Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Monsoon-Making Rain in the Southwest: Learning to sell ice to eskimos
The Monsoon-Making Rain in the Southwest: Learning to sell ice to eskimos: "Have you ever wondered why two people with equal credentials do not have equal success at business development? Why does it seem that some..."
Learning to sell ice to eskimos
Have you ever wondered why two people with equal credentials do not have equal success at business development? Why does it seem that some people always land on their feet and can truly sell ice to an Eskimo while others, despite strong technical skills, always seem to catch a bad break and never close the deal? If you look closely at the person who is always successful at developing new business you will find two key qualities: a positive attitude/expectation and persistence.
Let’s start with positive attitudes. Positive attitudes are contagious. People are drawn to high energy, high vibration people. We have all had the experience of talking to someone who is such a drag they actually physically drain us of our energy. Well the converse is also true. Positive expectation or positive attitudes actually raise our physical vibrations therefore attracting others to us. People with a positive attitude often fill other people up with their energy leaving the other person feeling better than when the high-energy person found them. If you are trying to find new clients, it helps if they want to be around you. Rainmakers are conscious of their attitudes and they purposefully choose a positive attitude regardless of external factors.
In addition to positive attitudes being contagious, a positive attitude actually expands the way you view a situation. The person with the positive attitude often sees the glimmer of hope left in a sale that the person with the negative attitude gave up on months ago. This means the positive person will stay engaged when everyone else gives up ultimately leaving the positive person with no competition. A positive attitude is a state of mind that anyone can possess. It is well worth developing and strengthening.
The second key characteristic of all good rainmakers is persistence. It takes time to build relationships. It takes time to get your name out in the public arena. Consequently, it takes time to build a steady and sufficient pipeline of new work. The successful person understands this and continues to do the right things, continues to take the right actions, and relies on their optimism to sustain their efforts until the results physically manifest. I meet many professionals that have fantastic skills but they apply these skills to their business development efforts in a spasmodic way. Well-guess what they tend to get spasmodic results. If you really want to become a rainmaker, you must be persistent. You must continue to work your business development plan in spite of big wins or big losses.
As a former sales person, I learned many years the power of being persistent. My best clients often started as the ones who would not take my meetings. These are the clients that I had to reach through shared connections, education events, and creative determination. I had to reach them by continuing to show up and add value even when I knew the reward for the activity was not going to be immediate. Like a positive attitude, persistence allows you to change the game and see a broader perspective. Successful people overtake the unsuccessful because they continue the quest despite today’s scorecard.
The next time your are tempted to short cut your business development efforts, consider the big picture. Come up with a metric- 3 meetings a week, 10 calls a day, 5 new client lunches a month-anything. Choose a metric and stick with it. Develop a positive attitude and rely on it when you cannot see the obvious results of your efforts. It may take some time to see the results but eventually if you keep your attitude positive and persist in your efforts, YOU will be the person that is selling ice to an Eskimo.
About Jonelle- Jonelle Vold is a business coach that is passionate about your success. A mother of twins, former Assistant Dean at a tier-one law school, attorney, and seasoned sales professional, Jonelle understands the challenges of high-level professionals. Her coaching philosophy is every person has the ability to be a rainmaker by cracking their own personal code and doing business with intention. You can reach Jonelle at jonelle@jonellevold.com, 520-225-9053, or www.jonellevold.com
Monday, April 18, 2011
Rainmaker secret- the power of congruence
Have you ever had one of those days where a particular topic or theme just kept showing up? For me, last week was one of those weeks! I was at an event a few nights ago and had the opportunity to hear the dynamic Annie Groth speak. Her speech was titled, “A Call to Action-What is Yours.” Warning side note- if you haven’t heard Annie-you should! She will get you thinking! So, I am at this event and Annie is talking about a Call to Action and she says, “It is not until your heart and your head are congruent that you will begin to take action.” As I thought about Annie’s words, I was having a flashback to the coaching class I taught earlier that day. In the class, we were discussing developing business and truly understanding our target markets including their urgent needs and compelling desires. During class we discussed that when your unique offering is in perfect congruence with your target markets’ urgent needs and compelling desires you will land the business.
The two events got me thinking about why congruence is such an important part of attracting new business. I think Annie said it best- when your head and your heart match, it is easy to take action. Thus, in the business world to attract more business, we must make it easy for our clients to take action (i.e. hire us) by making sure our business development approach aligns with our customers’ heads and hearts. If what you are selling doesn’t match the needs of your customer, you won’t get very far. If your marketing message doesn’t align with what you actually do for your client- you and your client will experience frustration. It is not until you have congruence both internally- knowing who you are and what skills and services you uniquely offer and externally-creating branding and marketing that aligns your offering with your clients’ urgent needs and compelling desires that you will really start to see momentum.
If you are struggling to attract clients or close deals-take a hard look at your approach. Are you efforts in congruence with your clients? Are you actually talking to your ideal client? Do you know your clients’ urgent needs and compelling desires? If not-there is no possible way you are in congruence. Without congruence-you will have to work twice as hard for half the results. If you don’t know who your ideal client is, you cannot possibly know what his/her needs are. As you are pitching business, your prospective clients will feel your incongruence and your business development efforts will stagnate. If you want the business, your efforts and your offering must align with your clients’ needs. I see a lot of people out in the world who know oodles about their own profession, industry, & product. They can tell you anything you might possible want to know about their service but have no clue about what truly motivates their client. Keep in mind-I am not talking about the transactional sales people who received their sales training at the local used car lot. I am talking about professionals (lawyers, CPAs, business owners). In fact, the more complex the person’s offering (Yes-commercial litigators, I am talking to you!) the less likely the person has taken the time to really understand why their clients engage them and not the person next door.
If you would like more clients- you must understand why your current clients hired you (and not the person next door), what it is that you uniquely do for your clients, and who your ideal future client is? I know, I know-in today’s economy, an ideal client is simply one that will pay. I get it; the last few years have been tough. It is fine to simply want more clients that can afford to pay you but if you don’t understand how to attract these clients it is as if you are fishing without any bait on your hook. If you are concerned about paying clients, do you have any remaining clients that still pay full fees? If so-why? I am going to guess that if you take the time to analyze your remaining full fee clients, you will discover that your unique skill set aligns perfectly with their unique needs. Viola-congruence! If I am correct (and I know I am) can you replicate the congruence you have created with these clients for additional clients?
The tricky part about congruence is that you cannot fake it. There is something unique about the way you conduct yourself and run your business. This uniqueness is exactly what certain prospective clients are looking for- but not all. If you try to tweak your message to align with the clients who don’t want or need what you uniquely offer, you will never reach congruence. At some point either during the engagement or during the courtship the mismatch will be discovered. You might land the client but will they pay your bill? More than likely, you won’t actually land them instead you will spend precious time courting them only to discover they hire someone else. Save yourself the time and expense of trying to court the wrong client. Be choosy about who your clients are. If you know what you uniquely do and who your ideal client is- you will discover an abundance of future ideal clients. Once you do, learn as much as you can about these ideal clients. Know their industry, learn what keeps them up at night, and figure out their urgent needs and compelling desires. Finally, put it all together in your marketing message and take it to the streets. Follow Annie’s advice, create congruence-align your head and your heart and make it easy for your customers to take action!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The Power of Playing to Win
This April fool’s day I decided to skip the Jell-O in the showerhead, clock set one hour ahead, and the many other notorious tricks and instead try to “trick” my business. Perhaps trick is the wrong word but given that April Fool’s Day inspired my new activity, I will go with it. So, here is the premise- I had a good March. My business, my home, and my life are all in good shape. But when I really sit back and look at what could have been in March, I realized that I was settling for good when I could have had GREAT. I started thinking, what if for one month I really played full out? What would happen if I took the chicken exit off the table for an entire month? What could I accomplish? After some mental aerobics about how good was maybe good enough and that knocking in my heart that knows good is never enough when great is possible, I decided to go for it! And so, my April Fool’s Day trick was determined: Play to win all month, play big, & leave it all out there. At the end of April, there will be zero regrets about what could have been.
It sounds so basic-right? And it is. But I see it at work every day. I hear it from my coaching clients. I see it in myself. I didn’t make the phone calls to the prospective clients because I was too busy. I decided not to take on that project because the risk was too high, I am too busy to pursue that opportunity, I cannot start my own business now the economy is bad, I don’t have the necessary skills, and on and on and on. Sometimes these excuses are valid but often they are just a long way of saying, no thanks-I don’t want to play that big. I feel pretty safe right where I am.
Many of us have been playing not too lose for so long that we have forgotten that the game is really about winning. We fall into our routines, our comfort zones, our patterns and we do not even realize that when we are in these places we are stagnating. Our lizard brains, designed to keep us safe, keeps pulling us away from the edge-away from the opportunity to hit a home run in an effort to protect us from the strike out. For me the pattern was unproductive busyness. I was allowing myself to fill my day with unproductive activity so that I didn’t have the time to pursue the harder task. To any outsider, my calendar would look full but when I really look at what I was accomplishing, I knew the activities were keeping me in motion but not moving forward. We all have patterns we fall into. My patterns were holding me back. What about you?
Each and every one of us is wired different. I don’t know where you are playing it safe. But if you are like 99% of the world- you are. My challenge to you is to move the part of your brain that wants to play it safe aside, and to really spend some time thinking about what would happen if you started playing to win. I am not even saying to go try it, although that would be spectacular! I am just saying, move your lizard brain out of the way and start to think about what COULD happen. Is there a knocking at your heart that you have been avoiding answering? Are you settling for good when great is one more phone call away? Are you getting up every day and heading to a job you hate because it provides a steady paycheck? Are you allowing yourself to be anonymous about some condition you object to because the risk of being heard is too scary? Are you beating yourself up with Mommy guilt instead of embracing the power of being a working Mom? Whatever it is for you-what would it be like if you shoved all of the fear aside and just went for it? Revel in the thought-enjoy the possibility! Allow your mind to enjoy all that is possible for you!
Maybe a few of you will become so excited about the possibility of playing to win that you will move to the next step. And, many of you will not. That is OK. Sometimes we have to go there in the mind many many times before we are ready to go there in the flesh. I recently saw a great video about leadership development that under scored the importance of showing up and playing big. As you prepare to consider the possibilities- maybe this video will help you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6F97jRnAkc
As for me, I am tired of good. I am ready for GREAT! April is MY MONTH! I am not shrinking for anyone. I am playing to win! Who wants to join me?
About Jonelle- Jonelle Vold is a business coach passionate about success. A mother of twins, former Assistant Dean at a tier-one law school, attorney, and seasoned sales professional, Jonelle understands the challenges of high-level professionals. Her coaching philosophy is every person has the ability to achieve greatness by cracking their own personal codes and living with intention. You can reach Jonelle at jonelle@jonellevold.com, 520-225-9053, or www.jonellevold.com
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