One Degree Connected | ODClive

7 Quick Tips to Grow Your Business

ODC Admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:30:07 +0000

It is important to continually be looking at ways that you can change and grow your business, because as Anthony Robbins said, “If you are not growing you are dying.” Here is our list of 7 Quick Tips to Grow Your Business:

1. Record and listen to your sales calls. THEY ARE VALUABLE. You may notice a pattern of one salesperson that closes more than others. You can then study what that one salesperson is doing and have the rest of your team do the same thing. Or you may notice that you sound rushed when talking to the prospect. These are things you wouldn’t pick up when you are in the moment or if you never check in on your sales team!

2. Define your process and name it. This will help you to stand out from your competitors. Maybe it is your 10 Point Quality Assurance process or perhaps it is the Five Star Safety Check. Whatever it is, make sure your customers know about it.

3. Innovate. How can you do something better? How can you be more efficient with your time, money, and resources? How can you improve the quality of your product or service?

4. Provide guarantees. A guarantee gives the customer confidence in your company. It helps them to feel that they are making a wise decision. You can guarantee a variety of things in your business, so be creative.

5. Don’t compete on price. When you compete on price, you are the one who loses in the long run. When you are always the least expensive company, people will wander why you are so inexpensive. They may begin to wander if you are as good as the other companies that charge more. This is a difficult position to overcome once you have established yourself as the cheapest.

6. LISTEN TO YOUR CALLS. We know this is on here twice, but it is really that important! So do it already!

7. Leave SOMETHING Behind. Make sure that when you are done with your service the client will have a way to remember who it was that did such a fantastic job. Educational material is always a good idea. For example, maybe you could give them a free report or pamphlet on how to keep from having the same issue. Just make sure it has your contact information on it!

What other business growth tips would you add to the list?

How to Get More Sales by Changing What You Say

ODC Admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:30:57 +0000

One of the best ways to increase your profit margins is to increase the conversion of incoming sales calls. That’s why today we want to discuss how to close more of the calls that come into your office or general sales. There are 2 key parts here. Neither of these are complex or difficult, but you must do both of them.

They are:

1) Innovate and change what you offer slightly.

2) Educate and communicate effectively with the customer.

Okay, so step #1 is innovation. What can you change about your products and services to make it more likely (or a no brainer) for people to choose you versus your competitors? You can quickly do this by calling 5 of your competitors and playing “prospect.” Find out if they offer a warranty. If they offer a 30 day warranty, offer a 45 day warranty. If they offer a 60 day warranty, offer a 75 day warranty! Yes, this might cost you some money, and you do have to track this to make sure it is economical, but chances are almost always you will make more money over all by doing this on the added sales you will make.

Now, the key here is that you must communicate this effectively, which is #2. If the customer doesn’t know you have a longer guarantee then it does you no good when they compare you to your competitors.

Changing just a word or two can mean the difference between a yes or a no in sales.

When someone calls up you need to instantly build rapport. Do this by first listening to their problem and then by asking more questions to get to the pain this problem is causing.

Here is an example:

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Pest Control, May I help you?”

“Yes, I wanted to find out the price on having my house sprayed for spiders.”

“Okay, sure, we can certainly handle that. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions so I can better serve you and make sure we solve your problem right the first time?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, first of all how long have you been seeing the spiders?”

Then, you get the information that is needed for your specific industry. Now, one of the last questions you need to ask is:

“Have you received any other prices from anyone else?”

If they have, then you ask them this:

“Did they offer (insert your fancy warranty/guarantee name here)?” If you have innovated and are the only one to offer your specific warranty or guarantee, then the answer you should hear is, “no.”

“Did they offer a 37 point checklist?” (You have one or something like this, correct?) Again, the answer you should hear is, “no” if you have innovated and are the only one to offer your specific warranty or guarantee

You see, we always think price is the #1 objection. However, if you show that you provide more value when the prospect is hearing your competitors say that they don’t have a 75 day warranty or a 37 point checklist, then you will generally make more sales, despite your price.

Now, what if the prospect hasn’t called anyone else for quotes yet, but is planning on it? Then you need to educate them on what to look for. For example,

“Mr. or Mrs. Prospect, while we may not be the cheapest, we certainly offer the best overall deal and value. If it is okay with you, we’d like to share 3 things you want to look out for so even if you don’t choose us, you still get your problem taken care of. Do you have a pen?

Well, there are approximately 284 different pest control companies in the metro area, and from our research we are the only one who offers a 75 day warranty, while others offer a 60 day warranty. Also, before you get other quotes you want to make sure they offer X, Y, & Z.”

As always, test these things. But, where else in life can you make more money by changing what you say by just a little bit?!

If you close 1 extra sale per 10 from doing these tips and tricks, then you will make, over the next few years, thousands upon thousands of dollars. If it takes a minute more of your time for you to make an additional $100, $500, or $1000 that is a pretty good return on your investment. We look forward to hearing your success stories as you implement these strategies!

Problem Solving: Finding the Bottle Necks in Your Business

ODC Admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:30:05 +0000

In life and in business there will be problems and challenges. To deny this is setting one’s self up for disappointment. The trick is, to identify what the true problems or bottlenecks are that may be hiding under the surface. Once you discover these you can begin to implement problem solving strategies that truly fix the bottleneck, rather than just putting a bandage on the problem.

Here’s an example. Let’s say your advertising does a great job of getting the phone to ring. However, you do not close a lot of the business. Many business owners would say, “Well, the advertising was a flop. Let’s trash the campaign and try something else.” This may be the right choice. But you don’t know unless you take a look at all of the underlying issues. There may be multiple bottlenecks that caused the inability to close business. Here are some possibilities:

1) Is the phone being answered? You’d be surprised how many times the phones are not answered. Roughly, and this varies by industry, 40-50% of leads are simply ignored in some industries.

2) Is the correct procedure being used when the call is answered? Is there a script? Are people listening and asking questions to best clarify the situation and what the prospect needs? Is the person who answers the phone building rapport or are they simply sounding “clinical” or “mechanical”?

3) Is the advertising attracting the right type of people? Selling a Mercedes to a 5 year old is pretty much impossible even if your phone scripts are wonderful. Then it is a problem with the advertising as you are attracting the wrong type of people.

The trick is to truly take time and to analyze what the true problems are. The goal is to make it EASY to buy and to remove any bottlenecks to accomplishing this goal.

The same concept applies to websites. Is the checkout process easy on your website? Do people know where to go and how to buy? There are numerous tools in existence that can show you when people leave a website. If you are getting a lot of traffic to a website, yet people are not checking out you need to determine WHY this is the case.

Ultimately, it is easy to pass blame on someone else, but the problem, at least the REAL problem, is rarely the problem.

Critical analysis and accurate thinking are not easy to come by, and it is usually easier to just blame other people when things don’t go well. But if you truly look for the bottlenecks in your business, you will develop a competitive edge over your competitors and your business will begin to grow.

What bottlenecks are in your business? How can you get rid of them?

Where Are Your Goals?

ODC Admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:30:33 +0000

2012 is cranking along and before you know it the summer will be in full swing. In the past we’ve written about Goal Setting Made Simple and Time Management Tips to help you reach those goals. We hope you have gotten your goals written down for 2012. If you have had problems coming up with goals, here are some suggestions.

1) Start small. It is much easier to set a goal you KNOW you can achieve and build momentum instead of creating a huge goal. In fact, you should, to build belief in yourself, set your goals so small that there is no reason you cannot succeed.

For example, setting a goal that you will walk 5 minutes 3 times a week is HARD for some people, but easy for others. If you have not been exercising, just create an extremely small goal to begin with. Then as you complete that goal create another one. Then another one. So on and so forth.

2) Goals should be broken down like stairs. Nobody can climb a single flight of stairs in one step. But, anyone can climb a flight of stairs one step at a time.

3) Have goals built on activity–at least to begin with. Setting a goal that you will lose 15 pounds is fine, but it is better to build your goal on the activities that will lead to you losing weight. For example, you will only have one piece of dessert this week, or you will add a salad to your meal at least 4 times this week.

4) Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and rarely (if ever) are significant things accomplished overnight. Sure, we see all the results of the hard work and it looks as if it only takes a few minutes, but all the hard work behind the scenes is what people do not see.

5) Start. Even if you can’t get perfect goals written down, at least start by writing a few of them down. With most things in life it is better to start poorly than to perfectly never begin.

What are your goals for 2012? How can you break them down into smaller steps?

What Numbers Should You Track? Part 2

ODC Admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:30:38 +0000

Keeping track of your sales team's numbers will allow you to make valuable improvements.

In Part I we covered what numbers you should be tracking in your business. We also discussed how to quantify your cost per sale. Now, once you have the data what should you do with it?

Well, there are several things. If you run a team or have several sales people you need to TRACK each sale’s person’s numbers. Once you track that you can identify who is the most efficient, and then study that salesperson to figure out how and why he or she is more efficient.

Sometimes, but not always, that person can help train other people. Sometimes that person will not know why or what he or she is doing to be more effective so it may take more research and once that person becomes aware they may become even more effective. Some great areas to track are:

Cost per sale
Cost per appointment
Cost per “lead/inquiry”
Cost per referral

Why is it good to track multiple sets of data? Because if you track ONLY cost per sale and don’t look at the steps leading up to a sale, you might be missing underlying information that will help you to figure out steps in the process where people might be missing things.

For example, one person might be great at closing, but they are really bad at generating referrals, and another person might be great at generating referrals but bad at closing. If you can examine what each person is doing well and then combine these two strategies together you can them implement them across your sales organization and yield incredible results.

What Numbers Should You Track? Part 1

ODC Admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:30:30 +0000

If you are in business you know the importance of keeping good financial records. However, there are other numbers you need to be tracking. Why is tracking these numbers so important? Because what cannot be tracked, cannot be improved. Since improving your marketing and sales can yield huge leverage and huge improvements, by tracking this data you can determine shortfalls and areas that can be improved in your business.

By asking yourself one question you can find a few key numbers that can help you track and improve your business. That question is: What is the cost per sale?

Now, you might think that you have no cost per sale…after all you network, and go to meetings, and you don’t spend money on marketing. However the phrase, “Time is money” applies. Here is how:

If it takes you 5 networking meetings to generate a referral, and then it takes you 3 referrals to generate an appointment, and then it take 3 appointments to make a sale you have now quantified this much better. If you add up the data above, in this example it takes 45 networking meetings to generate a sale.

Now, if you average $10,000 on that sale, and each network meeting took 2 hours, then that is 90 hours into $10,000. With these numbers you were making $111 an hour.

As you can see, if you can figure out how to get a referral from only 3 networking meetings instead of 5, your income per hour, assuming everything else stays the same, would be 27 networking meetings, or 27 hours to make a sale. Your dollars earned per hour are now $370.

But remember, if you are not tracking, you cannot improve. Sometimes just a simple tweak in how you approach someone, a mistake you are making in your sales process or something else is costing you a fortune and you don’t even know it.

The Power of To Do Lists

ODC Admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:30:08 +0000

Pretty much everyone has a ton to do these days. Many times there is “too much” to do to be able to get it done accurately. And often times, when people get overwhelmed, things fall through the cracks.

But one thing that can help you immensely is to have to do lists. There are many benefits to a to do list, but one of the main ones is that having a to do list will help you clean out your brain so you can relax and not worry about missing things. This will allow you to use the brain power you were using just trying to keep everything straight to actually complete those items.

Things are less likely to fall through the cracks this way and you will be less stressed over all. So, ask yourself these questions to start building your to do lists.

What are things that have to get done monthly? Examples:

Send out your referral campaign.
Send out new customer experiences to each new customer.
Send out your monthly newsletter.

Now, what are things that have to get done weekly? Examples:

Check the bills that need to be paid.
Do payroll.
Follow-up with current prospects in the funnel.

What are things that need to be done daily?

Check tracking #’s of leads generated.
Check the incoming money for the day.
Respond to voicemails and emails.

As you can see if you start implementing these simple to do lists or checklists it will help you get into a routine. It will help you remove clutter from your brain so you can more effectively focus on other things in your business and be more productive overall.

How to Sell Yourself

ODC Admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:30:36 +0000

As much as you may love (or hate) sales, if you are in business it is a necessary part of your life. Heck, even if you’re not on the “front lines” you may have to be a salesman of some sort to your employees as you try to get them on board with your goals and dreams for the company. In a sense you have to constantly be selling yourself, not just your product or service.

So, with that in mind, what can you do to make selling easier and not only win customers, but keep them? One of the best ways to sell yourself is to develop qualities that will attract people naturally.

Here is our Top 8 List of qualities that will aid you in selling yourself:

1) Show your prospect that your top priority is helping them succeed. We all want someone to be in our corner. Be that for your prospect. Work to make your customer feel as if they are your only customer and your top priority is their success.

2) Be confident, but not arrogant. There is a reason for the saying, “Pride goes before the fall.” Your prospects want to know that you are able to do what you say you can do. They want to trust you. An attitude of confidence will help build that trust. However, being arrogant will destroy that trust just as quickly.

3) Be a person of integrity. Be honest and ethical in everything that you do. Always keep your word and never do the slightest thing that will cause your prospects, clients, or employees to doubt your honesty. Be aware that jokes, stories, and little white lies may make you look dishonest.

4) Always do your best and Give 110%. Just like a football team that starts out strong then sputters out in the second half, it is never a good idea to start a business relationship giving your best only to begin dropping the ball later. Customers that have been with you long term will get used to your best. However, once you stop giving it, they may think you have lost excitement for helping them and may decide to move on to greener pastures.

A negative attitude can keep people away like the plague. Maintaining a positive attitude takes work, but is well worth it.

5) Maintain a positive attitude. No one wants to be around a “Debbie Downer”. If you find that a majority of your time is spent concentrating on how your glass is half empty, it is quite possible that you are showing this negative attitude to your prospects and clients. If this is the case, it is not a matter of if this will impact your ability to close and maintain client relationships; it is a matter of when.

We are not suggesting that you be fake or unrealistic. What we are suggesting is that any time you find yourself in a negative frame of mind, look for the positives in the situation and what can be done to make it more positive. Your prospects and clients will take notice.

6) Don’t cast blame. No one is perfect. At some point you will make a mistake. When this happens instead of blaming everyone else, let the client know what the mistake was and how you are working to solve the problem. Your client will admire your integrity and will be more likely to stay around long term than if you blame someone else.

7) Stay organized. Whether they walk into an office with piles and piles of junk or they are asked for the same material over and over again, nothing will kill a prospect or client’s confidence in you quicker than being disorganized. Make sure that any place that the public sees is neat and clean. And while you are at it, keep things in your back office in order so that you can meet deadlines and stay error-free.

8) Avoid telling your client about your problems. Your client doesn’t want to know that your computer crashed for the third time this month. They also don’t want to know that the reason you are going to be out of the office is so that you can have your gallbladder removed. Some personal disclosure such as stories about your children or your latest vacation is okay and can help build rapport. However, disclosures about the problems in your life are not welcome additions to your client. They just want to know that you are taking care of their problems, not balancing ten of your own.

It’s not easy to stay on your game at all times with your clients and prospects and some items on this list are harder than others. But if you make each item a priority you will reap the rewards through more sales, happier clients that refer, and a better work environment.

What qualities would you add to the list?

How to Build a Referral System with Momentum

ODC Admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:30:42 +0000

The trick to bringing in a steady flow of referrals is to first develop a referral system. But how can you be sure that you build a referral system with momentum? The key is to build a multi-tiered system so that your business is receiving referrals from a number of different sources.

Here is how that multi-tiered referral system might look:

Once you create a multi-tiered referral system such as the one above, your referral base will begin to grow. Plus your stream of referrals will begin to become a consistent and reliable source of income for your business.

What other tiers would you add to this multi-tiered system? What referral systems have you already begun to put into place for your business?

Why is Innovation So Important?

ODC Admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:30:28 +0000

Tickle Me Elmo was an innovation that was a hit from the start. It went on the market in 1996. That Christmas shopping season, stores sold out within minutes though over a million units had been shipped. The $29 dolls then began selling for almost $2000 on EBay. (Source: Time.com )

Sometimes a product or service is a hit from the very start. And other times it is a bit more difficult to get people to open up their wallets. Unless you happen to have a homerun product or service from the beginning it is time to start looking at why it isn’t selling like hotcakes. When a product or service does not sell it can really come down to 3 different reasons.

1) The marketing and/or sales message failed to communicate why someone should buy the product or service.

2) The people who were targeted either could not buy or did not want to buy what was being sold.

3) The product or service did not appeal to people who are able to buy it.

Now, to overcome #2 and 3 you can either ‘hype’ up your product or service and mislead people OR you can truly innovate your product or service so that people love it. Then you can use marketing as a way to explain it in such a way that people can’t help but want to buy it.

Here’s an example:

Dominos Pizza completely reinvented their pizza a couple of years ago. Up until their “turnaround” they had been falling behind in the pizza battle. According to Domino’s own commercials, people found their pizza to taste like cardboard. So rather than sitting back and taking offense to people not buying their “wonderful product” they decided to be real with themselves. This caused a complete reinvention of their pizza recipes. They then followed suit with a marketing campaign that convinced many lost customers to give them another chance. The result? Check it out for yourself at: http://www.pizzaturnaround.com/.

There are always innovations that can be made, even if the product or service wasn’t bad to begin with. What innovations can you make to improve your overall sales?