The One Word That Shouldn't Exist in an Entrepreneur's Vocabulary

No.
The one word the best entrepreneurs never accept.
I said it.
Now let me walk you through a broader story because avoidance of the word in and of itself will seem cliche. Stay with me.
When I was little I had a role model for entrepreneurship - my mom. She was a natural leader. She was president of the UJA in Sacramento. From this I saw civic involvement and leadership first hand.
She was a nurse but was never graduated from a four-year college. Still -- she can do the NY Times crossword puzzle better and faster than I. Even today.
She was a hustler. And a ball buster. And a natural sales person. She was never afraid of the word "no" even to the point of embarrassing me.
My youth was filled with her arguing with vendors if they tried to pull a fast one. As my wife will tell you -- arguing is cultural -- you grow up with it or you don't. I did. It's very Jewish. For better or worse. She's learned to embrace it in me. If a maitre d' tries to seat me at a table in huge traffic flow or a corner she knows not to bother sitting down.
My mom bought our family's first computer and encouraged me to learn it at 13.
She opened two businesses -- a bakery and then a restaurant. I worked in both before leaving to work in a software company at 17. I never knew a world in which you weren't supposed to work and make money. Even though my dad was a doctor and in retrospect I probably didn't need to earn my own money. My mom always taught me it was my responsibility to do so.
When I was younger my mom taught me something I never forgot:

"You don't ask, you don't get."

It's simple. I know. But it amazes me how many people don't really get it.
Here are two stories:
Story one: 
When I lived and worked in London my wonderful assistant was Deborah Halliday, who was raised a very "proper" British young lady. Her brother played rugby for the English rugby team and went to Oxford. That’s kind of like having a brother in the NFL in the US.
If there was any society in which being a hustler was out of step with the norm is was England. Yet I was a foreigner so I got away with being different.
I used to ask Deborah to book my travel plans in France and Germany were I went one to two times a month. There were online tools to book this stuff but the Internet booking sites were early.
I would tell Deborah, "I found this hotel near the Champs Elysees for 170 Euros. But I don't want to pay that much. Tell them I'll stay if they'll give it to me for 120 Euros."
"What? You want … what? Mark, you can't do that! You can’t just name your own price."
Me: "Of course, I can. Tell them you found a hotel down the street for 100 Euros but I prefer to stay at their hotel. Haggle. See what you can do."
Deborah was mortified. Bless her cotton socks. I put her outside of her comfort zone.
Me: "Deborah, you don't ask, you don't get! What’s the worst they can tell you? "No?" If so, we'll call back an hour later and pay 170 Euros. It's not like they're going to tell you 'no' in an hour. You might as well try!"
Classic Mexican Road strategy.
Here's the thing. They NEVER said 'no.' Such were the times. They weren't fully occupied.
She began to love it. It was liberating. I taught her to make it a game. I would challenge her to see how cheap she could get rooms. I can still hear her giggle at how ridiculous it was in her mind's eye. And yet how eye-opening it was that you could have almost anything you wanted. If you just asked.

Story two:
Fast forward. My son Jacob. He's now 10. When he was seven or eight, my wife used to sit down with him to do homework and train him in the importance of getting it done early and well. Luckily I have such a terrific and organized wife. Or Jacob would be screwed.
They sometimes did homework at Le Pain Quotidien. And if Jacob was good, he could get a treat.
Tania once took him up to the counter to pick out a treat. He pointed at a chocolate cake and told Tania he wanted a piece.
"No, honey. That's a whole cake. You can't have a piece. It's not cut. Why don't you find something else?"
Jacob: "Of course I can have a piece. Just ask them!"
Jacob has IJ. He knows to ask for what he wants. He is respectful. But he has an inner compass that instead of saying "O.k." to adversity he says "Why not?"
She had him ask the lady behind the counter directly. She said, "No problem."
My wife smiled and couldn’t wait to tell me the story.
My wife thinks Jacob's an over negotiator but she secretly loves it. I always take it as a compliment.
Both stories have something in common. Not being ashamed to ASK. As I tell people almost weekly, "What's the worst that could happen? That they would say 'no'?"
And I mean it. I promise you that 95 percent of the people I meet are afraid of people telling them no. They are personally embarrassed by it. Or insulted. Or view it as failure.
I'm told "no" all the time because I often ask for more than others do and therefore you need to be willing to hear "no."
I was on a flight last year from DC to LAX. I had a business class seat due to status of flying a lot and my family was in economy. I felt bad and was planning on rotating.
But when I sat down I asked if my family could upgrade since there were three open seats. I assumed the answer would be "no" but I figured I had nothing to lose.
The flight attendant said "O.k., but you’ll have to pay a small upgrade fee and I can't move them until after take-off." But move them she did. And she decided it wasn't really important to make me pay since the seats were unoccupied.
Score!
We had also just been upgraded from London to Baltimore.
Two times in a row--unreal. My wife was a bit incredulous (but grateful). I simply pointed out that our kids learned a more important lesson than the downside consequence of their expecting to always sit in business class (which isn’t going to happen!).
They learned to ask, "Why not?"
You don't ask. You don't get.
And here's the thing about "no."
I know first hand just how chicken people are about hearing it. I've sat through so many meetings where sales reps didn't ask for the order. I've been pitched by hundreds of entrepreneurs who never actually asked me whether I would invest. Very few people do.
Here's an experiment for you.
Hold interviews with tech people, marking people, ops people, finance people -- whatever. They always finish the interview with a "thank you" and barely ask next steps.
Any great sales person will ask you at the end of the meeting, "So, how'd I do? Who else have you spoken with? How do I stack up? What do I need to convince you of to get an offer? What is the next step in the process?"
Great sales people are trained to "ask for the order." If you interview a sales person and they don't ask for the order, be worried.
I like to flip things on their heads. I like to ask in reverse in interviews, "If we did get aligned to offer you this role, do you plan on accepting? What other offers do you have? What do we need to do to win? What steps do you still need before you decide to go with us?"
I want to know. And I have nothing to fear in the answer.
My favorite (not!) is dealing with lawyers (or VCs) who say, "As a firm, we never do a, b, c." Let me tell you now that often this line is BS. But my standard response is, "I don't care what you normally do. I think it's right for our situation. So unless you explain to me logically why it doesn't make sense at our company, my assumption is that it's a good idea."
In summary, I recommend some honesty with yourself. "Asking" is a skill that can be practiced and learned but you need to be self aware.
How comfortable do you feel with asking for the order? How confortable do you feel with asking awkward questions or asking for things that are out of the norm, "Could we have your room for 120 Euros so we don't have to stay down the road?"
If you don't find it within your confort zone - practice in small ways for asking for slightly unreasonable things just to get used to it. It's a skill you're going to need as an entrepreneur.
After all--you don't ask, you don't get.

http://www.inc.com/both-sides-of-the-table/mark-suster/one-word-that-shouldnt-exist-in-an-entrepreneurs-vocabulary.html

3 Things You Don't Know About Sales

Ideas are great, but no start-up can survive without sales--and a mastery of the psychology behind selling. (Hint: manipulation skills are not required.)

Sales can be a daunting task for any young entrepreneur.

If you're working on a start-up, you're spilling your heart and soul into your idea. Now, you somehow have to convince others to buy into--and literally purchase--your idea too. The truth is, most entrepreneurs don't know the first thing about getting an effective sales process up and running, let alone how to pitch customers.

Since we created ElasticSales, which is essentially a sales team on demand, I've had the opportunity to work with several different young companies. I always start by teaching them about the psychology behind sales. Why? Because most people think a sale is about manipulating or pushing people into making a decision. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Here are the most important things I tell my clients (and my own salespeople) again and again about the psychology of sales:

1. People don't buy products or services. They buy emotions.
By "emotions," I mean: A desired feeling. Superiority. Love. Comfort. Excitement. Security. Or sometimes, the opposite--fear.

These and more are all emotions around which you can position your product or solution. However, you have to know what emotion your customers are actually looking for. If you don't, you won't understand how to sell to them.

The best way to determine this is to ask the customer what's important to them and what they need. Once you know this, you can position your solution around their needs and then sell your benefits--NOT your features.

2. Emotional states dictate buying (and all other) decisions.
Have you ever been in a "shopping rush?" A state in which you wanted to buy something desperately, though the feeling has very little to do with what you are about to buy?

This phenomenon happens in both consumer and enterprise sales. Make sure you pay attention to what emotional states your customers are in before selling them anything. Are they depressed? If so, they really shouldn't be making a big purchasing decision. Are they in that "shopping rush" where they have no idea what you're offering? Then the last thing you want is your customer to feel buyer's remorse because you pressured them into a purchase.

Above all, make sure you're in a good state for your customers as well! Customers can pick up if you're not in a good state to sell them your business.

3. Communication is all about tonality and body language--it has little to do with content.
This is a very old truth, but it's still surprising to most people. If your lips are saying "buy!" but your body and voice are communicating "don't do it," you won't win many deals. Listen to your phone calls or record yourself conducting a presentation. Make note of your tone and posture and ask yourself, "Would I buy from this person?"

If the answer is "no," then you have to adjust your pitch. Be conscious of your tone and body language to make improvements everyday. After a few weeks, you'll see improvements in your tonality, body language, and sales.

http://www.inc.com/young-entrepreneur-council/rules-to-work-by-steli-efti.html

6 Ways to Be More Compelling

Everyone has to sell something, most often themselves. Most pitches fall flat or offend. Here are six ways to make your offering compelling.

Selling something? Teaching something? Applying for a job? Trying to motivate people? If you are attempting any of these tasks, you better be compelling or you are simply wasting other people's time and your own energy. What's worse is you might be blowing great opportunities that may never come around again.
Time and attention is precious in today's information overloaded environment, so it's important to make the most of anytime you might get someone to consider your offering. I didn't want to waste this opportunity with your attention so I teamed up with positioning and branding expert, Mark Levy, who puts the "compel" in compelling.

Levy makes his living behind the scenes helping companies and experts like Marshall Goldmith, David Meerman Scott, and Simon Sinek position their concepts for maximum attraction. Together Levy and I created this 6-tip insider's guide that will help you compel people to action.

1. Find Your Contribution
Levy accurately points out that wanting to be compelling for the sake of being compelling is megalomania. Being compelling needs to be in service of a greater good. How is what you're doing a legitimate contribution to people's lives? When you're clear about why people indisputably need what you offer, the compelling part often takes care of itself. Oh and just because you think people need your offering, doesn't mean they really do need it, or believe they do. Your job is to communicate the need in a way they'll understand and ultimately respond.

2. Tell the Truth
Too many people try to cover up lack of substance with abstract language or sexy props like infographics. Just saying you're different, doesn't actually make you different, and lipstick on a pig still presents as a pig. Levy queries his clients on their current promotional material to get at the compelling core of their offering. "What would I see that's truly different?" He asks. "What have clients said that proves it?" Levy and I agree that being truthful is critical to long term success. As Levy says: "Your offering must be based, not on head-spun concepts or wishful thinking, but on real facts and the five senses." People can sense exaggeration and will become cynical and defensive. Besides, as Levy suggests, genuine benefit is always more compelling than fancy packaging.

3. Surprise and Entertain
Few offerings are short and simple these days. There is real value in offering complex solutions. But long explanations can quickly grow tiresome and boring. The surest way to get people's attention is with surprise. Provide an Aha! moment, an insight that makes your audience see something familiar, but with fresh eyes. A story they haven't yet heard. A fact they hadn't expected but changes their perspective and adds to your argument. Once you have their attention, make it fun, different, and intriguing. Levy starts by asking: "What do you know that most people don't?" The answer needn't be huge and life changing, just something they don't normally hear or read. People love to learn and will follow those who teach them something valuable. Levy's book Accidental Genius is a great tool for getting those amazing lessons out of your head and into theirs.

4. Be Intentional

Compelling communication is naturally strategic. Levy suggests you should decide the purpose of each statement, asking yourself; what do you want your audience to think, feel and do at each line of your pitch? His free e-book on making lists helps you organize your thoughts so you can determine what's important to communicate and how. Once you figure out what to say and how, you must edit, edit, edit. There should be nothing in your pitch that leads the audience away from the desired goal. This will be difficult for those of you who believe that every fact is important and moving.  Be brutal and deliberate in your cuts.

5. Communicate Appropriately

Thanks to social media, tons of data is now available to learn about your audience. That means the responsibility to speak to them in an appropriate way is now on you. As Levy points out: "Context is key." The expectations of the audience need to be surpassed perhaps even with shock value, but not in a way that offends them, tarnishes your image, and kills your credibility.  Study your audience and listen to your own pitch with their perspective in mind.

6. Rehearse
Being compelling doesn't just have to do with what you say. It's also in how you say it. Once Levy helps clients position their pitch, he makes them rehearse it aloud dozens of times. If they're confident about what they do and how people benefit from it, that confidence should come through in their voice, and the image they project, as well as in their written materials.

http://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/6-ways-to-be-more-compelling.html

How To Beat Copycats

The world is full of fast followers. Every new business immediately spawns copycats, riffers, and discounters; cheap knock-offs and traditional players trying to use their brands and size to barge into new markets. In many cases, when you invent and establish a new product, service, sector or approach, you actually make it easier for the guys running right behind you to succeed. Why?

• They ride on your coattails, your PR and your advertising in every possible way. They’re not pioneers and they’re not inventing anything. They’ve just learned to say, “We’re just like X but cheaper or faster or closer.” Saying, “We’re just like Groupon but better,” saves a ton of time, money and marketing.
  
  
• They lean on your success to establish their own credibility, and to show their customers that the idea or product works and works well.
  
  
• They go to school on your errors and missteps. They save time and money by avoiding first-timer mistakes. They get to enter the product development and delivery cycle at a later and more stable level than you did.

So what’s a hard-working CEO to do?

Simple: You need to keep raising the bar on yourself, and your business, before your competitors do it for you. The acid test is, “What’s the best you can possibly be?” The answer is, “Better, for the moment, than anyone else who’s trying to do the same thing.

Of course, just because no one else has done something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aiming for it – you can’t let other people’s limitations hold you back. Entrepreneurship means committing to a life of constant awareness (okay, paranoia), continuous change and extreme flexibility, as well as the willingness to eat and to abandon your “offspring” before they run out of steam. If you can’t do it, someone else will do it for you.

A good example of a great company falling asleep at the switch is Nike. Nike owned the athlete for years. They had the coolest shoes, the coolest endorsements, the best technology and the coolest television ads. When the Web came along, they put up a pretty robust site to show off their ads and their products. Then, having fallen in love with their own videos, they sat on their laurels.

It didn’t take long for competitors to figure out that the real athletes weren’t in it for the ads or the glory. They launched web sites that served the real needs of athletes – providing exercise programs, race training regimens, fitness tracking, online connections with like-minded people, athlete and team meet-ups, etc.

In pretty short order, the real athletes--and plenty of weekend warriors-- totally bailed on the Nike sites. The other sites were far more connected to their interests and represented far better uses of their scarce time. Nike opened the door for small, quick competitors to jump in with simple, straightforward tools and applications that let them to eat Nike’s lunch.

How badly did this hurt Nike? We can track the popularity of Nike’s brand online by tracking their Facebook likes. (Yes, there are some questions about fake likes, but since I’m interested in comparative data, we don’t have to worry about those right now.) True, this is only one way of keeping score, but it’s one of the best we have right now.  So here’s the “likes” math:

Baseline Players                         October, 2010                       September, 2012
Coke                                        15 million                            50 million
Starbucks                                  16 million                            32 million
Athletic Brands
Converse                                    7.4 million                          33 million
Adidas                                        4.8 million                          15.7 million
Nike                                           2.5 million                          10.5 million

When you look at these numbers, it’s clear that Nike really isn’t in the same league as the big dogs.

Raising the bar means that you need to constantly make yourself obsolete regularly cannibalize your products and services. The rate of change is autocatalytic – each change creates the next at a faster rate, and leading to disruption and radical obsolescence. It’s all driven by virality and almost perfect cross-market intelligence. If you want to stay in the game, keep raising the bar.

Remember: No one cares who made the first version of something. They care about who makes the best version.

http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/how-to-beat-copycats.html

Guy Kawasaki: Enchant Customers Like Apple, Zappos & Virgin

Investor and author Guy Kawasaki says the business world needs more charm. Here's his 10-step formula to enchant customers--and build a great big company.

If you want your company to be the next Apple, Zappos, or Virgin, take a page from their playbooks: Enchant your customers.

To do that, Guy Kawasaki, the investor, author, and former Apple "chief evangelist," boiled down a modern entrepreneur's goals at the Inc. 500|5000 in Phoenix on Friday like this: "You want the quality of Apple, the trustworthiness of Zappos, and the likeability of Richard Branson."

In his book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, and in his speech, Kawasaki outlined the path to "enchantment" in 10 steps.

Here they are:

1. Be Likeable

 It's simple. You cannot achieve anything if people do not like you. When Kawasaki met Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, Branson asked Kawasaki if he flew Virgin. "When I said that I was a United Global Services member, he got down on his knees and started polishing my shoes with his jacket. This is the moment I started flying Virgin," Kawasaki said. 

2. Be Trustworthy

 "You can like Charlie Sheen--that doesn't mean you trust Charlie Sheen," Kawasaki said. Trust is never a given, so your company needs to be proactive and project an air of trust, he added. One easy way to extend the first hand of trust to your customers is by giving them something, with no strings attached. As an example, Zappos gives customers unlimited free shipping both ways.

3. Perfect Your Product or Service

 It's a lot easier to enchant people with great stuff than crap. "I have tried it both ways," says Kawasaki. So how can you tell if your product or service is 'great stuff?' It's great, says Kawasaki, if it's "deep, intelligent, complete, empowering, and elegant."

4. Tell a Great Story 

 Your company needs an origin story. Look no further than eBay, with its founding story of Pierre Omidyar wanting to enrich his girlfriend's ability to trade Pez dispensers (her alleged hobby). It's a cute story, but a "total bullshit story," Kawasaki chides. "But you need a story."

5. Overcome Resistance

 Kawasaki says it might be tough to get a parent to buy a kid a shoot-em-up game. But what about a game that's marketed as an educational toy? Sure, parents will buy that. Other ways to overcome resistance: show social proof--your friends are doing it!--or providing data as evidence.

6. Make Your Enchantment Enduring

 At Grateful Dead concerts, there was a special area for show taping. The band wasn't worried about piracy; they wanted the concert to endure over time. How can you apply this to your business? Invoke reciprocation at every chance you get. When someone says "thank you," the optimal response isn't "you're welcome," Kawasaki says. It's "I know you would do the same for me."

7. Be a Great Presenter

When speaking to a group, customize the introduction to your audience. Kawasaki does this by showing an intro slide of him doing something the local people--be it in Edinburgh or Istanbul--can relate to, like eating haggis or trying on a fez at a bazaar. Keep your presentation short. Kawasaki says the optimal formula for a presentation is 20 minutes and 10 slides, using 30-point font.

8. Use Technology

"It's a great time to enchant people with technology, because technology is fast, free, and ubiquitous," Kawasaki says. But there will always be speed bumps when new technology is involved. (Think: An indecipherable captcha screen.) Get rid of it, or risk losing customers.

9. Enchant Up

How do you impress your boss? "When your boss asks you to do something, you drop everything else, and do it," says Kawasaki. If it's a big project, you should drop everything and make a prototype--fast. Draft an early rendering, and ask your boss if that's what she's looking for.

10. Enchant Down

If you're the boss, you need to not only enchant your customers, but also your employees. One easy way: "Show that you are willing to suck it up," Kawasaki says. Bottom line: Get your hands dirty.

http://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/guy-kawasaki-enchant-customers-like-apple-zappos-virgin.html

5 Power Questions for Your Sales Team

Smart questions bring in good answers. If you want to know what's really going on at your company, make sure you're asking the right ones.

Your interactions with your sales team have an obvious impact on business--and the questions you ask can enhance or degrade your company's performance.

By asking the right questions, and then carefully listening to the answers, an astute leader can influence and gain insight into an employee's business competence and morale, as well as a team's overall effectiveness. As a bonus, you'll enrich morale by showing your sales team you understand their key concerns.

Here are five smart questions that can give you a deeper understanding of employees, the business, and the competitive marketplace.

1. What is the biggest obstacle to adding new customers?
Reps are cautious to court new accounts if they believe the company will not be able to service them effectively. So the answers to this question can reveal operational issues, such as a lengthy procedure for setting up new accounts or order processing problems within your company.

On the other hand, if you get the answer, "Only my lack of time," that's good news: It says that all systems are in good order and that morale is likely high.

2. What is working and what isn't?
Such open-ended questions will quickly identify chronic complainers as well as uncover significant problems. When asking this question, be prepared for fix-it requests that may or may not be valid, such as, "We need more samples," "Delivery is too slow," or "We are not competitive." You may need to do some digging to find out whether the problems really need solving.

Most importantly, answers to this question communicate morale. If the responses suggest that little or nothing is working, then you have a morale issue. That's a sales killer, and a leader should uncover and fix causative issues.

3. What are your most (and least) significant opportunities
The answers to this question indicate where a sales team is focusing its attention. The answers may signal that a sales team is operating contrary to company plans--perhaps spending time on a product or service that is not in the company's best interest, for instance. You may also uncover an opportunity that management has not previously identified.

4. If you had a magic wand and could fix one problem, what would it be?
This question forces a targeted answer to avoid a rambling discussion. A wise leader will ask why an employee picked a particular answer, and follow up by soliciting suggestions to correct it.

While the specific answer may give you additional insight into business challenges, it's the suggestions that indicate the depth of a salesperson's business understanding. An unfeasible answer implies a shallow understanding; practical answers convey a solid business understanding.

5. Who is your toughest competitor--and what are they doing right?
One of a leader's most important duties is to stay current with competitors. Your sales force faces the competition each day; team members should have the best on-the-ground reconnaissance.

Once you know the competitive landscape, you can proceed with "risk vs. opportunity" analyses. What you do not want is to find out after the fact that you could have avoided a sales failure by countering competitive activity.

By asking power questions of the sales team, leaders keep in touch with team morale while staying informed about the competition and showing that they care about the team's success. When issues need correction, take action quickly, and give credit to an idea's originator--both clear signals that a good leader is in charge.

http://www.inc.com/john-treace/sales-management-power-questions-sales-team.html

How to Build Customer Trust: 9 Rules

No one is going to buy from a person they don't trust. Here's how to build a better client relationships.

Customers don't buy from people they don't trust. Unfortunately, most sales gurus (including some that are quite famous) define selling as "convincing," "persuading," and "winning"–presumably with the customer being the convinced, persuaded loser.

No wonder so many people put up a barrier the minute somebody tries to sell them something!
Fortunately, it's easy to build trust in a business relationship. Here are the rules, based on a conversation with a true expert in trust-building Jerry Acuff, author of The Relationship Edge: The Key to Strategic Influence and Selling Success.

1. Be yourself.
Everybody on the planet has had unpleasant experiences with salespeople, and many have walked away from a sales situation feeling manipulated. So, rather than acting or sounding like a salesperson, simply act the way you would when meeting with a colleague.

2. Value the relationship.
If you want people around you to value having a relationship with you, you must truly believe that relationship building is important. You must also believe that you honestly have something of value to offer to the relationship.

3. Be curious about people.
People are drawn to those who show true interest in them. Curiosity about people is thus a crucial element of relationship building. Having an abiding fascination in others give you the opportunity to learn new things and make new connections.

4. Be consistent.
A customer's ability to trust you is dependent upon showing the customer that your behavior is consistent and persistent over time. When a customer can predict your behavior, that customer is more likely to trust you.

5. Seek the truth.
Trust emerges when you approach selling as a way of helping the customer–so make it your quest to discover the real areas where the you can work together. Never be afraid to point out that your product or company may not be the right fit.

6. Keep an open mind.
If you're absolutely convinced the customer needs your product, the customer will sense you're close-minded and become close-minded in return. Instead, be open to the idea that the customer might be better served elsewhere. In turn, customers will sense that you've got their best interests at heart.

7. Have a real dialog.
Every meeting should be a conversation, not a sales pitch. Spend at least half of every customer meeting listening. And make certain the conversation is substantive and about real business issues, not just office patter or sports chit-chat.

8. Be a professional.
Customers tend to trust individuals who are serious about what they do, and willing to take the time to achieve a deep understanding of their craft. Take the time every day to learn more about your customers, their industry and their challenges.

9. Show real integrity.
Be willing to take a stand, even when it's unpopular with your customer or your company. You don't need to be adversarial, but have the ability to make decisions based upon what you know is right. And on a related note: Never promise what you can't deliver.

Needless to say, gaining trust is only part of the equation. You must also have a product that customers want and need, and the ability to show how you're adding value, solving problems, and so forth.

However, if you don't earn the customer's trust, they'll probably buy from someone else whom they do trust–even if the offering isn't as good.

 http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/how-to-build-customer-trust-9-rules.html

How to Build Customer Trust: 9 Rules

No one is going to buy from a person they don't trust. Here's how to build a better client relationships.

Customers don't buy from people they don't trust. Unfortunately, most sales gurus (including some that are quite famous) define selling as "convincing," "persuading," and "winning"–presumably with the customer being the convinced, persuaded loser.

No wonder so many people put up a barrier the minute somebody tries to sell them something!
Fortunately, it's easy to build trust in a business relationship. Here are the rules, based on a conversation with a true expert in trust-building Jerry Acuff, author of The Relationship Edge: The Key to Strategic Influence and Selling Success.

1. Be yourself.
Everybody on the planet has had unpleasant experiences with salespeople, and many have walked away from a sales situation feeling manipulated. So, rather than acting or sounding like a salesperson, simply act the way you would when meeting with a colleague.

2. Value the relationship.
If you want people around you to value having a relationship with you, you must truly believe that relationship building is important. You must also believe that you honestly have something of value to offer to the relationship.

3. Be curious about people.
People are drawn to those who show true interest in them. Curiosity about people is thus a crucial element of relationship building. Having an abiding fascination in others give you the opportunity to learn new things and make new connections.

4. Be consistent.

A customer's ability to trust you is dependent upon showing the customer that your behavior is consistent and persistent over time. When a customer can predict your behavior, that customer is more likely to trust you.

5. Seek the truth.
Trust emerges when you approach selling as a way of helping the customer–so make it your quest to discover the real areas where the you can work together. Never be afraid to point out that your product or company may not be the right fit.

6. Keep an open mind.
If you're absolutely convinced the customer needs your product, the customer will sense you're close-minded and become close-minded in return. Instead, be open to the idea that the customer might be better served elsewhere. In turn, customers will sense that you've got their best interests at heart.

7. Have a real dialog.
Every meeting should be a conversation, not a sales pitch. Spend at least half of every customer meeting listening. And make certain the conversation is substantive and about real business issues, not just office patter or sports chit-chat.

8. Be a professional.
Customers tend to trust individuals who are serious about what they do, and willing to take the time to achieve a deep understanding of their craft. Take the time every day to learn more about your customers, their industry and their challenges.

9. Show real integrity.
Be willing to take a stand, even when it's unpopular with your customer or your company. You don't need to be adversarial, but have the ability to make decisions based upon what you know is right. And on a related note: Never promise what you can't deliver.

Needless to say, gaining trust is only part of the equation. You must also have a product that customers want and need, and the ability to show how you're adding value, solving problems, and so forth.
However, if you don't earn the customer's trust, they'll probably buy from someone else whom they do trust–even if the offering isn't as good.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/how-to-build-customer-trust-9-rules.html

Solving the problem isn't the problem

The problem is finding a vector that pays for itself as you scale.

We see a problem and we think we've "solved" it, but if there isn't a scalable go-to-market business approach behind the solution, it's not going to work.

This is where engineers and other problem solvers so often get stuck. Industries and organizations and systems aren't broken because no one knows how to solve their problem. They're broken because the difficult part is finding a scalable, profitable way to market and sell the solution.

Take textbooks, for example. The challenge here isn't that you and I can't come up with a far better, cheaper, faster and more fair way to produce and sell and use textbooks. The problem is that the people who have to approve, review and purchase textbooks are difficult to reach, time-consuming to educate and expensive to sell.

Or consider solar lanterns as a replacement for kerosene. They are safer, cheaper and far healthier. But that's not the problem. The problem is building a marketing and distribution network that permits you to rapidly educate a billion people as to why they want to buy one at a price that would permit you to make them in quantity.

Sure, you need a solution to the problem. But mostly what you need is a self-funding method to scale your solution, a way of interacting with the market that gains in strength over time so you can start small and get big, solving the problem as you go.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/05/solving-the-problem-isnt-the-problem.html

What a 9-Year-Old Can Teach You About Selling

If you want your conversations to have a real impact, you need to simplify your message.

I recently read a study that confirmed my suspicion that most people don't remember what we present to them in a sales call. The data suggested that the average buyer in a meeting will only remember one thing–one!–a week after your meeting.

Oh, and by the way: You don't get to choose what that one thing is. Sigh.

So what have sales professionals done about this? They have worked on "honing the message," developing a "compelling unique advantage" and, of course, the ultimate silver bullet: a surefire elevator pitch.

But here's what you're fighting: A world cluttered with information, schedules, packed with more meetings and work than a person can handle. A decision-making process with more people involved in every choice–many of whom know little about your product or service. No wonder so little is remembered; often your audience doesn't even understand much about what you're offering.

What Kids Want to Know
I have a 9-year-old daughter with spring freckles, long brown hair and blue eyes the size of silver dollars. She asks the kinds of questions that on the surface seem so simple:

• Daddy, what do you do?
• Why do people decide to hire you?
• Why don't they hire somebody else or do it themselves?

One of the great things about 9-year-olds: Like many buyers these days, they lack context. Any answer that you provide has to be in a language that they can understand.

What does a procurement specialist know about what you sell–or the IT person, or the finance person? The challenge is this: Can you answer the three questions my 9-year-old asked, for your own business?
Hint: There are right and wrong answers for both.

Daddy, What Do You Do?

• Right answer: "I help companies to grow really fast by teaching them how to sell bigger companies much larger orders."
• Wrong answer: "Our company helps develop inside of our clients a replicable and scalable process for them to land large accounts."

Why Do People Decide to Hire You?

• Right answer: "We have helped lots of companies do this before, so we are really good at it as long as they are the right type of companies."
• Wrong answer: "We have a proven process for implementation that allows organizations to tailor the model to their market, business offering and company's growth goals."

Why Don't They Do It Themselves?

• Right answer: "Just like when you learned to play the piano: Mommy and I could teach a little, but we don't know as much as your teacher, and teaching you ourselves would take a long time and be very frustrating. Daddy is a really good teacher of how to make bigger sales, and people want to learn how to do this as fast as they can."
• Wrong answer: "We are the foremost expert in this field with over $5 billion in business that our clients have closed using this system. Usually our clients have tried a number of things on their own before we work together and have wanted outside help to get better results."

In these cases, both answers are accurate, but that doesn't make them right. In a world in which more decisions are made with less information and context, our responsibility is to get to as clear and memorable an answer as possible for all of the buyers to understand.

http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/what-a-9-year-old-can-teach-you-about-selling.html

3 Strategies to Adopt From Apple

These three product strategies you can lift from Apple's playbook and incorporate into your growing business.

It's no surprise that Apple has kicked off 2012 with a bang. Profits are soaring, its stock price is up by more than 80%, and the new iPad has been touted as one of the company's most successful product launches in history, which is saying a lot considering the tech giant's recent history.

What has made product launches at Apple so successful, and what can you learn from them to benefit your own business? Here are three important lessons.

1. Price your products to customer segments.
Often lost in the anticipation of Apple's launch events are the subtle changes the company makes to its product portfolio. When Apple launched its most recent iPhone a year ago, it reduced the price of its 3G version to $99. During its most recent launch of the new iPad, it reduced the price of the iPad 2 by $100. In both cases, Apple established a market for additional customer segments.

This strategy allows Apple to capture high margins with early adopters and drive penetration among a broader, more price conscious audience at a later date.  Not every company has product launches that allow it to adopt this strategy, but there are always opportunities to evolve and re-price a successful product to address the needs of a new and different customer segment.

2. Keep your eye to the future.
Success and growth elicit expectations. As Apple continues to launch innovative products, the expectations rise. Each Apple event seems to be met with more anticipation than the last, and technology pundits spend months leading up to the events with conjecture about Apple's "next big thing."

To its credit, Apple has never stopped innovating. iPad sales for Apple's fiscal first quarter increased 111% over the year-ago quarter, and the company still maintains 74% market share in tablets. Amazon, Blackberry, Samsung, and others have all launched tablets over the past year each with features that they believed provided an advantage over the Apple.  But Apple's continuous innovation and forward focus have allowed it to stay ahead of competitors. There's a lesson there for any business that thinks it can ride the coattails of a single successful product for the long term.

3. Listen to your customers.
With the advent of social media, customers have a variety of avenues available to them to express their opinions on a particular company or product. But even if your company isn't a common topic of bloggers, there are more old-fashioned ways to listen to your customers. What's unique about Apple's two most recent product launches, the iPhone 4s and iPad, is the remarkably minor changes the company made to create an abundance of demand.

The new iPad, for example, is not all that dissimilar from the iPad 2. A new screen, 4G, faster processor, and better camera top the list of major developments, but there hasn't been a total redesign of the product. But the new iPad addresses some of the major concerns customers have expressed since the initial launch of the iPad in 2010. By directing product development to the voice of the consumer, Apple was able to benefit from the most successful tablet launch in its history. Listening to your customer is something a firm of any size can do.

There are few companies that compete with the size of Apple, and fewer still that have been as successful as Apple over its most recent stretch. But the formula that has defined Apple's success is not restricted to the economy's behemoths. The key tenants to Apple's growth can be applied to a business of any size.

http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/3-strategies-to-adopt-from-apple.html

Psych! 5 Brain Tricks to Make Customers Buy

Want to increase your revenue? It's time to get smarter about how your customers' minds really work, suggests a new book.

Roger Dooley wants your business to succeed. So he's laying down the facts and dissecting recent brain and behavior research to enable you to tap into consumers' brains.

Fact No. 1: People aren't always rational thinkers. In truth, research shows that a huge amount of decision-making is actually based on subconscious factors.

In both his new book, Brainfluence, and in a recent interview, Dooley offered several ways to use "neuromarketing" to do a better job persuading consumers.

1. Clean Up Your Font

Are you using a stylish, elegant font on your signage? It's time to dump it.

A study shows that more ornate fonts make people assume a task to be more time-consuming than when the same task is explained in a clearer font. This could make your products or services seem slow or even tedious--and no one wants a purchase that'll take forever to assemble or start using.

"Probably nine times out of 10 the simpler font is going to be the better choice," Dooley says, "because the text will be more likely to be read, for one, and you'll better convey information."

Bottom line: Go easy on consumers' eyes; use a clear, easy-to-read font such as Arial, for product and service descriptions as well as any instructions.

2. Don't Show Them the Money

A restaurant currency study showed that patrons tended to be more price-conscious when dollar signs appeared alongside the prices on menus. If there was just a solo digit, by contrast—no dollar symbol, no decimal point—then spending went up.

"When people see a currency symbol like a dollar sign or a euro symbol, that … activates a part of the brain that can sometimes help the marketer, but often not," Dooley says.

Bottom line: If you're a restaurateur, take dollar signs off the menu to increase your sales.

3. Remember the Senses

Customer transactions are about more than facts and figures. Getting smart about sensory appeal can also help a brick-and-mortar business.

Look for environmental elements that you can control, like pleasant scents—even if your products don't naturally have a smell. "You can create a scent environment that is pleasant, memorable, and distinctive that reinforces your branding," Dooley says. "The scent will then trigger consumers' senses and create a desire for that [the product or service]." Tests have shown that scents in shopping areas can increase sales.

And don't overlook the music, which can also affect customers' buying decisions. One test, for instance, found that when a wine shop played French or German music, it increased sales of wine from that country.

Bottom line: Find creative ways to tempt customers' senses.

4. Respond to Customers

Nobody likes being ignored—so make sure you can provide real feedback to social media messages and posts.

Dooley cites one study that looked at people who complained via social media about a company or its products. When they got a prompt response—even if it wasn’t an actual apology—the majority of customers either removed their negative comment or revised it with a positive addendum. So take a minute to acknowledge what was said; it's worth your time.

The customer doesn't need to be right every time, Dooley acknowledges: "But you'll almost never score points when arguing with a customer. You may win the argument, but you'll lose the customer."

Bottom line: Keep your cool and respond to customers promptly.

5. Tell a Good Story

Statistics are great. But you need people to pay attention to your numbers to help drive sales. Our brains are wired to process stories in a more engaged way, Dooley says: Brain scan work shows that when people read a story with a lot of action elements, their brains actually mimic the motions.

So whether you're citing case studies or designing ads or other promotions, draw customers in by weaving facts and favorable information into a story format. A great story can engage customers on a deeper level; this also increases word-of-mouth marketing. "In general some of your information should be in a story format to keep your reader engaged," Dooley says, "because if it's all facts and all statistics, you'll lose a lot of your audience."

Bottom line: Turn percentages and figures into a good tale to capture—and keep—your customers' attention.


http://www.inc.com/caitlin-berens/roger-dooley-brain-tricks.html

Nice People Will Sabotage You

How to keep quiet politeness from killing your sales, marketing and probably your business.

I’ll admit it. I'm not a particularly nice person. In fact some consider me brutal with my honesty. (Some just call me a New Yorker.) Either way they’re right. I don’t coddle. I don’t insult, but I call it like I see it and often I offend. I don’t do it to be mean. I do it out of integrity. I believe (often foolishly) that when people engage me in conversation that they are truly interested in my opinions and experiences. So I share it, willingly.

A colleague of mine claims one can offer blatant truth, and still be nice. She says: “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” I don’t buy it. I have often witnessed, when someone has invested their heart, soul and ego into a project, and you tell them truthfully and nicely why it will never work, they still think you are cruel and non-supportive. Don’t take my word for it. Just watch Shark Tank, or American Idol. Except maybe Kevin O'Leary, most of the investors or judges aren’t actually rude or impolite. (Not since Simon left anyway.) They simply point out the errors in the unfounded beliefs of the contestants…dashing their dreams and crushing their spirits…thereby appearing to be cruel and non-supportive.

The alternative to us truth-sayers is people with discretion. They grew up under the rule: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all.” They either lie and say something “supportive” when you bring them your hideous, doomed-to-fail idea, or worse they exhibit what I call Quiet-Politeness and simply say nothing. Most likely they’re not vested enough in your success to engage in conflict with you over your passion.

These nice people are not doing you any favors. In fact they are sabotaging you in three ways.

1. Nice People Waste Your Time.
This happens in sales all the time. You meet people at networking events. They’re polite. They never actually tell you they won’t do business with your company. So you optimistically think they’re worth keeping in your tickler file. You follow up every couple of months. You email them a birthday card. You tell yourself that someday they will come around. They won’t. They politely return your email or take your call, again omitting the fact that they’ll never buy and are generally annoyed with your persistence. In fact they would better serve you both, by stating that they already buy from their brother-in-law or that they hate your CEO, and just cut you loose. In sales, nice people suck up the majority of your time and resources. Just look at your conversion numbers.


2. Nice People Encourage Low Standards.
Most people ask for opinions in hopes they are on the right path with a project. A marketer who has passionately invested months in a new campaign runs it by a nice colleague for her feedback. The nice colleague thinks it’s a six on a scale of 10. The nice colleague supportively says: “ Looks good. Keep it up.” Why create unnecessary conflict in the cubicle next door? She thinks. The marketer feeling reassured, continues on his path of mediocrity. The campaign has lackluster results.


3. Nice People Enable Failure.
When an achiever is passionately driving down a fatal path, nice people tend to clear out of the way. Some are simply avoiding conflict. Others don’t want to appear non-supportive as the achiever reaches the point of no return. The nice people demonstrate their own brand of silent cruelty by not sharing their knowledge that can avert the disaster.

I’m not suggesting we round up all the nice people and ship them to parts unknown. Neither should we abandon all rules of polite society. But if you are an achiever in the business world, nice people will create unnecessary obstacles without some precautionary steps.


1. Defend against the “Golden Rule”
State clearly you do not want to be treated by nice people the way they want to be treated. Tell them instead to openly share their honest opinions and experiences or don’t engage. Tell them you intend to do the same.


2. Reward Bluntness
It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur, manager or employee. When you seek feedback, show that you appreciate truth and constructive criticism no matter how harsh and painful. Show you can apply input so people are encouraged to provide more of it.


3. Give Nice People a Safe Path to Disengage
Most nice people can’t help themselves. Help them form nice people cliques and let them sabotage each other en masse. Perhaps you can identify them with an embroidered N on their lapels so they can find each other easily. This way you can avoid them and come hang out with those of us who will be brutally honest and give you the necessary feedback for success and achievement. We’ll be supportive by helping you overcome your real obstacles and we’ll encourage you to do the same for us. Come on over anytime. (You can find many of us at the Bull and Bear.)

It may not be a nice time, but it will certainly be refreshing.

I look forward to reading all your comments both good and bad. Of course I don't expect the nice people will say anything.


http://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/dont-take-business-advice-from-nice-people.html

Top 5 Myths About Selling

Conventional 'wisdom' about selling is frequently dead wrong. Here's a reality check.

The business world is full of conventional wisdom that gets passed from office to office. Sometimes that so-called wisdom is, well ... unwise. (And occasionally it's really stupid.)
Here are the five dumbest beliefs that people have about "how to sell":

1. The Customer Is Always Right
This myth has been repeated so many times that many people think it's a law of nature. In fact, though, customers are frequently unreasonable and overly demanding. A big part of selling is educating such customers so that they have more realistic expectations. This means telling the customer he's wrong when he actually is.

2. Customers Know What They Want
In fact, customers frequently often have bizarre ideas about what they want and need–and, consequently, about what they ought to buy. Don't cater to these whims. It's up to you, as a responsible seller, to figure out what’s actually needed and provide your best opinion about how to satisfy that need.

3. Every Prospect Is a Potential Sale
If you think that everyone is a customer, you'll end up pursuing fictional opportunities. (This is called "chasing garbage trucks, not Brinks trucks.") If you're selling something, your No. 1 job is to eliminate prospects that don’t have enough money to buy your offering or don't have enough need to justify the purchase. That will let you focus on your actual prospective customers.

4. You Should Never Take 'No' for an Answer
When prospects have all sorts of objections to buying, you're probably wasting your time trying to sell to them. Sales opportunities are like buses; another one comes along every 15 minutes. Don’t obsess on any one deal–and always remember that if you hear "no" more than once, it means "no."

5. The Best Salespeople Are Extroverts
Many (even most) of today's sales situations are best suited for people who are a little bit introverted, and better at listening than talking. In fact, some of the best and most effective sales training programs available today are based on listening techniques originally developed for psychologists and counselors–who aren't known for being extroverted.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/top-5-myths-about-selling.html

You Can Win Customers for Life

Looking to build strong relationships with your clients? Master their personal styles.

At AnswerLab, one of my main missions is to provide amazing service to our customers. Zappos has pioneered the revolution of customer-focused businesses with its message to spread happiness. Countless business books advise us to learn what the customers want and simply give it to them. What they don't talk about is the importance of understanding the customer's personal style and communication preferences in order to do that. Without that, how do you earn the customer's trust?

Why care about customer style?

Our personal styles govern a great deal about how we react in situations, communicate with one another, and make decisions. Each of us perceives the world around us differently. Our willingness to fulfill a request may increase or decrease simply due to the way in which a request is delivered. Provide too much information, and a client may not respond at all. Provide too little information, and a client may lose trust. How do you know how much information to share? Start by understanding your customers' styles and how to tailor your interactions with them. To do so, you need a simple framework for knowing the minds of your customers.

Find a behavioral model

At AnswerLab, we use the "DiSC" behavioral model to understand personal styles. Many models have been developed (HBDI, Meyers-Briggs, 16PF, among others), but we've found DiSC to be the easiest to adopt, communicate, and observe in others. Every employee on our team receives a DiSC assessment within a month of joining the company. DiSC tells us what motivates us, what scares us, and how we behave in various situations. It also tells us a great deal about how we absorb and process information. Using this model allows us to:

1) Better anticipate customer needs
2) Develop deeper empathy for the customer perspective
3) Make the customer's personal style differences objective rather than subjective
4) Discuss differing perspectives with customers rationally instead of emotionally

The DiSC has four quadrants: dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance. Each of us exhibits some combination of these behaviors. Once you learn the model and specifics of the quadrants, you can easily figure out how someone might fit in it, without ever seeing a formal professional assessment. That means you can quickly assess the style of customers and learn how to better communicate with them.

Apply the behavioral model
Once you know the model and how to identify behavioral traits in customers, you can develop a few simple communication norms. Some examples:

Let's get it done! This attitude is indicative of the "dominance" profile. If your customer is high in the dominance quadrant, she'll be extremely motivated to get things done. With these clients, you should be direct, offer alternatives, ensure she "wins," act quickly, and focus on issues. A slow response to this client will particularly frustrate her.

Let's get it right! This is the mindset of a customer who is high in the compliance quadrant. He is motivated to work within established rules, guidelines, and procedures to ensure accuracy and quality. When communicating with a "High C," be sure to listen carefully, be thorough, answer questions correctly, and use written supporting materials. Send one wrong piece of information and the customer will begin to lose trust in everything you do.

Let's be positive! This sounds like an "influence" profile. A customer who ranks high in the Influence quadrant often tries to persuade, promote, or influence others in a positive way. This kind of person is very focused on keeping others happy. When managing this type of customer, be sure to maintain a positive atmosphere, allow her to express herself, take time to chat and talk, focus on the big picture, and be enthusiastic. If you use a confrontational tone, she may retreat.

Let's do it as agreed! This is the "steadiness" profile. These customers tend to be cooperative, supportive, agreeable, and highly motivated to keep the status quo. When working with this someone like this, proceed in a logical order, ask specific questions to find out true needs, provide support, and remember fairness and justice. For this customer, changing process rapidly will make them feel uneasy.

Each style in the DiSC model has a preferred mode of interaction. Learn them, adopt them in your communication, and you'll earn customer trust and loyalty for life.

http://www.inc.com/amy-buckner-chowdhry/how-to-win-customers-for-life-master-personal-style.html

Don't Let Your Customers Bully You

If you're a pushover, you'll completely lose a customer's respect. Follow these six steps to diffusing customer anger without caving in.

My recent column Top 5 Ways Big Customers Screw With Small Vendors points out that some buyers see sellers—that means you—as scapegoats. Buyers use the fact they needn't work with you on a daily basis as an excuse to vent their frustration by exploding at you

Sometimes such customer-explosions are be triggered by something that you, or your company, did that wasn't to the buyer's liking. And sometimes the abuse seems to simply comes out of nowhere. Regardless, what's important isn't where it comes from, but rather how you deal with it.

Unfortunately, many sellers deal with this kind of behavior in exactly the wrong way. They sit there and take it, then meekly apologize.

That's the absolute worst thing you can do.

The moment you let a customer bully you, you've completely lost that customer's respect. Worse, you've set yourself up for a relationship of further bullying and abuse.

Here's a simple six-step recipe for defusing this situation.

• STEP #1: Keep your pipeline full. Bullies smell fear. The best way to be fearless, when you're selling, is never to rely entirely on a single customer to make your revenue numbers. If you know you've got plenty of buyers in waiting, you always have the option of simply walking out and moving on.
• STEP #2: Raise your own intensity level. When the customer begins to explode, you've got to get onto the same level in order to create rapport. You don't have to yell, but your voice must be firm and authoritative. If the conversation is face-to-face, you have to keep it eye-to-eye. Wear a serious expression that communicates clearly that you don't appreciate being yelled at and don't intend to be intimidated.
• STEP #3: Call the customer's bluff. You're a professional, not a doormat. State clearly that you're willing to help resolve the problem, but you're not going to be yelled at. Don't mince words. Demand respect. Make it absolutely clear that your help is dependent upon the customer's ability to behave in a civil manner.
• STEP #4: If the customer does not comply, end the conversation. Do this politely but firmly. State that you'll be glad to help once the customer is willing to treat you with the respect that you deserve. Make sure the customer knows how to contact you. Then leave. Never take abuse. No job is worth it.
• STEP #5: Apologize appropriately for the problem. Once you've demanded and received civil behavior—then and only then—apologize for the inconvenience that the problem might have caused the customer. Make a commitment to resolve the problem.
• STEP #6: Work on the problem. Now that you've established that you're not the customer's punching bag, go ahead and work the customer's issue. Needless to say, you'll need to do a superlative job resolving the problem. But you were going to do that anyway, right?

Just this weekend, I came across a perfect example of how to counter bullying in Steve Jobs's biography. Jobs was probably one of the worst bullies in the corporate world, often reducing people to tears. However, when Jobs yelled at his chief designer, the chief designer reacted very differently than did most people. He yelled right back.

Guess who kept Jobs's respect?

Along the same lines, I once worked for a bully who'd pick out a staff member at every meeting to yell at and berate. The one staff member who wasn't treated this way was a woman who, when he tried it on her the first time, threw a pencil at him and told him to "stop acting like an a------."

In short, when you placate, you're just proving to the bully that you're weak and stupid. The bully figures that if you had something valuable to offer, you wouldn't take the guff.

By contrast, when you lay down the law and demand the respect due a professional, you're creating the credibility that the bully needs to see before he begins to trust that you can do the job.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/defuse-exploding-customers-without-being-bullied.html

5 Ways to Keep Your Biggest Customer

Before you slash prices, check out these strategies for keeping your best customers happy and loyal.

Contrary to popular belief, a big customer that buys a lot of product from you is not necessarily a good thing. Big companies have a habit of pigeonholing smaller firms into being suppliers of commodity products.

That way, they can play you off against your competition in order to push prices down. They don't care whether you make any money on the deal because they can just switch to another vendor should the price drop drive you out of the business.

The good news? There are five ways to defend yourself against this kind of pricing game.

Strategy #1: Differentiate Yourself. If your firm offers a needed product or service that no other company can provide, then it’s impossible for the big company to play you off against your competitors. To create that differentiation, you position your offering so that whatever is unique about it becomes a "must have" for that customer. I once lost a sale of a million-dollar publishing system because the competitor convinced the customer that they needed the ability to set type around the shape of a handprint, something that the customer had never done before and would never do in the future.

Strategy #2: Provide Expertise. If you or your firm can offer expertise that the customer needs in order to fulfill their goals, you can be strategic to them, even if you’re a commodity supplier. For example, a company that sells glue for manufacturing consumer electronics might have world-class expertise in volume manufacturing that, if shared with their customer, would make them more profitable. That expertise is then periodically "lent" to the customer in order to reduce their manufacturing costs, thereby making an ongoing relationship valuable to the customer.

Strategy #3: Create a High Replacement Cost. If it would cost the customer a prohibitive amount to replace your firm's products and services, they're far less likely to replace you with another competitor. What's important here is that you create the high replacement cost AFTER you've made the sale, because prior to the sale, the big customer (if they're at all self-aware) are likely to see the replacement cost as liability and thus be less likely to buy from you in the first place.

Strategy #4: Really Know the Account. If you can get yourself involved in the inner workings of the customer account and become part of their strategic planning, they'll begin to see you as a consultant rather than a mere supplier. For example, IBM sometimes assigns an employee as a general IT consultant inside Fortune 100 firms. In addition to being a sales representative, that employee is mandated to act as an independent IT resource acts as a clearing house for any problems that occur with IBM's offerings.

Strategy #5: Generate Reverse Credibility. This one is tricky, because credibility usually flows from the larger company to the smaller one. (e.g. "Our customer list includes GM and Oracle!") However, if a smaller firm has a market reputation that helps the larger firm create credibility in a new market, the larger firm will may see the relationship as strategic. Example: the Taiwanese computer manufacturer Acer used to publicly tout its' relationship with boutique studio FrogDesign in order to seem more "cool" in the consumer PC space.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/5-ways-to-keep-your-biggest-customer.html

How to get Cold Call Results

No one likes cold calling. But are you missing an opportunity to increase your bottom line AND have some fun?

Cold calling and telephone prospecting are not a favorite activity for the majority of us. In fact, most will avoid the task – which is fine, as long as you have other powerful marketing tactics in place. Certainly with the development of social media we have other means to market our wares, but many business models still benefit from the power of good old-fashioned cold calling.

Many sales experts now dispute the effectiveness of cold calling but I’ve worked with quite a few successful business owners who credit this daunting process for much of their sales success. And certainly the large majority of highly successful network marketers turn to their call lists when revenues need a boost. Network marketing organizations suggest cold calling as the primary means to build your business, but it’s not always that simple.

The sad truth is that most people give up on their commitment to the process after a single “no”. Cold calling is filled with rejection and anticipation of conflict, but does it have to be interpreted in this way? Is a “no” really a personal rejection? I don’t think so; after all doesn’t a person have to know something about you to reject you personally? When the recipient of your phone call says no, they are referring to your offer, not you.

Still, it can be a tough pill to swallow so why not make it a team effort, a friendly competition and a positive experience? That’s what this creative entrepreneur does to keep her sales team happy and her business thriving.

Dawn Gluskin, Founder and CEO of Florida based Soltec Electronics, actually likes cold calling. She views it as a competitive sport and shares her enthusiasm with her staff of four sales reps. “Not many people, even sales reps, look forward to cold calling,” Dawn acknowledges. “So we created the Cold Call Power Hour at Soltec. Why not make it fun and learn from the process?”

Twice a week Dawn and her sales team meet in the Soltec sales room manned with phones and call lists. No email access, no incoming calls to disrupt the process; only a determined attitude and an hour of getting into the cold calling groove.

“Hearing one another’s approach is very helpful and seeing top sales people get 'rejected' or encounter someone with an unfriendly attitude helps the less experienced reps see it happens to everyone,” says Gluskin. “We just keep going, build momentum and enjoy the results.”

Each of Soltec’s team members come to the Power Hour with a focus. “Don’t just pick up the phone and make random calls,” suggests Gluskin. “Create a targeted list of people who haven’t bought in six months, people in a specific geographic area or a certain type of business. This approach assists you in staying focused and creating a groove,” she says.

Dawn and her team see great results from their twice weekly Cold Calling Power Hour events. They even keep a chart in the conference room to show their new accounts and create a friendly competition. “We alwayshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif get at least one strong lead and one of our reps even made a sale right on the phone during a recent Power Hour,” Dawn says. Participation is mandatory and it’s a date that everyone keeps. Certainly, the results reflect this dedication. Soltec Electronics has enjoyed a sizeable increase in sales since implementing the Power Hour process.

Of course, as a solopreneur, you don’t necessarily have a team of sales reps – or a conference room for that matter. BUT, you do have peers who are faced with the same aversion to telephone prospecting. Why not begin a weekly Power Hour of your own? Gather a small group of soloists and support one another in getting in the groove and getting results!

http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/how-to-get-cold-call-results.html

How to Beat the Defensive Pricing Game

Are your competitors lowering prices? Here's how to beat them at their own game.

It’s a familiar story: A company begins to use defensive pricing when a competitor has reduced its market share. The competitor lowers prices. The other firm counters with further reduced figures. A back-and-forth contest develops with each player upping the ante, like a poker game.

In this economy, a price war’s greatest danger is lowering yourself right out of business. This game can pose such danger that some small businesses take action. For example, Kennesaw, Georgia-based Flip Flop Shop founder Brian Curin will pull a franchisee’s license if a store engages in defensive pricing. Once they hang a sale sign next to a pair of those beach-ready kicks, costumers will always expect it.

“I don’t think people realize how quick a consumer habit can form,” Curin says. “Once they’ve got that discount ticket in their hand – that golden ticket to get something cheaper – once you give that, it’s really hard to get your consumer base to pay full price.”

Here, experts reveal 3 basic strategies for avoiding defensive pricing, while still remaining competitive.

Re-evaluate and improve your business model. But if you’re considering defensive pricing, it means some part of your business model contains a flaw, says Leonard Lodish, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “It’s an indication that you don’t have enough of a perception of being better than your competition that you can use to go forward,” he says.

Review each step of your supply chain from beginning to end. Something has caused your customers to grow dissatisfied. Perhaps you need increased marketing or a new ad campaign. Or it could be a problem with customer service at the store.

To find the problem, you might use an in-store customer survey, or check out your online reviews. “You need to find what people are saying about you,” Lodish says.

Cut costs where the competition can't. When you reduce prices, you decrease profits and shrink margins. Right away, this decreases any significant opportunity for growth or innovation. It also means you might have trouble with this month’s rent. A business needs deep pockets to win at defensive pricing, says Ari Ginsberg, a New York University management professor.

“But if you’re dealing with another competitor that has equally deep pockets, then they can play the same game as you. And then you’re screwed because you lost money, but you didn’t necessarily gain the market share,” Ginsberg says.

He says should examine whether you can cut costs where your competitor can’t, but avoid sacrificing quality. An inferior product will just drive customers to that competitor.

“If customers have a bad experience, and they’re used to having a good experience, especially these days, they’ll go everywhere to complain about. And then it’s going to take a long time, and a very heavy investment in marketing, to gain their trust back,” Ginsberg says.

You might also consider raising the cost of a complementary good or service. Take a gas station for example. If it engages in a price war, lowering gas prices, the owner might raise the price of slushees or cold drinks, says Charles H. Green, the Small Business Finance Institute’s executive director. The increased price for slushees and cold drinks boosts revenues, negating some of that profit lost in the price war.

Go low, but not for everyone and everything. Lowering all your prices without desecration makes little since. You might make the reduced price available for only a limited time. Or maybe only a select clientele – new customers perhaps – will receive this special pricing. You will need to balance this carefully though. If you show favoritism toward new customers, your old ones will soon grow restless.

You should also know your limits from the outset. At MonoMotors, an office supplies e-retailer, owner Isaac de la Fuente knows how far he’ll bend in a price game.

“We have competitors that will lower their price by a $1. And then we’ll lower our price by a $1. We have a philosophy of that we know our margins. We play that game … up to a certain margin,” de la Fuente says.

http://www.inc.com/guides/201110/how-to-beat-the-defensive-pricing-game.html

5 Ways to Grow Your Business

Turn your customers into salespeople.
Customer referrals can be an effective way to tap into your current customer base and explore new revenue streams. Roku, a Saratoga, California-based company that makes a device that allows users to stream media to their televisions, understands this concept. Last year, the company introduced a refer-a-friend campaign where, for every friend you refer, your friend gets the lowest price on a Roku player and you get a free month of Netflix. "We knew we had an engaged customer base that was passionate about the product, and we wanted to tap into that," Lomit Patel, Roku's senior director of direct marketing, told Inc. magazine.

Learn how to delegate.
"As organizations grow increasingly complex, duties and responsibilities across the workforce can become less well defined," writes Robert Heller in How to Delegate. "Often it seems as though everyone is doing everyone else's job. Delegation is the manager’s key to efficiency, and benefits all." In other words, in order to scale the business, a CEO needs to learn how to delegate so he or she can focus on the company's bigger picture issues.

Develop new products.
Innovative companies understand that in order to grow, they must continue to develop new products and services. "No executive today is unaware of the strategic need for winning new products," writes Robert G. Cooper in his book, Product Leadership: Creating and Launching Superior New Products. "And so the pressure is on virtually every leadership team to deliver great new products. The new corporate motto is 'innovate or die.'"

Penetrate new markets.
The Obama administration has advocated for small businesses to push into global markets, and has set the goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2014. Today, only about one percent of small businesses export overseas. One of the biggest challenges for small companies wanting to export is communication, says Marc Meyer, a professor of entrepreneurship at Northeastern University. This is especially true in emerging markets like China where little is known about marketing and consumer culture. "These countries are fundamentally different from Western Europe and you need to go there and do your homework—learning the local selling culture, how your product will be sold and merchandised," he says.

Learn how to automate.
If too much of your time is being spent on tasks that could be automated, it pays to figure out a technological solution. Technology can empower your organization, helping you improve efficiencies and even expand operations," says Mike Gorsage, a partner and technology practice leader for Tatum. "But to use that technology well, you must balance your needs with the realities of how you do business. That means understanding not only which technology to invest in, but also how it will affect your operations and how to maximize your returns on that investment." —Eric Markowitz

http://www.inc.com/ss/5-ways-to-grow-your-business