Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Why Your Business Will Fail

by Paul Serwin on February 2, 2012

How to Reinvent Your Business & Immediately Start Seeing Results

Ninja Business Growth Strategies
Photo Source= ag2r

Every few months, I try to reinvent my business. That is, I really try to find something new that I can implement to make my company grow.

Last year my primary focus was on building and developing strong relationships with small business owners across the world. I have had the pleasure of working with and helping some very successful business owners have their most profitable years ever.

Now that I’ve satisfied the “offline” component to Business All Star, I’m gearing up to ramp up my digital strategy.

I originally started this blog when I first opened my consultancy in 2009. Unfortunately I was a little too ambitious at first and posted here sporadically. Early last year, with my coaching and consultancy business exploding, I decided to put blogging on the backburner while I developed a business that practically runs on auto-pilot.

At that point I noted a set of principles that I wanted this blog to focus on. I love learning about business, but what I love more is sharing that knowledge with small business owners to help you implement it into your own company and you help you grow to a level you never imagined. Instead of rushing out shorter posts, I am more focused on producing Epic Sh*t to share with you and to help us both grow together. My old posts are still up here, and I might add on to some of the old articles with some new experiences and lessons I’ve learned along the way.

I’ve been writing non-stop in the free time that I have created. I recently completed a few books and programs that I will be soon introducing, as well as outlining concepts & ideas for ImprovingBusinessResults.com. I am now at the point where I can execute the next step of my business plan: expanding my network through not only my blog but through every multimedia resource available to me.

I’ve got a couple of great videos in the works (that will be posted RIGHT HERE at ImprovingBusinessResults.com), as well as a CLASSIFIED *TOP SECRET* project that I will be ready to announce in the very near future- a valuable resource that will help your business online presence develop into a thriving social media community!

Are you reinventing your business this year?

Think about your own business. Was your 2011 better than 2010? Was it better than 2007 or 2008? If it wasn’t, then odds are that 2012 is going to be a make or break year for most of you.

I’m sure you’ve heard the old quote- “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting different results.”

If I’m looking to get better results, I’d be insane to NOT reinvent my business constantly.

The way I look at business is that the primary focus needs to be on growing your business. If you are comfortable with where you’re at- you probably need to sell and get out while you can, because there will always be a competitor ready to snatch your customers away.

If your business is not growing, but rather receding- or even costing you money, you can check out my free monthly Profit Outbreak call.

I’ve seen countless analysts talking about how the “economy will be worse in 2012.” I believe we’re going to continue to see more and more businesses fail & close up their doors this year. (Hostess just filed for Bankruptcy Protection last month! Have people really stopped eating Twinkies? It sure doesn’t look like it!)

Yeah, the “economy” sucks. But how are some companies thriving and growing their businesses in these times? More importantly, what can you learn from them and implement into your own business strategy to allow you to achieve the same success?

The first thing you have to do is stop making and accepting excuses.

Whether or not your busienss will thrive depends solely on you- what are you willing to give up now in order to ensure your success later?

Blaming the economy is an excuse, and a poor one at that. If you are focusing your marketing efforts properly you can reach customers that are willing to pay for your services.

If you talk to somebody that had to close down their shop, you realize that there are plenty of excuses that people come up with. Some might be valid but some are plain dumb. Here’s a list I’ve compiled of the more common ones as well as some ideas to avoid these roadblocks:

Some Excuses
- Bad idea to begin with
Was it a bad idea? Or maybe were you the wrong person to run the business?
- Unrealistic expectations
More than likely, this means that the markets weren’t thoroughly researched and they weren’t prepared to run this business.
- Not enough operating capital
If you are going into business, be prepared to have the funding you need to keep it afloat for at least 2 years to start. If you don’t have that kind of money, entrepreneurship is only going to be a really expensive hobby.
- Poor location
Or is being location-dependant a problem? If you are reaching for an ideal target market, you must be in the proper location.
- Bad timing
Again, a lack of proper preparation for the struggles that might be facing you as an entrepreneur.
- Lack of entrepreneurial skills and foresight
This means you didn’t realize the importance of building a strong team (a topic I will be going into great detail here soon). To be successful in anything, you must understand your strengths as well as your limitations.
- The wrong person operating the business

No matter what they say, they are all just excuses. When I prod these people a little more, I peel away to find the root cause of why their companies are really failing.

Is your business a culprit to one of the following?
The Real Reasons
- Lack effective customer Acquisition and Retention Systems (Are your marketing efforts bringing in a consistent amount of new customers? Does a lot of your revenue depend on repeat business?)
- Don’t attract enough qualified prospects (Do you have people inquiring about you but NOT buying?)
- Fail to convert prospects into profitable and repeat customers
- Let current customers slip away to do business with competitors
- Lack effective & efficient business management practices

When you reinvent your business sometimes you have to reinvent the way you think about your business. For a lot of entrepreneurs, profit is the main driving force of their motivation. Don’t chase after the profit, chase after the customers. Trust me, it will work out in the end.

The most important business asset that you have are your customers and your clients. The more customers and clients you attract, the more your business grows. This is simple science, folks.

Yet every week it seems like I run into somebody that doesn’t focus on growing their customer base. And these are the people complaining (or giving excuses) that their business is struggling.

Let me share with you the single most important piece of business advice I ever received. This advice was given to me by a top business owner in Chicago when I was a 15 year old caddie, and I’ve built Business All Star around this single mantra.

The Most Important Business Skill You Can Have:
Knowing how to cost-effectively
attract and keep an adequate
number of loyal and profitable
customers.

Considering all that- I challenge you to reinvent your business. At the very least start with your marketing. Is all of your marketing answering the following two questions? (If not- Apply Immediately)

1. “My prospects contact my business
for the products & services we offer because….”
2. “My customers make repeat purchases with my business because….”

What are you working on to improve your business this year? What steps are you taking? Do you have a business makeover success story? Please share below in the comments!

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Diffusing a Potential Catastrophe

by Paul Serwin on March 31, 2011

6 Simple Tips For Dealing With Irate Customers

No matter what business you’re in, at some point you will deal with an angry customer. Whether it’s a defective product or an honest-to-goodness mistake, sometimes the quality of our service slips the cracks.

Some customers might be calm in their approach, while others can get downright nasty with you. Either way, it is our job as business owners to satisfy our customers.

Sometimes it’s hard to stay cool-headed and calm when dealing with a nasty customer (especially if they try to get personal with you).

In terms of your customer service, gaining loyal customers is ALWAYS your goal. A complaint from a customer can be a great vehicle for customer retention. If you know how to handle these situations appropriately, you can quickly turn a potential catastrophe into a positive experience.

Here are 6 simple steps for dealing with angry customers.

1.Thank them for bringing the issue to your attention
It’s very important that the customer feels that you are truly concerned about the issue. Always be polite while the customer is addressing their concerns. This includes not interrupting the customer while they are telling you about their problem.

2.Empathize
Acknowledge what they have to say and let them know how important customer interaction is to your business. Apologize for the error & for the customer’s time.

Stay calm and don’t take anything that the customer says personally. If the customer is angry, it’s because they are passionate about the level of service that they demand. Understand that this issue is just as important to them as it is to you.

3.Repeat the concern to clarify
Ask questions to understand what the problem is. Learn about what they are concerned about and about what will help them stay with your business.

4.Try to find a reasonable accomodation
Focus on something that will retain this client as well as cover the loss they experienced. If you are unable to satisfy them with your offers, ask them what will make them happy.

It’s also important not to give in to ridiculous demands or requests. Choose who you want to do business with. Some customers (the ones that nobody can ever satisfy) like to take advantage of customer service situations. If somebody is repeatedly complaining about everything, sometimes it’s more beneficial to cut off the business relationship with that customer. Some customers are not worth the hassle.

5.Take action quickly
Take personal responsibility and interest to make sure issues are resolved. Promising and not following through on customer complaints will leave a permanent black eye on your organization going forward. You’ve heard it before- a satisfied customer might tell 1 or 2 friends about their situation, while an upset customer will tell 10 friends about their problems with a company.

6.Follow Up
Check back with customer quickly to ensure satisfaction. Remember, we are looking to establish loyal contacts with our customers. In order to do that, it’s important to solicit feedback from your customers so they know that you are a enterprise focused on customer satisfaction.

Make sure that mistakes are not repeated. The time we spend cleaning up messes is time that we can be investing on growing our companies. The only way to make up that time is to avoid it in the first place.

Do you have any stories about how you had to overcome an upset customer? How did you resolve it? Let me know in the comments!

Photo Source= mdanys

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The Quickest Way to Topple Your Business

by Paul Serwin on March 23, 2011

Don’t Fall into This Expensive Trap


Photo Source= familymwr

The biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs making right now is not understanding that advertising is nothing more than salesmanship. It’s pretty basic but nobody seems to understand the concept behind it.  

Whether you advertise through radio, television, newspapers, direct mail, or industry magazines- everything has to be constructed and presented in the same strategic way that your salesman would pitch a prospective customer.  Every ad you have out there that represents your brand and your company should be focused on making a compelling case for your product.

Your ads should represent your business in a way that is informative and educational.  Let the facts support why your market does business with you and what problems you solve.

Your marketing has to create visions in the minds of your customers.  Visions of how your product solves the problems that your target market is facing.

A lot of marketers these days are going against the old guard way of longer meatier ads and gearing towards shorter, abstract kind of cute advertising.  Think about how many mundane abstract commercials you see on television today.  I can’t even tell what the product being advertised is on more than half of the ads I see every day!  Flashing a logo of your company will never give anybody a compelling reason to do business with you.

The Business All Stars always remember that advertising is salesmanship.  Would you tell your salesperson to do a cute presentation that had nothing to do with your product?  No!  You ask them to make a complete presentation as to the benefits of doing business with you.  

Would you tell your salesperson to NOT ask for the sale?  Hell no!  

Your small business marketing and advertising should always have one main goal- You always pursue the customer to taking action immediately!

If a customer comes into your shop are you going to be cute and abstract with them?  Of course you wouldn’t.  There’s no reason to communicate with your customers in that way.  Don’t let your advertising fall into this expensive and non-productive trap.

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Business All Star Radio- Episode 1

by Paul Serwin on March 17, 2011

Laying the Foundation to Becoming a Business All Star

I’ve posted the first episode of my new podcast, Business All Star Radio.  This is the ONLY business-focused podcast that gives techniques that can be applied to any business in any circumstance at any time by anybody, regardless of experience or previous success.  In this episode, I share a vault of valuable information and share the philosophies that have shaped Business All Star.

In this session, I explain:

  • What is Business All Star?
  • The most critical components towards becoming a Business All Star
  • 3 step process to Leveraged Success as an entrepreneur
  • …And Much Much More!

Right-Click here to save the MP3 file to your computer to play in iTunes (or enjoy by pressing the “PLAY” button right under the logo!)

My biggest focus is to make this YOUR show.  Leave your comments, questions, suggestions below!

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The Keys to Kicking Procrastination in the Ass

by Paul Serwin on March 16, 2011

18 Inspirational & Motivational Quotes to Get You Going


Photo Source= Chapendra

When you are working for yourself, it’s important to keep yourself motivated and always working towards achieving your goals. Taking consistent action has to become a ritual- like eating breakfast every day. For some reason or another, sometimes procrastination shows it’s ugly head.

The quickest way to reduce business anxiety and increase success is to lean on the wisdom and experience of the champions that understand the pitfalls and struggles you face.

If you’re having a hard time shaking procrastination, I’ve put together a list of 18 quotes that will help you get on track.

1. Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. —Alan Keightley

Growing up, a lot of us were told that the easy way out was to go to school, get a degree, get a job, work until you’re 62…then collect Social Security. Is that opportunity really a reliable option anymore? Kids getting out college can’t get any jobs. (And I won’t get into Social Security on this blog).  Business All Stars don’t shoot for the status quo. We want more. We don’t settle for 60 hour work weeks, 30 minute commutes, your kids in day care or relocating for the promise of career advancement. You have to hustle hard to be above the rat race.

2. You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. — Mike Murdock

Take your goals day by day. What are you doing today to grow your business and yourself tomorrow?

3. No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals —. Brian Tracy

Get help right out the gate. Find a mentor, coach, mastermind or become a part a community that will help to support you in your success. You want to become a life long learner. Attend seminars and boot camps in your specialized area knowledge. When you learn from people who have been successful and you model their activities you will get closer to their results.

4. By stretching yourself beyond your perceived level of confidence you accelerate your development of competence. — Michael J. Gelb

The only way to gain confidence in a certain area is to get experience in it. When you take action, you will start to have small victories which will increase your level of success.

5. If you don’t program yourself, life will program you! —Les Brown

If you have no plan on you will create wealth you won’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, how the hell are you gonna get there? Nobody else will develop a strategy for you.

6. There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. —Denis Waitley

If you want to get better results, you have to change the way you do things. You have to take total responsiblity for the direction of your business. Focus on solutions. Don’t focus on problems or why you think something can’t happen. Start to ask yourself powerful questions, so that you can create powerful conclusions.

7. You’ll see things “you never knew you never knew.” — Disney’s Pocahontas

The journey and pursuit of freedom allow you to see the world in a completely different way. As you grow, you will naturally see opportunities that others can not see. When you put yourself in a situation that you create opportunity, you realize that the opportunities available to you are limitless.

8. A different world cannot be built by indifferent people. —Peter Marshall

You can’t have what you want in life by being indifferent. All Stars are passionate and sometimes radical in pursuit of their dreams. Don’t allow yourself to be found in an environment that discourages you.

9. What is it that you like doing? If you don’t like it, get out of it, because you’ll be lousy at it. You don’t have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don’t like it you’ll never be successful in it. —Lee Iacocca

Why would you ever spend most of your waking hours doing something that you don’t like? What are you passionate about? How can you put yourself in a position to capatilize off your passion? The key to excellence is finding something you love and going after it.

10. Simply making consistent investments in our “self-education and knowledge banks” pays major dividends throughout our lives. — Jim Rohn

The self-education I have pursued in my life has produced my greatest return on investment. I’ve realized that no matter what challenges your business faces, someone else has probably dealed with that situation before. A key to developing the skills that lead to success is seeking more knowledge and wisdom from the best of the best. Nobody is ever disappointed with learning something new.

11. Finding your purpose may be a lifelong pursuit or you may have discovered it when you were 5 years old. There’s no absolute timeline for anyone. That’s a good reason never to give up, to keep on discovering things every day. — Donald Trump

If you have not discovered your life’s purpose don’t be hard on yourself. Start to ask yourself questions and enter into a discovery process. Allow yourself to dream without concerns of how you will get it done. Every time you think you have found the answer did a little deeper with more questions. Rarely are your true goals, purpose and desires on the surface of your soul. Often times, they have been put away for safe keeping to protect yourself from disappointment. Keep discovering new things until your purpose is crystal clear.

12. What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people’s lives. —Oprah Winfrey

When you get the money out of the way your world expands even greater. To be successful in business, you have to help people. Your product or service has to serve some sort of benefit to your customers. Look for ways to help others in everything you do. Whether it is giving more support to your family or contributing to a worthy cause, as entrepreneurs we have to make our mark on the world.

13. The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do. — Booker T. Washington

So what can you create and add value to the world? I love this quote because it demonstrates very clearly that what matters are results at the end of the day. Don’t get caught up in theories. Make sure you are constantly taking action that moves you towards a specific goal.

14. There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction. — John F. Kennedy

Are you so afraid to fail that you just can’t get out of the box? Don’t be. Many people have “failed” their way to million dollar empires. It is better to do something and be wrong then to do nothing at all. Focus on the fear of regret. When your business takes off, imagine the regret you would have if you had never taken action.

15. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want. –George Bernard Shaw

There is no such thing as luck. You create the luck by working and preparing for the opportunity. When you start to put yourself out there the universe gives back. Make sure you are clear of your intentions and then go and make it happen.

16. It’s not the hours you put in your work that counts, it’s the work you put in your hours. — Sam Ewing

You have the same 24 hours in the day as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. Don’t sabotage yourself by dwelling on tasks that aren’t bringing you profits. Focus on your passion and towards growing your empire. Be consistent with the time you put in towards your success.

17. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. — Eleanor Roosevelt.

One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to push yourself and accomplish the impossible. It doesn’t have to be something huge. A simple action of courage goes a long way towards increasing your confidence and drive.

18. You will never leave where you are, until you decide where you’d rather be. — Dexter Yager

Do you have a quote that has inspired you? Share in the comments!

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How to Maintain a Motivated and Excited Workforce

by Paul Serwin on March 2, 2011

Keeping High Employee Morale in Tough Times


Photo Source= Alex E. Proimos

As a business owner your employees are one of your most valuable assets.  If you are one of the many small businesses struggling to make it, it may be difficult keeping your employees focused on executing your mission.

Whenever you have people on your payroll you need to avoid a high turnover.  We all know how high the costs can come when it comes to hiring and pre-screening new employees, on top of the costs of training.

The best way to avoid high employee turnover?  Keep the morale of your employees as high as possible.

Low morale also leads to lower level of productivity among your workers.  Employees with low morale are almost never willing to work harder.

Even though times are tough for a lot of businesses, companies are still motivating their employees to not only meet their goals but also to help grow the business.

You as the entrepreneur have to take the lead.  You have to develop trust with your employees.  You have to get all your employees to share the vision that you have to grow your business.  You need to make sure your whole staff shares the same vision and mission of where your company is going.

You need to develop a mutual relationship with your employees based on respect, care, and fairness.

I’ve consultated with companies that had ridiculously high turnover as well as companies that really got it when it came to employee retention and satisfaction.  The biggest difference between turnover and retention comes down to employee development.

If you can develop your employees performance levels it will be easier to motivate them.  When it comes to benchmarking performance, I recommend that you set your goals WITH your employees.  You want to make sure you offer something that they have to push themselves to get, but that they won’t need to put in 60 hours a week to achieve.  You need to make the quotas achievable.  Developing these goals together makes sure that everything is operated fairly and makes the employees understand what is expected of them.

Recognition programs also help to provide a solid foundation for employee morale and growth.  Recognition should not only focus on achievements.  Recognize loyalty and service to the company as well as people that go above and beyond the goals that you set for them.  Recognizing people who have been with you for a long time is crucial, because these people are dedicating themselves towards your vision.  These are the people that are you helping you grow your business with their dedication.

If an employee has helped you grow your business, I always recommend giving them a bonus.  Think about it, if it wasn’t for their ideas or their commitment to your growth, you wouldn’t have had that growth in the first place.  This is especially important if you go significantly over your targets.

Whenever I work with employees or contractors, I always take it upon myself to teach and develop these people.  I feel I have a responsibility to provide skills for them towards being a better person as well as just giving them a job to do.  The more you help your people grow the stronger your business will be.  If they see that your company is growing because of their work, and you take care of them, they’ll be more likely to stay with you.

From my own experience, the best leaders are the ones that focus on developing other future leaders.  This isn’t really done a lot with small businesses today.  Most of the time, we just hire somebody to do a job that we ourselves don’t want to do or we’re not too good at.  Then we just kind of sit there and hope the employee takes care of what we need.  I’m not saying you have to create management opportunities for your employees but you do want to provide them with the skill sets that will benefit them in the future, whether it’s with you or somebody else.  Instilling leadership qualities with your employees sets the right kind of standard for your business.

People love to learn new skills that they don’t have.  When you teach somebody that is aligned with your vision a new skill, they will greatly appreciate it.  This not only helps the operation of your business, but society as a whole.  Your opportunity as a small business owner is really the opportunity to facilitate a positive change in the world.  You are offering a product or a service that people need in their lives.  (If you are not, then you won’t find the fulfillment that you need.)

It’s our responsibility as entrepreneurs to build more leaders to bring an entrepreneurial mindset into our employees and the people that we work with so we could inspire them to also be innovative and creative and to go out there and make a difference in the world.

As a Business All Star it’s your responsibility to help develop your workers, and give them opportunities to grow along with your business.  On the flipside it’s also important to see what knowledge and perspective that these people may provide you as well.

When you’re managing people and vendors, it’s always important to set aside one-on-one time to go over the expectations and performance.  You want to identify things that each person is doing exceptionally well and areas for improvement.

Engaging with your employees and facilitating ongoing conversations with them also will boost your morale.  You always want your employees to understand what’s going on in your business if you want them to share the same goals and have the same enthusiasm in your business as you do.

I’m not telling you to open your books and show them the bottom line, but if you had an extraordinary day show appreciation to your workers.  If there is an immediate area in your business that you need improvement in, let your employees know what they need to focus on.

Managing a group of people and trying to keep them on track with your vision may be really difficult at times.  If we help our workers grow along with our companies we will all be the better for it.

Do you have any tips or creative ways that you have motivated the people that work for you?  Please share in the comments.

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Dream Bigger

by Paul Serwin on February 22, 2011

Everything Impossible is Possible


Photo Source= 3oheme

Have you ever had an idea that sounded good, but when it came down to executing it you believed that it would be impossible to get it done?

Have you ever turned down to be apart of an opportunity because it sounded too good to be true, and now you regret that because it ended up being very lucrative?

The reason that a lot of entrepreneurs are more successful than others is that some are not afraid to face risks. These people realize that the only way to discover whether or not something is impossible is to first try it.

In order to live your dreams and to accomplish great things in life, we have to dream. And if you aspire to do big things, you have to dream big. We have to have a vision of what the big picture looks like, and then figure out what the tasks are going to be that we need to get to that final objective.

Whether or not we will reach our goals, we will never know if we don’t take action. We are only ever truly limited by ourselves- whether or not we are afraid to go forward.

Sometimes we are afraid to take action because it may sound too tough to undertake a task or even worse, it might be impossible to do it (especially for those of us who are more innovative and doing things that have never really been done before).

Just being successful in business means that you have overcome some sort of risk. Reaching an accomplishment that you never thought possible is one of the most fulfilling feelings that you will ever encounter as a Business All Star.

When I quit my job 2 years ago to focus on building Business All Stars, I never imagined the directions that it would lead me to (like creating this blog and all the wonderful connections that I would have never made otherwise.) I understood the risk was huge, but by taking action and persevering, I have been able to live my dreams.

Next time somebody tells you something is impossible, prove them wrong. Nothing is impossible.

What is something that you have accomplished that you or somebody else felt was impossible? Please share in the comments!

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How To: Make Your Goals for 2011 Smarter

by Paul Serwin on December 9, 2010

Make Your New Year Goals Stronger by Making Them Smart


Photo Source= Tony_The_Bald_Eagle

As we end another year and enter in 2011, we are at the time of year where we reflect upon what was in the past year and look forward to where we are trying to go.

Every December, I set a few days aside for myself to look at how I can integrate the knowledge that I gained into further success for the upcoming year. During this time I evaluate where I am, how I got there, and set my goals for the new year.

Goals are very important because they allow us to take a look at the big picture of where we want to go. Goals are a preview of future events and experiences in your life. They allow us to manage our time better because we will be setting time aside towards achieving our goals.

By having goals and setting out to accomplish them, we no longer have to just hope that our future will be brighter than our past was. Goals motivate us to be more determined and focused on growing our businesses, by giving us the direction we need.

The greatest benefit of setting goals comes from the achievement of them. Whenever you can cross a goal off your list, you will instantly boost your self-confidence. I’ve never met anybody that wasn’t short of euphoric after accomplishing one of their goals, no matter how small or big the feat was.

A few years ago, one of my mentors in sales showed me the most surefire way to achieving your goals, which is the SMART model. The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely. Integrating this model into your goal-setting will give you a way to evaluate your goals in a way that will help set you up for success.

Make your goals SMART:

Specific
Make sure you go into detail about your goals. This is where you will answer the following questions.

*What are you going to do to reach your goal? What are you trying to accomplish?
*Why is this goal important to you?
*How are you going to accomplish this goal?
Make your goal and the steps to reach it as specific as possible. If you know where you’re going, and you know how you’ll get there, what will stop you from achieving your goals?

Measurable
If you can’t measure your goal, you won’t be able to measure your success. Make sure you set up your goals in a way that you can track and see your progress as you get closer to achievement. Tracking your progress helps motivate to keep you on pace. The only way to finish your goal is by staying on track.

Attainable
When you set goals that you know that you can easily accomplish, you are going to be focused on finishing them as soon as possible. These goals are a priority to you because of the lack of effort needed to achieve them. When you set a goal that is probably far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit as much effort to them as a goal that would be easier to achieve.
You don’t always want to set easy goals for yourself. The goals that are most satisfying to achieve are the ones that will stretch your abilities. These are the goals that require a stronger level of commitment from you.

Realistic
When you set goals, you don’t want to stretch yourself too thin. You have to make sure that you have the resources and tools available to you to achieve your dreams. If you’re trying to boost your profits from $100,000 to a million dollars in a year, you have to make sure that you are capable of growing your business that exponentially as well as the capacity to handle that many additional orders.

It’s very easy to shoot for the moon, but if your goals are depending on luck, you need to lower the bar for yourself. If your goals are too difficult you are setting yourself up for failure.

Timely
Every goal you set yourself should have a timeframe attached with it. “In 6 months, I want to lose 20 pounds.” Putting an endpoint on it helps with your tracking and gives you a clear finish line to run towards.

Not setting yourself with a deadline will not give you the urgency to start taking action now. I always present my greatest work when I’m under the pressure of a deadline to beat. When I have a project that doesn’t have a concrete endpoint, I usually tend to put it off for as long as possible.

As you can see, the SMART model will not only allow you clearly define everything you achieve, but it also sets you up with a very nice outline of all the tactics that you will need to accomplish what you set.

This weekend (and I urge you to do the same too), I’ll be setting my goals for the upcoming year. I always start with the big picture first, and write out the goals I have for the whole year. From there, I can whittle them down and set 6-month as well as monthly goals that I will need to accomplish to get to my yearly goal.  Every day I go through this list and keep myself focused towards making sure that I do at least something every single day towards reaching my goal. Using the SMART model helps me to make my dreams a reality.

What was the most satisying goal you set out and accomplished this year?  What are you aspiring to do next year?  I look forward to your answers!

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Painting a Picture Will Help you Increase Your Sales Forever!

by Paul Serwin on December 6, 2010

Show Your Customer How You Solve Their Problems


Photo Source= HANS S

Unless you are the absolute price leader in your market, setting your business apart from your competition comes down to your salesmanship. It’s very important that you and your staff understand that you must sell the customer on why they should be spending their hard-earned dollars with you. That is, you have to present the benefits of your product or service.

You can only present the benefits of your business after you understand the pain and struggles of your target market. Your business offers some sort of solution to these aches and these should be highlighted to your potential clients every time you are in front of them. If your business doesn’t offer any solutions, then you really need to reevaluate your strategy and start selling something else.

Your benefits will show the customers how their lives will be improved by you, because you are the one solving their problems. The solution to positioning your business or your product is by painting a vivid and colorful picture to your customer about how their life will be changed by you.

A major problem a lot of small businesses have with their sales and marketing is that they don’t seem to understand the difference between features and benefits. The marketing and sales presentations of these companies focus on the features that make their products great.

A feature is not a benefit. Features can however be a great lead-in to presenting a benefit. It’s important whenever you are selling your goods, whether through marketing or a sales presentation, that whenever you mention a feature, that you bridge it with a benefit. This is known as Feature-Bridge-Benefit, and this is how you can paint that picture in the customers mind.

For example, let’s say that I sell brand-new cars. A feature of a new car might be that it has air conditioning. If I present it that way, it doesn’t really mean anything to the customer. After all, every car now has air conditioning.

Using the Feature-Bridge-Benefit tactic, I would position it like this. “This car has a tremendous, state-of-the-art air conditioning system. I don’t know about you, but when it’s the middle of July and over a hundred degrees outside, I hate sitting at a red light in the sweltering heat. This air conditioning will make sure that the back of your shirt doesn’t stick to the seat during the summer.”

Most sales are based on emotion. Do you see how I was able to invoke an emotion in the customer while explaining something as dull and ordinary as air conditioning in a car? Did you notice how I also presented the problem that the customer has and how my car was able to solve it?

The better a picture you can paint for the customer, the more likely the customer will start to envision themselves sitting in that air conditioned car in the middle of the summer. Once they picture themselves in that car, making the sale will be that much easier.

By painting a picture that the customer visualizes themselves physically using your product with their problems solved, that customer is also less likely to feel buyers remorse. They will understand the emotion of how they feel once their problem is solved. And the better picture you paint, the more likely the customer will see more benefits of buying your product.

Get your customer to feel the pain of their problems and just how much pain they are in. Then get them to visualize how good it feels to be free from these burdens.

When painting the picture of your benefits, it’s also very important to use power words in your statements. In the next few weeks, I’ll be posting a list of my favorite power words that help to create value statements that paint vivid pictures in your customers mind.

Good, old-fashioned salesmanship is truly what separates the achievers from the strugglers right now. Customers are more knowledgable and savvy these days, and positioning the benefits of your solution are necessary to making more sales. Paint the picture to your customers in a vivid way and watch your sales grow!

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Getting Others to Do Your Work For You

by Paul Serwin on December 2, 2010

How to Make Sure the Work You Delegate Gets Done

Photo Source= jon_a_ross

Time is a precious commodity. There are only 24 hours in a day, and unless you can get by with no sleep, odds are you will have to outsource some of your tasks to either an employee, contractor or vendor. (For a list of comprehensive benefits on why delegating work is right for you, read my post from a few weeks back).

The problem with delegating work to others is that sometimes you are going to have to step in and clean somebody else’s mess. Either the job won’t be done to your standards or something unforeseen will prevent the job from being done.

The problem with not delegating any work to anybody (and trying to get everything done yourself) is that it leads to the downfall of many small businesses and executives. If you stretch yourself too thin, you can’t spend enough time on increasing your revenue and growing your business.

When you are in a position to delegate a task or a project that you need done, you have to understand not only the task that needs to be done, but also the skill sets of your team. I’ve found that before I delegate a task to someone I have to focus on two things- Defining Success and Assessing the Qualifications Necessary.
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DEFINING SUCCESS.

In order to make sure you can properly prepare someone else to do your work, you have to be able to determine and communicate what success will look like when the task is finished. There has to be some sort of deliverable, that you can check, to make sure that the task has been completed to your satisfaction.  An effective leader will assign tasks to the workers or contractors that you know will be able to succeed.

If you can’t identify the successful outcome of a task, how can you determine if a worker is capable of performing it? The failure to define success turns delegation into a gamble, rather than a prediction.

As an effective manager, you will predict success based on the skill-sets of the employees you have as well as the requirements necessary to get the job done.

If you just have work that needs to be done, but don’t know what success looks like with the completed task, you will ineffective at not only managing your people, but also at running your business.

You want to clearly define and communicate the outcome of the task to the person you delegate it to. You want your workers to have a crystal-clear understanding of what you require of them to get the job done. That way, they can focus their entire efforts on the important activities to carry out the job efficiently. Another advantage of clearly defining success is that it will help you be a more effective coach to your team, developing them towards becoming more productive for your company.

ASSESSING THE QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED

After you know what success looks like you will need to assess what qualifications will be needed in order to reach that success.

What kind of person do you need to do the job? What skills will they need? How much time will they need to get the job done?

A few months ago, a client I was coaching was facing a dilemma. He was pursuing a customer, that if he landed, would double his profits for the year. He had his best salesperson working on this potential client for a few months. Unfortunately, things weren’t working out, and it seemed like he was about to lose the job to a competitor.

My client, not one to give up, decided to reassess the situation. After thinking things through, he thought that maybe the gung-ho take-no-prisoners approach of his top sales agent was not the right approach for landing this new customer. Instead, he opted for the laid-back approach of one of his newer salespeople to deal with this potential client. After two weeks, the sale was closed, and everyone was happy (even the original salesperson, who was given a tremendous bonus for his efforts in trying to close the deal.)

Prior to making the delegation, you should reflect on the desired outcomes from assigning the task (e.g., increased sales, decreased complaints) and the types of processes (e.g., better client education, greater empathy) that might be needed to produce the desired result. After you understand what skills you need, you can go ahead and match them to the skills of your team.

Whether you want to free your time, or you want to simply get more done in your business, delegating work to others is a tremendous benefit to growing your business. Make sure when you assign tasks to others, that you can define what success will look like when the job is done. Also evaluate the qualifications that are necessary to get the job done, so that you can match them to the competencies of the people on your team.

If you let your team know what results you expect (and that you focus on results) you will be able to focus on creating those results.

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