The Salesby5 Blog

rockefeller habits checklist

We have 3 weeks until Q3 kicks off! Fast growing and profitable companies known as Gazelles use a checklist each quarter to make sure they are doing the right things with the right people. Checklists are simple and can make a dramatic impact quickly. In facilitating company off site quarterly meetings for many years, this checklist is not just the beginning to a very productive retreat for your company, but it also lays the groundwork to keep all the boxes checked year round. I have provided a snap shot and a link to a downloadable PDF for your company.

One tip to consider…  If you own or run the company, print this out and see how many you can check off, then see how many some of your employees can check it off. This will test your internal communications in seconds.

Nan and Erik were asked to speak about Twitter to the 210 business owners at Fortune Small Business Sales and Marketing Summit. We helped many of these attendees to get their names and company names taken for Twitter. We quickly realized that most of these companies have marketing firms/departments, ad agencies or PR firms, so why on earth are these vendors/partners failing to get these accounts set up for their clients? Isn’t that the proactive services that they expect? Well, we think that people have low expectations and need to raise them. It should be painful to imagine running your business without your marketing company. What steps can you take today to make yourself invaluable? Are you taking the proper steps to delight your customers by saving them money, thinking two steps ahead or bringing an additional value that they didn’t expect? Drop us a line in the comments about what you do to be indispensable.

We’re in Day 2 of Fortune Small Business’ Sales and Marketing Summit in New Orleans. We heard from Victor Cheng this morning, who gave great clarity to recession proof business. Companies like FedEx, UPS, Price Mart and Coors were all founded during a recession. They succeeded (to say the least) because they solved a problem for consumers at that time. The key to building a recession proof business is to find a solution to a problem that gets worse during a recession, and to do it in a unique way. This can work nicely alongside what we learned from David Meerman Scott yesterday about social media and viral marketing. Once you have your unique solution to a problem, you will have a great story to tell, so you won’t have to spend thousands of dollars on advertising campaigns. Take a look at your company; is there a better way for you to solve a problem or a struggle for consumers today? Your most profitable area may have changed. Don’t be afraid to reinvent your business in order to offer something of real value to your customers.

(If you’re on Twitter, check out @salesby5 for conference details and live tweeting from the event!)

The Salesby5 team is in New Orleans at the Fortune Small Business Marketing and Sales Summit today and tomorrow. Approximately 210 CEOs and business owners are here, and it seems that only around 15% percent of them use Twitter. Most of them have heard of Twitter, but few are actually on and even fewer understand the benefit. We produced a video last week that shows how to join the Twitter community and explains strategies to apply this tool to business. We want to help you, because the companies that learn quickly are the ones that win! In honor of 10 Minutes to Twitter’s official debut today, we will send a complimentary copy (usually $49) to the first person who posts a comment on this blog post!

You snooze, you lose. Good luck!

Our last 8 blog posts have featured insights from the 8 scheduled speakers/presenters for the Gazelles Sales and Marketing Summit in New Orleans April 21-22. Tomorrow we will begin live tweeting from the conference from @salesby5, so join us if you’d like to hear more from these sales and marketing experts!  We will hear advice from guerilla marketers, recession marketing experts, relationship nurturers, and more!  Tune in and learn the latest best practices for sales and marketing in today’s challenging economy!

New customers are what drive top-line growth. Al Lautenslager says that “effective marketing is the key to business survival, growth and success.”  Most successful entrepreneurs know that they have to market, but many don’t know where to start or how to cut through the clutter.  Gazelles has invited Al to their Sales and Marketing Summit for his insights into guerilla marketing, the entrepreneur’s preferred method of gaining new business. Have you taken the right steps toward new business? Are you thinking creatively and finding innovative ways to market your products or services?  Tune into the conference to learn the steps to smart marketing with energy and imagination.

Drop us a line in the comments if you have a good example of creative ways you’ve gained new customers.

Do your sales teams have a process?  Bryan Flanagan, founder of the Flanagan Training Group, tells us that the way to empower your sales is through a client centered approach called “The Sales P.R.O.C.E.S.S.”

P – Prospect, Plan, Prepare
R – Relate and Build Trust
O – Open a Dialogue
C – Confirm Client’s Needs
E – Explain the Solution
S – Sell the Value
S – Simply Close the Sale

Do these 7 steps fit into your current sales strategy? Are you addressing your clients’ needs before your own? 

Bryan is next scheduled to present their Sales P.R.O.C.E.S.S. at the Gazelles Sales and Marketing Summit, April 21-22.  Tune in to learn more!

We know that cultivating and nurturing relationships is the best way to gain and maintain great clients. Jim Cecil, the “Father of Nurture Marketing,” and author of Nurturing Customer Relationships, tells us that our goal should be to get customers to call us first. Instead of cold calling and pushing consumers to buy, they call you when they are ready to purchase your products or services. 

The Nurture Selling Process is:
• the core engine for true one to one marketing
• more encompassing than simply “relationship marketing”
• a series of automated Action Plans that easily cultivate and nurture multiple personal one-to-one business relationships simultaneously
• designed to continually reinforce and enhance your top-of-mind presence
• a true Cure for the Common Cold Call

And the results are:
• Shorter selling cycle
• Reduce turnover
• Increase sales productivity
• Increase customer satisfaction

What would it to do the morale of your sales teams if you eliminated the cold call?  If you need help learning to nuture your customer relationships, join us at the Gazelles Sales and Marketing Conference!

Last week, we talked a lot about how we can adjust to our current economic climate. We discussed several ways of doing this, including how to focus on your most profitable product or service by identifying the greatest value you can provide to consumers. Another way to increase your marketability is through adjusting your pricing. People are spending their money more carefully than ever, and many companies will have to alter their pricing in order to remain competitive.  Mark Burton, along with his partner at Holden Advisors, has come up with Value Discipline to help guide companies into value-based pricing so that they can deliver greater profits all around. Value Discipline takes into account the following quantitative and qualitative factors that influence pricing:

• Organizational tension such as miscues between Marketing and Sales about pricing or pressure to make today’s numbers at the expense of tomorrow’s goals.
• Competitive actions such as rolling out flanking products, bundling products, or providing discounts.
• Shifting customer demands for value within markets and segments, right down to the after-effects of a new product entry.
• Pressure to rationalize offerings and match their value to specific market segments.
• Fear that too high a price may lead to lost accounts and declining share.

If you haven’t yet begun to adjust your pricing standards, isn’t it time?  This new normal isn’t going away.  Join us at the Gazelles Sales and Marketing Conference to hear more from Mark Burton on pricing.

If you have been following the SalesBy5 blog, you have heard us talk often about adapting to the “new normal” of our economic environment. A recession has the tendency to paralyze and cause fear in small businesses. Instead, we should seek ways to accept the reality and adapt quickly.  How? Victor Cheng, recession marketing expert, tells us that the key is to look at your business financials and business model in parts, and then shift your emphasis toward the segments of the business faring better. Some parts of your business may no longer be profitable, but other parts probably still are. Consumers will never stop buying products or services that add real value to their lives, so find out where your greatest value lies and grow it!  To hear more of Victor Chang’s recession marketing advice, join us at the Gazelles Sales and Marketing Conference April 21-22.