specifically talking to those that are having good years. The key to sustained success is when you are doing well, work harder! If a football running back is averaging 7 yards a carry, I say “feed him.” Well, if you have had an awesome year, it’s very tempting to take some time off and enjoy the year end holidays! Don’t. Instead, get the ball even more! Keep the momentum going.

Follow up with Customers:
We already talked about one idea, which was to replace one 30 minute internal meeting each week with a focused approach to communicate with each and every customer. Not a sales call. In addition, you could meet internally to discuss your customer base and where appropriate put a package together to share with that customer. This would likley be different by customer. If you don’t see the value in this for all customers, I encourage you to consider it for your top 20% that prepresent 80% of your revenues.

Identify Top Tier A Prospects:
This is one of the best and often missed excersises, in my opinion. I recommend asking your sales people to idenitfy their top Tier A prospects, using the customers size or potential for your products and services. Talk about them as a team. Then, go research who those top Tier A customers competitors are. Schedule a second meeting where you ask about the “new Tier A” list you created. This is the “Tier A Look A Like” list – that is, they look at the accounts your rep identified and you should discuss why they weren’t on the list. This excersise will usually lead to finding several new “Tier A” prospects that were being missed because there isn’t a relationship at the account. And often times, those accounts have honestly been simply ignored because of that.

Create Strategy for Prospects:
I recommend brainstorming a few stratagies and then putting prospects into certain buckets. Example, do you want to bring in a senior person to meet a prospect? Brainstorm strategies and then match each prospect with at least one of them. Then execute!

Engage additional resources:
Now is the time that all your customers and prospects need the most focus. You already work 60 hours. Sure, you can cut out some internal less important stuff. However, another idea is to expand your resources touching that account. And no, you don’t need to go with them. Maybe it’s a partner of yours. Maybe its another vendor that fits what they do. Either way, connect them and get out of the way.

Have Fun:
The year is going fast. We need to ensure we work hard, work smart and also we have fun. We need to re-engerize without putting activities at risk. Example, you plan 8 face/face calls today — well what can you bring that would make those face/face calls fun? Maybe some of those calls are over breakfast or coffee?

Create 2013 2H/2014 Preview:
If you are in sales, your manager is probably 30 day focused (if you are lucky). And thats the way it should be. However, don’t miss understand that you should therefore only be 30 day focused. No matter what you do, take some time to think about and map out a second half 2013 preview. Identify your early objectives in your mind for Q3/4 and FY 2013. They might change and thats ok. Write them down….you will reflect back to this later.

Identify Three New Ideas:
Take time during you next dinner or lunch and brainstorm 3 new ideas. Then share the ideas where appropriate.

Review Daily Two Times:
Call me crazy however have a printed sheet of those top tier A propects (both lists) and look at it over for 2 minutes before the day starts and after the day ends.

Good Selling……

For those that love Seth Godin books like I do, I will tell you this wasn’t one of those quick reads.
And for me, it was a little confusing.
Is he saying we should all be artists? What if you draw like me – certainly one of the worst pictionary players.

However as you read through the book, you will quickly see that we are all artists if we want to be.
It’s our comfort that keeps us from doing art. Or maybe it’s are fear of failure.

However, we can move our comfort zone. We can make Art. Do you know why venture capitalists never choose company founders who are only replacing their day time jobs?

Apple makes art, according to Seth. Do you know why they are the most talked about company? Seth argues it’s because they have huge aspirations for who they want their customers to become and they deliver on them.

What “Art” is worth doing? Master that and look out.

When you make your maketing or sales goals, make sure to be specific, make it measurable and attainable and finally, give yourself a timeline. And most importantly, write it all down.
Here’s an idea for you, write down a list of 15 goals to review with your best customers. For example, say a goal is to enhance your teams design skills. Well, maybe you share that goal and offer “5 free customer redesigns” to some non users.

Or perhaps you have a goal of increasing your ROI on a specific job, maybe you offer a specific client “3 free A/B sample tests of 3 versions prior to launching the full blown campaign with the version that had the best results.”
If you are interested in grabbing lunch or breakfast and talking about some ideas, please let me know.

Continueing on the inspirational theme, I watched the Rocky movie with my son last month. Yes, it was the first time I let him watch it. Well we started talking about the importance of having self inspiration and dedication. As we talked about what I meant, I found myself having him watch this YouTube Video that I really like with me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTFnmsCnr6g
If you havent seen it, its absolutely worth 14 minutes listening to this speech.

Well let me tell you, my son has a renewed interest in reading and golf. In fact, he read the entire Harry Potter books 1 2 and 3 and still going. This is a 3rd grader reading 500page books and getting 95% on the first AR test.

And putting it into perspective, he’s the most improved AR in his class and I would give all the credit to this inspirational video.

Do your employees reach their full potential? Which employee or leader inspires others on your team? Do you push and coach them?

A few Sunday’s ago, we watched this clip and it reminded me again on the importance that true leaders can have! I know I have shared this before however it’s worth sharing again.
If you want inspired, watch this short video as a team. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmurxfN-o9k

Think about what happened. The team was complaining about having to do the death crawl for 10 yards. Then they asked coach if they would have a chance to win, like it was suppose to be handed to them. Notice the difference in the team as Brock moved down the field. Inspired? Motivated? Ready to work?

How was your Q1? Are you ready for Q2? Seems like it was just December, doesn’t it?

I saw this article from Dean Jackson on 10 Killer Ideas and thought it was worth sharing. http://marketingmonday.com/10-killer-real-estate-marketing-ideas/

Let’s start with #1. It’s very easy to say “Pick one day each week to work ON your business and your marketing”.

However is that realistic? Who has 1 day to do this?

I have an idea for you. How about working on it one evening? Perhaps after the kids go to bed if you are like me or during your favorite TV shows? This isn’t just for owners, this is for others including your sales teams.
Here’s my suggestion. Pick a 1-2 hour block per week outside your normal work hours and create the habit. Document what you think about or come up with during each session and out into a running CAD or document. Do it for the entire second quarter (~12 more weeks), set up a full day to then review the entire CAD/List with other members of your team in July. Discuss what changes were made and the results, if any.