7 Bold Predictions For 2012

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

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

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

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

It Never Was About You

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

My 25 Secrets for Selling to Small Businesses

Since 1988 I’ve sold, serviced and essentially provided for my family via the results of my interactions with, and strategies toward in large part, small business. Maybe that’s you too. Maybe you are an indepent, an employee of a large firm or even a small business selling to small businesses – no matter — this is all good for you.

I’ve forgotten far more than I’ve learned I suspect, but here are my 25 best kept secrets for selling to small businesses.

The worst time to sell to a small business is M-F,10am to 12pm and 1-3pm. Ain’t nobody in small business interested in doing any business but their own at those times. Work harder on the fringes!
New In Business is gold. It’s a little like a chick imprinting on you just after hatching. Help a small business when they are starting out and they will be fiercely loyal to you.
Not every SB wants to grow! (but they sure as hell want to at least keep what they have). Use a maintain angle.
Testimonials are so table stakes now. What you need are testimonials from someone your SB prospect knows.
Surprise! Surprise! Small business owners are or once were; sales people. They can smell your trial closes and rotating yes’s from 100 yards away.
The most important word to think, proclaim, represent and lead with when talking with a small business owner is the word “easy”.
Never forget how prideful, ego laden and direct a business owner usually is about his/her business!
I’ve never said the word “small” to a small business. Ever. I just won’t do it.
Your price, your service, your terms and even your competition are not remotely close to the biggest problem you face with small business. Time (and getting it) is the biggest challenge by far.
Whoever answers the phone at a small business is good at customer service, great at connecting you to brother Billy and a pro at getting rid of salespeople like you.
Everyone in a small business has at least some influence in the decision. Sorry. Dems’ the apples.
If you don’t make it easy to switch to you, you won’t get a sale.
You get to go home to your kids. The SB owner’s kids are in the back room coloring on the folding table. Free up their time to spend more time with family and you win.
The first step in the SB sales model isn’t discovery or introduction or greeting or any other silly thing; it’s building credibility. That needs to be your obsession.
Time is so precious that “either/or” leading questions about anything are always better than open ended questions for a busy small business owner.
Your customers have customers. If you focus your solution on how it impacts your customer’s customers then it’s a win-win and the sale is easier.
“What most people do..” is the most powerful phrase in small business sales. Use it liberally.
The SB’s website and/or storefront is the “face” of the business. You can tell a lot by just looking at someone’s face. Do that first!
I bet a killer secret- to- be in cold calling is the phrase “Did I catch you at a terrible time or do you have 90 seconds?” right after you say your name and company. (I just learned it so try it and let me know!)
Your SB’s don’t realize yet (most of em’ anyway), that that cherished Word of Mouth is changing. Not in value, but in the tools being used to pass that along. Help your SB’s see the value of social media!
SB’s don’t want to hear about your “8:30to 5 shift” (they don’t have no stinkin’ shift) the old small business you had (that failed) or the other business you go to “just like theirs” (their competition). So just knock it off.
It’s not what you think, believe or analyze about your SB customer or prospect so much that matters- it’s what they think of you.
Asking for help always worked for me. And you know what worked best? 2 sales people knocking on doors (one being a trainee). You always got time! People (SB’s too) like to help people.
Slick, coiffed, corporate and the King’s English doesn’t fly in Small Business. Be normal, polite and smart but don’t be everything SB’s hate in the first 30 seconds inside the door.
The greatest secret to selling to Small Business? They aren’t a sale, a lead, a customer, a prospect, your commission or even a business; they’re human and would just like a little help.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Your Cheatin’ Start

I was young when I learned that if you combine working hard and cheating you often get something that actually pays off.

I sat at the piano when I was 8. The M*A*S*H song was the first real tune I played plunking out each note quite shocked that it actually sounded remotely like the theme song.

I haven’t stopped playing since. But my story doesn’t blossom into me learning to really play the piano and how I got to play a couple of gigs for Journey or for Springsteen when they came to town. I’m not a good piano player by any stretch.

I need that music in front of me. I taught myself the guitar chords symbols to play on the piano and know enough sight reading to plunk out the melody in the right hand. I cheat.

But I work hard at cheating so that most people can’t tell I’m staring at the guitar chord symbols as I accompany anyone who cares to sing. I even play in church on occasion in front of sometimes hundreds of people.

They don’t realize how much hard work this is for me and that I am in fact, cheating. But they seem to like it. That can’t be all bad.

In fact, it’s not bad at all, it’s OK – Happens all the time.

Your boss or your colleague is sooooo good at coaching people. It comes so naturally to them. You on the other hand, sit at your desk and bang out “How to deal with conflict in the workplace…” like 4 times a week on Google looking for a darn answer. You find it. You print it off. You sweat it. It works. Tis’ that combo of hard work and cheating payin’ off.

Your buddy’s closing deals like Vin Diesel in the movie Boiler Room and yet he looks like he just rolled out of bed most of the time. You listen over the wall and start stealing his lines left and right with what he’s saying to customers. You try em’. You memorize em’. You steal em’ for a week and soon you start landing deals. Tis’ that combo of hard work and cheating paying off.

The team needs an answer. It’s brainstorming time. Have to find a way to drive some more sales. You are clueless, tired and it’s been a long week. You trip over a book that fell off some table you walked by, pick it up, pour over it and find the answer. You go to meeting. You share the idea. You don’t (gulp) share that you accidentally found the answer in a book you tripped over. Tis’ that combo of hard work and cheating paying off.

Here’s the deal. Hard work mixed with cheating has its place. Sometimes it’s for a specific need at a specific time. Sometimes like my piano playing, it’s forever.

When it comes easy to you it comes easy to you. When it doesn’t, that combination of hard work and bit of cheatin’ can get you some darn good results and no worries, nobody needs to know.

And for those of you aghast that I could condone cheating well, let’s just call it like it should be called in this case – stealing shamelessly.

Gotta run, have to “practice” some Billy Joel.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

From Have to Believe

It’s best to move on now from what you have, to what you believe.

If you are transforming from a commodity-like company to a knowledge and service based company, its best to move on from what you have, to what you believe.

So many of us are doing just that. Whether we are a company or a sales rep or a marketer or a trainer; more and more of us are adding (or must add) insight/ intelligence to our stable of widgets or even in some cases, instead of our widgets.

The market is starving for direction.

Don’t get me wrong, what you have is fine for they are the products and services. Thankfully, they pay the bills and feed the kids.

But too often we eagerly share, shout and talk about those products and services. Too often we earnestly show what we have for products and services on our websites, in our phone calls and during our webinars. Too often we study too hard about what we have for products and services. Too often we train too much about what we have for products and services.

And we spend so little time talking about what we believe.

That’s right, what we believe. What your company believes. What you believe.

You thought I was going to tell you to focus not on what we have but on what your products and services do for the customer; how they solve a problem, how they fit a need.

Good lord, that is so 80’s. And that’s table stakes now.

Belief sharing is better. Belief sharing is needed now more than ever. Belief sharing is the new black.

We spend so little relative time in sharing our credible prescriptive path to success for our customers. We spend so little relative time espousing our beliefs about the direction our clients must go to achieve what they want to achieve.

Products and Services are critical yes, but amazingly, they are too often fun, too easy to count, too easy to have sales on and in fact can crowd out the very essence that they should be an extension of a very passionate and clear belief– not just about what our products and services do but what we believe the path is to get there.

An obsession about what we have may work well for widgets, gum and shoelaces, but what we believe matters more if we profess to be in the Advice and Counsel game; the Insight game or the Knowledge and Service game as so many of us do ( and need to do).

Customers are drawn to those who have passionate beliefs. Small businesses for example, line up to get counsel from SCORE, to join Mastermind groups, to access advice and counsel from Hubspot, DuctTape Marketing and Amex’s Open Network. .

The difference between saying “We have this and this and this……” and “We believe the best route to success is …” is awesome. And powerful.

What you believe in the knowledge and service game sells the products and services that you have. It’s not the other way around.

We must also be consistent about those beliefs from the company home page to the person in the field or on the phone. And we must be different from the competition. And we must be religiously true to those beliefs as if they were inscribed on tablets made of stone; not just in what the results will be but in the prescriptive method of how those beliefs are executed upon.

It’s OK to teach and lead customers to your beliefs. It’s more than OK. In a shaky economy and a world that gets more confusing everyday, it’s got to be your lead story now.

For without that rock solid, credible path about what you believe, nobody will come to you, or listen to you or give a darn about what products or services you have no matter what they do.

Take a stand. Have a belief. Preach it, teach it, brand it, package and sell it. Leave the obsession with products and services behind.

If your customer is so inspired, have no fear, they’ll ask you what you have.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Horrible Bosses

Horrible Bosses is a hot movie of late starring the likes of Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Anniston.

The premise is that if your boss is horrible well um… go ahead and kill em’ (or at least try to).

That’s a little dangerous in the real world.

You might get caught. 🙂

Ah seriously, I don’t condone violence towards any horrible bosses. Too messy.

Here are four other (and better) ways to deal with a real horrible boss:

Demand he play well with others. You know the type – the “I’ll take my ball and go home type”. Not open to hearing concerns about your competing priorities, instead you hear “Fine, I’ll find someone who can get it done” and then you hear a click and a dial tone in your ear. This same guy makes no effort to collaborate but rather rams his way through people. This faux cowboy attitude is for the movies and 6 year olds. Kidnap this guy, surround him with your posse and scream “This is your team, we work together!”

Force her to take a stand. I suspect this is the most common trait of a bad boss; the fear of, or unwillingness to take a stand or pick a path or make a decision that means something. Swamped or swimming purposely in administrivia, the boss shirks the tough calls and instead being right or wrong, she is neither and everyone suffers in a frenzied, crazy busy world of essentially nothing. Corner her and take dead aim at imploring her to make choices! Even wrong decisions are better than none; at least then you can learn and move on.

Don’t Dread on me. She’s the one you can’t stand to see, hear or read – literally all the time. You see the email from her and you just don’t want to read it as you know it is bad news. You arrive in the morning and ugh, your voicemail light is on so that means she wants an answer or OMG she just walked out of her office and is walking your way hell bent to talk to you about your “improvement opportunities”. Enough! Does every interaction Ms. Boss have to be about something “wrong” or “bad” or “concerning”? Grab your scepters, your hoods, walk around like the Grim Reaper and let her see what you see. Dread is not a way to lead.

Unfriend him. Don’t you wish could do it more often with your friends in social media or even at home with family or relatives? But in the world of work, this guy is the boss who saunters up beside you and says “Yeah, this new incentive plan is a stretch” or “Geez, we made this product 10 years ago and it didn’t work then…” News flash Mr. Boss, I’m not your buddy and I am not your chum. You’re my boss and your immature efforts to bond with me as a “friend” by back stabbing your peers is appallingly odd and makes you look weak. And who wants a weak boss? Collectively dismember your friendship status with this guy as fast as you can and demand a change in his status back to loner.

There you go. Horrible gets better and nobody dies. Not much of a movie but aren’t horrible bosses enough drama already?

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

The Most Powerful Phrase in Sales

It’s the most powerful phrase in Marketing too.

It’s shocking how many of us in Sales forget to use it. Marketing folks forget it it too but not as often as they tend to proof stuff before prospects or customers see or hear anything.

Why we sales people forget it all the time is another blog for another day but what you must do now with this most powerful of phrases is jump on it and start using it today, this hour and in as many ways and places as you can.

The world is eating this phrase up right now. It’s never been hotter. Ever.

Interestingly the key to this is not rooted in what everyone thinks are the pillars of sales success like “Solving a problem” or ” Filling a need” or “Asking great questions” or even “Focusing on your customer”

This phrase is not about your customer. It’s not about you, your company or your product either.

And what’s really really cool about this powerful phrase is that it is easier than ever for you to use it. There’s more evidence to cite it, examples to help frame it, places and spaces to preach it, teach it and shout it out from the top of your cubicle, desk or chair.

It’s simple too. Here it is.

“What most people….”

What most people…What most people…. Say it with me, “What most people..!!”

Ahhhh.

Powerful. Add “do” or your favorite action word or words – it doesn’t matter-and it all becomes gold! . What most people “say”, “ask”, “wonder”, “start with”, “buy”, “think about”, “try”.

The phrase is not about you. It’s not about the customer or the prospect either- it’s about people like them.

That is powerful. That gets attention. That starts and moves sales. That works.

We are sheep. I’ve written and shared studies with all of you on how powerful what most people do is. We want to see the most fans on Facebook, the most likes, the ratings, what others bought, the plus 1’s, the followers on Twitter. It’s all the same thing. What most people do is what I the consumer or the business owner wants to know.

I’m no fool. Not every customer will follow mindlessly like sheep do. But I guarantee the phrase gets the head and heart to at least listen to what you have to say – and that is half the battle.

Work it in to your phone calls and presentations and not just around “What most people buy is“. It’s smart, effective and the most powerful phrase in sales.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Consistency

Seems like not everyone “gets it” these days.

Open your shop 15 minutes late or have your product fail, or disconnect a caller even once and those prospects that were waiting in your parking lot, or considering the upgrade or just looking for pricing won’t come back like they used to.

It’s too easy to go somewhere else.

And it’s easier now to tattle on your inconsistencies, making even infrequent inconsistency seem like an epidemic.

Consistency isn’t sexy like your Groupon Sales plan or your YouTube buzz, yet its absence more than ever, can kill your wildest of business dreams.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

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

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