Sales

7 Aug 2013

Illusions at Work and Business

By |2017-04-03T11:26:43-06:00August 7th, 2013|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

What you see as reality is not what I see. It is not just me or you.

It is everyone.

Everything you see, touch, smell, feel, hear or otherwise interact with is a construct and interpretation by your brain including the filters of your beliefs and world views.

The illusion of reality.

Illusions at Work and Business

Once you understand this and that everyone sees and interprets the world differently it becomes a lot easier to get along with others, sell your products and services, and create […]

30 Jul 2013

3 Ways You May Be Stealing Success From Your Business

By |2017-04-12T13:24:18-06:00July 30th, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

No theft stealing focus business successWhen we spend time doing things that don’t add value and pretending it is work we are stealing. The only question is from whom?

The Law of Value states:

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”

Bob Burg and John David Mann – The Go-Giver

Stealing From Your Employer

As an employee you are paid to deliver value to your employer that far surpasses the amount of money you take in payment. The more […]

22 Jul 2013

Underperforming in Sales: Check Your Beliefs

By |2017-04-03T11:26:58-06:00July 22nd, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

Are your beliefs holding you back in sales?

If you don't believe you can sell until…

  • You have a killer web site,
  • You have a flawless script,
  • You have a gorgeous glossy brochure and beautiful business cards,
  • You have been trained for countless hours,
  • You have 10,000 followers on Twitter and 5,000 page likes on Facebook,
  • Essentially, everything is perfect…

You won't!

Just like anything else you choose to do, it is extremely difficult to exceed your own expectations.

Sales starts with attitude.

If you are the only one selling, your business will die or at the very least, you will starve.

Positive mental attitude sales success […]

11 Jul 2013

Everyone Is In Customer Service – Just Do It!

By |2017-04-03T11:27:28-06:00July 11th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Dream Teams, Leadership, Marketing, Sales|

We've all heard it.

"Everyone in your company or organization who interacts with a customer or provides a product or service to a customer is in customer service."

The same is true for marketing. Or branding.

If you extend this to include everyone inside your organization who could impact the reputation of your organization; you pretty much include everyone.

Zappos starts everyone out in their call center. I read that WestJet expects employees and spouses flying for free or on discounts to help clean the plane.
Business person overwhelm help keeping up […]

11 Jun 2013

Using Your Super-Powers for Market Feedback

By |2017-04-03T11:28:04-06:00June 11th, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Sales|

I was looking for wording on a new motto for myself the other day. So I asked some people on social media (Twitter) for feedback on:

"If you can't be funny, at least be odd."

After listening to feedback from my friends around the world on Twitter, I changed it to:

"If you can't be funny, at least be different."

Parrot, humor, business, core values

After thinking about it, even the Monty Python crew used to say "and now for something completely different", even […]

7 May 2013

Hats Off To Randy Gage And Mystique

By |2017-04-03T11:29:11-06:00May 7th, 2013|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

Randy Gage recently announced he is disappearing from public life.

"Effective today, I’ll stop posting to my Facebook page, Twitter feed, YouTube channel and blog, and am going to disappear from the public stage."

I have recently been thinking about Sally Hogshead's book "Fascinate" and how I could apply it to my message.

My primary trigger happens to be Mystique. So the rest of his message was fascinating to read.

Now back to Randy…

Chinese pagoda thinking learning growing success mystiqueHe […]

8 Apr 2013

Forget What You Know: It Is Really All about the Client

By |2017-04-03T11:30:37-06:00April 8th, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

What if we take this literally?

After thinking about “Endless Referrals” by Bob Burg a
couple of thoughts popped into my head.

Could I train an effective marketing and sales team
to generate leads and conduct initial sales calls with just a vague sense of
what our products and services do?

Would this be effective at breaking the “it’s all about us”
cycle of client abuse?

I was actually surprised by the answer.

Yes, I could.

And it just might be.
Man putting business card in pocket networking […]

18 Mar 2013

The 3 Sales Books You Need Most

By |2017-04-03T11:31:27-06:00March 18th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

We recently hired a Sales and Marketing professional so I asked myself, "What are the 3 sales books that influenced me the most in the last year or two?"

So here it is, the three books (well actually it is 5) that will form the core of our initial Sales training program.

Sales books go-giver selling with noble purpose ultimate sales machine
The 3 Sales Books You Need Most

The Go-Giver

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John […]

7 Mar 2013

Start with Value

By |2017-04-03T11:31:54-06:00March 7th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

There are a number of times in business where you are
tempted to jump to a solution without really considering your customers first.

This is a big mistake.

Setting Your Price

Recently we were trying to figure out where to position
ourselves for pricing of some of our products and services.

The obvious first step is to look at what your direct and
indirect competitors are doing and use that as a baseline. You can then pick
the low, mid or high point and go from there. They must know what they are
doing, right?

Wrong. 

Start with Value, Customer First, Business Success […]

19 Dec 2012

Serendipity and Defining the Ideal Customer

By |2017-04-03T11:33:44-06:00December 19th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Manifast, Marketing, Sales|

Having the discipline to define and focus on your ideal
customer at the exclusion of all distractions is a skill that eludes many
business owners.

We naturally want to say “everyone” can use our product or
service. After all, what if we exclude someone and they want what we have?

Marketing to “everyone” is very expensive and the message usually
becomes so vague it doesn’t really catch anyone’s attention.

You need a story that resonates to a group of people, your
ideal customer. So you need to be clear who that is.

Defining Our Ideal Customer

We started out with the idea Manifast was for any small […]