Be A Game Changer In Your Industry.

I had the idea for this article when doing some google analytics research thanks to my wonderful VA.  I was looking at keyword searches and saw that over 27,000 people in New Zealand searched the phrase “What is business coaching?”  Then I had a look at my website and I see that I sell ‘coaching’!  And that was the “aha – I’m selling something that people don’t even know what it is.”  (for my description of business coaching see below)

So Understanding Sales Part 2 is about finding out what your ideal client or customer really wants.

• Do they want a massage – or do they want how their body and mind feel when they have had a massage?
• Do they want a computer server – or do they want to have access to all their data whenever and wherever they want it?
• Do they want your legal services – or do they want to know that all the details of their conveyancing or a will or contracts are taken care of in the best way possible?

You get the idea.  Offer what they really want and package that up for them so they are saying ‘how do I buy? not what’s the price?’   Most of us ask the “what’s the price question” only because we don’t know what else to ask.  In the case of business coaching, what’s the price is a very frequent question and I can’t usually tell them that until I know what they actually want.

Hairdressers do this quite well.  They don’t sell 4 hours in a salon – they sell how you will look and feel when you come out.

Gyms have been on to this for years.  They don’t sell 100 hours on the treadmill and bench press.  They sell fitness, health, weight loss.  Another great example is Interface Carpets.  They have worked out that Corporations actually don’t want to buy carpet, they want the services that carpet delivers e.g. great looking floor covering, quiet thoroughfare surfaces, elegance etc.  Interface sell a carpet service.  This was a critical game changer for them in terms of their intention to be a truly sustainable business.  It gave them control over what happens to the carpet once the purchaser has no more need or use for it.  It has also given them a leading position in the market.

The question to ask is, “am I selling my process, my product or the end result the customer wants?”  Often we will pay more for what we really want.  I looked through local list listings and still see most plumbers, electricians, lawyers, jewellers, dentists, optometrists, computer service companies selling their product or the process. This is your chance to be unique and different and stand out from your competition.

Of course if you’d like some help working out the answer and then putting a marketing plan together – just ask bridget@creatingwhatmatters.co.nz.

What is Business Coaching?

“Business coaching helps owners of small and medium sized businesses with their sales, marketing, management, team building and so much more”  ” business coaching is about making improvements and changes so that you and your business perform at a much higher level, continually growing”.

Yes that’s business coaching 101.  A definition I prefer is “helping business owners build their dream business(es) enabling them, their employees and their families to have joyful, fulfilling lives”.

If you can dream it you can build it!

If you’ve got a better definition please send it to me bridget@creatingwhatmatters.co.nz.

Related articles: Understanding Sales (part one)

As a business coach, I help my clients find systems that will work with their values and natural style. A system has zero value if you won’t use it or your team isn’t on board. It’s important that it is easy to follow and implement while making your life easier once you’re in the habit of using the system.  As a client said to me last week “now I can see how lead generation and marketing systems will ensure that my busines grows”

My intention in writing this newsletter is to have you identify a least one area of your business that needs improvement and create a system as a result of reading this, then implement it in the next week. Are you willing?

What area of your business needs attention right now?

The 3 big ones right now that I am hearing are:

• Increase cash flow
• Attract ideal clients
• Get out of overwhelm

But it could also be, your marketing, your sales process, your team management, your website or social media management.

Increase cash flow:
This year I created follow up emails for all of my on-line seminars. A lot of writing up front, but now my autoresponders do all of the work.  And new leads come even months after an event.

If you contact potential customers through emails, phone conversations or in person, I’d create a structure for when, how and what you’ll say. Do you have a system for tracking the conversations and conversions?

If you’d like

“Simple Strategies To Get New Clients Into Your Business – Fast!”

take a look at this 90 minute online training happening on November 23^rd 1.30 pm NZST.

Click here to find our more or register for the training

The training is priced at a very low AU$37 but because I want to make this affordable to all of my valued subscribers and clients, I’ve created a “coupon code” that reduces the price of the training to a ridiculously low NZ $19 …

Simply use the discount/coupon code “NEWCLIENTS” when you order and the AU$39 will magically transform into NZ$19.00 approximately.  Note Tom with whom I’m in partnership at the 8020 Center lives in Australia so its an Australian site and you get an email response from Australia.

Attracting ideal clients:
I’ve created a process, with many clients, to attract their ideal clients. It includes writing down every little thing you know about your ideal clients and what you’d want to have in a client, from the way they treat you to paying on time without questioning your invoice. I also use this process for attracting my ideal team members, house cleaners, etc. You can create a checklist for what they need to have, in order for you to say ‘yes’ to them.

Do you have a welcome packet ready for all of the new clients you’ll be attracting? Do you make it easy for them to pay you? Do you describe their hot issues on your website and in other marketing so that they know you’re speaking to them?  You need a system for all these activities.

Launching new products, services and websites:
Projects like these usually include many details and moving parts to complete. They also require help and a learning curve. All of this means they will take longer than you expect and longer than the experts tell you. Whatever system you use, you must chunk down the steps into doable size actions over the course of a month or more.

Then I do a mind map of sorts. Break down the projects into categories like:

1. Create my intention for what the new product, service will do for my customers and what it will do for my business.
2. What is the main message, what the main benefit?
3. What are the topics I will cover?
4. Write content
5. Plan for how I will market
6. Calendar out specifically when I will work on the project and for how long

Business and marketing plans:
Find a format that will inspire you to do it every year. I’ve used many fill-in-the-blank business plans from popular books and eventually created my own 1-Page Action plan. I believe in one-pagers because it keeps things simple and you can post it on the wall or keep on your desk year round. Carve out time to do it.   In a day or in one-hour chunks until it’s done.  If you would to know how I do this and very easily shape and plan my year email bridget@creatingwhatmatters.co.nz with Annual RAP in the subject line.

Then calendar your inspired actions monthly and weekly by checking in with your plan. Do the same with your marketing plan.

Overwhelm:
Overwhelm is a perspective. Train yourself to focus on the ‘now’ moment and give yourself less to do each day. I’m a HUGE fan of using the Big Rocks concept to organize my daily tasks. All of my clients are taught to schedule their big rocks first.  It IS a system.

Finally it may be a hard pill to swallow but, all problems come back to you. You must shift the way you relate to your business to make real change. Use systems to support the transformation.  Go well.

Do you find yourself in situations where you feel you need to make a decision but you’re not ready to?  Or you don’t think you have all the information?  Or you simply don’t know what the decision is?

That’s the time when doing nothing is the right thing to do.  In the creative process i.e. when we are creating what we want as opposed to problem solving’ and we come to a block the best thing to do is to stop and do something completely different for a day, two days or sometimes a couple of weeks.

I experienced this recently in a group I am working with.  We’re designing a large national project and we didn’t have the answer to  a product vs  process question.  And we left the question unanswered.  When the group met again  a couple of weeks later the answer was there immediately.  It arrived without any pressure, stress or the group falling apart!

Let me let Robert Fritz explain:

The legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock had a talent for driving his scriptwriters a little crazy. As the team was closing in on how to structure a particularly thorny plot point or twist and turn of the story, Hichcock would offer a glass of wine, or begin to talk about his experiences traveling through Europe, or recess the session for a lavish meal. One day, after another Hichcock treatment of interrupting the writing session, one of his writers complained. “Alfred, we were just getting to a conclusion.” Old Hitch smiled and told the writer that they were getting there too soon. He didn’t want to close in just yet. He wanted to hold the tension so that a more creative possibility could emerge.

This was one of the filmmaker’s trade secrets. Set up tension, and, rather than look for a quick resolution, deepen the tension.

Of course, the tension we are talking about is structural tension. It is not pressure, stress, anxiety, or apprehension. It is the tension that is formed between the desired outcome (in Hitchcock’s case a gripping story) and current reality (in Hitchcock’s case the actual state of the script at any moment.)

Most people who are not consummate creators avoid tension. They want quick answers. They don’t like living in the realm of not knowing something they want to know. They have an intolerance for those moments in the creative process in which you have no idea how to get from where you are to where you want to be. Actually, this is one of the very best moments there are. This is when something completely original can be born, when you go beyond your usual ways of addressing similar situations, where you can drive the creative process into high gear.

And, this is counter-instinctive. Our instincts are to end discrepancies, resolve tension, have it over with. And that’s why what I am describing is truly a discipline. All disciplines are unnatural. When you learn to ski, your instructor takes you to the top of the mountain and says, “Lean down.” You look down, and it can scare the daylights out of you. It’s a long fall. Your instinct is to lean backwards. As it turns out, if you lean backwards, it is like flooring the accelerator in a classic Ferrari. You will just take off right down the steep incline of the hill. But if you lean forward, you are putting the breaks on and be in full control of the skis. To learn how to ski, you need to learn how to be counter-instinctive.

As it is with most important skills we develop in life. When people complain at first it doesn’t feel right, that’s usually because they are moving against their instincts. But to master the skill it is one thing that comes with the territory.

And then there’s Ernest Hemingway. He would write his short stories in a café in Paris and, at the point where he knew where the story was going, he would stop for the day. He didn’t want to resolve the tension too soon. Now the tension I’m talking about is not about the plot development, but his own structural tension as a writer. He would sleep on it and, next day, have a fresh and more developed idea of where to go next.

The principle is this: to supercharge the creative process, increase the focus on structural tension. This is the same as an archer stretching the bow a little more than normal while aiming the arrow at the target. For the creative process, the focus on the tension will generate exceptional creativity, invention, and innovation. Not only that, but energy and momentum increases within the process, and that deepens the creative process.

Now there are those who don’t understand this underlying principle. They don’t understand the creative process, and they think creativity is not about focusing the mind, but freeing the mind. This is the opposite of a popular field of creativity. Those who are so called “experts” do not have a clue as to the real creative process. They tend to come from psychology rather than the arts. They do not understand the “trade secret” of writers, composers, filmmakers, inventors, engineers, scientists, and others who’s job it is to meet deadlines, produce exceptional results, and accomplish creating with an economy of means.

I am very grateful to Robert Fritz and all he has taught me. To learn more about Robert Fritz and his ground breaking ideas on the creative process go to  http://www.robertfritz.com/

These are not ‘normal times’ and normal responses are not likely to enable your business to prosper.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.  It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.    ..those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”  Charles Darwin.

The first step towards change is awareness.

What can assist in building awareness of patterns in our thinking and responding?

An extended DISC Behavioural profile accurately indicates what the natural tendency of a person will be in response to stress, pressure and change.  Knowing your own and your staff profiles enables you to look out for these behaviours and their impact on thinking and natural reactions.

This is particularly important for you as the leader.  In a planning session last week and I saw the influence of strong ‘S’  and ‘C’ profiles on the decisions which were being made by a team.  The trait in people with these profiles when they are under pressure is to act more slowly to avoid uncertainty and insecurity.  Recognising this as a natural tendency that maybe is not helpful right now, enabled the owner to make a conscious decision to be more pro-active  in looking for new opportunities. He saw how that could be less uncertain than his natural behaviour to react more slowly.

I often hear that “People just need to be told,  this is how it is – so get used to it”.  I have a lot of sympathy with the idea from the perspective of keeping life simple and getting the job done on time and within budget.  And it works to the extent that people feel they are paid. But that is as far as it goes.

So the question is – is there further?, is there more that our staff, employees and team members can give and what difference will that make to the bottom line?  And the answer is absolutely there is more and the difference to the bottom line is exponential!

The old ‘ skills and capabilities’ model of hiring and managing our teams is only accessing one of the four intelligences available in the workplace – mental/intellectual intelligence or IQ.   And it leaves out of the equation the other three powerful motivators – social/emotional intelligence, physical/economic and spiritual.  These other intelligences are the ones that allow people to bring their hearts, heads, spirits and whole selves to work.  Sometimes the response to this is ” I don’t want any of that soft values stuff around here, they can keep their  personal lives out of work”.   But personal values are what make  people ‘do their best, complete work given to them, be proactive etc’. Presumably we do want these values at work.

So, how do values work?  Briefly – Our values are behind every choice we make and are therefore our most powerful motivators.  If I value obedience / duty I will put myself in a work situation that has a high level of compliance with moral and legal obligations etc.  If however I value compliance and find myself in a work situation where the culture does not expect,  acknowledge or support compliance I will become frustrated and my energy will be sapped each time a compliance opportunity appears and is let slip.  A person who values compliance will not be motivated to work independently or in situations where there are no fixed guidelines.  The reverse is readily understood.  Someone who does not value compliance will struggle with rigid rules and systems.

Sometimes a business identifies a list of values they wish to grow the business aligned to, but the team don’t seem to get it.  This is a result of the beliefs around the values being different.  Take a value of ‘accountability’ for instance.  When the business owner believes that accountability means people will be accountable first to the success of the business but that definition is not made explicit, then the employees will be confused.  And, importantly will not feel inclined to align with the value of accountability (even if they normally behave that way themselves) because they no longer trust its meaning.  i.e. Their experience of accountability does not line up with their belief around it.

Note also that the values that are espoused (i.e. on the list that is published) must be alive in the company structure, policies and ways of doing things.  A recent example I came across was a business with a value expressed as “people are our most important asset”.  However in reality the impact of decisions on the people involved was not discussed before a decision was made.  Clearly the ‘value’ was not being lived and had in fact become counter productive.

So what is the impact on bottom line of working with values in your organisation?  In research conducted by Kotter and Heskett companies with strong cultures based on shared values grew four times faster than other companies over an eleven year period.  Worth your consideration?

For a complimentary business values inventory email admin@creatingwhatmatters.co.nz