Bill Gluth's Creative Business Strategy Blog

Do You Lack the Confidence to Sell Your Ideas

A few years ago, I had a client who was very reluctant to network, sell or promote his work. He would say, “I’m an introvert, we just don’t do those things well.”

Then, one day, he had the opportunity to do work he had always dreamed of doing. He struggled to do the day-to-day work he had been doing while he studied and became certified in this new endeavor.

Once he was ready to go, he began promoting his new work like crazy.

He was engaging and passionate about sharing and selling the value his new business model provided. It worked well; he made the transition from what he disliked to what he loved in a surprisingly short time.

What changed? Only his mindset.

He felt trapped in what he was doing and as a result did not want to promote it. Once he felt like he had a real value to share he did so with conviction.

If you’re finding that sales is a chore, it may not be a problem with selling as much as a problem with the work you are actually promoting.

Celebrate the Lives of Clients and Prospects as Your Best Marketing Strategy

It struck me recently that so often we focus on the wrong thing in our sales and marketing strategies.

To stand out from the crowd and become a business that people want to support and share with others is simple to do.

You do not need to be a social media guru, blogger, content writer or speaker. In fact, those things are too difficult and time consuming for the majority of small business owners to do.

All you really need to do is care, show appreciation for the people who support your business and life with their purchases and celebrate lives by touching people with heartfelt messages throughout the  year.

Maya Angelou says it best. "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

For this week and beyond, my best advice is to stop selling and start caring.

Show clients, prospects and other people in your life that you appreciate them. Celebrate lives. Care about the outcomes of others. Follow your inner promptings (also called ‘gut instincts’).

Our values and beliefs are what make us all different. The desire to love and be loved, to accept and be accepted is what makes us all the same.

Business people are suffering from low sales because they are trying to sell what they do; like everyone else.

Most miss the important secret we are talking about today.

Appreciate and really care about others. Help people gain what they want out of life. Give your knowledge, advice and counsel freely. When you give to help another human being you’ll stand head and shoulders above everyone else in business.

Kody Bateman, CEO of Send Out Cards has a great quote to remember; “Don’t ask for a referral, deserve it.”

Use this idea right now and follow an inner prompting.

1. Think of one client who needs to hear from you.

2. Follow this link and send them a heartfelt expression of caring and appreciation right this minute. It won’t cost you a cent, I’ll pay for it.

3. Notice how you feel after sending that message. I just did it and I feel great. Now imagine how you would feel at the start of every day if that was a primary element in your marketing campaign.

Celebrating the lives of other people is that powerful and that magnetic.

What’s Your Plan B

 What if on Monday morning you woke up and your small business or job was not longer viable. What would you do?

The answer to that question is what many call Plan B.

There is a lot of advice out there. People like Mark Victor Hansen have talked about having multiple streams of income. In today’s internet world, that’s become more possible than ever.

For example, my client Stacey Vornbrock has a company called Breakthrough Performance. She works with professional and top amateur athletes helping them turn performance blocks into breakthroughs.

Her Plan B is information products.

She wrote several step-by-step manuals and books on how to overcome blocks in life and offers them for sale online. She has a sports manual section as well as manuals for everyday people like you and me.

But information products are not the only way.

If you don’t want to take the hours and hours necessary to create these products, there are also affiliate programs that can become Plan B possibilities.

Companies like Send Out Cards, AWeber and TypePad all offer programs that can add income to your bottom line just by using the product and sharing it.

I like affiliate programs because the work is already done, you just have to promote.

When people like Mark Joyner creates a program as compelling and helpful as Simple.olgoy why not share it with other people who need it. I liked it, use it and share it because it works.

The secret to having a Plan B is find something you enjoy and have used successfully, become an affiliate or launch products of your own and offer them to likeminded people who will benefit from using them too.

Here’s a bonus advantage. Most people won’t build Plan B income streams.

They’ll panic if trouble hits instead. You have a distinct advantage knowing this information. Take advantage of it before you actually need to.

The Law of Purposeful Vision

The Law of Purposeful Vision states that one person with a great idea can move the masses into action due to the strength of their personal creativity, passion and message.

While there may not be an “official” Law of Vision, it’s important to note that creative ideas, delivered with passion and conviction will move people to act.

Take a look at your business today. What is the vision you express to people you encounter?

Are you on a mission to make an impact or merely someone who is moving through the world offering goods or services, like most everyone else?

Your mindset is the difference. If you’re dedicated to adding value to improve the lives of others you can move mountains.

Or you can settle for [whatever you do for a living] and never be heard. The choice is up to each of us every day.

Sales and Marketing Results that Money Can’t Buy

It’s pretty obvious that money comes from a sales and marketing processes that work.

Marketing’s job is to attract interest. It can cost as little as $52 to as much as $10,000.00 or more every month. A wide dollar range but both will attract interest to an offer, just at different levels.

There are also marketing methods that money can’t buy.

I call these methods Human Touch Marketing. It starts by actually caring about another human being and expressing that care consistently.

Focusing on mutual value that creates positive outcomes in the lives of others is a key to business success today.

Sending the unexpected card, gift or other personal touch shows your thoughtfulness and desire to be of service to others. It goes a long way in creating a lasting brand impression.

Once you uncover the opportunity to assist someone you move into a Conscious Selling mode.

Conscious Selling starts when you create a value that enhances the life of someone else. Then you simply go on a mission to help a specific group of people gain what they want.

Whenever you are in a selling situation listen first, understand and make a personal, heartfelt recommendation. When you know deep inside that you can add value and create a positive impact you will never have to sell anything again.

Now that you have a client, caring is your best Client Relationships Management (CRM) strategy.

Follow up a week after a project is complete and again in a month. Make sure your client gained the value they expected.

Then stay in touch. Express appreciation, call, send cards, visit when appropriate, remember them at important times of the year, send information you think your client would find helpful and offer to help the people they know who need you.

When combined, Human Touch Marketing, Conscious Selling and caring as your best CRM strategy will build a business that feels good, creates strong and lasting relationships and generates referrals consistently.

If you stop and think about how many businesses make the effort to care (few) and how these ideas make people feel when treated this way (great) it’s easy to see that spending money is not really the point of marketing and sales. Building authentic relationships by caring about the results other people gain from your work is.

Go to Sleep; On Silk by Johnny G

My client, celebrity hair stylist Johnny G shared a great tip today. Did anyone else know this?

Sleeping on silk is one of the best things you can do to enhance your beauty.

Silk is a natural protein fiber that is made up of 18 amino acids. These are the same building blocks found in your hair and skin. Silk has the same pH balance as well so it will help protect and maintain skin and hair moisture levels during the night.

Sleep on silk and you will actually wake up with fewer lines on your face. You'll also prevent the onset of wrinkles and your hair will be healthier and shinier.

Since we sleep half our lives away give yourself a gift every time you fall asleep.

You will wake up actually looking better. Your skin will have fewer lines. Your hair will be shinier. Sleeping on silk may even prevent the onset of wrinkles

How to Create an Article or Blog Post in Record Time

Articles and blogs are very helpful in promoting a brand. They spread your knowledge on a subject and helps buyers understand the value you offer. Grouped together information you publish is often called ‘content.’

Content makes great credibility building sales attraction tools that are free or low cost to use. The challenge is you don’t feel like you have the time to write articles.

Here’s the quick and easy way to write an article quickly and with no stress.

1. Decide on your topic. Stick with things you know about through personal experience.

2. List one to three major points you’re going to cover in your article. Just a sentence is all you need.

3. Under each of your major points write down two or three sub points you’ll discuss.

Then just go through your outline and connect the dots. You’ll have a 250 to 500 word article quickly and painlessly. Once you’re done, post it on EZinarticles.com too.

If you can’t write it down, record it and send it to a penny-a-word transcriber.

They will give you a written document that you can edit and post. Of course you can also record an audio or video of your content and share your knowledge that way.

Share one great idea today. Create a small piece of content in the next 30-minutes or less, using these ideas and send it to your clients and hot prospects.

This blog post took me less than 15-minutes to develop, write, upload and Tweet so it does not have to be a time consuming activity.

How to Keep Track of Sales Closing Ratios

Like all things that involve money, keeping track of your sales closing ratios is important and the only way to remain consistent with sales activities.

The challenge is, most people feel it’s too time consuming or hard to accomplish.

It doesn’t have to be any more difficult than tracking activities in your database.

To create a simple sales closing ratio just answer these questions:

How many times do you have to reach out before you find an interested prospect?

How many touches do you have to make to set an appointment after interest is established?

How many qualified appointments do you have to go on before making a sale?

Your sales closing ratio should be one sale in every three to five appointments.

The tighter you can make that ratio the more money you make on your sales efforts.

BONUS: What marketing touch creates the most sales appointments? Statistically, 82% of all sales are made between the 7th to 12th contacts.

The Sales Success Ingredients You May be Missing

Throughout most weeks I have the opportunity to talk to and meet with a wide variety of small business owners.

One thing I’ve learned is that the majority got very comfortable using the same sales pattern they have been following for years.

Most did not embrace new trends like content and social media marketing strategies as those channels opened and grew.

Overall the majority of businesses kept doing business as usual; until the last quarter of 2008.

This is when I started to hear about sales declines.

Business owners began feeling that money was drying up. People were not spending like they used to. The use of credit was reduced, which caused sales to slow.

What actually happened was client thinking changed.

People needed a better reason to purchase than they once did. They are cautious and want to be sure they were making the right decision before jumping in.

They have to know the value they’ll receive and feel good about actually gaining that value before purchasing.

With the majority of businesses, their sales process was missing the ingredients it took to work successfully with this 'new' client thinking.

If you’re finding sales  challenging, consider these ideas.

Consider your view. Start thinking like your clients instead of the owner of your business.

If you were buying your product of service what value would you look for?

Does your sales message deliver it now?

Does your marketing message speak TO clients, on their terms?

Only client thinking drives sales. What you think or what your business does never enters the sales decision equation.

Give prospects what they are looking to gain, prove that your ideas work and you’ll close more sales consistently.

How creatively are you thinking? Some call it ‘thinking outside of the box.’ However you describe it, doing the same thing you always have and hoping for a different result is not going to increase your revenues.

Look for new ideas. Embrace and consider the new ways of thinking you encounter. Share your knowledge through content. Help people get what they want out of life every day.

Get a new perspective. See what you’re missing by looking at your business through the eyes of someone else.

When you bring in a stranger to look at your business they can only see what’s there based on what you describe.

You’ll know in one meeting where your business is weak and where you’re strong. Then you simply have to take action to create positive change.

Do You Suffer From the Terrible Too’s

I've been talking to a lot of small business owner’s recently and uncovered an interesting trend.

Sales are slow, marketing budgets are cut and business owners are worried.

The main challenge I’ve heard as the reason for not solving business growth challenges is overwhelm.

When it comes to sales process and marketing in particular the majority of people I talked to are suffering from the terrible too’s.

Developing a working marketing and sales process that fits a limited budget is:

Too hard to figure out

Too time consuming

Too much trouble to worry about right now

If the terrible too’s are hampering your business, realize it only gets harder with time. The longer you wait to develop a consistent plan of action, the worse the slow sales problem gets.

Start today.

Put together a budget, develop a plan using that budget, consider mixing in more guerrilla marketing tactics and show people you care by automating a "keep in touch" program.