The Salesby5 Blog

Today, stocks are on sale and your competitors are scared.  The three things that make up great companies that are able to hit their BHAG, or Big Hairy Audacious Goal, are:

Passion: Do what you love and love what you do!  What can you be the best in the world at: Where are your true strengths that make you better, or dramatically different?  Profit per X: This allows you to think about what is waste, what do people not care about, instead, where is the true area you can make the most profit and out-deliver a competitor?

Source: Jim Collins, Good to Great

Learn more about the three circles (Hedgehog Concept) at Jim’s site.

photo by Riude

Yesterday was all about future focus being 10x more predictive of success.

Today: The ability to dominate your market!

You have it or you do not. The data proven number one reason people do not sell is they talk too much, and number two, they have no true value that they offer. It happens to us weekly and sometimes by people interviewing with us. The most (sadly) remarkable, are the ones you have two and three meetings with and you still have no idea what value they offer or what benefit they provide.

This reinforces the importance of your message clarity verbally and in writing.  If you advertise, does it work?  And how do you know?  We have seen our clients, prior to us getting involved, spend $30,000 in one business journal without ever getting any response or business from the advertising. What you say and what you do must have a dramatic difference to make an impact.  Just to be clear, you have a 370% greater chance of success and profitability if you have dramatic difference. What is dramatic difference?  Let’s say you are selling a Honda Accord that gets 21 mpg in the city, meanwhile the Toyota Prius is getting 48 mpg in the city. Though both brands are great, Honda becomes low value and Toyota, high.  You now have to find a way to make your offer twice as valuable as your competitor’s. Get serious about value.  What can your customers not live without?  What can you make available that hasn’t been done yet?  That is your start and your finish to the dramatic difference!

Summary: Get serious about where you can dominate your market. What can you really offer? Focus on that for all of your customers. Do not try to be what you are not.  Just focus on one or two things and maximize them by figuring out how to become the best in the world.

Fuel Economy Source – http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/bestworst.shtml

Photo by flickrsquared

What can you begin measuring in your company or organization that will lead you to greater success, profits, fun and freedom?  Is it the reduction of overtime hours?  Is it the number of positive remarks your employees receive?  Find the one, not 10 or 50, thing(s) that matters and measure it. Then talk about it every chance you get!  The things that get measured, get done! 

Picture courtesy of aussiegall on Flickr

…show up every day.  The key is knowing when to say yes, but more importantly, when to say no.  Try running the opportunity through Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Concept:

1.  What can you be the best at?
2.  Does it make a profit?
3.  What are you really passionate about?

If the opportunity makes sense after considering those three questions, then it might make sense to pursue it.