You are not what you sell.

You are what you solve.

True business professionals who dwell in the world of sales, and all small business owners (who live there too) know instinctively that they are not really salespeople pushing their wares and services on others.

They recognize that they are actually problem solvers who listen carefully to customers and prospects and respond with solutions. They focus on building relationships.

The problem is that solving the problem is often glossed over, dismissed, and sidetracked in the process of communicating with a customer or prospect. How often have you heard a store or organization or company rep start out (or jump to her or his safety net when a positive response is not evident) by rattling out a long list of product or service features?

It’s human nature to talk about all the strong points and unique features of a product or service we want others to like, and want, and dive into their pockets for the money we hope they’ll produce. But human nature doesn’t move sales. Customers and prospects don’t buy features. They buy benefits.

How long will this product or service last? How economical is it? How does it work? What colors are available? How spectacular is the price deal? How great is the supplier company or organization? These are all very nice kinds of things to get across because they help purchasers justify their decisions to others (bosses, spouses, friends, etc.) BUT . . .

None of those kinds of features will trigger a purchase.

Features are rational objective things. People are motivated by emotions. Maybe they’re simply charmed by the rep, or maybe they’ve been convinced that the personal benefits to be had outweigh the expense . . . because the product or service solves their problem!

We buy benefits: how easy and convenient this makes your life, how much your friends and neighbors will admire your good taste, how great you look with/in/next to it, how terrific your garden will be when this thing keeps the deer and rabbits away, what you can do for your children’s/grandchildren’s future with the savings from this policy, how wonderful this will look in your living room/dining room/kitchen.

And how do you get someone to this decision point? 1) By listening carefully (prompt customers and prospects to talk 80% of the time!), and 2) By processing what you hear and see to show how what you have to offer can solve their problem.

Anyone can ram features down someone’s throat. This loses more sales than anything else. It takes patience, understanding, and sitting (mentally and physically) on the same side of the table, working in concert to solve the buyer’s problem.

For immediate, focused, affordable sales help, call me now: 302.933.0116

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 With thanks to my LinkedIn friend Kevin Kempler for inspiring this post

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

TIMELESSNESS

Surely you jest! The closest we’ll ever get to this state of existence (and still be living) is on vacation (or drugs!), or by meditating or exercising. Reality dictates that timelessness is not a condition of most employment, unless you’re an Astronaut.

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So what’s a poor creative business type to do to achieve a big enough taste of nirvana, be inspired to greatness and  innovative genius . . . and to prompt meaningful sales?

First, manage your time more efficiently. Pay no attention to corporate trainers and consultants who advocate that life is not about managing time but should instead be about managing your self more efficiently.

CREATIVITY IS NOT SPAWNED

BY EFFICIENCY.

Creative expression evolves from dreaming, trial and error, inspiring examples, hard-nosed research, brainstorming, testing, communication, and often from sleeping on your ideas.

You’ll do –for example– a better job of creative marketing or website design after watching an animated movie, or after taking a walk or jog through the woods or a park, or along a waterfront.

You’ll get more creative traction out of playing with a toddler, or a puppy, or visiting your local ASPCA adoption offerings, or a nursing home, children’s hospital, school, theatre or day care center.

In other words, get yourself up and out of your element, away from your “normal” day-to-day environment.

ROUTINE EXPERIENCES

DON’T STIMULATE CREATIVITY.

Total immersion in the exceptional, extraordinary, bizarre, unexpected, and unusual DO.

Savvy creative directors send their writers, artists, and designers to different kinds of events to broaden their horizons and enable expanded thinking directions. It’s not unklike getting up from your desk, drawing board, computer, or workbench to take a short walk, a break, a stretch, or to get a cup of coffee. This also translates to not eating lunch in your workspace.

When we make a point of achieving little hunks of timelessness in the consciousness of our daily work efforts, grabbing at it whenever possible, we will perform better than those who don’t, and better than we normally would when we don’t take time outs!

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open   Minds   Open   Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Get it in writing . . . 

The Hardest Business Task!

Yes, test your objectives. Yes, test your strategies. Yes, test your tactics. And, yes –first and foremost– test your concepts. It’s the only sensible way (before spending money on ideas that might sound great, but that fail to produce), to make sure your pursuits are solidly grounded and integrally connected. 

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What’s the hardest task in business? It’s really not hiring and firing, or funding, or maintaining operations, or making sales (though HR, finance, operations, and sales people may all want to lay claim to having the most difficult jobs). The hardest task is getting it in writing. Huh”? What’s “it”? And what’s so hard about writing? Writing what? 

I believe the most challenging of all business tasks is getting your direction and contingency plans straight. (Considering widely-published SBA findings that over 90% of business failures are attributable to “poor management,” knowing where you’re going is certainly Job One for most entrepreneurs.)

Writing your objectives clearly, simply, specifically, realistically, flexibly –and with a due date attached– has proven time and again to make the difference between revenues and profits, between success and SUCCESS!

The more principals, partners, investors, advisors, managers involved, the harder the task. It becomes exponentially difficult because –to have any value– everyone involved must agree at least somewhat with every word. In other words, agreeing on a precise target is sometimes the most trying of all challenges.

Is it (your target objective) the same as your Mission or Vision Statement?

No, but it probably needs to directly reflect both.

Whatever the objectives (or goals) are that you verbalize for yourself or your business, they need to be:

A) Missions in and of themselves, and they must fit conceptually under the umbrella of your own or your company’s overall Mission Statement.

[If your objective(s) fail to measure up to your overall Mission Statement, or don’t quite fit under its umbrella, re-examine where you’re headed with things. You may need to switch gears, or direction, or timing, or desired results.]

B) Following the path of your Vision Statement.

[If this isn’t happening, redirect your focus or re-visit your Vision Statement to consider some adjustments.]

Can you make changes and still be “on-target” with your pursuits? Absolutely! Remember that flexibility (together with realistic, specific, and due-dated) is one of the key criteria for effective goal-setting. If you’re not reaching the goal you defined, be flexible enough to redefine it, or change the tactics you’re using.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

How To Boost Healthcare

Great Medicine is not

1) The Economy  

2) The E c o n o m y

3) The Economy  

4) The Economy

 5) The Economy  

6) The Economy

Standing 30 million strong, America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners are a force to be reckoned with. But we who own, run, and manage small business enterprises are all independent-minded. Who is there to pull us together? The SBA? A joke. The White House? A bigger joke. Corporate giants? HA! Unions? Right!

There’s no rocket science here: A strong economy requires new jobs from small business. ONLY small business (especially new small business) creates real jobs (vs. artificial ones created by government and unions). Innovation is the trigger. There is –and has been since 2008– ZERO support for small businesses to be more innovative to create jobs. Voila! Economic Quagmire!  

The only recourse we have for moving forward in a productive direction, that can make a difference is to grow our businesses to the point of stimulating increased innovation, comes in two assertive steps:

• Take the time out of our business lives to do something about prompting a change in our favor. [Government has made sure that there is no other choice. If we don’t take the time, we will not have any business left to start with.]

• Prod ourselves to become more active voices in our industries and professions and in every community that supports our business, to speak up for small business.

But I don’t like having to be political, says you? Well, sadly, it’s another no-choice situation. More here on that. The point is you must behave as if you were a candidate running on the PP&N (Preserve, Protect & Nurture) Small Business Party ticket. No, you need not become as despicable, overbearing or annoying as the role models.

It’s all about speaking up for what we believe in. If you simply feel you cannot live with that option, then find someone who can fill the role for you.

Recruit an advocate. Look around your business associates, family members, and those who live in your neighborhood. Find someone who can help advance your ideas and thinking about small business enterprises to be your spokesperson. Ignite your own crusade for meaningful incentives for innovation and job creation.

Make sure the person or group you select supports your position and agrees with the need to vocalize your interests to others. You provide the road map for this effort. Should it include, for example, giving talks or presentations to local organizations? Being available for news release follow-up contact? Ghost-writing a blog?

Oh, I’m sure it goes without saying, but reminders can be useful: You won’t find someone to help with this by not looking. Start now so we can breathe more life into small businesses to make a difference on November 6th.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 Great leadership

 is not always transparent!

Every winning sports and business team has a sparkplug — THE one most enthusiastic, energetic, pumped-up, mover and shaker who ignites her or his teammates and gets them focused on achievement. 

Combined with what most of us might designate as leadership qualities… trust, authenticity, integrity, empathy, compassion, active listening, speaking clearly, sense of humor, teaching by example, et al…the single sparkplug ingredient, the piece that brings it all together, comes quietly from inside… and is not always transparent. 

“Sparkpluggyness“  is not tangible, obvious, or even evident in many cases. It is a fire-in-the-belly sense of desire and mission. True leaders exude it, and usually without ever even noticing or acknowledging it. It’s something that “just happens” as many have shared along their career paths.

So how does one begin to cultivate and nurture the characteristics that lead to rewarding practices of inside leadership? Do boosters work? Energy drinks? Coffee? Drugs? Ginseng?

One might best begin with a large dose of self-esteem, let that percolate into self-confidence, add a dash of deep breathing, proper exercise, enough rest, nutritional foods (and obviously eliminate addictive tobacco and alcohol products along the way), and work at mastering the ways of dealing best with your own stress.

Try whatever comes along until you find the one thing that best works for you. Is it jogging? Lifting? Yoga? Massage therapy? Playing with a pet? Pursuing a hobby? Swimming? Gardening? Painting? The answer is different for every single person. But you’ll never discover what’s best for you if you aren’t continually experimenting.   

This is all about getting in touch with your inner self and firing up that furnace. If YOU don’t know what makes you tick, you’ll never be able to know how to best figure out what makes other people tick, and how to best deal with them to get them motivated.

Even Maslow’s Theory of Motivation relies one-hundred percent on a manager’s ability to “size up” others to be able to best reward them at a level that’s most meaningful to THEM. If you give me a plaque when I most want a more impressive title, you’re wasting my interest and sense of teamwork. You will not gain my commitment.

This little piece of leadership need not be for public consumption: The more you know about what makes YOU go, the closer you are to understanding and motivating others, and the more you can succeed at getting others to achieve, the better a leader you become and the more you will accomplish, transparently or otherwise.

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Hal@Businessworks.US   Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Is Your Vision Statement

A Mission?

Does Your

Mission Statement

Have Vision?

You’re getting ready for 2012 and you’re confused? Gee, hard to imagine . . .

Just because the media and politicians tell us the economy is getting better? Just because we’re looking at a healthcare reform that has absolutely nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with costing small business more? Just because enemy combatant terrorist situations surface from those we’re told are not really terrorists, and from circumstances that we’re assured do not exist? Just because global warming hoaxsters had us running to refrigeration investments?

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We’re probably feeling like confusion is nothing new, right? So why not live with a little more?

Well, here’s why: The business you own or manage doesn’t need to be as misguided and convoluted as politicians and the media. Remember they get paid for creating confusion. Your success depends on keeping things simple.

Keeping things simple starts with attitude, awareness, and hard work.

First off, don’t let anyone tell you to work smarter and not harder. That’s baloney! Every business success comes from hard work. Next, don’t let people confuse you about the characteristics and values of Mission and Vision Statements. [No, they are NOT the same!]

A Mission statement is essentially a declaration of intent, challenge and pursuit. It is your goal statement that clearly and succinctly explains what you plan to accomplish over what specific period of time and by what means. It is action-focused.

And, like every meaningful goal, your Mission Statement needs t0 be specific, flexible, realistic and have a due date. [Without all four criteria, you’ve nothing more than a wishlist fantasy!]

A Vision statement is a summation of where you see your business in 5-10 years. It is a picture you paint in your mind and share with others. It answers the question: If you succeed in your mission, where will you be?

It’s a set of words that best describes what you imagine to be your future state of existence, and how you expect (hope) to be viewed by others: your employees, associates, vendors, customers, markets, industry or profession, and community. It is dream-focused. It’s primary value is to inspire pursuit of your Mission.

What’s your Mission for 2012? What’s your Vision for 2020?

Oh, and in the same fashion that it helps to start ANY mission with 20/20 vision, it is often most useful to put your 2020 Vision on the table (to keep focused on it) while you develop your 2012 Mission (or while you think up the ways to get where you want to end up).

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More FREE insights on

 2012 “LEADERSHIP”?

Come visit me at TBD Consulting’s Jonena Relth’s site and comment on my Guest Blog posts:

LEADERSHIP TRANSPARENCY

“I” IS FOR INTEGRITY

and “T” IS FOR TRUST.  

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