Your Aptitude for EntrepreneurshipBy JOSEPH R. MANCUSO
Many people like to think of themselves as entrepreneurs. They may not have actually started a business at some point in their lives, but they believe they could under the right conditions. Chances are they're fooling themselves. Entrepreneurs are a special breed. It takes a certain blend of determination, persistence and guts to turn a business dream into a going venture. There are thousands of accountants, clerks, plumbers, lawyers and managers who tried to launch a business and failed. Yet some do succeed. To determine whether you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, take the following quiz and review your answers using the provided analysis.
1. An entrepreneur is most commonly the __________ child in the family.
a. oldest
b. middle
c. youngest
d. doesn't matter
2. Usually, an individual's entrepreneurial tendency first appears at which of these stages?
a. teens
b. twenties
c. thirties
d. forties
e. fifties
3. An entrepreneur's primary motivation for starting his own business is:
a. to make money
b. because he can't work for anyone else
c. to be famous
d. as an outlet for unused energy
4. An entrepreneur moves which of these items from business to business:
a. desk
b. chair
c. all office furniture
d. none of these items
5. To be successful in an entrepreneurial venture, you need an overabundance of:
a. money
b. luck
c. hard work
d. good ideas
6. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists:
a. are cordial friends
b. are the best of friends
c. are in secret conflict
7. A successful entrepreneur relies on which of these groups for critical management advice:
1. internal management team
2. external management professionals
3. financial sources
4. no one
8. Entrepreneurs are best as:
1. managers
2. venture capitalists
3. planners
4. doers
9. Entrepreneurs are:
a. high risk-takers (big gamblers)
b. moderate risk-takers (realistic gamblers)
c. small risk-takers (take few chances)
d. doesn't matter
10. The only necessary and sufficient ingredient for starting a business is:
a. money
b. a customer
c. a product
d. an idea
Answer 1
An entrepreneur is most commonly the __________ child in the family.
a. oldest
b. middle
c. youngest
d. doesn't matter
There's no doubt about this answer. All the studies agree that entrepreneurs are high achievers. The first-born child in a family normally is the high achiever. This finding is amazingly consistent, especially considering that two-thirds of all people aren't first-born. A small point of interpretation here might be helpful. A high achiever is normally, but not always, the oldest child in the family. Some families have had children in clusters. Say, for instance, a family has children ages 12, 10 and 8, and then has a new addition to the family. This new addition also can be considered a first child. If you missed this question, and you are a second or third child, watch out - you may be bucking some severe odds.
Answer 2
Usually, an individual's entrepreneurial tendency first appears at which of these stages?
a. teens
b. twenties
c. thirties
d. forties
e. fifties
Entrepreneurial traits show up very early in life. The enterprising boy becomes the enterprising man. Many entrepreneurs begin businesses in their teens. But somewhere during high school or college these characteristics always blossom. The finding applies to well over three-fourths of the entrepreneurs I've surveyed. Coin- and stamp-collecting, rock concerts and dances, selling clothes and appliances, lawn and snow services, and a paper route are common examples of early business ventures. Entrepreneurial traits are normally developed and visible by the teenage years.
Answer 3
An entrepreneur's primary motivation for starting his own business is:
a. to make money
b. because he can't work for anyone else
c. to be famous
d. as an outlet for unused energy
Entrepreneurs seldom leave a secure environment and steady job for the primary purpose of making money. Their view is that the attainment of wealth is a byproduct of a higher goal. To be famous is almost never the reason for starting a business. There are other, more direct and less trying, methods of attaining either riches or fame. Starting a business isn't one of them. An energy outlet is equally irrelevant to a would-be entrepreneur. He usually is concerned more about using time productively than he is about starting a business just to have something to do. The second reason - that he can't work for anyone else - is more to the point. The entrepreneur is an independent free spirit. He has difficulty following another's directions. He seeks to do his own thing. This tendency is key to all entrepreneurs. Each has to be his own boss.
Answer 4
An entrepreneur moves which of these items from business to business:
a. desk
b. chair
c. all office furniture
d. none of these items
The answer is chair. Most guess this answer correctly. However, this phenomenon hasn't been discussed by researchers. Most have chosen to ignore it even when they discover it. Entrepreneurs fall in love with a good chair. For reasons of comfort and convenience, entrepreneurs prefer a chair over any other piece of office furniture - so much so, in fact, that they strive to carry the same chair from business to business. Although this isn't a statistically significant finding, it's interesting to discover that entrepreneurs do go from business to business. Only a few entrepreneurs have started just one company and stayed with it. The pattern is more likely to include a number of businesses. An individual who has started at least one new business is a prime candidate to start another. Most entrepreneurs aren't inclined to make the transition from entrepreneur to manager. Most would prefer to sell their existing company rather than learn to manage. They'd much prefer to return to the creation process and start another business.
Answer 5
To be successful in an entrepreneurial venture, you need an overabundance of:
a. money
b. luck
c. hard work
d. good ideas
While this answer may cause concern for you, and most get this question wrong, the answer should be obvious. We all know that money alone isn't enough to make an entrepreneurial venture successful. The implosion of the dot-coms indicates the ineffectiveness of money alone. Hard work and a good idea are helpful in starting and succeeding in a small business. But mere hard work seldom can make a troublesome situation into a success. A good idea offers a greater chance of success as well, but a great many good ideas also end up in the garbage heap. But luck is a different matter. Luck compensates significantly for other weaknesses. Most successful entrepreneurs will say they've been lucky. A few key breaks early, according to them, were what made the difference. Sorry you answered this question incorrectly -- you just weren't lucky.
Answer 6
Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists:
a. are cordial friends
b. are the best of friends
c. are in secret conflict
The answer to this question always causes great concern, especially for venture capitalists. Universally, these people prefer to believe that they are best of friends with their entrepreneurs, and, in a few cases, it's true. The financier is the source of money, which allows an entrepreneur's dream to be born. Sustaining the new life of the business is the function of the entrepreneur; giving life to that business is the function of the person who backs new ventures financially. In the great success stories, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are pictured walking hand in hand into the glorious sunset. This is the exception, not the rule. Most small businesses fail (some say nine out of 10). Every business, save a handful, needs second and third rounds of financing. At these stages the entrepreneur/venture capitalist relationship shifts from cordialities to stress. Many times this causes a permanent split, or, in other words, a divorce. The "marriage" needs more money, and this issue divides the entrepreneur and financier and puts them in conflict. For the few success stories, there are hundreds of failures. Sorry again.
Answer 7
A successful entrepreneur relies on which of these groups for critical management advice:
a. internal management team
b. external management professionals
c. financial sources
d. no one
The overwhelming answer to this question is external management professionals. In fact, of the successful companies studied in my research, every single one had used a consultant of one sort or another. Not so for the unsuccessful companies. This is a fascinating finding. Entrepreneurs seldom rely on internal people for major policy decisions because they conclude early that employees have an ax to grind. Internal management people seldom offer serious conflicts on big decisions, and, in the end, the entrepreneur is dominant in every decision. Outside financial sources are even less common sounding boards for entrepreneurs. Not only do banks and accountants lack a feeling for the real stresses of managing an entrepreneurial venture - they are too conservative. They say "no" most of the time. This goes against the optimistic fun-loving nature of entrepreneurs. They prefer outside professionals, including other entrepreneurs, consultants, college professors or other successful businessmen.
Answer 8
Entrepreneurs are best as:
a. managers
b. venture capitalists
c. planners
d. doers
Although entrepreneurs aren't poor managers - because they do eventually succeed at accomplishing tasks through other people - they have difficulty delegating responsibility. The basic reason for this failing is their outstanding abilities as doers. They do everything faster and better than anyone else, hence they are reluctant to delegate responsibility. Being both better and faster is a handicap for most planners and managers. They are seldom effective as venture capitalists or financiers even after they accumulate wealth. They are more at home with products, markets and technologies. The skills of a successful venture capitalist are at a much higher level of abstraction. Entrepreneurs do best by not maximizing capital but by maximizing their own talent for doing. Managing money and making financial bets aren't as much to their liking as finding market niches or exploiting new technologies.
Answer 9
Entrepreneurs are:
a. high risk-takers (big gamblers)
b. moderate risk-takers (realistic gamblers)
c. small risk-takers (take few chances)
d. doesn't matter
Contrary to popular belief, entrepreneurs aren't high risk-takers. I'll bet most of you answered this question incorrectly. The correct answer is moderate risk-takers. Entrepreneurs tend to set realistic and achievable goals. They do take risks, but they are usually calculated risks. They are extremely aware of the consequences of failure. They are reluctant to bite off more than they can chew. Most research into entrepreneurs agrees with this finding. It's especially true for successful entrepreneurs, but it's true of unsuccessful entrepreneurs as well. They know the problems of "high rollers" and are aware of the frustration of losing. Competitive events based on their own skills naturally increase their propensity to take risks, but these risks are rarely extreme. For instance, although they'll seldom buy lottery tickets or bet on horse races, they aren't reluctant to bet on games dependent on their skill. They love to play tennis for money or bet on a round of golf - but this happens only when they are among the players, almost never when they are the spectators.
Answer 10
The only necessary and sufficient ingredient for starting a business is:
a. money
b. a customer
c. a product
d. an idea
A business starts with an order. An order only comes from a customer. All of business revolves around a customer, and it all begins when someone offers to buy something. Entrepreneurs start with customers, and a business starts with an order. Although you may be deluded into believing that you have a business when the prototype of your product is completed, don't be alarmed when no one buys it. You may be proud as punch when your new store has its grand opening, but it'll be mighty lonely if no one comes to buy your goods. Although the excitement of the new business reaches a peak when you raise money, please recall that the success/failure rate offers nine in 10 chances of going nowhere. When you have a good idea, you're on the right track. However, you'll notice that a track has other trains on it, too. Move a little faster down the track and see if you can sell something. When this happens, this whole train begins to move; and it can get up quite a head of steam if an increasing number of customers consume your product or shop at your store.
-- Mr. Mancuso is founder and president of the Chief Executive Officers' Club Inc. (www.ceoclubs.org) a New York-based not-for-profit educational association of CEOs and entrepreneurs.
Appearances Can Be Deceiving
Small Businesses (few employees) with large presence!
For many small businesses, attracting the right client base relies heavily on appearances that a company can handle the job. For businesses with six employees or less, this might pose a serious challenge in order to compete with their larger competitors.
To alleviate the burden of growing too large too fast, many companies have found that appearances are increasingly deceiving. When it is critical that a customer think you are bigger than you really are, some innovative entrepreneurs have managed to fill the gaps.
The secret is technology. To give the new company the look and feel of an international player, Oriel contacted NetSuite Inc., a San Mateo, Calif., technology-service provider that helps small businesses develop and manage operations from a single, hosted Web site. For Oriel, NetSuite has implemented software that tracks inventory, handles all accounting and orders, helps maintain customer relationships with email newsletters and sends out targeted marketing campaigns.
In the small-business world these days, appearances are increasingly deceiving. Thanks to new technologies small firms can look -- and in many cases operate -- like only larger firms could just a few years ago.
"You want to give the impression that you are efficient, creative and professional, and that you have access to all the resources and capabilities that a large business does," says Bruce Judson, a faculty fellow at the Yale School of Management and the founder of three Web-based small businesses. "Certain technologies can help you do this."
Custom Sites
In the effort to look bigger than they are, small businesses can start with the Internet. In the past, hiring a Web designer to launch a site with the necessary links, animation, stereo sound and interactive navigation was prohibitively expensive for many start-ups. They could create a Web site -- but it would look as small-time as they were.
New technology, however, makes it easy for pretty much anybody to offer a Web site to rival the big guys. ImpactBuilder.com offers industry-specific multimedia templates that let an enterprise build a complex Web site or deliver Web-based presentations. A yearlong subscription to Denver-based business-service provider ImpactBuilder.com starts at $495. But at this price, Web sites must credit ImpactBuilder for creating the site, giving away an entrepreneur's secret. For an uncredited creation, subscribers pay $995 a year.
And when it comes to Web sites, looking big isn't everything. A small enterprise's site must be functional, allowing customers to easily purchase goods and services online and to send feedback. Yahoo Inc.'s Merchant Solutions, starting at $39.95 a month, and Microsoft Corp.'s Commerce Manager, at $24.95 a month or $249 a year, both offer electronic shopping carts and 24-hour tech support for online retailers.
These might take a couple of weeks to order and install. So if entrepreneurs need to start accepting payments immediately, they can set up a PayPal account in minutes at paypal.com. PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc., accepts bank transfers, e-checks and credit-card payments, as well as payments from a customer's PayPal account.
Email Follow-Ups
New email services also allow entrepreneurs to easily follow up with customers, and keep email subscribers updated on special discounts that appeal specifically to a buyer's likes, based on previous purchases -- a marketing approach that larger firms often use.
A Web-based email marketing service, Constant Contact (constantcontact.com), can be used to customize email newsletters and announcements with HTML, the language used to create Web links. The Waltham, Mass., service provides more than 100 HTML email templates, real-time reporting on which recipients opened the email and linked, and free phone and email support. But success is not without cost: The more your business grows, the more you pay. Constant Contact's subscription rate is based on the size of your distribution list, with 50 to 500 names at $15 a month. Sending emails out to 10,000 to 25,000 recipients costs $150 a month.
Being able to effectively send emails to customers is just one side of the coin. Employees must also be able to receive email from remote locations.
"Equipping your sales force with the latest high-tech gadgets shows potential clients that you're serious about communication and efficiency," says Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation.com and co-host of a radio show by the same name, both of which provide tips for entrepreneurs.
Mr. Sloan recommends that small-business owners splurge to outfit their sales staff with the latest in portable communication devices. He uses the Trio-650 smartphone from palmOne Inc., which starts at $299 and includes a compact mobile phone, email, an electronic organizer and Web access.
As for the old-fashioned kind of mail, small-business owners still use multiple mailing sites to try to convince customers they're at a number of business locations, or at least at more glamorous ones. New services, however, use technology to make it more convenient. A.I. Inc., in Brooklyn, N.Y., offers customers addresses in New York and Florida, but now urgent documents can be opened, scanned and emailed upon request. A.I. will also receive all faxes and email them to clients, eliminating the need for a fax machine. "We're here to help you create what the world will believe is a large corporation," reads A.I.'s Web site, successfuloffice.com. Basic services start at $195 a month.
Phone Lines
When Peter Adams launched Primary Knowledge, an e-marketing data warehousing service, he wanted his clients to think he had a receptionist and an office full of hard-working employees. So, he purchased a PBX, or private branch exchange, telephone. The system provides call transferring, voice mail, call-forwarding, custom greetings, hold music and an automated directory service.
"The phones gave callers the illusion that I had a staff of people working for me," says Mr. Adams, who now offers advice to entrepreneurs on allbusiness.com, an online guide for small businesses.
Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson and Fujitsu Ltd. all offer PBX hardware, which requires a hefty investment. The systems start at around $1,000 for two lines and climb to $6,000 for four to 10 lines.
A simple toll-free number can also lend an air of professionalism. AT&T's All In One Toll-Free plan provides intrastate and regional incoming long-distance calls. Subscribers can have their toll-free calls ring on a mobile phone and a land line. Prices start at about six cents a minute with a $10 monthly service charge for an 11-month plan.
While all this technology can give a small enterprise the polished appearance of a large operation, some experts warn against using chicanery. "You don't want to deceive people," says StartupNation's Mr. Sloan. Although a business might be small, "at the end of the day what customers respond to is sincerity and a company that gives them the bottom line."
The Ten Stepping Stones to Setting and Achieving Your Goals
By Roy Lantz
Do you remember how, as a child, you would dreamily spend hours gazing at all the wonders found in the holiday catalogs, wishing, hoping and dreaming for those special delights? For most of us, those delights remained largely within the catalog covers, but a couple of important lessons were learned. One, dreaming, hoping and wishing are not particularly effective means of getting what we want, and two, it sure was fun to dream! And even as adults, it's great fun to dream of castles in the air, and much more so when you begin to build foundations under them, and that's what goal setting is all about.
And how often did the youthful you wonder what you were going to do "when you grew up?" For many, that dream has changed a number of times, subject to revision with each new interest we encountered. Still others made youthful decisions to follow a certain career path and remain committed to that decision. Others are evaluating options and making career decisions well into maturity and adulthood. And many never really discover the answer to that magical question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" No matter where you are in your professional life, goal setting can help.
If You Can Conceive It, and If You Believe It, You Can Achieve It!
A number of years ago, the renowned contemporary philosopher Earl Nightingale offered a classic definition of success - "The progressive realization of worthy goals." Whether the decisions facing you are major - like making a career change - or relatively minor, like planning a vacation, goals will help you achieve the success you seek. Since success is a journey, and not a destination at which you arrive, goals become the pathway to achieving whatever you want to be, have, or do. That is the good news.
Even better news is that the pathway is built of ten clearly defined and recognizable stepping-stones. As you are about to take the first step, remember that goal setting is fun, and goal achieving is even more fun!
Getting Prepared for the First Step
Before stepping out onto the ten stepping-stones, here are a couple suggestions to help assure a productive journey. Your goals must be just that - your goals. They should be written commitments to what you intend to be, have, or do, and they need to be specific - "I'd like to lose some weight" does not work. "I weigh _______ pounds by September 1st" does, because it conforms to the definition of what we call QUALITY goals.
A QUALITY goal is: Q - quantifiable (measurable), Unconditional (not subject to reservations), Achievable, Literal (specific), Inspiring, Time Dated and Yours (Your goal for yourself). Some goals - quitting smoking, losing weight, running a 10K - become more doable when interim goals are established. Writing goals as outcomes, rather than processes, can be effective. For example, "Learn to speak Spanish" is not as effective as "I converse easily in Spanish." And remember to make them positive - "I am a non-smoker" is more powerful than, "I don't smoke anymore." Some goals will require a detailed plan to make them happen and some will not. If "a clean basement" is a goal, it may not be necessary to analyze all the available options to accomplish that goal (of course, that depends on the condition of your basement!). However, if your goal is an income goal, then in all probability a careful analysis is in order.
It was mentioned earlier that it is important to put your goal in writing. This lends clarity and focus to its attainment. If you are like so many others, you may not even be sure what your goals are, or should be, and that's perfectly fine at this stage of your journey. Remember the holiday "Wishbook" that was alluded to earlier? Goal setting requires a wishbook, too. This is where your journey will start - write down anything and everything you even think you might like to be, have, or do. At this point, don't complicate things by recording only what makes sense. Forget QUALITY goals here - "First we get it down, then we get it good!" You've dreamed of climbing Mt. Everest? GO FOR IT!! - in the "Wishbook", anyway!
In all probability, you have spent more time in the past planning a weekend trip than you have spent planning your life. Remember how planning that trip led to positive expectations and anticipation of good things? Magnify those feelings a thousand fold and you'll have an idea of the positive expectancy, energy and anticipation you'll experience as you step out onto the ten stepping-stones of goal-achievement.
"A Journey of a Thousand Miles…
…begins with the first step", and so does the journey on the ten stepping stones of the pathway to achieving your goals. You may set any number of goals in each of the ten areas, though it is suggested that no more than four or five in each area is a manageable number. Here are the ten stepping-stones and a couple of example activities in each area:
- PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT. Read 2 books a month; attend seminars
- OWNERSHIP. New toy trains; that Mont Blanc pen you've always wanted
- PROJECTS. Build a ship model; clean rain gutters
- SPIRITUAL. daily prayer; tithing
- FINANCIAL. investments; savings
- BUSINESS AND CAREER. promotion; increased business
- RECREATION. Attend a reunion; start a new hobby.
- FAMILY. more family activities; be a better role model.
- COMMUNITY. Be a regular blood donor; volunteer
- PHYSICAL. exercise program; medical check up
Goals should be written on paper, but never chiseled in stone. Setting and achieving goals is a life-long commitment to growth. It is not uncommon for goals to change, to evolve, to mature. Remember, too, that if a goal hasn't been accomplished in the desired timeframe, perhaps the timeframe, not the goal, requires tweaking.
Welcome to the wonderful world of goal setting. It has been said that only about three to five percent of adult Americans have written goals for their lives. You are about to walk with that elite group on the ten stepping-stones to achievement. Congratulations!
Roy Lantz has been traveling the globe since 1986, sharing his unique perspectives on winning the game of life with audiences on five continents. He is sought after internationally as a speaker, trainer and facilitator. Roy Lantz is the author of The Care and Keeping of Customers, and his newest book, Never Beat the Boss at Horseshoes...102 Ways to Pitch Ringer After Ringer in the Game of Life. Roy can be reached at RoyLantz.com.
This Year, Conquer Your Niche!
By Lawler Kang
Every marketing maven in the world wants to own their niche. Being the gorilla in any sand box is always fun - you make the rules and can extract a premium price and scaled margins for whatever you are pitching. So why not apply this learning to your personal life? Implicitly, owning your own niche - living on your terms - gives you control of not only your work, but life as well.
So how do you create (and thus control) your niche? From experience, a few basic conditions must be initially met. Your niche must draw on:
1. Your personal mission and its related passions. Without this purpose, pursuing life, liberty, and happiness can be inalienably frustrating and counterintuitive. Possessing even a sense of your meaning naturally triggers an accelerating and self-fulfilling alignment across your stars and planets, from your work options to your social endeavors to your purposeful pastimes. Combining your meaning with your means is paramount to creating your niche.
2. Those activities you both love to do and are great at. Ignore the incredibly tempting urge to be a superstar and focus your energies on those skills that you naturally excel at and thoroughly enjoy exploiting. This two-part condition is critical as many people have climbed ladders based on competencies they don't particularly like to use, and the next rung only keeps getting farther away. This said, also examine the context of your work, as what you may not like to use in a particular setting, industry, or under a particular manager, may ignite the fire in your gut if applied in a different scenario.
3. Your personal values. Simply put, do you think your spirit and performance will shine of you are working in an environment that doesn't recognize and support who you are?
4. Whatever life experiences you want to inculcate into your daily affairs. You are much, much more than merely words on a resume. Being able to draw on whatever unique life experiences you have had brings defensible differentiation, strength, and enjoyment to your niche.
5. What is important to you, wherever you are in life. Figuring out your priorities and more importantly building your niche around them is absolutely critical to defining and bringing the New You to market. For whatever reasons -burn out, kids, control - let's say you don't want to work 80 hour weeks any longer or you'd like to work from home or on a flex-schedule, identifying these facets is key to constructing a niche that suits your needs.
6. Defining wealth and success. Seriously, how do you define these two terms? Are they merely more zeros on statements? You may also want to define "success" in non-financial metrics - the number of times you can go skydiving per year, the number of people's lives you can improve through your work or volunteering efforts -- however you want to define your personal success is critical as metrics drive the strategy of your performance. If you need to hit XYZ targets to get your bonus, you'll focus on those targets; imagine the happiness of using this same rationale in Life.
7.Fulfilling life experiences. Finally, your niche should revolve around helping you fulfill or fund whatever life experiences you want to have before the inevitable estate tax kicks in. This could be anything from living in different geographies, visiting different geographies, to raising happy hooligans. Life is a one-shot deal; if you keep putting things on hold, they will inevitably slip away.
Once you have figured out what your niche might look like, develop a tactical plan to make it happen, replete with milestones and budgets. Generating this roadmap before you start is obviously pragmatic; you certainly don't want to get lost en route to your promised land. Most importantly, making this plan lets you define the length and relative ruggedness of your particular path, based on your intrinsic openness to various sorts of risk, finances being a prime example. Whether it be an internal move in your current employer, a move to another employer, or becoming your own employer, understanding and planning for the financial aspects of this change is incontestably a good idea.
The last step in rolling out your niche is arguably the most important, particularly for those whose income supports more than one outcome. Getting buy-in for your plan from those around you - your spouse or significant other, your parents, potentially a HR Colleague at work, or a mentor -- is non-arguably essential. Once this support has been secured, whatever next steps you need to make are trodden with the knowledge of a network, the confidence of confidantes, and the belief that belies any perceptions of potential failure.
Creating and conquering your niche, like life, is an iterative process. Two steps forward, sometimes three steps back. To think you can nail things on a first, second, or even third pass might be a tad far-fetched, but realistically this is exactly what must happen. Life is not a linear game and you must navigate its inevitable zigs and zags. In this particular expedition, however, you are creating the maze versus merely following one.
Fundamentally, going after your niche will hone your ability to focus your mind and efforts on a few particular yet key actions. Why is focus so important? Because life has a mischievous way of distracting you. There is always something else drawing your attention, always a multitude of other uses of your life and time, especially the small ones, which, like expenses, can quickly add up and even start to procreate.
Similarly, it doesn't matter if your plan is as slick as silicone, if you cannot execute it with the discipline of its author, its failure is assured. 'Discipline' in this context does not (necessarily) imply "If you don't finish your work by 5:00 p.m. EST today, you will be required to stay after and write the company mission statement on the whiteboard 50 times… in cursive." Discipline in our context simply means putting most distractions aside and following through on what you have created.
Since your plan has been (impassionedly) designed by you and for your personal benefit, attacking its execution with requisite diligence should be considerably easier than trying to follow prior directives where these elements may not have been so readily evident. To be clear, you are the one and only one who can bring your niche to market. It is out there, patiently waiting for you. It is time to get out there and make it yours.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lawler Kang is a business consultant, author and speaker specializing in helping people and organizations align their missions with their means. In his new book, "Passion at Work," (Prentice Hall), Lawler shows how to bring your passions to market. Garnering an MBA from The Wharton School, Lawler has followed his own passions into fulfilling efforts in strategy consulting and management, entrepreneurial forays, leading turnarounds, and working with non-profit bio-tech concerns. For more, please visit: www.lawlerkang.com.
How to Create a Business that Reflects Your Values
By Marsha Lindquist
Every business leader has a different leadership style. Some prefer a flexible work environment, where their employees are trusted to come and go as they please, dress the way they want, and focus their initiative on the projects they feel are most important. Other business leaders prefer a more rigid work environment, where employees have predetermined work schedules, a common objective, and assigned tasks. Each approach has its pros and cons, but neither style is superior unless it reflects your values and it works in your organization. Just like every leader is unique, every business is unique as well. What's most important about the work environment in an organization is that the leadership establishes the culture, focus, and behaviors. To accomplish this, the leader must consider his or her own values, and then communicate and model these ideals for everyone else in the company. Every business owner or executive team has to make these three decisions:
- What will your corporate culture look like?
- What will you focus on?
- How will you behave?
1. Create a corporate culture that reflects your vision of the way you want your organization to be.
Your vision-or your lack of it-will reflect in your organization's business. Where you don't make decisions, employees will fill in the blanks because they need leadership. Part of that leadership is to create a corporate culture-a vision and general belief system for your organization. Then you'll see natural leaders emerging from your employee ranks. Realize that a leader will emerge in the absence of the leader. The people who are strong and extroverted will set the stage for you, whether you like it or not. Your corporate culture reflects in everything your business does, from the way people dress and what time they come to work, to when they leave, how long they take for lunch, and how they talk to one another. If you don't like that your people are wearing jeans on Friday, or their lackadaisical attitude, then consider how this happened. You failed to set an example of what you want your corporate culture to be, so you practically invited your employees, intentionally or not, to set the stage for you. Ensuring that your corporate culture is a product of your own vision is absolutely critical in order to control the company's success and your expectations for the way your employees behave and what they focus on.
2. Determine your company's focus by setting the rules.
Set the rules about your vision and the expectations you want everyone to focus on. Do you want your team to focus on customer service? Seeking opportunities for growth? Eliminating overhead? Or expanding the client base? If you don't determine the top two or three goals for your organization, then the people who are working for you will make up their own. And their goals may not be the goals you want. Or, perhaps even worse, each person will focus on something completely different. For example, your employees may focus their energy on projects that do not serve your target customer base, which can spread your entire organization too thin. Or your employees may not be oriented to profit, which can slow growth and limit your bottom line. Wherever you choose to focus your energy, make sure your decision is clear to everyone. Then establish rules for how each team member spends their time, otherwise your employees will do their own thing.
3. Model the behavior you want to see in the group by what you do and how you do it.
Leaders set the example for their team members. So if a CEO is just crazy about e-mail, and he pops off e-mails all day long; then everyone else in the company will do the same thing. As a result, the organization will suffer from a lack of quality, face-to-face meetings, because, following the behavior of the CEO, no one in the group has productive, meaningful interactions anymore. The CEO sets a bad example, and gets bad results. If you see behavior you don't like in your organization-if people are doing things you don't approve of-you have to first take a look at yourself and what you're doing, because you may be setting the example. You may be unaware that you are exhibiting an undesirable behavior, doing something you didn't even know you were doing. For instance, if you observe and don't like that your people speak abruptly with one another, you must ask yourself if you are abrupt in your own interactions. Do you set an example of flexible, amenable, considerate customer interaction? Do your employees? They're not likely to if you don't. Make clear decisions about the behavior you want to see in your organization. Then, most important, model that behavior, and communicate your wishes in such a way that your people can follow your lead. 4. Communicate your values every day.
If you don't communicate what you expect upfront and then again on a regular basis, you're missing the mark. In order for your desired culture to take hold into every employee and facet of the company, you must reinforce what you want verbally, physically, and visually. In addition to modeling the behavior you want, reinforce the company's culture in your newsletter, on your intranet, in your orientation manual, on your web site, and in all your verbal and written communication. Use contrasting example during meetings to illustrate what you don't want. For example, if a company is in the news for some unethical behavior or one that goes against your desired culture, highlight it during a meeting by stating, "This is not how we do business." Remember that everyone learns and retains information differently, so use a combination of reinforcement tools to ensure your message gets heard.
The Value Advantage for Your Future
Every team environment needs a leader who is responsible for establishing the culture, focus, and behavior for the company. When a leader is not strong in all three of these aspects, another leader will emerge from within the ranks and put his or her own fingerprint on the company. This leader will turn your organization into what he or she wants it to be, and it may not be what you, the owner or CEO, want. When you use these strategies for determining your corporate culture, focusing the organization, and establishing acceptable behavior, you and your company win in more ways than one. You assert your leadership, strengthen your organization, and create a company that is based on the values that are most important to you.
About the Author:
Marsha Lindquist is a successful business strategist, author and speaker. As CEO of The Management Link, Inc., Marsha has over 20 years experience as a business consultant who works with her clients to transform their organization through her Value Advantage formula. She has enhanced communication, facilitated change management, and improved overall strategies with companies including BP Amoco, Fleishman Hillard International Comm., and Northrop Grumman. For more information on her speaking and consulting work, please visit: www.MarshaLindquist.com or email her: Marsha@MarshaLindquist.com.
Million Dollar Mistakes: 10 Advertising Blunders to Avoid
By Peter Koeppel
For any company, $1 million is a lot to lose. Companies with $100 million in revenue may spend as much as $10 million on advertising, so they need to spend it wisely. Advertising can be the biggest expenditure after salaries and benefits, as much as 5% -10% of the budget.
Even if yours isn't a $100 million company, you don't want to waste your hard-earned advertising dollars. Nor do you want to put out the wrong message because you've failed to craft an ad that most appeals to potential customers.
When you watch out for these ten common advertising gaffes, you'll get the most marketing bang for your buck.
Mistake #1: Not understanding your target audience. When determining an advertising plan, consider everyone who might purchase the product. A product for kids might focus on parents and grandparents, as well as children; they all have an influence on the purchase decision.
When you've decided who you're targeting, consider how: what will best motivate a consumer to respond to your ads? Research services like Nielsen for television and Arbitron for radio can help you unearth this type of information. Competitive Media Reports can also allow you to see where your competitors are advertising.
Mistake #2: Delivering the wrong message. You can usually best appeal to your target market by clearly stating the benefits of the product and making sure those benefits are relevant to that target audience's needs or "hot buttons". Certain types of ads, such as for weight loss, hair restoration, and skin care products, demand "Before" and "After" shots to give the product credibility, show results, and deliver a positive message about the company's belief in its product and what it can do for the consumer.
Mistake #3: Not running ads often enough. You'll generally need three exposures to build awareness and motivate someone to respond to an ad. By spreading your advertising over too many different types of media, your intended audience might not get those three exposures.
Based on your budget, focus on the highest-performing media for your type of product; this will allow your target audience to see the ad enough times to build awareness. Research services like MRI research can help you with this. They survey 26,000 consumers every year. You give them information, and they give you research tailored to your needs, such as the television networks and shows your target audience watches with the highest frequency.
Mistake #4: Utilizing the wrong media to reach your target prospects. Seniors still don't use the Internet as much as younger people do. So if you have a senior product, focusing your marketing efforts on the Internet might not be a good idea. If you're trying to reach a niche audience, TV or radio might not be the best fit, since they reach a mass audience. Consider a specialty print publication like a trade journal or a local interest publication to more effectively reach potential customers.
Mistake #5: Choosing award-winning over results-getting. Creative people in some ad agencies can be more concerned about an ad's concept or look than they are with whether it will actually sell. Be careful of a creative team who try to sell you on advertising that doesn't feel right to you. An ad can be cool or "artsy," look beautiful or be hilarious, but if it doesn't generate results, it's of no benefit to you.
Mistake #6: Not focusing on the consumer's needs. It should go without saying that an ad must convince consumers that the product or service will meet their needs. Some companies still try to dictate what they feel their ads need to communicate, often, because they are too close to the product or service.
If you feel too involved in the production of the ad, you can take the ad to a focus group. Even when you know who might buy your product, you may not know how to get them to buy it. Outsiders' opinions can be invaluable, especially those of experts who understand how to communicate more effectively with that consumer.
Mistake #7: Not developing a complete advertising campaign. One ad probably won't thoroughly inform your prospects. A single ad may work for a while but stops being effective as the consumer stops paying attention. You may need to develop a campaign to communicate a complete message. Also, another ad or a series can help you capture people's attention you weren't able to get with a single ad. Usually a campaign consists of several ads over the course of the year to appeal to people through different strategies.
Mistake #8: Not understanding the seasonality of various products and services. Consider the peak times of year for your product or services when you're developing an advertising campaign. Products or services that change consumers' lives or images will benefit from advertising the first of the year, as people make (and try to keep) resolutions.
TV viewing itself is seasonal. When the weather is bad, people watch more TV and response to advertisements tends to be better, whereas when the weather is better, people watch less TV. In April, we all have to pay taxes, so people generally spend less money on consumer goods. Even products that sell well all year long may do better at some times than others, so you should cut back a little when it's slower and beef up advertising during peak times.
Mistake #9: Not incorporating your website into your advertising program. An increasingly large percentage of consumers are going to websites to make their purchases, so you must have a strong website and include its address in all your advertising. One advertiser who had a website for a high-end product hesitated to promote the site for a year, thinking their telemarketing program was superior. When they finally advertised the site, sales increased 15% virtually overnight!
Mistake #10: Copying a competitor's advertising approach. Strive to be original, and it will pay off. By copying a competitor's ad, you may just be building further awareness for your competitor. You need to be innovative in your advertising approach to differentiate your business from theirs if you want to gain the advantage. The AFLAC duck and the GEICO gecko are examples of ways companies were able to gain top of mind awareness with the effective use of humor. If another company were to use a goose or lizard in their ads, consumers would still likely think of the originals.
Make A Million Bucks, Not a Million Mistakes
Lots of careful research, planning, and hard work go into developing successful advertising. Your ads must be smart, creative, and well-placed to reach your desired market and make them want what you sell. By avoiding these ten common advertising errors, you can use your ad dollars more effectively, get more response to your ads, and rake in greater revenue.
About the Author: Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct, a leader in direct response television media buying, marketing, campaign management and creative strategies. With over 20 years of marketing and advertising experience, Peter has helped Fortune 500 companies, small businesses and entrepreneurs develop marketing campaigns to increase profits. Peter is a Wharton MBA and improved the media buying strategies and advertising for clients such as The Hair Club for Men, Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, Ben Hogan Golf, H.J. Heinz and DIRECTV. For more information on his work, please visit: www.koeppeldirect.com or call: 972-732-6110.
Venus Goes Shopping: Tips to Get Women to Love Your Brand
By Judy Carter
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, they say, but their shopping habits tend to fall more along prehistoric lines than interplanetary. Men's shopping tends be like that of the hunter, going out with a single goal in mind and a determination to acquire it. Women, on the other hand, tend to be gatherers, pursuing fewer specific goals and lending the task a more social aspect. Meaning, men will go on a "hunt" for the best priced IPod while women will go out hunting for an IPod, not find it, but come home with "Ten fabulous things" that they didn't even know that they needed.
Studies show that women are less likely to buy something they need than men are, but far more likely to buy something that gives them a feeling they need. No wonder so many women call it "Shopping Therapy."
Women are also more likely than men to buy something because it's on sale, to buy on impulse, and to buy to celebrate something. And that something to celebrate can be anything from a Birthday to Flag Day. Any excuse is a good excuse to shop.
Women are estimated to control about $5 trillion in U.S. business and consumer spending, and they influence 80% of all consumer spending, including homes (91%), new bank accounts (89%), do-it-yourself products (80%), and automobiles (60%), according to Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market Segment by Martha Barletta. Still, many advertisers still stereotype and assume females have a disinterest in "male" products even though they are actually purchasing or influencing the purchase of them.
The fact is that most women form relationships with every person, place or thing they encounter, including brands and products. For example, even if they are knowledgeable about auto mechanics, many women will be drawn more to a car's aesthetics-its color, look, style, and amenities-and how these factors make them feel, as opposed to men who are more interested in things like horsepower and engine size. When an otherwise great car has an inadequate coffee cup holder, and coffee spills all over a woman's outfit while she's taking a corner, she's likely to blame the car for the accident, and her feelings of affection for the car lessen. Similarly, an auto dealership that calls its male customers "Sir" but its female customers "Honey" is likely to lose women who feel insulted by the demeaning sexist language. For women, ultimately the quality of the experience holds more importance than other factors. It's not about the product; it's about the relationship.
For example, Chico's is a women's clothing store that has had great success, having branded themselves as a "girlfriend" to women over 40. Like a friend, Chico's sends its customers birthday cards every year with a discount coupon and wraps each purchase with a ribbon, as if it were a gift. Their husband might forget their birthday, but Chico's won't. Their clothing line offers a huge selection of flattering elastic-waist pants for its customers, whose slowing metabolism no longer lets them shop at trendy stores, and their sizes are generous, so customers feel slimmer than they may actually be. Additionally, their catalogs features mature models who look like their customers and not like their customers' daughters. As a result of all of these branding measures, Chico's stock has gone up 170 percent in the last six months, while other retailers struggle.
Chico's has tapped into women's desire to feel welcomed, understood, and appreciated, and you can, too. Women will reciprocate with undying loyalty and become your best customers and cheapest word-of-mouth advertising. To get women to love your brand, implement the following:
· Listen to their concerns.
Survey current and past customers to find out invaluable information you might not otherwise hear. Customer won't always complain about a poor service experience, they will just stop using your service. Study your customers through an inexpensive Internet survey, or if you're a small entrepreneurial company, you can do it free at sites like SurveyMonkey.com.
· Meet their needs.
Discover how your product or service can provide women with whatever they feel is missing in their lives. For example, a few years ago, a popcorn company's ad showing a woman sneaking out of the room to eat popcorn by herself was meant to promote the idea that their popcorn was so good you'd want to keep it just for yourself. But the ad didn't do well because testing later showed that women believe popcorn brings a family together to create fond memories. Eating popcorn alone is tantamount to drinking alone. But eating popcorn as a family promotes ideas of togetherness and familial bonding-something women want. So find out what feeling your female customers want, and then make sure your marketing messages relate to that.
· Bring them into your "family."
Women like to experience connections with others and to feel as if they belong to a "family." When women recognize others wearing a specific brand they like, for example, they're likely to smile, greet, or even strike up a conversation with that person. Therefore, offer exclusive membership cards to make women feel special and send cards and gifts on occasion; many women will proudly wear a t-shirt or other paraphernalia that identifies them as being in your brand's "family."
· Treat them like more than a sale.
Customer service personnel at Printingforless.com reveal their names and even a little personal information, such as where they're from, which allows customers to form a bond with the person they're doing business with. Likewise, you can buy a carpet from anyone, but a salesperson who remembers a small personal detail you reveal is more likely to make the sale and a lifetime of future sales. This seemingly small strategy helps your female customers feel like they have a voice, and aren't just another invoice.
· Focus on the small stuff.
In some women's clothing stores, customers must try on clothes in large communal dressing rooms, in front of everybody else. Very few women are comfortable being looked at and compared to other women, especially as they age. Very small details, such as flattering lights and slimming mirrors in spacious individual dressing rooms, for example, will lead women to fall in love with your brand.
· Make them feel welcome.
No one wants to have to hunt for help, and women, especially if they feel out of their element (perhaps in a hardware store), find the experience as disheartening as cruising a bar full of uninterested men! Therefore, consider instituting greeters to make customers feel more welcome and to keep an eye out for those who are wandering about, lost and increasingly frustrated.
· Empower your frontline to promote happiness.
You can spend a fortune on advertising, marketing, and research into your product, but the person who has direct contact with the customer is the person who will get women to love your brand. Train your employees to cater to women and to be more sensitive to them and their needs. Also allow them to make positive decisions that will make your female customers happy. Women respond very favorably to sincere attempts to mitigate or avoid conflict and will show their appreciation with brand loyalty and a lifetime of recommendations of your product or service to others.
Nurture the Nurturers and You'll See Sales!
At their core, many women feel powerless and overwhelmed by constantly taking care of others' needs. So when you step in and take care of women's needs, they'll reward you with loyal business and word-of-mouth advertising. So at every step of the process, from advertising to sales, showcase how your product or service can fulfill women's needs. When you do, your company will attract a larger share of the lucrative female market, and will undoubtedly see an increase in profits.
Venus Goes Shopping: Tips to Get Women to Love Your Brand
by Judy Carter
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, they say, but their shopping habits tend to fall more along prehistoric lines than interplanetary. Men's shopping tends be like that of the hunter, going out with a single goal in mind and a determination to acquire it. Women, on the other hand, tend to be gatherers, pursuing fewer specific goals and lending the task a more social aspect. Meaning, men will go on a "hunt" for the best priced IPod while women will go out hunting for an IPod, not find it, but come home with "Ten fabulous things" that they didn't even know that they needed.
Studies show that women are less likely to buy something they need than men are, but far more likely to buy something that gives them a feeling they need. No wonder so many women call it "Shopping Therapy."
Women are also more likely than men to buy something because it's on sale, to buy on impulse, and to buy to celebrate something. And that something to celebrate can be anything from a Birthday to Flag Day. Any excuse is a good excuse to shop.
Women are estimated to control about $5 trillion in U.S. business and consumer spending, and they influence 80% of all consumer spending, including homes (91%), new bank accounts (89%), do-it-yourself products (80%), and automobiles (60%), according to Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market Segment by Martha Barletta. Still, many advertisers still stereotype and assume females have a disinterest in "male" products even though they are actually purchasing or influencing the purchase of them.
The fact is that most women form relationships with every person, place or thing they encounter, including brands and products. For example, even if they are knowledgeable about auto mechanics, many women will be drawn more to a car's aesthetics-its color, look, style, and amenities-and how these factors make them feel, as opposed to men who are more interested in things like horsepower and engine size. When an otherwise great car has an inadequate coffee cup holder, and coffee spills all over a woman's outfit while she's taking a corner, she's likely to blame the car for the accident, and her feelings of affection for the car lessen. Similarly, an auto dealership that calls its male customers "Sir" but its female customers "Honey" is likely to lose women who feel insulted by the demeaning sexist language. For women, ultimately the quality of the experience holds more importance than other factors. It's not about the product; it's about the relationship.
For example, Chico's is a women's clothing store that has had great success, having branded themselves as a "girlfriend" to women over 40. Like a friend, Chico's sends its customers birthday cards every year with a discount coupon and wraps each purchase with a ribbon, as if it were a gift. Their husband might forget their birthday, but Chico's won't. Their clothing line offers a huge selection of flattering elastic-waist pants for its customers, whose slowing metabolism no longer lets them shop at trendy stores, and their sizes are generous, so customers feel slimmer than they may actually be. Additionally, their catalogs features mature models who look like their customers and not like their customers' daughters. As a result of all of these branding measures, Chico's stock has gone up 170 percent in the last six months, while other retailers struggle.
Chico's has tapped into women's desire to feel welcomed, understood, and appreciated, and you can, too. Women will reciprocate with undying loyalty and become your best customers and cheapest word-of-mouth advertising. To get women to love your brand, implement the following:
Listen to their concerns.
Survey current and past customers to find out invaluable information you might not otherwise hear. Customer won't always complain about a poor service experience, they will just stop using your service. Study your customers through an inexpensive Internet survey, or if you're a small entrepreneurial company, you can do it free at sites like SurveyMonkey.com.
Meet their needs.
Discover how your product or service can provide women with whatever they feel is missing in their lives. For example, a few years ago, a popcorn company's ad showing a woman sneaking out of the room to eat popcorn by herself was meant to promote the idea that their popcorn was so good you'd want to keep it just for yourself. But the ad didn't do well because testing later showed that women believe popcorn brings a family together to create fond memories. Eating popcorn alone is tantamount to drinking alone. But eating popcorn as a family promotes ideas of togetherness and familial bonding-something women want. So find out what feeling your female customers want, and then make sure your marketing messages relate to that.
Bring them into your "family."
Women like to experience connections with others and to feel as if they belong to a "family." When women recognize others wearing a specific brand they like, for example, they're likely to smile, greet, or even strike up a conversation with that person. Therefore, offer exclusive membership cards to make women feel special and send cards and gifts on occasion; many women will proudly wear a t-shirt or other paraphernalia that identifies them as being in your brand's "family."
Treat them like more than a sale.
Customer service personnel at Printingforless.com reveal their names and even a little personal information, such as where they're from, which allows customers to form a bond with the person they're doing business with. Likewise, you can buy a carpet from anyone, but a salesperson who remembers a small personal detail you reveal is more likely to make the sale and a lifetime of future sales. This seemingly small strategy helps your female customers feel like they have a voice, and aren't just another invoice.
Focus on the small stuff.
In some women's clothing stores, customers must try on clothes in large communal dressing rooms, in front of everybody else. Very few women are comfortable being looked at and compared to other women, especially as they age. Very small details, such as flattering lights and slimming mirrors in spacious individual dressing rooms, for example, will lead women to fall in love with your brand.
Make them feel welcome.
No one wants to have to hunt for help, and women, especially if they feel out of their element (perhaps in a hardware store), find the experience as disheartening as cruising a bar full of uninterested men! Therefore, consider instituting greeters to make customers feel more welcome and to keep an eye out for those who are wandering about, lost and increasingly frustrated.
Empower your frontline to promote happiness.
You can spend a fortune on advertising, marketing, and research into your product, but the person who has direct contact with the customer is the person who will get women to love your brand. Train your employees to cater to women and to be more sensitive to them and their needs. Also allow them to make positive decisions that will make your female customers happy. Women respond very favorably to sincere attempts to mitigate or avoid conflict and will show their appreciation with brand loyalty and a lifetime of recommendations of your product or service to others.
Nurture the Nurturers and You'll See Sales!
At their core, many women feel powerless and overwhelmed by constantly taking care of others' needs. So when you step in and take care of women's needs, they'll reward you with loyal business and word-of-mouth advertising. So at every step of the process, from advertising to sales, showcase how your product or service can fulfill women's needs. When you do, your company will attract a larger share of the lucrative female market, and will undoubtedly see an increase in profits.
Are They Snoring in the Back Row?
Top 5 tips for an engaging and dynamic presentation that gets and keeps your audiences' attention
By: Laurie Brown
Imagine that you have spent the better part of two weeks working on an important speech you plan to give to your company. You think you have done everything right. You have created a PowerPoint presentation with tons of information and flash animation. You have created handouts of the slides for your audience, so they can follow along. Although you haven't had time to rehearse the presentation you are not worried, because you have the entire speech typed out. You plan to read it while you blow their socks off with the dynamic PowerPoint slides. Everything should be perfect, right? WRONG!!!
If you were to look at your audience (which you cannot, because you are reading your script) you would see them either riveted to the screen or to the handout in front of them, but not at you. The audience members who are eye weary from all the information you have packed into the slides are closing their eyes just to rest them. What went wrong?
Experienced speakers know that to engage their audience, they must build rapport. Reading from a script makes this difficult, if not impossible, because connecting with an audience requires direct eye contact. No matter how well written your speech, if you read your presentation to an audience, you will lose them.
Reading to your audience can also make you seem less authoritative. The audience wonders, "If you know so much about the topic, why can't you just talk about it? Why are you reading?"
Here are 5 tips for getting and keeping your audience's attention:
Make Eye Contact
Free yourself from the written page and demonstrate your expertise by using one of these ideas:
1. Memorization
If you want to memorize your speech, it is helpful to rehearse it out loud just before you go to sleep and right when you get up.
2. Outline
If you use the outline method to create your script, you can simply go back and clean it up and use that for the presentation. If you don't have an outline prepared you can create one using the major points of your presentation.
3. Key word method
This technique calls for you to select key words from your script that represent a paragraph or two of information. These key words should jog your memory so that you can speak extemporaneously. You can use a single page of key words, or place them on 3x5 cards (always number the cards). If you are a visually oriented person you can find an image that represents the key word and create a pictogram.
4. Teleprompter
Nothing helps you maintain good eye contact without memorization like the teleprompter
When speaking to an audience, you want to make everyone in the audience feel that the message is being directed to them personally. If you find that actually looking into the eyes of your audience is difficult and distracting, look at the tops of their heads which will create the illusion that you are speaking directly to them.
In order to include the whole audience, use a "Z" pattern. Start by looking at the front left section of the audience. After finishing your thought, turn your gaze to the front right section. Again, finish your thought and direct your gaze to the center section. Then look at the rear left section and after completing your thought look to the rear right section.
Know your audience
The more you know about your audience's wants, needs and level of understanding, the better able you are to craft a speech they will feel compelled to listen to. Too often speakers give the same presentation to different groups. "Generic" speeches tend to lose most of the audience. A speech needs to be relevant and specific.
You need to make sure that you are using words and ideas that are easily grasped by your audience. This doesn't mean you have to "dumb down" your speech, but it does mean checking to make sure that you are not using jargon or acronyms that are only known by a few.
Your audience is always thinking, "What's in this for me?" Keep this question in mind when you craft your speech.
Throw away your PowerPoint
I think that there is no other element of a presentation that can bore an audience more quickly than PowerPoint slides. Okay, I know you are starting to curse at me now. Get rid of PowerPoint? Well, maybe I need to restate that. You can keep PowerPoint, if you use it properly and effectively and not as an eye sight test. Follow these simple rules:
1. Choose an easy font to read, such as Arial or Times Roman.
2. Font size should be at least 28 pt (bulleted items should be at least 22 pt).
3. Use colors carefully (reds and oranges are hard to focus on).
4. Don't crowd too many words on the screen (3 lines of type is more than enough).
5. Keep the slides simple, clean and easy to read.
6. View the PowerPoint presentation on the screen after you have created the slides and prior to your presentation. Check for ease of readability. The slides really do look different on the screen.
7. Don't read the slides verbatim. Quite frankly, most of your audience will be able to read the slide, so why repeat it?
I think the most powerful PowerPoints are those that use only pictures, a key word or phrase or graphics. There is no reason to simply use a slide to repeat what you have said. Instead, use a visual aid to reinforce your point. It is true that a picture is worth a thousand words.
You should direct your audiences attention to the screen and back to you. Simply turn your gaze to the screen for a moment or two and then look back to your audience. These subtle cues allow your audiences attention to move from the screen then back to you.
Give hand-outs after your presentation.
If you are making a presentation that has a lot of important and/or technical information, you can provide a hand-out, but only AFTER the presentation. If people have your slides while you are speaking they tend to read ahead or stay glued to the hand-out and not to you. If you give them the hand out after your presentation, it will reinforce all of your material without stealing attention from you.
Rehearse
I know people hate to rehearse. It is hard not to feel silly when practicing your speech. However, there is nothing that helps a speaker more than the familiarity and ease you get from saying the words out loud. (Yes, it does make a difference to say the words out loud.) I practice when I am in my car driving alone or while on the treadmill at home. The shower can also be a great place to practice.
Try these ideas with your next presentation. Even if you only use one or two of these tips, you will have taken a huge step toward being the speaker that your audience will be compelled to stay awake and listen to. No one will be snoring in the back row.
Laurie Brown is an international speaker, trainer and consultant who works to help people improve their sales, service and presentation skills. She is the author of The Teleprompter Manual, for Executives, Politicians, Broadcasters and Speakers. Laurie can be contacted through www.thedifference.net, or 1-877.999.3433, or at lauriebrown@thedifference.net
Closing On Purpose: 5 Steps To Winning Sales
by Jenifer Madson
"On purpose?" you say? "Is there any other way to close?" From what I've experienced as a consumer, there are lots of ways to close a deal, but most of them feel forced and unnatural-to the one doing the selling and the one being sold.
Many entrepreneurs can tell you at length about what business they're in. That's called marketing. But when it comes to inviting you to be a client, they go into stealth mode-hoping you'll decide on your own to buy so they don't have to feel the pain of asking. Meanwhile, you steel yourself for that pain, then wonder why they're not asking. Tendering something for services rendered is as old as time, so why do both parties dread that part of doing business?
Most business owners who must also sell, will tell you it's because they haven't learned to do it in a way that feels natural. And most prospects would say their discomfort comes from feeling like they're being coerced. So the first thing to know about closing on purpose is that a sale isn't about convincing someone of something; it's about collaborating with your customer on whatever is the main thing. Closing "on purpose" means being centered on the principle of doing business only when you know you're right for each other.
Let's give you five steps to closing sales that fit that purpose and your personality.
Step Number One: Relax; it's only money.
When talking to someone about being a client, the first thing to do is relax-them and you. Start by visualizing the appointment; get a little "Zen-like" thinking about what's wonderful about your business for this prospect, and what is potentially wonderful about them for you.
To make them comfortable, talk about common areas of interest, like their job, where they're from, or their hobbies. Keep talking until you reach a comfort level that earns you the right to move on with your presentation. Don't move on if they're not totally at ease with you.
Transition to the next step by framing the agenda of the appointment: tell them your goal is first to find out what they need, and then to present what you do, to discover whether there is a fit.
Step Two: Ask Great Questions
Don't go right into what's so fabulous about your company. You're supposed to sell, not tell, and great selling is in the form of questions. The best questions are open-ended and lead to further information, so find out what will close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Be very curious; keep asking questions until you're convinced you know what's most important to them.
Step Three: Deliver The Shoe That Fits!
Once you know what they need, deliver solutions for those individual needs, not every solution in your bag of tricks. Nobody needs every feature of every product or service, so show you've been listening by answering their specific needs first, then filling in more blanks later if you need to. And don't get going so fast on the features and benefits of what you're selling that you leave your prospect in the dust. Check in regularly with questions like "Isn't that great?" or "Do you see how this works?"-the answers will tell you whether you're still on the same page with each other.
Step Four: It's All In The Details
When you know you've solved their issues with your product or service, ask for their commitment. Tell them what it takes to be a client, with whatever details fit the circumstances. Then be assumptive, asking very clearly, "What questions do you have before we get you started?" Be ready to overcome all their concerns, then lead them with certainty to the final agreements, whether that's a contract or sales slip.
Step Five: Raise their consciousness
Closing doesn't stop with the paperwork. Once they leave, lots of things can make them second-guess even the smallest purchase. So, congratulate them sincerely for taking this step with you. Then illustrate what might come up to sway their decision. Remind them of their reasons for taking this step, and if something makes them question their choice, that conversation will be anchored in their mind and help them resolve their uncertainty.
Making sales isn't difficult when you remember to co-create solutions with your customer. Be sincere in your desire to discover their specific needs and thorough in delivering customized solutions, and you'll have raving fans for life!
Jenifer Madson specializes in coaching people on the beliefs and behaviors for financial success. She is the author of "A Financial Minute: From Money Madness to Financial Freedom, One Minute at a Time!" and can be reached at jenifer@afinancialminute.com
