PROMOTING
YOUR BUSINESS SERVICES
Points to
Bear in Mind
Robb Murray
© 1988-2003
1
To succeed in ANY small business, you must spend more
TIME than MONEY.
2
It is easier to FIND NEW customers than to CONVERT
CURRENT customers.
3
Promotion isn’t just a “people business”. It is a business of hundreds of RELATIONSHIPS.
4
Use, but don’t depend on, incoming calls. When the
wind is blowing, sail. When the air is
still, paddle. But regardless of the
climate, KEEP MOVING and stay PRO-ACTIVE, the agent in control of your
direction.
5
OPTIMISM and ACTION are related and go hand in hand.
Success breeds interest, and interest breeds success.
6
YOU are the key to your success: YOU ONLY.
7
Lamenting or complaining instead of taking
constructive or corrective action is a PASSIVE behavior. It is both foolish and costly. You can’t
afford the luxury of vacant faultfinding. Complainers pretend that the
attitudes and actions of others are more important to their success than their
own. Actions you can ALWASYS take
include:
1.
Asking questions of successful practitioners
2.
Studying what your successful competitors are doing
3.
Studying to improve the skills you are selling
4.
Setting up the next rack of calls to make.
5.
Walking through your plans for the next quarter and
correcting weaknesses.
8
Our profitability is the report card on how
effectively we’ve been COMMUNICATING.
9
We’re all going to be living a long time. Treat all
your contacts with decency, kindness and honor.
In five years, people will still remember how you made them FEEL, but
nobody you will probably remember the financial details of what passed between
you.
10
Group SYNERGY is an incredible force. Batteries connected in series create a
multiplied voltage. Sticks in a bundle do not break. Small success teams and goals clubs can create
amazing results.
11
It may sound silly but it is still completely
true: “In every job that must be done,
there is an element of fun.” Make
promotion a game.
12
The biggest money in any business is paid to those who
impact the LARGEST NUMBERS of people. How can YOU do that better?
13
SET A STANDARD of effort for yourself and hold to your
numbers. Your strongest security comes from knowing what you can expect from
yourself.
14
There’s only one difference between you and the top
money-makers in your field:
They make more phone calls than you do.
Period!
15
Nearly all self-promoters who have QUIT would also
have quit any other business. (Most new “businesses” fail within five years
anyway!) They generally quit due to simple management mistakes:
1.
doing what is fun and easy instead of organizing and
studying their activities to find the fun in doing what is effective.
2.
working without any structure of partnership or moral
support (“Lone-Ranger-ism”) ,
3.
over-spending and under-working. Remember the old maxim: You’ve got to SPEND money to GO BANKRUPT!
4.
keeping careless records (especially of hiring-~party
contacts) ;
5.
working without a plan;
6.
working without periodic review of activities and
readjustment;
7.
poor physical organization;
8.
blowing big sums on shots in the dark without first
producing a positive test effort;
9.
being too proud to ask for ideas from colleagues or at
seminars.
16
Don’t just work hard; work smart.
17
Keep motivational and training cassettes playing
whenever you work. By nature of their
work, entrepreneurs are often physically
isolated from each other. But they still need synergy to do their best work. A
great way to COMPENSATE FOR this is with a flow of information and examples.
Stay tuned in to classes, cassettes, hotlines,
newsletters and magazines.
18
There are many outstanding cassette series available
from Nightingale-Conant, 1-888-323-5552.
You can get tremendous buys on motivational tapes through half.com. Titles that have helped me especially over
the years are:
1.
LEAD THE
FIELD, Earl Nightingale.
i.
“The Magic Word”
ii.
“The Miracle of Your Mind”
2.
THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF SELLING, Brian Tracy.
i.
“Managing Your Time”
3.
THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS, Brian Tracy.
i.
“The Power of Purpose”
4.
THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF WINNING, Dennis Waitley.
5.
UNLIMITED
POWER, Tony Robbins.
6.
HOW TO START
AND SUCCEED IN YOUR OWN BUSINESS, Brian Tracy. Tape 1, especially.
7.
GETTING RICH
IN
8.
SUPERNATURAL
SELLING, Danielle Kennedy.
9.
HOW TO SELL
AS FAST AS YOU CAN, Danielle Kennedy.
19
I make it a point to exchange tapes with friends who
are hip to motivational cassettes.
20
Every month, count your current warm list, and your cold list or dead list. Know which contacts are which. Don’t try to revive a corpse –
21
Call your best colleagues once every six weeks to
offer new information you’ve learned and to hear their news.
22
Don’t waste time on unmotivated or closed people.
23
Don’t “need” any specific contact. People always
surprise us, both ways. You never really know who’s interested until
deals are done.
24
The money really flies around during hot periods, but
it’s actually when things get quieter that you can better build a long-term,
stable nest of mutually-respected contacts.
25
“It’s more important to do the right things than to do
things right.” –Peter Drucker. “Ready,
fire, aim”!
26
You’d rather be ready for opportunities and not have
them coming in than it is to have a big opportunity come along but not be ready
for it. Make sure your net is ready for
the catch.
27
THE ONLY SEVEN THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN when you make a
promotional phone call:
1.
No answer / disconnected
2.
Busy
3.
Service or Colleague Answers
4.
Voicemail or answering machine
5.
Chitchat: Not Interested
6.
Chitchat: Might Want Later
7.
Chitchat: Willing to See You
An
assertive and effective response is possible to each of these. If you have a planned response for each of
them, there is no surprise possible. So
what’s the big trauma?
28
The best time to make a sale is right after a sale.
29
Do NOT mail large numbers of resumes, demos, etc., or
run print ads. Go in person, or generate a personal relationship by conversing.
Then use the reality of “people lead to people, who lead to people, etc.” Ask: “Who else should I be talking to?”
30
There is no such thing as a useless contact. Even an ogre can serve as a lively
conversation topic.
31
EVERY opportunity to be physically WITH someone who
knows contacts or works in the industry you are interested in is valuable. This includes secretarial and sweep-up
staff. Who do you think knows what’s
going on socially? Who controls
communication? The janitor and the
switchboard staffer.
32
“QUASI-NETWORKING” is where people meet, exchange business cards, and then nobody calls
the next day or week. Always network WITH FOLLOWUP.
33
No, an e-mail isn’t as good as a phone call. No, a phone call isn’t as good as a personal
visit. Any other questions?
34
Keep a log of your learning, and a skimmer tape of
inspirational ideas.
35
When you attend a talk, mark action steps in your
notes with brackets or a star.
36
Periodically prioritize your activities for impact,
and do the highest-payoff ones. If you
can’t seem to, ask what isn’t fun about doing them. Find a way to add fun. That’s what your business is for: fun and
adventure.
37
Take every cheap seminar you can and generate action
steps to bring in work from each one.
Seminar costs are the most arbitrary of any service product. Why pay more?
38
It’s not what you know; it’s what you USE.
39
The most important thing is not the actual going to
networking events and classes, but the FOLLOWING UP AFTERWARDS with the people
you met through it.
40
If you are changing careers, setting yourself in
social space in the new career area is your highest priority. There are always at
least 6 ways to meet colleagues in your chosen field:
1.
classes
2.
parties
3.
jobs or project sites
4.
proposal meetings, auditions, look-sees or information
meetings
5.
calling the referrals of friends to offer information
to new people that they may not have
6.
calling people you’ve heard of just to introduce
yourself (this projects confidence)
41
Keep your expanding list of achievements
circulating. Be sure to tell those who
CARE; don’t inflict your trophies on those who have no reason to care.
42
Even after you make a marketing initiative, there are
residual benefits that CAN’T happen until time passes. Be ready for these later “royalties”. Don’t get careless. If somebody has remembered you after six
months, there’s a reason.
43
Even losing a contact or sale is valuable as a news
item to tell other informed people about.
44
The most common promotional problem is that people
expose themselves to TOO FEW buyers who are NOT THE MOTIVATED ONES, and then
draw false conclusions. Demand is ALWAYS
sparse. Never expect otherwise, except
demand that happens due to the “popcorn effect” of customers’ direct sparking
of each other’s interest.
45
Go wide in your sales and marketing. It’s broad general networking that will get
you what you need. Nothing less can be a
stable source of business, especially during lean times.
46
Use a timer to break up the tedious pieces of your
work. Try to leave yourself wanting
more, with a to-do list at the ready for your next pass.
47
When a sale or booking happens, it’s great. You’ve got something to tell somebody -- DO
SO!
48
When a booking falls through, you’ve got a great
reason to call out in a fresh direction——DO SO!
49
Always use your frustration or anger to TAKE
ACTION. A gold miner never struck it
rich by sitting down and complaining about the stupid rock that isn’t yielding
anything. Either redirect or redouble
effort.
50
Recessions are THE IDEAL times to get into a new field
or to be trained. You’re losing so
little!
51
The LAW OF INDIRECT EFFORT. Many of the best things to come
your way will happen off to the side, without your consciously producing them.
52
The LAW OF ACCUMULATION. “Everything counts” in your favor -- every
experience. Don’t make the mistake of
denigrating the very ingredients of your success.
53
Find the most useful books in your field and keep them
handy to read during downtime.
54
Use energy to generate more energy. Your good/bad
contacts list is the best forum for this.
Study up and down your calls list.
Just physically look it over and ask what the next best step to take
is. Stay mentally active and inquiring.
55
ALWAYS OFFER something to your contact first. Information, news, an honest compliment, etc.
56
Relationships are like antiques. The older they are, the more everybody values
them.
57
Big success is not about skill. Some of the most
skillful performers, creatives, etc. we know will never make it big.
“Making it big” comes from the determination to do so, then gearing your
routines and habits to support that goal.
Anything that happens by luck to non-disciplined practitioners will not
hold because they will not be able to defend the situation against
encroachments, which are inevitable.
58
One good way to approach new people is to ask their
advice, or to ask them what they’re working on now.
59
Stoke your effort with a regular, daily half-hour of
planning and re-strategizing your day on paper first thing in the morning, or
before bed the night before.
60
Money is never made on the details, but from eagerly-made DEALS. Donald Trump didn’t make his fortune by just
hanging out with “God in the details”.
61
You can say anything to anybody. If you’re afraid to
call someone, it’s just because you don’t have the right words yet. Think about
the attitudes and words that unlock the situation and open it up to
discussion. Ask a non-involved friend
for a phraseology suggestion.
62
Write brief thank-you notes, never obsequious ones.
63
Your new career begins with your new business card.
64
Always have your business card and marketing materials
with you at social events.
65
Circulate an ever--growing list of your credits or
client successes to your fan club. If in
doubt, no, they’re NOT in your fan club.
66
Burn off your stresses with regular exercise.
67
The acid test of a career interest or the way you’re
running your business is: would you do
it for free if you didn’t have to work for a living?
PLEASE SHARE
YOUR INSPIRTIONAL IDEAS!
WITH ME!
YOUR ENERGY IS ALWAYS
WELCOME!
Robb Murray
Computer Training On-Call
(773) 975-8020
ctoncall@aol.com