Have A Voice Dawg

You have a great voice.

I’m not talking about your American Idol Steven Tyler “Demon of Screamin” voice here that makes Randy Jackson grin. Rather it’s the voice that is your perspective, your message, your way.

That voice matters, maybe now more than ever. That voice needs to be heard.

You can be “voiceless” by being a fantastic collector and sprayer of facts, figures, options, processes, policies, product specs, special offers, FAQ’s or even of opinions.

But having a voice means you chose something. It means you chose some way.

And nothing influences people more – especially today.

You see, it’s an odd thing this abundance of information we live in. There is so much of it everywhere and in every way that it is often paralyzing. There’s a longing that is growing now in consumers and small businesses that when they finally get to talk to a real live human being like you – especially one that has built a semblance of trust, to grab hold of you, shake you at your shoulders, drop to a knee and plead:

“What do you think?”

Not all business owners and decision makers ( by a long shot) want to do all the research, the analysis, the comparisons or read all the posts, Tweets and articles before making a decision.

Especially when they can’t discern credible content from just plain ol’ content. And that, in the plugged in world we live in, is where we are today.

So choose that voice, human! Have a suggestion. Have a recommendation. Have advice. Have an opinion. Have a strong opinion. Heckl, have a soapbox, a vision and a darn dream for your customers.

You can choose to have your voice be based on your own beliefs or of those people or companies or content that you trust, love or study. It doesn’t matter; if you believe it and you share it; it’s your voice.

And that, as Steven Tyler would say is.”Yeow-Yak-Yak-Yak-Ooww!”

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

98 Words on That Ringing In Your Ear

Someday not far off, that phone will ring in your office or in your ear but it won’t ring because someone wants to place an order or because someone wants more information about your product or service. Those days are fading away.

Someday that phone will ring because someone has an important business problem; a marketing, sales, service, security or even reputation problem and doesn’t know what to do, where to start or how to fix it. And that someone will need a talented, brilliant person to help them.

When that phone rings then, will you answer it?

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

****

Mondays are busy. All Monday posts are 100 words or less.

I Love Dirty Jobs

I love Discovery TV’s Dirty Jobs.

They are always looking for new ideas for those dirty jobs. I wonder if I should send a note to the producers and invite them to come out my way.

Dirty Jobs is a popular show where host Mike Rowe performs some of the most difficult and frankly, disgusting jobs done by real people. These jobs run the gamut from the needed cleaning of shipping lane buoys ( crusted molting squishy marine life that needs to be chiseled off) to scuba diving for hippo poop at a zoo ( where else is it going to go?) and everything in between.

My wife loves Dirty Jobs too but I think she’s just in love with Mike Rowe. He’s funny, smart and good looking. Whenever the show pops on she’ll stop whatever she is doing and say “Oh, my Michael is on.” Once, as she sat next to me on the couch watching the show, she began think out loud and dreamily blathered to nobody in particular, “I wonder if he’s married.” (He isn’t).

Mike might be a smoldering hunk of handsomeness to some but truth is Dirty Jobs is a tribute to the people who do these jobs. Mike Rowe simply adores these folks and it shows. Most are people take great pride in either the “dirty job” at hand or they take pride in that the dirty job is just part of a larger endeavor that needs to get done right. We here in our work have some jobs like these. Jobs that are difficult and tough and hard and done by prideful, caring people. They may lack the “ick” factor for TV but I’m betting they’d be some of the toughest work Mike and crew would love to try.

Selling On The Phone: Lots of rejection. Lots of pressure. Lots of importance. Mike and crew would arrive and he’d strap on a headset and give selling a good try. And he’d fail. He’s get a lot of “no’s” and even more “annoyed” customers. He’d get the kind of rejection Mike probably isn’t used to being a TV star and all. But that’s OK because he would spend time with the pros who do sell well and then cut to a new scene where he’d share what he learned and say “It’s not really “selling” with these sales people, it’s more like they are helping out someone”.

Training: Especially the “stand up in the classroom 10 hour day with the adults” kind. This is simply exhausting stuff. You have to be “on” all day. Be on target, on message, on time and totally on hand with people who all learn differently and bring and array of attitudes to the party. We’d give Mike a couple of hours to prep and have him lead the class. By4 o’clock he’d be triple dog tired and barely able to speak. No worries though, he’d turn slightly, smile into the camera and tell us how “crazy and tough” real trainers need to be to make learning happen.

Team Leader: They’re the boss, the support, the help desk, the number watcher (and often the number cruncher), the master listener, the coach and oh by the way, they have one of the most difficult professions in the world; continually improving the performance of people (and sometimes 30+ people at a time). Mike would set up in a cube and start leadering’ and Boom he gets an irate customer, then the system crashes ( everyone on paper!), the mid day numbers deadline comes and goes and then his boss walks by wondering where first pass of all the employee reviews are. That’s enough and as Mike’s head is nodding in surrender he looks up at the camera and says “Boss’s day only comes once a year? What a rip off!”

I think the producers of Dirty Jobs would like the opportunity to come here. If they decide to come, do me a favor and keep it just between us. My wife doesn’t need to know.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Larry Bird?

image credit retroplanet.com

There’s a board game called TriBond where you identify the commonality of three clues given. It’s pretty fun.

Last weekend, my 14 year old son was given these three:

“Big…Larry….Jay”

He correctly said “Bird”. Then asked, “I know Big Bird and a Jay Bird, but what the heck is a “Larry Bird”?

Sigh.

Wow.

What else do I incorrectly assume is a basic reference with someone I know well? Or with colleagues, employees or customers?

It’s worse than that actually.

I assume this blog makes sense to you. But how many are saying “Who the heck is Larry Bird?”

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

****

Mondays are busy. All Monday posts are 100 words or less.

Silence is Not Golden (And 2 Ways to Avoid It)

Silence is not golden.

It might be in the movie theater or as your buddy starts his back swing, but not in Sales.

I get the whole “Don’t be the first to speak ” thing in Sales when trying to close a deal- it’s pretty 80’s but that kind of silence has it’s place I guess.

But more often than not, silence from a customer in Sales means either they don’t care or they are confused.

I’ve written plenty about the don’t care silence problem but confusion makes people quiet too you know.

I heard silence from a customer named Kelly last week. I was listening in as she called about a service offering. Dead silence……………….. as the sales rep shared the values of the service………. till she finally said, “I have no idea what “_______” means”. It was a critical piece. She breathed a sigh and chuckled. She was embarrassed.

Have you ever been in a meeting and no one says a word? It’s not always because people don’t care. Silence happens when smart people get lost in a sea of unfamiliar acronyms or in stories of experiences that just aren’t making sense for the discussion.

Did you ever clam up in an electronics department not because you didn’t want the product but because the sales rep wasn’t making sense to you and so you just stopped talking and muttered “all set” and walked away?

You must know your audience. You must know the relative complexity of your products. Kelly was a small business owner; a prideful person with a fairly large ego. Confusion can make people feel dumb. Confusion can make people tense, even angry. And most critically, Confusion can stop the talking and the sales process cold.

2 ways to avoid the Confusion Silence.

1.) When it is 1 to 1: When it is just you and he/ she over the phone or face to face; (i.e. nobody else around) – you can ask a simple question before you begin to converse, sell or service. “To make this most helpful for you, could I ask if you would consider yourself very knowledgeable with _______ , somewhat knowledge, or not that familiar with ___________?” This gets that answer without embarrassment. This respects that just because you live and breathe your job’s products and processes everyday- most of your clients and prospects don’t – and are starting from a different place than you.

2.) In a meeting with more than 1 person: When the room goes quiet and you start to think nobody cares, stop and wonder “are people just confused?” You could ask that question out loud (like everyone else ridiculously does) and get of course, no response (not many folks want to shout out “I don’t get it!” in front of others) or you can inject this phrase “At this point, some folks often ask about _________ “ or “Sometimes people ask me ________________about this” and then look around the room. If you get sudden eye contact from some or head nods, you know you’ve got confusion silence happening and you need to delve differently.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Royal Numbers

2 billion people watched the Royal wedding Friday. The most to watch any single event. Ever.

Why?

It’s all about storytelling. And thus having one of the strongest brands in the world. Bigger than Apple, bigger than Coke, bigger than Facebook.

1,000 years of Royal stories. 1,000 years of Royal intrigue, power, love and loss. Stories get told. Stories stick. Stories attract.

It’s not a stretch to steal that lesson from Friday for what you do. If you want people to watch you in droves and stick around for a while, start with one hell of a story.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

****

Mondays are busy. All Monday posts are 100 words or less.

A Training Veteran

I flew on Monday.

He was a talker. We discovered we were both in Training.

I’m not often speechless. But with Dennis I was all ears.

He’d been in training for 40 years and was heading home. It was his last trip he said. He was retiring from the game.

His big thing about training was the customers. Not the learners so much – but the customers of those learners. That’s what drove him. All his years of training was for them. It made sense.

Don’t get me wrong, he loved the learners too. He spent his life figuring out the best way to teach and shared that in the end, it was the work ethic of the students themselves and their willingness to practice that made all the difference in the world. That made sense too.

Testing was an obsession with him. In his training experience, knowing and certifying for absolutely sure that his charges understood the content and could prove it not just in class but in the field months later, was critical. Made perfect sense.

You see, we are both in training. So I get at the most basic level what that means, how important it can be and how hard it is to do.

But I train stuff that just helps people. Dennis trains stuff that saves lives.

Dennis was on his way back from another year in Afghanistan. He was a former military man now working for the Department of Defense and the Training leader of a bomb finding dog training school saving the lives of American soldiers with his Belgian and German Shepherds clearing roads by sniffing out IED’s.

While the odd commonalities of our training worlds struck me, it was of course the differences that made me speechless.

“It’s tough, one of my crew lost both of his legs three weeks ago in a remote detonation and his dog took a lot of shrapnel. They’ll both be OK…. ” He stopped, leaned forward and looked beyond me out the window.

“Oh my, look at the grass, look at the trees…” he said with a voice trailing a bit as we neared landing. His eyes were misting perhaps an understandable mixture of sadness and joy.

“Vietnam, Panama, Desert Storm, Desert Shield…and all that sand and all that nothingness….It is so good to be getting home.”

When we landed and I thanked him for all those years of service he just shook my hand, winked and smiled. It occurred to me that perhaps Dennis was not really that much of a talker after all and given the troops he trained – didn’t need to be. That today on this flight, maybe he just needed to talk.

Maybe I was just lucky enough to have the honor and the privilege of sitting next to an incredible trainer on a very special day of his invaluable life.

Thank you Dennis. Thank you.

Invaluable

It’s a goal you can have. It’s a choice you can make.

Yes you can be helpful, wonderful, fantastic, amazing or even, the best.

But to be invaluable, that’s better.

Invaluable to your boss, your partner, your team or your child. To be priceless. To be heroic. To be unfathomably missed.

That takes doing. That takes more than executing on your skills or tapping into your smarts.

Invaluable takes big and different dreams. Invaluable takes stringing together moments of thoughtful brilliance. Invaluable takes a mission-like obsession.

You know it’s there for each of us. Let’s go do that.

Till next time,

Grow The Business

Mark

Mondays are busy. All Monday posts are 100 words or less.

About Face

Let’s pretend you are just like this handsome dude in the picture; a guy, single, and in a bar. And it’s 80’s night.

Your name, as always and of course is…Rock Ledger. (Just go with me on this – my blog, my rules).

Even though you are still a certified Sales legend, these are not Good Times in the romance department.

Things are so bad that one woman said “No” to a date with you, even after you handed her 2 concert tickets, promised you wouldn’t bother to show up and that you’d never contact her again.

You don’t understand what’s happened to you! You have never had these kinds of problems in the singles scene before. Heck, your buddies named you years ago, “The Other Rock Legend”. Maybe you’re in a rut. Maybe the world is changing and your approach has to be different. Maybe it’s just a run of bad luck. Real bad luck.

Despite the cool Tears for Fears music, you’ve had it. You get up to leave. But then..…

…….She ……slowly…..walks…..by………

She is stunning. She is more than stunning…… she is amazing.

She actually turns around ……………….and looks at you.

You realize your mouth is awkwardly agape as you bask in the awesomeness of her beauty. So you snap it shut, straighten up and give her The Look. (The Look of course, was invented by you back in the day. It’s the one in which the left eyebrow arches, the head bobs with a half smile that says, “Hi there, I am Rock Ledger, and you deserve me).

It worked! She starts to walk over to you.

Good Times are back.

Her name is Cassandra and well; you are feeling good so you’ll spring for something special. You motion to Marty that you’re moving “uptown” now and will pass on the normal Bud Lite cuz’ for the lady, only Bud Lime will do.

“You are so beautiful” you tell her. And she is. “You’re so beautiful that you don’t even need much make-up”. You can feel you are getting your groove back now. She smiles sweetly and takes a sip of her Bud Lime.

You are a romantic guy so you keep on with the sweet talk. “Not much make-up at all Cassandra.” She smiles again. You know it’s a great move to get her to talk about herself, so you ask a good one. “Are you happy with the way your face looks now?”

“Excuse me?” she says.

You reply “No, what I’m saying is I’ve seen a lot of other women ….do like a whole total makeover thing on their faces and even look more beautiful than ever.”

“Are you talking about my FACE!” she cries. “What is wrong with my FACE?!” a little louder.

You’re thinking maybe you are in a little trouble but this is the best you’ve done in a while so you keep on keeping on.

“Cassandra, your face is beautiful. I bet everyone loves your face and knows your face, but you have had that look for a long time. I think I have a few good ideas you might like if you want to you know, freshen it up a little bit.”

She stares at you.

Yep. You suspect that now you are in fact, still in a rut. Deep in a rut.

Cassandra slams her Bud Lime bottle on top of yours and as that explodes all over you and the bar, she takes the rest of her bottle and dumps it on your head.

Good Times no more.

*******

I needn’t beat you over the head with the lesson we learned at the bar today. So I’ll keep it brief.

Cassandra has a face and a business has face. And both are things you as sales people, consultants and advisors need to be very careful about.

That face is very important to a business owner, especially if that business is small to medium sized. Be it the logo, the website, the facebook or LinkedIn page, the storefront, brand promise, the status in the community, the unique services they provide or the colors, the cars, or even the style of the owner- it’s all a crital “face” of the business.

And it can be that personal.

If you are in the business of helping businesses get better and or change; be careful how you go about messing with the “face” of that business.

Small business owners in particular are a prideful ego-laden bunch. You can’t talk like Rock Ledger did here (yes that picture is really me, but the nickname..not so much) and suggest tactlessly a business makeover, a switch in strategy or revamp of their websites or marketing plans – whether you’re a marketing consultant, a printer or software salesperson. If you do, trouble might brew (pun intended :)).

Whenever you foster change a business, especially a smaller one, you can be changing that “face” of the client. Be smart about it. Do it wrong and it can go very wrong. It’s not taboo – It’s just different.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Love

I’ve gotten a lot of good natured ribbing lately about the word “Love”.

Yeah, I helped the talented staff here and designed a short training a couple of weeks back around a particular sales effort. I recommended that salespeople use the word “love” in voicemails and conversations they have with folks.

Darn proud of it I am. It’s good thinking. Heard we got some sales rollin’ in too.

You don’t like the idea? Feels uncomfortable for you? Too bad. You are missing the point.

It’s not the word “love” that matters as much as what that type of word does.

You have a choice. Do you want to sound like every other Sales or Account Rep calling or leaving voicemails for clients and prospects or do you want to be different?

Do you want to be the 11^th voicemail the small business owner picks up that is not a needed customer, or their accountant, or a family member but instead is a sales rep (you) and pray that your brochure-like language gets an inkling of attention? Or do you want to be memorable?

In Voicemail your biggest obstacle isn’t how you deliver your value, or how you position your offer or if you can sound credible – it’s the dang Delete button.

You bore and you are no more.

A word like “Love” in a voice mail or in the first minute of a conversation as in “We sent you a coupon for this because we love you” makes wonderful sense when you are calling on customers with any tenure to your organization. A word like “Love” as in “I love what you are doing, opening a new business- that is exciting” when working with prospects will surely get attention.

Still feels awkward? It just doesn’t feel right still?

Find a way. You are still missing the point.

“Love” and words very much like it, engage something wonderful in a customer or prospect. They don’t expect to hear that and in one word, it signals uniquely what you think of them – which is impossible to go unnoticed. No other vendor, sales rep or partner leaves words like “love” on a voicemail today let alone in a conversation. And maybe, just maybe if you do this – that customer or prospect will perk their ears up, listen to the rest of the message and who knows, write your number down and call you back.

So whether the word is “love” or “adore” or “cherish”, each will get attention. And it sets you apart in a memorable, wonderful way that will get you far more business than if you sound like everyone else.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: