What is Your Business Strategy: You Do Have One, Right? (Part 1)

04.09.2012

So, what is your business strategy? You do have a strategy, right?

Can your business succeed without a business strategy?

I wouldn’t suggest running your business without some kind of strategy or plan. Just going from one tactic to another, testing the waters to see what might work probably isn’t the best routine for a successful business. This is more like standing in the middle of a forest, walking a few steps in one direction, only seeing more trees and switching to another direction. You may eventually get out, but how do you get where you wanted to go?

What do you think of when you think of a business strategy? I think of a good leadership team, supported by a great sales team supported by an excellent marketing team, making the company as a whole the best in its industry!

What kind of tools do you think need to be in place to have a great business strategy? I think of all the tools a great company has to bring to the table. (I know you are looking for more…read on!)

As we all know, the economy we are in brings business conditions that change fairly quickly and at times we need to go into survival mode and change our business strategy to bring in more sales. So what do we do? Advertise? Cut prices? Well, maybe you don’t have to do either. Have you ever really thought about what you are offering and who you are trying to sell to?

Here some questions you might want to ask yourself:

  • What are you the best in the world at?
  • Who is your market niche?
  • How are you trying to sell to them?
  • What do they know about you?
  • What is your brand telling others about you?
  • What is your online reputation?
  • Do you, your product, your company, and your offerings stand out from the crowd?
  • Are you and your offerings unique?
  • You may think you are unique, but do others?

We at Randolph Sterling have been revisiting our own business strategy. You see, we are unique in our offerings, but, just as I ask above, we at least we think we are. The question is though, do others? Well, we are currently working on our brand and messaging. Making sure we are targeting the right market, paying attention to our online reputation and ensuring our market niche knows we are unique in our offerings as it will come across in our brand and messaging. We are very excited as we have had clients and prospects ask us to provide them with services beyond what we have been advertising. We are excited as we begin to pull this information together to share with you in the near future (you know once we get our brand down). As we have started our process, we would like to share with you the strategy we have put together in deciding what additional services to offer.

Since we don’t corner the market on good ideas, I’d like to mention that Harvard Business Review is a good resource on strategy too.

The only problem though is you have to buy their books. Using us as a guinea pig might be a great starting point for now! In the coming weeks, we will be discussing different areas of a business strategy by discussing your market niche, your brand, online reputation, and the uniqueness of your offerings. We have uncovered some very interesting things about our company and think you may do the same.

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Posted in Business Trends, Jolene Pratt, Management Services, Marketing, RandolphSterling, Sales Management |

Is It Right to Help a Prospect Out of Their Current Contract with the Competition?

03.26.2012

I was reading an article recently about how to combat a prospect’s claim that they have a contract with your competition. This article gave readers tips such as mentioning that the longer the contract they have in place, the more money you can save them.  Personally, and professionally, I have several issues with this, and think that taking such an approach will end up hurting you more than it helps.

Here are some of the reasons why:

(1) YOU make a promise, but can you keep it? I understand that salespeople don’t like to hear the word “no”. I get that we all want to make the sale. But, I don’t think making a promise to a prospect that you will do something better than the person currently doing it is wise when you don’t know anything about the prospect’s situation. When you do this, you back yourself into a corner, setting yourself up for one of two possible reactions from your prospect:

(a) Your prospect will think that you are full of it and be less likely to talk to you

(b) Your prospect will ask you how you plan to do things better, which may even be worse than possibility “a”

(2) YOU made this about money. I have said it hundreds of times, “Money is generally only an issue if you don’t have any way to differentiate yourself.” Think about it, what do you buy that is based on price and price alone? 99% of the people I ask this to answer the same thing—“gasoline.” When asked why, the reason generally is because they do not see the difference between the Shell station on one corner and the Mobil station down the block, so they go to the one that is a penny cheaper. Even in this scenario, many will pass the “mom and pop” independent station that is two cents cheaper because they think the gas the independent received is “from the bottom of the truck and filled with sediment.”

That aside, why would you want to start off a conversation by saying that you are going to be cheaper than the other guy? You are entering the conversation by downplaying anything else you can do for them or anything else about your product that is unique or valuable to them. You are telling them that you are just like them, but cheaper.

(3) YOU disrespected their contract. So you will get me out of this contract? Why not, it is just a piece of paper open for negotiation, right? Great…I guess that means the one I have with you will hold as little value too.

Wait a second, that didn’t exactly go the way you wanted to, did it?

By disrespecting their contract, you set a precedent that yours can be disrespected too. What you are really saying to this prospect is “I will do my best to save you a buck, but if someone comes by and beats my price by a nickel, you are free to go with them.” These are generally the same people who say that loyalty does not exist in business anymore.

I don’t negotiate contracts. Either we can do it or we can’t. But everyone is leaving happy and everyone is going to feel that it is fair or we simply will not do it. I also don’t disrespect contracts already in place. If a client is not happy with the service he/she is getting from a current supplier and has decided that they would prefer to work with us, we will help them to do so within the means of their current contract; sometime there may even be a respectful “out” in an existing contract if the incumbent is not doing their job properly. But that said, if there’s not,  I’d rather wait a few months to close the right project at the right time and sleep at night doing so than enter (as my friend Will Webb from Dupree & Webb Insurance would say)  a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” relationship!

(4) YOU ignored developing a relationship. The fun in developing a long term relationship is just that: developing a long term relationship. It is understanding the needs of your prospect, and the potholes along the way that will make things run more smoothly in the long run. Have you ever heard someone say, “This seems too good to be true,” and then have it not be? Not often. Usually if you look for that quick, short term, transactional “deal” rather than the long term relationship, you might earn a quick commission check, but set up the relationship for failure.

Let’s face it, unless you went into the conversation knowing the contractual terms they were currently working with (and if you did, why did you call on them at this time?), it is quite possible that the person telling you they just signed a long term contract is really saying “I have no idea who you are. All I know is that you want to sell me something.” By having this person say to you “I have no interest in buying what you have right now” they have taken the pressure off you to close the deal. If handled properly, they have also given you the chance to develop a stronger relationship over time so you don’t end up looking like Will’s competition.

So the next time a prospect throws an obstacle in your way, I challenge you to look at it as an opportunity to grow a relationship, a stepping stone to a stronger opportunity, not a nuisance to get past.

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Posted in Business Secrets, Business Trends, Client Relations, RandolphSterling, Rich Burghgraef, Sales Management |

Don’t Be the Restaurant No One Wants to Eat at because It Is Empty

06.06.2011

You are walking around an unfamiliar neighborhood with a couple of friends. You are on your way to a party or perhaps just a movie. But you have a bit of time and decide to stop to eat dinner first. You can’t be too choosy, but it appears you have two options. From the outside both look clean and well maintained.  The lights are working. From the menus posted in the windows, both seem to offer some appetizing choices. And neither you nor your friends are opposed to either due to personal tastes. But, there seems to be something off about one of them. You can’t quite put your finger on it at first, but then you realize what it is. One of them appears, for all practical purposes, to be empty, save the one out-of-place guy in the corner you see while peering through the window, while the other is overflowing with patrons waiting to be seated. Which do you choose?

Unless you are really short on time, you choose the one overflowing with people. Why? Social proof. You assume that the place with more people is probably better, while the place with no people is in some way deficient, even if the deficiency is not easily discerned from outward appearances. You assume if so many people like something, there must be something about it to like. You assume that if so few people like something, there must be a reason why.

Social proof is one of the six principles of influence professor of psychology and marketing, Robert Cialdini, wrote about in his popular book Influence, and he covers it there much more extensively than I can here. But, given the attention I have seen it getting recently in social media circles, felt it might be worth a brief discussion.

In an article I wrote up on Constant Contact’s recent “Get Down to Business” seminar, I wrote of how one of the points I took away, or at least felt was worth reiterating after it was reiterated to me, was the following:

“People trust third party recommendations more than they trust you! There is a lot to be said for the idea of social proof. But, put simply, when you say good things about you, you come off as a salesman who will say what he has to make a sale. When others say good things about you, such as those you have been building rapport with through you social media tools over a period of time, they come off as satisfied customers, and are seen as more trustworthy, or at least less biased.”

But, how do you get such displays of social proof on your social media page? Well, to begin, have you asked for a recommendation from one of your connections on LinkedIn? If so, assuming the person you asked provided it, then you already have attained some level of social proof through social media. But, the social proof you can get through social media does not end there. No, on LinkedIn you can get similar recommendations for your company pages. And, technically speaking, just having a large number of Facebook friends/fans,Twitter followers, or LinkedIn connections can serve as social proof as well. High levels of activity on a Facebook page or blog is even better. And, fully fledged recommendations or thank you by satisfied customers on your Facebook page are even more beneficial. Going back to the restaurant analogy, if both restaurants were equally well populated, having such a recommendation from a friend (or fromYelp) might make you choose one over the other, or maybe even go to the less populated one in the original example if the recommendation was strong enough or from the right person.

Yet, now you ask how do you get such recommendations on various social media sites beyond LinkedIn which already has recommendations as a built in feature you’re required to use if you want to get you profile to 100%?

Simple, you ask. When you have a satisfied customer or client who sends you a private email or tells you in person how much they appreciate what you have done for them, you thank them, but ask if they could post it on Facebook or tweet it on Twitter or write a review on Yelp. None of these take much time or effort on their parts, but can be greatly beneficial to you. And, if you have a very satisfied customer, you might even ask if they’d be willing to give a video testimonial for YouTube and your website.

 

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Posted in Business Secrets, Business Trends, Daniel Nuccio, Marketing, Psychology, RandolphSterling, Social Media |

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