Sales Mastery^SM is a unique year-long accountability program that provides a salesperson with the tools and experience needed to succeed. More than teaching professional skills, the program also helps your team grow personally; changing mindsets and balancing lives.

Click the video below to learn more about Sales coaching and how it can help your business.

Glenn Smith

For today’s Growth Coach blog, we are once again fortunate to have Glenn Smith as a guest blogger. Glenn Smith is a Growth Coach Franchise Owner from the Houston/Sugar Land Texas area and is a highly regarded business coach, prolific blogger, an accomplished marketer, and has recently been recognized as “The 2011 Coach of the Year” by The Growth Coach System.

You can learn more about Glenn, his credentials and his coaching services at www.TheGrowthCoachhHouston.com.

Sharpen Your Unique Selling Proposition

When you meet someone new at a networking or community event, and they ask you what you do, what do you say? Typically I hear “I’m a CPA” or “I’m a financial planner” or “I sell flowers” or “I’m in insurance.”  Get the picture? That’s about the most uninviting, non-engaging, boring way for you to position yourself! Isn’t there a better way?

Yes there is. It’s called a unique selling proposition or U.S.P.

A U.S.P. is a simple statement about the value you bring, what makes you distinctive or “unique” from your competitors, and one that is interesting enough to invite the other person into a conversation with you about what you do.  If I’m given the opportunity to tell someone what I do, and I answer “I’m a business coach,” – well, how boring is that? I have discovered that there are several ways I can answer which are much more interesting and engaging like:

“I help small business owners significantly improve the performance of their businesses.”

“I help business owners slow down, reflect, and map out the critical changes they need to make in order to take their businesses to the next level; then I hold them accountable to achieve the results they want.”

“I help business owners work smarter not harder, so they can make more money and work less.”

I’m not suggesting that these are the best U.S.P.’s, but they are a whole lot more interesting and engaging than me saying “I’m a business coach.” And they typically open the door to a conversation where I can learn more about the person I’m talking to and where I can pique their interest in what I do.

So how do I create my U.S.P.?

Take a short, strategic retreat, and ask yourself these questions:

• What is the value I bring?
• What is an obvious, compelling benefit (WOW)?
• How am I significantly different from others?
• How can I say this in an interesting way that causes others to want to know more?

It is worth the time to “craft” your U.S.P. This should be the springboard to your 30 or 60 second commercial. Try it out on others and watch their reaction. Ask for feedback. Tweak it until you’re happy with it, and then broadcast it everywhere – presentations, signatures, brochures, literature, website, voice mail, fax transmittals, invoices, news releases, packaging, everywhere!

I need for you to convince me (and convince me fast) to do business with you! A powerful, well-crafted U.S.P. can do just that!

Social Media gives you several unique opportunities.

• It manages and strengthens ongoing relationships
• Increases brand awareness
• Can improve customer perception and trust

Establishing Guidelines

Since social media allows your customers to give feedback, both negative and positive, having a Facebook page is also free advice on how to improve your business. Although you never want to delete valid posts or hide opinions, you can set guidelines for your followers to abide by.  These rules should be simple community regulations such as “no foul language”. Remember not to start a fight if someone breaks a rule, just remove the post. If you chose to establish guidelines, every person on your page must see them and agree to follow them.

Planning Your Page

Develop a Calendar around big events in your business and promote them on your Facebook page. If you find something isn’t working, it is important to adjust and optimize as you go along. Listen to what your followers are saying about your page and make changes to make their experience better. Complaints are really just free advice.

Creating a Mass Trend

There are several different ways to get a trend going on your Facebook page. The more interactive your posts are, the better. Here are some different post topics in order of the response they receive from customers, from least to most.

• Tips
• Open-Ended Questions
• Product Feature
• Coupons or Deals

If you can’t offer coupons or deals, another great way to create a trend is by motivating people to do something offline. Ask your followers to post a picture of something related to your business, or wear a certain color shirt. The more you motivate one type of offline action, like taking a photo, the more you will motivation other offline action, like buying your products and services.

Many business owners feel trapped in their own business. Their passion has left and been replaced by chains. What causes these feelings of bondage for business owners? Why do the cuffs keep getting tighter and tighter? Here are the five most common reasons business owners feel imprisoned by their business.

Technical Tendencies:
Many business owners are former technicians. They go from technician to entrepreneur without changing their actions. Skilled technicians and doers have a tendency to stay in their technical comfort zone. They continue performing the tasks of a technician not the tasks of a CEO. It’s not technical skill but leadership and strategic skill that allow a business to run smoothly.

Busyness:
Just because they’re doing something doesn’t mean they’re really accomplishing anything. Activity is not the same as accomplishment. Business owners often confuse busyness with business. Working harder will not yield results unless they start working smarter. Business owners start working more and expending more energy but with poor strategies all that hard work still leads to poor results.

Ineffective Leadership & Delegation:
Many business owners forgo leadership for doer-ship. They know how they want things to be done and as a result end up micro-managing and controlling everything. They are lone wolves, trusting no one but themselves. Instead of delegating tasks, they act like employees, not owners. They act like they have a job and not a business. Leadership skills allow owners to delegate and trust others which leads to more freedom and fewer headaches.

Inadequate or Missing Business Systems:
Business systems are essential to creating a business that runs efficiently. Many owners don’t know how to design a good system or re-engineer the one they already have. As a result, the policies and procedures that allow for a well-organized and smoothly running business are often not in place. This is what causes that feeling of being “out of control.”  Without developing and utilizing an effective business system, delegation and organization become incredibly difficult. These broken systems usually revolve around the owner, making them trapped in the owner-dependant business they have unintentionally created.

Growing Business Complexities:
As a business grows it inevitably becomes more complex and complicated. When the proper leadership skills and business systems are not present, these complexities can cause a great deal of anxiety. All businesses may experience some growing pains. The best solution for owners is to plan for growth and changing to accommodate the evolving nature of their business.

If you are feeling imprisoned by your business these five causes can hopefully give you an idea of how to begin unchaining yourself.  If you need help, out business coaching process can serve as a “get out of jail free card”. With proper coaching and support, you can gain greater leadership skill and build better systems. It’s possible to escape the prison of your business. All you have to do to start is be willing to change.

Ready to bust out of prison? If so, contact one of our business coaches today.

1. How can I serve more clients, more often, provide more value, and make more money?
2. How can I replicate what I am doing in 10 more cities without my being there?
3. How do I become the least important person to my daily operations?
4. What new vision, mindset, knowledge, skills, actions and habits must I acquire to earn 5 times my income or grow my business 5 times?
5. If my business burnt down to the ground and I wanted to start it back up, who/what would I retain or replicate…and who/what would I reject this time around?  Why am I not making such changes now?
6. If someone were to look at buying my business, what opportunities/strengths would excite them?  What potential dangers/threats would scare them?  What weaknesses would disappoint them?
7. If an investment group bought out my company today and were going to resell it in 2 years for substantial gains, what major things would they start to change immediately?  Why am I not making such changes now?
8. If I could change one thing about my business/career today that would yield substantial results, what would it be?   If I could change one thing about my personal life today that would yield substantial changes, what would it be?
9. If I had to fire myself and hire my replacement, what skill-sets would I insist upon and what would I set as his/her top 3 weekly priorities?   Then why wouldn’t I ask the same of myself now?
10. What company resources, assets, profit centers, processes, and people are underperforming or are we simply overlooking or underutilizing?
11. To help us focus our marketing, what group of customers do we want to be heroes to?

To learn more about Sid please visit: http://www.coachsidney.com.

Yesterday was a glorious day in San Antonio with a perfectly stunning blue sky, no wind, and the temperature at 72.  I met my client for lunch and we chose to dine outside.

I noticed the restaurant owner stopping at each table with a big smile and a thank you. In addition, I overheard him ask a few simple questions: is the food prepared to your liking, did the menu have enough variety without overwhelming your senses, and finally is there anything we can do to improve your experience.

When Drew—the owner— stopped by our table, we discovered that we grew up Brooklyn, NY and could speak at least five words in Yiddish!

How often do you stop by you client’s “table” and ask similar questions? How often do you just say thank you? The more we communicate to our client’s how much we care, and how committed we are to make their experience great, the more our client’s will care back.

Most clients do not leave us for money, but they do leave us for not caring, and for forgetting simple and random acts of kindness.

The simple things do matter.

RESOURCE
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt by Harvey Mackay
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty by Harvey Mackay
Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch
Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy
E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott
From the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern
Getting Everything You Can Out of Everything You’ve Got by Jay Abraham
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Go Givers by Bob Burg & John David Mann
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Gravitational Marketing by Jimmy Vee, Travis Miller, Joel Bauer
Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard
How to Make Your Business Run Without You by Susan Carter
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Jack – Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch
Lazy Person’s Guide to Success by Ernie Zelinski
Leadership is an Art by Max Depree
Life Strategies by Phillip McGraw
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish
Millionaire Mindset by Gerry Robert
Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss
Mindset by Carol Dweck
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
People Smart by Mel Silberman & Freda Hansburg
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy
QBQ! The Question Behind The Question by John G. Miller
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
The Power of Focus by Canfield/Hansen/Hewitt
Becoming a Strategic Business Owner by Dan Murphy
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith
Selling To Vito by Anthony Parinello

Glenn Smith

For today’s Growth Coach blog, we are fortunate to have Glenn Smith as a guest blogger. Glenn Smith is a Growth Coach Franchise Owner from the Houston/Sugar Land Texas area and is a highly regarded business coach, prolific blogger, an accomplished marketer, and has recently been recognized as “The 2011 Coach of the Year” by The Growth Coach System.

You can learn more about Glenn, his credentials and his coaching services at www.TheGrowthCoachhHouston.com.

Create a “Wow” Experience for your Customers

What differentiates us from our competitors usually has less to do with our products or services, and more to do with how we treat people! The best companies in the world get this and place a major emphasis on the customer experience.

I have come to appreciate and use what author Fred Reichheld calls The Ultimate Question. From extensive research Reichheld has concluded that most customer satisfaction surveys are mostly ineffective. He wisely advocates that we can know everything we need to know by simply asking our customers the “ultimate question.”

The ultimate question is quite simple. It is quick and easy to ask, and through research Reichheld and his team have created a scoring system called “The Net Promoter Score” (NPS.) The ultimate question is simply this, “On a scale of 0-10 (10 being high), how likely are you to recommend our product or services to your friends or colleagues?”

From research what we have learned is that if our customer gives us a “9” or “10,” they are a promoter. If they give us a “7” or “8,” they are neutral. If they give us a “6” or less, they are a detractor. The goal is to prevent “detractors” and to turn every customer into “promoters.” We do this by creating a “Wow” experience for our customers.

I use this tool all the time and it is amazing how helpful it is (and challenging.) But as a business coach and executive coach, I’m commited to delivering the most outstanding customer experience possible to my clients! How do we do this?

Now it is not enough to just satisfy your customers. We must find ways to exceed their expectations. This is what creates “Wow!” Numerous other research projects reveal common factors that contribute to “Wow.” They include:

1. How company employees engage and interact with prospects and customers – polite, courteous, positive, caring, and most of all being a good listener to understand what the customer needs.
2. Execution – identifying and offering the best solution to solve the customer’s need, then providing that solution with quality, speed and excellence.
3. Problem Recovery – resolve and fairly compensate the customer for any problems; companies should have a clear, simple problem resolution process, and the frontline staff must take responsibility to solve the problem in a positive and efficient manner.

Once I get my NPS from the client, I start looking for what we did right or what we need to do better. It almost always boils down to one of these 3 factors. I hope you will make a commitment today truly create a “Wow” experience for your customers!

Referrals from customers play a major role in the success of your business. They already have some faith and trust in the credibility of your business. Referrals are the prospects to really pay attention to. Are you? All it takes to start is a single question. Ask your satisfied customers if they know anyone who would benefit from your services. Here are some simple steps to help you focus more on how to seek out and obtain referrals.

Asking 

After you have finished providing services to your client, make a short follow-up call. Ask them if they received the value they expected and how satisfied they were with your business. If they were satisfied, feel free to go ahead and ask if they know anyone else who may be interested. Explain that referrals are important to the success of your business, but do not attempt to force them into it. There should be no pressure on your client.

Here are some additional ways to ask for a referral

• Customer feedback or satisfaction surveys
• Message on invoices
• Customer letters (add a PS at the end)
• Signature line for customer emails 
• Website

Maintaining Referrals

Once you’ve received a referral, don’t  stop there. Make sure you continue to build a relationship with your happy customers. Take time to thank and reward those who have referred new customers to you. Building a strong relationship with your referral sources means more referrals and greater success.

Here are a few different ways to show your appreciation.

• Cash rewards
• Gift  Cards
• Free Additional Services
• Thank You Cards

It doesn’t have to have a monetary value. Just demonstrating that you are thankful can be enough.

Go Beyond Customers.

Although customers have first-hand experience with you and your company, they are not the end of your resources. Who are the other advocates for your business? Family, friends, vendors, suppliers and strategic alliances all be good sources for referral. Educate and engage them as well.

Take the time to talk to any potential advocates about your services and what you offer to your customers. How do you help them and how can you help others? Explain the problems you can solve and why they should choose you.

Bill Hurston, The Growth Coach based inSt. Louis, held many different positions before becoming a coach, from Financial Analyst for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command to CPA. On June 2, 2011, he began coaching Darryl Carron, owner of an electrical contracting firm, founded in 2009. Over the next few months, Bill helped Darryl improve his business and improve his life.

When Bill first began coaching Darryl, his gross revenues were around $400K for 2010 and his small firm had only three employees. The most troubling part of Darryl’s business is the toll it took on his personal life. He received more than 100 phone calls a day. Most of the daily functions of his business rested solely on his shoulders, from electrical work to driving the company van. Darryl was so busy and overwhelmed by his business he hadn’t found time to take even a small vacation in years.

On June 2; however, Darryl resolved to hang up his tool belt and start acting like a CEO, not a technician. He began to understand that the key to business success is to work on your business not in it. Darryl is a master electrician with years of experience in his field so leaving the technical work to his employees was not an easy task, but he managed to do it. By delegating and creating systems, Darryl’s business is now booming.

Darryl’s revenues for 2011 more than doubled. For 2012, he predicts they could double again and reach $2 million dollars. The small firm has grown from three employees to 21 and Darryl expects that number to keep climbing over the next year. The number of phone calls he receives is down to 25 a day or less, saving him between 500-700 hours a year of precious time and greatly reducing the clutter in his life. As a result, Darryl was confident enough in the self-sufficiency of his business to take not just one, but three small vacations since June.

These are just some of the highlights of the great things that have happened in Darryl’s life and business since Darryl began experiencing the Growth Coach process he became able to remove himself from the equation. He began to take control of his business instead of letting it control him. By hanging up his tool belt, he mastered the position of CEO. Every business owner faces the difficult task of delegating the daily operations of their business to others, but it is necessary to obtain greater business success. Hang up your tool belt today and begin the journey from technician to CEO.