My Daily Blog by Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S.
This blog is dedicated to topics around performance improvement or what some call self improvement or continuous business improvement whether for profit, not for profit, education and government. I hope it will become a resource for those seeking: customer loyalty strategies, small business help, self leadership skills, goal setting process tips, selling skills including solo professionals, professional sales people, realtors or real estate agents and new car salesmen, strategic planning solutions, effective time management tips, and business coaching & training. If your predetermined goal is to increase sales, improve productivity, increase your professional development, improve your sales skills or help executing your personal growth action plan to business growth action plan, then you may find this blog spot of interest.
Bottom line, I, as your Chief People Officer & Executive Business Coach, want to help you achieve the sustainable transformational change that you are seeking as you continue to master success. Leanne Hoagland-Smith
P.S. My weekly column at the Post Tribune focusing on a variety of continuous business improvement topics is now online.
July 7, 2008 by Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Independent or Dependent?
The U.S. just celebrated its 232nd Independence Day. Yet for many small business owners to independent contractors, they are still dependent upon new sales to grow their businesses. However what would happen if these enterprising individuals started seeking their own independence from new customers and return to existing customers?
Research suggests that 80% of new business comes from referrals. Logic would then dictate that 80% of all marketing dollars should be directed to existing customers. Yet, this is not true. Most marketing dollars are directed to winning new customers not rewarding and informing existing ones.
When you are dependent on new customers, you are wasting one of your most valuable resources - your time. Just think what would happen if you reinvested that time into reconnecting with existing customers?
Also, when you are busy finding new customers, you are hoping to increase sales. Hope is an emotion and can be easily affected by external circumstances.
All businesses need new customers to replace those lost through the natural process of attrition given that most businesses lose 10% to 15% of their client base each and every year. Yet, this still leaves 90% to 85% of their customers that can be actively developed to go beyond from being just customers to being loyal customers. Customer loyalty is developed. This development frees the small business owner to independent contractors from being dependent on new customers.
July 1, 2008 by Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Plan or Pray, What's Your Sales Behavior?
If you are in sales, then do you plan your encounters or pray for them to happen? Once you make that connection, again do you plan how the meeting will go or do you pray that it will go well? Finally, when you are physically in the meeting, are your words planned or do you pray that the conversation will flow well?
Many in sales fail to plan their behaviors. From frequency of contacts to the actual spoken words, the behaviors more than often not just happen. This is called spraying and praying. Spraying your actions all over the place and praying something sticks.
When sales professionals adopted a behavior of planning, their actions are far more deliberate and more importantly generate far more results. Planned behaviors include:
- Direct mail campaign
- Telephone script
- Meeting scrips for fact finding
- Specific research about the prospect's business or industry
- Specific answers to stalls and objections statements or questions
- Use of a proven sales process
These are just a few of the planned behaviors by sales professionals who do not believe in the Pray and Spray approach to increasing sales. Now is the time to change your results by changing your beliefs that drive your actions creating your results.
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