Business

Have you noticed how fast the summer seems to be going? Hard to believe but, I have starting booking my first fall networking events. WOW. Things seem to move forward faster everyday.

If you are a sales professional, business manager or entrepreneur who attends trade show or a monthly association meeting events as a business development investment you are investing of your resources of both time and money.

You invest your time;

• researching various trade shows and evaluating whether the event will attract the right target market for your business
• your time attending

You invest your money;

• trade show registration/booth fees & staff time
• travelling costs

Attending events helps to raise the visibility of your business in the marketplace and generates prospect leads for your business. These leads come in 2 forms,

1. attendees you met and with whom you started a conversation and
2. the attendance list which includes attendees you did not met and with whom you could start a conversation.

Back at the office, the questions are;

• how do you maximize your attendance investment by following up with the highest number of prospects and driving that traffic into your follow up sales funnel?
• what are the next steps to follow up and
  • continue the conversation with attendees you met?
  • start the conversation with the list of attendees you did not met?

In the past, for trade show follow up marketing, we would mail out sales literature and then try to get prospect on the phone, but follow up methods are changing.

Today, I help my clients utilize the technology they currently have, to build their next follow up steps.

• First, database set up to centralize all of the prospect leads, a CRM Customer Relationship Manager such as ACT, Maximizer or Goldmine.
• Second, set up an email blaster such as Swiftpage with ACT to send out emails.
  (Swiftpage can also work without ACT)

The great thing about this newer methods is that we can collect statistics, for example, about delivery. Depending on your follow up next steps, you may also be able to track the additional traffic your follow up drives to your website.

If you are interested in learning more about how to follow up and maximize your trade show or networking event attendance, I offer several options.

2 hour sessions Follow up – Discover Your Next Step and a session about taking action and implementing the follow up steps in your business Follow Up – Take Action. This session is about database set up, database maintenance and outbound cold calling.

Follow Up Training - Set The Stage For Follow Up and Automate Your Follow Up Process. Attend yourself and bring this business training for your office. You will learn how to build a Follow Up System that maximizes your business development investment and help get you past that 1st contact to the 2nd and beyond to the 5th contact where 80% of sales are made. You will save time, stayed organized and drive more traffic to your business!

Questions? No problem. Contact Cheryl Scoffield, Follow Up Specialist.

I came across a rather interesting article in the June 30, 2010 edition of Marketing magazine that I wanted to share with you. The article talks about one of the more challenging tasks many established businesses face – whether or not to rebrand themselves, and if so, for what purpose (i.e. to go after existing clients in a different way or to target an entirely different client segment).

 Oftentimes businesses rebrand for the latter reason in order to go out after a more lucrative or attractive target market. In the case of East Side Mario’s (ESM), this was indeed the case. Having developed a strong brand as a “family friendly” restaurant with a gregarious New York City theme, it symbolized an affordable, convenient and comfortable place for families to eat out.

 However, ESM was eager to move its business model up-market by appealing to a more upscale client. As a result, it removed its Statue of Liberty logo and replaced it with a more traditional Italian symbol – the tomato. It also got rid of its infamous marketing jingle, “Badda Boom Badda Bing” due to its association with NYC.

 What happened next is an age-old problem that occurs when rebranding involves an attempt to enter a new market. By changing its target market through changes to its marketing messages, restaurant appearance and menu, ESM alienated its existing clientele while failing to make significant inroads with the upscale segment it was attempting to go after.

 So what can be learnt from this experience? First of all, rebranding should never be entered into by any business without considerable deliberation and analysis. And while going after a new and perhaps more lucrative client segment is always tempting, it may not necessarily be the best option, particularly when the new market you’re entering is as competitive as the restaurant industry.

 Indeed the competitive landscape should always be a primary consideration in any rebranding exercise. Always ask yourself this question – does the image I’m trying to portray or the market I’m trying to appeal to create any competitive challenges for my business (i.e. are there existing businesses with similar ‘brands’ going after similar or identical customers, and if so how successful are they?).

 The key to rebranding – and the key to developing a sound marketing strategy– is finding a niche in the market you can profitably compete in and exploit, one where your products and services effectively align with the needs and expectations of that particular target market. When you find that niche and are successful in exploiting it, you’ve latched onto the proverbial golden egg. And that’s why going after a new segment may not be the most sound business decision, and in fact can be highly risky. At the least, make sure your rebranding strategy is based on sound business fundamentals, and that these support the objectives of the firm.

Cheryl Scoffield, Follow Up Specialist at Executive Sales Support

Are you attending trade shows, monthly association meetings & networking events to get new prospects? Business Development  costs money.
Do you have a plan in place and implemented, for staying in touch with the new prospects you meet?

If you are interested in learning more about how to follow up and maximize your investment, I offer several options.

2 hour sessions Follow up – Discover Your Next Step  and a session about taking action and implementing the follow up steps in your business Follow Up – Take Action. This session is about database set up, database maintenance and outbound cold calling.

Follow Up Training - Set The Stage For Follow Up and Automate Your Follow Up Process. Attend yourself and bring this business training for your office. You will learn how to build a Follow Up System that maximizes your business development investment and help get you past that 1st contact to the 2nd and beyond to the 5th contact where 80% of sales are made. You will save time, stayed organized and drive more traffic to your business!

Questions? No problem. Contact  Cheryl Scoffield, Follow Up Specialist.

80% of sales are won on the fifth to twelfth contact – yet 48% of all business managers never follow up beyond the first contact.

You attended the networking meeting- Now What? Do you have a plan in place and implemented, for staying in touch with the new prospects you met at the networking event?    You will, after you attend Set The Stage For Follow Up Training Session.

This sales follow up training is best for: Business Managers, Small or Medium Sized Business Owners, Sales Professionals and Entrepreneurs.

The next “SET THE STAGE FOR FOLLOW UP”  Training Sessions  will be Monday night June 21st, and Monday night August 16th.
The training is 2.5 hours from 6 pm – 9 pm and takes place in Oakville, Ontario.

Register for “SET THE STAGE FOR FOLLOW UP”  Training or contact Cheryl at ExecutiveSalesSupport.com to arrange for this training to come to your office.

Learn the 10 Step Follow Up System through 2.5 hours of hands on, skills based training.  $89.00 in Oakville, Ontario.

At the “SET THE STAGE FOR FOLLOW UP”  Training you will discover the 10 step framework and the first 6 steps will be covered in depth. These first 6 follow up steps are critical because they establish your social connection to the people you meet. 

You will learn how to; 

1. Improve you ‘first contact’ conversation
2. Set the stage for future contacts
3. Increase the number of prospects you are in conversation with
4. Develop win win relationship building connections
5. Discover the ‘giving piece’ that pulls you forward from that first contact to the second and beyond

Register for “SET THE STAGE FOR FOLLOW UP”  Training  or contact Cheryl at ExecutiveSalesSupport.com to arrange for this training to come to your office.

Hear what attendees are saying about this skills based Follow Up Training; 

Cheryl is definitely the Follow Up Specialist! After taking her “Follow Up System” workshop and being introduced to the “10 Step Follow Up System,” I have a template to follow that will save time and increase my business.   Sue Lacher, Business Coach 

Cheryl is energentic and inspiring. In her “Set the Stage” training, Cheryl underscores the importance of following up with prospects and gives valuable input and ready-to-use strategies for overcoming that inherent reluctance to follow up past the first meeting. She also presents a very useful system for keeping track of your network.   Camilla Nielsen, Intellectual Property Consultant 

Paris Hilton may be everyone’s favorite airhead, but you don’t want to dress like her at the office. And face it men; hat muscle T-shirt doesn’t flatter your teddy-bear tummy; and women; skirts that are too short, too tight or too long just don’t do you justice.

But in the age of “Dress Down Friday” and Internet Frump, what’s appropriate to wear to work? At many companies, there are no carved-in-stone rules, so when in doubt, go traditional.

“The most basic mistake new employees make is underdressing,” says Randall Hansen, a professor of business at Stetson University in Deland, Fla. “If unsure, dress conservatively. The best way to avoid a problem is to understand the corporate culture.”

That’s a polite way of saying that a button-down company won’t appreciate your showing up for work in cutoffs and flip-flops, while a crunchy-granola outfit will think you’re nuts if you sit at your desk in a three-piece suit.

Making the right impression at work isn’t hard if you keep in mind three basic points when buying clothes for the office:

1. Presentation counts.
2. Casual shouldn’t mean slovenly.
3. Dress as you want to be seen: Serious, professional, upward-bound and ready to meet clients.

If your office has a written dress code, your problems are solved, and you can dress cookbook-style. If necessary, go shopping with the dress code in hand and pluck appropriate stuff from the rack. But many offices don’t have written standards, and it’s up to you to get it right. So, here’s a rule of thumb: Understated elegance beats flash and trash five days a week.

When starting a new job, remember that you’re being sized up all the time. Little things count. How you dress will tell the boss how you see yourself and how you approach the job. Some people, especially young workers, overlook this basic point, flub it and wonder why what seemed like a promising opportunity turned sour. (See ” Job Hunting Tips From Recruiters.”)

Rule of thumb: Always dress for the task at hand. If you’re a civil engineer headed for a construction site, jeans, a flannel shirt and work boots are fine, but that’s not how to dress when making a formal presentation to the grand pooh-bahs at the office. Believe it or not, otherwise intelligent people are remarkably dumb about this basic point.

Appearance can create credibility. You know this from your own experience watching TV food-fight shows focusing on politics and other chin-pulling topics. Think of the number of times experts from opposing sides of an issue have made good points during an exchange, but you remember what one said simply because that person was better dressed and came across better on screen.

In Reality You Have Two Business Cards:

When meeting others and well before you have an opportunity to offer that impressive pocket-sized work of graphic art we call a business card; they have already formed an opinion of you.  Yes, appearance and body language is assessed in our mind within seconds.  Your business card only acts to confirm or contradict this pre-established opinion.   If your image is inconsistent with who you say you are then dissonance is created in the minds of those you meet.  The result is that you have already lost credibility in their eyes diminishing the likehood of developing rapport and ultimately a worthwhile relationship.

Your Image Is A Powerful Marketing Tool:

To effectively build rapport one must communicate a clear and consistent message.  Confusion creates an obstacle to relationship building.  Be aware that your image is a powerful marketing tool. It directly helps or hinders success.  Make strategic decisions about how you dress to ensure that you communicate one consistent message. This enables others understand and trust that you are who you say you are; that you do have the potential to deliver on the business value proposition that you say you offer.  From there you can proceed to the next critical step; that of building rapport and trust.

Be Your Brand:

The most successful business people, in my experience, are literally an integral part of the brand they build.  Most importantly, they understand that their brand largely determines their personal “look”.  This may be easier said than done.  For us time-starved, harried executives, entrepreneurs and professionals, “looking the brand” may seem like another thing we have to do, among all the other things on our “to do” lists.  Yet representing your brand from the inside out can make all the difference.  It lends credibility and conveys passion and commitment around our venture.  At the end of the day, competence and credibility are key components of closing any sale or entering into any negotiation but it all starts with making a strong first impression.

You Are a Walking Business Card:

You represent a brand. Whether you’re detail oriented, creative, and artistic or a strong communicator, customers are only human and they will subconsciously judge your inside by what they see on the outside.  It’s worth it to spend a little extra time to look professional, clean, crisp and put-together.  Whether you choose cotton or cashmere, it’s all marketing material.  Getting valuable input from a Wardrobe Consultant, like that available at “Images That Suit” www.imagesthatsuit.com can make the process easy and fun.  Trained fashion specialists provide guidance on how to best build a winning wardrobe that is profession, age and style appropriate.  It will help ensure that each dollar spent on clothing is actually an investment in your success.

Your Next Biggest Client Might Be At Sobey’s:

Remember that it is important to “be your brand” both at work and play.  You never know when and where you might meet your next biggest client.  Not only should your business wardrobe reflect your brand but also your business casual and weekend wear.  Think of each dollar spent on clothing as a dollar spent on advertising.  As you keep clarifying and evolving your business brand, the nuances of how to best represent it on the outside will continue to become clearer and your image a powerful asset in building a successful business.

Give your image a performance review.  I invite you to a free wardrobe consultation.  To book a convenient time please contact me at 647-680-4536 or hjewer@cogeco.ca

I network a lot. I attend meetings both within groups and over coffee with individuals. I look for business development opportunities for my own business Executive Sales Support and also for opportunities to help my network through my expertise, or passing along opportunities I think might be a fit for others.

One of my network groups is HAPPEN in Mississauga, Halton and Peel Professional Executive Network. There are many wonderful professionals “in transition” in HAPPEN. They are a great group that offers help while they are looking themselves and also after they land. One member, in particular, who helped me through his public relations efforts, is Hugh Black from HMB Communications Group. Contact hughblack at cogeco.ca.

Within HAPPEN, conversations are around finding full time employment and within my business networking groups, the conversations are around finding new business development opportunities. Over the past months, I have noticed a difference emerging between the two groups. On one hand full time traditional employment seems to be going the way of the dinosaur and on the other hand, the members of the small business group are as busy or busier than before Christmas.

Yesterday, all the random pieces of networking came together. I had been networking with Hugh Black, putting forward my point of view that people were choosing self employment,  then the new Canadian statistics for unemployment in April 2009 showed that unemployment stayed the same and there was an increase in the self employed numbers.

As a result of Hugh Black’s efforts; I was interviewed as an example of someone who had successfully transferred their skills and started their own business,  Executive Sales Support. My business helps sales and business professionals get out of the office to see more clients and close deals. As a result of this interview, I was mentioned in an article on the front page of The Toronto Star’s Business section on Saturday May 9, 2009.

Yahoo, networking pays off for business development!

If you want to network with me I have a linked in profile. I look forward to helping you.

Here is the link to the article “Self-employment: The ‘do-it-yourself recovery’ Jobs increased last month, largely through people embracing self employment. The Toronto Star’s Business section on Saturday May 9, 2009.

Are you a sales professional or business owner, who wants to maximize your business development and triple the prospects in your sales funnel?

Every business I have ever worked with wanted to generate more prospect leads for their sales pipeline. My clients tell me this all the time. The disconnect occurs when I investigate the process used to process new prospect leads gathered at trade shows, networking events etc.

As a Sales Support Specialist, many times I find marketing is generating so many prospect leads that sales is cherry picking and choosing to follow up only the hot leads. Hot is defined by sales as leads they believe will close within the near future and contribute to this month’s target. Sales does this because they have monthly and quarterly targets to hit. Does this practice sound like what is going on at your business?

The question I asked is “What happened to the remaining cold and warm prospect leads?” Usually I find they are stacked on a desk or lost in a folder somewhere. No one is following up and talking to them. You have to wonder about lost potential.

When sales prioritizes the hot leads they are harvesting only the low hanging fruit to reach short term goals for this month’s or next quarter’s sales target. Continuing this practice plays only your A team and does not develop your farm team. How much money are you leaving on the table for the competition who offers a similar product or service and is communicating with every prospect?

To develop hot prospects for tomorrow when today’s hot prospects are gone, you need to implement a follow up strategy today. That way, you can leverage the numbers, triple the prospects in your funnel and maximize the potential business development brings to your doorstep. A follow up strategy puts in place a system to not only organize, build and manage a prospect database but also communicate and educate to build future sales. Implementing a long term follow up strategy gets those cold and warm prospects, currently lost to follow up, into the sales funnel and a chance to bake from cold through warm to hot. Hot and ready for you to close that deal tomorrow.

The result? Minimization of the feast and famine cycle you may have been experiencing in your business. By adding cold and warm prospects to your sales funnel you triple your prospects. Following up with EVERY prospect allows you to mine incremental growth and revenue that can be added on top of your current business.

Here are 5 simple things you can do today to start building your follow up strategy and a system to leverage your time and information.

• Put every business card you currently have into a database.
• Start marketing and educating about what you offer and how your solution can help solve problems.
• Insert hyperlinks directing prospects back to your website where they can find more information.
• Commit to communicating on a regular basis and ask for feedback.
• Utilize drip marketing to communicate over time.

Once you get going you can optimize your time and money by expanding your system and utilizing automation and email marketing to reach even more prospect leads.

Let’s review how your prospects are processed with a sales funnel optimization consultation. Discover the hidden road blocks that are preventing you from cashing in on the opportunities already on your doorstep.

Contact me at Cheryl [at] Executive Sales Support.com.

The New York Times newspaper is struggling to keep being relevant in the 21st century.

Please read this insightful blog post by Seth Godin, one of the most influential bloggers (among other things) of our time. His article contains some great ideas on how to take advantage of emerging markets and how you can even create your own markets.