Coach Andrea

Coach Andrea’s Intro

When my clients are avoiding making a decision, I have them imagine the best result and the worst result of their decision.  This process gets the issues on the table so they can be dealt with.  Many times, they see that their indecision is only making things worse.  This week’s Tip by Neil Ducoff provides additional thoughts on decision making for leaders.

Quote of the Week

“It’s less important to have unanimity than it is to be making the right decisions and doing the right thing, even though at the outset it may seem lonesome.”

Four Truths About Making the Toughest Leadership Decisions

By Neil Ducoff

1. The outcome you fear most is rarely as bad you imagined.  The simple process of working through a tough decision prepares you for most of the stuff you dread – if that stuff occurs at all.
2. Avoiding the tough decisions can be pure agony.  The longer you wait, the more stressful it gets.  The longer you wait, the more difficult the solution or change.
3. Avoid the tough decision entirely and you’ll get to personally meet those lions and tigers and bears.  Tough decisions are easy to obsess over.  You get bogged down in the “what if” mode.  Even if your worst fear is that you’ll lose everything, making tough decisions is your responsibility.
4. Total commitment is non-negotiable.  You must be committed to seeing through the implementation of your tough decisions.  You must be committed to adjusting course when necessary to ensure the intended destination is reached (p. 31-32).

From:  Ducoff, N. (2012).  Wake up!: inspiring and challenging strategies on what it takes to be a no-compromise leader.  Centerbrook, CT:  Strategies.

Reprinted with permission from the OSU Leadership Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, (614) 292-3114, http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu/

Coaching Call To Action

Will you help others learn from your experiences on decision making?

What’s New?

Thursday, October 18, 2012 – 9 am to noon EDT
Pounce on a Project III

We’re entering the last quarter of 2012. Have you set up your top three priorities for Q4?  Want to get a jump start on them?  Come to Pounce on a Project III – - 2012.

Join me on Thursday, October 18th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon Eastern. We will join as a group by phone and declare what you want to accomplish: working on your marketing plan for Q4, writing the white paper you promised to get done in October, or cleaning out your space so you can get to your projects.

During the morning, the group will gather by phone a few times to check progress and get any support needed to finish with a bang. At noon, the group will celebrate their accomplishments. Who says projects have to be boring and tedious? Bring your lightness and fun and join us for energy and focus.

To sign up or learn more, call or e-mail me by noon on Wednesday, October 17th. Feel free to share this with friends and co-workers, the more the merrier. (Cost of the program is only the cost of long distance phone calls.)

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Whether you own your own company, manage others or are an individual contributor, you have a “boss.” Your boss may be your board of directors, your clients, and/or your manager.  No matter which category applies to you, this week’s Tip provides a great checklist for making your boss love you!

Quote of the Week

“Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.”

~ Eugene S. Wilson

Seven Ways to Make Sure Your Boss Thinks You’re Doing a Great Job

By Penelope Trunk

1. Know your boss’s priorities. If your boss is a numbers person, quantify all your results.  If your boss is a customer-is-first kind of guy, frame all your results in terms of benefits to the customer.
2. Say no. Say yes to things that matter most to your boss.  Say no to most everything else, and your boss will appreciate that you are focused on her needs.
3. Communicate the way your boss does. If your boss likes e-mail, use it.  If your boss prefers voice mail, phone in your updates.  Convey information to your boss in the way she likes so that she’s more likely to retain it.
4. Toot your own horn. Each time you do something that impacts the company let your boss know.  Whatever the mechanism, you need to let your boss know each time you achieve something that matters to her.
5. Lunch with your boss. If all things are equal, your boss will promote the person she likes the best.  So go out to lunch and talk about what interests her.
6. Seek new responsibilities. Find important holes in your department before your boss notices them.  Take responsibility for filling those holes and your boss will appreciate your foresight, but also your ability to do more than your job.
7. Be curious. Remember to take time to read and listen.  Then ask questions when they are not expected; you will make yourself more interesting to be around, and you will elicit fresh ideas from everyone around you.  Your boss will feel like having you on the team improves everyone’s work – even his own – and, after all, that is your primary job in managing up (Trunk, 2007, p. 145-147).

From: Trunk, P. (2007). Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.  New York:  Warner Business Books.

Reprinted with permission from the OSU Leadership Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, (614) 292-3114, http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu

Coaching Call To Action

One of my readers responded to last week’s Tip, Success is Supposed to Be Fun and Rewarding, sharing that she had not been aligned with her boss’s priorities and goals and was not feeling the love.  If you are in a similar situation or want to ensure you don’t get there, take time this week to put two to three of these ideas into action.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

“What one thing would you have done differently when you started your business?” This question is often asked of me by new coaches interviewing me to be their mentor. I always respond – getting an automated contact management system. When I first started my business, I had my contacts on an Excel spreadsheet and it was very cumbersome. Then someone told me about ACT! It makes remembering to stay in touch effortless. In this week’s Tip, Tracey Lawton shares additional ideas on why you need to get organized to get clients.

Quote of the Week

“It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy.”
~ Hesiod

Get Organized To Get Clients

by Tracey Lawton

This article has been inspired by one of the respondents to my recent survey who commented “I need clients not organization”. This particular comment really stuck out for me because I feel that a lot of business owners become so focused on getting the clients that they really don’t understand being more organized means getting more clients, and therefore do not put in place the foundational pieces that will allow their business to grow.

You probably have heard me say before that you need to “manage” your business before you can “market” your business, or to take what this respondent said and turn it on it’s head:

You need to get organized to get clients.

Sure, you may get clients without being organized, but you won’t get clients consistently; you won’t be able to create a business that brings you the fulfillment of bringing in a significant income; and you won’t have the security that even in a slow economy your business will bring in the clients and provide you with a consistent income – and yes I’m talking from experience here. 2010 was one of my best years ever!

So today I’m going to share with you why becoming more organized and having your systems in place means getting more clients – and a continual flow of clients too.

It all starts with your filing system i.e. getting the papers off your desk and put away and getting the clutter off the floor. Once you have cleared away the clutter and have a system in place for retrieving information so that you can access it when you need it, you eliminate a lot of the overwhelm. And once the overwhelm has been eliminated your mind becomes clear, you can focus, and your creative juices start to flow – think implementing new programs or creating new info products. You now have the space (both physically and mentally) to start working on your business rather than in your business.

Once the clutter has gone you then need to take charge of your finances. You need to know exactly where you are financially in your business so that you can make sound business decisions, i.e. can you place an advertisement in that ezine where your target market hangs out and bring in new clients for you? Can you afford to attend that networking event where you know you will make new contacts who will eventually become clients or generate a constant referral source for your business? Having your financial information organized will tell you exactly whether you can make that investment. And making that investment will lead to new clients.

Now that you’ve placed that advertisement or attended that networking event, you need to follow up with all the people you’ve just met. A contact management system will let you do just that! And this is the real secret to getting new clients – the follow-up; the making connections; the staying-in-touch. All this comes from having your contact management system organized, and this is where you can bring in new clients consistently.

Finally, you need to create an online marketing system that draws new clients to you daily; people who sign up to your list; who want to stay in touch with you; are interested in your programs, products, and services. Your marketing system should be fully automated so that it can continue to work for you even while you’re not present in your business.

So now can you see why you need to get organized to get clients?

It’s the lack of organization that stops your business from growing; that stops you from getting new clients on a regular basis; and that takes away the security and fulfillment you get from running your own business. By being organized you will get clients consistently and your business will grow.

Online Business Development Strategist, Tracey Lawton, teaches online solo service professionals how to create the essential online marketing and office organization systems needed so that they can create a more streamlined, systemized, and automated online business. Check out http://www.officeorganizationsuccess.com for free how-to articles, resources, tips, and tools, and sign up for your free “Office Organization Success Toolkit”.

Coaching Call To Action

Share your tip on getting organized in your business. What recommendation would you give to a new business owner?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Happy New Year!

Are you ready to make 2011 your best year ever? Art Sobczak’s questions prompt you to look at your business and life and COMMIT to actions that will make a difference for you.

Quote of the Week

How to Make 2011 Your Best Year Ever

By Art Sobczak

Today’s Tip has been a New Year’s tradition for about five years now. It’s usually one of my most popular issues of the year, and most-visited in the archives.

If you’ve seen this before, don’t quit reading. People who are serious about self-improvement know that it is a result of consistent action, not one-time exposure to something. I didn’t approach the door of the health club at 5:30 a.m. this morning and say, “Oh, I’ve been here before,” and then turn away.

If you’re serious about having your best year ever in 2011, TODAY is the best time to start. I do suggest you take some time to sit down with these questions. Think about your answers. Challenge yourself. Write them down. Then go to work!

It’s quite simple: if you want to be better in 2011, YOU need to do more than simply WANT it. You need to make some changes. Start now.

What are you going to do to improve your industry and product knowledge in 2011?

How many inactive customers will you revive and turn into regular customers again? What do you need to do to make that happen?

What will you do to ensure you’re protecting your best customers, and adding more value to the relationships? How will you sell even more to them?

How many new customers will you bring on this year? How do you plan to do that, specifically?

What will you do to improve your physical health in 2011?

What, specifically, are your sales and production goals for 2011? How does that break down into quarterly and monthly goals?

How much more money will you make in 2011? How will that happen? What will you need to do, today, to take the first steps in that direction?

What will you need to do to increase THAT number by an additional 10%?

What are you going to do every day to keep your attitude at a high level?

How much time are you going to spend, daily, to improve your own sales skills? What will you do?

How many referrals will you get in 2011? How will you get them? From whom? What will you do to turn them into sales?

Speaking of referrals, will you please forward this issue to two others who would also benefit from these weekly Tips? (OK, that’s one of mine.)

How are you going to maximize the use of your time? Where will you cut out the time-wasters in each day?

What have you been putting off that you will take care of within the next two weeks?

Who can you help to feel special every day?

What challenge, wish or desire–that you’ve never attempted before–will you finally achieve in 2011? How will you do that? Why?

Where are you going to write all of this down so you can review and revise your plans regularly?

What will it LOOK like when you accomplish everything you’ve just been thinking about?

How good will it FEEL?

What will it SOUND like when you achieve these things?

Why COULDN’T you do all of this?

Any answer to that last one is not a reason, but rather a self-imposed limitation, excuse, or lack of desire or effort. The biggest deterrent to success looks us in the mirror every day.

Now, go out and plan to have, no, COMMIT to YOUR BEST YEAR EVER IN 2011!

Art Sobczak, Business By Phone Inc., provides how-to ideas and tips for rejectionless prospecting, selling, and servicing by phone. Get the free ebook, “29 Sales Tips You Can Use Right Now” at http://www.BusinessByPhone.com.

Coaching Call To Action

You know Einstein’s definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. What changes will you commit to making in 2011 so that this year will be the best ever?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Now that this week’s elections are over here in Massachusetts, it’s interesting to think about what candidates did during their campaign to garner attention and votes. It was clear that they changed the voice inside their head from saying “no” to “what the heck”. In some cases this worked and in some cases it backfired. But, we all know that unless you try, (make the sales call, make the request, push yourself) you’ll never know if you could have succeeded. This week Michael Neill elaborates on this point using the Clinton campaign as an example. See the power of moving past your inner gatekeeper.

Quote of the Week

“To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”
~ Elbert Hubbard

A Simple Shift To Create Possibility

by Michael Neill

I was once speaking with the personal assistant of one of my most influential clients. A large part of her job is to be the “gatekeeper” – the ultimate guardian of her boss’ time and schedule.

But when I asked her how often she actually had to “keep the gate”, she said that it was surprising to her how seldom people really tried to get past her and speak directly with her boss. At first, I thought that was odd, because I know a lot of people want things from this client.

And then I realized that wasn’t so odd at all. Because normally the gatekeeper inside us stops us way before we get to the gatekeeper outside us.

How many times do you stop yourself from asking?

How often do you talk yourself out of even looking into something or checking out a possibility because of that voice inside your head saying things like “Gee, they must get bombarded with things like this all the time”, or “that’s never going to work” or “there’s no point in even trying – they’re just going to say no”? We all have that voice – and yet some people aren’t stopped by it. What is it that allows them to move forward while the rest of us hold back?

Years ago, James Carville and Paul Begala were managing the presidential campaign of a then relatively unknown Governor from Arkansas named William Jefferson Clinton. They recognized that the only chance they had to make headway coming from the back of a very competitive field was if they changed the normal way of doing things.

In traditional political campaigns, the default response to any newly proposed initiative is “no”.

In a bizarre twist on “first, do no harm”, the only ideas that get through the screening process are the very small percentage that are either completely generic or on rare occasions, undeniably brilliant. While this does indeed result in a kind of damage limitation, it also results in ideas that don’t make that much difference to a campaign or in the world.

Since Clinton was never going to win with a traditional campaign, his team decided to do something kind of unique up until that point in politics. They decided to change the default response to “yes”. Instead of new ideas having to make it through layers of hierarchical bureaucracy before being approved, the new policy was essentially that any idea that had not been completely shot down by 9am was OK to run with.

This wasn’t an “anything goes” policy, and a number of eccentric, dodgy, and downright idiotic ideas didn’t make it through. But whereas most campaigns might try 2 or 3 different things in a month, the Clinton campaign was trying that many new things each day. And in the space of less than a year, he went from being a complete outsider that nobody believed had a chance to becoming the President of the United States of America.

While you may not want to become the next President, you can still benefit from making this simple shift in your own life. So as an experiment this week, flip your inner default switch from “no” to “yes” – from “what’s the point?” to “what the heck?”

Even if that voice inside your head turns out to be mostly right and things don’t work out and people do say “no” to your requests, you only have to be wrong two or three times to make tremendous progress on your seemingly impossible dreams. And if you don’t start moving past your inner gatekeeper, you’re probably not going to get very far in the outside world.

Have fun, learn heaps, and “just say ‘yes’!”

Copyright 2010 Michael Neill, bestselling author of You Can Have What You Want, and Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life. All rights reserved – Read more tips at http://www.geniuscatalyst.com

Coaching Call To Action

For the first half of the week notice: How many times do you stop yourself from asking?

For the second half of the week: Make the requests.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Amazing!  Just when you think your new offering is foolproof, you find out it isn’t.  Earlier this year I offered 90 minutes of coaching in celebration of International Coaching Week to all of you.  The call in number I gave you had one wrong digit.  ARGH!  Had I followed Jeffrey’s advice and tested my offer, I would have discovered the error.  How might you be turning off your customers?

Quote of the Week

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
~ Bill Gates

Your Best, and Most Costly Lessons are Right in Front of  You

How good are you, really?
Be your own customer, and find out, really.

Yesterday I got the shock of my life: I tried to buy something on my own website and couldn’t.

Funny, I buy all kinds of things on other people’s websites. I’m a one-click buyer on Amazon. I’m a Paypal customer. And I have my credit card registered and saved on every site that will allow it. In short, I trust the Internet.

In short, short – if I decide that I want to buy something online, I want to buy it fast. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not crazy about filling out an online order form (where all the boxes say it’s “mandatory” to enter my information.)

Many of you subscribe to my weekly email magazine and have taken advantage of the “deal of the week,” a special offer on a bundle of my books and CDs. Last week we decided to present something for the first time – a $20.00 discount off any of my upcoming public seminar tickets. Fair enough…

So I went to my own site to test the offer. I put in a request to buy five tickets. The website (my website) promised a fast and easy purchase. And that promise was ANYTHING BUT the truth. It was a pain in the butt. I clicked off of my own site in frustration and disgust.

I immediately pulled the offer and we went through an e-commerce exercise that brought me back to reality. We revamped the purchasing process to where it IS fast and easy. And easy to understand. It’s now fixed for the short term, and we have a long-term plan in place (actually in motion) to make it even faster and easier.

MAJOR CLUE: Had I not tried to buy something from my own website, I would have never known. I would have danced along actually believing my own words, never realizing that customers were frustrated – and worse – not purchasing. Clicking off – abandoning the next step in the buying process because it was slow, cumbersome, and uninformative.

How’s yours? Think your e-commerce is great? Ever try to buy something from yourself, or are you just taking “IT’s” word for it. Or worse, believing your own instructions?

CHALLENGE: Be your own customer at least once a month.

In these “trying” times, many customers (yours and mine) are struggling to maintain volume, profit, and productivity. Somehow the stimulus package and bailout have not yet reached them – me either. You?

REALITY: Each of us is responsible to stimulate and bail out ourselves, in spite of what you may be hearing.

If and when your customer calls or goes online, they expect instant answers, instant service, and instant delivery of whatever they need – or they will seek a competitor.

And they expect multiple options to connect with you, any time of the day or night, to get the help they need, or purchase the product they need.

REALITY: Their need is your opportunity. Your challenge is to turn them into a happy, LOYAL customer who is willing to repeat purchase, tell others, and refer others to you.

Not “satisfy” them.

Here’s what to do to self-insure your own success: 1. Call your business five minutes before you open, and try to place an order, or get service. 2. Call your business five minutes after you close, and try to place an order, or get service. (That should be enough to make you angry – but wait there’s more!) 3. Go online and try to buy something. How long does it take (how many clicks?) compared to Amazon’s one? 4. Call your business during the day and complain to someone. Then ask for the person’s boss – or even your CEO. Make certain you have plenty of Pepto-Bismol on hand – because I promise your stomach will be turning upside-down. 5. Now call yourself and listen to your pathetic voicemail that tells me everything I DO NOT want to hear, and DOES NOT tell me the one thing I want to hear – where the heck are you?

REALITY: Whatever your experience is when you call yourself or buy from yourself online, that’s the same thing your customers, your life-blood, and your money-line is experiencing. OUCH!

Fix it fast. Your customers need you.

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Little Red Book of Selling. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com.

© 2010 All Rights Reserved – May be reproduced with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer · 704/333-1112.

Coaching Call to Action

Be your own customer at least once a month.  Give your business a test drive, kick the tires, call yourself.  See what you find out about what’s working (and celebrate this) and what’s not (and fix this)!

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Earlier this week, I was assessing which of my “prospects”  were really potential clients and which were very unlikely to do business with me.  The former were the ones I wanted to focus on and the latter were the ones I wanted to let go.  Doing this review gave me more energy and time for clients and people who were ready and wanting to work with me.  Art Sobczak provides a straightforward process for cleaning up your follow-up file.  As we all know there are only so many hours in the day and better to focus your time on the activities that have the most potential for your business.

Quote of the Week

“There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
~ John F. Kennedy

Ask the Cleansing Question to Clean Up Your Follow-Up File

by Art Sobczak

A question I received through email asked, “I’ve got a lot of prospects pending, but not a lot closing. What should I do?”

Like many questions I get, that’s extremely vague and requires a lot more information before I could give a specific detailed answer. But it did get me thinking about a possible reason, and remedy.

I call it the Cleansing Question. Let me set it up first.

What percent of the people in your follow-up file at this very second do you feel will ever do business with you?

Sixty percent?

More? Less?!

You’re fairly typical if you answered 50% or less. It’s not a good percentage, but typical.

Why? Oh, there are several reasons. Reps like to hang on to prospects, thinking that shred of interest might eventually turn into something. They’re right: Disappointment, and a waste of time, usually.

Others stake their claim to prospects, tattooing their name on the prospect’s record in the “system,” just in case divine intervention comes into play and the person decides to call up and order on their own. These reps then usually pounce upon the order and say, “It’s mine. See, has my name on it.”

Ask the Cleansing Question
But, the main reason reps have too many “leads working” is that they don’t ask the tough questions early enough. You need to find out if the person you’re talking to is really a “player.” It’s always better to get a “no” early, than to waste time, effort, paper, and postage chasing shadows that never will materialize.

Here is what you need to do starting today.

Begin cleaning up your “non-prospect” prospects now. Ask this Cleansing Question, “Mr./Ms. Prospect, we’ve been talking for awhile now, and have agreed that we’d be able to help you (fill in with how they would benefit.) I want to be sure I’m not bothering you, or wasting your time or mine. Tell me, what is the probability we’ll be able to work together in the next month?”

Think of the possible results here.

1. They say, “Zero probability.” Great, now at least you can find out the real problem, or move them out. Movement, forward or out, is progress.
2. They give some other probability. Good, but not great. You want to ask what you both need to do to move forward now. Get specifics. Commitments. Ask them to attach time frames to the commitments. Don’t allow them to continue putting you off. Again, movement here is success.
3. You just might get the business right now. Perfect. Sometimes all it takes is the nudge to get the boulder rolling down the mountain.

Do some first quarter cleaning. Examine your follow-up files. Prepare you own strategy and ask the Cleansing Question.

Go and Have Your Best Week Ever!

Art Sobczak, Business By Phone Inc., provides how-to ideas and tips for rejectionless prospecting, selling, and servicing by phone. Get the free ebook, “29 Sales Tips You Can Use Right Now” at http://www.BusinessByPhone.com.

Coaching Call to Action

While Art’s process may be too pointed for you, I recommend you create a plan/system to look at your pipeline regularly and realistically and cull out those who aren’t real prospects.  Then, focus on those who are and get clear on what you need to do, provide, ask, or tell them so that they become clients.

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