How to create a winning guarantee
Had a number of comments on “Would you give this guarantee?” Readers wondering how they could give a guarantee when they had no control over how their clients used the product or [...]
Would you give this guarantee?
Fear is one of the greatest barriers to a sale. Will I get what was promised? Will it work? What will my family, friends, co-workers, bosses think? Will the supplier stand by [...]
Business lessons from the Winter Games
Been watching a fair bit of the Winter Olympics. Every competitor has a strategy for winning. They scout out the lie of the course. Complete practice runs to acclimatise to the local [...]
How can you differentiate yourself in a commoditised market?
Received this from Madison Liston from Sleepy’s The Mattress Experts. It’s a great example of selling the result not the process. “In the mattress industry products are all fairly similar with slight [...]
Why leads alone aren’t the answer
I’m getting dozens of emails promoting the next best lead generation flavour of the month. This week it’s LinkedIn. Last week it was Facebook. Who knows what it’ll be next week. Sure, [...]
Do you have business posture?
Business posture means you decide who you want to work with. And who to reject. Not out of arrogance, but simply because you can’t add value and help them. We covered this [...]
Sticking to your knitting
Had to reject some potential business recently. We would done this type of work in the past, but now his request didn’t fit with our service offerings. One of the major signs [...]
When choice can cripple
We all want choices. But if you’re an options person (see this article) too much choice can be crippling. You have 15 ways to market your business. Ideas flow. But you can’t [...]
The Entrepreneur’s curse…
One of the major keys to success is behavioural flexibility. Your ability to move from big ideas, sort through options all the way down to nitty gritty implementation details. Most of us [...]
Taking your eye off the ball
A colleague noticed that every time they had an addition to the family, and he spent time away from active lead generation, 7 to 9 months later there’d be a major lull in [...]
To brand or not to brand
What does “The independent financial advisor” conjure in your mind? I would hazard a guess you’d expect their advice to be completely unbiased and in their clients’ best interest as they don’t [...]
How we fool ourselves
Every Friday we’ll be sending you a bite sized practical tip designed to help you grow your business. This week… What are you measuring? There’s an old saying, “What gets measured gets [...]
When you absolutely, positively have to cut through…
Imagine going to your mailbox and finding a heavy red padded envelope personally addressed to you. You’re curious, rip it open and find a heavy Gold Bar. Intrigued, you read the covering [...]
Who you gonna call?
“Who you gonna call?” If it’s to get more clients, it’s not Ghostbusters! Sell high ticket professional services? We’d all love prospects to just call us and buy. But the reality is [...]
3 big rocks for business growth
Growing your business means bringing in new clients while servicing the ones you’ve got. Coming up with new products and services and possibly branching out into new markets. Do all this and [...]
The power of believing you can improve (TED)
How to you cope with challenge and difficulty? If you fail at something do you curl up into a ball, thinking “I’m nothing or a failure?” Or do you think, “Not yet… [...]
How we’re taught to fear!
It’s striking that you can put a bunch of young kids from different backgrounds into a room and they’ll find ways to happily play whether they speak the same language or not. [...]
How to invoke interest from your ideal prospect
Got a great product or service? Know exactly who you need to target? But are having trouble getting through? We live in a world of information overload. Constant bombardment of emails, Texts, [...]
An escape from poverty (TED)
As children we all have dreams. What we’d like to be and do when we grow up. Doesn’t matter whether we come from a first world country or a slum in Nairobi [...]
Does the prospect of “selling” make you feel ill?
“The prospect of me selling is making me feel ill!” It’s surprising how often I hear this in different forms. Selling! It’s such a loaded word. And it’s surprising how many people [...]
Want to innovate? Break the rules… (TED)
Almost all innovation be it business, science or medicine comes from outside our narrow specialisation. Fleming who discovered penicillin by accident and observation as did Jenner who discovered milkmaids who’d had cowpox [...]
Why the golden rule is wrong!
I’m sure you’ve heard of the “Golden Rule” – Treat people the way you want to be treated. But I think whoever came up with this got it wrong. A better rule [...]
My 5 lives as an artist (TED)
Raghava KK has been drawing cartoons from the age of 5. In this TED talk he charts his journey through 5 phases of his artistic career. It’s different, and well worth watching. [...]
The Tortoise and the Hare
The crowd was hushed. The anticipation was palpable in the air. The Hare had finally convinced the Tortoise to race him in the national cross country carnival. The starter’s gun went bang. [...]
The power of cartoons
Political Cartoons have a unique way of pointing out the absurd. Religious cartoons have caused widespread mayhem and deaths. Others have been used as weapons against the other side. Cartoons are a [...]
How to create the ideal team
No matter what your organisation produces, be it a product or service, you have to continually innovate or someone else will disrupt you! As the world moves ever faster, it is your [...]
Coral Reefs – An amazing story
Did you know economists value the world’s coral reefs in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year? Coral reefs aren’t valuable just for their tourist attraction. Besides providing protection from storm [...]
How to stop your prospects’ eyes glazing over
If a real prospect came across your website could they immediately figure out what you are about? Dig deeper, contact you? Or will they simply bounce away? Or... You’re at a networking [...]
What keeps us happy and healthy? (TED – Video)
What keeps us happy and healthy as we go through life? If you think it's fame and money, you're not alone – but, according to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, you're mistaken. The Harvard [...]
Why using the right marketing media is critical…
Conceptually all marketing can be broken down into a simple formula. Market, Message, Media match. i.e. You find a market which wants what you provide. You create a congruent marketing message that [...]
Could you be the next cyber crime victim? (TED)
Identity theft and cybercrime is pretty pervasive. And it’ll only get worse. How do you pick up a malicious online virus, the kind of malware that snoops on your data and taps [...]
Is “I couldn’t do that” holding you back?
The old Abbot is performing a tea ceremony with the young novitiate. The Abbot pours the tea until the cup overflows and continues to do so. Novitiate exclaims, “But Abbot, the cup [...]
Healing through diet (TED – Video)
Most people when asked will say they want to live healthy lives. But they don’t take consistent steps to achieving this. The most obvious being diet. Not dieting, but diet. In this [...]
Want to attract more clients? Talk about their […] not your [….]
Google gets searched over 5.5 Billion times per day! And every search is typed in by a person with an itch they want to scratch. i.e. They have a problem they want [...]
Could a marathon be an instrument for peace? (TED)
Could a marathon bring a divided nation together, even if only for one day? Lebanon has been racked by civil war and political instability for decades. So how do you introduce the [...]
Why the ball is always in your court
How many times have you been to a business event where you’ve met someone who expresses interest in what you do and exchange cards. You walk away thinking, “Here’s a live one”. [...]
The art of stillness (TED)
In an increasingly frenetic world, the need to take time out and just be still has never been greater. We’re constantly bombarded with “stuff” that “demands” our attention. But we never get [...]
Why you must take the lead in selling
To be an effective salesperson you must take the lead. Your job is to provide the framework and structure, the prospect provides the content (what’s going on in their world). While rapport [...]
Could chasing happiness make you unhappier?
Ask most people what they want in life and they’ll probably say “happiness”. But is being happy really all there is and will it fulfil you? In this TED talk Emily Eshfahani [...]
Selling B2B? Who has the most to win or lose?
Sell high value B2B products or services? You have to figure out 3 things precisely. Who has the most to gain or lose? In terms of both the organisation and themselves personally. [...]