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Who’s Your MVP?

Who’s Your MVP?

Posted on by Michele Margetts

The previous post dealt with making first contact with your prospective big fish and how to make a positive first impression. Today we’re going to cover feeling out the personality of your prospective big fish in order to match the right salesperson to the fish.

You need to do this in two steps:

  1. Profile your salespeople’s personalities;
  2. Match the right salesperson to your target fish.

There are essentially three different selling personalities:

  • Sage
  • Pal
  • Pit Bull

The Sage
This salesperson offers knowledge, experience, comfort and trust. They can make a concerned customer feel at ease. In order to be successful they need plenty of information, a demo of the product and/or service, and references and case studies if possible.

The Pal
Much like it sounds, this is a salesperson that shines at building relationships. They can instantly relate to the prospective client and make them feel like old friends in no time. They work best with clients who are looking for friendship, and information and are in a similar peer group as the salesperson. This peer group can include anything from age and culture to hobbies and nightlife. While sharing experiences can be beneficial to creating a new relationship, your salesperson must always keep it professional and respectful. The resources these personality type needs are assistance pairing with the right client, an entertainment (or schmoozing) budget, and the right information to meet the client’s needs.

The Pit Bull
Obviously, this personality type is a little more aggressive than the others; their focus is solely on the business and the bottom line. While this personality may seem harsh to a majority of people, there are some business people who respect someone who can get
right down to business and focus on the benefits of a partnership. This salesperson will be required to have some authority as they will likely be closing deals on the spot. They will also need plenty of resources and access to products and services. This salesperson is best placed in environments where they can work independently, exercise authoritative discretion, and seal deals quickly.

These three personality types can all be successful when used appropriately in the right selling environment. You can easily see how matching the right salesperson to the right client has the potential to secure more big fish for a longer period of time.

Please reach out to me if you need help figuring out which personality type each of your salespeople fits into to get your big fish plan in action.

The Perfect Bait

The Perfect Bait

Posted on by Michele Margetts

Our last post covered how to learn about your big fish and prepare for your initial contact with them. This first contact is essential to your success so you will need to instill confidence in them. They need to know you can fulfill exactly what you are offering on time, at a good price, and of the quality, you promise.

Today we will explore the big approach and how to make that perfect first impression. Before you devise your plan of approach, you need to identify which big fish you will be targeting. Review your notes and research you’ve compiled about prospective fish and then decide which one will be the easiest approach to start out with.

The following is a series of things to review when deciding which fish to target first:

  • Position Your Business
  • Compile Your Hit List
  • Select the Best Target

Position Your Business
You must position your business to make the first move by listing your revenue streams, your operational procedures, where your fish is initially positioned, and your big-customer research, and putting it all together.

Compile Your Hit List
Begin with a list of all the companies you’ve been considering then narrow it down to the ones you know could benefit from your products or services. Don’t overlook obvious choices, whether they are big or small. Even small companies could be big fish in the future.

Select the Best Target
Once you’ve got your list narrowed down, you need to decide which one is the best fish to target first. You must consider the following:

  • Which have the most purchasing resources to spend?
  • Does their company vision complement yours?
  • What are their employee incentive programs as they relate to your products
    and/or services?
  • What is the company’s real need for you?
  • Will the partnership lead you off-course?

By now you should have a target in mind to proceed with first. It’s time to plan your approach and execute that plan.
Here is the step-by-step plan to help you make a good first impression:

  1. Build and analyze your database. Divide your leads into three different categories: hot leads, great fits, and secondary leads.
  2. Send out introductory mailings to your target to introduce yourself, your company, services, products, and your vision. These mailings must be clear and concise.
  3. Follow up with your initial phone call 2-3 days following their expected receipt of the mailings. During the phone call identify who you need to speak with in the future and try to arrange a meeting with this person.
  4. Follow up your phone call with another mailing that thanks them for taking the time to speak with you and offers more details about your products and/or services. Use this letter as an opportunity to set up a meeting to do a presentation.
  5. Follow up the letter with another phone call a couple of days after their receipt of the letter. The purpose of this phone call is to further develop your relationship with the prospective client. You should also be able to set up a presentation meeting with them.
  6. Call again a week later if they haven’t agreed to a meeting or presentation. Ask if they received your creative letter (the second one) and if they have a minute for you to stop by and introduce yourself in person.

Now don’t get discouraged if you don’t seal the deal right away. Some people take a little longer to persuade. This can all be a little intimidating at first, but when you know you are offering a quality product and/or service, you can’t go wrong.

Once you’ve gone through this process and made first contact (and hopefully a good first impression) it’s time to put your best face forward, which means sending the right salesperson to seal the deal.

If  you need help putting together your approach and making a good first impression, reach out to me for a wealth of great resources and tools.

Untangle the Red Tape

Untangle the Red Tape

Posted on by Michele Margetts

In our last post, we covered how to bring the big-company mindset into your business and your team. This will help you overcome the mental obstacles that will keep you from being successful. Now that you’ve learned how to overcome that, we’re going to discuss how to identify who your fish is. It is important to be familiar with the fish you are looking for before you put a plan together. We will also take a moment to highlight the potential “red tape” you may encounter along the way.

The most important thing to know about your fish is their purchasing habits and procedures. There are four main things you need to work on in order to be successful:

1. Responsibilities: You need to know who has influence over purchasing, who does the actual buying, and who has the ability to kill a deal if desired.

2. Get on Their List: You need to figure out how to get on their list of people to buy from. Your name not only needs to be on that list, but at the top of it and in as many categories as possible for additional interaction. Ask about a procurement program and what is required to go through the application process.

3. Lingo: You need to learn the company’s unique language and communication style. This could include report names, buzzwords, and even the nicknames they have for their employees.

4. Fiscal Budgets: It is essential for you to be familiar with the fiscal budget of your fish so you know exactly when they are planning their expenses for the year.

Now that we’ve identified what you need to know about your fish, let’s take a quick look at the “red tape”.

Bureaucracy might as well be a four-letter word with the emotions it stirs in all of us. “Red tape” is a necessary evil that you can use to your advantage by learning from their system. There are two ways to learn from their system:

1. Analyze their activity;

2. Review their correspondence.
Being an outsider looking in can have its advantages too. If you hate dealing with the “red tape”, imagine how their employees feel dealing with it.

If they need to crunch some
numbers, offer to take care of it for them. If they need more info, make sure you are providing it in a user-friendly way.

The things we talked about in this lesson will help you prepare for the big approach. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need assistance with untangling the “red tape”.

Be One With the Fish

Be One With the Fish

Posted on by Michele Margetts

The previous post started our series on catching big clients, or “fish”, which will sustain your business over the long run. Today we’re going to take that a step further by exploring how to turn your mind to think like a big fish company and how that can help you plan your approach and find success.

Before you can begin the process of landing big clients, you must make sure your entire team is on board with your approach and vision. There are six keys to realizing big client success. They are:

  1. First Impression: You must remember you only have one shot to land a big client. If you make a mistake, they aren’t going to consider you again. Never give them a reason to doubt your abilities.

  2. First Priority: Your potential big fish must always feel like they are your first priority. Show them that you are highly responsive by returning calls and emails immediately, and find solutions to their problems or questions as quickly as possible.

  3. Flexible: You need to be flexible in your negotiations. If they need a special service or customization of a product, comply for the long-term benefit of their business. A little hassle now could potentially be a substantial pay off down the road.

  4. Long-term: This goes hand-in-hand with flexibility. As you are approaching and negotiating with big fish clients you need to consider the long-term benefits for your business. If you push for a one-off big score, you are sure to lose their interest and any future business.

  5. Have Fun: Work should be fun, even when you are trying to land big clients. In fact, this should be the most fun as you are sharing your vision with new people and involving them in your future success and vice versa. People simply work harder in a fun, happy environment. Your passion for your work is contagious and big fish clients will be drawn to your energy.

  6. Help Them: If you take a little bit of time and offer your clients ways to save money or time by introducing them to potential business partners, they will feel as though you are really invested and interested in the success of their business. Strive to find the balance between your business needs and those of your clients.

There are also a few tactics you can use to bring in a big-company vision to the people on your team. You can:

  • Post these six keys for all to see;

  • Create a performance-based incentive program;

  • Conduct frequent team meetings;

  • Use a “right now” policy that dictates any big fish calls be answered immediately;

  • Offer awards and/or recognition for big-company ideas and subsequent

    executions;

  • Develop a training and certification program based on the six keys above.

    These 6 keys and tips will help you instill a big-company mindset throughout your company, which will help you be more prepared and more likely to land your big fish. Once your entire team is aligned with this thinking, your business will be unstoppable.

    Reach out to me today if you need help putting together an incentive program or another way to push your team toward the big-company mindset.

Are You On The Right Path?

Are You On The Right Path?

Posted on by Michele Margetts

There are a number of factors to take into consideration when prepping yourself and your company to approach the largest clients you may ever work with.

Today we will begin with a brief look at the three paths every business faces and show you which one is the path to success. Then we’ll talk about the mindset it takes to attract the big fish.

There are three major paths a business can take when expanding its business:

  • Snail Speed
  • Shooting Star
  • Catch the Big Fish

Snail Speed
Unfortunately, most business owners end up working themselves into the ground without much reward or success. This is the inevitable result when you fool yourself into thinking you will find quick success. You may also fall onto this path when you are avoiding change.

Shooting Star
This describes a business that shoots to the top so fast that you become overwhelmed and are not prepared with adequate resources in place to adapt to the sudden growth. This can also occur when you are overwhelmed by smaller clients and do not take the time to try to land the larger clients that would sustain your business once the small client sales start to decline.

Catch the Big Fish
This is the path that allows you to build at a steady manageable pace by not allowing your customers to outpace you. You can accomplish this by putting these tips to work:

  1. Attract, keep, and lock in big clients;
  2. Integrate “big business” culture into your company and employees;
  3. Acquire the expertise you need to grow;
  4. Have the courage to make changes as you grow.

Now we are going to transition a bit and focus on the “big fish” mindset. It may sound easy to identify and catch that big fish, but if you are stuck in a small business mindset, it will be harder than you think.

Think of some of the benefits of focusing on larger clients:

  • Inexpensive
  • Highly Profitable
  • Longevity
  • Security

In order to catch the big fish, you need to believe your company can provide a benefit to their company. It is easy to second guess yourself into the belief that a large company couldn’t need anything from a small business like yours, but this is definitely flawed thinking!

Once you take a look at how large companies operate, it is important to identify which ones are the best fit for your company. One of the best ways to get in the door is through a connection with someone on the inside who will be able to put in a good word for you.

If you’re not sure where to start and feel a little intimidated about catching big fish, reach out to me for assistance.

Shhh… I Have a Secret

Posted on by Michele Margetts

Customer service is a hot topic and can make or break your business. Consumers have little patience for poor customer service and easily get tired of waiting in long lines, trying to get a live person on the line, going through an interrogation to return something, or trying to communicate through a language barrier. 

If you provide your customers with a simple, efficient, pleasant experience they will revisit your business over and over. More importantly, they will become a champion of your business and recommend it to everyone they know!

There are three secrets to good customer service; the first one we’re going to explore is knowing exactly what YOU want.

You are the captain of your ship and the visionary of your business, so you need to have a clearly defined plan for your business, which includes customer service. There are three main goals you need to consider:

  1. It must be easy for your customers to do business with you. This can be accomplished through advertised discounts, kiosks, your website, and other technology-based programs to help them shop.
  2. It is imperative that your customer feels appreciated and every transaction is a welcoming and pleasant experience. Your staff must be knowledgeable, approachable, kind, and patient. Your customers need to feel like they are getting good value for their time and money. Perceived value goes far beyond the price of the products and extends to their overall shopping experience.
  3. Change your mindset by asking yourself “How can I NOT afford to do these things?” This shouldn’t be a question of your business expenses, but making and keeping customers happy.

With these goals in mind, you must also take the following things into consideration when deciding on the actual programs and standards you will put into place:

  • Share your customer service vision with the rest of your staff;
  • Connect your incentive programs and bonuses directly to customer service;
  • Monitor the level of customer service your staff is providing to your customers;
  • Know when you can disregard the desires of your customers;
  • Continuously focus on your goals.

This should give you a good foundation to start thinking about your goals for your business and how to build it to create a positive customer service experience.

If you’re having a hard time deciding on what this looks like for your business, please reach out to me so I can provide you with the proper tools and resources to assist you in defining the wants and needs of your company in relation to customer service.

Add Some Compost

Posted on by Michele Margetts

In the last post, we covered the first three of the 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process. To refresh your memory they are:

  • Primary Aim
  • Strategic Objectives
  • Organizational Strategy
  • Management Strategy
  • People Strategy
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Systems Strategy
  

These 7 areas will fine-tune your plan for the ultimate level of success. Today we are going to examine the last four.

Think of constructing your business model like planting a tree. At first, it’s so small and weak you wonder if it will even make it through the night. But as you keep watering, fertilizing, and nurturing it with your ideas, the trunk begins to grow and each of these strategies forms the branches of your now strong tree. Finding the perfect support staff, employees, vendors and/or suppliers, and other relationships will make your tree flourish with leaves and flowers.

Management Strategy

The way you structure your management team is not only essential to your growth, but the happiness of your employees, and ultimately, your customers and/or clients. This strategy is results-oriented and doesn’t depend on the people, but the actual system that’s in place.

In short, a management strategy is a set of standards that include goals, rules, a mission statement, and other concrete things that tell your employees how to act, your management how to grow your business, and your customers and/or clients what to expect.

The management strategy should all be in perfect alignment with your business goals.

Employee Appreciation

You need to have a people strategy in place that shows your employees how you feel about their job performance and dedication to your business. They also must understand “why” they are doing specific tasks to help them personally connect to their job, which in turn leads to better production and a happier workplace.

There are a number of strategies you can use to keep it interesting at “the office”:

  • Performance Incentive Programs
  • Contests That Reward High Performance
  • Employee of the Month
  • Performance and/or Holiday Bonuses

These are just a few of the ideas you can use to keep employees engaged in your business. One of the best ways to show appreciation to employees is by calling a meeting and asking them how they would like to be rewarded. Spend some time considering different options to put the best strategy into place. Keep it fresh and don’t be afraid to change up the strategy from time to time to keep your employees guessing. Once they become accustomed to the reward, it is time for a whole new approach.

You need to build a community within your company. There needs to be support, appreciation and respect. The more “at home” an employee feels, the better they will perform and the higher their level of loyalty.

 Marketing Strategy

Marketing is essential to the success of any business, but it also must work cohesively with the other strategies you are utilizing. There are two major pillars of a successful marketing strategy: The demographic and psychographic profiles of your customers.

The psychographic reveal what your customers are the most likely to buy and the demographic explains who they are, which can help you identify why they buy specific items. Without this pertinent information, it simply doesn’t matter how good your business prototype is.

Systems Strategy

There are three types of systems in every business:

  • Hard Systems
  • Soft Systems
  • Information Systems

Hard systems refer to inanimate systems or systems that have no “life”. Soft systems are those that could be living. Information systems are everything else, including customer data, product information, financial information, etc. It is anything with data and numbers.

The most important of all three systems is the soft system because it includes the sales systems used by your business. In your sales systems, the two keys to success are structure and substance. The structure is what you sell, and the substance is how you sell it.

All three systems are essential to the success of your business and while they all have their own very specific roles, they all must work together to get the job done. This is also true for your entire business development program.

I would like to take a moment to summarize the ideas we went over through the business development lessons.

An entrepreneurial myth, or e-myth, is an assumption that anyone can succeed at business with:

  • Desire
  • Some capital
  • A projected target profit

There are essentially three key roles that need to be filled to set your business up for success:

  • The Technician
  • The Manager
  • The Entrepreneur

The four different stages of a business life cycle are:

  • Infancy
  • Adolescence
  • Growing Pains
  • Maturity

There are a few things we are going to explore with respect to business franchises:

  • Business Format Franchise
  • The Franchise Prototype
  • Franchise Prototype Standards

There are three main areas of business development:

  • Innovation
  • Quantification
  • Orchestration

The 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process are:

  • Primary Aim
  • Strategic Objectives
  • Organizational Strategy
  • Management Strategy
  • People Strategy
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Systems Strategy

I can help you work through all of these areas and give your business a jumpstart that puts you ahead of your competition right from the start. Reach out to me to gain access to a wealth of tools and resources.

The Corporate Puzzle

Posted on by Michele Margetts

These are the 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process:

  • Primary Aim
  • Strategic Objectives
  • Organizational Strategy
  • Management Strategy
  • People Strategy
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Systems Strategy

These 7 areas will fine-tune your plan for the ultimate level of success. In this post, we are going to cover the first three.

Primary Aim

It’s essential in business development to set goals and see a vision for the future. This needs to go beyond the business as you must consider what you want out of life. What do you dream about? How do you see your success unfolding? Recognizing and understanding these things will give you the momentum to get started and the stamina to see it through. Even take a minute to write them down and tape to your desk for a constant reminder of your goals.

Strategic Objectives

These are essential in taking your business from surviving to thriving. All of these objectives should offer solutions for how to get to your primary aim. There are many things you can use to set strategic objectives, but here are a couple of the most popular:

  1. Money: Setting monetary goals is a powerful yet simple way to see how you are doing at any point in time. It’s simple to measure and easy to find adjustments to help meet this goal.
  2. Worthy Opportunities: When considering partnerships and other business opportunities, you need to think about whether or not they will help you reach your primary aim. Those that will are the best opportunities to seriously consider.

The key to setting standards and goals is not to limit or stress yourself out. You need to find some quantifiable things to measure your progress toward your primary aim. The above are just two suggestions, but regardless of the standards you set, make sure you are paying attention to the details, as this is one of the biggest keys to your success.

Organizational Strategy

The strength of your organizational strategy can make or break your business so it is important to take the time to put together a solid structure from which your business will grow. Generally, a company is organized around the roles and responsibilities that need to be addressed on a daily basis and the personalities that are required to fulfill these roles.

No matter what roles and responsibilities you have defined for your employees, you must always keep your personal primary aim separate from your company’s primary aim or mission statement. Once you’ve identified the primary aim for your company it will be easy to set up a position structure that will work.

Don’t forget to develop position contracts. Your employees should sign a contract for their roles and responsibilities. This helps keep them unmistakable for you, the employee, other employees and/or vendors, or other individuals.

You can see how these areas all work together to build a solid structure on which to build your business. If you need help defining any of these areas, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Mortar Makes it Happen

Posted on by Michele Margetts

Today we are going to examine the three keys to business development and how you can put the right bricks in place to build a solid foundation.

There are three main areas of business development:

  •  Innovation
  •  Quantification 
  •  Orchestration

If done well these three areas will help you build a solid foundation for you business. Let’s consider each one of these for just a minute.

Innovation

Innovation should not be confused with creativity, which is the expression of ideas. Innovation is taking these ideas and putting them into action. This is where a large amount of your focus should be at the beginning of your business and should continue for the lifespan of the business.

Quantification

Quantification, of course, refers to numbers. This means the value of your innovation. The best way to gauge this is through your customer response. Look to positive responses for what you are doing right, and keep doing it. Look to your negative responses to find out what you’re doing wrong, and fix it. This will ensure that you keep growing and evolving with the needs of your customers and the overall business climate.

Orchestration

Once you’ve had a chance to find what areas of your business are working to generate success, you can zero in on those areas and concentrate on making them stand-out ideas. You pivot your focus here to get the most out of your business and to meet the needs of your customers.

I can help you work through these three areas to put together your franchise prototype, just reach out to me for assistance.

In the next few lessons we are going to transition to the 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process:

  • Primary Aim
  • Strategic Objectives
  • Organizational Strategy
  • Management Strategy
  • People Strategy
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Systems Strategy

These 7 areas will fine-tune your plan for the ultimate level of success.

You Turn Me Right ‘Round Baby, Right ‘Round

Posted on by Michele Margetts

The biggest area of turn-key businesses is franchises. There is a franchise for ever industry in the world. They are fairly easy to acquire and come with a pre-packaged, easy-to- assemble system. McDonald’s is a prime example of a franchise business, more specifically a 12-figure, 38,000 franchises example.

There are a few things we are going to cover:

  • Business Format Franchise
  • The Franchise Prototype

Franchise Prototype Standards

Business Format Franchise

The business format franchise came from an earlier model call the “trade name” franchise. The major change was in the rights. During the “trade name” days, the franchise owner only had marketing rights; now franchise owners have owning rights to the entire business, including systems. This has allowed for a shift in focus from the quality and name recognition of the products carrying the business to sales techniques that carry the business.

The Franchise Prototype

It was really the franchise prototypes that allowed for the modifications that help today’s franchises really stand out with techniques developed by the owners, rather than those of the corporation. This can make a significant difference in the success of the franchise, as the owner is able to custom tailor their marketing and promotions to the direct needs of their local target customers.

Franchise Prototype Standards

Notwithstanding the above, no one in their right mind would purchase a franchise if the parent company didn’t have a solid plan of action in place to ensure success of the business. So there are a few standards that are put into place that helps to jump start the process of opening a successful franchise.

 

Build a model of prospective customers and/or clients, suppliers, creditors and employees who will consistently offer high quality work.

  • Build a user-friendly model that can be used by individuals of any skillset;
  • Build a defect-free model;
  • Build a model with Operations Manuals;
  • Build a model that will provide guaranteed, consistent results;
  • Build a model that encompasses the same branding in color, dress and facilities codes.

These are all ways the parent corporation can ensure their brand stays the same and in the front of the minds of customers. When you are purchasing a widely-known brand, you will attract customers just for being you.