Small Business Leadership and Sales Blog

For all businesses, employee performance is the integral factor and perhaps the building block that leads to their success. Employee performance can be greatly improved with the right kind of leadership.

Here are the 5 fundamentals I believe are essential for building performance.

All leaders must practice the following fundamentals with unyielding determination:

• Commitment to showing others their due respect. Leaders always value the opinions of their teams and followers. Why? The answer is that it gives them a sense of contribution and a feeling that they are important members of any team.

• All successful leaders put in hard work and long hours more so than everybody else because they have a greater calling i.e. a responsibility to make sure everyone is on the right path and working towards goal achievement. The leadership goals to effectively manage a team like, planning, organizing, directing, controlling, and administration take a lot of perseverance.

• Individual goals take a backseat in relevance with the goals of the team because it is only through teamwork i.e. cooperation and co-ordination can organizational goals be achieved. The basic goal of a leader is to ensure that everyone is working in harmony towards the achievement of the organizational goals rather than individual tasks.

• A leader never slacks off. Leaders never make excuses not to do a work or for not having to fulfill an objective. They work relentlessly day in day out until they have achieved what they had set out to do. And that is the key to successful leadership. Not giving up and ascertaining goal achievement is bred into the minds of leaders.

• Leaders take full responsibility of whatever they direct their teams to do and however they plan to carry out tasks for goal achievement. They are willing to be held accountable for any consequence of the actions that they prompt, and that in fact is what inspires their team to follow them unquestioningly.

Peace, Love and Gumbo, 

Marvin LeBLanc, LUTCF, CNP

Hello Marvelous People!

As many of our longtime subscribers know, I’m not an encourager of you wasting too much valuable time obsessing about what is being said in the “news”. Because if you haven’t figured it out yet, the “news” is about shock value & ratings. Your chance to receive real value comes much later, assuming it ever arrives at all.

Sadly, but not shockingly the “news” recently released a story that a Senior Executive at a prominent insurance Company was summarily dismissed from his job duties.

Details: the skinny of it was that he was having a “couple of drinks” after a business session when his Tongue began to Waggle about his discontented feelings about his boss. There are different versions of the story but several people within earshot picked up one of his ill planned snippets. Something to the effect that his boss was a “F------ Ass!”

The real point I wish to emphasize is not that this man was fired, but that this man failed to remember the Jerry Stovall rule:

“Remember who you are! Remember who you represent!”

See folks, when we lack the ability to resist the “waggling tongue syndrome” about a frustration that you have with your boss, your co-worker, your vendor, your friends, your neighbors or your relatives, two things inevitably happen.

1. It forever serves to destroy, but it constructs NOTHING. (Lose/Lose Proposition)

2. There is no gain & all you can lose is character. (Lose/Lose Proposition)

3. My daughter has heard these words so many times:  “Taylor, it takes much more character to say NOTHING when you are frustrated and you want to “just tell somebody off”. That’s not how you win. You are so much more than that.

Here’s my suggested call to action for you.

· Stand guard at the Gateway of your Mouth.

· If you can’t drink, don’t drink.

· Don’t forget what your parents or grandparents hopefully told you.

· If you don’t have something good to say, don’t say it at all.

People are more sensitive & amped up with their egos today more than ever before in my life. I was brought up in a household that enjoyed a whole bunch of bantering and light hearted sarcasm. But these days the “light hearted” sarcasm is now “heart felt” sarcasm & it’s just not a road on which you wish to travel.

Thank you for sharing your time & your life with us.

Make Your Marvelous Happen for You today.  Please, drop us an email. You inspire us.

Hello Marvelous People: 

Today, we have a guest blog post from Brad Heutmaker.  I hope you enjoy his tips for creating a sales process. 

Peace, Love and Gumbo - Marvin LeBlanc, LUTCF, CNP 

 

Recently I was visiting a client who buys Internet leads from my company. For the past 10 years they have purchased leads and they have seen their conversion slowly drop over the past three years. During the conversation a lot of focused was placed on the Internet lead industry, my company, and the leads we deliver to them.

While they took an offensive approach to the conversation I sat back and listened to their concerns. When they were done I calmly and confidently addressed their issues, and then asked one question. The question I asked them caught them by surprise, and judging by their response they hadn’t considered they could be part of the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one question I asked them was, “What is your sales process of working the leads we send you?”

After I finished asking my question the room went quiet, and that is when the Vice-President of Sales and Marketing looked at me with a straight face and said, “Well, we hope the lead will call us after they see our logo on your site.”
Let me really tell you what this “VP” said, “We don’t have a process in place, we just hope someone will call.”

Early in my career I was a call center jockey and my sales manager would come by our cubes and “gently” remind us that “hope” was not strategy or tactic to make sales happen and we had to pick-up the phone and speak to someone.

My friends, hoping for sales to happen is not a business strategy, but far too many of you who own a small business have no formal process around sales and marketing. For the most part I bet you have great people in place to handle the “service” that has to be done, but nothing formal on how to grow your business.
If you’re wishing your service people will sell, guess what I have news for you. They won’t! Here are three steps to get your business moving in the right direction.

1.    Get the chutzpah to hold your team accountable, and if they don’t come along with you help them find another opportunity

2.    Hire a sales person and then when they join your team, hold them accountable to what they were hired to do.

3.    Close up shop or sell it and get a job. Seems a bit harsh but in my experience a lot of small business owners are better suited for employment than business ownership.

Happy Selling…

This post is from a guest blogger Darleen Lenyo. 

So many times, especially in sales, especially starting out in sales, we’re concerned with what we are going to say. We allow ourselves to get fearful, create “horror” stories in our head of things that could go wrong, and we want a plan of action, a script, to make the call. And sometimes, more times than not, because we don’t create those scripts or that plan of action, we don’t make the call.

Did you know -

38% of communication is your tonality

55% of communication is body language

And 7% of communication is the words you use.

Let me repeat that, 7% of communication is the words you use.

What does this mean to you? The words you use are important. But what’s most important is the energy coming from you. Be sincere. Be enthusiastic. Share your knowledge. Bring something of value. Come from a place of contribution. Ask questions. Find out what they need and strive to help them.

People love enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is contagious.

People love passion. Passion is contagious.

People love to be included. Share your knowledge, your passion, your enthusiasm.

That’s your script. There’s your plan of action – Enthusiasm, Knowledge, Passion, Sincerity, Contribution, Asking Questions.

P.S. Looking for another tip to generate leads? The best time to make those calls is after you’ve received great news and have experienced some success! Try it – your self-confidence, positive energy, enthusiasm, & passion will shine through!

Darleen Lenyo, Mortgage Broker Extraordinaire

I hope you are enjoying the new blog!  If so please subscribe to receive updates in your inbox.  Peace, Love and Gumbo~

Marvin LeBlanc

Hello Marvelous People!

That’s right. You heard correctly. There is a way that you can generate referrals without constantly throwing money into advertising campaigns that never seem to be able to even track your return on investment.

This idea is so simple, that many of you will over-analyze it and do nothing.

Imagine the hundreds of emails that you constantly send out. Emails that the recipient refers back to from time to time. Emails that the recipient archives in their CRM software for future referral.  This is an example of drip marketing at its best.

IDEA: From now on, on the bottom of all those emails that you are forever sending out to friends, neighbors, co-workers & relatives, you will add the following tag message.

So go now and “drip yourself some referrals”. There’s nothing for you to think through. The work has already been done for you. JUST DO IT!

TAG:

Will you help us?

While most professionals feel they need to spend 50% of their time looking for new business, my team & I do not agree. In fact, we prefer to spend as much time as we can taking care of our existing customers. We don’t have to spend all of our time looking for new business like others, because we prefer to work with people that are personally introduced to us.

We prefer to work with people much like you. With that in mind, would you be willing to help us by sharing the names of 2 families or 2 Small Business Owners that we can discuss their _______ concerns? We would be grateful if we had your permission to use you as a reference.

1. Name:
Contact Info:

2. Name:
Contact Info:

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Marvin LeBlanc is a left-handed, right-brained, fun-loving Cajun that is obsessed with Life Performance and Overcoming Adversity. He is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker and founder of Marvelous Performance Systems. Marvin is available for business retreats, keynotes, breakout sessions, workshops, and individual coaching programs. His book “COME HELL OR HIGH WATER” will be available in the Fall of 2011 through New York Publisher www.BloomingTwig.com. To rent Marvin’s brain, contact him at marvinleblanc@aol.com and request a Free Personal Coaching Session.

 

The quarter of 2011 is now in the books and pretty much GONE!

So I have a question. What were the results of  the recent “2011 CUSTOMER ADDED VALUE” meeting you had at your company in the last month?

Be honest. You never had that meeting now did you? That is a PROBLEM. And that spells future PAIN for you in 2011.

Why do I say this? Because if you don’t provide the ADDED VALUE, your clients and prospects will find it from your competitor. And this will happen easily.  If you do nothing.

Perhaps a great goal for you is to “GET DONE” some vital thinking.

Define what ADDED VALUE for your clients and prospects really IS. Define what ADDED VALUE for your clients and prospects LOOKS LIKE.

(Do you have some clients that will tell you the truth about how you are doing in this area? It’s probably time to take them out for coffee anyways right?)

So do that, and be sure to let me know how it works out for you.  Save the RSS Feed for this blog and come back and share your important feedback.

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Marvin LeBlanc is a left-handed, right-brained, fun-loving Cajun that is obsessed with Life Performance and Overcoming Adversity. He is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker and founder of Marvelous Performance Systems. Marvin is available for business retreats, keynotes, breakout sessions, workshops, & individual coaching programs. His book “COME HELL OR HIGH WATER” will be available in the Fall of 2011 through New York Publisher www.BloomingTwig.com. To rent Marvin’s brain, contact him at MarvinLeBlanc@aol.com and request a Free Personal Coaching Session

Hello Marvelous People!

If you’re a small business owner new to Social Media, then this article is just the thing you need to read now. If you’re experienced in Social Media, more than likely there are 3 items out of the 10 that you are not doing well.

So read this helpful article by Dave Nelsen and take some notes on what you need to do differently today with your Social Media approach.

Ten Do’s of Social Media (By Vistage Speaker Dave Nelsen)

Social media and social networking are quickly becoming “de rigueur” for business. A recent study by a Chicago-based firm, Slack Barshinger, showed that small and medium-size businesses are getting “heavily involved with social media, with about half using blogs, wikis, Twitter or other social media channels for business purposes.” If your company is not yet engaged, it’s time to jump in before your competitors beat you to the punch. If you’re not familiar with social media, check out YouTube, Twitter, TalkShoe, or any blog–these publishing and broadcasting democracies involve hundreds of millions of people. While most of these services were originally conceived for consumers, social media allows businesses to engage in many-to-many conversations with customers, accelerating their learning and building trust.


Critial rules for Social Media Marketing:

1. Do the same up-front planning you would for any important business initiative.

2. Define your target audience. Detail how you intend to create value for them. Map out how you expect them to create value for you. Document your approach and objectives per medium (blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Listen and learn from others for a few weeks before responding. In general,
spend twice as much time listening as responding.

3. Display your Personality, and keep the content Interesting and Entertaining (the old radio adage “PIE”). Remember, people buy from people; show your professional self.

4. Be authentic. Never before has a medium and its participants been more skilled at smelling a rat and turning against the perpetrator.

5. Remember that social media is about two-way conversation (see “Don’t try to control” above). Conversation builds trust; trust leads to more sales. Favor timeless content over time-sensitive content (note: this varies based on the medium and there are exceptions). We live in a time-shifted “Tivo” world and there’s wonderful leverage in creating a blog post (for example) that will have value to new readers weeks, months, or even years from now.

6. Remember that “push” is out and “pull” is in. Direct mail, traditional advertising, and unsolicited email are forms of “push” — the content producer chooses who to target. “Following” on Twitter, “subscribing” to a blog or podcast, or viewing a video your friends “liked” on Facebook are forms of “pull” — the content consumer decides what to listen to. In today’s information-rich world, people want to opt-in, choosing where to spend their valuable time. Give them a reason to choose your content.

7. Keep your eyes open. Use Google Alerts, search.twitter.com, relevant Linkedin Groups, Ning networks, and other sites to monitor or “listen in” on conversations about your company, your competitors, and the best practices in your industry.

8. Show patience. As the party with more power (a business relative to a customer/prospect), attacking or being critical will frequently backfire and word will propagate quickly.

9. Learn from your audience (as they will learn from you). Be prepared to rapidly evolve your products and services to meet their needs. They’ll suggest valuable ideas you never thought of.

10. In the next few years, social media will become a primary vehicle for interacting with your customers, partners, suppliers, and even employees. By getting started today, your company can adapt to a changing world more quickly than your competitors. What are you waiting for?

Vistage member and speaker, Dave Nelsen helps companies develop social media strategies to improve their marketing, sales, customer support, and even internal communication. He’s the Founder of podcasting pioneer TalkShoe and a long-time entrepreneur. You can contact Dave at dave@get121.biz.

Hello Marvelos People!

Part two of the Do's and Don'ts of Social Media for small business owners.  You can read the things you should be doing with your social media accounts here.

Vistage speaker Dave Nelsen says: This is not your father’s marketing.

Here are ten basic rules for what you should avoid in social media.

1. Don’t get started if you have significant product weaknesses or customer support issues. Engaging in social media makes good products more successful, and bad products… dead. But don’t delay for long; address the issues and then jump in.

2. Don’t use social media to overtly market or sell. Instead educate, enlighten, inform, and entertain your audience. In this way, you’ll position yourself and your company as an expert in your field and benefit from the “media halo.”

3. Don’t “set it and forget it.” This makes you look worse than not showing up at all. Once you get started, sustain your participation and interaction.

4. Don’t go negative. Emphasize your strengths and advantages rather than making claims about a competitor’s weakness.

5. Don’t mix personal and business accounts/personas, etc.

6. Don’t expect to fully control the conversation. Social media is not an advertisement, product brochure, newsletter, email blast, or one-way monologue; it’s a conversation. Conversations are bi-directional and can have rough edges. Even if you don’t want to participate, your customers and prospects are already
talking. Join them.

7. Don’t worry about some negativity for online users. Studies show that a little negativity increases credibility and empathy. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln: “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.” Be responsive to the negative.

8. Don’t feel the need to disclose everything. Not everyone who likes sausage wants to see exactly how it’s made. Be open and honest and use discretion.

9. Don’t be a generalist. With literally hundreds of millions of blogs, videos and podcasts to choose from, every individual can precisely tailor their consumption to their interests. Focus on one topic and do it well (the narrower the better).

10. Don’t overwhelm your followers with too much information, or too frequently. Everybody’s got a busy life and nobody enjoys getting “Twitter-ria”. Focus on the highest value information and content.

Vistage member and speaker, Dave Nelsen helps companies develop social media strategies to improve their marketing, sales, customer support, and even internal communication. He’s the Founder of podcasting pioneer TalkShoe and a long-time entrepreneur. You can contact Dave at dave@get121.biz.

Hello Marvelous People! Stick with me here for a second.

Take out a clean sheet of paper and draw one big circle.

Now draw 3 lines across the circle, making 6 different sections.

Now you have what looks like a beach ball, right?

You’ll now insert the following words in each of their own sections.

1.
Most Significant Event – Personal
Most Significant Event – Professional

2.
Personal Issues & Frustrations
Professional Issues & Frustrations

3.
Personal Goals
Professional Goals

4.
Personal Dreams
Professional Dreams

5.
Ideas that can make us better?

6.
How can I help?

With the tool of “The Beach Ball” you will have a 1 hour monthly focus supper with your team members.  Afterall, you’d probably agree with me that it’s not unreasonable to spend ONE QUALITY HOUR with your team members monthly.  The Beach Ball, used consistently month after month, serves as a conversation guide.  I strongly suggest an early supper right after work and definitely away from work. Somewhere casual. Somewhere that feels comfortable. Somewhere that’s not so loud that you can’t hear each other communicate. Afterall, that is the whole point of the “Beach Ball” tool.  Try it. Enjoy the process and you will be amazed what you might discover about your team members. Remember, “LISTENING IS NOT WAITING TO TALK”

Hello Marvelous People!

Ah yes! Out loud. Alone. Slowly say these words with me.

SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE. COMPELLING. ADDICTIVE.

Have you ever wondered why certain Web sites, restaurants & organizations are VALUED so much more than others? How did they become simply irresistible, compelling, (even addicting) and invaluable to their clients & prospects? They must have just been lucky, right? Maybe they were just in the right place at the right time? Yep, that happens. In about 1 out of every 100 businesses!!!

The rest of good business happens with good business PLANNING. Humor me for a second while I walk you through this quick exercise.

Step 1: Turn away from your monitor and quickly write down your 3 most favorite Web sites.

Step 2: Turn away from your monitor and quickly write down your 3 most favorite restaurants.

Step 3: Turn away from your monitor and write down the top 3 organizations that generated the highest revenue for you in 2010.

Step 4: Now go study your 3 most favorite Web sites and find out why they are valuable to you. Write your results down.

Step 5: Think about your 3 most favorite restaurants. What is it that REALLY makes them your favorite. Your most VALUED restaurants. And don’t put down, “because the food taste good”. BORING!!! So what. That’s not the REAL VALUE. Go deeper.

Step 6: Think about the top 3 REVENUE GENERATING groups you were involved in. (Chamber of Commerce, Service Club, Referral Group, Business Group, School Groups) Write down “WHY” you feel they generated so much revenue.

Step 7: The Final Step. Look at the answers you’ve created for yourself and sit down with an Accountability Partner (who’s not your partner or family member) and ask yourself the most important question in 2011: How can I apply these answers to offer Knock Your Socks Off, World Class Added Value to my clients and prospects? I’m talking to you Mr/Mrs Small Business Person.

Think about how serious this is. If there was a way you could get relief from the ridiculous “feast or famine” sucky sales cycles, wouldn’t that be worth it all? It will be. Recognize that the answer is in front of you with my 7 Steps to Becoming IRRESISTIBLE. Now invest yourself into some think time & get your plan in ACTION.