Use Imagination to Gain Success

Sometimes all it takes is a little imagination. Don’t confuse imagination with creativity. Don’t think it’s something you don’t have. You have imagination, you just may not be using it.

Imagination can come from seeing how to use something a different way. Prior to Clarence Saunders, the founder of the Piggly-Wiggly grocery store chain shoppers approached the store clerk and asked the clerk for each item on their list. Mr. Saunders used his imagination as he stood in line at a cafeteria to recognize the concept of self-serve could be applied to the grocery industry. Can you see a new use for an old idea?

Sometimes imagination comes from understanding how to combine two things to make something entirely new. Thomas Edison used his imagination to use the fact that hot metal could be used to produce light, and glass could be used to create a vacuum to invent the light bulb. Do you have an idea for using two things and creating something new?

Could you use your imagination to change how you ask for things? When a retired farmer moved to town his faithful trained shepherd dog wasn’t adjusting well, so the farmer wanted to find a way for his dog to return to living in the country. When he asked other farmers if they would help him out and take his dog, so the dog could return to the country they all said no; but when he told one farmer how the dog could benefit him by fetching things and gathering up his livestock for him the farmer paid him for the dog. How could you reframe what your asking for so it’s a benefit to the person you’re asking?

Could you use your imagination to generate more leads and referrals for your business? Paul Harris an attorney started the first Rotary Club for that very purpose. He used the club to help him gain access to the most successful people of his time. How could you use your imagination to generate more business and referrals? One of the best things that result when you use your imagination is that you become unique, and you hold a unique position in the market place, and that’s a very good place to be.

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Do You Truly Understand the Secret to More Sales?

Everyone in sales wants more sales and everyone in business is in sales. You want more sales in response to your competitive nature. You want more sales so you have more money. You want more sales so you can help more people. You want more sales because your bank account is running empty. All very good reasons and very strong motivators for wanting more sales.

The secret to getting more sales isn’t a secret it’s just often overlooked. The secret to more sales is understanding. You need to understand what your potential customers want. Not what they need, not what they’d like, but what they really want. People buy to fulfill their wants before they buy to fulfill their needs. People consider needs a commodity and are searching for a bargain. People associate wants with value and are willing to pay to get the best.

You obviously want to position what you have as providing value, but how do you do that? The best way to do that is to understand what your customers want. This is where knowing your customers really well and being one of them or closely associating with them pays off. Because you’re one of them you know what they talk about. They feel comfortable talking around you, and it’s easy for you to get them talking about the things they really want. When you keep hearing the same three wants over and over you now know you understand your customers well enough to provide real value.

You know what they want. You also need to know how they want it and how they like to buy it. They will tell you this too. You just have to establish a relationship with them first so they like you, and don’t feel like they have to guard their conversations because every time they talk to you it’s a selling conversation. When you know what they want, how they want it, and how they like to buy it all you have to do is give it to them.

When you really want something, and you get a message about it don’t you pay attention? Of course you do, everybody does. When you are thinking about something you want and you get a message about it you listen to or read every word. You just need to figure out how to position what you have in terms of what they want. This can take some imagination. All the better as that will make you stand out in the market place and increase your sales and value all the more.

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Do You Have a Marketing Plan and Sales Funnel?

For many small business owners the real answer is no.

Some of you have a strategic plan, but I would hazard a guess that your marketing plan isn't much more than a list of marketing activities that you are hoping will bring about some business.

When I was a little girl I was an avid Foghorn Leghorn fan, you know the big rooster with his little side kick the chicken hawk.

Well Foghorn’s favorite expression was, “I know ya hear me son, but are ya listening” and I think that expression is very appropriate here.

A list of marketing activities is not a marketing plan.

So what’s the difference?

In your marketing plan you begin by identifying your target market. Anyone that can fog a mirror isn’t a target market.

The more specific you can be in who you want to work with, the better you're able to develop a specific message that truly speaks to your target market on the level of the conversation going on in their head.

When you can communicate to someone on the level of the conversation going on in their head you have their undivided attention and they will read or listen to every word in your communication.

A major mistake that many of you make with your marketing efforts is you try to go too far too fast.

When you do that you are acting like the over eager young man who wants to French kiss the girl on their first date, not only isn’t it going to happen but it may be both the first and last date.

You need to devise incremental steps to move someone from a complete stranger, to knowing a little about you, to having an experience with you and finally wanting to know more about you.

These are your incremental opportunities to connect.

When you have very specific target markets, and it is perfectly ok to have several target markets, it is much easier to establish affiliations that make the process of connecting a little easier.

A word of caution about having several target markets, don’t get lazy and think you can use the same communications for all of your target markets.

This will get you mediocre results at best.

Rather have specific messages for each target market and never mix the messages.

Affiliations can be started by joining your target market’s associations or being involved in the organizations they are involved in.

I'm pretty confident the concept of target markets isn't new to you, but many of you are afraid that focusing on a target market will somehow limit you.

Foghorn Leghorn may be talking to you too.

The simple truth is that when you focus on target markets your opportunities exponentially expand.

Once you know where to go the next step is to get yourself involved. This helps you to further your connections faster.

Just don’t ever make the mistake of trying to take short cuts and going too far too fast.

To develop your marketing plan you need to list all of the marketing activities you want to use. These activities may be things like networking, writing a newsletter, writing articles, promoting your website, speaking, direct mail campaigns etc.

Then for each activity you need to specify:

• who the target market is,
• the specific message you want to send to that target market,
• the number of people you will contact via this activity,
• the call to action that will move the person closer to having a connection with you,
• the number of people that raise their hands and are now leads from the marketing activity,
• the response rate from the activity,
• your total cost for the activity,
• and finally your cost per lead.

You then have a trackable system, but you also have to develop your marketing calendar so you know when and how often you plan to conduct each marketing activity.

As with anything consistency in combination with the right message going to the right people will get the best results.

When you get it right you can consistently hold the number of appointments you want to hold each week. The best part is that you are only spending time with qualified prospects that have raised their hand indicating they want to know more.

You know it’s a whole lot easier to close the sale with someone who has raised their hand as a qualified prospect than it is to close a sale with a suspect.

These folks go in your sales funnel.

Now your sales funnel gets a whole lot shorter as you will be able to close your sales on the first appointment in many cases. Allowing you more free time for other things, like making sure you have a complete sales funnel that includes a plan for following up after the sale and entering the person into your customer contact system for repeat business and referrals.

What’s your revenue goal? Work backward from your target revenue goal to calculate how many appointments you need each week based on your closing ratio to get that revenue goal...

Then using your response ratios from your different marketing activities calculate how to generate enough people to call to hold the number of appointments you need each week.

Do this on a consistent basis and you have a system for eliminating the peaks and valleys in your business and the terror of an empty bank account.

I have always preferred being proactive over being reactive. If you feel the same, taking the time to develop a real marketing plan and a real sales funnel will give you more control over your future and ultimately it will put more money in the bank and isn’t that what we all want?

The Best Time Management System

Everyone is so strapped for time. Never having enough time can leave you stressed out, worn out, overwhelmed, burned out, and frustrated. But are you your own worst enemy when it comes to your time behaviors and your approach to how you manage your time?

We all have the same amount of time. It’s how we handle that time that makes all the difference. Each of us has a predominant behavior style and that behavior style impacts how you feel about time and how you behave in relation to time.

Your behavioral style isn’t right or wrong and it isn’t good or bad. Your behavior style is just who you are. Your behavior style represents the “how” you behave in response to people, projects, pace, and procedures. In addition to behavior your motivation also impacts your time behaviors.

Motivation is a key player in understanding your time behaviors too. Your motivation is your reason for taking action and the “why” you behave the way you do in relation to time. Once you understand how and why you behave in relation to time it is much easier for you to make small changes and adaptations in how you handle your world of work and your personal world so you have balance and alignment between your two worlds.

Typically we try to approach our time issues from the point of trying to find a perfect time management system. There isn’t a perfect time management system that works for everyone. Simply because we aren’t the same people and we don’t have the same underlying behaviors and motivators.

So, what do you do then to make improvement? First, learn your underlying behaviors and motivators. There are assessment tools available to take the guess work out of it and put you in a better position to develop an action plan. Next you have to develop a system that is right for you that provides a harmonious combination between the high-tech and paper planning systems.

The key is to develop a personal planning system that works for you, and doesn't cause double work on your part. You may find that you just have to use technology to obtain the benefits it brings in your planning. You need to schedule appointments when you are away from your office and you need to check on your next appointment. This means that you’ll probably use your phone as part of your planning system too so you can sync it to your computer later.

The alternative is a paper system. When you use a paper planning system you won't always have it with you and then it's pretty hard to schedule appointments. So how do you get the most value from both options?

As many of you probably know you can print your calendar from Outlook in a format that matches your paper system. This can lead to printing multiple copies if you want paper versions beyond the next few days, but it can also serve a purpose in providing the convenience of both systems. When you combine both systems you print your calendar for a short time period and then use your electronic tools to prevent having to rewrite information.

Bottom line the best thing is for you to evaluate what you want and need from your time planning system. Decide which elements of the paper and electronic options best meet your needs, and then find a way to take advantage of the options that you most value with the least amount of duplication of efforts.

Don't put up with a system that doesn't work for you. Keep adjusting until you find what works best for you and then stick with it. When you understand the why and how of your behaviors and develop a system that works for you it becomes much easier for you to get control of your time and have time for the things you want rather than just doing the things you have to do.

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