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Get More Business Success

Do you want more Business Success?
Would you like Increased Sales?
Could you use some low cost or no cost publicity?

Then you have come to the right place!

Most business owners start their business with a great idea, a ton of passion and moderate cash reserve. After a period of time, it could be months or maybe a couple of years, they stop and assess their situation only to find that the success they were after is still not theirs. Their energy levels are at an all time low, their concerns on cash flow are at an all time high, and there is usually one or two
problems in the business that they have no idea what to do with.

So you want to Get More Business Success

The first thing to do is take a deep breath and then slowly let it out. The good news is that you have found a valuable resource guaranteed to make a difference to your business, the bad news is there is no quick and easy fix. Let’s face it, if running a successful business was quick and easy, everyone would have done it and the rewards would not be as signficant as they can be.

Don’t despair! Just because it is not quick and easy, does not mean it is hard!

To help you Get More Business Success, eleven different experts in business share the core essentials YOU need to make your business more successful. Your host for these interviews is motivational speaker and business mentor Warwick Merry, The Get More Guy. Having started two successful businesses of his own as well as coaching and mentoring hundreds of other business, he knows that a lot of business struggle with some of the foundation knowledge needed to get real results. So he sought out some of the leading experts in their field to get that essential knowledge for you.

The Get More Business Success pack is 12 CD’s covering 12 areas of business that you need to master.
They include:

Time Management
Million Dollar Relationships
Building an Army of Advocates
Financial Management
Human Resources
Your Image
Innovation
Marketing via Technology
Networking
Public Relations
Building your Bucket Lists (business and personal) and
Staying Motivated.

After listening to CDs that are loaded with “experts” dryly dictating their thoughts on the world without consideration of what the “real people” are facing on a dayly basis, the Get More Business Success series has been created differently. Everyone one of the recordings is lively and easy to listen too. You may even laugh at some of the jokes (you may not laugh at some of the really bad ones though!). Each of the experts has a fun and high content converstation that lets the listeners know how to deal with some of the biggest problems and issues in their area, giving examples on how to deal with a situation as well as ideas on how to stay out of problem areas.

You will be hearing real life example and real life solutions to many problems in running a business. Maybe the very problem that you are facing now. The focus of this pack is to show you what to do to Get More Business Success. Easy to implement, straight forward, low and no cost solutions to your business problems.

To make it easier, the very first CD has some concrete ideas on how you can get the most out of the pack. Clear instructions on what to do to really get your money’s worth.

Who are the Experts?
Good question! Most professionals are choosy in who they get advice from. While they mean well, often your family are NOT the people to go to when you want to share some concerns on your business or get ideas on what to do. So Warwick spent some time getting top quality people who he would take advice from himself. Here’s who they are:

Time Management – Your expert here is Warwick Merry the Get More Guy. Having spent over three years working as a trainer for one of the worlds leading time management companies, TMI, I know what it takes to manage time effectively and efficiently. I wanted you to get some tips and techniques that are not just theory but are easy to do without using more time themselves. Time is one of your most valuable resources so the first CD shows you how to get the most from it.

Million Dollar Relationships – Danielle Storey has built a mutlimillion dollar business selling toner cartridges. Toner cartridges are simple commodity that everyone uses and many people sell. Her different is the relationships she creates and the customer service she gives. Her clients fight over who gets to open the invoice, that’s how much they love her. Danielle shows you the keys to Million Dollar Relationships regardless of what product or service you sell. How would you feel if you clients couldn’t wait to open your invoice and process it? I am sure your cashflow would love it!

Build an Army of Advocates – Yvonne Adele is one of the few who have created a business using social media. It’s not just a social media consulting business either. Yvonne sells Ideas While You Sleep. Using her social media network, she provides clients with bold ideas to meet their challenges. The client gives her a little background information and the problem. She passes the info to her “tribe” and hundreds of ideas come back overnight for her to feed back to the client. From this experience, Yvonne shares with us how to build your own army of advocates. This significantly grows your referal base and new business acquired by referral. How good would it be to simply answer the phone and then fill the order your new client has just placed!

Financial Management – To many people don’t understand their business financial situation. They talk to their accountant but it is too easy for your eyes to glaze over and tune out to the important information. To give you the real issues on finances, Kylie Short, Head Number Cruncher from TIlda Virtual tells you all you need to know. On her CD we discuss some of the foundation issues regarding running your business, some legal structure and key cash flow information as well as how to better read your financial reports and what the

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numbers actually mean. This CD will help you get back in financial control of your business.

Human Resources – With todays labour market and labour legislation, HR management is a critical issue to business success. Deb Peppard from HR Staff ‘n Stuff is the HR Professional who makes HR easy. Deb shares some key ideas to minimise your risk when it comes to recruiting, what are the key issues you will face and how to address them so your staff will be happy as will you. Even if you don’t have staff yet, there are some excellent ideas you can use to position yourself when you are ready to take on staff. Deb has run a major jewellery franchise chain, been the HR manager of a large Australian firm and now runs her own succesful HR practice.

Your Image – Helen Robinett is the Image Consultant’s Image Consultant. Not only has she help me with my image, she has also worked with senior men and women of industry. She know how to make you look your best, regardless of your body shape and self image concerns. She is a Past President of the Association of Image Consultants International and committed to making sure you best represent your business to your prospects and clients. There are many facets of you and your business’ image that you may not have considered. Helen addresses the key concerns and provides some excellent tips to make your image grow your sales and positive impact on your clients.

Innovation – Too often innovation is accompanied by outrageous costs and bizarre ideas that are a gamble. Shannon Cooper is the Innovation Catalyst. One his most valuable ideas is to STOP doing so much. Be as equally as innovative in what you don’t do as what you do do. His innovation has made hundreds of thousands of dollars for his clients. Find out some down to earth things that you can do and can stop doing to add more dollars to your bottom line.

Marketing Via Technology – Spam doesn’t work (and is illegal), constantly bombarding clients with messages doesn’t always work, so what does? How can you use technology to market yourself and your business? Technology Translator, Donna Hanson, shows us several ways we can use technology to do that as well as telling us the traps to avoid.

Networking – How many times have you been to a networking event only to find people thrusting their business cards at everyone only to wonder later why nothing came of it? There is so much more to networking and setting up alliances in your business. Bev Brough is a Networking Master. She shares with us some of the tips and techniques to build your business on referrals and your own networking (NO COLD CALLS NEEDED!)

Public Relations – How fabulous would it be to have over $10 million worth of positive press, radio and TV coverage? How much better would it be if you only spent about $7,000 to get it? Melina Schamroth from M.A.D. Woman has done this. Find out some of the tips to help you get

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significant PR for your business at low or no cost!

Build A Bucket List – Most of us have heard about having a bucket list. What about having one for your business or your family? What is the best way to create and manage your bucket list so that your entire team get on board and get bursts of energy and motivation from it? Travis Bell is The Bucket List Guy and his simple and easy to implement ideas will keep you and your business on the path to unbelievable success.

Staying Motivated – What can you do when your get up and go has got up and gone? How do you stay motivated? If you are the boss, who motivates the motivator? The Get More Guy Warwick Merry shows you ways to Get More from yourself and your team by sustainably remaining driven and motivated toward your goal. After getting inspired and a head full of ideas from listening to all of the previous CD’s, this CD will assist you in turning your ideas in to reality. Get energised by the life and business you are creating for yourself.

This CD pack comes with a 100% money back guarantee. If you are not happy with CDs and you would like a refund, contact our office and we will happily refund you the purchase price.

How Are Your Relationships?

I interviewed Yvonne Allen this morning and as you would expect, our topic was relationships. Not just intimate relationships but working relationships, friend relationships and even relationships with service providers.

It will come as no surprise to you to know that many of our relationships are suffering. While there is a large “man drought” for 25-45 year old women, there is also a lot of confusion with how to act and react. Yvonne refers to this as the “Gender Agenda”. We seem to have a lot of confusion out there. Women who are told to be more like men to succeed and men who are told to be more like women to understand them. No wonder there is confusion!!

Yvonne’s tips for relationship success include:

Start with the relationship you have with yourself and make sure it is healthy
Consider what the other person in the relationship (or you want in the relationship) wants and is looking for
Focus on the positives of the relationship
Communicate so that everyone knows exactly where they stand without having to read minds
Commit to the relationship so that it can grow in depth rather than ending at the first sign of trouble.

When Yvonne was talking I couldn’t help but notice that these points are exactly what business needs as well. Think about your team, your suppliers, your direct reports, your boss, your customers, your friends and your family. Would applying Yvonne’s tips help any of them?

So how are your relationships?

Is It Tragic or Magic?

This week I was thinking of one of my parents friends. About 15 years ago their daughter (who was 19) was the passenger in a car that had a major accident. Unfortunately their daughter died. What is more tragic is that her parents stopped a lot of their own life then as well. While their life continued, their focus was on their loss. Whenever they did something or went anywhere, there was always discussion about their daughter.

To me that is tragic. More the loss of their life than the loss of their daughters.

Life is full of bad things happening to good people. The question that is the biggest waste of time and energy is, Why. In my experience, you will never get an answer that satisfies you. There is always a further Why. The healthiest question is, What can I do about it? This gives you a course of action and a way forward.

Is your life Tragic or Magic?

For most of us, it can be either. It is completely dependent on your perspective. Take my own life. I could easily look at it being quite tragic.

I grew up in a small country town where I didn’t drink or play sport so I never “fitted in”
Just as I was in my formative years I got sent to a school 90 minutes away on the bus.
It took me 12 months to settle in to the new school and make friends.
It was too far away to have friends over after school so I couldn’t consolidate my friendships
I had to work on the farm and regularly cook for a family of 5
We had a massive vegetable garden I had to maintain
I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up so I “fell” into a uni course I wasn’t keen on.

Or it could be Magic

I grew up in a country town so I got to breathe fresh air and see the stars at night. It also gave me a friendly approach to people and an ability to talk to anyone
I was fortunate enough to go to school with high academic standard to set me up with a top class education
Having friends from all over the place enabled me to get some varied perspectives on life
I learn’t to cook at a young age and could handle catering for larger numbers with ease
While I lived at home I ate organic vegetables without realising such a thing existied – I called them Vegetables!
I didn’t know what I wanted to do after school so I took on a double degree to give me options for the future.

Zig Ziglar said that our attitude determines our altitude. Tragedies will strike, challenges will be faced, terrible things will happen to fabulous people and life will go on. It is up to us as individuals whether we see it as Tragic or Magic.

How do you see your life and your world? Is it Tragic or Magic?

Where Is It From?

Farmer Logo
In today’s competitive market, it is easy to lose track of where our supplies come from or even who our suppliers really are. For those of us who are suppliers, this can be scary. All of a sudden, everything is dependent on being the lowest price. But who wants to be a low price supplier? As I wrote in an earlier post, no one wins a price war.

Let me tell you about Sir Francis (and if you are a bit sensitive about animals, you may want to skip to the next paragraph). Sir Francis is our pig, named after Sir Francis Bacon. He was lovingly raised by Lou and Stew from The Farmers Larder. Wifey and I met Sir Francis and he was a cute little piggy. He is now in our freezer (all 62 KG of him) ready to be invited to dinner. When I tell friends about Sir Francis, some say, “How can you name and pat the pig you will eat?”

If I buy pork at the supermarket, I have no idea where it is from. I have no control over how the pigs were kept or cared for. Knowing my supplier, The Farmers Larder, I KNEW Sir Francis was loved, well cared for and humanely processed. I trusted my supplier to do what was in my best interest as well as theirs. In terms of cost, I was willing to pay whatever they told me (which turned out to be a great price).

Danielle from The Cartridge Family was talking to me about printer paper. I had always used Reflex and was happy with it. She educated me on AA paper and how it was better for the printer for a couple of reasons. Because I have a level of trust with Danielle, I will be switching to AA paper and I am yet to find out the price difference.

If you are a supplier, what are you doing to add value or at the very least, show the existing value to your clients? If your value proposition is strong and proven, price will not be a sticking point.

What about your suppliers? Where do your supplies come from? Is your supplier looking after your needs, not just short term price but your long term value? Now days, there is ALWAYS a cheaper version (typically from China) but never before has the adage “You get what you pay for” been truer.

Top 10 Tips of a Successful Exhibitor

1. Set Goals

Too often people have no idea why they are exhibiting. They don’t know why they are on the stand, what the business is hoping to achieve or how “success” will be measured. You MUST know why you are there and “Branding” doesn’t count unless you have a strategy on how to measure any shift in brand awareness.

When asked why you are exhibiting, it is too easy to say “our competition is here”, “we did it last year”, “it’s our industry show”, “if we don’t do it, our competition will” or “it feels like the right thing to do”. These are not valid reasons. They are contributing factors but not reason enough alone.

Like all goals, your exhibiting goals have to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time sensitive. How many sales, how many leads, what level of increase in brand awareness, how many people at new product launch, what level of customer feedback, what kind of customer research, how many join the loyalty program.

Once you know why you are exhibiting, make sure everyone on the stand knows the goal, that way they can work towards it.

2. Pre Market

When you talk about Exhibiting, most people get all excited about how sexy the booth will look and what else will be at the show. Hardly anyone takes the opportunity to do the pre-marketing work prior to the show.

Don’t depend on the show organiser to bring in the crowds. Do your own marketing to your prospects, existing customers, target market and loyal fans to get them to the show. Consider a private function for your high worth clients to say thank you and have them bring an industry friend.

Use the fact you are exhibiting as a focus of additional marketing. Consider a billboard near the exhibition hall or the airport (if people will be flying in for it). Maybe a joint venture advert with the exhibition organiser. What can you do to let others know that you own this space?

Whatever you do, don’t just wait for people to turn up on the day. Be proactive to get your target market to your stand and to the show. Typically the organiser will give you free tickets as part of your fee to exhibit. Be certain to use them to their best advantage.

3. Booth Set Up

Don’t forget the booth is not about you. You think it is, your marketing department will insist it is, but it’s not. It is about your customer and your prospect. What will they want? What do you want them to do? Make sure you set it up so it is EASY for them to do what you want them to.

If you have signage make sure it is at eye height or above. If you put it low, one person in front of it blocks it for everyone.

If you want them to put their business card in a bowl, put the sign next to the bowl and make it easy to read.

If you have a show discount, have signage to let them know. A sign saying, “Ask me about the show discount” gets them engaging in a conversation. A sign saying, “50% off” gets them salivating. What do you want them to do?

By the way, it is ok to change the booth around. If what you have got is not working, move it. People from the morning session or the day before won’t remember and it may just be the boost to your show that you need.

4. Plan for the Worst

In business (and in life) a motto for success is “Expect the best and plan for the worst”. As an exhibitor, this is your motto to live by. Plan on couriers not arriving, luggage being lost, signs falling down, your location changing and you won’t be disappointed.

At an international show, an exhibitor’s portable and easy-to-build stand did not arrive until noon of the third and final day of the show. Forklifts have pierced expensive machinery just as the show was being set up.

A trade show training colleague arrived at a trade show only to be told his exhibit had been moved as they had secured a high paying sponsor and they were now in his spot. He had done a load of pre-show marketing and was no longer at the stand number he had told his clients.

Deal with this by taking a deep breath and being prepared. Have a tool kit of gaffer tape, packing tape, scissors, Velcro, pins, and anything else you think you may need. Carry some key posters and brochures with you on your carry-on luggage so that in a worst case you can stick some posters up in the booth space and engage with people.

Disasters occur on a regular basis in the exhibition world. What counts most is your ability to engage with people and satisfy their needs with your products and services. Not your booth, your location, your freebies, your branding or any other item. Make sure you can keep your cool and deliver when all around you is going to hell.

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5. Have Pick Up Lines

Exhibiting at a Trade Show, Expo, Market or Conference is exactly like speed dating. You are at a place surrounded by people who want what you’ve got. They are nervous, hesitant, shy and scared of making the wrong move to the wrong potential partner. You need to get their attention, attract them to what you’ve got and engage them into a lifelong, mutually beneficial relationship.

One thing that has proven itself for centuries is the well delivered pick up line. Make sure you have some. Naturally different ones work on and for different people. Find one that works for you and use it.

Make sure it is about the prospect and not about you. The reality is no-one cares about you; they are focussed on their own needs. Find out what the majority of your prospects are after and make it about that. Be a bit playful too. Business can be so boring so spice it up with some playful and humorous lines.

If the lines you have are not working, change them. If the ones you used successfully yesterday are not working this morning, change them. Do what it takes to get their attention and then engagement.

6. Have Lead Cards

Collecting business cards is not enough. They are overwhelming and do not give a focus on what you need to do next. Have simple lead cards you can staple to the business card. This lead card can capture some basic but important info. Items like:

Priority – are they an A, B or C prospect
Interest – what product or service are they interested in
Follow-up – what day of the week is best to follow-up with them
Budget – do they have a budget set aside for this purchase
Reason – what is their main reason to buy
Existing – who is their existing supplier

You can have a lot of this information in a checklist format so that a few simple ticks on an A5 sheet will give you valuable information you can use in your follow-up call.

7. Be Present

If you are on the show floor, be on the show floor. Turn off your phone or computer (better still, leave them at home or in the room), focus on the prospect, and work toward achieving your goals. It is too easy to be distracted. Your firm will have spent tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars for your time on the stand. Give those few days everything you’ve got.

Your feet will hurt. Wear your most comfortable shoes and toughen up. It’s only for a few days. DO NOT sit down. You will lose money. People will not approach you, you will start chatting to colleagues and not be present to the reason you are there.

Use the opportunity to market your booth. Have your out of office message on your phone and email tell everyone where you are and to come and visit, otherwise you will get back to them AFTER the show. Your job back at the office will wait and if it can’t have a well-trained back up dealing with it. The show floor is your job for the limited time it is on so give it everything.

If there was one tip of the ten to focus on, this would be it. Be there for your prospects and customers. The rest of the world will wait while you are on the floor.

8. Follow Up

The half-life of interest in you and your product after you exhibit is 2 business days. By that I mean, in 2 days, they are half as interested as they were on the floor. Another 2 business days, they are half as interested again and so on.

What this means for you is book out the 2 days directly after you exhibit. These 2 days are to be used for follow up. Naturally you will have mountains of emails and phone messages. They will wait another two days, your show prospects won’t.

While a bulk email to your visitors may be easy, it is nowhere near as effective and results generating as a phone call. This is where your lead cards pay off big time. It is during the follow-up time that you put your visitors into your standard sales cycle and start the process with your A priority and B priority visitors.

9. Measure

What gets measured gets improved. You also need to measure if your exhibit process was a success. Look back to your original goals, did you achieve them? If not, why not? What level of success have you experienced? What is the return on your investment?

Only by measuring can you establish whether you will exhibit at this particular event again next time. Granted you may need to commit to a couple of shows before you can measure the results but it is essential to measure your exhibiting success.

10. Have Fun

As mentioned earlier, trade shows are speed dating, so have some fun with it.

People would much prefer to do business with people they like. Enjoy your time on the floor. It is an absolute buzz and you will meet some amazing people as you do it.

Why Have The Day Off?

The Cup
It’s the Melbourne Cup. In Australia it is referred to as “The Race that Stops the Nation”. In Victoria it is a Public Holiday. It amazes me that we have a public holiday for a horse race!

Don’t get me wrong, a day off appeals to my laid back and relaxed Australian attitude to life, but for a horse race? It also strikes me as funny that in one of furthest away parts of the Commonwealth, we have a public holiday to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, yet they don’t have one in England where she lives!

It strikes me as ludicrous that earlier this year there were discussions and media rumblings about having a public holiday for the AFL Grand Final (don’t get me started on that!).
There are so many good reasons to have a day off where we DON’T, why do it for a simple sporting event?

Here are a few reasons to take a day off in no order of importance (except the first one):

Your birthday (NEVER work on your birthday – it’s against the rules)
Your partner’s birthday
Your anniversary
Your child’s graduation
Your child’s performance (sport, play, dance, music, whatever)
A funeral of someone dear to a dear friend of yours
An impulse family adventure
A surprise visit to your grandparents
A full health check up
To celebrate a major milestone achievement (personal or professional)
To spend time with someone you love but don’t see often
For personal or professional development (training course – regardless of who pays for it)
To pick up the new car/motorbike/motorhome and spend the day taking it for a test run
Because you are sick! (Don’t struggle through work, stay home and get better)
Because someone you love is sick (kid, pet, partner, parent or friend)

I am sure you can come up with a stack of other reasons far more worthy than a horse race.
So what would it take for you to have the day off?

Image: www.MelbourneCup.com

How Hard Is It?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you thought that things were just too hard? Some things in your life had changed and now you couldn’t do some of the things that you wanted too? Maybe you weren’t getting the results in your life that you wanted? It was all too hard? I have felt that too.

On the weekend I got a sense of perspective. I heard an amazing story from a guy named Dale Elliot. He is guy just like you and me. No one special – just a bloke with dreams, desires, a life. He took his cousins motorbike for a spin and on the last corner home a dog ran out on to the road and his life changed forever.

As a paraplegic his life was hard, damn hard!

How does he keep going? By focussing on what he can do not on what he can’t. Looking back to his past and what he can’t do serves no purpose. His focus is looking forward at what he can do. Creating new goals and dreams that stretch him and doing it with a sense of humour, joy and gratitude.

So how hard is it? Granted there may be things you can’t do like you used to. But what can you do? How can you stretch yourself, grow and make contribution to those around you? I suspect it is easier than you may tell yourself.

For more information on Dale, get inspiration or book him for your next event, check out his website at www.DaleElliott.com

Photo: Dale Elliot

How Sharp Is Your Saw?

Saw
The 7th Habit in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is to Sharpen the Saw. What he is saying is how often do you take the time to get better at what you do? Are your skills being improved and honed or are you still doing what you do the same way you always have?

If you were 10% better, what would that mean to you? 10% more sales? 10% better customer service? 10% more time to do things? 10% more organised? 10% more focussed or energised? Or would it simply mean that you are back as good as you used to be because you have recently developed some bad habits?

The time you invest in sharpening your saw is well worth it. A saw blade you continue to use slowly gets worn down. It stops sawing and starts Hacking. Are you Hacking anywhere in your workplace? After you have been hacking for a while, you then are simply going through the motions without getting a result. Surely you aren’t simply going through the motions anywhere? Are you?

What will you do to sharpen your saw? I can highly recommend The Super Conference on this week. I will be MC and speaking there. If you can’t make that, find something else. Your professional association, industry training courses, personal development courses or training for a specific skill set all contribute to your success.

How Sharp is your Saw?

Saw Image: Mom The Barbarian

Do You Share?

It is amazing how many people in the workplace do not share who they really are with their colleagues.

They have strong boundaries (almost barriers) around their distinct groups. Their work friends are never allowed to mix with their social friends and neither of these groups are allowed anywhere near family.

Why would you do this? While I am all for a sense of privacy and not sharing every single detail about yourself, why would you not share with your friends all of who you are? What are you trying to hide?

While you may have weird hobbies that may raise some questions or work in a job or role that your social group may not expect, don’t hold back on who you are. We are complete beings with varied, colourful and complex parts to ourselves.

One of the most valuable gifts you can give to the world is your Authenticity. It also takes less effort than putting up a facade or remembering to not tell certain people certain things. Share of yourself with the world. The world will be a better place for it.

So do you share?

PS As part of my sharing, I need to let you know I sing in an A Cappella choir. It is fabulous and a whole lot of fun. We have a concert in North Melbourne at the Comic’s Lounge this Sunday at 2pm. It’s only $15 and kids are free. If you are in Melbourne next Sunday, I would love to see you there. Further details and samples of our work at www.MoodSwingChoir.com

What Do You Want?

Party Tram

I was out for dinner with friends last week and we saw one of those rare beasts, a Party Tram! You can tell it’s a Party Tram because that’s what the sign says on it. There is no confusion, it is really quite obvious and if you are after the Party Tram you know which one it is.

I am like the Party Tram. When Wifey and I got together five years ago I told her:

“I am a mere male. I don’t respond well to subtle comments, hints, implications or suggestions. If you want something you MUST be blatant and tell me directly that way you have more chance of getting it.”

It was a great ground rule that has served us well.

Clients and prospects are the same. When it comes to your products and services, you cannot be subtle, hint, imply or suggest. TELL THEM what you do and make it easy for them to find out about it. Just like the Party Tram does it!

Several of my exhibiting clients have found this fabulous advice. Rather than have a booth that is about their brand with subtle hints on what they have and want their clients to do, bold signs with information or prices encourage prospects into action.

So what do you want your prospects to do?

PS For those who retail or exhibit at shows, expos or markets, I am running a webinar on How to Get More from Your Next Expo. It is at 11am Thursday 29 Sept AEST. (Click here for world times). It’s a freebie and I encourage you to attend and invite your contacts who may be interested. So register here right now! (Had to tell you what to do!)

Are You Haemorrhaging Cash?

When it comes to exhibiting at Trade Shows, Expos and even a simple market, it is so easy to spend and even waste money. They are not cheap and everything you need seems to “cost extra”.

Over the last week I have run a couple of webinars on how to Get More from your next Expo. The question was raised, is it still worthwhile to exhibit? To me the answer is always “Yes, if you do it properly”.

Exhibiting has one of the lowest cost per leads/cost per sales figures of any form of marketing. It is a way to get great exposure to your target market and let them get hands on with your products, expertise and brand. What is even better is most people do not exhibit well. So with only a minor bit of extra effort you can stand out from the rest.

This doesn’t mean you need to spend thousands of dollars on a stand. Some of the best stands are the simplest. A few small changes in how you operate can actually double your return on investment at the show. Here are a few things you can do:

Market your stand before the show
Smile on the stand (most people don’t)
Stand at the stand – NEVER SIT DOWN (unless it is with a customer)
Turn your phone off
Followup with your prospects
Set up a Lead Management System
Have fun!

As you can see these things are not rocket science. But the difference it makes can be significant. If you want to find out more, join me on the next webinar where we discuss things in far more detail.

The next webinar on how to Get More from your Next Expo will be held at 11am AEST on Thursday 29 September. To register click here https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/426956998

What Can You Throw?

blossom

This is the tree just outside my office window. The blossoms are stunning and it is more proof that in the southern hemisphere, spring is upon us. So it must be time for some spring cleaning.

Not just around the house either. It is a great time to consider your business and place of work. What have you got there that no longer serves you or the business? What have you been thinking of deleting, ejecting, getting rid of, or being free of? What have you been tolerating?

Maybe it is an employee? If so, make time to start them on a performance improvement plan.
It could be a process. If so, revisit the process and make it more relevant and effective.
Your desk may need a tidy up. Put time aside (twice as much as you think you need) and tidy it.
It may be time to archive some filing. Do a backup and then delete it or have the files put in the archive area.

Whatever it is, it will take time. Book that time in your diary and ask yourself, What Can You Throw?

Will You Please Answer The Question?

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In business there is always so much to do.

You are either getting the sale, servicing the sale, supporting the sale or looking for the next sale. It seems the bigger your business grows, the more peripheral work needs to be done. By peripheral work I mean sundry tasks that don’t seem to be related to looking after the customer or the prospect. It almost feels like busy work.

It is always easiest to do business with people you know, like and trust. So your mission needs to be to continually focusing on the activities that will cause your customers and prospects to know you, like you and trust you. It may be social media, it may be traditional marketing or it may even be contributing to the community. Whatever it is, never lose focus on making sure your customers are looked after and your pipeline is healthy.

By the way, your activities don’t have to be major. In fact, it is frequently the little things that make all the difference. The most important thing is to make sure you are doing something. Let the customer know you are thinking of them and appreciate their business. Let your prospects know you understand their perspective. Ask your customers and prospects what additional products or services they want from you.

It doesn’t take a great deal of expense or effort to continue to support your clients and prospects and help them to know you, like you and trust you.

So what are you doing?

Image: Terry Johnston

Do You NEED it or WANT It?

It’s hard rubbish time at my house. Up and down the street are piles of rubbish, old furniture, tree cuttings, old computers, and cardboard boxes. There is also a plethora of televisions – square televisions. They are usually sitting on the cardboard box of rectangle plasma TV.

Wifey and I were talking about how the trend of huge plasma televisions, and now 3D televisions, have led to a lot of fully functioning, relatively large televisions being thrown out. It got me thinking to what other things we “upgrade” unnecessarily. Going from iPhone 3 to 4 (and now 5), iPad

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1 to 2, new laptops, new car, new business machines or even new outfits. We have a fully functioning model but we think it’s old or not trendy and upgrade.

Do you need it or just want it?

Don’t get me wrong. There are very valid reasons for getting new equipment and new technology but are you considering them? How many times are you purchasing based on impulse and desire rather than truly considering the cost benefit of what you are after?

Do you NEED it or just WANT it?

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