Success Consciousness

We talk about making plans and setting goals frequently here on my blog. That’s all very important for achieving success.

For many entrepreneurs, the real key to their success is not making a plan or hiring good people. They’ve already made a great plan. It’s not hiring good people, they’ve got highly motivated people with exceptional skills. The real key to success is mastering their own minds.

It’s easy for entrepreneurs to get caught up in the creation zone. People are throwing great ideas at you all day long. We love to build new products, new teams, new organizations. So, you have to have a system in place to allow you to quickly evaluate new ideas and determine their value in relation to the current project you’re building. Sometimes these ideas have to be put on the back burner, or filed away for another time.

It’s really easy to get caught up in the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. That’s where we spend our days chasing shiny objects down rabbit holes. Someone sends you an email or gives you a call about an interesting idea and next thing you know you’ve spent four hours researching and evaluating an idea that has nothing to do with what you had planned to spend your day doing. You’ve wasted all your high-level energy doing what amounts to non-productive work.

It’s not that you can’t consider new opportunities. If your organization is going to grow and thrive, you have to consider new ideas and learn new things.

However, I think the real key to success is having a success consciousness with a singularity of focus. We create a success consciousness by having a team of positive people who have the same values as us, and who will constantly support each other and encourage each other to do exceptional work. We hold a singularity of focus by having a plan that we work every day. We have higher aspirations that cause us to continually reach for those things just beyond our grasp. You don’t accomplish great things by reaching for things in front of your nose. Everyone can do that. You achieve greatness by continually trying to work a little harder and to reach a little farther.

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Be Unreasonable in Your Expectations

What are your long-term goals for yourself or your company? Are they going to be easy to achieve or so big that you don't currently see a way to accomplish them? Why not go big?

Let's face it, you're unlikely to be more successful than your wildest dreams. So why not have great big dreams? What's the worst thing that can happen? You fall short, you don't make it all the way to the top? I suspect for many people, it's the fear of actually achieving those dreams that keeps them from dreaming big. Fear is an insidious foe. It sneaks up on your dream and squeezes the life out of it. Don't let that happen to you. 

Dream huge audacious dreams filled with success and providence. Draw a picture of your dreams and think about how success will feel, and smell, and taste. Write down these feelings and refer to them frequently. If your success takes place in a company of your creation, what does that company look like? Draw an organization chart of that successful company and use it as a road map to success. As you start growing your company, erase your name from some of the blocks and insert your partners and employees into the squares. 

I believe the act of writing down a goal is a transformative act. The mere act of writing it down has a tendency of setting the goal in motion. You've written down goals before. And I'm guessing you've had good success with this simple act. So why not do it again, but in a bigger and more definitive way? 

Create some big, unreasonable expectations, form the dream around them and turn the dream into a goal. You've just taken the first step to success!

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Are you more productive at home or the office?

I read an article recently about a large Chinese call center company that did an experiment with it's employees (no, not that kind of experiment!) letting them try working from home. They assigned half of their employees to continue working in the office and the other half worked from home. They found that the home working employees were more productive than the office working employees. Plus, the employees didn't have to commute to the office saving money on gas, work clothes and so on. The company found that the home working employees were 13% more productive. 9.5% of that productivity came from fewer sick days that were taken and 3.5% from actually taking more calls per hour.

Two very different conclusions from this: 1) people are less likely to be 'sick' if they work from home. Even if you do feel less than optimal, if you're at home, you can still get most of the work done. 2) I'm not at all surprised that people get more work done at home. Maybe it's not the same for everyone, but I like the quite atmosphere without all the phone calls and general office interruptions. I work at home and am very productive when I'm there for extended periods of time. 

Some folks are very distracted by the home atmosphere. I spoke to one friend who said she could never work at home. She'd be too tempted to do laundry or clean house. Ha! I'm never tempted by that. When I'm in my home office, I work. I have way more to do each day than I can possibly do anyway, so I have to prioritize and do the most important stuff. I never actually get to the bottom of the stack of things I'd like to do. Once the actual paying work is done, there's marketing and promotion work that awaits. 

Some people aren't as self-motivated as others. They perform better in an office environment where their surroundings are controlled. Is it tempting on a nice fall day to hang out on the patio in the sunshine and watch the birds and read a book. Sure. But that doesn't pay the bills, so you work. 

Do you have any tricks for staying on task and being more productive? If you do, why not share them with us?

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How does company culture impact your success?

A 2012 Deloitte study "Culture in the Workplace" as reported in Inc. magazine reveals interesting findings about workplace culture. The study suggests a strong correlation between company culture and workplace success:

• 94% of executives and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success
• 83% of executives and 84% of employees rank having engaged and motivated employees as the top factor that substantially contributes to a company's success

There were additional stats that suggest that executives and employees don't necessarily see eye-to-eye about whether their company has a great culture.

There's no denying that company culture is a big draw for a company like Apple. This awesome company culture allows Apple to have their pick of the tech world talent. Is their corporate success a result of that great talent pool? No doubt about it. Having a visionary leader is a good thing, but it's the actual employees that create the products and services, not visionary leaders, dead or alive.

Company culture, at the other end of the scale, can be a killer for attracting top talent. I've known many companies with a poor company culture  that can't hire the quality of employee that they need. Success suffers and the better employees who always have options, leave. The organization that's left is just a shell of what could have been. 

What's the state of your company culture? Do you actively work on improving the environment and creating a place where the best and brightest want to work? Or do you assume that an awesome company culture will grow itself? Well, it won't. You have to be proactive in creating an environment where employees are engaged and feel empowered. I've said for years that employees just want an environment where they can take pride in their work. But that's a lot easier said than done. It requires an owner or manager who can  create goals and set objectives, then get out of the way and let employees do their job. A company with a micromanaging owner or manager can never have a company culture that truly engages and motivates employees. By definition, a micromanaging owner sucks the life out of workers.

What are some of the basic things a business owner can do to create a great company culture? 

1. Stop micromanaging your employees. If an employee can't do the job, get one that can. If they can do the job, let them do it. It sounds so simple, but it's amazing how many owners and managers think they are the only ones smart enough to do the work.
2. Do your own job. As business owner, your job is to set the direction, create goals and objectives, hire good people, and set the example for customer focus. Do your job and let your employees do their job.
3. Hire the best employees you can afford. Another trait of micromanagers is their tendency to hire average to below-average employees. Most times, a micromanager is afraid of having an employee appear smarter or better able to do a particular task.  In reality, the best managers know that awesome employees do awesome work and make you look great.
4. Make employees feel like an important part of the process. Nothing kills motivation like corporate processes that make employees feel like what they do has no bearing on the bottom line, or customer satisfaction. 
5. Listen. When employees make suggestions for improving processes or products, give them an opportunity to express their thoughts. Give the employee an opportunity to develop the idea and/or do a feasibility analysis.

This is by no means a complete list. In fact, creating a great company culture is not so easy. If you have some other ideas, why not share them.

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What's In A Name?

How do you pick a company name? I get asked this question frequently. It’s actually fairly simple in principal, but not so much in practice. Follow these 6 steps to help you come up with an interesting name for your business.

1. Keywords

Start with your keywords. Using Google AdWords or other SEO tool, figure out what keywords are right for your business. Rank the top 15 – 20 keywords and keep them handy whenever you are thinking about profiles, domain names, blog posts, or web content.

2. DOT Com Availability

With some general ideas in mind and your keyword list handy, use a URL registrar such as GoDaddy, to see what URLs are available in a ‘.com’ address. While there are no specific rules that say a .com is better than a .biz, the SEO experts I’ve asked about this all concur that a .com will rank higher than a .anything else.  However, finding a .com will be difficult, since most of the .com names that also follow rules 3 – 5, have been taken.

3. Easy to Pronounce

Don’t pick some name that your target customer can’t pronounce. If you’re in France or the middle of Louisiana, then picking a funky sounding Cajun word will be fine. Otherwise, pick a name that average customers, namely your target customers, can easily pronounce.

4. Easy to Spell

Akin to #3, pick a name that can easily be spelled. If people can’t spell your name, they won’t be able to find your website, nor will they find you in a phone book. Yeah, there are still a few folks around, like my father, who still depend on the yellow pages to find your business. Don’t pick a stupid and/or incorrect spelling trying to be cute. Your customers may not get the joke. Then you’re just creating a situation where you have to spend your marketing budget teaching your target audience your name instead of why your business is so cool.

5. Short

Choose a name that is as short as possible. If your business name has 68 letters, nobody will be using their smart phone to look you up. And since that’s how the majority of people will find you, make it easy on them. Of course by making it easy on your customers, you help insure that they actually find your business.

6. URL & Sign are the Same

Your business name, as it appears on your sign, should be, if at all possible, the same as your URL. Remember, it’s difficult enough to get people to remember you, if they have to remember two different names for your business you’re cutting your own throat. Just like in rule #4 above, don’t cut your own throat.

If you need some help naming your business, creating a brand or marketing strategy, give us a call.

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3 Steps to Business Idea Evaluation

In the last post, I spoke about evaluating a business idea to determine whether it's the next Pet Rock, or sinking like a rock.

There are 3 basic steps for determining top-level viability. You want to determine if this idea is reasonable before you spend months of time and potentially lots of money. There's no sense doing all that extensive research, building relationships with potential partners, and spending money on anything, if in the end, the financial results don't meet your needs.  This is not a complete business or marketing plan. Don't go saying that Chris said this is all you have to do. I'm not saying that at all. It's merely a first round go/no-go evaluation. It's the first of many before you decide to launch a business. 

These are the basic steps:

1. Understand the Market
2. Consider your Marketing Strategy
3. Calculate the Profitability & Cash Flow

If the profitability and cash flow don't meet you needs, go back and modify the business model and see what affect that has. If you can't achieve the level of financial success that you want, then abandon the idea and move on the the next one. 

So these are the area's you'll evaluate, but what questions, specifically, are you trying to answer?

1. Market: Are there enough potential customers in the market?
2. Marketing Strategy: How will you convince those potential customers to buy from you?
3. Financials: Do the profitability and cash flow results meet your needs?

If the answers to these questions support your goals, then keep going to the next step. As you continue learning new information that changes anything significant piece of the evaluation, then run the three step process again. Keep moving forward with your research and evaluation, partnership building and business plan writing as long as the three questions continue giving you answers that meet your needs. 


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How to Evaluate a Business Idea

You've got a great idea for a business, well, you think it's good anyway. How do you know? How do you evaluate a business idea and when in the evaluation process do you decide whether to move forward or ditch the idea and look for another opportunity?

I work the idea viability analysis as a continuous pass-fail process. What I mean by that is I continually evaluate the idea and make it pass, or move on. For folks who are looking, there are way more ideas than time to evaluate them. So it's important to be honest with yourself and pass on everything that doesn't meet your evaluation criteria or your needs.

When evaluating a business idea, start by doing a little research. Understand the market, how business is conducted, and the competition. Consider how the current trends in the industry will affect how business is done in the future. Identify your target customer and determine if the market is large enough to support another competitor of your size. 

Next, think about how you will position your company and products in the market. Determine how much budget you'll need to accomplish your revenue goals and create a basic marketing strategy.

Now comes the hard part. Based on your preliminary research and marketing strategy, how many units of revenue do you expect to achieve? Create a sales projection for a couple of years, by month. Yes, I realize that anything past about 3 or 4 months is a guess, but at least it's an educated guess. You need to understand the profitability and cash flow model in order to evaluate the idea. So, give it your best guess. Make sure to consider how normal industry or seasonal cycles will affect your projections. Don't take a yearly projection and divide it by 12. Think about what the revenue will look like each month. 

The rest is just math. How big an organization is needed to support a business with that revenue level? Subtract the cost of generating that kind of revenue, subtract it from the net sales to get gross margin. Then, subtract operating expenses to determine net income. Next, figure out the cash flow implications. If everything seems to make sense, then continue with your evaluation. If not, abandon the idea and move on.

This is a quick and dirty top level evaluation to determine whether to move forward with an idea. It's not a business plan. It's not a full-fledged marketing plan. It's just a go/no-go first evaluation, before you spend weeks or months working out the details, forming the partnerships and spending money building a business idea into a company. 

If you need help evaluating your great idea, give us a call.

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Performance Dashboards: Financial Measures

Performance dashboards are a commonly used management tool to improve corporate performance.  Stephen Few, a business intelligence guru defines dashboards as “a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance.”  While this sounds good in theory, how can a small business use dashboards to drive a more profitable operation?  What specific items should be monitored? 

Cash Flow and Profitability

“Profit is illusion, cash flow if fact.”  The old adage clearly identifies the most important criteria in constructing a small business dashboard.  There are many ways to measure cash flow and in each business the important measures will be different.  One fact cannot be over emphasized in a small business setting: cash is king. When you run out of cash, you’re out of business. We should measure profitability, too…right?

Businesses need both profitability and cash flow to be successful over time. So you should consider both these measures. Maybe you can compromise and measure EBITDA, a sort of hybrid of both. If you can only measure one, measure cash flow.  As a business owner, you should be focused on cash flow already. In fact, your primary concern as business owner is to know how much cash you have in the bank, how much cash is coming in over the next few days or weeks, and how much cash you’ll have to use over the same time period. It’s up to you to manage that. You can have accountants who do calculations for and make accounting entries for you, but don’t turn over this job to your accountant. It is fine to have both of you focusing on this, but don’t turn this job over to your accountant. You are the only one who cares enough about your business to have this job.

Within the cash flow and profitability section, here are some potential measurement ideas.

• Bank Cash Balance
• Operating Cash Flow
• Cash Conversion Cycle
• Days Sales Outstanding
• Days Cash on Hand
• Gross Profit Margin
• Operating Profit Margin
• Net Income Percentage
• Return on Assets
• Debt Coverage Ratio
• Product Line/Category Profitability
• Division Profitability
• Plant Return on Investment

Do you have other financial related measures that small business owners should measure?

Leave a comment with your suggestions. If you need help setting up performance dashboards for your business, give us a call.


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How Fast Are We Going, Anyway?

Now that you’re actively collecting data and making measurements and attempting to improve your business, how do you go about reporting your progress? This is one of the most difficult decisions that business owners and manager have to make. What do we report, how should it look, how often should we update, and who’s going to do all this updating in the first place?

First, start with the most important measures for the unit being measured. That is, if you’re measuring your customer service department, then decide what are the few important measures on which we should concentrate for that department. If you’re preparing a reporting mechanism for the board of directors, then you’re going to look at the whole company.

You can only concentrate on a handful of measures at one time, so pick the three to six most important ones for the area in which you’re working and go from there. As you make improvements to one area, you can substitute another area that has become a bigger problem. As you get better at working with these data points and trends, you can add more measures.

One way to display the information is in the form of a dashboard. Just like in a vehicle, you have a dashboard with the few important data points that you need to successfully “manage” your transportation system. You don’t want to get a ticket for speeding, so you have a speedometer. You don’t want to run out of gas, so you have a gas gage. There are other gages on your dashboard showing the status of various systems in your vehicle. Some are gages, some only tell you when you have a problem, like the check engine light. And unless you’re Penny, when that light comes on, you need to check your engine. If the light is off, you can assume you’re engine is operating fine. Together, these different measurement systems indicate the status of your transportation system. And the real beauty of a dashboard is you can see it and understand the status of your system in just a glimpse. Similarly, your company dashboard needs to be arranged to use different types of gages so that it’s logical and displays the whole system status quickly.

Here’s an example of a corporate dashboard from computer networking company F1 Solutions, here in Huntsville. F1 ownership and management decided what was really important to measure and set their tech staff at programming the measures into an automatically updating system that displays their performance relating to response times and customer service.

Unless you’ve got a talented tech staff, you probably won’t be able to create a fancy dashboard like F1. You don’t need to either. For a bunch of tech guys, this is a problem that needed to be solved. You probably don’t have resources like this available at your company. What you need to figure out is how to display the information in a meaningful way that allows you to properly manage your systems with the least amount updating.

If you need help with your measurement systems, give us a call.

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How to hinder your success.

I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day about cell phone minutes. His company, in an effort to reduce expenses from the sales force, has placed a limit on the amount of cell phone minutes the sales force can use each month. As I sit an contemplate the sentence I just typed, I'm still stunned. How do you fake outrage when your real outrage is overpowering it? 


Look, It's their company, not mine. If they want to count pennies while the dollars flow down the drain, that's their business. But this is 2012, not 2002 or even 1992. Cell minutes are cheap, especially with a company plan. Telling your sales staff not to use too many minutes shows that the manager must be an idiot. That's a program that's more about controlling behavior than reducing expenses. And what more, it will likely reduce sales right along with the minutes.


So when you're running low on minutes, what should a sales rep do, look for a pay phone? Do they even have pay phones anymore? If they do would you want to put one of those next to your face?


I'm beginning a series of posts about the nutty things business owners do to hinder their own success. Do you have a story or idea? If so, send it to me. If you're a decent writer (meaning you can put a coherent thought together with actual words) and you want some fame and glory (ha!), I'll publish your story here on my blog. If you'd rather just send me your ideas about how to crash a business, I'll take those too. 


I'll be posting this intro to the series on LinkedIn in the group Linked Across The Valley in a discussion thread of the same title and on The Huntsville Grapevine in my forum area. Feel free to engage in any of these areas.   


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The 7 Rules of Elevator Pitch Success

My research only turned up one song about elevators; a children’s song that’s way to annoying to repeat. Similar research on songs played in elevators generated the same results; songs too annoying to repeat. I guess I’ll have to summarize my series on successful elevator pitches without a forty year old pop song. Na, that wouldn’t be any fun, try this: in 1968 the Rolling Stones first released “Sympathy for the Devil” on the Beggars Banquet album. In the opening line of the song, Mick Jagger sings “Let me introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste.” While the song has moral and societal implications that are way beyond the scope of this topic, I think the opening line plays into my theme perfectly. Jagger’s opening and introduction breaks rule #1 and starts him on the wrong foot, at least in networking circles.

Developing a successful elevator pitch isn’t difficult, but it does take a little preparation and practice. Follow these seven rules to show your business or yourself in the best light:

Rule #1: It’s not about you. It never was about you. It’s not going to be about you in the future. You customer’s only care about themselves. Turn your attention to their needs.

Rule #2: Tell them how doing business with you will make their life better. This is what your customers want to hear.

Rule #3: Only you care about features.  It’s like the teacher on the Charlie Brown movies. If you’re talking about features, your customers hear: “Wank wank wank wank.” Salesmen like features, customers like benefits.

Rule #4: Start with a hook. Research suggests you only have about 10 seconds to get their attention. Set the hook early and quickly reel them in with a good story.

Rule #5: Keep it simple.  Complication leads to confusion. Confusion leads to lost customers. Don’t be confusing. Apply the K.I.S.S. principle.

Rule #6: Nobody cares if you’re the president. Seriously, why would you waste most or all of your 10 seconds telling people about your titles and accomplishments? Unless you’re six years old or talking to your mother, drop that act from your routine.

Rule #7: End with a call to action. Customers aren’t as intuitive as you’d like them to be. At the end of your pitch, tell them what you want them to do.

Script out your pitch, picking the perfect words to clearly and succinctly tell your story. Develop interchangeable part for different situations and customers pains. Then practice until your delivery sounds natural and unrehearsed.

If you have a killer elevator pitch, share it with us here. If you’d like help improving your elevator pitch, give us a call.  We’re ready to help.

Check out Chris’ elevator pitch lens on Squidoo.

Come on Baby, Light My Fire!

Staying with the pop music theme, The Doors #1 Hit single from their January 1967 debut self-titled album “Light My Fire” was the group’s first big success and a earned the band significant radio play. The band and especially lead singer Jim Morrison never hesitated to ask for what they wanted, and usually got what they asked for. Once again I’m tight-walking a thin line of relevance to bring you Rule #7 for successful elevator pitches: End with a call to action.

Let’s say that you’ve followed the other rules; you got to the point, told a quick story about how doing business with your company would make their life better, used an interesting hook while making it all about your customer. Then you just stand there waiting for your prospective customer to respond. What is it that you want them to do? You want them to light your fire by buying your product or service. But unless you specifically ask them to buy, the potential customer might just stay that way, potential.

Volumes of sales material, workshops, blog entries way more clever than mine, and endless training sessions focus on one of the key parts of selling: the asking for the business part. For many non-sales types, this seems to be very difficult. You have delivered a clever elevator pitch that didn’t generate a second floor elevator ditch. You’re standing in the lobby with their attention in hand. You gotta ask for the business!

Better yet, just build it into your pitch. That way you can have a well researched, cleverly worded, and appropriately rehearsed 'ask' that gets your customer to respond positively. And if they don’t buy right there on the spot (which they won’t!), at least you’ve got them asking for more information. And that’s the goal of an elevator pitch. You’re not going to make a sale right there in the elevator. You’re not trying to make a sale right there in the elevator. You’re trying to get them interested enough to ask for more.

Yes, yes. If they want to buy right there on the spot, you will absolutely sell them right there on the spot. But since that hardly ever happens, that should not be your expectation. In fact, if you have no expectation of selling right there on the spot, it will make the whole event less stressful for you non-sellers, and allow you to keep the focus on the customer, which as a review, is Rule #1.

Any former hippies have thoughts you’d like to share?

Do you have a great elevator pitch that you’d like to share? If so, list it in the comments or send me an email.

Nobody cares if you’re the president

Seriously, how does telling me that you’re the president, founder, vice president of business development and secondary market strategy, and chief cook and bottle washer help ease my pain? This is my biggest elevator pitch pet peeve and Rule #6: Nobody cares if you’re the president.

You only have a few seconds, so don’t waste any of them giving a list of your titles and qualifications. Remember rule #1: It’s not about you.

Whenever I hear a business owner giving a pitch and they use their first one or two sentences telling me about their qualifications and titles, I just quit listening. It reminds me of my favorite Margaret Thatcher quote: “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.” If you have to waste your precious few attention-getting seconds telling me how great you are, you probably aren’t!

The person you’re speaking with isn’t going to do business with you because you’re the president of the company. They will do business with you because your product eases their pain and they like you personally. Rule #6 addresses both of these points.

Rule #6 doesn’t require much explanation.  Thoughts?

Do you have a great elevator pitch that you’d like to share? If so, list it in the comments or send me an email.

Kiss ‘em goodbye!

One sure fire way to run off a prospective customer is to start into a complicated diatribe on why this feature of your business does this or why that feature solves this problem and on and on and on. We’re talking elevator pitches and Rule #5: Keep it simple.

You can’t create a story for every SKU in your product database. Most companies have dozens to thousands of product and service varieties. The object here is to identify the top several products or services and create a compelling story about how each makes the lives of your customer better.  

Script each story and work on using the precise words that best deliver your message. Once you get the words just right, practice saying it out loud. Practice saying your pitch out loud over and over until it becomes natural. You want to deliver your pitch in a natural, unrehearsed way that only comes from rehearsing.

The real application of Rule #5 is to only use one story per pitch. You should have an arsenal of pitch components at the ready for use when that particular component is needed. When you meet an individual with a particular pain, pull out that pain point and merge it into your pitch.

The research suggests that you only have about ten seconds to say something interesting before the other party tunes you out. You can’t possibly tell a complicated story in such a short amount of time. If your business is complicated, boil your pain topics down into bite-sized talking points that you can get across quickly. If you’re having trouble, go back to the customer’s pain and your product benefit bullet points. Brainstorm with your team or a colleague to find the right words to make your complicated story simple. This is where prior preparation really pays off.  

Do you have a great elevator pitch that you’d like to share? If so, list it in the comments or send me an email.

Baby, I’m Hooked on You

David Gates 1977 classic “Hooked on You”, performed by Bread tells the story of a man who falls in love and gladly pays the price to be with the woman of his dreams. We’re still talking elevator pitches and you’re wondering what mediocre 1970s soft rock hit has to do with anything. Well, it’s a loose connection at best, but does lead me to Rule #4 for creating successful elevator pitches: Start with a hook.

A hook is a question or statement that is enticing and grabs the person’s attention. You need something so that the person will actually pay attention. It doesn’t do any good to have crafted a wonderful story in the form of a pitch if the other person never listens. You’ve been at networking events before. How many elevator pitches have you heard only to have forgotten before the person finishes delivering?

Think of this opportunity as a fishing trip to catch the “big one.” Once the fish take the bait, you jerk the line to set the hook. Then you reel in the fish being careful not to let it off the line. You’re doing the same thing here with your elevator pitch. When you get an opportunity to give your pitch, set the hook with a dramatic opening. It can be in the form of a question or bold statement about some pain in your prospects life. Then you tell a quick story about how you can make their life better.

Be sure to use lots of sensing language. That is, use words that share what you see, hear, smell and taste. This will engage your prospect on a whole different level than mere words. The goal is to get your prospect emotionally involved in your solution. They will become an advocate for you as they feel their life getting better and sense the happiness that it brings. Okay, that’s a little over the top, but you get the point. Sensing language engages the prospect and helps them feel the solution, not just understand.

Do you have a great elevator pitch that you’d like to share? If so, list it in the comments or send me an email.

What’s the benefit of a cheese plate?

In my last entry I talked about crafting a contrived or chamber of commerce elevator pitch where you are introducing yourself to a large group and need to be memorable. In this entry, I’ll talk about the second type of elevator pitch, the sincere or person-to-person pitch. This is your cheese plate of elevator pitches.

Well, what the heck is that supposed to mean?  I’m glad you asked.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different needs and different pains. While you can’t craft a specific elevator pitch for every single pain in the world, you can hit the high spots. Looks at your customer base and identify the main pains that afflict these individuals and their businesses. How do your products and services address these pains? Take time to list the four to ten major pains suffered by your customers and then create bullets under each pain topic about how you can make their pain less intense or go away altogether. If you’ve ever put together a formal marketing plan, you probably already have done much of this work.

As you look at the bullets under each pain topic, what benefits of your products and services are addressing the particular pain topic? If you were paying attention to the last post, I eluded to Rule #3: only you care about features. Features don’t make your customer’s life better. Features make you happy because you can talk about features very easily. You think you can use features to better sell your products without having to know much about your customer or take the time to learn their business. However, features are a short-cut to failure! 

Identify the benefits and the associated product or service that address the pain of your customer. Then script a story about how your product addresses the pain of your customer. Start your story with a bold statement about how your product reduces or eliminates that particular pain. Start with a short paragraph story and whittle and hone it down to one or two sentences. Select the exact wording that best tells your story in a dramatic and concise way that will speak directly to that particular customer pain. Once you’ve got the story boiled down to its essence with the perfect words and phrases, practice saying it out loud. Sometimes these phrases don’t as work well spoken as they did in your mind.

Remember, nobody cares that you have a boutique food shop with different daily specials. But if you’re speaking with a working mother managing a busy family, she will be interested in providing her family a nutritious and tasty sit-down-and-eat-it-together meal, using your convenient call-in order service where she can pick up a fully-prepared meal with all the sides on her way home from the office. Now that’s a solution to a pain.

You should craft a story for each of these pain topics. Memorize each and practicing saying them out loud so you can pull one from memory as needed to match the particular situation facing you. Unfortunately, unlike the chamber pitch where you have plenty of time to craft the exact message for that particular situation, you need to have a whole cheese try of elevator pitch choices ready depending on the particular needs of an ever changing situation. You never know when you’ll be presented an opportunity to give your pitch, so be ready.

Do you have a great elevator pitch that you’d like to share? If so, list it in the comments or send me an email.

You want me to say what?

We’re talking about elevator pitches. Sometimes you give your pitch even when nobody asked you what you do.

There are two basic styles of elevator pitch: contrived, for use at chamber or networking functions where you’re going to introduce yourself to a group and a sincere one-on-one pitch that is customized for the person to whom you’re speaking.

The contrived pitch may be silly, bold, or even outrageous, depending on your business. While you never want to make a fool of yourself, the idea is to be remembered after all the introductions are completed. I call this style of elevator pitch a contrived pitch because you would never respond with this type of pitch when speaking with someone one-on-one. The contrived or chamber version of your pitch is just a little too phony for use in a personal setting.

In this group setting, it’s time to put on your thinking cap and get really clever. Your choice of words and phrases is especially important, so choose them carefully. Many of your associates will have only one version of their elevator pitch. This is your time to carefully craft a message that not only attracts attention but also has staying power. You’ll have introductions, maybe a meal and a program and then networking time. Your pitch needs to stay with your audience until the networking time.   

We’ve all been at a chamber of commerce function where we’re asked to introduce ourselves one after another in front of a large group. How many times do you lose interest in the introductions and quit listening? With 30 to 50 people making introductions, it’s tough to keep your focus. On the other hand, with that many people, it’s actually easier to shine if you just do your homework and give some thought to your pitch.

Here’s where you can really put Rule #2 into action: tell them how doing business with you will make their life better. You want to define your products and services in terms of your customer’s pain. Remember, this is not the place for full-featured description. Nobody cares about features but you. Your customer only cares about benefits. It the benefits of your product that hopefully make their life better. Your products and services do make someone’s life better, right?

Back to the chamber networking setting, how can you use the topic of the event to play off of in your pitch? The entrepreneur who actually takes the time to craft a pitch with the event theme or the speaker’s topic, will make a big splash. I’m guessing you’ll even make an impression with the speaker, who may call you out during his presentation, thereby reinforcing your pitch message.  Making yourself memorable requires doing some homework, but if you spend the time working on your introduction while everyone else just gives their normal introduction, you will stand out from the crowd.

Do you have a great elevator pitch that you’d like to share? If so, list it in the comments or send me an email.

Is your elevator pitch taking you to the wrong floor?

So, what do you do?

How many times do you get asked this question at a networking event, from potential service partners or in the grocery store?  It happens all the time, right? Do you have a good answer? 

The answer is known as your elevator pitch. The idea being, you enter the elevator and the person standing next to you asks what you do. You have the length of time it takes to ride to the lobby to tell your story in a way that make the person ask for more details. You have even less time than that to get them interested, or your encounter goes from potential to pleasantry. In reality, you have about 10 seconds to grab the other person’s attention and convince them that you can make their life better. The key rule is crafting an elevator pitch is it’s not about you.

Many people stumble around, looking for the right words to describe what they do. They think about their job title and lead with that. Next they add details to their title to make it sound more important or interesting. Next they add a special award that they won and .  .  .  What’s that you’re saying, I quit listening. Now I’m sorry I even asked you what you do and I’m trying to figure out if I can get out on the 1^st floor so I won’t have to deal with you in the lobby.

 That is what you were asked, right? Well, technically. But that’s not how you should answer.  Telling people literally what you do violates the #1 rule of elevator pitches: It’s not about you.

Over the next few posts, we’ll talk about the five rules of elevator pitches and how you can craft a pitch that’s sure to get your riding partner to ask for more.

Do you have a great elevator pitch that you’d like to share? If so, list it in the comments.

Are you suppressing your Jeremy Lin’s?

The New York Knicks newly famous point guard Jeremy Lin is all over the news these days. He went from bench warmer to hero in practically a blink of an eye.

Lin went from being unknown with sparse playing time to averaging 24.4 points per game. He also has racked up 9.1 assists and 4.0 rebounds over the past seven games. So what’s up with this performance? How does a guy go from barely playing in a mop-up role to the hero of New York? And apparently, all the Nicks sports paraphernalia with his name and number are sold out for weeks.

Here’s a low level guy in the Knicks organization who got a chance to shine and has made the best of it. Whether he’s playing above his level for a short time period or he has permanently increased his effort and intensity are yet to be seen. The point is, Lin got an opportunity to play in an intense game situation and responded like an all star. It’s not that he was ever a terrible player. You don’t make an NBA team if you suck, especially on a team like the Knicks. Lin never got his chance to play due to the number of high profile players on the team.

Are there Jeremy Lin’s in your organization trying to shine? Do you have employees with creativity and high performance pent up because of because of your style or policies? Are you creating an environment in your organization that allows your employees to perform their best? It’s a difficult balancing act between creating procedures to standardize work and performance and letting everyone manage themselves. No business owner is comfortable near the chaos end of the spectrum. But if you operate completely on the control end, employees, especially professionals will feel that their talents are being wasted and efforts going unappreciated.

You see spectacularly high performing organizations that have put a team of people together and turned them loose to create magic. Companies like Google or the design house IDEO have great results in a loosely managed organization where professionals are treated as such. One of the differences is these organizations manage expected results, not activities. Frankly, part of it is organizational magic; the right combination of environment, people, work, tools, owners, and expectations. It’s difficult to create this magic, so owners have to work really hard to create an environment where employees can take pride in their work. And this applies whether you’re managing a group of rocket scientists or manufacturing widgets.

Do you have a tip for managing people to high performance results?

What’s the pain?

It’s in my knee right around…no, not that kind of pain. What’s your customers’ pain?

One way you can get the upper hand on your competition is to really consider the way your customers do business. What are their issues? How do their buying processes match up with your selling processes? How do the quantities of product they need in an order match with the quantities that you sell in a unit?  Maybe you should ask.

These economic times require you and your team to be better than you were in the past. Most industries are slow or slower than four or five years ago. If you don’t have the kind of business you’d like, maybe you aren’t asking the right kinds of questions.

Have you considered having a conversation with your customers? I know, that’s pretty radical, but if might just work. Sit down with them in their office and ask what you can do to make doing business with your company easier. Is there anything about our ordering and delivery processes that cause you problems? Is there anything we can do better?

You may find that a simple and easy tweak to your process will provide a huge benefit to your customer. Maybe you pack 15 units to a case and your customer uses them in quantities of 8. Can you change your box size to accommodate one more unit so that your customer can get a better utility out of your ordering system? Perhaps it’s something in the way your paperwork doesn’t give them a piece of information that would make their life easier. The point is, you won’t know unless you ask.

We’re talking about making changes to your system to make life better for your customer. Maybe your willingness to consider a small change to your system is just the kind of loyalty that makes them a customer for life. Maybe your system tweak makes them love you enough so that your price is no longer a major factor in the buying decision. Maybe they would be willing to accept an x% higher price if you could make this simple change.

You will not be able to accommodate every whim and desire of your customers. But you never know what little thing about the way you do business that really irks them unless you ask. In these difficult economic times, your company has to be better than their other alternatives. Being assertive and positive in wanting to make the relationship better is a great way to make your customer relationships better.