Howdy,

Sorry for the long absence, I’ve been busy getting some important things done that you’ll see soon… Tonight, I wanted to bring to your attention…

My mentor and good friend Kevin Hogan has posted a great interview on his website titled…

Will You Succeed or Fail in 2009? (click to read)

I always read his two new articles each week and often find much that is of value there.  I think that the Success or Failure article hits the nail on the head in the current climate.

We all need to be very adaptable and willing to make changes to ensure our continued success.  Stagnation is a recipe for disaster.

Kevin also discusses the differences between short-term goal-setting (good) and long-term goal-setting (not so good).

And while you are at it you need to sign up for his weekly “Coffee with Kevin Hogan” e-zine which he publishes almost every Sunday night.  It is a great e-zine that gives you a glimpse of Kevin’s worldview. In addition, Coffee reminds you about the great new articles as well as frequent “Coffee-only” content that is very valuable.

You can sign up for “Coffee” here…

I am off to Vegas on Saturday morning for my good friend Steve Chamber’s wedding to his awesome fiancée Trisha (Elvis will preside!) followed by a Sunday all-day Mastermind meeting with Kevin’s Platinum Inner Circle, which I am proud to be a part of…

Everyone should be part of a Mastermind group…

Rob

And if you are looking for Part One of the Success or Failure interview by Kevin Hogan, it is here…

The Difference Between People Who Succeed and Those Who Don’t

How to Quickly Build Trust With Customers…

In yesterday’s post we discussed that most people don’t do what they say they will do. 

We also discussed that keeping your promises will put you ahead of 95% of your competition and build trust.

Lastly, we showed a simple 3-step system to ensure that you keep your word.

Now, we are going to turbo-charge that advice…

Since keeping your commitments is a proven way to build trust, it stands to reason that we would want to make and keep as many commitments as possible as early as we can in the relationship.  Of course, showing up on time is critical for the initial meetings and/or phone calls.

Right now you need to think of three or four “promises” that you can make when talking with a customer that will be easy for you to keep.  Depending on the conversation, you simply drop one or two of these commitments into the discussion, and then you fulfill on them after you are done with the conversation.

A few examples:

1.      You saw an article in the newspaper or trade journal that is on a topic of interest to your customers.  You get a good original copy of this article and make some copies.  When you are talking with a client ask them if they saw the article about “X” and briefly describe it to them. At the end of the discussion, tell them you will send them a copy… And do it.  (you have built some trust that you do what you say)

2.     You know an event is coming up that is of interest to your clients—say a trade show.  Ask if they are going and tell them you will send them information about the show… Then send it…

3.     As a plus to #2 above, if they aren’t going to attend tell them you will send them an after-action report on what you saw at the event that might be of interest to them. Then do it…

4.     Promise to put them in contact with someone you know that they might benefit from also knowing…

5.     Discuss a great book and send them a copy…

6.     Tell them you will send them a customized proposal and then do it.

7.   Say you will follow up at an exact date and time, write it down and do it.  When you call, if you get a answering machine leave the message that you are calling at the time you said you would call…

8.     You get the idea…think of some of your own.

The concept is to pro-actively look for ways to keep your commitments, and to do this as much as possible to build your credibility as someone who follows through.  At the same time, you are also building up a favor bank with the potential client which will invoke the Law of Reciprocity which is one of the fundamental tactics of Influence as taught by Kevin Hogan and other persuasion experts..

This may sound simple. It may sound like common sense.  But if you do it, you will be on your own level in most cases.  Because not very many people are willing to go the extra mile.  Always be thinking of ways that you can add value to your customers lives…

Tomorrow, I plan to shift gears and switch away from building your business and your assets to using your business as vehicle to protect your personal assets.

Stay tuned…

Rob

Most people don’t do what they say they will do.  This puts them in a huge hole credibility-wise with their customers and associates.

They create every excuse imaginable, often fabricating an excuse takes more effort than just doing what we say we’ll do.

This is very simple behavior to correct…

Step One. Only make commitments you plan to keep.

Step Two. Write down all commitments in a place where you will not lose them, and where you can cross them off when done.

Step Three. Spend time each day clearing the list.

Having a system to ensure that promises don’t get broken will put you ahead of 95% of your competition.  And you’ll have to work less hard to build trust.

Have a great day…

Rob

Hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day!

Hit the Play button below for a musical accompaniment to this blog post… and per Don’s request yesterday I went with one of my favorite Willie Nelson tunes…

 
(I know this music stuff is getting old but I made a few more changes and I want to make sure I’ve got the audio all figured out before moving on to video)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Now I’m getting ready to go see customers this week up in the Carolinas.  I have eleven meetings scheduled for Tues-Thursday, eight of them are with people who have active projects.  Things are starting to get better for manufacturing plants out there in flyover country…

The only way to really stay close with some of your customers and find other opportunities is visiting them and seeing them face-to-face.  One of the greatest assets any small business has is the relationship that the sales pros have with your customers…

Once I get back home Thursday night, I have a quick trip to Memphis and Graceland planned for the weekend with a big Elvis fan!  That is going to be a blast…

Have a great week and talk to some of your customers in person!

Rob

Here in sunny San Diego, I’ll continue on my theme from yesterday that the purpose of a business is to create and keep customers…

It should not come as too much of a shock that the most valuable asset of a business is the customer database.

You do have a customer database I hope…

You should make it a habit to collect contact data and other information that will allow you to sift and sort this list for your marketing activities.  In some businesses like a restaurant having the birthday is very important because then you can send them an offer to get them (and their family!) in the business with a special offer. 

The list needs to be maintained to keep it becoming stale. People move, names and businesses change, etc.

I keep my customers (people who have given me money) separate from those who I suspect might give me money at some point.

The Quality of the List and the information on it is more important than the size of the list, or the quantity of names on it.

Soon, we’ll discuss how to Unlock Maximum Value from your #1 Asset—Your Customer Database.

Have a great day!

Rob

I am going to share a simple yet profound quote related to business and asset protection with you today as I rush out to the airport…

“The whole purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer” –Peter Drucker

That’s it…

Think of all the things that are NOT the purpose of a business.  Everything else besides creating and keeping customers.

So, CUSTOMERS are the major asset of your business. 

What are you doing to find more of them? 
What are you doing to keep the ones you have from defecting to the competition?
What are you doing to keep them from forgetting you even exist?

Now, I’m off to San Diego for a few days but I should have some very interesting things to share from my trip…

Seize the Day,

Rob

I took my two fifteen year old daughters to the DMV to get their Driving Learner’s Permits this morning and it reinforced everything that is screwed up about government services…

1. We were there 30 minutes before the opened.  They opened 5 minutes late, and were in no hurry to get moving.
2. The employees ranged from indifferent to flat out hostile.
3. After we had been there an hour and were working through the various “hoops” they had arranged, the “Statewide Computer System is down” was announced.
4. They continued to process us since we were already in the maw but at the last station they said that they couldn’t complete our paperwork because of the system being down.
5. We were given the option of coming back later or waiting till they come back up (They had no idea how long that will be).
6. Since it is a thirty minute round trip, I asked if we could call ahead to see if the computer was back on-line?  NO, that would overload our phone system.

So, our only alternative is to pick a time, and go wait in line again to finish what we couldn’t get done this morning because of their screw up…

It was a good education in the incompetence of government services for my kids. 

I sure as hell don’t want these people in charge of healthcare.  “All Kidneys over here, Heart Problems over there… the doctors are running late, you can wait or come back…”

DOES YOUR BUSINESS RESEMBLE THE DMV IN ANY WAY?  If so, better fix it and get rid of your Sales Prevention Department…

Picking up on the “ABCs of Business” series I started last year,

I got stuck on “K” because I couldn’t think of a great K word I wanted to discuss in the context of small business. 

I thought of “K is for Kids” and how they should be incorporated into your business and taught the basic principles.  I thought of “K is for Kevin” as in Kevin Hogan but felt that this was a better topic covered under the topic “M is for Mentor” (coming in a short while). 

Last night as I was watching The Celebrity Apprentice it came to me…

Karma. 

Karma can be described most simply as the eastern religion’s version of the Biblical “as you reap, so shall you sow”  and the Golden Rule- “Treat others as you would like to be treated”… 

(but the Eastern religions extend the concept across multiple lives and our initial situation in our “present life” can be explained by our behaviors in “past lives”)… 

Whether you believe in an afterlife or multiple lives, or not, the concept of Karma has strong effect on business…

What is Karma as it applies to business?

Every action has consequences.  When a pebble falls into a pool, it produces rings that spread across the water in the form of waves.  A butterfly fluttering its wings can produce a typhoon under the right conditions.  In much the same way, our actions and the way that we treat people sends out ripples from ourselves and our business that can interact with the world and our customers in many unexpected ways.

We create a powerful Karma around us when we treat others with respect and when we deliver more than what we promise.  If we treat people well then. more often than not, we will have that same feeling reflected back to us.  If we rip people off, or treat them as something to be leveraged only for our financial gain, then this will come back to haunt us. 

Early in my sales career, I had flown across the country to see a company about a project.  We spent several hours discussing his needs, and at the end of that time I told the man that I didn’t think that my product– even though it would work marginally– was the right one for his particular needs. Then I suggested a product from one of my competitors that I knew was perfect for his application. 

This man looked at me for a minute, incredulous, and said that in his twenty plus years of doing business he had NEVER had a sales person do such a thing,  I told him:

“I’m not in this for the short haul and I don’t think you are either. There are other opportunities here to sell things to you that you need, and if I give you a bad experience with the wrong product right off the bat, then I’ll never get the chance at all that business in the future that WILL benefit both of us”. 

Needless to say, I lost the short term order, but I did end up doing over $3 million dollars in sales with that buyer and his company over the next five years and we became good friends. 

Then,

there is a the story of the man that moves to a new town and as he approaches the town he pulls into a gas station and asks for directions… After he gets the directions, he asks the attendant, “I’m moving to this town, could you tell me what the people here in this town are like?”. 

The attendant thought for a moment and said, “Can I ask you, what were the people like in the last town you lived in?”…  he answered “Sure, those people back there are a bunch of idiots, liars and they never had a nice thing to say about anyone”. 

The attendant said, “Well I’m sorry to tell you that you can expect the same from the people in this town as well, you are going to be very disappointed if you expect things to be better here”…

A little while later, a young couple came along to this town, and went to the same gas station and asked the same question about the people in this town, but the young lady answered his question differently…

She said “Oh, we hate to leave our last town, all of the people were so nice and warm and friendly, we will really miss talking with them” and the attendant told them, “Well don’t worry because this town is full of the same sorts of people and you are going to love it here.”

Always remember…

The people that we interact with, and our customers, are like mirrors…  They reflect back at us what we look like to them.  Try to send our positive waves of energy whenever possible.  You never know what they will cause…

Rob

PS: Can I ask a small Favor? I’m doing an experiment…  Please click on this link ( http://budurl.com/54cp ) and it should bring you right to one of my reviews of one of Kevin’s books at Amazon with my review title “Classic Salesmanship…”  Just click Yes on “Was this review Helpful to you?” below the review and you are done…

Fasten your seatbelts and raise your tray tables and seatbacks to their locked position…

The Bold Call Guys have just released our Selling in Turbulence audio system designed to help Sales Pros and Business Owners to take the right actions during turbulent times. We are “In the Trenches” and we are reporting back on what we are seeing at the front lines of sales…

The first three tracks concentrate on “Building Your Defenses” and the final thress tracks discuss “Going on Offense”.  Please go to our website www.theboldcallguys.com  for more information on this awesome program which is available for immediate digital download.  

Everyone who relies on sales to make their living needs to hear what we have to say in this program.  It will pay you back many times over in the months ahead.   If you enter the promo code “LUCKY17” for the next three days, we’ll take an additional 17% off..

That brings it under $40 for over two hours of hard-hitting ideas and actionable strategies…

We can help you evaluate your present situation honestly and accurately, take steps to get you’re A Game back, and take powerful actions to prosper during this turbulence…

Hi All,

Today a very quick post as I am heading out to an early morning meeting with my business partner at Caribou Coffee…

We are going to do something that we do every year at this time, we sign our Thanksgiving cards and get them in the mail.

We have found that the Christmas holiday most businesses get lots of cards and although people are always happy to get a card, you tend to get lost in the clutter.  So, for the past 7 or 8 years we have sent Thanksgiving cards. 

( Here is a link to the people that we use for our cards: http://www.gallerycollection.com )

Since our customers are what makes our business prosper, it is a logical message to send them a note of Thanks on this day.  We get a personalized message printed in ours and both of our names, then we sign each one individually.  For some people we write a personal message as well.

At this time of Thanksgiving, even the toughest business person you deal with is likely having some sentimental thoughts of family and past memories, and almost everyone has a positive association with Thanksgiving. 

So, why not associate yourself as our Consumer Buying Expert Philip Graves teaches with those warm, friendly feeling of family, togetherness, and gratitude?  

I have gone into a meeting with many a customer and saw my Thanksgiving card sitting on their shelf or their file cabinet because it arrives before the barrage of Christmas wishes… 

It’s still not too late to send Thanksgiving cards to those very important people that you are doing business with! 

Thanks for reading,

Rob

Is Your Corporation Protecting Your Assets?

Reporting live from St Louis, just listened to Dan Kennedy, my earliest marketing mentor (for the past 12 years), speak to 900 of us for two hours on Copywriting.

I have previously attended three different Dan Kennedy multi-day events on the topic of Copywriting and Sales Thinking so you’d think that a two hour talk on the subject would provide little in the way of new information.  And that would be incorrect.

I wrote fast almost the entire time Dan was speaking and I count 7 major “writer-downers” that I got tonight that have reshaped some of my viewpoints on copywriting.  I’ll share one of the new ideas with you:

When selling using copy, or even in person, it helps to have a Bigger Reason Why than just the money you are going to make from the sale.  The money is obviously important and assumed but if you can have a larger reason, you will be more successful.

With my Corporate Veil Pro product to help the owners of small corporations to protect their personal assets by getting their records ship-shape, I have a deep passion for trying to help these owners who are just like me to understand a topic that I think is confusing and cryptic to many.  I honestly love small business people, and I love America, and I know deep in my heart that the greatness of our country is due to a large extent to the hard work, risk taking, and productivity of business owners and their employees.  So, when I see these heroes getting destroyed by the sharks and the sue-happy people it makes me angry and furious.   So, I decided to do my part to try and bring some clarity to the topic, and I wrote a clear, concise, step-by-step system to teach them the basics of corporate record keeping.

Now, I just have to get that reason, and my passion infused in my sales letter for the program.  That and the other 6 major breakthroughs I got tonight!

Plus, Steve Chambers and I just spent two hours over dinner applying what we learned today to our plans for Bold Calling program for sales professionals, and we are both psyched about the future direction for that product.  And yes, I am also very passionate about face-to-face selling and the value that ethical professional salespeople bring to the US economy.  Having been in this field for 21 years, I want to give back some of what I heave learned about territory field sales, and so does Steve…

What a great day, and tomorrow will be even better I am almost certain…  We start again at 8am…

Seize the Day, Rob

Google Alerts is an amazing Free Tool that uses the power of the Google search engine to watch 24/7 for information that is of value and importance to you.

How much would it cost to have an employee search the Internet continuously for new information related to your business? Google Alerts will do it for free and never whines or asks for a personal day off…

Here are some uses where you can setup Google Alerts:

□   your competitors company names

□   your own company to see if anything is being written about you

□   your own name

□   keyword searches on things related to your business (ie: “solar energy tips” or “municipal waste”, etc).

□   keyword searches on things you are researching (ie: “numerology” or “sales leadership”, etc.)

Here is a link to a simple two-page description of how to setup Google Alerts so you can put the power of the Google Spiders to work for your business…

Google Alerts Action Instructions…

Everyone go there now and setup a Google Alert on the term “Kevin Hogan” and also on your own name, and one keyword topic of interest to you. Do it now and you’ll see how this amazing tool can help you…

Seize the Spider,  Rob

PS: DO NOT INSTALL INTERNET EXPLORER 8 BETA VERSION, It is very buggy and it took me two hours to get rid of it…

I’m assuming that we don’t want to be considered “used car salesman”? 

Instead we want to be considered one of the “good guys”.  And the good guys are the ones judged by their customers to have the customer’s best interest at heart when we sell them a product or service.

As “good” salepeople, the end result is that we must learn enough about the prospect’s situation to make a diagnosis that some product or service will improve their condition in some measurable way.  And in the end, this item or service must be worth more than the money that they pay us. 

“It’s win-win- I sell you a thing, you give me money, we both come out better from the exchange”.   — Rob Northrup

Note: If this is done with only written copy, in a sales letter or on a website, then you need to know your target audience well enough in advance to already know the problem…

You start your copy by agitating the problem, and proceed to offer you already determined solution, and those prospects who identify with your pre-calculated problem and solution will self-select themselves to become your customers. Along the way in your copy you need to have already thought through and demolished all of the typical objections to making the purchase…

After you have “sold” yourself on the solution, then sales becomes a task of convincing the prospect that what you are saying is true AND APPLICABLE TO HIS SITUATION. So, I see a good salesperson as being someone who can analyze things and develop justifiable solutions, and then to convince the prospect that he/she is telling the truth.  This last part is often the toughest, and one misstep along the way can destroy your chances…

The persuasion part of sales comes in when you are trying to make the prospect believe you are looking out for his/her interests and telling the truth about the solution. This starts at the first meeting and continues throughout. Skipping one step along the way, or dropping the ball by not doing some small thing you promised can set you back a long way.

It is better to setup and achieve many small things along the way that you promise to do and then DO THEM on time, as promised.  Each one of these sets you up in the prospects mind as that rarest of people– someone who can be trusted to do what they say they will do.  And that is very rare indeed…

Rob