Sixteen Ways to Earn True-Blue Trust and Credibility

| September 1, 2011

An excerpt from Ken Brand’s book, “Less Blah Blah and More Ah Ha.”

Trust is earned when we:
• Treat others with respect and courtesy.
• Communicate with calm confidence.
• Listen more than talk.
• Include facts, details, names, dates, statistics, testimonials, references, and sources. Strive to show, not tell.
• Employ professional-grade tools, systems, techniques, and people.
• Act energetic, enthusiastic, and in the present.
• Take pride in our work, demonstrate commitment, respond promptly, and act professionally.
• Ask lots of questions about what, how and when they want it, so we can deliver it their way.
• Collaborate, accept responsibility, keep our commitments, and correct our mistakes with a positive attitude.
• Provide a detailed, written marketing plan, including examples, samples, and track record results.
• Keep our clients informed in ways that respect what, how, and when they want their information.
• Lead with a positive attitude, candid conversations, and crisp execution.
• Are consistent in word and deed.
• Admit when we don’t know something and are prepared to find the correct answer, pronto.
• Allow our clients to fire us on the spot if we break a promise, slack, or suck. No questions asked. No fees. No hassles.
Facing the Trust Challenge Together
I’ve been in this business for over thirty-two years. During that time, civilian perceptions of our profession haven’t budged out of the cellar. If anything, advances in technology and gains in societal savvy have made it easier than ever for all of us to spot and avoid lame sales people. The advent and adoption of Internet ratings systems like Yelp.com, Zillow.com, and social media networks like Facebook mean that wary citizens can now identify, choose, and recommend trustworthy service providers, as well as instantly warn their friends and followers whom to avoid.
For you and me, this is fantastic news. By infusing your business approaches with the trustworthy actions outlined in this book, combined with your excellent personality traits and life experiences, it’s easy for you to rise above the vast pack of mediocre real estate agents. Instead of your clients hearing Blah-Blah when you engage with them, they’ll think Ah-Ha, this real estate agent is unique, behaves in trustworthy ways, and is choosable. The future for you is bright.

Ken’s book is available at Amazon.com.

25 Lessons from Jack Welch

| August 25, 2011

1. Lead
2. Manage less
3. Articulate your vision
4. Simplify
5. Get less formal
6. Energize others
7. Face reality
8. See change as an opportunity
9. Get good ideas from everywhere
10. Follow up
11. Get rid of bureaucracy
12. Eliminate boundaries
13. Put values first
14. Cultivate leaders
15. Create learning culture
16. Involve everyone
17. Make everybody a team player
18. Stretch
19. Instill confidence
20. Make business fun
21. Be number 1 or number 2
22. Live quality
23. Constantly focus on innovation
24. Live speed
25. Behave like a small company

Sales Training and The Challenges We Face

| July 18, 2011

It’s been almost two months since my last post. To say I’ve been busy is an understatement. Everywhere I go of late, the subject of sales brings looks of confusion in most cases. The business climate is very prosperous in some areas, and very dark and dismal in others. It depends on where you look and who you talk to.

The biggest challenge is to first admit that you don’t have it all figured out.
Companies just continue to trudge along doing the same things expecting different results. Few conversations take place between the sales person and the owner or manager. Most of those are client service and task related.

The other problem I’m seeing currently related to sales training is a lack of accountability relating to specific sales action. When did it become OK to be mediocre? Just do enough work to get by.

In a recent post by Radio Ink Publisher Eric Rhoads, he talks about the significant decline of the radio industry related to how sales people are managed, treated and trained. There is a clear lack of consistent sales training. Radio managers use “Grow Or Go”, “Make it or break it 90 day probation programs resulting in high seller turnover. One time I calculated the cost of firing and hiring a sales person and the total cost was well over $100,000. Expensive mistakes.

Bring sales training back to your company. Treat it like a part of your business like billing or order fulfillment. Provide the training and support that match realistic expectations. You’ll find your increases in sales lead to an improvement for everyone inside your organization.

Madison College

| May 24, 2011

Today I attended the Grow Your Business social media program at Madison College. Steve Noll facilitated a fun conversation on the impact of social media. He touched on the subject of Geotagging. According to Wikipedia, Geotagging (also written as GeoTagging) is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as photographs, video, websites, SMS messages, or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. These data usually consist of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, distance, accuracy data, and place names. It is commonly used for photographs, giving geotagged photographs.

Geotagging can help users find a wide variety of location-specific information. For instance, one can find images taken near a given location by entering latitude and longitude coordinates into a suitable image search engine. Geotagging-enabled information services can also potentially be used to find location-based news, websites, or other resources. Geotagging can tell users the location of the content of a given picture or other media or the point of view, and conversely on some media platforms show media relevant to a given location.

The related term geocoding refers to the process of taking non-coordinate based geographical identifiers, such as a street address, and finding associated geographic coordinates (or vice versa for reverse geocoding). Such techniques can be used together with geotagging to provide alternative search techniques.

Steve also touched on the importance of security and the risk of posting your location for “your friends” to see. According to Steve, Foursquare has about 10 million users and has created a great social media interface for retailers interested in rewarding people who “check in” frequently.

I attended this session for several reasons. I hadn’t seen the new Madison College West Campus yet, I wanted to get some fresh ideas on Social Media and it included free lunch. What a deal. A perfect networking event.

Watch for more great programs and innovative learning programs from Madison College. If we continue to promote continuing education and innovative learning with real business applications, our economy in Dane County will stay strong into the future.

Thanks to everyone at Madison College who put today’s program on, including the Fitchburg, Verona and Middleton Chamber’s of Commerce. If you want more information on Madison College click http://matcmadison.edu/CCL.

Set aside time and money for professional sales training.

| May 11, 2011

Being proactive to establish a strategic employee development program should be part of every business owners strategic plan.

Set aside funds in your annual budget and time in each employee’s schedule to participate in sales training sessions. Offer staffing coverage so that time away from the workplace does not translate into missed deadlines, below-standard service levels, or extra hours for the employee.

Identify appropriate sales training programs by creating a professional development plan for each employee. Hold one-on-one sessions to discuss career and company related interests as well as areas of performance that could be improved through greater skill proficiency and knowledge.

Sales training that equips employees with the skills and knowledge to complete certain tasks ensures that they perform at baseline levels. Advanced training raises their intellectual capacity and confidence in tackling complex problems, which can skyrocket performance.