Do You Have a Game Plan?

Doing private as well as volunteer advisory work for SCORE, I’ve had numerous inquiries for help on the development of an effective business plan. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to the importance, purpose, value and application in having a well thought out plan of action for moving your business forward.

·         One of the keys to putting together a well conceived plan is to make it yours. I have read a couple of thousand plans over the years and the majority are geared towards impressing service providers such as a bank, leasing companies, etc…

·         Many of those providers have read hundreds of plans and will be the first to tell you that trying to impress them with an inaccurate game plan is a mistake. This is especially true when it comes to the numbers and financial projections.

I will be concentrating on game/business plans over the next few months. Always remember it needs to be a plan that is a working document to guide you towards business growth.

The Missing Link in a Game Plan

          A situation that continuously reoccurs in the growth plan for an emerging business is the lack of a well thought out marketing and sales process. Many Entrepreneurs have a vast amount of product knowledge and a pretty good understanding of the industry that they are going to represent. Many times I find that the weaknesses are taking it to a market place and positioning a company to be competitive in the respective market. This seems to be the largest challenge. Keep in mind that until someone sells something there is nothing for anyone to do. I talked with a family owned company the other day in which there are four principles. Three of them have a considerable amount of industry knowledge but no one in the firm wants to tackle the marketing and sales. There needs to be a strong presence in the sales and marketing field in order to for a company to be successful.

Three Keys to Business Success

Over the past twenty plus years as a business adviser and as a mentor for SCORE, I have had the privilege at looking at many game plans as well as working with aspiring entrepreneurs. I have seen a little bit of everything when it comes to success and helping encourage other entrepreneurs as well as providing essential resources.

Let’s talk about the reality of starting your own business. We hear about the failure rate, which is about 85 percent within the first five years. That does not include mergers, acquisitions, etc, which adds to a more positive perspective. The reasons for failure are many, so let’s bullet a few of the key factors that keep people from attaining their goals and objectives. For the next couple of months I will be adding some case studies of those that have succeeded as well as those that have failed.

·         Is the product or service on the front of the wave? Which simply means are you starting a concept that has built in staying power?

·         Proper Funding – This is the biggie, 80 percent of small businesses are simply under-capitalized. Rule of thumb is to double the amount of money that you think you need as well as the length of time in which you expect it to take.

·         Effective Decision Making – Do you have a well thought out game plan that is do-able? Good decision making is built around the ability to do your due-diligence. You need to look at the positives as well as the negatives. The majority of small business entrepreneurs have the inspiration but they sometimes lack the resources and ability to make their venture a reality.

In the future I will be sharing with you some case studies on why some businesses succeed and why others fail. 

System Selling - Networking

         A few weeks back I was at a networking event, in which a lot of pleasant professional folks that understand the concept of networking were present. Towards the end of the event a young man approached me and aggressively introduced himself. He immediately began talking about himself for about ten or twelve minutes, while failing to inquire my name or what I did for a living. I’m sure my face was a bit flushed by this point. Afterwards he then asked for my business card, I told him that I preferred to not exchange cards. I asked him if he knew who I was or what I did for a living; he sheepishly said he did not. I took a couple of minutes to share with him that what he was doing was severe presenting, which highly annoys people. I could see that when he walked away he was a bit red faced, but I was hoping a valuable lesson was taking place at that moment. When networking, encourage the other person to interface with you. If you discover a possible connection, set up a time to meet and find more out about your respective businesses and how you may complement each other. 

Connecting, Disconnecting

Selling System

            A good system of selling is conceptual in nature. The flow dialogue or interchange between the prospect and the sales person will be determined in the interviewing phase. As a sales professional, our responsibility is to discover if what we bring to the equation is a good match in solving the prospects issues or problems. It either is, or it isn’t. If not, it is perfectly ok to move on. If on the other hand there appears the possibility of the potential fit, we then must decide what we are going to do next. Simply stated, after going through this phase you are either going to stay connected or disconnect. They are both a win-win for all involved. Always remember, people don’t want to be sold, they want to buy for their reasons. You are at your best when you create a healthy buying environment.

Thanks for reading. We will posting our blogs every two weeks, along with our sales tip of week which will be every Tuesday. Sign up today at http://high-performancesales.com/

Presentation

           Presentation is a reality in systems selling but timing is everything. Like I told a client a few weeks ago, why would you want to present anything other than a short overview or value positioning statement to explain why you are here?

            Your job in the short term is to be in the discovery mode. That way you can better determine if you are going to need to extend your visit by determining if the product or service you are representing is a problem solver for your prospective client. First things first, you need to come to an understanding that it is time to inform or present based on whether or not the service  is representative of the cost. Simply said, as a consumer you want the value of the service in which you’ve paid, to exceed your expectations. You want the consumer to walk away knowing “that was a good purchase”. Once again it is important to create a win - win situation. I’m not interested in being a beta tester for anyone, I want my product to work flawlessly as it was advertised and I bet you do too.

Visit http://high-performancesales.com/ to sign up for my Sales tip of the week to learn more information 

Developing an Effective Selling System

Many of our sales tip readers are consistently asking for the answers to developing an effective selling system. First let me restate the issue that people are not looking to be sold. Our job as sales professionals is to discover if a problem exists and whether or not our product or service can solve it. If not, it is ok to move on. If it is not a good match, please take the time to give your prospect advice on what you would do if you were confronted by a similar issue. Selling something to someone that isn’t a good fit is the reason people have such a negative attitude about sales people. Sales is not about earning a commission, making quota, etc. I think you have the idea. If we create a buying environment that gives birth to a win-win purchase, at the end you can probably count on such things as referrals and positive name recognition.  One time sales that have failed to solve their problem will lead to them becoming a former client and shorten your career. Simply said, do not compromise your integrity for short term rewards. Go for the win-win and you will enjoy the long term positive results.

Hope you have enjoyed the blog! However, for the foreseeable future we are going to a blog every other week.