Only 10% of salespeople

make more than 3 contacts

with a prospective Customer.

80% of sales are made

on the 5th to 12th contact.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the message behind these stats from the National Sales Executive Association, as brought to the surface on LinkedIn by

Douglas Green, National Field Market Manager, Healthcare at LanguageLine Solutions, Austin, TX.

Take the bitter pill! If you own or manage any part of a small or medium-size business, or if you are part of an individual or group professional practice, like it or not, you ARE a salesperson! If you can’t accept that and move forward, your business or practice won’t move forward. It is that simple.

So let’s explore this for a minute:

As a salesperson, what keeps you from making more than three contacts with a Customer or prospective Customer? What makes you stop short? Hint: It’s not likely to be the prospect or the circumstances. It’s your CHOICE — active or past– that’s holding you back!

If you’re so easily discouraged in representing your ideas/products/ services more than three attempts, imagine your credibility–never mind the credibility of your ideas/products/services–plummeting in the eyes of someone or group or entity after you’ve made only three attempts.

But whom, you may ask, wants to visit with someone five to twelve (12!!!) times to make a sale? A top performer, that’s who! The top performer you are capable of being, if you CHOOSE to be!

Frustration doesn’t fall from the sky and land on your shoulders. It’s something you intentionally or inadvertently CHOOSE.

Here’s a cage-rattler for you, from the good-fortune experiences I’ve had working with and learning from some of the world’s greatest salespeople: IT IS at least AS easy to choose to make the challenge of 5-12 contacts easy as it is to choose to make the challenge be hard.

And you must be lost in the Stone Age if you interpret “contact” or “visit” as a physical movement of your being back and forth to a prospect’s space. It’s true that physical back-and-forth trips may actually be called for in the case of high-ticket projects, but most of the time, contacts and visits take the form of phone calls, emails, text messages (when requested or agreed to ahead of time), or –Heaven Forbid!– a handwritten note or two (Huh? Handwritten?). Yes really! It’s all about Communication.

It should go without saying, but I’ll pop the comment in anyway: It’s not probable that 5-12 prospective Customer contacts will succeed if they constitute a bombardment or avalanche anymore than if they are as far apart in time as most dentist visits, so common sense must be paired with choosing persistence.

The bottom line: If you want to rise above the rubble, make a conscious choice to rise and a conscious choice to not be sidetracked.

Play the 10%-80% odds! Remember that Consistency Sells! And guess what else? Repetition sells, repetition sells, repetition sells. Repetition . . .

# # #

 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US        or comment below

A Practice Axiom of Entrepreneurship…

“HOW” Something Happens

  is far more important than

  Who, What, When, Where, or Why

The histrionics of analytics is paralyzing corporate growth. With steadily increasing regularity, analysis paralysis has been squashing the very heartbeat of big business since the onset of the computer age.

The only differences I see between analytics now and the 1990s are speed and depth. But getting quick, more complete answers to the who, what, when, where, and why doesn’t turn problems into opportunities, and in fact radically impedes the very essence of progress and innovation.

Entrepreneurs recognize instinctively that the time spent trying to “get to the bottom of things” literally stops forward motion with a thud! And, to an entrepreneur, nothing is more important than taking her or his idea onward and upward. Nothing. Certainly not slow-motion replays in perpetuity. It’s all about TRUST. Entrepreneurs trust themselves and they trust their ideas.

Getting on with it is the gnawing desire

behind every entrepreneurial venture.

Try it. Adjust it. Try it. Adjust it. Try it.

Adjust it. Try it again. Adjust it again…

Who cares about who, what, when, where, or why except maybe a detective or investigative journalist? The answer (my best guess!) is only those whose careers are politically driven and who seek to justify their existences above all other pursuits. That nails it to (I believe) the vast majority of government managers and corporate executives, and all politicians. The clues: Big-grip handshakes, fake smiles, and eyes always fixed on the next rung up.

Successful entrepreneurs have a burning, passionate desire to see their ideas succeed. They live to achieve their ideas, not to make money, not to become famous, not to get promoted, not to grow their benefit packages, not to appease their bosses, not to retire, not to party, not to gamble, not to take unreasonable risks… and not to one-up their co-workers, neighbors, friends, or in-laws. Each has “a better idea” and winning acceptance for that idea is the fuel for the fire.

“Yeah, sounds good,” I’ve been told by numerous representatives of all three oppressed career arenas, “but we are the ones who get the jobs done, who make the markets, who spend the big bucks and create the jobs that grow the economy.” Sorry folks. You’re way off base. You don’t really do any of the above, except spend, which I might add, doesn’t take much brainpower. Small business creates the jobs, makes the markets, and stimulates the economy. Period.

Some entrepreneurial advice for government, corporate, and political spenders: Regardless of whether your perspective is manufacturing, operational, creative, sales, administrative or customer service, STOP WASTING TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY analyzing every ounce of minutia trying to uncover who did what to whom under what circumstances and choose instead to focus on the process of what’s happening and how to make it better . . . Git R Done!

# # #

 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  or comment below.

When is a pat on the back

  really a kick in the butt?

A client tells you your service is great, then complains about it later to others. Assuming nothing changed along the way to erode the value of your praiseworthy performance, your sense of anguish may simply be the result of of a mixed message. Mixed messages find their way into everyday business exchanges with increasing regularity.

“Pretty good job . . . for a woman!” is a typical example. “You’re doing this the right way, but you need to slow down and think it through better!” is another. Have you ever heard something like: “We need to move forward with plans to collaborate, but not at the expense of our own department (division, team, group)?”

Mixed messages are nonproductive. Mixed messages often couch hidden agendas. Unlike much problem solving that requires “two to tango” and cannot be realistically addressed by a single entity alone, mixed message situations can be resolved by one person taking preventive measures. These include paraphrasing, note taking, feedback, diagramming, and offering/ requesting examples. 

1)  PARAPHRASING. Instead of simply taking statements at face value and then squirming with them later, ask: “Do I understand you correctly to mean . . . (and repeat back what you think you heard, using your own words)?”

2)  NOTE TAKING. The biggest problem with note taking is that most people do not take notes. And even when they do, they fail to directly request the speaker to allow for it. “Would you mind please slowing down on (or repeating) that point for me  so I can make note of it because I don’t want to forget what you said.” is not just called for; it’s flattering to the speaker. But write it!!

3)  FEEDBACK. Speakers need to pause periodically and take inventory: “How are we doing here so far? Do you have any questions? Is all of this information clear?” Listeners need to politely interrupt periodically and take inventory: “Excuse me. Can we take a ‘Time Out’ minute here to summarize this last bit of information? I want to make sure I understand what you mean.” Write it!!

4)  DIAGRAMS. When speaker or listener is not 100% sure that communications are clear, ask for a diagram of the information; arranging keywords and ideas visually helps ensure accuracy, and can often illuminate a new perspective.

5)  EXAMPLES. Ask for them. Very few exchanges of information fail to become transparently clear when examples are offered and discussed.

Getting tangled up in miscommunication can be frustrating, annoying, and stressful. One person who is determined to “get it right” the first time, and who is willing to accept that it may take longer and be more work, will ultimately experience greater accuracy in dealing with others, and accuracy spells success.                               

# # #

 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US  or comment below.

Small business owners, doctors, lawyers, accountants, consultants, and sales reps…

It’s all about what you DON’T say!

It’s what you don’t say that makes a sale, that brings in new patients and clients and customers. Try sharing this bit of wisdom with any fast-talk car dealership or mattress store (the most distrusted U.S. businesses) then step back to get laughed at… which, all by itself, should be sufficient to convince you.

It’s true that being on the sales end of the spectrum in any given conversation, presentation, meeting, or conference, carries with it the responsibility to pay attention more, listen more, and shut up more! I’m not always smart enough to DO it, but I try because I think the old axiom that we should listen 80% of the time and talk 20% is true!

Besides forcing me to listen more carefully, the 80/20 formula enables me to be more patient with others and myself. It also prompts me to be more concise, more to the point — we inevitably choose our words and examples more carefully when we do take our 20% slice of a discussion.

People buy from knowledgeable people who excel at active listening. We like to hear –or at least I do– about what we don’t know when we ask for it but, Boy! I really resent the intrusion on my time and mindset by those who flaunt it when I plain just don’t care? Talk does not cook rice!

Oh, and how about those who simply pay no attention to my verbal, facial, and body language signals? How do they miss my scowls, my squinted or rapidly-blinking eyes, my folded arms and jittery feet? Ah, then there are those who stare dumbly into space, or at my shirt collar, shoes or hair (or lack of), or their own hands or feet?

Or, yikes!… their wristwatch!

How many times have you—as a prospective customer/patient/client—been scared off by a know-it-all sales rep/ doctor/ lawyer/ accountant/ consultant? You know the type. “Everything is under control, my friend” (not a particularly ingratiating line from a friend I’ve never met). The great sales asset of genuine empathy is an entirely different matter.

Perhaps you’ve heard someone tell you: “Don’t worry. Be happy.” Worse yet, that was the song my former CPA played on his outgoing phone message. After producing an April 14th “minor” ($10,000) “IRS payment that needs to be paid with tomorrow’s taxes,” you’ll surely understand why I referred to him as “former.”

Instead of hearing and responding directly to my purchase interests and concerns, I get tons of information I don’t care about. And how much do you love token, dismissive head nods offered as pathetic attempts to pretend to be listening, but serving instead as a “yes but” lead-in to the next round of information dumping? Can you hear me now?

Oh, and to underscore the point, many in-person information overload spiels are accompanied by the spieler paying more attention to whom or whatever is going on behind me (or being more tuned into a blinking smartphone). And only heaven knows the distractions that keep telemarketers telemarketing.

Dynamics like these always make it tempting to ask:

“Uh, did you hear anything I just said?”

But I just walk away or hang up. How many of your prospective customers, clients, patients just walk away, or hang up?

C’mon, people! If you’re in sales, or healthcare, or law, or consulting, and you can’t get it together enough to listen attentively enough to prospective customers, patients, or clients, and be able to address their needs, go work for your nearby automobile or mattress dealer. You’ll fit right in.

# # #

 DOCTORS, THERAPISTS,

PRACTICE MANAGERS

 HOSPITAL EXECUTIVES

. . . ARE NOT

CORPORATE MUCKITY-MUCKS

You and your practice or facility are not likely to be a Fortune 500 corporate entity. So there’s no need to pretend being a marketing guru.

In fact, if you are feeling even a little bit over your head with marketing, you’re likely to be wasting money, time, and energy!

Maybe you’re unearthing a monster budget expense at the behest and/or persuasion of some big-time marketing company, PR firm or ad agency you’re working with or thinking of hiring? It can often feel (and be real) that such entities are simply throwing away your money to create a mumbo-jumbo branding program aimed at earning an award for themselves.

If you’re working with or considering  “experts” who are trying or promising to “position” you as the brightest star in the heavens . . . you may want to re-think it with a dose of reality.

Reality? Yes, you are a healthcare provider. That makes you an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs challenge the system. In healthcare, they use (or retain) innovative thinking to establish, re-establish and upgrade the authenticity of themselves and the “saleability” of their services, careers, investments, and reputations.

You can accomplish this with: much less expense of money, the same expense of time, and sometimes greater expense of energy. Oh, and –by the way– having and practicing a sense of entrepreneurial reality tends to get far better value and results than engaging one of the “big-time-expert” groups noted above.

Just to be sure we’re on the same page here, I’m talking about –specifically– how to increase patient volume, how to stimulate patient and patient-family loyalty, and how to strengthen referral bases, channels, and networks without having to bet the farm!. Is that what you’re looking to accomplish?

Stay with me on the next few weekly blog posts and I’ll tell you HOW… or call or email me (info below) if you can’t wait!

Let’s start with the idea that what truly “sells” people is to be entirely focused on them and not on ourselves. Chest-beating, posturing messages about how great you think you are and smiling-face billboards, ads, and Facebook pages –regardless of expense involved– make no difference whatsoever. In fact, they often do the opposite… annoy, antagonize, create doubt and distrust, and send the people you’re trying to reach galloping off to your quiet competitors.

So do you have to be “quiet”? No, but you do need to be your authentic self. You do you need to be more conscious of the training and talent and experience gifts you deliver in your vital societal role as a healer and healthcare provider. Because THAT is your best marketing!

Is that hard? Of course, especially given the volatility, misdirection, intrusiveness, and mismanagement of government agencies, insurance companies, and today’s Obamacare circus, but –in the end– difficulty (as most entrepreneurs learn) is a choice.

There is much more coming to you at this blog in the hands-on, specific-how-to-steps departments in the days ahead. So, do return for more on how to get started and how to re-start.

In the meantime . . .

CHECK THIS disarmingly true, insightful post

at www.HealthcareTalentTransformation.com  

by David Lee Scher, MD, titled:

“Five Ways Physicians Can Change Patient Behavior“

 # # #

Healthcare Pros STILL

Flushing Money Down the Drain!

Thanks for your visit. We have recently relocated to Cookeville Tennessee (between Nashville and Knoxville), home of Tennessee Tech University. Return here often for new posts in this series for Doctorpreneurs©and Healthcare professionals.

Why not just open the window and throw your money out? Why bother spending it on meaningless, confused thinking about marketing? Why keep feeding the nonperformance of media, mobile apps, direct mail magazines and newsletters, social media and, oh yes, outdoor advertising? Can we look at this open-mindedly?

The business and sports worlds have fed your fires since childhood that you must be competitive at all costs in order to win… that’s 100% false for healthcare professionals! In fact, many healthcare pros have marketing success expectations as unrealistic as imagining that a heart attack can be treated with a BandAid®

REALITY: No one “buys” billboards with smiling doctor faces (or, even worse, the recent trend toward somber looks!). Most people are not so stupid as to think that hospital “magazines” and “newsletters” with feature (dressed-up PR) stories are interesting or meaningful enough to be worth reading. My guess is that –other than the few and far between genuine healthcare educational mailing pieces– most of these exorbitantly expensive items go straight to the recycle pail. All this nonsense came and went thirty years ago. [Interesting how America’s healthcare institutions are accelerating these feeble old-fashioned attempts at marketing. Is it some kind of knee-jerk attempt to cope with the Obamacare muddle?]

BOTTOM LINE: No one cares! The public simply doesn’t care how great hospitals, doctors, therapists (or any professionals for that matter) think they are! Healthcare consumers may have more (and more personal) issues on the line than other kinds of consumers, but they really and truly only care about the same thing that every consumer cares most about: What’s in it for me? Period.

So if you’ve read this far, perhaps it would be useful to explore and reassess your current “marketing” practices, and decide if your money could be better spent on strengthening patient, patient family, and referral network relations. If you’re looking for a role model institution, consider the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center… you’ll find no shallow representations of professional skills… “Treatment” is their specialty, and it applies to everyone who enters their doors. Oh, and guess what? The only expense is training and training maintenance time.

Marketing –if it’s done right– might sometimes succeed at building brand loyalty for some products and services in some markets and marketplaces. But when the two end-results people seek most from healthcare professionals are 1) Reassurance and 2) Trust, it’s not likely either will ever be achieved with empty images or promises.

Doctorpreneurs© Copyright Hal Alpiar, 1994. All rights reserved.

BandAid® is a Registered Trademark of the Johnson & Johnson Company

 # # #

“Got here safe & sound, Y’all!”

AND STILL UNPACKING AND SETTING UP NEW OFFICES . . .

GUESS WHERE?????  Email your guess: Hal@Businessworks.US  (“New Office” in Subject Line) Winning guesses entered in drawing for a FREE first edition signed copy of HIGH TIDE fictionalized account of America’s biggest drug deal! See www.HighTideNow.com

Thank you for your visit.

If you’re new to this blog, please mark your calendar to return on April 16th for the beginning of Tax Return Recovery, and to help kickoff an exciting new series of posts you won’t find anywhere else!

If you’ve been visiting here regularly since the birth of my blog in April, 2008 (and now closing in on 1500 posts), thank you even extra!

You, especially, will want to return April 16th to see what’s in store for innovative, spirited business and healthcare professionals. You’ll get  proven new ways of thinking to boost your sales and make the most of your leadership skills — for profit and nonprofit businesses and professions alike. You’ll get coaching that works in the office and meeting room, on the phone and on paper, on the smartphone and the computer. You will get specific how-tos for building and enhancing your leadership posture in your industry, your marketplace, and your community.

When you return here April 16th, you will get the beginning of an input stream that no one else dares to share . . . on ways to feel better about your SELF (no product or service sales pitches, no lectures, no gimmicks). You’ll get ways to be encouraged, ways to make a difference with your career and family pursuits, ways to rise above the clutter.

You’ll get solid substance based on more years of experience than you probably are old. Not just passive observations, you’ll get frontline/hands-on experience with over 2,000 business consulting and return engagements AND with more than 20,000 students and management training participants. PLUS –as incredible as it’s always been–it will be free on this blog. Try it. You’ll like it. Send your friends.

In the meantime, to better serve our Entrepreneurial Clients (Including Business Startups, SalesPropreneurs©, Doctorpreneurs© and Corporate Entrepreneurs©), BUSINESSWORKS.US and TheWriterWorks.com, LLC will be in the process of relocating to another State. You’ll get the details as soon as we’re settled. In the meantime, Happy Spring!

See you the day after taxes!!!

 # # #

 Healthcare is NOT About

Billboards of Smiling Doctors

 . . . So STOP the nonsense and STOP wasting money!

STOP your healthcare marketing long enough to seriously

ask yourself if your public messages really make sense.

Healthcare is and has always been all about TRUST. Nothing more. Nothing less. Doctors and medical groups and hospitals and therapists and chiropractors and dentists and veterinarians who run smiling (or threatening) branding messages on billboards (or in print, online, and broadcast media) are wasting time and money!

Healthcare professionals are wasting their money. 

But they are wasting our time.

Huh? Why? Because NOBODY CARES!

The public today is not the public of yesterday – literally! We are no longer just Internet-savvy. We are Internet-addicted, Internet-crazed, and Internet-bamboozled. We are being micro-chipped to death!

• Healthcare DOWNside: Rampant Google-dependency and new strains of attention deficit disorder.
• Healthcare UPside: We can now know more about our ailments, disorders, symptoms, diagnostic and treatment procedures than ever before. And we can know it in a heartbeat.

Much of the problem lies with healthcare professionals who think they can knock out effective branding programs because they watch TV (or surf the Net, or read blogs, newspapers and magazines) and that makes them experts! But truly effective and memorable branding programs require special skill sets too . . . and those seldom parallel professional healthcare training. Creating marketing that works is not a hobby.

Oh, and if you are a healthcare marketing person, agency, group, or consultant: Before you jump up and down and run off copies of this post to pass around to support your credibility, STOP!

You may well be the other part of the problem!

• Are you selling healthcare professionals on printing and mailing expensive magazines that no one reads or cares about?
• Are you trying to package healthcare services and market them like hot dogs, popcorn, and underwear?
• Are you pushing email blast campaigns and Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn as ways to market healthcare?
• Are you saying: “We’ve got your back, Doc! We’ll make you famous! Patients will be standing in line, breaking down your door?

For a fraction of the money healthcare professionals are now spending on marketing, the right approach to building volume and referrals and growing patient and patient family loyalty needs to be considered. The right approach can reap two to ten times as much success! It starts with a diagnostic workup to generate a healthcare practice history. It ends with treating the practice appropriately to achieve the most positive prognosis imaginable.

It’s based on ways to build and increase trust levels, decrease and make the most of stress levels, enhance every level of communications, and make the best -most humanly possible- use of time each day with each patient, patient family, and referral source, as well as ensure proper EMR use and full reimbursement compliance.

It takes time and patience to get and keep patients — not fancy, ineffective and expensive marketing.

 # # #

Dear Boss: Do you know HOW and

WHEN to cover for someone?

If you’re reading this, my guess is the odds are you find it reassuring to hear that someone’s “got your back!” But let’s get real. That expression means a lot in life-or-death and potentially hazardous situations – no doubt about it! Thankfully, however, most of us are not putting our lives on the line every day as in police, fire and military combat.

So having someone “cover your back” is hardly of value in day-to-day business or family life. For most of us, reality dictates that no one else can really protect your interests except you!

If you want to make sure a job gets done that you are responsible for, either do it yourself or monitor progress to make sure the person you asked to do it, does it! Remember, we can delegate authority to get things done, but we cannot delegate responsibility for getting things done.

Does every assignment or request have to be a leap of faith? No, but until those involved have proven consistently that they can act responsibly, it’s a leap of faith, and how much of a leap depends on the sense of balance, trust, and intuition we practice. And there is no excuse for not checking up, following up, soliciting feedback.

Corporate accountability procedures make delegation slightly easier and more comfortable feeling than handing off tasks tends to be for entrepreneurs and in many family settings . . . and especially in family businesses. Q: When does a delegator step in and take charge, take back, or take over? A: When ultimate responsibility is on the line.

Oh, and not doing something the same way the delegator does something is not grounds for divorce, separation, or interference. In fact, the best leaders are those who see departures from their personal methods and techniques as opportunities to learn – possibly a better way to do something, or gain better input necessary to teach a better way.

But be careful here. “Better” is subjective. “Better” is not always quicker, or more thorough, or more efficient. THIS is one place where knowing when and when not to exercise leadership judgment comes into play.

WHEN DELEGATING – 5 SUGGESTIONS

1) Be observant – Keep things safe!

2) Withhold judgment pending seeing the results, but don’t hesitate to step in if you see evidence of physical, emotional or customer service hazard around the corner.

3) Suggest changes in process carefully and specifically – Criticize behavior or method or technique, NOT THE PERSON – Criticize in private and praise in public!

4) Don’t give a “Got your back!” attitude to someone else. Simply teach by example.  

5) Remember whose ultimate responsibility is on the line!

 # # #

“Huh? Now? But it’s the holidays!”

“Well, Merry Christmas to you! But

after quality family time, remember

1st quarter 2014 is just hours away.”

Why “NOW!”? Just click here: take a quick look at this to see what’s happening this very split second —as you read this— and you’ll realize that delaying this task is simply not in your best interest.

Getting others to refer you/your business is more than a survival tactic, it’s the key to 2014 success. No sales are more important right now than those to the friends, families, associates and online connections of your existing customers, clients, and patients. Because 2014 is bringing increased competitive activity to the surface. And it cannot be sidestepped.

The harder the times, the fiercer the battle! And the easiest, most economical path to increased sales and customer/ client/ patient repeat-sales-and-visits loyalty is a strengthened referral base. Economical? You decide. It costs nothing to delight those who purchase from you.

Cease and desist all marketing? No. But don’t expand it. Instead, consider shifting gears from reliance on expensive media, to fine-tuning attitudes and cultivating a much more pronounced reputation for integrity than you probably imagined being necessary. 

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Hal@Businessworks.US