More than a Few Words

You think you know everything about sales. You've heard all the presentations and everybody talks about pain and objections. Well, my guest Chandler Walker thinks that might be the wrong way to approach a sales.  He believes the goal isn't just to stab at a prospect to find the pain.  Instead, when you become a cognitive listener you are able to identify the pain and understand where the pain exists.  Using that information you must help the prospect look not just short term, fixing the pain, but long term at the underlying issues which prevent them from being successful. 

I love a good networking event. but I know not everybody loves that process.  They're often confused and frustrated with how to start the conversation and where to go after they've opened it.  Laura Templeton suggests you start by ditching the pitch mentality. Start by crafting a short "I help" statement.  So when someone asks what you do, you an say I help . . .  That makes the conversation about your customers not you.  The next trick is to have a great set of questions you can use to get the other person talking.  

Every parent knows, It takes a village to raise a child. Each of the adults in the child’s life, relatives, teachers, coaches, brings a different perspective. The same is true for your business. No matter how smart you are or how much you know about your business, there are gaps in your skill-set. Your business village should be filled with smart, talented subject matter experts to help you fill in the gaps. If you are running a small business your village won't be comprised of employees, but an advisory board comprised of professionals, who provide information and guidance in their areas of expertise.  Who Do You Need in Your Business Village? (On your advisory board)  Your Attorney Your attorney’s primary objective is to protect you and your business from risk. As you start you business your attorney can advise you on the right structure for your business and submit appropriate state and federal documents. As you business grows turn to your attorney for a range of legal documents such as contracts, non-disclosure agreements, and non-compete agreements with employees. An attorney who is familiar with your business makes the process of creating new documents much more efficient because you won’t have to start each review by explaining what your business is about.   Your Accountant There are bookkeepers, financial accountants and tax accountants. Which do you need? Well that depends on your comfort level with the numbers of your business. A bookkeeper keeps your day to day operations on track, paying bills and invoicing clients. A financial accountant is someone who can provide guidance not just bookkeeping assistance. Your accountant should prepare financial reports on a monthly basis and review key numbers with you. Your accountant should be able to help you predict if you have enough cash to meet future obligations and growth goals. A tax accountant does more than just prepare your tax returns, understanding your business, he/she can help you make decisions about when to invest, when to pull back, and how to avoid paying more than you should in taxes each year.  Your Banker The worst time to establish a banking relationship is when you need money. As you start your business get to know your local business banker. He/she will advise you on the types of accounts you will need, develop a cash management strategy, and secure funding when you need it. Your Financial Planner For many small business owners, the business is your retirement plan. The question is will this be enough? Don’t guess. A good financial planner will look at both your personal and business finances to make sure you have what you need when you are ready to walk away from the business. Your IT and Marketing Support Sure, you can manage your computers and software on your own. You can post content on social media and call it marketing, but just like every other element of your business, you need to stop and ask yourself, should you? Is this the best use of your time, and do you really have the expertise to manage those roles in house. If not, it is time to add these professionals to your team. In both cases, the industry is changing rapidly. You need people on your advisory board who understand both the trends and your business objectives. Lean on them to make the right suggestions about where and when to invest so you can focus on growing your business.  Build Your Business Village Sure you may own your own business, but you don’t have to do it all on your own. Start building your village today. Don’t try to do it all at once. Find someone in one of these categories and enlist their aid in filling the other slots on your advisory board.

Think you know how Google works?  Guest, Kyle Roof explains your assumptions may not be right.  For example, many people think Google reads a web page as a human would.  Google is not able to do that, it isn't pulling meaning from your content.  It is an algorithm  looking at your content not from an editorial quality perspective, but a mathematical one looking to see if you check off the boxes in the formula.  Start with does your page include the keyword or phrase.  Google will look for contextual terms terms that provide context and meaning to understand what this page is about. In addition to the phrase, Google is looking at very specific sections on the page for those important terms and how many times you are using them in those sections. The sections include the title, meta descriptions and URL.      About Kyle Roof Kyle is responsible for the development and implementation of all SEO techniques used by the SEO agency High Voltage SEO and the SEO tool PageOptimizer Pro. Kyle is also the co-founder of Internet Marketing Gold, a global community of 3000+ SEO professionals who test and prove cutting edge SEO techniques.  Kyle’s SEO techniques and discoveries are followed by many SEO professionals and business leaders, he has been featured in many respected publications and is a regular speaker on SEO and SEO testing at conferences throughout the world.  

I bet you didn't know that you're sitting on a gold mine. but according to my guest Mary Henderson, you are. As human beings. we experiences built over a lifetime, and those experiences are currency.   This is particularly true of former corporate executives who are exploring entrepreneurship.  The skills you build over your career   can be worth millions if you can systemize your knowledge, wisdom and skill set, transforming that into a solution   Too often, however these would-be entrepreneurs make the mistake of starting with the hunt for customers when they should be working through a four part process  of defining their brand, their process, creating digital assets and then their website and sales tools.    About Mary  Mary is an internationally recognized Personal Branding & Online Business Specialist. Mary helps Service Industry Experts systemize, digitalize and commercialize their knowledge, wisdom and skills into a scalable & profitable online business and a brand so they become an authority in their niche or industry.

 Words have power to move, motivate, inspire, frightened and cheer, what you say and how you say it can have a strong impact on another person. Some words, called power words have more impact than others. These words have strong meaning, which can trigger a psychological or an emotional response. They're persuasive, pushing people to action. Using these power words in your web copy, email communication, social media, will grab the attention or your reader and move them to action. There are three kinds of power words seductive, emotional, and sensory, seductive, emotional and sensory. Seductive words actually override logical reasoning and compel people to take action. Words like new, free, how to, and because seduce people to action.  Emotional power words, tap into emotions that drive people to action. Fear, jealousy, curiosity, joy, surprise and anger are just some of the emotions you can tap into as you write your headlines. The final category are the sensory power words.  These words paint a picture in your mind of how we experience the world. Engage the eyes with words related to color, shape or appearance or tease the sense of touch as you describe textures. Words like gloomy, dazzling, bright, gritty, creepy, or slimy, all create sensory pictures in the mind of your audience. Want to experiment with power words?  - Grab a copy of our Power Words Workbook and put the power of words, to work for you! 

Whether you're trying to hire a new person, work with an agency or close a sale, the very first step is really figuring out if you're sitting across the table from the right person. The problem is that people don't come with scorecards telling you exactly who they are and whether or not they're a good fit, or do they?  Social engineer, Benjamin Bressington says there is a scorecard, if you look for it.  In this episode, he boils down people into four  main types, each with a set of communication patterns that give you insight into how they think. Listen to this conversation to understand if you are an Eagle, Dove, Peacock or owl.   

What if you could improve the amount of traffic that came to your website, the amount of conversions and the lifetime value of  customers by 26% each?  My guest Michael Buzinski developed the Rule of 26  to help busy business owners understand we do not have to dive into the complexities of digital marketing to get revenue from our websites. He believes many business owners think of their website as an expense and not a revenue generating tool. To help change their perspective, he shows them how to double the revenue coming from your website  by focusing on just three objectives; web traffic, conversion rate and lifetime value of customers coming from your website. About Michael Buzinski Michael Buzinski is a lifelong entrepreneur, digital marketing thought leader, and best-selling author. Dubbed a “visionary marketer” by the American Marketing Association, Michael’s sole mission is to  reduce the prevalence of entrepreneurial poverty in the US.Buzz, as most call him, has simplified digital marketing success with the Rule of 26 to help entrepreneurs avoid the time drain and frustration of managing profitable digital marketing campaigns.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all just got along. That might seem like a good idea but it really isn't. You can't eliminate conflict completely. and you shouldn't. Well-managed conflict actually cultivates discussions and create opportunities to uncover new and innovative solutions. Accept conflict as a natural part of your relationship with employees and with all of the people in your life. It isn't necessarily good or bad.  It can be very healthy if the conflict occurs when people have different ideas on how to solve a problem and they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas. The conflict resolution process leads to open and honest conversations often about more than just the issue on the table. It can be messy and it might take time to work through some of the conflicts but the end result is going to be a great solution.  

All work and no play makes Jack or Jill very dull.  As a business owner you work really hard but you also need to find ways to get away and take a vacation.  Guest Carol Clegg shared great vacation preparation tips from working ahead, to finding co-working spaces along the way to get things done.   You have to prioritize and focus on those things which have to get done to keep your business.  But you may not have to be the person to do the work.    About Carol Clegg Carol Clegg, is the owner of Classic Exec Marketing, a marketing consultant and a goal achievement coach supporting global women entrepreneurs in midlife to get organized, streamline their strategies and use time-saving tools to optimize the things in your business that YOU want.