Organizations operate within the context of their environment; the military being no different than civilian businesses. During their plebe (freshman) year at the United States Naval Academy, midshipmen are required to read two news and one sports page article each day in order to remain up-to-date on those current events impacting our nation and its military. Plebes are tested on their news selections and overall knowledge by upper classmen to ensure they are both conversant and understand the importance of the newsworthy events. Thus, plebes have impressed upon them the value of remaining aware of current events.
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Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Class of 1992 graduate from the United States Naval Academy. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
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“Sounds good, send me a proposal.” How many times have you heard that? Too many. So you run back to your office, put together a proposal, send it to the prospect, and start the follow-up process (and the prayer vigil).
Or do you?
REALITY: The sale should be solidified BEFORE the proposal is written. Your proposal should be the essence of what has been decided by you and your prospect. It should solidify the sale.
How many proposals do you win – how many did you lose? If you lose way more proposals than you win, it’s much more than just the proposal. It’s the proposal process.
Count the wins. Count the losses. That’s the scorecard baby. Your scorecard. Ouch.
AND when you win proposals, how profitable are they? Are you telling your boss, “Hey let’s go in real low on this one so we can get the business, and then six months from now, boy we can really lose some money.” Ouch.
REALITY: Once you lower the price, customers expect a low price all the time.
Proposals are there because buyers think they’ll get the lowest price or the best deal by pitting one company against the other. Your job is to make yourself a winner BEFORE the proposal happens by creating conditions or terms that preclude others from either bidding or winning.
The first thing you need to do is determine if it’s a price proposal or a value proposal. If they’re going to take the lowest price only, you’re going to lose, even if you win. Because the lowest price is the lowest profit. It may even be no profit.
So the challenge is, can you create a profitability formula or a productivity formula, measured against what you do, that sets a standard for the proposal. A formula that your competition must meet or exceed regardless of initial price.
You need to convince your buyer that there’s a long term cost, not simply a short term price.
Are they are buying your price only — taking the lowest bid? If so, they only need a one sentence proposal, and you don’t need me.
Try this: – Don’t do it… at first. When someone asks me for a proposal the first thing I say to them is no. That always shocks people. And besides, proposals are a pain in the butt.
I ask the person if they were taking notes. They say, “Yes.” I say, “Well, let me just sign the notes.” I continue by saying all we really need to do is pick a date to begin. And 30% of the time the prospect will say, “You’re right.”
The other 70% of the time the prospect will insist on a proposal. But I’ve just won 30% of the business without submitting a paper. And there’s a reason for this. I have sales balls and you may not.
The reason proposals are there is to lower risk to the buyer, and potentially to lower the cost. But in the final analysis many proposals can be eliminated if your prospect feels that your price is fair, and that their risk is low.
If the risk is low and the reward is high then the answer is always obvious.
Before the decision is made, it’s important to your customer that they know what your product or service will be like AFTER it’s been delivered. This will take away all risks and all fear. And it may also take away the price-only-decision process.
The key words are: value messages on video testimonials.
Customers only buy for an hour or two, but they may use for years. So you say to your customer, “Mr. Jones, I’d like to add a clause to the proposal that insists on proof of salespeople’s claims. And so I am asking you to require five testimonials in video form so that you’ll know any claim a salesperson makes has been validated by a customer, and it’s not just a sales pitch or a proposal.”
The video testimonial is a powerful piece of support. And depending upon the quality can be the difference between sale and no sale.
2.5 thoughts on testimonials:
1. Testimonials reduce the risk of purchase.
2. Testimonials are the only proof you’ve got.
2.5 Testimonials MUST be included in every proposal.
Winning proposals are solidified by dynamic sales presentations. Proposals should be the solidifying factor, not the sales pitch. The proposal should document what has been said and agreed. The proposal should confirm the sale and all the claims you made about it. Does yours?
Your proposal process is not a regurgitation of your price list. It is not a document to see how much of your profit you can give away. It is not something you prepare to beat the competition.
Your proposal is the gateway earned business. It solidifies a value-driven sales presentation that begins or extends a relationship where everyone profits. The minute you low ball a price, you’ve gone from a relationship sale to transactional sale and the next person who low balls your price will beat you. And beat themselves.
Don’t just win the proposal.
Win the value. Win the profit. And win the relationship.
Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.
About the Author
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].
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As a business owner, it is essential that you stay on top of the finances in your company. After all, no business can get very far without a decent focus on the money itself. If you want your business to enjoy much success long into the future, then you need to make sure that you are taking a good look at the finances. The truth is, there are a few very common reasons that businesses experience financial problems. In this post, we will take a look at some of them. Looking at these should help any business owner put their own business into a healthier position. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the most common causes of financial problems in the business world.
It is often the way that young businesses find themselves buying plenty of equipment to get the ball rolling. This might seem necessary, but the truth is it often isn’t. One of the most common causes of businesses experiencing financial trouble early on is an overstock of equipment. It can easily happen, and it can cause more of a hole in your budget than you might at first assume. If you think your business might be suffering in this way, be sure to cut down. Sell some of that stock which you don’t need, and invest the earnings back into the company.
Paying Too Much Tax
There are few things as important as staying on top of the legal side of things. It goes without saying that tax is a very important part of this. However, it is often the case that businesses end up paying too much tax. While you certainly do not want to get into the trouble of not paying any tax, you should make sure that you don’t pay too much either. Doing so could land your business in some serious financial trouble before you even know what’s happened. Use the help of a professional like tax attorney Joe Callahan at MCC4Tax. That way, you are sure to only pay what you need to.
It is a very good idea to do everything you can to keep your business competitive in the marketplace. That much goes without saying. However, that doesn’t mean that you should place your business in any kind of financial jeopardy. In fact, this is often easily done without noticing. When you are introducing a new sale or promotion, ensure that you don’t take it too far. There have been cases of businesses essentially bankrupting themselves by being a little too generous. Remember: you want to please the customer, but you also want to keep on trading!
Trying To Please Everyone
The fact is,your business will be much more successful if it focuses on a niche. While it might be tempting to try and have something for everyone, it is often not viable. Chances are, you will just end up spreading yourself too thin. Avoid this at all costs by focusing on a central demographic first and foremost. If you have the resources, you can then expand as and when you need to.
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Every company has stakeholders, though a few with their own proprietary interests chart the course in their own vision, or lack thereof.
Within every corporate and organizational structure, there is a stair-step ladder. One enters the ladder at some level and is considered valuable for the category of services for which they have expertise. This ladder holds true for managers and employees within the organization, as well as outside consultants brought in.
Each rung on the ladder is important. At whatever level one enters the ladder, he-she is trained, measured for performance and fits into the organization’s overall Big Picture. One rarely advances more than one rung on the ladder during the course of service to the organization in question:
Culture and Mission. Values, customs, beliefs, goals, objectives, benchmarking.
Philosophy. Organizational purpose, vision, quality of life, ethics, long-term growth.
Value-added leadership is a healthy way of life that puts collaborations first. When all succeed, then profitability is much higher and more sustained than under the Hard Nose management style. Value-added leadership requires a senior team commitment. Managers and employees begin seeing themselves as leaders and grow steadily into those roles.
The ideal company could hopefully make the following answers to questions posed above, per categories on The Business Tree™, including:
The business you’re in. You’re in the best business-industry, produce a good product-service and always lead the pack. Customers get what they cannot really get elsewhere.
Running the business. The size of your company is necessary to do the job demanded. Operations are sound, professional and productive. Demonstrated integrity and dependability assure customers and stakeholders that you will use your size and influence rightly. You employ state-of-the-art technology and are in the vanguard of your industry.
Financial. Keeping the cash register ringing is not the only reason for being in business. You always give customers their money’s worth. Your charges are fair and reasonable. Business is run economically and efficiently, with excellent accounting procedures, payables-receivables practices and cash management.
People. Your company is people-friendly. Executives possess good people skills. Staff is empowered, likeable and competent. Employees demonstrate initiative and use their best judgment, with authority to make the decisions they should make. You provide a good place to work. You offer a promising career and future for people with ideas and talent. Your people do a good day’s work for a day’s pay.
Business Development. Always research and serve the marketplace. Customer service is efficient and excellent, by your standards and by the publics. You are sensitive to customers’ needs and are flexible and human in meeting them.
Body of Knowledge. There is a sound understanding of the relationship of each business function to the other. You maintain a well-earned reputation and are awake to company obligations. You contribute much to the economy. You provide leadership for progress, rather than following along. You develop-champion the tools to change.
The Big Picture. Approach business as a Body of Work, a lifetime track record of accomplishments. You have and regularly update-benchmark a strategy for the future, shared company Vision, ethics, Big Picture thinking and “walk the talk.”
Value-added leadership embraces these characteristics:
Prepare for and benefit from unexpected turns, rather than becoming victim of them.
Realize that there are no quick fixes for real problems.
Find a truthful blend of perception and reality…with sturdy emphasis upon substance.
Continue growing as professionals, questing for more enlightenment.
Have succeeded and failed…and learned valuable lessons from both.
Learn and do the things it will take to assume management responsibility.
Be mentored by others. Act as a mentor to still others.
Don’t expect status overnight.
Measure their output and expect to be measured as a profit center to the company.
Learn to pace and be in the chosen career for the long-run.
Don’t expect that someone else will be the rescuer or cut corners in the path to success.
Learn from failures, reframing them as opportunities.
Learn to expect, predict, understand and relish success.
Study and utilize marketing and business development techniques.
Contribute to the bottom line… directly and indirectly.
Offer value-added service.
Never stop paying dues… and see this continuum as “continuous quality improvement.”
Study and comprehend the subtleties of life.
Never stop learning, growing and doing. In short, never stop!
Key Messages to Recall and Apply Toward Your Business:
Understand the Big Picture.
Benefit from Change.
Avoid False Idols and Facades.
Remediate the High Costs of Band-Aid Surgery.
Learning Organizations Are More Successful.
Plan and Benchmark.
Craft and Sustain the Vision.
About the Author
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.
Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.
In the film industry, movies are products. For business owners, it is interesting and useful to consider what makes a new movie successful. How do studios today reach that incredible goal of one billion in total box office receipts? It’s quite simple; they build a buzz around the product. This is what you need to do with your product. The best recent example is Suicide Squad. Suicide Squad is Warner Bros product, and it’s just been slammed by critics. Should they care, should they be worried it’s not going to sell? Actually no, because they’ve already done their job. The marketing has built a buzz. There have been viral strategies in place for over a year. They’ve had millions of views on YouTube, and it came out as the top brand in a recent marketing event. All this points to one fact. Warner Bros have got themselves a hit, whether critics like it or not. This is a valuable lesson all business owners should learn. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling a product of high quality, if you can establish a high demand, it will sell. How do you do this?
If you want to build a buzz around your new product or business, you should start by looking at social media. You need to use your social media networks in two ways. You should be connecting with your customers on a regular basis, and you should be releasing content that they want to share and view. You can use each social media network in various ways. For instance, on Facebook, you can create discussion or group pages. Groups can be powerful marketing tools, particularly if you fill the group with influential members. People who your customers will trust and will want to hear from. An extra tip is to not add these people to the group yourself. Rather, you need them to join independently. This is the best way to ensure that they are an active member of the group. They will generate the buzz around your business for you.
On Twitter, it is crucial that you use hashtags, although not in every tweet. This can get annoying. At the same time, though, it’s useful to know that hashtags make it more likely for content to be shared. If your content is shared, more people will be talking about your business or your product. It is an easy way to generate more interest in your company.
Live feeds are becoming more important as well. Live feeds are often used as a backdoor into the company. You can show your customers what is happening behind the scenes and make the business more accessible. If you can do this, it could be very valuable. Customers always want to see the people behind the corporation. If you have interesting individuals working for you, it’s a great way to build a buzz.
The key to great content that generates talk and publicity is to make sure that it’s targeted. You need to write and create content specifically for your target consumer. Think about the people who don’t need to be primed to buy your product. This is who the content needs to be aimed towards. You might be offering SEO services. If that’s the case, then your business is going to appeal to local and international entrepreneurs or business owners. You might also catch the interest of bloggers and website owners. Since these are your target customers, you need to think about what is appealing to them. The best way to do this is to create a context around your marketing. Business owners are probably unaware of the difficulties of SEO. By pointing things out such as Google penalties, you can persuade them to use a professional service. This is just one example of how content can get your business the buzz it needs. You will be offering your consumers the solutions to their problems.
You should be aiming for your business venue to be more than just space. It needs to shine on the high street, particularly if you are part of a retail company. It is all about offering customers more and taking your service that extra mile. If you own a physical space as a business, creating an online buzz won’t do the trick. You have to get the customers through the door to buy and to do that you may want to look at these great tips from The POET Companies. Agencies like this know what customers want and what they’re looking for. Once you have redesigned the space, then you can start generating a buzz around it online before it reopens.
We have already mentioned how the film industry uses marketing events to create a buzz. Every industry has the potential to do this, and it is a possibility that you should be looking into. A marketing event is the chance to make your company shine over other businesses. You can attract attention from investors and consumers at the same time. Obviously one of the key marketing events that you need to know about is a trade show. You can use a trade show to generate a buzz by showing off a new product or a new business model. Remember, though; trade shows are highly competitive environments. You will need to deliver something truly special to win the attention of customers and investors. One possibility is to utilize available technology. With the right tech, you can make your business seem modern and exciting. Even using older ideas could generate this effect such as 3D. 3D is fairly cheap tech these days, and it could bring your marketing into an entirely new dimension.
These are just some of the techniques you can use to create a buzz around a company or a product. As you can see, it is all about perception. If you alter the perception of your product, customers will buy anything. We have seen this time and time again in different industries. With the right marketing and promotion, you’ll always get the sale.
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Organizations operate within the context of their environment; the military being no different than civilian businesses. During their plebe (freshman) year at the United States Naval Academy, midshipmen are required to read two news and one sports page article each day in order to remain up-to-date on those current events impacting our nation and its military. Plebes are tested on their news selections and overall knowledge by upper classmen to ensure they are both conversant and understand the importance of the newsworthy events. Thus, plebes have impressed upon them the value of remaining aware of current events.
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Class of 1992 graduate from the United States Naval Academy. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, 
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.
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