Small Business Help

How to Increase Your Sales When You'd SWEAR NO ONE Is Buying

2009-07-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing business owners tell me that no one is buying right now.

For many business owners their business is down by 30% to 50%, and for some they just aren't finding anyone to buy.

So, how can you increase sales when no one is buying? You couldn't. The problem isn't that no one is buying, it's that many business owners have seen their business drop by 30% to 50% and then, in fear, they stopped marketing, or turned it way down . . . "to save money." Those are all the wrong things to do.

Let's look at "the marketing formula". To be in control of our marketing I have developed a formula that shows you the three parts of marketing that we will be measuring and controlling.

Marketing is composed of,

The number of people that get to see you in your marketing (and also that need you). Doesn't do any good to get your marketing in front of someone who doesn't need you. We should be in control of how many people get to see us.
Percentage of those that see you that act -- this is the conversion rate of your marketing materials. The conversion rate is controlled by what you say, how you say it, and who you say it to. We are in control of that.
Number of people who act the way we wanted them to act, it could be they call us, sign up for something, buy something, etc.

# people who see us X conversion rate of marketing = # of people who act

So, let's say that we want 10 people to call us this week. And that we know when we've sent our marketing out before that 5% responded. Now we know how many people we should get our marketing in front of, 200 people. We are in control.

200 people X 5% = 10 people call

But here's what happens in a recession. Fewer people are responding. It could have dropped to 2.5% response rate. As long as we keep marketing the same way we always have we'll lose half of our clients.

200 people X 2.5% = 5 people call

The mistake that most businesses make is, first, that they keep marketing the way they always did, so they see their market drop in half. They panic, and do you know what they do? Most people see their profits drop, and sometimes below break even. So, they think, costs have to be cut. They will then cut everything in site . . . including their marketing.

What should they have done?

If you are getting a marketing response rate of 2.5% and still need 10 people the logical thing is . . . double the number of people who get to see their marketing!!!

400 people X 2.5% = 10 people call

And now you have as many clients as you always had. In fact, if you want more just turn it up more. One problem is that people look at marketing as "an expense" instead of a return on investment. You SHOULD know what your ROI is for your marketing.

Do you know that if you spend $1 on marketing how many dollars you generate? Is it 5 times, 10 times, 100 times? Anything that multiplies your dollars should result in your sending out your marketing. Any multiplier less than that MUST BE FIXED. There is NO OTHER OPTION. Don't stop marketing, fix it, or do it.

Let's look at another side of the fact that people believe no one is buying.

Back at Christmas I was talking with a construction company owner. He said, No one is buying. In fact, he said that times had been bad for a long time, and Christmas is his worst time of the year. It's the worst time of an already bad time.

Yet, I showed him that there were 13,000 people looking for a construction company right here in Kansas City. He was shocked. The problem was that as he continued marketing the way he had always marketed, he wasn't getting in front of THAT 13,000. He didn't know that they were there, or where they were.

Let me show you how many people are looking for what you do and how you can find them. Would that help you?

Google provides a tool called "Google Keyword Tool." It's at

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Go to that tool and type in the keywords you THINK someone would use to find you. Google will then tell you exactly how many people are searching that way, and will show you other ways people are also searching.

A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to capture about 5% of those that are searching. You'll at least be able to get them to your website, and then your website also has a conversion rate. One problem is that most websites are delivering less than 0.1% conversion.

If you'd like to know how to get more, go to my website at http://www.leaders-perspective.com to get a copy of The Marketing Funnel.

Branding -- What you want to be known for, and it isn't your logo

2009-02-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

Branding is about being known for something. And it isn't your logo.

In fact, let's look at several ways we can establish our brand.

I can remember going to a graphics designer to have him do a new logo for me. It brought me absolutely nothing.

Let me change that thought from "the way most people do it" to what you should be doing.

What would happen if you saw the "Golden Arches" on a billboard as you drove by. Your mouth might water. You might remember that it's almost lunch time, and at the very next intersection you pull off looking for McDonalds. But, let's go back a few years, before we knew that the Golden Arches had anything to do with a hamburger, or fast food. How would you respond to a picture of the Golden Arches on a billboard then? There would be no response would there?

Big companies throw lots of money at branding. You see it enough times you remember it, and you see it enough times in relationship to a hamburger you'll remember that the Golden Arches means "hamburger."

You don't have $5B to throw at it like McDonald's does every year. McDonald's set up a logo that had nothing to do with a hamburger, but, with enough money thrown at it I doubt if there's anyone in the whole world that doesn't know what the Golden Arches means.

But for you, we've got to establish quickly and far less expensively what you want to be known for, and help people remember it.

So, let's take a look at how some approach branding:

You want to be known for something . . . that's branding. Frequently that's a logo. And, hopefully it's not just a picture, but an image that links a result you provide, and a value to the image. That's something that when they do see something of yours that it reminds them. however, that's passive branding.
You want to be known for something GREAT . . . that keeps you on their mind even after you and your information is out of their eye sight.
But the ultimate branding is , when you are known for some really fantastic ultimate outcome that is so exciting that those you've touched are running around blabbering about this really great thing that you did for them. This is active branding. Those you touched are running around everywhere spreading the word. You are "the talk of the town."

Alan Boyer
Helping people reach further than they EVER thought possible . . . . FASTER

Business Coaching Kansas City and worldwide.

2005-10-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen meetings turn into battles, and sometimes people even stop contributing because they fear another battle?
Does it seem like every time someone steps up with a positive idea everyone shoots it down.
Do your meetings end without providing positive move-forward activities?

Then here's your answer, read on!

Have you ever heard someone offer a positive idea in a meeting and nearly everyone around the table shoots it down immediately? There seems to be more reasons why it can’t or shouldn’t happen than in ways to make it happen. Many times these meetings become downer meetings, spiraling downward toward failure, and everyone leaves in frustration.

Does it seem that your meetings never accomplish anything?

Stop fighting the negative and use the negatives to drive toward the positive.

Dr. Bluma Zeigarnic, a Russian psychopathologist, said that we come into a greatest height of consciousness and alertness through negative events. Negative events actually turn us on more, get our adrenal glands going, our bodies get ready for the fight or flight mode. Our minds are turned on more during battle. We’ve become very alert and excited. It’s actually called the Zeigarnic effect.

So, let’s use this excitement to build toward the positive.

When you see this happening during your next meeting, don’t fear it, use it to your best advantage.

Get out your flip chart or white board. At the top write the original idea down and tell everyone we want to look at all aspects of this.

Then ask what are the reasons we should do this, looking for a measurable benefit (this is the reason we SHOULD move forward).

Then ask everyone to list the consequences of not moving forward (this is what will happen if you stand still.) The typical first response for a consequence is someone pointing out that you won’t have the benefits. Don’t fight it, list the loss of benefits as a consequence, but point out that we want to determine if there is really a cost to standing still besides loss of benefits.

Frequently there is an additional cost). The benefits and consequences, especially when you’ve put a measurable dollar figure on them, will help keep you on task toward resolving the problem.

Then ask everyone in the room to list all of the obstacles to making this idea happen. This is where we’ll put the Zeigarnic effect to our use. Start your list down the left side of the board. Get everyone involved. They can get quite excited. Make sure that everyone is heard as to what they think the biggest obstacles will be.

Then announce that we want to see what we’ve got to do to resolve the obstacles. Let’s change the ideas from everyone's perception that there are walls that we can't get beyond into the perception that we’ve got a tree down across our path (our obstacle) and we want to see what happens when we move the tree.

After everyone has been heard, and all possible obstacles have been listed start a list of 4-5 solutions for each of the obstacles. These are ways to remove the obstacle. Don’t quit with the first one, that’s too easy. Force more ways to do it, that will open up their minds. The deeper you look the more likely you will find the underlying issues.

What I’ve seen in large groups is that once we’ve removed the obstacle the room comes alive with new ideas. Up until this point, as soon as someone looked at an idea they had said, “tried that, didn’t work last time, not going to go there again.” Most of the time we think it is more expedient to avoid repeating bad mistakes, so we don’t even consider those options. Our minds shut down rather than looking for creative ways to move forward. I want to change that to one of realizing that we had an obstacle that can be removed, and once past that obstacle there is an infinite number of new ways, and new thoughts that will open up.

Change all “cant’s into how’s.” How will we move forward rather than can’t move forward.

I’ve seen the room become wildly excited once past the obstacles. New thoughts start coming from the room. You can almost see the light bulbs turning on above the heads in the room.
So, build a list of the solutions to remove the obstacle, then a list of all of the things that you can do once the obstacle has been removed.

Do that for each of the obstacles.

Now, make your final decision whether to move forward or not. Weigh the

Benefits of moving forward
Consequences of not moving forward
Obstacles and the ease of removing the obstacles as the tools for the final decision.

If you decide to move forward, immediately move to creating a list of actions for each of the solutions, assigning a responsible person to make it happen, whether it will be delegated and to who, and a delivery date.

You’ve just turned a negative room into actions to move forward.
You’ve turned a “can’t” into “how.” As a matter of fact, I’m always telling my clients that whenever you hear “can’t” stop what you are doing, and ask “how could I do it.” That opens up new thinking that was never there before.
Everyone in the room has felt like they've been listened to, and have actively moved forward rather than stagnated.
Frustrating meetings have turned into positive action plans.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC http://www.leaders-perspective.com is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies. He has worked on many hundreds of projects with companies that have resulted in multi-$100 million savings or gains. With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:

Helping the business owners/employees develop the business skills
Helping them overcome the limitations and attitudes that they built between their ears (the self imposed limitations, I can’t, this won’t work for me, I’m different)

By helping them find the breakthroughs in their business and thinking

The Leader's Perspective

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible…FASTER mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Developing a POWERFUL 30-Second Elevator Speech That Could Double Your Business

2005-10-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

First let me tell you what NOT to do. Don’t talk about you, don’t talk about your products. In as short a statement as possible tell them the measurable results you deliver, and who you deliver them to. Then shut up.

Don’t try to tell them EVERYTHING in one breath. Tell them something that is so powerfully grabbing that they just have to ask you for more, and even then when you respond keep it short, keep them asking for more.

So, how do you do that?

Here is an exercise I do with all of my clients that usually changes not only how they present themselves, but often it goes so deep that it changes their vision of who and what they are as an entire business.

Take out a sheet of paper and create 4 columns. Consider this activity as brainstorming, a work in progress, that will continually change not only as you work your way through it this time, but should get you thinking so that you will continually come back to the worksheet to make the answers better and better over the next few weeks. So, for your first pass, don’t worry about getting “the perfect” answer, just get something down on paper to start the thinking process. You’ll come back later and make it better and better.

The first column, far left. Products, services and/or features.
List your products, services and/or features down this column. For most people this has been what you have been telling the world that you do or sell. It’s going to change, believe me. List each and every one.

The 2nd column to the right. Benefits, why buy the product?

For every item in the column to the left, directly across from each one write what the benefit of buying that product is. Think more in terms of bottom-line results. After you have written down why someone should buy the product ask yourself why someone would even want whatever it was you wrote down there. Keep asking your self why, why, why until you’ve gotten down to the real bottom-line of why someone should buy your product.

The 3rd column. Why buy the product from me?
For most of my clients there is someone just like them on every street corner. Just imagine that you are standing on a street corner with hundreds of other people. They all are wearing the same clothes, same height, same skin color, same hair color. You’ll be lost in that crowd. Your job now is to find what makes you so different that you will be “the first” person seen when a stranger walks up to that crowd. And, eventually we’ll want people to come to THAT street corner looking for just you.

At this point, take your best shot as to why someone should want to buy from you. Again, this had better be about results that someone will get from YOU. Just get something down. Then ask yourself why would someone want this and keep asking why this over and over until you’ve gotten the right answer. After we’ve answered the question in the fourth column, you’ll probably come back and change this or make it even better.

Caution: Don’t make your advantage about price, that is a losing proposition under almost any condition, you’ve got to find something better than that. In fact that is likely to make you like most of the others on that street corner.

The 4th column. Measurable results.
This is where the rubber meets the road and where you will find the most powerful statement for your marketing, and for your 30-second elevators speech. Looking back at the benefits of the product, and the advantages of working with you, turn both of them into measurable results (not activities….RESULTS).

This is when I hear the grumbling from a client. “You mean I have to tell someone exactly what result they will get from buying my product? You’re asking for an awful lot. I just can’t guarantee the results people will get from buying the product.”

Yes, this requires a commitment. A commitment to do exactly what you said you’d do. A commitment that many are not willing to commit to.

If you can’t come up with an answer, you’re in the wrong business. If you can, you will be the first person that anyone sees in that crowd on the street corner.

Consider the measurements and how you will present them. Write down some measurable results: average, maximum, minimum. You can state a fact that a customer typically gets ___, or, you guarantee a minimum result of ______, etc. The first part of this is stating very clearly what you have done, what you will do, or what you’ll guarantee.

Making your results measurable gives a very visual perceived value for what you do. People buy you or your product based on the value they perceive you will deliver, so help them find that value and make it so visual that they don’t have to guess. No one else on that street corner is doing that. They have been selling a product, a service, of if they have sold a benefit it has been vague. You will stand out, your sales will catapult.

It wouldn't hurt to go back to "Why buy the product?" and "Why buy it from me?" and revise it. Usually once I've forced a client to come up with those measurements, the benefits of the product, and even the benefits of working with them start changing. So, review, change, and go through it again. Get out there and use it. Over the next few weeks keep looking for the ideal measurement, and come back to revise over and over. It'll keep getting better.

When I give my 30-second introduction at a chamber event, or other meeting, I will have people run up to me after the meeting. “How do you do that?” “You can’t really do that…can you?” I even have people weeks later who see me around town run up to me to ask me about what I said.

My elevator speech is:

About 80% of my small business clients double in 3-4 weeks. Would you like to double yours? I work with struggling businesses to help them stop struggling in weeks, and multiply their business. I take them by the hand to guide them through that maze of obstacles that have been holding them back, to help them find the breakthroughs that catapult them to unseen levels.

What are your obstacles?

Don’t hesitate to play with what you say at networking events. Try it one way and watch the results. If you are a BNI member, or a chamber member, those are ideal places to try this out. Measure the results of your elevator speech by

The noise level of the room after you say it
How many people approach you after the meeting
How many approach you whenever they see you in the future. Change the words just a little at different meetings. Keep track of the ones that work the best, and watch your business grow over the next few weeks.

It will change your business in more ways than just this. You’ll probably change your vision about who you are or who you can become.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies. He has worked on many hundreds of projects with companies that have resulted in multi-$100 million savings or gains. With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:

Helping the business owners/employees develop the business skills
Helping them overcome the limitations and attitudes that they built between their ears (the self imposed limitations, I can’t, this won’t work for me, I’m different)
By helping them find the breakthroughs in their business and thinking He helps companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible….FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com
mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Do you know how much a customer is worth to you? If you don’t you should. It results in one of the biggest breakthroughs my clients have.

2005-10-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

By Alan Boyer

Do you know how much a customer is worth to you? If you don’t you should. It results in one of the biggest breakthroughs my clients have.

Once you know what an average customer is worth, one of the first things you’ll notice is that there is likely more than one type of customer coming to you.

We reviewed the average value of a customer for one of my clients, discovered that there were at least 3 different types of customers, each buying a significantly different average amount, some were buying only one time, and others were becoming repeat customers. Now we could clearly define who these people were, how to find them, and decided that some were not worth our time, others were our ideal target.

One of my customers, a construction franchise, had only done $60K of business his first year. It went to $500K the next just by finding the right customer based on customer worth.

When we started looking at what his customers were worth to him, the first figure was $1,500, an average of all customers. Then we saw that there were groups of different customers, some buying less than $1,000, some buying $1,000-$3,000 and some buying well over $3,000.

The ones buying under $1,000 were the hardest to deal with and had the lowest profit margin. The ones over $3,000 were coming back over and over, had the best profit margin, and referring lots of other customers. Their total lifetime worth was approaching $10,000.

This company had defined their customers according to the national franchisor’s suggestion, targeting a homeowner with total family income averaging $50,000. But the customers buying the most from them lived in a neighborhood where the average income was over $75,000. So, I suggested that they send their next mail only to those targets.

Another thing we saw was that the people buying less than $1,000 were the $50,000 average income neighborhoods. The $3,000 customers were from $75,000 neighborhoods, and the higher the income the more they bought, the more they came back, and they made more referrals.

They stopped mailing low income zip codes; these also had a very low response to their previous mail. They started targeting only higher income zip codes, and only to the $75,000 and up families.

The result: the immediate response was a 9 times increase in revenue on the very next mailing. The mail response rate went up 4.5 times, so they had 4.5 times more leads for the same dollars spent only a week before. And, those customers were buying more than twice as much. The total was 9 times more sales in just a week for a small change.

I’ve seen this happen over and over as a company starts to define how much a customer is worth to them.

So, define your average customer worth. Then track the actual results and see if there isn’t something you might learn from being able to segment your customers by their worth to you, total dollars on one purchase, total lifetime dollars, number of purchases, etc.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC, is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies. He has worked on many hundreds of projects with companies that have resulted in multi-$100 million savings or gains.

With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:

Helping the business owners/employees develop the business skills
Helping them overcome the limitations and attitudes that they built between their ears (the self imposed limitations, I can’t, this won’t work for me, I’m different)
By helping them find the breakthroughs in their business and thinking

http://www.leaders-perspective.com

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible. . . .FASTER

AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Do you know that 80% of all small businesses fail before 2 years, and over 90% by year 5?

2005-10-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

Do you know that 80% of all small businesses fail before 2 years, and over 90% by year 5?

So, think about this: Why does every new business start off by trying to look like and do the same things every other businesses does?

As a matter of fact success will come by trying to look like the other 20%.

If there is someone just like you on every street corner in the U.S., and, for most, that is the case, how do you get noticed? What would make someone buy from you instead of going to another street corner? Is there some way to be SO DIFFERENT that people want to do business ONLY with you, and will fight their way over the other street corners to get to you?

Yes, there is. I spend more time with my clients working on that aspect than many other areas, and when they find it we typically find that the number of clients walking through the door, and literally chasing my clients will go up 5-10 times almost instantly.

Here's something I get every client to do.

My product
Create a list of your products, and your features down the left side of your paper.

Why buy the product
Then create a column immediately to the right, and answer this question for each product, and each feature. Why should anyone buy this product? What are the benefits of buying the product?

Why buy it from me
Then in the next column over to the right, answer why buy it from me? What do I have to offer that would make someone come to me instead of every other street corner. What is it about me that I can make different, more service, price (not the preferable choice), better quality, MUCH better outcomes/results, etc. For now, just take a stab at it. Get SOMETHING ON PAPER NOW. Be prepared to work on the idea in your head for the rest of your working life as it will continue to get better and better and you should be continually repositioning yourself, literally crawling upward over the other street corners.

Make the results measurable
The last column should take what you've already learned and make it a measurable result, a measurable benefit for the customer. I find that most of the other columns are just starting to get the concepts down, but this last column forces real thinking, and a commitment from you to be real, be visual, and specific about what you do. The point of this last column is to find a REAL GRABBER statement about who you are, and so visual that no one has any question what you will deliver. It will be a picture of you standing above everyone else. 99% of the others out there will be talking about product, not benefits. And those talking about benefits, will be making general, vague statements.

Let's use my business as an example.

My products are:
business consulting/coaching, business training.

Product benefits are:
business growth (sort of vague right, at least you will see the difference in a minute).

Why buy it from me:
I deliver results, not training, and faster than anyone else I know. Most focus on giving a day's training and hope something happens. I focus on the results not matter how we may get there.

Turn it into measurable RESULTS
So, how do I make that measureable: 80% of my clients double their business in 3-4 weeks, start-up clients often see a return on investment of 50-100 times what they spend on me in weeks. My larger clients will double their growth rate in weeks.

So, how can you make what you sell into a measurable result (focus on results, not activities)? Then find a way that you could say that in 20-30 seconds when you introduce yourself. Find a way to put that into a grabber line AT THE TOP of every marketing piece you do and YOU WILL see your marketing responses go up 5-10 times what they are now, OR MORE.

Alan Boyer
The Leader's Perspective
http://leaders-perspective.com/small-business-help.aspx
AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

2005-09-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

Does that make sense? Yet, that is what I hear from a lot of prospective clients.
What that is saying is, “My Marketing Doesn’t Work So I’ll Never Do That Again!” (I’ve actually heard that statement).

Most small businesses don’t understand how to make it work, so they dip their toe in, try it, and when they don’t get what they expect, they leave to never try it again. Yet, generating exactly the number of leads you need every week is not only achievable but rather easy if you understand the principles and failure to understand them results in an 80% failure rate among most small businesses.

Critical Goals (The Keys: Guaranteed success, vs. Highly Probable Failure)
There are a few critical goals and measurements we track in a business. These typically are:

• The number of leads generated weekly (comes from our marketing plan, advertising, networking, referrals, etc.)
• The number of closed sales, and dollars in closed sales every week
• Number of completed jobs (customers, projects, etc), total dollars generated, and profit (gross profit) generated per job every week.
And finally the bottom line generated by the key measurement results above
• Total dollars sold for the year, profit generated for the year.
• Does the profit generated by your sales pay your overhead.
• After overhead is paid how much extra is generated that goes in your pocket as “net profit.”
The definition of “critical” goals: a goal that IF accomplished will result in
• The total dollars of revenue for the year, the overhead is paid, and having a specific defined number of dollars to put in your pocket.
And IF these goals ARE NOT achieved the consequences will be:
• The total dollars of revenue WILL NOT be reached
• You will likely not be paying overhead and the money will be SUCKED out of your pocket instead of putting it into the pocket.
• AND the biggest consequence, you just entered the high probability that your entire business will fail.

Now that we’ve set the ground work for what critical goals will do for you if you achieve them, and what will be the consequences if you don’t, this leaves us with a rule I give all of my clients: Critical goals are something that YOU WILL do no matter what.

It's likely that there are 50-60 other things pulling on you to get done, but since these 5-6 things are SO CRITICAL (success on one side, failure on the other), then NOTHING else is more important. Stop doing the trivial many and focus on the 5-6 critical things that WILL deliver results, guaranteed.

When it comes to a critical goal that appears difficult, our response to that will not be “CAN’T” but rather “HOW?”

Now back to our original statement that
My Ads Don’t Work, So I don’t Do Them Any More

Isn’t lead generation, the leads that come from our ads, one of our critical goals To generate X number of leads EVERY WEEK.

And our rule was Make it happen no matter what, it’s not CAN’T but HOW?

If our ads are not delivering what we expected, shouldn’t we be figuring out HOW to make them work instead of saying “they don’t work so I’ll never do that again.” We just said CAN’T instead of How. The opposite of our ground rule.

Is business really that simple? Just deliver the Critical Goals? You bet!
How to fix the ad response rates
For most ads I find these are the critical factors:
1) Who we are communicating to
2) What we are saying
3) How we are saying it (and How must be about the benefit of the product, not the name, specifications, features, and especially not about WHO WE ARE.)

I’ve seen ad response rates jump 10 times on the very next advertisement just from following these ground rules and developing the answers to these questions.

Alan Boyer, CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists.

With over 35 years of business experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some double, some jump 10 times.

He helps companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible….FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/
mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

SEO Hints and Tips and Free SEO Tools

2005-09-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

Do you realize that if you manage your website, SEO tools, and pay-per-click tools, you can literally have as many leads as you want from your website? I assume that a website should convert approximately 5% of the viewers to doers, taking some kind of action that you want them to take. So, all we have to do is make sure the website does convert viewers to doers, and then we make sure we’ve got the right amount of traffic arriving at the website. All quite manageable. Today, we’re mainly talking about how to get the traffic to your website through Search Engine Optimization, SEO.

Here is a list of the best tools I’ve found to do SEO and a quick review of some of the top issues for SEO. Most of these tools are either free, or can be tried for free before buying

Most search engines are looking at your site to find relevant search words. How relevant determines your eventual search engine position.

How do they determine relevancy? Although every search engine has slightly different rules, here are some of the key ideas. Keep in mind, they could change tomorrow. Search engines are continually changing because just as soon as they determine how to find the relevant search words on your site, someone finds a way around their rules. Then search engines change the rules again.

A key word usually has to show up in each of the following areas of your site, with a density that falls within a range that search engine would like to see. They also like to see the words at a certain position in that area, usually at or near the beginning of these areas:

Areas search engines look at:
1) Meta tags (title, description, and keywords) (NOTE: I’m told that most search engines don’t consider meta tags any longer, but I keep seeing my keywords pop up from the meta tags).
2) Body text of the site
3) Headlines
4) Alternate text behind the graphics
5) Links, and link text

How do you choose the right keywords?

Here’s a big warning: Consider what people are looking for, not who you are or what your product is. For me, I would rather be found for “small business help” than for my company name, The Leader’s Perspective. Obviously I want people to find me, if by chance they are looking for me by name, but just think about this:
· Aren’t there more people in the world looking for “small business help” or “business help” than could possibly be looking for my name. Those looking for my company name are those that I have probably met personally and sent them to my site. That’s a small number, in comparison to the number of companies on the internet looking for help that don’t have any idea who I am….yet anyway.

Here are some tools to find the right keywords.
1) http://inventory.overture.com
Enter a keyword, and Overture will return the number of times that keyword was searched for in the last month. It will also show you other variances of that same keyword and the number of searches for each variance.
Use this to brainstorm keywords. (NOTE: I’ve also discovered this is a VERY useful tool to use before sending out any kind of marketing. Find what people are looking for and then make sure those words show up in your marketing, AND in your website.
2) http://www.wordtracker.com
Now, this is an even better tool. This one contains a thesaurus as well, so it will show lots of other ways people have been searching for the keywords you’ve typed in.
This tool also has a way of measuring the RIGHT keyword that is even better than Overture for Search engine optimization.
Overture reports the number of searches last month for that keyword, so you can find the words that have the greatest number of searches.
However, Wordtracker, reports the greatest number of searches for the words with the LEAST competition.
When you are doing SEO it won’t do you any good to go after the words that have been searched for the most if there are millions of competing sites. It’s just not likely that you COULD get a page 1 ranking among millions of sites.
So, Wordtracker helps you find words that have been searched for ENOUGH to give you traffic, but at the same time have the least competition. They provide their own proprietary ranking that finds the best search words that you are likely to get a search engine position for.
Just make sure that the words you end up with from that search actually are words that someone would be looking for to find you.

Hint: I use Overture to find the greatest number of searches and use that for pay-per-clicks, and use Wordtracker to find the right search words for Search engine optimization.

Here are some other useful tools.
Tools that help you Learn Search Engine optimization while guiding you through the process.
Internet Business Promoter will provide not only an analysis of many of the search engine sensitive stats, but will give you almost a step-by-step how to fix your site. Although this has ended up down the list, this is probably the number one greatest tool to learn search engine optimization.
www.axandra.com
Another similar tool is
http://www.wpgsales.com/

Link Popularity
Search engines tend to give websites that have more external links from other websites pointing at them a higher search engine ranking. Here are a couple of free tools to track your link popularity, and to check our competition as well. www.checkyourlinkpopularity.com
http://www.marketleap.com (this one shows a graph if your history)

2005-09-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve discovered a really fantastic way to discover what works best in direct marketing, BEFORE doing traditional direct marketing. Use these internet tools to find what works best, then apply what you’ve learned to your traditional direct marketing, direct mail, etc. It’s fast and less expensive.

How to Find What Works in Your Marketplace?
Overture provides an excellent tool to find what people are looking for on the internet. For all practical purposes, you can use that to apply to other types of marketing.

Go to http://inventory.overture.com. Type in some keywords that apply to your product or service. Overture will provide the number of times that search word was searched in the last month, and it will also provide a list of related words and how many times they were searched.

This provides a really excellent tool to research what people are wanting, and how they are looking for them (at least what words they are relating to that search).

Using my business as an example: I provide training (sales, customer service, leadership and several other things).

So, which ones are in demand right now? I can do a search for “training” on Overture.
The results are:
· Training --searched 165,196 times
· Online training, searched 149,418 times
· Management training, searched 133,499
· Sales training, searched 70,496

What can we learn from this?
· It looks like I should focus more online training instead of face-to-face, or local training.
· Management training is being searched for almost 2 times as much as sales training. So, shouldn’t I focus more on management training over sales training? I’ll certainly have a larger market.

This can be applied to almost any kind of marketing, direct mail, cold calling, email, website, etc.

Not only can I find the best direction (management training) but I can also find the right words to use in a direct marketing piece before sending it.

Here’s another one.

Use GoogleAdwords, a pay-per-click online marketing campaign to find what works. If you haven’t experienced GoogleAdwords, just go to www.Google.com and search for something. When the listing shows up there will be 2-3 sponsored listings across the top of the page, and 5-6 down the right hand side. These are pay-per-click ads, those companies pay for the ads only when someone clicks on them. You are taken to that site. At that time the sponsoring company pays so much for each time someone clicks on it.

A really fantastic way of using this for a marketing study is that within 1-2 days, there will have been enough clicks to know which search words are working.

Another one of the fantastic benefits of GoogleAdwords is that they allow alternating ads in an Adword campaign. So for any campaign you can have several different ads running. Within just 1-3 days there will have been enough people searching and clicking through that you can see
· Which search words are searched for the most often
· Which one of the ads are producing the most click-thru’s

It isn’t unusual to see a 2 to 1 difference between the ads. So now you know how to say what in an ad and what kind of typical response rates you might have.

You can also take the best ad, tweak it again. Check back in a few days and know if you’ve improved it or not. I’ve seen pay-per-click ads crawl upward to 10-15% response rates in a matter of a week.

Now, it’s time to start using those same words and structure in our next direct mail, or other direct marketing campaign. It’s fast and very economical. Instead of taking weeks and costing a ton of money like a traditional test market would, we know in days what works for a lot less.

Want to know how many people are looking for your product in your small geographical area? Set up a GoogleAdword campaign and set the geographic limitation to your address with a known radius. Come back in a few days and see how many searches you got in that territory. Then go out with your local direct marketing with what you just learned.

Even if you aren’t an e-commerce site you can learn a lot about what works in marketing this way.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC, is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies. He has worked on many hundreds of projects with companies that have resulted in multi-$100 million savings or gains. With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:
· Helping the business owners/employees develop the business skills
· Helping them overcome the limitations and attitudes that they built between their ears (the self imposed limitations, I can’t, this won’t work for me, I’m different)
· By helping them find the breakthroughs in their business and thinking
Helping companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible….FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/Small-Business-Help.aspx

mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Increasing Your Business BIGTIME With a Predictable, Successful Referral System

2005-08-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

What I’ve discovered from most of my small business clients is that most would prefer to build their business through referrals rather than through direct mail, advertising in newspapers, radio, TV. However, most leave the referrals to a somewhat chaotic, unplanned approach. When they have a repeatable system of going after referrals their business growth suddenly explodes.

Let’s look at something. Most of my clients find I emphasize the importance of having a measurable, repeatable, “system,” a step-by-step plan that can be duplicated over and over and know EXACTLY how many new customers, or repeat customers, we will get every time we do it the same way. And, we also know, that if we tweak the system slightly how much improvement we got from the last time. In other words, we are in control and know what to expect. We even know exactly how many customers we'll grow from week to week.

On one hand we know how many new clients walk through the door when we market through direct mail, or when we advertise in the newspaper. And on the other we should know how many people we’ll get from asking for referrals. And I’ve found that my sales close ratio is even higher when I have a referral, sometimes almost 2 times higher, so having a “system” for getting referrals rather than leaving it to chance is one of the greatest things you can do for your business.

Here is a way for you to develop a system of highly effective referrals.

First, ask yourself,

How much are you willing to pay to acquire a customer?
How much CAN you pay?
How much is a customer worth on one purchas?
How much is a customer worth to you over an entire year?
What is the lifetime value of a customer to you (in other words, knowing that a customer will likely come back for 3 or 4 years, how much total revenue he will generate, and how much profit he will generate allows you to understand how much you can pay to acquire new clients and still make a profit. In most cases they are worth more than the one-time purchase.)

To answer the first question, if they haven’t answered this question before, and most haven’t, I usually start my clients at somewhere around 15% of their gross profit for the product they are selling, but that isn’t cast in stone.

How much CAN you pay is a very critical question. Even though 15% of gross profit is a good start, since this is only 15% of my profit margin I COULD go a lot higher. And, under some circumstances I will. But, of course this is still considering only the one-time purchase. You are likely to find that you actually could spend more to acquire a customer that is likely to come back weekly or monthly for the next 3-4 years. So, you might be willing to pay more to acquire a customer than that customer would generate in his next purchase. That all depends on your system of generating repeat customers and how reliable that is. Do you have such a system?

Don't forget, you will have to track the results so that your referral partners are properly compensated. You'll find that once they've seen some results they'll probably refer even more.
These two figures set the lower and upper limits for any marketing system whether it is direct mail or the referral system that follows.

System #1, target your existing customers—Send a postcard to all of your existing clients, telling them, “We appreciate you and your business. To thank you we are offering 10% [you decide on the percentage here that works for you] off of your next visit for referrals you make to us when that referral becomes a new client. You could actually have our services for FREE for referring 10 people that buy from us.” NOTE: I will occasionally go up to 25% or even 50% with a special thank you—and the referrals go through the roof!! Why would I be willing to spend THAT much to acquire a customer? Because I expect that customer to become a repeat customer and buy a considerable amount over time. You can also change the offer to be cash. “We’ll pay you $__ [fill in the blank] for every new customer you generate for us.”

System #2—Target the neighborhood, or businesses in the chamber, etc. “A special offer to our friends at [the chamber, on our block, etc.] [make them the same offer as above]
System #3--Put the referral cards out on your counter where every customer can pick up more to refer more.

System #4--Send the referral cards to the local business owners, encouraging them to pass them out to every employee as an added benefit for their employees.
Let’s look at some of the thought patterns that have held many of us back:
I’ve had customers tell me they can’t afford to pay that much for a new customer. They are in the self-limiting mode of “don’t spend money” rather than how much money can I generate for every dollar I spend. The thought patterns typical in the “don’t spend money” mode go like this:

“If I do this I just might end up spending thousands of dollars this month alone. I can’t do that. I don’t have the money.”
Or, “If someone sends me 10 customers I’ll end up giving away my services for free. I can’t afford to do that!”
The positive mode results in,
"What happens if someone sends me 10 clients? I’ll end up with 10 times more money than I have now.”
“For every $1 I spend I’ll generate $9 more. It isn’t really costing my anything. It generates money. Put in a little, get out a lot. It’s a cash machine—wow!”

One thought process is placing limits on us rather than trying to find how big we can grow for every dollar spent. The first will seal your coffin. The 2nd helps you think like the successful companies and grow rapidly.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies that typically double in a few weeks.
With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:

Helping the business owners/employees develop the business skills
Helping them overcome the limitations and attitudes that they built between their ears (the self imposed limitations, I can’t, this won’t work for me, I’m different)
By helping them find the breakthroughs in their business and thinking

He helps companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible….FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/Small-Business-Help.aspx

mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Why Do a Business Plan

2005-08-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Why Do a Business Plan?
By Alan Boyer

To Grow Your Business That’s Why
When It’s In Your Head It’s Not Going to Happen

Before becoming an executive business coach, in my previous career as an electrical engineer I discovered some key practical things about business planning that showed me how to explode the growth of a business.

When I was in college if I was asked to design something my designs always worked….on paper.

When I got out of college, my boss would frequently come to me and ask if I knew how to design this or that. I always answered confidently, “Sure, I know how. Pointing to that space between my ears.”

Then I would design it on paper. And the first aha I learned was that once written down I could see more than I could when it resided between the ears. This piece just didn’t come together with that piece….and that one….and that one….

So, I would gradually work out all of the gotcha’s until all of the pieces worked on paper.

Then I’d go build one…..

And it almost never worked. I had made an assumption about something in the real world that wasn’t quite right. I’d missed something about the real world. So, I’m working back and forth from the ideal paper design to the real world result until it started working in the real world. Then I’d go back and document that on paper.

Now the real BIG AHA!

I don’t believe there is a self-respecting engineer anywhere in the world that is ready to release his design to production when production is screaming for it. The reason??? Once the engineer has a real working example on paper things start jumping off the paper at you. You can see things you didn’t even think of before. There are new concepts there.

“Gee, I didn’t see that. If I change this…it’ll work better.” Or..”Wow, over here, if I do ____ then it’ll be cheaper to produce” Actually, once it’s on paper and working it’s almost never ending what you keep finding.

And I had said to my boss, “Sure I know how.” But it was between my ears. I learned that you have to get it on paper to start seeing the gotcha’s before you can fix them, and once you build a real one you start learning new things about how to optimize, how to make it cheaper, how to make it work better, and it never ends. There are so many opportunities to make it better.
Now, let me ask you one more question:

How many people do you know that are running their business “between their ears?” How many are saying “I know how”?

I actually have had companies tell me “Get out of my way, I don’t have time to plan. I have to produce NOW” Then they call me back in a few months asking for help after they have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s when the real aha hit me. After putting it on paper I’ve seen those same business jump 5 times, 10 times in revenues in just weeks.

So, how many do you know that are running their business between their ears and have never put it on paper? Or, some may have put it on paper, but it’s setting somewhere on the shelf.

The opportunity to grow your business, BIG TIME, is

Having a written plan on paper, determining the KEY measurements that will be important and will deliver the results we want. Having clear targets and goals, evaluating what you see and fixing all the gaps, on the paper, BEFORE finding them in the real world.
Then implementing the plan, again finding what is different between the paper and the real world and fixing them.
Then evaluating the results from the real world, comparing against the key measurements and where we expected to be.
Optimizing the results—If we are tracking the RIGHT things, keeping good results measurements, I guarantee that you will find an AHA that will increase the output of your company, a department, a work group, by 2-10 times. And many times we find several ways to multiply a business over and over. It’s almost always been a given with the companies we’ve worked with.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC (http://www.leaders-perspective.com) is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies. He has worked on many hundreds of projects with companies that have resulted in multi-$100 million savings or gains.
With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:
• Helping the business owners/employees develop the business skills
• Helping them overcome the limitations and attitudes that they built between their ears (the self imposed limitations, I can’t, this won’t work for me, I’m different)
• By helping them find the breakthroughs in their business and thinking, he helps companies worldwide reach further than they EVER thought possible….FASTER
As a co-author of Maintaining Balance in an Unsteady World, released in August, 2004, Alan speaks internationally to a variety of audiences, from businesses, chambers, and teen/youth groups. Please call Alan at 816-415-8878 or email AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com if you are seeking a speaker, or amazing results for yourself and your company.
© Sept. 2005, The Leader’s Perspective, LLC
Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).

http://www.leaders-perspective.com

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/small-business-help.aspx

Mailto:AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Unique Selling Proposition--How to Not Be Like Everyone On Every Street Corner--This will increase business 5-10 times nearly instantly

2005-07-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

by Alan Boyer

Do you know that 80% of all small businesses fail before 2 years, and over 90% by year 5?

So, think about this: Why does every new business start off by trying to look like and do the same things every other businesses does?

As a matter of fact success will come by trying to look like the other 20%.

If there is someone just like you on every street corner in the U.S., and, for most, that is the case, how do you get noticed? What would make someone buy from you instead of going to another street corner? Is there some way to be SO DIFFERENT that people want to do business ONLY with you, and will fight their way over the other street corners to get to you?

Yes, there is. I spend more time with my clients working on that aspect than many other areas, and when they find it we typically find that the number of clients walking through the door, and literally chasing my clients will go up 5-10 times almost instantly.

Here's something I get every client to do.

My product
Create a list of your products, and your features down the left side of your paper.

Why buy the product
Then create a column immediately to the right, and answer this question for each product, and each feature. Why should anyone buy this product? What are the benefits of buying the product?

Why buy it from me
Then in the next column over to the right, answer why buy it from me? What do I have to offer that would make someone come to me instead of every other street corner. What is it about me that I can make different, more service, price (not the preferable choice), better quality, MUCH better outcomes/results, etc. For now, just take a stab at it. Get SOMETHING ON PAPER NOW. Be prepared to work on the idea in your head for the rest of your working life as it will continue to get better and better and you should be continually repositioning yourself, literally crawling upward over the other street corners.

Make the results measurable
The last column should take what you've already learned and make it a measurable result, a measurable benefit for the customer. I find that most of the other columns are just starting to get the concepts down, but this last column forces real thinking, and a commitment from you to be real, be visual, and specific about what you do. The point of this last column is to find a REAL GRABBER statement about who you are, and so visual that no one has any question what you will deliver. It will be a picture of you standing above everyone else. 99% of the others out there will be talking about product, not benefits. And those talking about benefits, will be making general, vague statements.

Let's use my business as an example.

My products are:
business consulting/coaching, business training.

Product benefits are:
business growth (sort of vague right, at least you will see the difference in a minute).

Why buy it from me:
I deliver results, not training, and faster than anyone else I know. Most focus on giving a day's training and hope something happens. I focus on the results not matter how we may get there.

Turn it into measurable RESULTS
So, how do I make that measureable: 80% of my clients double their business in 3-4 weeks, start-up clients often see a return on investment of 50-100 times what they spend on me in weeks. My larger clients will double their growth rate in weeks.

So, how can you make what you sell into a measurable result (focus on results, not activities)? Then find a way that you could say that in 20-30 seconds when you introduce yourself. Find a way to put that into a grabber line AT THE TOP of every marketing piece you do and YOU WILL see your marketing responses go up 5-10 times what they are now, OR MORE.

Alan Boyer
The Leader's Perspective
http://leaders-perspective.com/small-business-help.aspx
AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com

Increasing Your Referral Network With Hot Leads by Asking Smart Questions

2005-05-20T14:21:00.000-07:00

Asking Smart Questions Can Get You Hot Leads

http://leaders-perspective.com/small-business-help.aspx

From the Desk of Alan Boyer 5/20/2005

Every salesperson wants a list of hot prospects—people who are ready, willing and able to buy your product or use your service. Where do many hot prospects from? Referrals?

Referrals don’t usually come out of the blue, or on silver platters. More often than not, if you want a referral, you’ve got to ask for one, and how you ask can result in success or failure.

Thank about it! What happens when you ask a friend or customer: “Do you know of anyone who might be interested in my product or service?” Immediately your friend begins going through a list in his head of everyone he’s ever known or met. If he’s an outgoing, popular type, he might have hundreds of friends and acquaintances. Neither of you has time for him to go through all those names!

You want to make it easy for the person who’s giving you the referral. You have to provide clues; you have to focus your referrer’s thinking. By narrowing the possible field of prospects your referrer can run through a shorter, more specific list of people he knows, and is much more likely to come up with a partially qualified lead for you.

Question Your Way to Better Leads

There are two important things to remember about referred leads. First, all referred leads are worth pursuing. Not every lead will turn into a sale, but you’ll never know unless you take the time to find out. One thing I can say with certainty, your success ratio, the win/loss ratio, will be MUCH higher with referred leads than a cold lead, and even higher when the referral partner can give you a referral to someone who is definitely looking for someone like you.

The only way to determine the value of a referred lead is by asking smart questions. The usual referral scenarios go something like this: You’re at the end of a conversation with a prospect, business acquaintance or customer. Maybe you’ve asked for a referral. Or maybe the person has said, “Oh, I know someone you should all. Let me give you his number.”

You’re grateful for the lead, and you don’t want to be a pest. So you take the number and walk away.

If you don’t get any more information than that, all you’ve got in your pocket is another cold call. The purpose of asking for referrals is not just to add quantity to your list of leads – it’s to add quality leads to your list.

Ask your prospect to help you out: “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about this referral?” Most people like to feel that they are being helpful, and if they have the time, they’ll be glad to give you more information.

Some questions you may want to ask:

“What is this person’s title?”
“Do you know what his responsibilities are?’
“Can you tell me anything about the company?”
“Can you tell me a little about what he’s like?”
“Can I use your name when I call?”

You’re not always going to get answers, but the more information you get, the better off you are. There’s no way to predict who among your contacts will produce the best leads; therefore you should ask everyone you speak to for referrals.

If a referral doesn’t work out, ask that person for a referral. Keep the chain going so you always have another lead to follow. This is known as networking.

We’re All Connected

Networking is the basis for the old saying, “It not what you know, it’s who you know that counts.”: This elitist outlook says that only the “well-connected” could get ahead in life.

The truth is that the power of the network, when used well, is so strong that it can make everyone “well-connected.” The numbers alone are staggering. Your network consist of the number of people you come in contact with, multiplied by the number of people they know, multiplied by the number of people they know…. And so on and so on.

Networking is a vital aspect of prospecting. In fact, networking is one of the most important sales tools you’ll ever use. My wife always kids me because I’m constantly networking (it used to be the other way around however)—sometimes in unlikely places. Whenever I travel I make friends with the people sitting next to me on the plane. When I go to meetings or conventions, I come back with dozens of business cards. Even when I go around the corner to the copy center, it’s more than likely that I’ll come back with a name and number to call.

(By the way, be sure to ask me about my next book, “Networking the Elevator.”)

You are the only one who can build, sustain and expand your network. And only by actually following up on every referred lead can you come across the one that will take you to the next sale.

It’s amazing what or who you will find just by talking to the person next to you. I have used the 2-foot rule—if someone is within 2 feet of me I’m going to get to know them. (I’m starting to expand that a bit however, to more than 2 feet, especially with the internet, that’s become more like 2 continents or more).

I’m always amazed at how, even when handed a referral, or just an introduction, how often the ball is dropped. About 2 months ago I invited everyone that I deal with on a daily or weekly basis (ranges from BNI, to customers, to prospects) to an online networking opportunity. Of my local contacts, maybe 3 took me up on it.

My first tier contacts expanded quickly to around 50 or so, but the second tier went ballistic.

Although probably over 100 people didn’t even respond to my email invitation, the results for that networking opportunity has been outstanding. It has ranged from landing several major companies in the Kansas City area, to networking with companies in China that led to connections to other companies in China and across the U.S., connecting some of my local clients to big opportunities locally as well as internationally, etc. I even had one local client that at first had said, “I don’t think I network in the same circle you do. I don’t think I’ll meet the right people.” Well, he found someone in Washington, DC, in the same business (both were locally focused), and a lead came back from that contact in Washington, DC that increased my client’s local business by 4 times.

Networking isn’t always about who you meet right now, it’s about expanding the number of people who know you and can refer you. The second level contacts expand outward exponentially. Don’t miss out on a big opportunity by saying I don’t need to know THESE people.

Follow Up For Future Leads

Once you get a referral, you have established a whole new relationship with the person who gave you that name and number. Your goal is to keep that relationship going. Whether this referral works out or not, you may want to use this person as a source of leads again. So send him a handwritten note within 24 hours just to say thanks. Keep him posted on your progress with the referral.

One big opportunity with networking is having a huge network at your finger tips that you can deliver to customers, or prospects. What do you think happens when you meet a potential client for the first time and can hand him an important lead, a big contact that he has been hoping for but just couldn’t get, even if it is a “I know someone who knows that person or company and can get your foot in the door.”

I cannot emphasize enough to keep the person who referred you involved and up to speed on the progress you are or are not making. When I refer the services of Person A to Person B, I literally have made a promise to Person B to help him solve a problem. I have become responsible for delivery. And when Person A doesn’t get back to me, or doesn’t follow-up I have failed in my responsibility to Person B. So, do you believe I will be giving referrals to the services provided by Person A again?

If you make the sale, it’s time for another note or a call to say thank you. It will demonstrate that the referral was important to you, and help your referrer remember you the next time a hot prospect comes to mind!

Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they ever thought possible.....FASTER than they thought possible
816-415-8878
http://www.leaders-perspective.com

How To DELIVER Success Consistently

2005-05-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

http://leaders-perspective.com/small-business-help.aspx

From the Desk of Alan Boyer

TO My current Business Development Clients

How To Think Successfully and DELIVER Success Consistently
Your Vision Has a Big Impact on How You Think!

Many companies look for a new way to package their product, market their product, or look for a new type of product or service that would appeal to their existing clientele.

A good strategy might be to find something unique not only about your product, but an even more powerful strategy is to find something very unique about you that would deliver something extra to the client, or at least something the client perceives as extra.

It’s how you position yourself, and more often than not it’s how you picture yourself and your product—in other words your vision, which is what we will be working on over the next 2-3 weeks.

Now I want to switch gears a bit and talk about “thinking.” More specifically, thinking to succeed. How you think is often tied to how you picture yourself, your vision.

Your vision should be a picture of:
What you (and your company) are today, and what you think of yourself and the company.
What you will be, where you will be, how you relate to customers, employees, vendors, referral partners, networking events, salesmen, etc.
One year
2-5 years
10 years
Retirement
When/if you sell the company

That’s quite a handful, but once you’ve gotten the picture that works I guarantee you’ll be surprised at the results, and it will change how you do business.

There's an excellent scene in an old motivational film by Doctor Eden Rowell titled, "You Pack Your Own Chute." It illustrates the problem with most thinking and the way you have to think to succeed.

Doctor Rowell draws a 1 and an "X" in the sand and challenges a friend to turn it into a six with one line.

He tries several possibilities, putting a one behind the "X." Finally she draws an "S" in front making the drawing into the word "six."

Her friend protests saying that she indicated it had to be done with a line. But an "S" is nothing more than a curved line, it's just that we think of a line as being straight. We need to be able to step outside the confines of conventional, habitual thinking.

It really comes down to thinking “out of the box” and how you see yourself. Many of you have heard me use the analogy of “turn your filter upside down.”

Our goal over the next few sessions is to understand that “you just can’t keep doing what you’ve been doing and expecting different results.”
We’ll be looking for ways to change
the way you think,
the way you picture you and your business,
some of your attitudes,
and ultimately the way you’ve been behaving.
In other words CHANGE something NOW or concede that you will continue getting the exact same results you’ve been getting. Everything we’ll be doing together is about CHANGE.

And, you hired me to change didn’t you? Change isn’t easy but that’s what’s got to happen.

A classic example of the vision problem is the railroad industry. They mistakenly saw themselves as being in the railroad industry instead of seeing themselves in the transportation industry. Would they be in a declining industry if their vision was “transportation?”

What business are you in? As your business grows and prospers you'll probably redefine that business many times, and as I’ve probably said to you before, you SHOULD be redefining several times, over and over and over. Even after we’ve gotten something written down into that “vision statement” in the program it’ll keep changing.

Success comes from having a plan, being able to think about it, implement it, change it, and look back at it over and over so that it just keeps changing and getting better over time. And, until it is written and in front of you, something solid that can clear see, review, fix, and optimize it’s pretty hard to make much difference (there’s that CHANGE word again). Believe me, your first pass at your vision will be superficial. You may not believe that now, but down the road you will see just how superficial it really was.

The next pass (before we are even finished working together) will start to have some real meat, but, if you are doing your job (chief visionary, NOT chief implementer) you will be changing it even after we are finished and changing all of the way to retirement or when you sell the company.

My vision has changed: I was a business consultant, and business coach. Today I am the doubler, the multiplier of businesses all over the world.

At one time I was a struggling small business just like you, and went through the fears of growing a business and of talking to big businesses. Even though my 35 years of business experience was as a consultant working inside of BIG business with very significant results, coming back at BIG business from the outside can be daunting at first. But that’s how I allowed myself to look at it (vision). Today I stand eyeball to eyeball with the top executives in the largest corporations of the world and they KNOW I bring something to the party that they want.

Is there a difference? I’m still the same person with the same skills as before, but my vision of myself, how I present myself, and what I deliver has changed. It actually changed the results I deliver. Vision IS powerful, or it can be what destroys you and keeps you down. It is who you REALLY are or can become.

McDonald's, for example, began as a hamburger stand. Today, among other things, McDonald's is a huge and powerful commercial real estate company investing and building a property empowered with franchisee's leases as funding.

I had a client that was a multilevel marketing company. They first thought of themselves as really good salesmen, and they were. But they had sold lots of downline businesses that weren’t producing. They were good a selling a dream to just anybody. It’s just that “just anybody” weren’t good at running a business or becoming salesmen. When my clients changed their perception from “salesmen” to “building successful businesses for others” they became business coaches and business builders. They changed from “selling” to “finding people that were the most likely to succeed and then helped them to succeed.” Their downline sales suddenly went through the roof as well as their own. It’s in the vision!

I often have to convince my clients that their market isn’t the whole world, or shouldn’t be (market share near zero), that there is someone (a really smaller group) that needs them SOOO bad that once my clients change their view of who they are and who their clients are their market share can increase to 50% maybe even 100% and their total number of customers will skyrocket. It’s in their vision!

I’d like to ask you a question. When you are in front of a potential client, do you feel small, sort of looking up at them, and you are at their mercy as to whether they will buy or not? Or do you have confidence and do you have something that people ARE clamoring, chase you to get. Are you there to sell, or to help them? How you picture yourself and your relationships are a PART of your VISION! If you feel small and at their mercy YOU ARE! We have to find the VISION of who you are.

Continual frequent rethinking of what your business is, should be, can be and will be is a great success strategy. Regardless of the redefinition though the most important strategy of all is plain simple excellence. The book "In Search of Excellence," has been very good for American business. It has caused many companies and business people to do better thinking about the quality of what they do and produce.

As I travel this country, fly airlines, stay in hotels, rent cars, eat in restaurants, deal with many different vendors supplying the five different corporations I have interest in, I'm most often disappointed by the lack of excellence and the lack of concern for excellence apparent in most businesses.

But I'm thrilled by the occasional examples of real commitment to quality.

Often times customer satisfaction, and the quality our employees deliver, is related to the vision our employees have of themselves and their relationship to the customer.

What is the difference between an employee working in your “returns” department that thinks he is there to protect the company or you, the boss, from losing money through the use of the company policies (he’s a policeman), versus one who sees himself as someone that is there to help the customer get what he needs through his (the employee’s) knowledge of the policy. The employee who sees himself as the customers assistant, through the company rules and regulations, to get what the customer needs (either replacement, refund, repair of the product, etc) will raise your company in the eyes of the customer. The other vision will destroy you.

Many times a problem employee just has a wrong vision. Most employees are working hard to fulfill their vision, it’s just the wrong one. Help them align with your vision.

See how important a vision can be?

Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they ever thought possible.....FASTER than they thought possible
816-415-8878
http://www.leaders-perspective.com

Successful Business Planning

2005-05-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

Doubling a Business

With Successful Business Planning

From the Desk of Alan Boyer

Having started my career as an engineer it wasn't unusual for a boss to ask me if I knew how to design this or that. My response was usually, "Sure I know how to do that," and pointing to my head. "It's all right here."

Of course, as soon as I put it on paper, the aha's started to fall out. The first section usually wouldn't quite come together with the next, and the 2nd with the 3rd, and so on and so on.

It would take a little work tweaking each of the sections until they all started to work on paper.

And then another aha! Once one was built out in the real world it almost never worked the first time. There was always some assumption about how the real world looked that wasn't just perfect.

So that required going back and forth from the real world to the paper design until the real world design worked and I had a copy of that on paper.

And, the next aha! I've discovered that almost all engineers are the same. None are ready to release the product to production when production is screaming for it.

The reason is that the engineer is now looking at a design on paper and seeing tons of aha's. Now that it is working he is looking at the design on paper and finding places that he had never seen before, opportunities to improve the design, to make it cheaper, to make it more efficient, more powerful, and on and on. It really never ends. The engineer is always finding new opportunities and wanting to make the design better.

Well.....how many people do we all know that are running their business right there in their heads. It's no different from the engineering design. If it is in our heads we can always say, "Sure, I know how!" But if we can get it on paper, and then get one working in the real world, suddenly we're seeing things on that paper that we've never seen before. The opportunities, more efficient, faster, better, cheaper, and on and on.

Once we've gotten our clients through the first phase onto paper and implemented in the real work, they always find ways to double, triple, their business, and then we show them how to, through planning, do it over and over again and again.

Usually within the first 3-4 weeks the first aha's hit. Then get out of their way or be run over.

Alan Boyer
The Leader's Perspective
Helping People and Companies Reach further than they EVER thought possible....FASTER than they thought possible.

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/small-business-help.aspx

http://www.leaders-perspective.com
816-415-8878

Preparing to Win

2005-05-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

Prepare to win!

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/smallbusinesshelp.htm

From the Desk of Alan Boyer

I hope you are having a great week?

This weeks article is all about preparation.

Preparation is closely linked to confidence and success. It certainly gives you the edge if you feel like you have done all that you can do beforehand when facing a certain situation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Prepare to win!

Just picture a General preparing for a war?

What do you think his chances would be if he didn't have any of the following?
· If he didn't know the opposition
· If he didn't know what weapons the opposition were using
· If he didn't know what type of terrain and locations they would be fighting in
· How many of them are there?
· What are the opposition's strengths and weaknesses?
· If he didn't have a plan of attack himself?
· If he had no maps

Do you think the General would be confident going into battle not knowing that information?
The same goes for you in any situation that you may face.

You often hear me talk about DOUBLING a business. How much success do you think that general would have if he hadn’t planned? Do you think he’d win even one city, territory, or country? How does that compare to what would happen if he planned? Even if he got one city wouldn’t that be…. Let’s see…. 1 divided by 0 is infinity. Do you see how easy it could be to double his results, or that of a company by the proper planning? So, doubling a company really isn’t that hard.

Join us for our Small Business Group starting next Wednesday to find out. Call now 816-415-8878 to get one of the last seats.

Preparing/Planning leads to REAL Success

To be successful in business, marketing, sales, just about everything you and I do, you’ve got to

Plan the attack
Understand the competition, what are their strengths and their weaknesses (are they beating us—why? Do they have a weakness that might give us an opportunity?)
What are our strengths and weaknesses that will either allow us to fix something in our own armour, and knowing what makes us Special and Unique that we should be pointing out to the customers. We should be selling our uniqueness. Do you know what that is?
Do you understand your customer? Do you know what tools you have that would be the killer app or the one thing that would make all of those customers chase you instead of the way you’ve been doing it (chasing them)?
What is your plan of attack? Against the competition, and for the customer?
Do you have a list of all of the objections every customer has ever asked you? Do you have a response that causes the customer to say, “Wow, you’re right about that. You just convinced me to buy.”

A Sales Tip That Just Might Double Your Business

NOTE: Do you know that when a potential customer starts asking a lot of questions, and when they throw objections at you that that potential customer is probably closer to buying than those that don’t? Have you always thought that when someone objects that you are about to lose them? Well, either you are or your aren’t. It’s certainly a turning point. But, the ones that are asking for price and objecting to some things are further along the sales process than most of the others and are just about to say “Yes, let’s go,” or “No, go away.”

What do you do when you hear an objection:
o argue to prove your point, (that usually kills the deal)
or say something like
o “Believe me, I understand your concern. I would be concerned in that situation too. Have you thought about……” or “What would happen if………” “What do you think would be the answer to that problem?” “What do you need in order to make that decision? How can I help you make the right decision”

Do you have a game plan for answering every last objection that a customer is going to ask you? Are you prepared?

One of the things we do with our students in the Sales Improvement program is to get them to list every last objection, prepare a game plan that includes “what does the customer want and how can I help him get the answer he needs,” and answers to those objections.

Give us a call 816-415-8878

to join in on the next sales improvement program.

Don’t you think that if you are prepared in every business, sales, and marketing situation you’ll close more sales?

One of our clients didn’t just double their sales, they went up 4 times.
We’ve seen companies that came to us saying they had a 10% sales close ratio jump to 40-50% with just a few of the tools from our Sales Improvement program in the first few weeks. And we’ve even had some go MUCH higher than that as more and more of the program sinks in. (You’ve probably all heard me talk about DOUBLING a business in weeks, well, what would happen if your sales close ratio went from 10% to 40% like that one above? That should increase your business by 4 times right? Doubling a business isn’t that hard if you have the numbers in front of you and are looking for the opportunities with the right tools.
A couple of weeks ago we had a call from a client in California that outperforms the instructor. As a matter of fact, he owns an IT consulting firm, but now, with his new sales expertise, he outsources as sales manager and sales trainer for several multi-billion dollar companies making more on his sideline now than he does with his “real job.” His commissions are in the $10’s of thousands a month on his sideline business. He did a cold calling demo for one of his trainees just last week to show them how easy cold calling is. He called three multi-billion dollar companies in 10 minutes and got appointments with 2 of the three. Mouths all around the room dropped to the floor since they were struggling to get an appointment a day.
Am I REALLY Prepared? How Much Difference Would That Make to Me In Dollars and Time?
You've got to ask yourself the following question:
"Am I fully prepared to face anything that this situation could throw at me?"
If the answer is no, you have not prepared enough.

* Do you know what you are talking about?

* Do you know the other person?

* Do you know what you are doing?

* Do you know all the information that you will be talking about?
In closing, just think about the following situations and next time that you face them, ask yourself "Are you fully prepared?"
* A job interview* When you meet someone for the first time/ Building rapport and starting conversations* When attending a meeting* When meeting your bosses boss

Be prepared and you'll be preparing to win!

What is preparation after all?

Well, without stating the obvious, it's all about going into a situation fully prepared and informed.

It's all about being confident in your subject matter, being prepared mentally and being ready.
This is all common sense and I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know.

But why don't you prepare more then!

Let us help you prepare.

Call us at 816-415-8878
to find out when the next Sales Improvement Session kicks off.

Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they ever thought possible.....FASTER than they thought possible
816-415-8878
http://www.leaders-perspective.com

Jack Welch--Winners Get back on the Horse

2005-04-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

From the Desk of Alan Boyer
4/29/2005

I just had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with Jack Welch, past CEO of GE. A fantastic opportunity.

Some of the things he said about who they hired and what they were looking for in managers sort of hit home with what I am telling clients, and what I am telling my teen leadership group in our Rising Stars program (http://www.leaders-perspective.com/risingstars.htm)

The Best Managers Aren't Perfect But They Keep Trying

Jack Welch--"We look for people that are not perfect. People that have made mistakes, but know how to quickly get back up on the horse and turn the loss around into a win. It isn't about never making mistakes, it's about getting back up and moving forward to the results. If someone has never experienced falling off they might not be the managers we want."

Leadership Is About Results

"Leadership is about results, not experience, not education, or any of the other things that everyone claims is leadership. It's about being able to consistantly deliver results, and being able to recover from falling off that horse and getting right back on until you ultimately deliver results."

That's so in line with what I keep telling our clients and our youth groups. The path to your destination is almost never a straight line. There will be zig zags and steps backward. Too many people slip off the trail and just walk away telling themselves they just failed. The winners are the ones that learn from what took them off the trail, figure out how to get back on the trail, and keep making steady, plodding, toward the goal even with setbacks.

Failure Is a Choice--Choose to Win

You only fail one time--when you say you have, and QUIT. When that happens there is only one guaranteed outcome--Failure. That makes failure a choice. Those that choose to not get back on choose to be victims. Those that win choose to get back on the horse, get back on the trail and just plod along toward the goal.

Alan Boyer
The Leader's Perspective
http://www.leaders-perspective.com
http://www.leaders-perspective.com/smallbusinesshelp.htm
816-415-8878

Doubling Your Business Program

2005-04-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

Announcing an Amazing New Doubling Your Business Program Designed Specifically for
Small Business Owners who want to Fill their business in Less than 6 Months...

"You Too Can Have an Ultra-Successful Business In Less than 6 Months Starting From Scratch…

"In Just a Few Minutes, You Will Discover How You Can Create a Thriving Business Practice Using My Simple Formula"

By Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective
http://www.leaders-perspective.com/smallbusinesshelp.htm

"The Common Problem Facing Small Businesses"

April 28, 2005

From the Desk of Alan Boyer
Kansas City, MO

Dear Friend:

How often do you find yourself saying, "I wish I could get enough clients so that I could do what it is that I love to do." Unfortunately, too many small business owners have deep skills in technical areas or their field of expertise, but don't know how to attract new clients. This is a common problem that I hear over and over again.

Frequently, I get calls and emails from small business owners that express to me in private their feelings of frustration and anxiety in their marketing efforts. Perhaps, there are times when even you feel...

Frustrated with your inability to attract new clients.
Tired of networking with little or no results.
Discouraged because you can't seem to turn interested prospects into paying clients.
Annoyed because you're not getting the type or size of projects you'd hoped for.
Puzzled as to what marketing tactics you should be using and how to use them.
Confused because you are just starting out and don't know how to get your first clients.

This is understandable. You see, you were probably trained to be a specialist in your area of expertise. But no one taught you how to attract new clients. Or you might have been taught basic marketing principles but you no one ever explained how to actually implement the tactics you were taught.

I've even known quite a few small business owners that got so frustrated that they called it quits.

Please don't do that!

If you...

Would you like to have a business with all the clients you can handle...
Want to learn how to make qualified prospects pick up the phone and call you...
Would enjoy picking and choosing the projects you want to work on...
Are interested in becoming a well-known and recognized expert in your industry...
Would like to attract more clients without feeling pushy or like a salesperson...
...then I think you would benefit from what I have to say.

But there is one thing that I find interesting. I'm always amazed at how one business owner could be making a lot of money while others aren't making any at all.

What is the simple formula we mentioned at the beginning?

In our small business building seminar we’ll put together a visual business model for your business that literally tells you exactly what has to happen to deliver the goals you have set for yourself. You won’t be waiting to see what the economy LET’s you have, or how many customers just happen to walk through the door.

I see clients all the time that look at the model and the formula we put togeither in the FIRST hour we work together, and say …………. I had no idea. You just showed me what I should be doing and I’ve been doing only 1/10th of what I should be doing…..I’ve been working on the wrong things in my business…I was working on cutting out expenses, when I should have been focusing on spending just a few dollars more in………. instead of……….

We’ll end up with a formula that says, every time, EVERY TIME we put $1 into our business, and we do the steps that are in our formula you know that you will get $10, $50, maybe even $100 out. Then it’s a no brainer to generate as much as you want rather than waiting to see what the economy will deliver, or how many customers walk through the door. We have, instead, a plan that delivers the dollar figure we said we wanted, and the number of customers needed to do that.

From that first hour many see changes that start the chain of events that double 80% of my small business clients in just weeks.

The other part of the formula, tells us how many times it multiplies that dollar, and over the next few weeks of working together we will take that multiplier up by several times. A part of this process is to teach you how to find those things that will increase that multiplier over and over, doubling and doubling many times.

When you end up with a formula that says

EVERY TIME I put a dollar into this business, and do the steps we’ve worked out together, you will get X times more dollars rolling out the other side, and EVEN X, the multiplier can be made greater than you ever imagined, then we have a money machine. Put in a dollar, X dollars rolls out.

Call 816-415-8878

We’re kicking off an online group program right away. Places are limited. Call right away.

Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective
Helping People and Companies reach further than they EVER thought possible….FASTER than they thought possible.

Doubling Your Business with the 80/20 Rule

2005-04-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

"How To Use The 80/20 Principle To Double, Triple, or Multiply Even Further Your Sales And Profits"

by Alan Boyer

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/smallbusinesshelp.htm

Some time ago I found something that helped me identify my own unique selling proposition, and the vision that most of my business is now built around—80% of my small business clients double their business within weeks—I focus my business on doubling, tripling, multiplying your business.

Since that time, I’ve discovered many different ways to double a business, and ways to do it over, and over, and over, to achieve almost unlimited times of doubling a business. And if you’ve ever worked through the “take a penny and double it every day” scenario you know how powerful that can be, since within 30 days that penny is worth millions of dollars. Well, so can your business, just give it a little more time since we aren’t doubling it every day, maybe every few weeks though!

I'm going to share one of the approaches with you that can double your sales, double your marketing results, double your production output, and literally more than double your entire business and the bottom line. And this is only one of the many ideas we’ll develop further with you when we work together.

Have you heard of the Pareto principle, sometimes it's called the 80/20 Principle. Even if you haven’t heard of it, I GUARANTEE that by the time you're finished reading this, you'll understand exactly...

How To Achieve Twice As Much With Half The Effort!

The 80/20 Principle was first discovered approximately 100 years ago by an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto while he was studying income and wealth patterns however, the principle applies to everything in the world..
He discovered that things seem to happen in a pattern in real life. About 80% of the results we get are produced by only 20% of the effort. The other 80% of the effort or work done isn’t nearly as effective, so, just maybe we shouldn’t be doing that part.
In order to get the best returns we should focus on the 20% that is giving the 80% results.
Another approach is that 20% of the processes on our production lines produce 80% of our defects.

So, to get the biggest return on our efforts to improve our quality we should focus only on the 20% of the causes that are creating the 80% of the problems.

Not long ago, a major insurance company did a study on its sales force to see where the majority of its sales and profits were coming from. Low and behold...

20% Of The Sales Force Produced 80% Of the Profits!

They went one step further, and analyzed the top 20% of the sales force to identify if there was a "predictable imbalance" amongst this highly productive group of people.
Guess what they found? That's right...

The Top 20% Of The Top 20% Of The Sales Force Produced 80% Of The Profits!
I have personally used the "Pareto Principle" in virtually every area of my business and personal life, and found it to be an extremely effective tool for determining where and how I should be spending my time and efforts.

Let’s play with the math here. If 20% of the work done results in 80% of the profits, what would happen if

We stopped doing the other 80%
We took the work that we had been doing on that 20% and put all of our effort and time into that.

Wouldn’t that result in somewhere around 4-5 times increase in output?

Let’s put some numbers to this so that we can see it better.

Most of us seem to spend a lot of time working on bookkeeping, trivial to do’s, busy-work, and possibly spending a lot of time piddling in our production. Most of the time I hear from clients, “I’m trying to save money by doing it myself.”

Looking at that, we ought to be able to hire a bookkeeper at $20/hour, and probably the production staff is getting that or something less.

What is your time worth? What do you get paid when you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing such as managing your business and bringing in more and more clients. I often find that small business owners are worth around $150-$200/hour when they are focused on the right things.

I often ask my clients if they want to pay their bookkeeper $200/hour. They look me in the eye as if I’m crazy. Then I remind them that they ARE paying the bookkeeper that if they are giving up the opportunity to make $150-$200/hour to save $20/hour. Something doesn’t add up here, does it?

Let’s see, on a 40-hour week, 80% of the time (32 hours) I am working to save $20/hour, and generating no income. The other 20% of the time (8 hours) I am making $150-$200/hour, or around $1,600. The total income for the week is $1,600.

What would happen if I stopped spending my own time on the bookkeeping and other menial tasks?

Let’s deal with the obvious expenses first: I’ll have to hire a bookkeeper at $20/hour for 32 hours, or $640. (I’m already hearing the roar from the peanut gallery about the outgoing expense!). However, I’ll make $200/hour for 40 hours, or $8,000 income. Now, let’s see the bottom line, $8,000-$640=$7,360.
$7,360 is 4.6 times the $1,600 we were making before. So, much for doubling our business! We just almost increased it 5 times.

Here are the top 7 ways to use the 80/20 Principle in your business and personal life.
So, without further ado, here they are:
80/20 Principle #1 - Products

Here's how I'm going to use this information...

First, I'm going to spend 80% of my time focusing on how to improve these products, and generate the maximum number of sales to my clients.
Next, I'm going to eliminate any time spent on low income producing services, and turn some of the efforts into automated systems that take up less of my time or my staffs time.

How can you apply this to your business you ask?

Start by analyzing which products, services, or customers that account for 80% of your profits. My guess is that it will be only one or two at most.

I have found that the most successful salespeople focus on one or two products that they are superior at marketing and selling while most "average" salespeople try to be all things to all people. They figure that it's better to sell "something," but they fail to realize that it's much easier and less time consuming to make one $6,000 sale than twenty separate $300 sales.

I also see my clients focusing 80% of their efforts into what they feel the most comfort in, and, in most cases that isn't what's producing the most results. Find that and refocus on the 20% that is producing the 80% results.

80/20 Principle #2 - Clients

I recently analyzed the customer list of a client, and found that 80% of their sales and profits were coming from about 20% of their clients.
Conversely, I also found that about 80% of their headaches were coming from the bottom 20% of theirclients.

Here's what I'm going to do with this information...

First, I'm going to do whatever it takes (within reason) to keep their top 20% happy. My customer plans to offer this group of people special bonuses, private sales, extra levels of support, and anything else they can think of to let these people know how much they appreciate them.

On the other hand, the other 20%? They produce 80% of the headaches and take up 80% of their time for only 20% of the profits. They need to refocus their business, define how they can identify these people before taking them on as clients, and stop selling to that market segment.

At first glance, this may sound harsh. It is far more profitable and enjoyable to work with people who appreciate what you do for them, and are willing to pay a fair fee for the help you give them.

When evaluating the clients of a previous customer of mine. We discovered that approximately 20% of their clients were producing 80% of the total revenue. They had been targeting $50K average income families. However, when looking through their records, it become quickly obvious that the 20% that were the most profitable were much higher incomes families. So, on the next direct mail campaign we moved the target market to $75K average income families (the 20% producing the most revenue). They put ALL of their marketing dollars into this higher target. The results? The direct mail response rate went from 0.2% to 0.8%-1.0% area. An increase in 4.5 times more customers walking through the door for the same marketing dollars spent before, AND, the average sale went from $1,500 to $3,000, doubling the revenue per customer. 4.5 times more customers buying 2 times as much resulted in a 9 times increase in total revenue within 2 weeks.

Every bad client you fire is usually replaced by a better client who appreciates what you do for them.

Try this in your own business.

Determine who the top 20% of your clients are, and treat them like gold!

Then, figure out which 20% are causing you the most problems, and taking up an inordinate amount of your time. Start by giving these people an opportunity to "redeem" themselves.
If that doesn't work, and they continue to make your life miserable...
Get Rid Of Them!

80/20 Principle #3 - Sales And Marketing Methods

There are dozens of different marketing methods you could use to generate new clients for your business.

Here's a small list:
1. Direct Mail
2. Telemarketing
3. Advertising
4. Joint Ventures
5. Public Seminars
6. In-Home Workshops
7. One-On-One Sales Presentations
8. Referrals

Here's the problem: Too many people try to market to too many, to the entire world. You can be much more effective by finding the 20% that are more likely to buy, the 20% that really need your product.

Remember the goal of any business should be focus and simplicity.

All marketing methods will NOT work equally well for you.

So, here's my advice...

Go back and analyze the results of all your marketing efforts. I think you'll discover that one or two methods will account for about 80% of your sales.

The bottom line is - test to find out which marketing/selling methods work best for you, then spend 80% of your time focusing on them.

80/20 Principle #4 - Time

Without a doubt, analyzing how you spend your time will have the greatest overall impact on your business and your personal life.

Start by tracking how you spend every hour of your day for, at least, one full week.
I think you'll make an amazing discovery...

80% Of Your Results Come From 20% Of The Time You Spend Working!

If you're like most entrepreneurs and salespeople, much of your time is taken up doing administrative tasks (i.e. filing, bookkeeping), talking on the telephone (non-sales related conversations), reading (newspapers, trade publications), etc.

Unfortunately, none of these activities produce any revenue.

Then, we spend about 20% of our work week (1 full work day) on "revenue-generating activities" like creating ads, sales letters, and telephone scripts, doing seminars, meeting with prospects and clients, and setting up joint ventures.

Guess what? That's where all of your money comes from.

But you're only spending 20% of your time on these activities. Therein lies the reason why most salespeople and entrepreneurs hit an "income ceiling" finding that no matter how many extra hours they work, they don't make any more money.

Here's my recommendation...

Start by analyzing how you're currently spending your time. Once you've defined the "non-revenue generating activities" that you're spending 80% of your time on...

Delegate, Eliminate, Or Outsource These Tasks!

In most cases you can easily double your net income by eliminating half the activities you currently spend your productive working hours on, and instead replace them with "revenue generating activities."

80/20 Principle #5 - Employees, Vendors, Joint Venture Partners

By now, you should know that 80% of your problems and headaches will come from 20% of your employees, vendors, and joint venture partners.

I'm a big believer in quality of life, and enjoying the process of running and growing a business.

Most business people will tolerate almost anything for the mighty dollar...
Not Me!

I like to be friends with, and enjoy my working relationships with employees, vendors, and joint venture partners.

The minute they become more of a hassle than they're worth, I'm a big believer in terminating the relationship and replacing it with a better one.

Life is way too short to deal with someone who gives you an upset stomach every time you talk to them.

My recommendation: Get rid of the relationships in your life that are causing 80% of the aggravation - you'll feel a lot happier!

80/20 Principle #6 - Expenses

I went back and analyzed where I'm spending most of the money in my business to determine how I could reduce my overhead.

Interestingly enough, I discovered we were spending about 80% of our expenses in three categories:
1. Printing
2. Postage
3. Advertising

So, how am I using this information?

Since I can't reduce my advertising costs (instead, they tend to go up every year!), I am focusing my efforts on getting more bang for the buck. Ad space costs me the same each month whether I get no leads or 2,000 leads. So, I’m constantly measuring the response rates, identify the 20% that produce the most, and drop the others. Always rotating and testing. Each mail gets better and better.

I've decided to create 12 new ads to test each month. This way, my ad copy never gets "worn out," and my lead counts should go up instead of down.

Anyway, here's my suggestion...

Analyze which expenses account for 80% of your spending. Then, come up with creative ways to replace or reduce your expenses.

80/20 Principle #7 - Leisure Activities

If you haven't already figured this out...

It's Impossible To Be Highly Productive Without Taking Quality Time Off!

That's why it's important to analyze which 20% of your leisure activities produce 80% of your enjoyment.

Here's a short list of some of my favorite activities:
1. Playing and doing things with the grandkids
2. Movies
3. Going Out To Dinner
4. Playing Tennis
5. Traveling
6. Reading/learning new ways to get better at business
7. Hanging Out With Friends, Family, And Most Importantly, My Wife
8. Hiking And Walking Surrounded By Beautiful Scenery

The problem was that I was only spending about 20% of my leisure time on these activities.
Over the past two years, I have focused on spending more and more of my leisure time doing these activities. I'm not quite at 80%, but I'm getting there.

My final recommendation:

Find out what you enjoy doing most, and spend more of your FREE time doing it.
For more FREE articles, tips, newsletters and expert opinions on how to get more qualified leads, sales, and referrals for your business, you can visit my website at http://www.leaders-perspective.com/ and go to the hints and tips page. I’ll be updating that page with more business hints and tips like this one on a regular basis.
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Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they ever thought possible.....FASTER than they thought possible
816-415-8878
http://www.leaders-perspective.com/

2005-04-26T19:18:00.002-07:00

Archive: The Leader\'s Perspective

2004 Archive: Business & People Improvement Newsletter Success Outlook is a Newletter with hints, tips, and ideasfor improving your people and your business. Jan, 2004 Technology Planning Strategic Planning & Leadership Lean (4th in Series)--I Can\'t Do THAT! Web Site o the Month One Minute Ideas..

2005-04-26T19:18:00.001-07:00

Talk It Up It\'s been well established by behavioral science that what we say - and how we say it - has a tremendous impact on thoughts and actions. Yet, according to author Dr. Kenneth Christian, many of us go about our lives woefully unaware of the impact everyday use of language has on our attitudes and our fundamental beliefs about ourselves. In Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement (Regan Books, 2002), Christian o..

2005-04-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

Rising Stars: The Leader\'s Perspective

Rising Stars Overview -- Leadership for Teens A life process preparing students for a future of success and excellence. Our Vision Through a development process, Rising Stars provides a firm foundation to prepare all young people for life-long learning, development, and achievement. The Rising Stars Process was designed to help today\'s youth develop their personal leadership skills. Leadership is essential in enabling youth to d..

2005-04-26T19:03:00.002-07:00

Certified Post-Merger Facilitators

Mergers and Acquisitions Mr. Boyer is a Certified Post-Merger Facilitator with Total Quality Institute. The Leader\'s Perspective also has as an affiliate one of the leading Mergers and Acquisitions specialists, Len Gustafson. Studies have shown that more than 90% of companies that either acquire a new company, or merge with another company fail. The biggest reason is the difficulty in merging the cultures of the two companies. The Leade..

2005-04-26T19:03:00.001-07:00

Mailing List Sign Up

Join the Leader\'s Perspective mailing list * indicates required information Please tell us* Your email address * Retype your email address Select your interests We\'d like to get to know you Total Quality Management * First Name Cycle Time Reduction * Last Name Sales Improvement * Address Leadership * City Management Improvement * State or Province please select one Outside US and Canada Alabama Alaska Alberta Ameri..

2005-04-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Small Business HelpGet help from an expert coach to explode your business

Small Business Help "Give me 2 hours a week...just 2 hours and I can help you make 2005 the best year you\'ve ever had." --Alan Boyer If I worked with you....in a hands-on Coaching Program....Ill guarantee that, IF you ACT on the things we talk about, that your business will grow somewhere between 50-200% by June? 80% of our small business clients doubled their business in 3-4 weeks. Our larger clients typically doubled a single process in 3-4 d..

2005-04-26T18:48:00.001-07:00

Hints & Tips: The Leaders Perspective

Free Hints/Tips to Improve Your Business 1) Developing Cold Calling Scripts 2) Cycle Time Reduction Improves Process Speed-- (sometimes by as much as 2 times) Quality Reduces Cost Inventory Floor Space 3) Mergers & Acquisitions Some Key Steps The Leader\'s Perspective -Kansas City Metro Area Office Alan Boyer 6 Pemford Place L..

2005-04-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

References: The Leaders Perspective

References & Testimonials This month, I have seen my personal sales double. I was able to promote a fully trained leader and I have 2 new leaders in training. My wholesale business has also doubled this month, and we still have 12 days to go! Steve Weigert President Quality Indoor Living Your working understanding of the topic when combined with your passion certainly sets you apart fro..

2005-04-26T18:47:00.001-07:00

Seminar Schedule

Seminar Schedule Are you interested in attending a program, seminar or speaking engagement? If so, you\'ve come to the right place. Our upcoming public offering of dynamic presentations is provided below. Click on the Date to learn more. Jan, 2005How to Get More Customers Walking Through Your Door Feb 17, 2005Doubling Your Business Before the End of March Mar 16, 2005The Secret to Doubling Any Business in Weeks Loc..

2005-04-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

Our Programs: The Leader\'s Perspective

Programs People Development & Improvement Small Business Coaching Strategic Thinking & Business Planning Executive Strategic Planning Executive Leadership Leadership Development Management Supervision Sales Development & Improvement Time Management Customer Service Process & Quality Development and Improvement Six Sigma E-mail us for mor..

Dealing with Sales Objections

2005-04-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

I’m sure that every last one of you has had to deal with an objection. (Gee, if you haven’t you haven’t been out there selling!)

So, how do you currently handle objections?

How often do you get an objection? Is it frequently? If so, you might be doing something that is causing the objection. (We’ll deal with that in another email. For now, let’s cover how to deal with the broader objections we have.)

First, let’s deal with the broader picture, of how to deal with any objection. We’ll get to some specific objections later in this email.

1) Don’t argue. Trying to justify your position is not hearing what the potential client has to say. He wants to be heard not argued with. One approach might be:
“I understand how you feel” (or “I’ve heard others say that before they………… saw what we really offer”, etc).
2) Ask them to tell you more
(“Help me understand your issues, tell me what you are wanting to happen, or tell me what you think isn’t happening”, or “How might that differ from what we offer?”
3) Probe for how to help them (“Is this the only issue?”,
Create a list of every last thing.
Then, (“Thanks for helping me understand how to help you. If we could deliver every last thing (or remove every last problem) do you see any reason whatsoever that would hold you back?”)
4) NOW deal with each one of the issues, and then close the deal.
If you can’t deal with the issues, then is the problem how you’ve positioned the product, or is it that the product really doesn’t meet this customer’s needs.
Here are some options at this point:
a) Find the right customers, those that need your product (you won’t win every potential customer over. Find the right ones and stop wasting time with the wrong ones.
b) Does your product need a slight tweak so that it can meet more customer’s needs

Here’s a specific objection that some of my clients bring to the table frequently, at least until we show them how to work around that objection.

Price=============================================
There are only a few, VERY few, times when price really is an issue if you are doing it right.

What I am saying here is that when price seems to be coming up frequently, you haven’t positioned your product correctly. You are ALLOWING price to be the issue.

Price becomes an issue when the potential customers PERCEIVE that the product features are just like all of the others out there on the market. At that point the ONLY way to differentiate is by price. So find what makes you different.

Notice that I said PERCEIVES. That means that there has been nothing shown to the potential customer that makes this product jump out at them. You can change that perception by showing him what is different about the product, the service, or YOU.

An example of a client of mine that had a problem like this was a hardware store that had a Wal Mart move in next door. At first his business totally crashed. Everyone saw Wal Mart as a cheaper alternative, until he started running ads showing that he gave service, assistance in finding the right parts for your hardware needs, and even would be available for phone calls to help you through repairs or send someone to your home if you still couldn’t get it done. He actually could raise his prices to make sure he was compensated for the extra service. Price isn’t everything if you can differentiate you or your product. His sales actually increased even though he raised the price. Ask us how we might do that for you.

If you have a specific objection that just seems to keep coming up….give us a call to talk it over. We’ve seen sales success increase 2-4 times for some clients.

If you haven’t done this already, I suggest that you write a list of all objections you have ever experienced, then prepare a response for each of them so that you won’t be surprised the next time any one of these pop up. Practice how you will respond. Even get someone to role play and give you a hard time so that you can work it through before you lose another sale.

Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective

Helping companies worldwide reach further than they ever thought possible.....FASTER than they thought possible
816-415-8878
http://www.leaders-perspective.com
http://www.leaders-perspective.com/SmallBusinessHelp.htm

2005-04-26T18:33:00.003-07:00

About Us: The Leader\'s Perspective

Who We Are The Leader\'s Perspective is A Kansas City-based Consulting and Executive Firm Focusing on delivering unusually successful people and processes worldwide 400 consultants/coaches with wide-ranging expertise Business improvement Quality improvement/consulting/training Works with Single Proprietor companies And Large corporations Mergers & Acquisitions Mr. Boyer, President and founder, has 30 years of experience i..

2005-04-26T18:33:00.002-07:00

Business Improvement Newsletters

Current Business & People Improvement Newsletter Success Outlook is a Newletter with hints, tips, and ideasfor improving your people and your business. Success Outlook Ideas to Improve Your Business Current Issue: April, 2005 - (PDF version) Home Newsletters About Us Our Programs Seminar Schedule References &nbs..

2005-04-26T18:33:00.001-07:00

Secrets of increasing your business

Small Business and Individual Coaching Small Business Coaching 80% of our Small Business Clients have doubled their business in 3-4 weeks! More and more people are working one-on-one with individual coaches to increase and accelerate their personal and business success, achieve their goals, and live a more satisfying and fulfilling life-by becoming more of who they are - on purpose. A professional coach can help you attain the success you desire..

2005-04-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

www.leaders-perspective.com

The Leader\'s Perspective is A Kansas City-based consulting and executive firm... Focusing on delivering unusually successful people and processes worldwide 400 consultants/coaches with wide-ranging expertise Business improvement Quality improvement/consulting/training Works with Single Proprietor companies And Large corporations Mergers & Acquisitions..

2005-04-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

Alan Boyer

Small Business Help

2005-04-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

Small Business Owners--Join us to get help building a MORE Successful Business
http://www.leaders-perspective.com/SmallBusinessHelp.htm

...Build a More Successful Business, Attract More New Customers, Sell More to Existing Customers, and Bring Back Your Customers More Often, With Less Effort — No Matter What Product or Service You Sell.

I'll take you by the hand and show you how to implement the best business building, marketing, and sales strategies used by America's most successful small businesses.

Join us for our online "Business Advisors Group."

We've had several years of very successfully working with small businesses one-on-one as a business coach. 80% of our small business clients have doubled their business in 3-4 weeks.

Now, we are creating online teams of small businesses that will meet weekly to plan, implement, and optimize their business just like we have done individually, but this will be at 1/3rd of our coaching rate, but we guarantee the same results.

We guarantee that you will at least double our fee or your money back. And, that is an easy guarantee for us since the typical result is doubling an entire company.

Call us at 816-415-8878 to sign up now. The sessions will be starting May 11.
Sign up NOW there will only be 10 seats available.

http://www.leaders-perspective.com/smallbusinesshelp.htm