Category Archives: Service

Sharpen Your Focus

Greatness doesn’t start with a market opportunity; it starts with a problem that needs solving. The opportunity comes from marketing the solution.

-Simon Sinek

One of the things I know for sure is that business success is not built on an entrepreneurs desire to make money first and foremost. It is built on the entrepreneurs’ desire to make a difference by providing services that offer a solution to a problem or pain point that their intended client has. This desire to make a difference cannot be artificially created or conjured by the business. It has to be real, authentic, transparent, and easy to detect.

You know that slimy feeling you get when someone is pitching a program or service that has been developed and marketed by someone who really doesn’t give a rat’s behind about the potential client’s problem but is acting as if they really care. You can spot it a mile away and my guess is that you quickly delete the marketing pitch. I know I do that and I would bet you do too.

By your spending the time to know your “one” person who represents your target market, you definitely get to know where the target client has pain and how they talk and think about it. Also you have created a unique solution for alleviating that pain. And you believe that your solution will bring them relief.

Your challenge is to design a marketing program (marketing mix) utilizing the 4 “P”s: product, price, placement and promotion. One of the most effective ways to get ideas for an effective design is to have a series of focus groups work with you in creating the marketing program. A focus group is defined by Wikipedia as “…a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members.”

Utilizing focus groups may sound a little intimidating but actually it doesn’t have to be. It can be as informal as getting your friends and acquaintances together for pizza and asking them questions about your ideas for a marketing program. Or if you like, you can download an excellent PDF guide for running focus groups, prepared by Elliot and Associates: How to Conduct a Focus Group (control click to download the document ).

For impatient entrepreneurs who just want to get on with it and not do this research, I totally get what you thinking. To you it might seem like getting ready to get ready which indeed is a time waster. However, this type of research on your part will give you more opportunities to offer your solution to your target market. After all, that is why you are in business—isn’t it?

The Key To Business Success…It’s Not What You Think

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We have been looking at what actions and ways of being make a business a success. There are many trim tabs a business owner can do which are administrative and mechanical such as using a calendar for marketing events, hiring a virtual assistant, and having a system for accurate bookkeeping. These items are important and help to develop a solid foundation for your business, but it takes something more than just the administrative and mechanical components; there is something greater that you, the business owner, must bring to the party. What I am talking about is your ability to keep your word. This is one of the greatest assets your business can have.

Surely you have noticed that when a powerful person says that something will happen, it usually happens—and it’s not a function of luck, or how they dress, or how loud they say it.

Let’s dive into that for a moment. I say keeping your word makes you powerful. But why? Because the way people listen to what you say depends upon the reputation that you have for keeping your word. Simply put, people are much more likely to cooperate, collaborate, work with, and do things for—in a real sense, go out on a limb for—people who keep their word. Over time, your keeping your word makes what you say actually mean something in the world—it gives your words power.

The opposite of keeping your word costs you business and sales. Here is an example of what I am talking about. The sky lights in my house are old and cracked. We need to replace them before our rainy season begins. There are a variety of window and glass replacement businesses in our town. There seems to be a universal agreement about who NOT to use. And, that agreement is predicated not on their businesses’ skills or on their knowing how to do the work. Nope, the agreement is about who keeps their word. One thing that stood out for me as I researched who to hire is that what people said is don’t hire them because they don’t show up when they say they will. What they did say is oh, the company is very good in window replacement BUT . . .

Word keeping is the gold standard for most people when they are deciding who to hire, what services to use, and most people will pay a premium for word keeping. It boils down to this—people who keep their word have more business. No one is in business to provide lousy service, however, many people acquire a reputation for providing lousy service because of the missing factor in their business—they don’t keep their word.

You may want to look at your business and see what areas you are strong in and measure the strength of those areas against word keeping. I bet you will find it is those areas that your word keeping is the strongest. Tell me where I am wrong.

Image courtesy of FreePhotos.com

Call Me…

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Like most of us I like hearing good news, and I love hearing breakthrough news from coaching clients. Yesterday, I heard breakthrough news that is so exciting and over the top that I am sharing it with you. One of my clients just closed a quarter million dollar contract. She was excited. I was over the moon pleased for her.

This contract wasn’t just going to happen. This was not a lucky break. She made it happen. And she made it happen just like you can with taking the steps that are necessary to provide world class service to your clients.

Here are the qualities that produce breakthrough results:

A passionate belief in yourself and your ability to provide the services.
A clear vision of the core services you provide.
The ability to communicate clearly about your core services.
A continuing dedication to education about the latest developments in your field.
Knowing your target market like you know your best friend.
Keeping your word.
Planning your work and working your plan.
Communicating fully and honestly if you cannot keep your word. Renewing a new “by when” for keeping your word.
Being willing to create a measurement for your results which includes “by whens” and promises and “go fors”.
Being willing to fail and to learn from the failures.
A refusal to be a victim of failure.
An unstoppable tenacity and persistence.
Having someone you trust hold you accountable for results.

Again and again I see these qualities in clients. They are the people who have extraordinary results in their lives and in their businesses.

If you feel stuck. If you feel like you can’t reach high enough for the breakthrough results you are longing for, please call me. Together we can make your intention come true by clearing away what is holding you back from making that same kind of excited triumphant,” I did it!” telephone call to me.

I will look forward to hearing from you.

– Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net