strategy

Your Favorites & Mine

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Your Favorites & Mine

Happy Friday and New Year,

Here’s a quick look back at 2011. 

The votes are in (ok the views).  Here are the top 5 (listed 1-5) most viewed blog posts at this site in 2011; presumably your favorites.  Good taste I’d say and thank you for your readership. I’ve added 5 others I’d add as my favorites.

Look around a bit.  What’s the worst that can happen?  Steal something shamelessly and grow the business?  

 

Top 5 Most Read Posts (2011)

You Had Me At Hello (and then, you just let me go)

The Most Powerful Phrase In Sales

Offline, Online & Flatline

My 25 Secrets Of Selling To Small Businesses

Help For Looooonnngg Sales Cycles

 

My 5 Favorite Posts of 2011 (aside from above!) 

Customs Fail and Redemption

From Have To Believe

Crushed

A Training Veteran

Larry Bird?

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

 

Drug Reps Selling Differently

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An article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal very much worth the read.   

Drug Reps Soften Their Sales Pitches

Interesting.  A Softer sell.  A different kind of sell.

And Sales are going up. 

  • Interesting to read what happens when a sales rep becomes a resource to the physician.  
  • Interesting to read what happens when a sales reps shifts focus on providing more help to the physician’s patients.
  • Interesting to read what will happen when a sales rep becomes a real help to the physician allowing her to get more time to see patients.

It’s not a stretch to replace each word physician in the bullets above with Small Business Owner or Banker or Distributor etc.  And to change each word patient to customer.   

Nope, not a stretch at all. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

7 Bold Predictions For 2012

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7 Bold Predictions For 2012

I’ve done these before.

 And by the way,  that’s “Mr. Markstrodamus” to you.

 

Talkology Will Rule.   IPhone 4s’ Siri, Dragon Dictation and the like continue to grow in influence.  It’s a mere matter of time.  Holding a phone to your ear was a pain in the tuckus so Bluetooth came along,  nested in our ears and gave you your arm back.  Why deal with the sprain and pain of typing then?  Wireless microphones we will all soon wear as we enter orders, write reviews and even update systems like salesforce.com

QR codes will explode for businesses large and small.  Don’t get what these are yet?  They allow you and your customers to spend more time with a product.  Be the first to have a ritual develop using the QR codes with your brand, your stuff, your resume’, heck even your T-shirt.  Enough with the “What is this QR code again?” stuff.  Learn it – and execute on it ahead of everyone else.  Someone else agrees with me on this one see here.

“Attraction” Will Be The Marketing Buzzword.  It’s not about getting “attention” or calls to “action” anymore.  It’s about building a product, a following, coveted knowledge or even a legend about what you do or can do.  You will aspire to have buyers search and yearn for you so much you need to beat them off with a stick.  Look for sales training, marketing campaigns and web content to rally around the best way to answer the customer pleas of “Tell me more!” instead of the other way around.

Video Selling Will Actually Happen.  Never did really take off eh?   But it’s getting easier everyday and frankly too much is lost for seller and prospect alike without visual cues.  Get out your Skype or Face Time  Makeup (I can assure you that’s a product coming) and either iron that shirt or cover it with a sweater cuz’ now its going to matter.

“You Are For Hire” Booms:  Oh, you’ll keep your day job but frankly social networking isn’t working fast enough for many businesses.  You’ll be contacted based on your “Kloutish” or Tweet Grader scores, or  number of Facebook fans et all, then signed up and rewarded in $$ for influencing your friends even though you aren’t part of any affiliate program.  It’s like Mary Kay and Lia Sophia cept you do it online and without a blog.  Trust is low.  But Trust is necessary for buyers to buy and now Trust will be worth cash to you.  ( And you will take it because you will believe!)

Simple Makes A Comeback.  Oh sure we all think we are simple to buy from or deal with; except that we aren’t.   We know that we as a species have outgrown our ability to remember and execute well upon what we learn as what we are learning is so vast.  We know we have to bring simple back.  The single greatest killer of sales is not the status quo ( are you kidding me in this economy people and businesses want to stay put?????) rather,  it is complexity.  Confusion and complexity is like hitting the emergency brake on sales.  Look for “It’s as easy as 1- 2 -3” to come roaring back.   

2.5 = 3.5, XLVI, 2, 18 & 8:   Charlie Sheen rejoins 2 & 1/2 men ( as  the show is plain terrible now- and really, who likes Alan playing the bad sleazy guy anyway!) -They’ll say it was all a dream.   Also, The Patriots win Superbowl XLVI in February, The Bruins repeat, The Celtics get banner #18 and Red Sox crush Theo’s Cubs in World Series to get their 8th trophy.    How do you like dem’ apples?

That’s what I see, and you?

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

3 Frogs

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3 Frogs

I had (and have) other posts ready to go for the New Year -all with of course the usual focus on helping you and me “grow the business”. 

But I am stealing shamelessly from the message my local Parish Priest gave yesterday at church services cuz’ his message was frankly better than anything I could have written for today.

“There’s an old adage about three frogs” he said.   “Three Frogs sat on a log and one decided he would jump.  How many frogs are left on the log?”

Some answered “Two!” but most mumbled or said nothing.

“The answer of course, is three.” Father Paul said.

I had never heard of this 3 frog adage but the message was both obvious and stunning to me.  Father Paul filled in the blanks in his short sermon.  Decision is not action.  All of your dreams and goals and resolutions and lists we make this time of year aren’t worth much if we really don’t act upon them.

I’m guilty of this.  For 10 years, I’ve written and kept my New Year’s resolutions and goals and plans and lists nearby me at all times.  I look at them often.  I’ve achieved many.  Ok, some.    I looked at them all in fact this last week just to prepare for setting this year’s goals.

Last year I made the decision to limit my 2011 goals to 3 actionable things versus carrying about 10 each year in which I strived.  Each of these three things was important.  If I am honest with myself though,  I got just one achieved and partially one of another so I batted about .400.  Pretty sad for a whole year and only 3 big dreams.

I’m not going to be that unmoving frog this year.   And I’m not going to pat myself on the back for just “deciding” to do exciting and different things this year and that I was able to write it down and look at it. 

 Nope, I’m jumping this time. 

 Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark.

Hard Work Redux

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Hard Work Redux

It’s not unusual to go home now and need to study work documents, emails and Power Points all night long it seems just to be ready for work the next day.  It can feel like you are studying for a final exam.   And some neuroscientists say our ability to think and learn has outrun our ability to remember, execute and act upon what we know.  Yep, that feels about right sometimes.

Our customers’ and prospects’ knowledge relative to us is pretty clueless – at least in spaces we need to be good at.  That’s new.  Used to be everyone kind of knew what we knew.   Not much rocket science to understand what a business card was for, but a “landing page”?  Yeah -you see. 

I can’t sell my colleagues, learners or bosses on stuff and visions like I used to anymore.  Now, I gotta really teach em’ first; really spend a lot of time educating before I can get anyone onboard.  Nothing wrong with that.  Just the way it is now.   Bet it is for you too. 

Hard work used to be – let’s face it, a lot below the neck.  Push harder, run faster , show up more often, beat the other guy to it, keep dialing, keep smiling, drive all night, stay later, get in earlier,  never give up,  never take “no” for an answer,  etc etc.

Now the hard work seems like it’s in your head now.  Again.  Like it used to be.

Know more, read more, analyze more, compare and contrast more, strategize more, think more, share your perspective and insight more, study more, research more.

Ain’t nothing wrong with that.  That’s the way most of us were brought up in school.

Never thought the stuff you did in school would help you in the real world eh? 

Things are different now. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

5 Things You Will Soon Lose (But It’s OK)

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Your Resume:  What you think of and how good you are about getting or keeping customers  (the only thing any employer truly should care about)  will soon best embodied by your blazing trail on the web via your blogs, slideshares, tweets, posts and commentary by businesses and customers you’ve influenced ( or not).  Your web fingerprint is a lot more credible than that single pager of spin we’ve grown to love.

 Your Thirst For Big Numbers.  You’ll soon despise having 500+contacts in LinkedIn or 10,000 followers on Twitter.  Instead you’ll yearn for being part of as many smaller networks you can.  It’s a bit sad, but we are embracing ever more tightly, the belief that “the bigger the network is the lower the trust of those within it.”  Tough business this world of trust is.

Your Memory:  Well, at least the loose data stuff.  With the Googlization of the world and how it changes how we use our brains (it’s a fact by the way)  to find out about stuff,  you’ll need just a swipe or a couple of spoken syllables into your (insert wicked smart battery powered thingy here) to get that memory jogged.  Good news it that neuroscience studies show it leaves more focus for the brain to work on more important stuff. 

Your Social Skills:  Tragic but we’ll soon be hard pressed to remember how to make eye contact, know which hand to lead with to shake hands and remember that unlike IM, you have to wait for someone to stop talking before sharing your thought.  Forget “Virtual Meeting”,  “Flesh Meeting” will become two dirtier words. Happily,  when we realize what we’ve lost we’ll get a fresh start on new and improved social skills. 

Your Boundaries:  It will happen.  Meeting at10 am.  Meeting at2:30 pm.  Go home at4pm.  Play with kids.  Nice dinner at6pm.  Watch reruns of 3 and a ½ men (Sheen came back from the dead- it was of course, just a dream).  Meeting at9pm with New Zealand staff.  Sleep.   Meeting at8am in UK client.  Meeting at10 am.   Rinse and Repeat.  Global is big. Global is different.  But global is money. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

 Mark

Reminders

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Apple IOS 5.0 came with a new App called Reminders.   It’s pretty cool.   It didn’t come pre-populated though with any real helpful reminders about work so I thought I would do that in case you’ve forgotten.

  • Discovering needs is dead.  Creating needs is alive and well.   Big difference folks; a huge difference.   One assumes your prospect is a helpless victim of their environment, the other presumes they are definitively in charge of where they intend to go. 
  • Have you ever heard such a hue and cry for information and knowledge before?  Consumers and businesses yearn to understand social media, global marketing, internet marketing, economics, new languages, tablet and smart phone technologies and more.  Teach people too.  Teach people and you’ll corner that market and never go hungry. 
  • It’s not like it used to be anymore.   Before you ever hear from that prospect or customer they’ve been to your website and done lots of digging already (but they won’t tell you that).  When they finally get to you- you best deliver something other and better than a screen shot rehash.
  • You can choose not to have a credible or professional web presence for yourself online but that would be unwise.  Trust is at an all time low.  People, prospects, customers, partners and employers all want to see what your brand is and what you represent before they invest in you for real.    
  • You can have too many contacts, too many followers, too many fans, too many friends.  There’s a point where your influence like it or not, looks like it’s for sale or it’s too easily given away; either way – trust deteriorates, hits the tipping point and it becomes a zero sum game.
  • Be Invaluable.  Differentiate.  Simplify.   Hard to go wrong if you do those three things.  Just a reminder is all. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Email: mark.mccarthy@deluxe.com

Internal Blog: http://blogs.deluxe.com/Mark/

External Blog: https://growthebusiness.wordpress.com/

Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/GrowTheBusiness

Offline, Online and Flatline

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I love QR codes.

I really really do.

In our business they are the perfect marriage between online and offline marketing. A business comes to us and we print a QR code on that piece of paper that sends the consumer via their smartphone to a landing page we created for them.

QR codes link those 2 worlds together giving a business maximum exposure to grow their business. The value and effectiveness of both types of products by the way, just increased.

Perfect.

But now they’ve gone too far. QR codes are being engraved on headstones linking I guess 3 worlds together – real life, cyber life and now, afterlife. Folks literally can use their smartphone at the grave site and go directly to a memorial page online celebrating the life of the loved one.

Not sure we are getting into that business. But um, if you have any stone carving experience, give me a ring and we’ll talk. 🙂

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Steve Jobs Our Loss

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Getty Images

Getty Images

 It feels personal to me.   We  lost a truly great man. He wasn’t a hero, a president, a rock star or a childhood sports idol.  He was none of those but by gosh, he was all of those. There are so few original thoughts in the world yet he thrived in giving us glorious ideas we never thought of.

 

Yet we didn’t know anything about his personal life, his illness or his family. He didn’t want us to.  And we, refreshingly, didn’t care to know.  In that speaks volumes about purity and priority.

There is something better. That is what he believed. So simple;   There is something better. So wonderful.

He was also a business leader (uncomfortably for some), and yet that is what so many of our fathers and mothers, customers and even ourselves are. It’s not a bad thing this business of business he knew, for it fuels the joyful lives of so many people.

As I finish this post on one of his instruments; the IPad, it occurs to me how poignant that is. It never leaves my side. It contains so much better my thoughts, my passions, my dreams and my visions. How fitting is it for all of us and for him that the result of his dreams and visions helps us so easily partake in our own.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

It Never Was About You

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In business to business selling (particularly small business selling), good sales people begin to fail when it becomes about them.  

I see it all the time but I don’t mean when it becomes about being number one, or hitting the goals or maxing out on commission plans;- ain’t nothing wrong with that. 

Consider rather, the talented Sales Rep who begins with a new company or now has to sell a new product.  He or she is trained and coached to present to the small business owner not only what this product or service does for them but what it does or has done for small businesses just like the prospect they are speaking to. 

That makes perfect sense because the credibility of the solution or product obviously is not with the Sales Rep – it’s with the common customer experiences of customers that look just like the prospect.  Just like it should be. 

But then something strange happens.   

As the sales person becomes more successful, they start to believe they can skip all that “other customer stuff” because after all, they understand it all now.  They start to omit the small business statistics, the stories and the testimonials of other small businesses in their pitches.   The sales rep begins to launch into monologues about what they themselves know, what they themselves believe and what they themselves recommend.  

But the problem is “they themselves” still have comparatively little credibility with a small business prospect and frankly boasting about their time or years selling the product is a poor substitute for sharing what other small businesses are actually doing.

It’s never good to stop leveraging with other like small businesses do.  Never.   Sure, your credibility and experience counts over time but know your audience (SB’s) –  Survey after survey will show “what others do” is a highly influential variable in the sales process with small business.

If you are a sales rep who had a great start last quarter or last year but are starting to tail off or perhaps you coach sales reps that have had a great start but are fading; think hard about why.  If there’s scant reference to other successful customers and what they do, then it’s time to pretend you don’t know much about your product and sell like that again. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

 Mark