Being Overly Optimistic About Sales and Money

Being Overly Optimistic About Sales and Money

Do you want to make more money and grow sales. One of the hallmarks of an entrepreneur is that they are typically a confident bunch. You need that confidence to start a business. I often hear people say “they would be profitable in year one.” I also hear “I can sell anything.” Reality often provides a different lesson.

When I first started my business, I thought people would see my experience and appreciate how safe it was in working with me. They would see how knowledgeable I was and immediately understand the benefits of working with me. They would flock to me.

Boy was I wrong! I never met a sales projection in my early years.

To grow sales, I had to learn new sales and marketing skills, budgeting skills, and time management skills. The effective hourly rate was too high for the market I was selling into. The competition was intense. I was dealing with job seekers who were taking the work at pennies on the dollar just to put food on the table. Some of these guys were good. Some just wanted the work. Since their primary effort was on the job search, understanding how to price was not important to them. After all they just wanted to pay the bills.

I underestimated everything because I did not understand the market.  When I did close a sale, instead of closing in one call, it would take three, four or sometimes five sales calls.

It seemed they always had to check my competitors.

If I had built my business plan first that addressed growing sales, I would have understood these problems before I went to market. I would have understood my weaknesses better and put a plan in place to address these weaknesses. I would have understood the competition better. I would have understood why people buy this particular product or service and how to price it based on  market demand.

Here are some rules to follow that work.

RULE # 1: Never be overly optimistic. What you want always takes longer that you expect. Budget both time and money for this.

I was speaking with an accountant and he said people always underestimate the road to profitability. It usually takes 3-5 years just to start making money and 10 years to reap the rewards we expect. I am not sure I totally agree but I can understand where he is coming from.

RULE # 2: Test your assumptions. Ask others who have been there and done that. They will help if you ask correctly.

In other words, do your homework! Call prospects and ask them why they buy and how they buy. Call customers and ask them why they buy from you. I was cold calling and reached an owner of a business. I asked him if he ever bought from someone who cold called him. He said no. If he needed something and he did not have an existing relationship, he called his friends and asked them who they used! I stopped calling him because I knew it would be a waste of time, both mine and his.

When you understand the market and do your homework it is hard to be over optimistic about money and sales. It almost always takes longer that you think.

Call me if you have questions or need help to grow sales.
Your Business Coach
Ron Finklestein
303-990-0788
ron@akris.net
www.rpfgroupinc.com

Businesses Fail Because

Businesses Fail Because

According to SCORE, businesses fail for many reasons. I listed the top eight below.

Lack of a well-developed business plan  78%
Not pricing properly  77%
Being overly optimistic – sales, money  73%
Not recognizing, or ignoring, what they don’t do well
 and not seeking help from those who do  70%
Ineffective prioritization  66%
Denying problems exist  65%
Minimizing the importance of marketing  64%
Insufficient business experience  63%

Not having a business plan is the single biggest reason a small business fails and it drives all the other reasons a business fails.

Let’s translate what will happen when these problems occur:
1. Can not grow sales
2. Can not improve people skills
3. small business marketing suffers
4. can not build effective teams.
5. not reaching out for help - especially business coaching

A business plan has four primary objectives:
1.Defines what you do and why others will buy from you and your firm
2.Define the markets, companies, people, etc who can buy from you and how to reach them
3.Defines the road map to making money, where you need to spend your money (i.e., marketing, Internet, computers, fax, telephones, etc)
4.Defines weaknesses where you should be looking for help or areas to you need to address

A business plan is essential. You would not try to build a house with blueprints. Why would you start or run a business with the same type of blueprints.

The strange part is that if you don’t know how to do a business plan you need to ask. Number four above, really should be number one. If you don’t know what you don’t know, how do you know you don’t know it? How do you know to ask for help?

A business plan, depending on its purpose, can be a short as one page or more than 100 pages (venture capitalists want to know everything).

Just going through the exercise of writing a business plan will tell you more about what you don’t know about your business than any single exercise.

A business plan is a living document that should change as you and your business change. I will give you seven simple questions that you need to answer as part of your business plan:
1. Why are you in business? If you are not really passionate about your business, you will have trouble during the hard times and, most like you will lose interest and fail.
2. What are you selling? What problem do you think your product or service solves for your target market?
3. What is that one thing you do better than anyone else in my market? It could be as simple as free shipping to a lower price point using a new production break process.
4. Why would your target market care about what you do? Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself “what’s in it for me?”
5. Why would your prospects buy from you? Even if you are the best, will people buy form you and if so why?
6. How much money do I need to get started? Do not underestimate.
7. How will I make money and how long with it take before I am profitable.

I do not expect you have these answers to all these questions immediately (except #1). The answers to these questions will changes as you mature as business owner and you gain in understanding about your marketing, your industry, your products, your customers and your services.

The important part of this plan is to test everything. Ask your prospects and call your competitors, do research.  If you spend some time up front answering these questions, you will save yourself much pain and suffering.

Call me if you have questions and a free consultation.

Ron Finklestein
303-990-0788
ron@akris.net

Business Advisory Board

Business Advisory Board

Would you like to get objective feedback from your peers (business owners)? They have no hidden objective except your success.

Would you like to learn small business marketing strategies that work? We share best practices all the time.

Do you feel overwhelmed because you have so much to do? If so you are not alone. Let us help you prioritize and stay focused on what is important.

Are you looking for an Ohio business coach you can trust? If so, how can you tell? Simple, look for the guarantee.

Are you looking to grow sales? If so call us today for your free consultation. There is no risk to you.

Ron Finklestein

Business Coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

Grow Sales through Small Business Marketing

Small Business Marketing

In today’s economic times, as a business owner, it requires you think differently about small business marketing to grow sales.

Always have at least three small business marketing initiatives going on at all time to grow sales. The intent is to make sure at least one is always producing. Three small business marketing initiatives that can help grow sales could include:

Blogging

Develop referrals

Email marketing

I get at least six leads a month over the internet. I belong to a referral group that helps small business market themselves through using others networks. Lastly, I follow up with everyone I meet using email.

Remember to grow sales through small business marketing.

Sincerely,

Ron Finklestein

Small Business Coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net

www.akris.net   

Great Sales is About People Effectiveness

As a business coach and consultant I am surprised by the number of business owners who have responsibility for sales but don’t have a clearly defined sales process. They do not understand that making sales is about clear and effective communications. It is also about leadership. The art of helping people make good decisions.   

There is a six step process that anyone can learn to grow sales. Like anything else, it takes a bit of practice to master. This material is not designed for the professional sales person who is out on the street every day, through this is something they can use as well, it is designed for the business owner who needs to sell but does not know how, and does not want to look or becomes a “slick willie” kind of sales person (or anyone in the organization who has sales responsibility but is not a professional sales person.

The sales process to grow sales looks like this:

A. Action – What action do you want the client to take, or stated another way, what is the desired outcome for this sales call.

B. Build Rapport – Building rapport, if done incorrectly, can ruin any chance for creating a buyer/seller relationship. In this section we will discuss different ways to do that.

C. Create and agree on an agenda – Many sales people fail because the buyer does not know the reason for the meeting or how the selling process can and should work. In this step you gain agreement on the sales process, ask permission to ask questions and agree on the reason for the appointment.

D. Define Pain – Here is where you ask question that allows the client to tell you the problems they are experiencing.

E. Explore Pain – In this step you explore with the prospect the impact of the pains uncovered in the Define Pain step. The step explores what will happen (especially to the prospect) if action is not taken.

F. Finalize nest steps – this is a logical outcome of a well structured sales call. Is the outcome another meeting to further explore specific issues, is it time to ask for the order, is it time to ask for introduction to others in the organization that will help you further the sales process. This should have been defined in the action step and here is where you determine your success.

To improving your people skills,

Ron Finklestein

Small Business Coach

330-990-0788

ron@akris.net