By Simon Black, Sovereign Man In Warren Buffett’s latest round of gold-bashing last weekend, he described all the gold in the world as a useless cube that would fit snugly within a baseball infield. If you owned such a cube, you would only be able to ‘fondle’ it… but generate no investment return. The same [...]
Source: Robert Kiyosaki Blog
This is our old blog. We left it up because there are thousands of articles in our blog section. Please visit our new website at billycox.com where our new blog is at billycox.com/blog.
Source: Billy Cox Blog
You can further your personal effort to increase your salary by engaging in the seven Rs of personal management. These seven Rs are: rethinking, reevaluating, reorganizing, restructuring, reengineering, reinventing, and refocusing.
In rethinking, you take time on a regular basis to think about who you are and where you are going, especially when you discontented for any reason. You can ask yourself this question: How much should I earn? and What am I worth? Since everything is changing so rapidly around you, more options are available to you now than ever before. And because it is very likely that you are going to be doing something completely different in a few years anyway, you can begin thinking today about where you want to be in the future. You can rethink and re-plan your entire career, and do it in a way to earn more money.
Reevaluate Your Situation
Reevaluating is the process of standing back and looking at yourself in terms of the marketplace. Whenever you experience frustration, continual roadblocks, or stress at work, you need to take time to reevaluate your situation and be sure that you are on the right track.
Your problems at work may be caused by your not working at the right job for you, or working at the wrong company, or with the wrong people. Your dissatisfaction may be caused by your selling a product or service that is wrong for you, or for many other reasons. Perhaps your heart is no longer in your work. It gives you little or no pleasure. Sometimes, the very best thing to do in a situation like this is to change the work you are doing or the company for which you are working, so that your work life is more consistent with your talents, abilities, desires, and values. Ask yourself, what is my future with this company?
Reorganize Your Life
In reorganization, you examine your daily activities and question whether or not you should do things differently if you want to get better results. Look for ways to work with greater efficiency and perform your tasks more effectively. Continually try to increase your output relative to your input of time and money. Look for ways to earn more money in a more efficient way.
Restructure Your Activities
In restructuring, you continually look at the specific things you do that contribute the most value to your company and to your customers. You focus more and more of your time and talent on the 20 percent of activities that contribute 80 percent of the value of all the things that you do. You concentrate on those activities that represent the highest payoff for everyone involved. This is a how to earn more money.
Reengineer Your Career
In reengineering your personal service corporation, you stand back and look at the entire process of your work, from the first thing you do in the morning to the actual results that you get for your company or your customer. You analyze this process and look for ways to streamline it by reducing steps, consolidating activities, outsourcing parts of the work, and even changing the process completely so that you can achieve the same or better results with less time and fewer resources. Reengineering shows you the way how to earn more. Reengineering is an ongoing process of simplifying your work and your activities so that you can get things done in less time.
Reinvent Yourself Regularly
In reinventing, you stand back from your work and imagine starting over again. Imagine that your job or industry disappeared completely. Imagine for a moment that you had to move across the street or across the country and begin your career or your business all over. What would you do differently? Where do you want to be in your career in three to five years? What changes would you have to make in reinventing your business to create the future that you desire? Ask yourself how much should I earn?
One of the best ways to reinvent yourself is to determine what it is that you really enjoy doing more than anything else, and then to begin figuring out how you can find or create a job doing more of it.
Refocus Your Energies
The final R stands for refocusing. This is really the key to the future. It is your ability to concentrate your energies single-mindedly on doing those few things that make all the difference in your life.
In most cases, people are unsuccessful because they spend too much time doing things that contribute little to their lives. They spend more and more time doing things that have less and less value. On the other hand, highly successful people do not do a lot of things, but the few things they do, they do extremely well.
This seems to be the secret to great success and achievement in every area of life.
Become a Master of Change
The advantage of practicing the seven Rs is that they allow you to regain control over your present and future. With a sense of control comes a feeling of personal power, greater self-confidence and self-esteem. When you focus on these techniques you learn how to earn more money, feel happier, and have control of your own life and future, rather than allowing them to be determined by the unpredictable winds of change.
Hope you enjoyed this post. And keep asking yourself this question: What am I worth? Please leave a comment and share with your friends!
Source: Brian Tracy’s Blog
Almost six years ago – long before social media had reared its handsome head and Twitter was still a sparkle in its founder’s eyes - I embarked on my own “personal platform building campaign.”
A significant initiative within that exercise was submitting articles for publication. Why is all of that relevant to today’s post? Well, quite simply, today’s post was amongst my first articles, and if you will allow a small “trumpet blow,” it has been read by more than 60.000 people on Ezine Articles!
In fact, if you ever doubt the value of writing articles, simply Google “Business Development Strategy”
Whilst I very much hope that the super-efficient amongst you had your strategy for 2012 signed off long ago, it may just be that some of you are still in “construction mode” so this will help….. and do please remember, strategies are just as important for individuals as they are for companies!
The “Business Development Strategy” is used to underpin your main business plan and, essentially, it sets out a standard approach for developing new opportunities – either from within existing accounts, or by proactively targeting brand new potential accounts and then working to close them.
The relevant word is ‘strategy’ because you are creating a workable and achievable set of objectives in order to exceed your annual target.
Your Starting Point
The key words are Who? What? Where? When? Which? Why? How?
For example:
Who – are you going to target?
What – do you want to sell them?
Where – are they located?
When – will you approach them?
Which – are the appropriate target personnel?
Why – would they want to meet with you?
How – will you reach them?
If you have conducted regular account reviews with your key accounts during the previous twelve months, you should be aware of any new opportunities that will surface during the next twelve months.
You will also, when assessing what percentage of your annual target usually comes from existing accounts, need to review data over the last two or three years (it is likely that you can apply Pareto – i.e. 80% of your business will probably come from existing accounts and in fact 80% of your total revenue will come from just 20% of your customers/clients)
You will be left with a balance – i.e. “20% of my business next year will come from new opportunities” – therefore you can then begin to allocate your selling time accordingly.
Ideal Customer Profiling
Pro-active business development demands that we create an ideal target at the front end – i.e. an “Ideal Customer Profile”
The essential characteristics you will need to consider are:
• Industrial Sector
• Geographical Location (Demographics)
• Size of organizations (Turnover, number of employees, etc)
• Financial Trends
• Psychographics – i.e. philosophical compatibility
Many strategic sales professionals merely profile their best existing clients and try to replicate them. There’s nothing wrong with doing this, but we should always remember that we are seeking an IDEAL and we can always improve on what we already have.
‘New’ Opportunities From Within ‘Old’ Accounts
Because it now costs approximately fifteen times as much to first locate and then sell to a new customer as it does an existing one (although these costs are rarely reflected in the cost of sales) it is essential that we fully develop our existing accounts working upwards, downwards and sideways - thus making the most of the (hopefully) excellent reputation we have developed already.
Most corporate accounts have several divisions, departments, sites, even country offices and you must satisfy yourself that you have exhausted every possible avenue. Don’t be afraid to ask the question “Who else should I be talking to in your organization?”
Developing New Opportunities
There are a number of ways in which we can target new opportunities – e.g.
• Direct mail
• Telephone canvassing (Cold calling)
• Researching archived files for customers who used to buy from your company
• Exhibitions
• Seminars
• User groups
• E-Mail campaigns
• Referrals
• Qualified leads
• Advertising
• Social media
Not all of these will be appropriate to your particular industry, but you should not be afraid to experiment – i.e. challenge the paradigm (yes, it’s a cliche, but also true!) – and do not accept that just because a particular idea has not worked in the past that it will not do so in the future (Remember when you were learning to walk – it didn’t work first time then!)
The important thing is to make an early decision in terms of what you are going to try and then build this (those) ideas into your master plan.
A Typical Business Development Plan
You should plan out the whole year and review / revise quarterly.
List your existing accounts and plan what activities/actions need to be completed in order to fully exhaust all opportunities.
You may for instance plan to cover more bases within the “decision making unit” or contact associated companies or offices.
A ”Strategic Account Profile” (this is the document that maps out the entire account – if you want to see an example of a typical SAP, send me an email to jf@jfcorporation.com) - can be used as a prompt.
Begin to target new accounts using business directories etc. and set targets per week / month / quarter – i.e.
I normally allow for eight hours per week as a minimum (Don’t forget to continually refer back to your “Ideal Profile”)
Then build in what assistance you need from your marketing function – i.e. qualified leads, seminars, exhibition attendance, etc.
Finally, share your plan with your manager and then commit to it.
You should also measure it against S.M.A.R.T.E.R. (Yes, I know you are probably familiar with SMART, but I am British, so I added “ER”)– i.e. is it:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Timed
Exciting
Recorded
Linking With Your Commercial Plan
I have suggested that your Business Development Strategy would link with your Master Business Plan, but logically you should also integrate it into your Commercial Kit (this is a document that outlines your monthly, quarterly and annual targets) – specifically the areas that deal with new business generation, account management and development, four tier account lists etc.
These three documents when combined, should drive and guide you through the next twelve months and beyond.
Summary
As the man said ”People do not fail because they planned to fail, but rather because they failed to plan.”
The man/woman who knows where he/she wants to go is more likely to get there – they just have to decide how to get there.
All plans are essentially maps and guides – the strategic element is the ‘How’
Do be prepared to change course. Flexibility is key – and don’t be afraid to experiment, look outside the square (Another tired cliche that is also entirely relevant)
News: I tried to register for Wendy Weiss’s latest Boot Camp last night, and couldn’t get on – even though I was prepared to pay. She is a very good chum, but I wanted to slip in unnoticed. And they say that cold calling is dying? Apparently the limit was 1000!!! Quite incredible.
Our good friend and his, Keith Rosen, provides today’s Top Sales Tip over at Top Sales World “It Ain’t About You!”
Source: Jonathan Farrington’s Blog
I’m not talking about for president of the United States.
I’m talking about president of your goals, dreams and potential.
If you had to run for re-election…
What has been your performance track record over the last three and a half years?
You made some promises back then—to your family, your employees, yourself and your God.
Did you deliver?
What would the pundits say about your performance?
What would the critics point out as your shortcomings?
In a debate, what examples would someone use against you when you were hypocritical to what you say you stand for, when you flip-flopped on your values, when your policies and plans failed and you didn’t follow through on your campaign promises?
During this political season, the radio waves, cable lines, blogosphere and every cocktail and dinner party is abuzz with criticism of one guy’s track record over another. That’s all fine and well, but maybe we should look as critically at our own track record.
If we spent as much time, energy and TV, radio, blog and conversation time assessing our own… CLICK HERE TO READ REST OF POST
Welcome to Week 8 of our group study of The 5 Levels of Leadership. This week we’re wrapping up the study and preparing to apply it to our lives. The greatest danger in doing a study like this one is that it becomes a project, rather than a process. A person might work on it [...]
Originally posted at: John Maxwell on Leadership
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Level Up, Week 8: Evaluate
Source: John Maxwell on Leadership
You can further your personal effort to become highly paid by engaging in the seven Rs of personal management. These seven Rs are: rethinking, reevaluating, reorganizing, restructuring, reengineering, reinventing, and refocusing.
In rethinking, you take time on a regular basis to think about who you are and where you are going, especially when you discontented for any reason. Since everything is changing so rapidly around you, more options are available to you now than ever before. And because it is very likely that you are going to be doing something completely different in a few years anyway, you can begin thinking today about where you want to be in the future. You can rethink and re-plan your entire career.
Reevaluate Your Situation
Reevaluating is the process of standing back and looking at yourself in terms of the marketplace. Whenever you experience frustration, continual roadblocks, or stress at work, you need to take time to reevaluate your situation and be sure that you are on the right track.
Your problems at work may be caused by your not working at the right job for you, or working at the wrong company, or with the wrong people. Your dissatisfaction may be caused by your selling a product or service that is wrong for you, or for many other reasons. Perhaps your heart is no longer in your work. It gives you little or no pleasure. Sometimes, the very best thing to do in a situation like this is to change the work you are doing or the company for which you are working, so that your work life is more consistent with your talents, abilities, desires, and values. Ask yourself, what is my future with this company?
Reorganize Your Life
In reorganization, you examine your daily activities and question whether or not you should be doing things differently if you want to get better results. Look for ways to work with greater efficiency and perform your tasks more effectively. Continually try to increase your output relative to your input of time and money.
Restructure Your Activities
In restructuring, you continually look at the specific things you do that contribute the most value to your company and to your customers. You focus more and more of your time and talent on the 20 percent of activities that contribute 80 percent of the value of all the things that you do. You concentrate on those activities that represent the highest payoff for everyone involved.
Reengineer Your Career
In reengineering your personal service corporation, you stand back and look at the entire process of your work, from the first thing you do in the morning to the actual results that you get for your company or your customer. You analyze this process and look for ways to streamline it by reducing steps, consolidating activities, outsourcing parts of the work, and even changing the process completely so that you can achieve the same or better results with less time and fewer resources. Reengineering is an ongoing process of simplifying your work and your activities so that you can get things done in less time.
Reinvent Yourself Regularly
In reinventing, you stand back from your work and imagine starting over again. Imagine that your job or industry disappeared completely. Imagine for a moment that you had to move across the street or across the country and begin your career or your business all over. What would you do differently? Where do you want to be in your career in three to five years? What changes would you have to make in reinventing your business to create the future that you desire?
One of the best ways to reinvent yourself is to determine what it is that you really enjoy doing more than anything else, and then to begin figuring out how you can find or create a job doing more of it.
Refocus Your Energies
The final R stands for refocusing. This is really the key to the future. It is your ability to concentrate your energies single-mindedly on doing those few things that make all the difference in your life.
In most cases, people are unsuccessful because they spend too much time doing things that contribute little to their lives. They spend more and more time doing things that have less and less value. On the other hand, highly successful people do not do a lot of things, but the few things they do, they do extremely well.
This seems to be the secret to great success and achievement in every area of life.
Become a Master of Change
The advantage of practicing the seven Rs, of focusing on the disciplines that enable you to be a leader in your field and master the forces of change, is that they allow you to regain control over your present and future. With a sense of control comes a feeling of personal power, greater self-confidence and self-esteem. When you determined by the unpredictable winds of change, you feel happier, healthier, and more powerful in everything you.
Hope you enjoyed this post. Please leave a comment and share with your friends!
Source: Brian Tracy’s Blog
Over the past couple of months, I have written extensively on what I believe is “the future of professional selling.” Unsurprisingly, I have been regularly mis-quoted, quite simply because we all tend to scan headlines, and interpret to suit our own needs.
The fact remains, that I am not predicting “Armageddon”
I do not see a time when there will be no need for professional salesmen and women!
But what I am suggesting is that many sales roles will disappear over the next three to five years, as their products and solutions become “commoditized”
My definition of a commodity sale? Let’s keep it simple and say anything that can be purchased with a credit card.
I also believe that whilst those sales professionals operating at a consultative/collaborative/strategic level can anticipate that their significance will increase; most other sales roles will either become unnecessary, or they will move inside – simple economics will determine that, it is not rocket-science, and I am not alone in my thinking …
“Customers everywhere increasingly prefer virtual interactions with sellers. Trend data reveal that sales organizations are shifting resources from outside to inside sales. Inside sales growth is 30% faster than their outside sales counterparts. The number of Inside Sales departments is projected to grow from 800,000, in 2009, to over 2 million in 2013.”
Dave Stein CEO ES Research (You can read the entire post HERE)
“Over the past few decades, selling has changed. The changes have been incremental, giving salespeople time to adjust. Not so today. The degree and speed of change in the sales world over the past two years is revolutionary — in how, why, and when customers buy and, therefore, in how you sell.
Selling has been turned on its head, and sales organizations are trying to catch up. If you have any doubts about the magnitude of change, just think about your level of control over the last major retail purchase you made and multiply that by twenty, and you will have a sense of the revolution in buying that is going on with your customers. The revolution has created a shift of control — away from you as a seller and toward your customer.”
Linda Richardson, Best Selling Author and Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson
“Inside sales has never been more important, and it seems like every minute brings new changes. Keeping up, staffing up, and preparing for the coming year has never been more important — and for that, you need the inside track. Our trend report is 100% accurate — loaded with great advice on tactics, tools and talent that will keep you on track and ahead of the curve.“
Josiane Feigon, President of TeleSmart (Download her FREE Inside Sales Trend Report HERE)
And most radically of all …
“There are currently 18 million sales professionals in the USA, by 2020, there will only be 3.6 million“
Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power
So, with all of that in mind, it is probably an appropriate time to have a debate, and over at FOCUS, they have organized one.
Here are the details …
Where are the sales jobs of the future?
Some surveys project a tremendous reduction in sales job—going from roughly 19 Million today to 3 Million in 2020.
Is the need for sales people declining?
Where will the sales jobs of the future be—will they be direct field sales, will they increasing shift to inside sales, will they move to the web?
Join Trish Bertuzzi, Jonathan Farrington, Linda Richardson and Dave Brock for a discussion on where the jobs will be.
Among the topics we will discuss are:
- What’s the outlook for jobs in professional selling over the next several years?
- Is sales a great career path?
- Are the jobs shifting inside?
- Will inside sales be the dominant deployment model of the future?
- How should do we determine the “right” sales deployment model for our organization?
- As we look at changing our sales deployment model, what are the critical success factors in migrating from one to the other (for example going from field sales to inside sales)?
- What are the top 3 new skills sales professionals need to develop to be successful in the new world of selling?
Focus Roundtable Free Online Event Thursday March 8, 2012 9 am PT (5 pm GMT) Register HERE
Hope you can make it – it’s going to be very interesting!
News: Top tips today from … over at Top Sales World: “Are You Easy to Refer?” from Colleen Stanley and over at Top Sales Management: “Make Hiring a Choice -Not a Need!” from my good chum and globe-trotter, Keith Rosen
Source: Jonathan Farrington’s Blog
In my sales training, the Alternate of Choice question is usually used to get a date or time commitment to visit with a future client. The Alternate of Choice is a question with two answers — either answer is an agreement. The key is to give two solutions that both lead toward the sale. Another [...] Related posts:
Source: Tom Hopkins’ Sales Training Blog
The next installment of Tom’s “Mother of All Presentations,” or MOAP, is now available at ExcellenceNow.com. You can download the PowerPoint version or a PDF. We’ll be releasing a section every other week throughout 2012.
Part 6 revisits Tom’s clamorous call for attention to people with LOTS of money to spend: Boomers and Geezers. Tom has read a new book or two, adding fuel to his passion on this topic, and providing some fresh insights for you to consider in Part 6 of his Mother of All Presentations.
Source: The Tom Peters Weblog
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"All-Star Sales Book" Why do such a small percentage of people reach the elite performer status? Why do these top few make most of the money? And, how can you become one of them?
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