Keys2BusinessGrowth

When was the last time you interviewed your clients and asked them what they value about your company, who their trusted advisors are and what needs are not being met?

How about your prospective clients? When was the last time you asked them who their trusted advisors are and what needs are not being met?

When you are growing your business or expanding into new markets this is critical information that you MUST have. If you don’t know why clients select you and value you, if you don’t know who people are turning to and why, if you don’t know what needs aren’t being met—how are you going to develop a value proposition for your company that will take it to new levels of growth? Your clients and members of your prospective market are the only ones who can give you the answer.

Most people shy away from interviewing clients unless it focuses directly on a project they’ve been hired to work on. But that’s a mistake. Even asking them to complete a survey or answer a questionnaire will leave you short on answers. In a personal interview, you can direct the conversation, keeping the client on track or steering him to tell you more about a subject that comes up. You can’t do that with a survey or questionnaire.

Let me give you an example. One client of mine is a consultant specializing in helping companies apply for a certain tax credit. We needed to know how his customers and prospective clients first came to know about that tax credit. I interviewed several of my client’s clients and members of a LinkedIn discussion group that specifically addressed that tax credit. Initially I asked who they get their advice about taxes and tax incentives from. Every one of them said they get that info from their accountants and tax attorneys. But when I specifically and individually asked them where they initially heard about that tax credit, none of them named their accountant or tax attorney. The answer was different for each person interviewed, but 90% of them had heard about it from someone they consider to be a trusted advisor. So I started asking for names. Surprisingly, most people were very forthcoming and several referred me directly to those individuals.

So what did those interviews achieve? First, we discovered that business leaders were not hearing about the tax credit from the people my client and his competitors thought they were — accountants and tax attorneys. Second, we not only discovered who was introducing those businesses to the tax credit, but also began building a network of individuals who recognized the value of that credit, would likely be telling other businesses about it, and could benefit from a strategic partnership with my client. I found business for my client even as we were doing the interviews. We also found some needs that weren’t being filled for these companies that my client could include in his services, thus creating new opportunities.

I can’t say enough about the value of talking with your clients and prospective customers. And don’t just limit the conversation to your business and the services you currently offer. Get the client to open up about his or her entire scope of business. You never know when you’ll discover an opportunity to expand your service offering.

Now I don’t mean that you need to conduct these interviews in person. Many of the interviews I did via email and discussion groups. And it’s probably not a bad idea to have a survey, questionnaire or just a list of questions to start with. The answers to those will be good jumping-off points for your conversation. But the best answers and information comes from talking with people. All you have to do is . . . you’ll hear me say this a lot . . . pick up the phone.

Joseph
Your Chief Game Changer

Business is business, whether it’s online or in person. Don’t forget that.

If you’re using the Internet and social media to grow your business or find more efficient ways of running your business, it’s still business and you must conduct yourself accordingly.

I had an interesting experience recently in which I posted a suggestion on my LinkedIn profile encouraging people in my network to pick up the phone and call someone in their network that they’ve never spoken to or haven’t spoken to recently. I have more than 2,500 people in my first-tier network. Any idea how many of them called me? None. Zilch. Nada.

Now, I’m not just throwing a pity party because I didn’t get any phone calls (and yes, I called several people in my network as I do every week). But my suspicion is that my experience is symptomatic of a bigger picture. That is that people are hiding behind their keyboards. Many people get on the Internet and social media sites, like LinkedIn, with the intention of making new contacts, developing new relationships, and growing their business but are afraid to actually follow through. They add more and more contacts or “friends,” but don’t go beyond posting their news or emailing people.

Eventually you have to pick up the phone.

If you’re on networking sites to grow your business, you have to pick up the phone. There’s no getting around it. Yes, some business can be done without ever talking to someone in person, but if you want to build true business relationships, you have to pick up the phone and talk to them — and the sooner the better.

The people you connect with online are potential sources of revenue. Don’t ignore them. Unless the only people you connect with are personal friends and buddies from high school and college, everyone you connect with falls into one of these categories:

• Potential Customers – people who will buy your products or services
• Potential Vendors - people who will provide you with products or services that enhance your ability to run your business or enable you to offer more to your customers
• Potential Partners - people that will help you grow your business

Which of these types of people can you afford to alienate?

Let me share another story with you — this one actually happened twice recently. I had an initial conversation going with a network contact for whom I had a referral…plus, potentially more business to send their way. The person indicated in their emails that they were genuinely interested in talking to me and finding out how I could help them develop new business. We set an appointment for a phone conversation. I called at the appointed time. They didn’t pick up the phone. I left a message. They didn’t call back. I realize that sometimes things come up and that people occasionally forget appointments. No big deal. I sent a friendly email inviting them to reschedule. I never heard back from them, not even after a few more emails. So I “unfriended” them.

A harsh response? I don’t think so. If you’re not going to behave like a professional and act like someone who wants to do business, why are you connecting with people? I read an article recently that suggested (strongly suggested) that most people on social networking sites are there to boost their ego, adding everyone under the sun to their contact or “friends” list. As a business professional, I’m not looking to connect with people who want to grow their ego; I’m looking for people who want to grow their business. AND YOU SHOULD BE DOING THE SAME.

Social networking offers incredible opportunities for business growth and developing new markets. But it’s still business. The rules are still the same:

• Do what you say you’re going to do
• Treat people like you want to be treated

Anything less is unprofessional and will reflect poorly on you and your company.

Yes, I’ve had some recent experiences along these lines that kind of ticked me off. But, more importantly, if you don’t understand these ground rules, then anything else we talk about in regards to networking and business growth will be a moot point, because you’ll just be doing it wrong.

So, how do you correctly build relationships with people you connect with online? How do you avoid hiding behind the keyboard?

Pick up the dang phone. That’s it. You don’t need to have a prepared sales pitch or anything like that; just have a conversation. And if someone reaches out to you, don’t ignore them — you could be throwing away thousands of dollars, or even millions.

Joseph

Your Chief Game Changer

In my previous post, I made use of a food-chain analogy to explain the need for developing new positioning and marketing strategies that eliminate competition. But when it comes to developing and implementing those strategies, the predatory analogy breaks down. That’s because you won’t be able to find those new positioning opportunities and new ways to approach customers without the help of your customers.

Right now, most businesses view new market development as risky. If you don’t talk with your customers and potential customers to find out what their needs and objectives really are and how your products and services truly benefit them . . . if you don’t talk to them to find out how they view you and your competitors . . . if you don’t talk to them to find out who they trust and why, then it will be risky. It’s risky because you will only be able to guess at the possibilities. But cold, hard facts always change the picture — they always reduce the risk — ALWAYS.

It probably comes as no surprise to you since we’re talking about having conversations and partnering with people, to hear that social media is a key player in gathering the data you need to make risk-reduced decisions about new market development. But how does a blog or a Facebook page help you develop a new market?

The first thing you have to realize is that social media goes way beyond posts, tweets, and profiles — way beyond. Companies that struggle to get results from social media usually do little more than put up a profile page and an occasional blog post or tweet, hoping that their ideal customers will become interested and start calling them. That’s the predation model of traditional marketing: bait the trap and wait for the prey. Some people go so far as to reach out through other people’s blogs and such to try and bring potential customers back to their web page or blog. But a wolf in sheep’s clothing still smells like a wolf — and a dead sheep.

Before I get into how to engage with potential customers and business growth partners, let’s talk about what you can achieve through social media as you develop new markets. To develop new market strategies that are as risk free as possible, we need to know what our customers value most about our products and services and how we and our competitors have succeeded AND failed at supplying that value.

In Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim describes how Casella Wines of Australia created an entirely new market by turning beer and cocktail drinkers into wine drinkers. They found out that these potential customers—people who drank alcohol, but not wine—found many aspects of wine and wine marketing to be confusing or “high falutin.’” Casella reduced or eliminated the aspects of wine drinking and marketing that turned these customers off and accentuated or introduced aspects that appealed to them. But Casella wouldn’t have known what moves to make without first talking to their potential customers. Social media makes that easy and far less expensive than traditional focus groups and surveys, which often don’t provide information that is as accurate.

We’re also looking for information about who our potential customers trust and listen to. Why? Because they represent our first unconventional way of approaching those potential customers. By partnering with people who are already in positions of trust, you can reach far more potential customers with far less investment than you can through traditional marketing strategies. If you find a blogger with a following of hundreds or thousands of potential customers, and engage that blogger in a conversation, or better yet, he or she starts recommending you, you cut right through issues of trust and you get a direct line to those who will benefit most from what you have to offer.

So how do we go about gathering that kind of information? Well, before you get out into the social media sphere and start talking people’s ears off, you have to get out there and LISTEN. You have to search out the blogs and forums and profiles and tweets that your customers are turning to and find out what those leaders are saying and what your potential customers are saying. You have to get a feel for the conversation before you can join it.

When you do get around to joining the conversation, you have to do so with the mindset of partnering with your potential customers to achieve their goals, not yours. If you go out there with the goal of luring customers in and growing your business, you’re going to smell like a wolf. If you go out there and help people reach their goals or lead them in the right direction, then you’re going to be recognized as the shepherd.

Does this take time? Yes. Does this take commitment? Yes. But we’re looking to develop new markets with a minimum of risk and maximum profit potential and we have to lay the groundwork first. If you want to gamble and waste money, go play the lottery.

There is a whole lot more to this process than we’ve covered here and we’ll get into those details in future posts. But hopefully I’ve whet your appetite for how social media can be an effective tool in developing new markets without the traditional risk.

Joseph
Your Chief Game Changer

It’s time to quit slittin’ your wrists.

There’s already too much blood in the water.

Every day I see good businesses and good business people pour good money after bad into the same old marketing strategies and sales programs while getting less and less return for their investment. It’s like a wound that does not heal.

People, the marketplace is more competitive than ever before. There’s a feeding frenzy going on as everyone fights harder and harder just to get enough business to stay alive. That’s why W. Chan Kim (author of Blue Ocean Strategy) called the traditional marketplace a Red Ocean — it’s filed with the blood of millions of businesses all fighting over the same food supply.

So how do you survive in this feeding frenzy and establish a pattern of business growth that will make you a leader?

You don’t.

You go and find a new food supply.

Welcome to the Keys2BusinessGrowth blog. I apologize if my opening imagery seems a little over the top, but, quite frankly, if we’re going to get anywhere in today’s marketplace we have to get down to the vicious truth. That’s what this blog is about — getting to the vicious truth about what it will take to grow your business and become a market leader.

While we’re going to cover many aspects of sales, marketing, and business growth, everything we talk about will come back to two cold hard facts:

1. You need your own private feeding ground

A small fish doesn’t get big by eating the scraps left by bigger fish. He gets bigger by finding a new source of fresh meat. You have to position yourself in a way that eliminates your competition instead of competing in the same old way. This is what Kim meant by Blue Oceans — oceans/marketplaces that aren’t filled with the blood of competing businesses.

That doesn’t mean trying to find customers your competitors aren’t selling to yet; it means finding new ways to think about the benefits your products and services offer and new ways to approach your ideal customers (notice that I didn’t say a new way to scream louder than your competition). When you can do these two things, your customers won’t see you as one of a thousand companies offering similar products or services. They’ll see you as the only company offering what they need. That’s a Blue Ocean — your own private feeding ground.

2. Sustained sales growth requires you to grow between your ears

If you throw a pike in a pond full of guppies, the pike will eat well for a while, but then two things will happen. The guppies will get smart and more pike will come.

When you find your Blue Ocean — or even if you find success in a Red Ocean — and you experience massive growth, you have to be prepared to handle the new growth. When you double or triple your customer base, you’ll have to put new delivery systems, customer management strategies, and leadership strategies in place. Without them, your customer service and internal focus will degrade and you’ll lose many of your new-found customers—and some of your old ones. That’s the guppies getting smart.

When your competitors see that your new positioning and marketing strategies have made you fat and happy, they’re going to want to swim in your pond and they will want to eat your lunch. To remain a leader, you have to stay several steps ahead of the competition. You have to be able to see when the water is turning red and it’s time to shift that positioning or your approach to finding new business. You have to become an expert at developing Blue Oceans.

So, in a nutshell, we’re going to be challenging conventional sales and marketing strategies in order to massively accelerate growth for your business and prepare you to deal with and continue that growth indefinitely. And we’re not going to pull any punches about it, because pulling punches will not motivate you to change your thinking fast enough to avoid a slow, bloody death. Right here is the place you want to be if you want to stop bleeding and start growing.

I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you are too.

Joseph
Your Chief Game Changer

Wow! I’ve been away for awhile. For the past several months, I’ve been working with a colleague who owns a telemarketing company and was struggling with operations.

Based on my own past experience working in inside sales operations, I stepped in for the past few months as the Interim VP Operations. What I learned is how the other side of that particular business works – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In the end, I realized an opportunity for Market Leader Solutions to be a more complete solutions provider. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “When talent and opportunity mesh, then you know you have found your vocation.”

At any given point, creating new and sustainable top-line revenue is one of the top 3 issues on any CEO’s mind: (http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/ceos-top-concern-excellence-of-execution-1928/conference-board-ceo-top-10-challenges-united-statesjpg/ ). It doesn’t matter if the economy is up or if it’s down – increasing sales remains a high-profile issue.

What are the real options for driving new sales growth in a sustainable way? Is the wiser solution internal or external? The primary reasons for an internal solution are: more control, underutilized resources that can be successfully reallocated, and (possibly, though not always) less cost. By contrast, the reasons for an external solution relate to: scalability, managing costs, leveraging expertise, and leveraging your own time. Seems easy enough that the external solution should prevail, but there are problems, especially with outsourcing sales.

The second biggest problem for most B2B companies who choose to outsource sales in any capacity is in finding reliable solution providers for generating new sales growth, AND people who understand the big picture of business. In the majority of cases, these folks just aren’t geared toward high-level business growth or best practices of business management. The first biggest problem is slicing through the glut of frauds in the telemarketing business, but I digress…for now.

Beginning with our Virtual Inside Sales model, Market Leader Solutions is quickly becoming a complete business growth solution provider. We will leverage our business management, best recruiting practices, and inside sales knowledge to create a more complete solution driving toward market leadership for our clients.

Welcome to the next evolution of Market Leader Solutions.

http://www.marketleadersolutions.com

Recently I’ve seen a deluge of comments in social media forums, Q&A sections, and even advertisements suggesting that to hire successfully you must find those who are not looking for a new job – also known as “passive candidates.” The prevailing thought among many seems to be that the best folks in the talent pool are passive candidates.

Sounds theoretically possible, right? Heck, it’s good enough for an argument among those who follow broken traditional recruiting processes. But that’s not even the most disturbing part of the logic.

One of the commentators revealed more than he may have realized when, as he asked for tips and tricks to find passive candidates, he stated that he’s got to find more because they are the top talent he needs.

Stop the presses!

In mathematical terms, that particular logic trail looks like this:

          Top Talent = Passive Candidates
                          therefore
          Passive Candidates = Top Talent

In other words, if top talent generally comes from passive candidates, then I must focus my searches on passive candidates because they are top talent. What is created by this faulty logic is an assumption that passive candidates have a high probability of being top talent. This assumption often results in less stringent qualification processes, and no surprise, underwhelming performance.

By their own definition, passive candidates are not looking for a job. But let’s qualify that for a minute.

What if:

• She just hasn’t applied for the specific job you represent, but she has resumes out in a few discreet locations
• He’s an imposter in the very center of his con, and riding out this economic downturn is a perfect cover
• She’s earning an advanced degree and can do her present job on autopilot

What a spectacular Super Bowl XLIII! Congratulations to both teams for rising to the top of the game and presenting a truly valiant fight. I’m from Pittsburgh, so I’m a die-hard Steelers fan, win or lose. This past season, the Steelers reinforced the lesson that the game is 60 minutes long, many times winning in the last few minutes of numerous games. It might make your heart pound, but that’s Steelers football.

We’ve recently experienced one of the highest unemployment rates in decades. Times are tough, but some companies are still hiring at various levels. To many, it would seem to be a target-rich environment for locating new talent. But there are pitfalls. I classify four different groups of available talent, and urge those in decision-making capacities to raise their awareness of each group.

This past week I had an interesting conversation with a recruiter who was very frustrated with one of his hiring managers. Apparently, the hiring manager he works with insists on hiring “incompetent buffoons” [recruiter's words, not mine] in order to protect his own job. Obviously the hiring manager has an inferiority complex, but that’s actually a minor issue in this story.

Without a doubt, the NFL is one of the most high-stakes, high-visibility games on the planet. Occasionally, there are some pretty insightful lessons we can apply to the world of business. One recently stood out among the others as the race for playoffs concluded.