Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

How Your Life Is Like Social Media

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

I was reading a blog the other day about social media marketing.  It occurred to me how similar social media marketing and connecting professionally/personally are.  I believe two points in the blog post I read are particularly important to remember:

Numbers and quality should not be individualized.   (If you lose quality you will eventually lose numbers.)

Frequency of engagement counts.

All this is to say if you are overextended and telling yourself you are “maximizing” your time, you are kidding yourself.  Being over extended will lead to numbers overtaking quality and a lower sense of engagement from those you believe (falsely) you are connecting with.  It really is that simple.

 

 

 

 

The blog referenced above follows:

http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=5563564617914908683&ids=dPsNdP0MczcSdPoNc38QdjoRdiMTczoVdPwUc3oOe3cOcz0RdzkRb3cRczwNc34Rc3kRczwScPcSdjkIe3wOdj0VejkPd30McjoMdjoRdiMPe3oUc3AQcjATcjoQdzkPdzkR&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod2-b-pub-0&ut=3bKXWTJk3RtR41

Pull The Trigger

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

“Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.”  ~Victor Kiam

Pull the trigger.  There is a bigger risk than your perceived fear of failure.  The biggest risk you take in not pulling the trigger is the risk of missing out completely to someone who did.  Every moment you put off procrastinating picking up the phone or having a face to face conversation is a moment that your competitor moves forward.

 

 

Who Is In Charge Here?

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

How much do we love to think we are in charge!  At work we like to feel we have control over our domain and blame either our bosses, subordinates or customers when all is not going well.  Go ahead, feel you are in control, but is that really serving you and the business?  Ask Netflix.

Netflix lost over 800,000 customers in the past quarter.  Largely this was due to their assumption that they were in control.  Clearly, based on the number of customers/clients that exited and the subsequent response from Wall Street, Netflix is not in charge.  Those that utilize their product are in charge.  While Netflix has made a significant turnabout in its pitch, still 800,000 customers are now gone.  Can you imagine losing 8 customers let alone 800,000?

Never under-estimate the power of the purchaser.  They certainly will not.  Because like you, they want to feel they have control.

What Not To Say

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

I love the following blog post so I thought I’d share it!  I believe you will find, as I did, it resonates on two levels, when we are the provider and when we are the customer.

Enjoy!

http://www.bnet.com/blog/small-biz-advice/8-things-you-should-never-say-to-customers/4352?promo=857&tag=nl.e857

The Magic Wand

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

Here is the thing about the magic wand…it does not exist.  So if you are waiting for the perfect time and/or circumstances you might as well be waiting for a magic wand to be waived over your head.  Instead I suggest going with Mark Victor Hansen’s idea:

“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”

Are You The Problem Or The Solution?

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

Right now there is a huge amount of talk about the actions, or perhaps inaction, of our elected officials regarding our national debt and what to do about it and the budget.  Lots of talk, lots of chatter, lots of complaining about the situation.  Question, where is the action piece?

Whether it is government, family, friends, work, or whatever you want to throw in the mix has merely complaining about an issue ever been the magic bullet needed to change it?  No, no it has not.   If you want to complain about your government, your family, spouse, friend, boss, co-worker…you best be able to back your complaining with actionable solutions.  Otherwise all you have is whining and loser talk.  It is doubtful that is what you want to be known for in any situation.

Dealing With It

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

Yesterday I had a conversation with a sales manager at a company that is going through a lot of great changes.  The conversation was about how to deal with change.  Change is great, without it progress will lag if it exist at all, but change usually isn’t embraced. The dichotomy  (and disaster) with change in business comes when we don’t like/embrace change, but also feel we have to pretend it is no big deal.

Change is a big deal.  Change helps us propel forward.  Propel is defined as “drive, push, or cause to move” and let’s face it…”push” is usually the indicator in play.  Being ‘pushed’ is not a comfortable thing for most people.  It puts us in the position of feeling we have no control.  It creates a dynamic which in turn has us focused on resistance rather than progress.  Thus I repeat, change is a big deal.

This is why having a way to cope is such a big player.  Pretending you easily adapt because you don’t want to look weak is a recipe for disaster.  Epic failure is always born out of the failure to touch base with who we are as individuals.  Forging forward in fear combined with faith, with drive,  preparation, like a woman on fire, etc., is great.  Forging forward in fear and acting like it is not big deal…not so great.

What is comes down to is this…when you forge forward showing you are maybe nervous/scared but driven and prepared you will have developed a layer of coping skills that engages others in your journey.  What an excellent fit to go along on the ride with your other internal/external coping skills.  When you march forward like it is the easiest thing in the world, and the world by nature knows it is not, you de-humanize yourself and disengage from your team. It is equivalent to telling everyone that you are better than them.  And by the way, even if you are, exhibiting it will serve no one…not you, not them.

All this is to say, as people we love to have someone to root for, and we’d love to root for you too! Will you let us?

 

Sales. Are You Prepared?

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

Two things have struck me in the past few days about sales.  One, do not pursue sales aggressively until you are prepared.  Two, sales is about the other guy not you.

Sales equals growth which is great.  However, growth prior to preparation and/or capacity is not so great.  Depending on your size the not so great can be major or minor.  I’ve recently been working on updating some materials.  I know I am not at a place where I want mass expansion so building marketing list and finding a way to touch large numbers anticipating a response would not be good for me right now.  It goes back to the classic, you only have one chance to make a good impression.  Six months from now, totally different story.  Know where you are.  Know what you can handle.  Know your timeline and capacity (or desire) for growth.

Sales also equals giving your client/customer what they want.  It is about making them comfortable.  Sales is about engaging on a level that speaks to your customer, not to you.  If you are involved in multiple markets this means having a base that you can morph to fit their needs.  Again, their needs, not yours.  There may be some play here, depending on your target market.  If you are looking at attracting like-minded individuals, build your tools and pitch around you.  If you are looking on going wider than that, give your tools a neutral feel and individualized message.

Someone recently shared a pitch they gave.  I was shocked.  The pitch had nothing to do with the company they wanted to do business with. Not surprisingly, the account was not landed.

Not many have time to sort through all that is ‘you’ to get to what you can do for them.  Not many will.

Sales, It’s Not About You

Posted on by Denise Dahl, Epiphany Planning & Development, LLC

During a corporate coaching session a key sales person was sharing frustration about not receiving a response from a client.  That can be terribly frustrating without a doubt.  What I asked as a follow-up was this… Is the question you are asking “when can I talk to you?” or “can I send you our materials?”  Yes.  Yes it was.  Sure that is one way to go about it.  However it is not the most productive way.

The issue becomes are your pitches, proposals, etc. based in a tone demonstrating what it will do for you, or what it will do for the one you are having the conversation with?  It all comes back to the Teddy Roosevelt quote (sometimes also cited as a John Maxwell quote) ““Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”  And frankly have you ever been impressed with someone trying to sell you something or convince you of something when their argument is based in how it will benefit them?  Not likely.

No truer words have been spoken regarding sales, or any relationship for that matter, than Zig Ziglar’s, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”