St Helens Women in Business - Events

I'm booked on to this... I may even play a 9 hole afterwards.

St Helens Women in Business - Events

Virgin Money Giving | Fundraising | Approach Sales Services Ltd - Giving back!

Virgin Money Giving | Fundraising | Approach Sales Services Ltd - Giving back!

Your Business Ezine Liverpool June 2010

It's all a bit strange reading about yourself...

Your Business Ezine Liverpool June 2010

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/littlesister72

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/littlesister72

Overselling.......

 Sometimes the right word is no word. On occasion we need to remain silent and let the other person talk. We have heard in sales that the first one to talk after the close loses. After the persuasion process and the final decision is ready to be made, make your proposal and shut up. The silence is nerve-wracking, but it's a critical time to let the prospect make the decision without you rambling on and on about the product or service.
How often have you noticed a sales rep overselling a product? You were ready to make the purchase by handing over your credit card. The sales rep felt you needed to know everything about the product and he started to fill you in. This caused doubt to creep into your mind and you ended up leaving, telling the salesman you would think about it. When someone has been persuaded and convinced, there is no reason to say any more. Strike when the iron is hot!

More communication is not necessarily better persuasion. In fact, the less you talk, the smarter people think you are. The more you say, the more common and less in control you appear. Many individuals try to impress people with what they know by flaunting all their wisdom, but usually this strategy is just a turn-off.

Heather visits Sapporo

This week I attended my second networking event for Approach. Unfortunately, Rachel wasn't feeling too well so couldn't make it. However, Amanda from Koogar was nice enough to come along with me.

This time I didn't feel too nervous as I now have have a much better understanding of what Approach does. I would even go as far as to say that I was looking forward to the event. When I arrived I noticed a few familiar faces, but also realized that there were plenty of new people (guinea pigs) to test my modified and frequently practiced networking speach upon. I was lucky enough to speak with a varied number of individuals, from all different sectors. I was able to find out about companies that I never even knew existed.

Food!!!!!!!!!
After an hour networking we were split into two large tables and asked to sit next to someone that we had not spoken to before. We were entertained by the chefs and was truelly amazed by their egg flipping and general food tossing. After a vegetable tempura and salmon terriaki lunch (which was delicious by the way) the event slowly came to an end. All in all a lovely networkig event that I would recommend to all.

Productivity

Managers are expected to enhance productivity with fewer people. Increased global competition is demanding that people move faster and produce greater results in less time. With long work hours, keeping up with gruelling deadlines and balancing personal responsibilities, it's difficult to do it all without sacrificing something; namely our health, our personal life or family.

If you are:

Lacking clearly defined, measurable goals and a step-by-step strategy and path to achieve them?

Looking to dramatically increase your level and/or your sales team's level of income, performance and achievement?

Trying to sell without any formal training on the essential selling skills and competencies?

Losing potential customers on price?

Sounding like everyone else who is trying to "sell"?

Frustrated with the money you're making and feel stuck at a certain level of performance?

Lacking an effective, systemised sales approach that either you or your sales team use to generate extraordinary results?

Trying new and inconsistent approaches during each sales call?

Overwhelmed, overloaded and spending more time solving problems rather than uncovering new ways to generate new business?

Wishing you had more time to do the things you really want to be doing, desperately needing to organize your time and life more effectively?

Call 0844 375 4316 you can have some time with a competent, proven, reputable consultant that will work through until you can see clearly your 'next steps'.

Midnight Oil

The STORY:
Jenny got back to the office at 3:00pm on Wednesday with every intention of putting together the preliminary proposal for what could be one of the biggest clients she'd ever have. A two-hour job at most. She had promised to have a preliminary proposal to them first thing in the morning.

There, in her inbox, were one after another of 24/7 "While You Were Out" messages. Working through the list of call back messages, Jenny decided that they could all be called and dealt with within an hour. Some of them could be pushed off until the next day.

No problem, she thought, I'll run right through these. Take maybe an hour. That will leave me at least two hours to do the preliminary quote. I've got all the time in the world.

As she dialed the first return call, Jenny felt good. If I land this account, it will mean we have a really profitable client.

"Ah, yes, this is Jenny; I'm returning a phone call from..."

An in a very methodical fashion, the "While You Were Out" messages disappeared.

Returning the last phone message, Jenny wondered why no one was answering. Guess he's not in, she thought. Never going to succeed by keeping banker's hours.

Putting down the phone, she finally looked at the little clock in the corner of the pc screen. 6:10PM. No, thought Jenny, this must be wrong. The clock on the iPhone perched neatly on the desk confirmed the time. With a loud sigh, Jenny spent about 10 seconds wondering if she'd ever get home before 9 or 10 o'clock at night. She realized she could not remember the last time she'd cooked a meal at home.

"That's the price you pay to succeed," she said aloud to an empty office, "that's the price."

The RESULT:
Jenny spent another night working at the office. Perhaps the preliminary quotation would be accurate. Perhaps, with lack of proper rest, she'd still be able to make a good presentation the following morning, but none of this had to happen.

DISCUSSION:
One of the great, and usually destructive, tales of business handed down from one business owner to another, and from older salespeople to younger salespeople, is the burning of the midnight oil. "The only way to succeed is to burn the midnight oil."
"The sooner you start burning the midnight oil, the sooner you will have success."

This tale, this myth, is so powerful that many burners of the oil truly believe that long hours are really a sign of success.

So it is obvious Jenny has pledged allegiance to the miraculous effects of burning that oil. She will arrange her day to make sure that the oil will be burned.

Which of the following do you think Jenny would see as a sign of hard work leading to greater success:

1. Leave the office at 6:00 pm.

2. Leave the office at 10:00 pm.

Time's up. Make your choice.

If you picked number two, you are a true believer in the curative effects of midnight oil.

APPROACH:
How could Jenny have dealt with her phone calls and need to produce a preliminary quotation by 6:00 pm? It's as simple as a three-minute egg timer. Here's how it works. Jenny had 28 phone calls to return. Of those, at least half would result in voice mail, an answering machine, or the person would not be in. That left, at most, 14 contacts.

At the beginning of the conversation, all she had to do was state, "I've got three minutes to talk. Can we take care of your concerns in that time or should we schedule a phone call for tomorrow when I'm not limited?" Flip the egg timer over.

Jenny would have spent, at most an hour on the phone. That would have brought her to four o'clock instead of six o'clock.

The egg timer solution is not high tech; it's not fancy; it's not even expensive. But it works. And Jenny could have been out of the office by six.

THOUGHT:
Burning the midnight oil produces no light and ho heat. Why do it?

Know these answers...

If you are uncomfortable with sales calls or maybe you've just realised that you do need to make them in order to build on your pipeline of work.

Do not build a script! This is probably the best advice I can offer and there is a simple explanation behind me saying this and it is purely because you should never prepare what the person on the end of the phone will reply with because when they don't reply with what you're expecting you will be thrown and panic.

Take time to answer the following nine hidden buyer questions. You need to have these answered before you even consider picking up the phone...

Your prospective customers may not ask these questions but they do need them answering in order to make a positive decision.

1. Why should I take your call you?

2. Why should I take time to listen to you?

3. What’s my problem?

4. What benefits have you to offer my business?

5. How will you support these benefits?

6. Why should I trust you?

7. Why should I trust your company?

8. Why should I make a decision to proceed?

9. Why should I proceed today?

Heather's First Networking Event for Approach

Networking

On my second day at Approach I was invited to my very first networking event for the company. I was certainly nervous about going since I was still getting to grips with job, but I thought I'd be brave and pop along.

Upon arriving at Coffee Republic I was extremely happy to find out that it would be a very informal event. I had already thought up my thirty second sales piece so off I went. The more people I spoke to the more relaxed I felt about the whole thing. I got more and more confident each time I told my willing listeners about Approach Sales, what we do and how I thought we would be able to help each company. I had previously been told that the event would last two hours which worried me slightly. However, the time flew by and as the event drew to a close I realised that I had been chatting to certain people for a long time (maybe too long lol). I felt that I made some great contacts and came out of the event feeling really positive. Everyone that I met were really friendly and super sympathetic that I had been thrown in the deep end.

I am planning on attending a speed networking event (not to be confused with speed dating) next, which I am really looking forward to. I am up for the challenge, it should be lots of fun. I'll keep you all posted on how it goes.

Rachel's New Marketing Manager

Hi I'm Heather and I am Rachel's new marketing manager for Approach Sales. I thought I would write a little introduction about myself.



Well........ I'm a History Graduate from Liverpool Uni with a background in sales and marketing. I have just returned from New York where I worked as personal assistant to five lawyers. Since returning to Liverpool I was lucky enough to meet Rachel through a training scheme at Blue Orchid. After having a brief chat at the end of the day she quickly snapped me up by asking me to work with her.



A few more little facts about me



I am obsessed with travelling and visiting new places. In the past few years I've backpacked around Southeast Asia, parts of Europe and spent six weeks visiting various states in America. I love to shop, especially at little vintage shops, and have a special weakness for buying dresses. I've recently bought tickets for this years V festival. I'm very excited about that despite the fact I'm not the best camper. I just hope it doesn't rain so I don't have to spend the entire four days covered in mud.



If you are organizing any networking events or if you want to know how Approach Sales can help you then just shoot me an email heather@approach-uk.com

Training budget down the drain...

This package was initially designed by my client for a pub/restaurant that had a higher than normal turnover of staff. It is now with companies in similar sectors that are already making savings by using the on-line training programs. This obviously ticks the compliance box as far as regulations go but doesn’t incur massive training and development costs for staff that probably wouldn’t be around in a months’ time. Also all records are held on-line centrally so when audits come around you are no longer scrabbling around tying training records up with employees as everything can be printed off in one report. It even has capabilities to highlight those that haven’t gone through the training and when updates are due. There is much more it can do and it can even be branded as a bespoke package for your business.

Taking a look at the link and give me a call if you want to discuss further? http://www.synergisedsolutions.co.uk/online-learning.php
Tel Rachel: 0844 375 4316

$2b Savings in 21 months - From the head of a consulting oil and gas leader

From the head of a consulting oil and gas leader

I soon realized that our original efforts would never work in the time we had. We had to win over business unit leaders and their 65,000 staff to take on procurement as a fundamental way of doing business rather than a back office function.

We were targeted to achieve $1b of savings in just 18 months. We called in them to work with us on three critical areas – enlisting the hearts and minds of our people to a new way of working, creating the strategic imperatives that would meet our numbers and implementing these imperatives in the face of initiative overload and scepticism.

What was most striking was how they helped us marshal our staff around these new precepts and ways of working. We ran a series of roll out sessions and introduced their breakthrough principles. During these sessions wave after wave of our people created their view of the future direction and imperatives once we had outlined the challenge. Once people got clear that we trusted them and we believed they could contribute, they went way beyond what we expected. In the end we produced $2b in savings in 21 months.

If this is relevant to your business and to find out who 'they' are then please call Rachel on:
0844 375 4316

Rachel's Xeesm

Rachel's Xeesm

A handy little tool... Just thought I'd share it!

Arthur Brown

Yesterday was a very emotional day as we said goodbye to our very good friend Arthur Brown. Arthur is a 6 year old cat that has been with us from a kitten but after a few trips to the vet to question why he had started to spray everywhere when he has been nuetered and why he had suffered serious hairloss (he was a grand cat with lots of fur and an extremely fluffy tail), he was going bald quite quickly and his tail looked like a rats tail.

My parents have been to visit for the weekend (we went to see Blood Brothers in Liverpool which was immense but that's another story) and when they left they took Arthur with them... Stan and I both had a cry but we all agreed that it would be best for him. The reason behind this move was because in our house we have ten cats. All loved equally and very much part of our family. They all have their own places where they go to be alone but most of the time they spend cleaning each other or snuggling up on my feet, crammed on the one arm-chair that is never used by anything other than a cat (so it is officially there chair), or on our bed. They are all healthy and well fed, they chatter with us and follows us around. If we are in the garden having a barbecue they are dotted around the garden so like to be where we are. Arthur however sprayed constantly because he could no longer find his identity, he felt he had to mark his territory and the hair loss was as a result of his constant grooming. He was grooming himself bald.

I spoke with my Mum last night and he was on her knee snuggled up purring as she stroked him. He slept in Rhiannes bed with her last night and was purring when he went to sleep and when she woke up this morning he was in exactly the same position (still purring). He's had something to eat and is starting to explore (slowly), he has sprayed once and marked his territory and hasn't done it since so all is good for Arthur.

The moral of this story is that sometimes you have to make a sacrifice, change your mindset, adjust things and look for solutions that may not always sit comfortably in order to achieve your desired result. My desired result was to have a happy pussycat so I changed things.

Sharing | LinkedIn

Sharing | LinkedIn

David Taylor, a St Helens businessman is doing the BUPA 10k run on the 16th of May for the 'After Adoption' charity. Knowing David I have tremendous respect for this man and his heart despite surgery is made of solid gold. Lets see some serious support from as many as possible please.

Many thanks.

Rachel

EADIM - Book your place

EADIM - Book your place

OMG!!! I can't beleive this guy is back in the UK... I had feedback last year that he was really obnoctious and had a few rude words but they implimented some of his techniques when they got back to their offices and saw a massive change straight away... I'm booking now!

Nuggets

Dave, todays homework for you once you've finished the audio I gave you...

DISCUSSION:
Most salespeople see their sales world divided into two equal parts, "those I've sold who are now customers, a small number," and "those I haven't sold, a huge number." As a result, more energy and time is devoted to searching for the "those I haven't sold" to find a few to push over to the "those I have sold" side. It should be the exact opposite.

Spend 80% of your time with existing customers, and, as a result, when you ask for referrals, you will already have pre-qualified referrals to call on. Now spend the remaining 20% of your time with the prospects. Always ask these prospects for a referral. While most often you won't get one, about a quarter of the time you will.

How would you rather spend your time? Talking with prospects who also do business with your customer or talking with prospects who don't have the slightest idea who you are?

APPROACH:
Here are three behaviors that if committed to, will yield success:

1. The Introduction Letter: Call a customer who has bought more than once
from you. Ask him why and write down his response. Pretend you are that
customer. Write an introduction letter that will be sent, by him, to his five closest
business contacts. The letter says, in no more than three paragraphs, why he
does business with you, how he puts your product to use, and how to get in touch
with you. Now get his permission to send it and a list of whom to send it to. You
follow up with your own note.

2. The Introduction Phone Call: This could be the follow up to the letter or where you
start. Same pattern but this time with a customer who is considered a regular. He
calls his business contact, indicates that you are in the room and would his
contact like to talk with you for a minute or two. You get on the phone and close for
an appointment, nothing else.

3. The "You Didn't Sell Me, But..." Call: Always ask for a referral. You have nothing to
lose by doing this. "I appreciate the fact that we'll never do any business; if you
were me, whom would you call on?"

THOUGHT:
Referrals are easier to get than gold nuggets. Gold nuggets have to be searched for; referrals are free for the asking.

I proved this today didn't I Dave... You know it makes sense lol

Workshop; Marketing: What, How & When | Koogar : Digital Marketing (Internet Specialist)

Workshop; Marketing: What, How & When | Koogar : Digital Marketing (Internet Specialist)

I spoke to a small business this morning, the lady was lovely and openly admitted that marketing, sales etc was not her strong point. Her service was one that is clearly in demand out there as I know others that are doing it (maybe taking it a little bit more seriously) and earning a very good living from it. I have looked for a website for this lady that I had the conversation with, she has no internet presence AT ALL, therefore no email address??? I would like to draw her attention to the fact that there are serious businesses out there that take time out of their schedule to support companies like hers to raise awareness and to show companies that don't have a budget to be able to afford people like me how to do what needs doing to bring in new business and raise the profile of what could be a very useful service!

O.K. Rant over lol

http://www.answer.co.uk/?refid=92PNVG41M

http://www.answer.co.uk/?refid=92PNVG41M

I am absolutely raving about this service... I was looking at paying for a phone answering platform (as most businesses do these days). The thing about Approach is that we offer something different to the norm so I didn't want my calls to be answered by a machine whilst we were out of the office. This ticks all of my boxes and is an amazing service. They take the time to get to know what your business about allowing them to seamlessly fit within your operation. My clients know exactly when I will be able to call them back. They know who they have spoken to and what the next step is likely to be. It is all about next steps in my line of work so this does exactly what I want it to do. To top it all off you only pay when the service is used instead of having these horrible standing orders/direct debits set up on an on-going basis, this is completely pay as you go!

Oh and did I mention that it only took me 5 minutes to get it all set up???

Don't Dance!

The STORY:
Tim was convinced that if only he could somehow get in front of more prospects, he'd do a lot better. But it was always tough to get anyone to agree to an appointment. He started collecting all the excuses.

"Not now, the budget's been cut."

"Our senior management has just changed."

"The holidays are coming. Next month."

"We aren't buying now. Later in the year."

"You're the tenth one this week..."

"I'm new in the position."

"I just don't have the time."

"We just bought..."

And Tim's list went on and on. Late one Monday morning, after completing eight cold calls in two hours, Tim decided to try something new. No more getting pushed around. He'd call back the same eight people and try it.

"Hi, this is Tim and if I could have a five-minute appointment, only five minutes, I know you would be interested."

Amazingly enough, Tim was able to make appointments with three of the eight.

Tim went on the three five-minute appointments, spent the five minutes, and at the conclusion, heard the same excuses with which he had become all too familiar.

Well, he thought to himself after leaving the third appointment, at least I'm getting appointments. The more appointments I get, the sooner I'll sell something.

The RESULT:
Begging someone for an appointment, setting yourself up in a situation in which you have to convince someone that you have something to offer, will eventually get you sales. But this is a hard, hard, hard way to make a living. All of the pressure is on you to perform. The prospect gets to sit back and decide if your performance is worth any more time. Would it not be better for you to determine if the prospect is worth your time and effort?

When the prospect invites you in, the responsibility is on him to tell you why. You are in control of the situation.

Which would you prefer, begging or being invited?

DISCUSSION:
Why do salespeople beg? Because in many instances, the prospects will put up with it.

From the salesperson's point of view, the prospect is showing interest. Any attempt by the prospect to leave or terminate the situation is viewed as an objection. And, as we all know, objections have to be overcome.

So here we have a situation in which the prospect is trying to be polite to a beggar, and the beggar is getting, from the prospect's point of view, more and more insistent with the begging. What's a prospect to say? How about, "Send me some literature; I'll look it over." Or, "I don't have any money in the (choose one: budget, wallet, bank account )." The list of brush-offs is extensive and well known.

APPROACH:
Begging is a habit that is reinforced by prospects because prospects have been trained by salespeople who beg for a living.

Instead of Tim saying "...if I could have a five-minute appointment, only five minutes, I know you would be interested," he could have stopped being a beggar and said, "Mr. Smith, after I meet with most CEOs, we jointly decide that my product is not appropriate for their needs. However, 15 percent of CEOs see the value in our service. It may not be relevent to you at this point but it would be nice for us to have a conversation at some point to see".

Tim would get fewer appointments with this approach, but on the other hand, he would waste less time on non-productive appointments and make more sales.

If you really want to stop begging, get a small tape recorder and tape your side of the conversation. Then play it back to someone you trust and tell him to note down all of your begging phrases. Once you have that list, ban those phrases from your vocabulary.

THOUGHT:
Beggars do make some money. Non-beggars make more money. Which would you rather be?

This is what it's all about...

Sat at my desk on Wednesday working through an Excel spreadsheet when an email arrived from Stan (the better half), I was on a roll so thought I'd read it later when I had time but kinda forgot. Had a very productive morning even though I had taken my 10 year old into work with me. We had an early'ish finish (around 2.30pm). I took him to Rockerfellas for a burger in Liverpool centre (if you haven't been and ever get the opportunity you should check it out: amazing food, excellent service and it's all set in a 1950s diner with really cool music). We walked past the Liverpool Empire and I had popped in and bought tickets to go and see Blood Brothers at the end of the month with my Mum, Daughter, Mum-in-law and Sister-in-law so a bit of a special occasion, was really pleased with myself and very satisfied with my day. Dyl and I sat on the train home, he was beaming as he had really enjoyed himself... He had been allowed to listen to his tunes through the headphones on the laptop whilst I worked, he'd been introduced to my new offices and to finish it all off had a full belly with quality burger and delicious ice cream. I checked my email on my phone and found the one that Stan has sent earlier... This email said, "Bear (my nickname), I've booked us into the Mal Maison Manchester (http://www.malmaison-manchester.com) Friday and Saturday night, football's on 12:30 Saturday so I've booked you a pamper day in their spa. We can go out for a few Friday night, you can chill all day Saturday then we can go to the Tiger Lounge and be groovy in the evening"... I was soooooooooooo excited. We stayed at the Mal about a year ago and it was heavenly. We managed to get a suite at a really good rate last time so I wasn't expecting that kind of room again but the break away was something that was certainly well received. Thursday at work seemed to fly by although I didn't get out until late as I had some things to finish off. Have just been reading this book called 'Take Back Your Life' using Microsoft Outlook, it is amazing and has saved me over 9 hours a week just by implimenting the right systems, implimenting these systems unfortunately has been pretty tough lol.

Friday morning, got up and wallpapered my 16 year olds, we kinda had a deal that if she painted the 3 walls, did the glossing and shifted everything out of her room I would paper the remaining wall. She had upheld her side of the bargain so I had to do my bit. Got showered, Stan and I packed then we headed off to Manchester. We checked in and went up to our room and I was blown away. We were in the same suite as previously (the Cinema Suite), I couldn't believe it, two nights away in this amazing suite... I'll leave the finer details there... Lived like a film star for the two nights and three days. Came home, hung the washing out, cleaned up the kitchen, washed some pots, unpacked, fed the cats, cleaned the bathroom, hoovered our bedroom and made the bed with the sheets off of the line (that I had hung out on Friday), did a load of stuff in what felt like record time... my Hollywood lifestyle was well and truly over and the work had begun again but I will finish off with the fact that for me, this is what life is all about. Had the most amazing weekend and am now ready to begin again. I love my husband, I love my kids, I love my work and I love my life... I feel very spoilt and very privelidged.

'Brush Off'

The STORY:

Jackies meeting on Thursday morning was one she had been working on getting for the past four months. This was THE one. After two previous meetings, this was the one where the decision was going to be made.

The last person in the world she expected to hear on the other end of the phone as she answered was George.

"Glad I caught you in," said George.

Jackie had this sinking feeling but maybe, she thought, George is calling with some good news.

"Some bad news, I'm afraid."

"What bad news," asked Jackie thinking that someone else got the deal.

"Don't panic, we didn't go with someone else. This isn't a 'Dear John' phone call."

"What's up?"

"Our computer system blew out last night, and it looks like we lost an entire quarter of financial information."

"It must be panic city there," responded Jackie sympathetically.

"Well, between you and me, no one else knows."

"Oh."

"Came in this morning, went to review my information for the meeting and it was gone. Looked for some more stuff, and it was gone."

"You have backups?" suggested Jackie trying to he helpful.

"Somewhere," said George, sounding very tired and depressed.

"You're between the rock and that place..."

"Absolutely. Look. We ought to cancel the meeting and reschedule." George sounded really depressed now.

"Makes sense," responded Jackie, very disappointed.

"Last time this happened it took close to eight weeks to reconstruct. Let me call you back in about six or seven weeks to bring you up-to-date."

"Makes sense. No problem George, good luck."

"You're a superstar Jackie. Thanks."

The RESULT:
Jackie, being the considerate and empathic salesperson, bailed out and accepted what she heard. As a result, no meeting, and maybe someday in the future something may happen.

DISCUSSION:
Remember when you were in school and forgot to do that assignment? Of course, the assignment was 50% of your grade for the GCSE. What was the pain when you walked into the classroom? You were going to tell the teacher some horror story that made it impossible for you to hand it in. You worked hard on preparing your story.

Anything that could be used as an excuse was considered. The dog ate it. My Mum threw it away when she tidied my room. Anything.

Now with computers everywhere, the excuses are even better. The hard drive on my computer blew up. We lost electricity. My printer died. The file just vanished. My keyboard exploded? The more you wanted to avoid the situation, the bigger the disaster. You might even have been telling the truth.

So what does the teacher do? Listen to the list of calamitites and gives you another day or so.

Now you are the teacher, and the prospect is the student. Nothing has really changed; you're just acting out the same script, different roles. The only real difference is that now you aren't going to the bank.

APPROACH:
Instead of Jackie meekly accepting the disaster excuse, she could have pushed ahead and found out if it was for real or heaven forbid 'the brush-off'.

"That's terrible. What did the board said when they found out? Your banking advisor? IT? Accountant?" Then wait for an answer.

"They don't know yet."

"Your company lost an entire quarter's worth of financial information and you're the only one who knows about it? Aren't you running the risk of going out of business when this gets out?" Push the prospect's pain higher.

If this is a 'brush off', the prospect will be so frantic that his excuse is unravelling, he'll be willing to grab at any life boat. Throw him one.

"Look, maybe this will help. Why don't we meet and at least get our business squared away. That way when it hits the fan, you'll have something positive going for you and we'll be ready to roll."

"That sounds like it makes sense. Good idea. We're still on for Thursday at nine in the morning."

THOUGHT:
Is it really a disaster, or is it a brush off? Only the prospect knows unless you ask.

Update

The last time I blogged it was more of a rant so I think I'll use this opportunity just to update really. The day after 'that' day I went over to Liverpool to have a coffee with a good friend of mine and whilst there I had a look at an office space. After half an hour (and some very clever negotiating) I made a decision that Approach was going to move to another level and it was time to change gear. I pressed down the clutch and released the accelorator (not sure if that is the correct spelling but you get what I mean). Since 'that' day it has been full speed ahead.
Only people that knew me well would know that Approach was operating (very well I might just add) from a vintage dressing table and a laptop on the landing of my 3 bed end terraced house, 3 children (2 grown up and one small), 10 cats and a very busy home.

When Approach was launched it was purely because there was a genuine need for a competent person actively selling for a few friends in business. After a year it became very clear that the need was massive and there are very few companies out there that actually deliver what these businesses need.

We now have a fully functional office in the centre of Liverpool, (Computers, phones and even a kettle) a team, a manned reception, clients overseas as well as across the United Kingdom and a very healthy pipeline of work.

My children have their home back and can make as much noise as they like as they battle each other over XBox Live without having to take into account that Mum is on a cold call.

On a much more personal note I now feel structured in what I am doing. I have always been very focused and driven but it makes so much difference actually getting up, going for my swim, packing a lunch and heading off to the train station. I am nearly at the point that I can turn the laptop off and go and bake bread for tea without any guilt.

All in all, January was a huge learning curve for me and my business and I am very grateful for it as it is so easy to lose sight of what you actually set out to achieve. My business plan has been revisitted and amended and I am currently working to year three of my plan and we are only just reaching our first birthday.

Watch this space!!!

Oh and just for the record the new office is:
Approach Sales Services Ltd
1-27 Bridport Street
Liverpool
Merseyside
L3 5QF

+44 (0)151 709 3193
http://www.approach-uk.com

Going backwards...

Those of you that do actually read my blogs will know that I use this space as my place to air my emotions and feelings and share my experiences. Winning a year long client is a dream come true for most businesses... Me on the other hand am finding the whole experience very emotional; It is difficult getting up and feeling motivated to go and make someone elses living for them, allowing them to realise their dreams and achieve their results.

I enjoy what I do which is probably what makes me so productive. I enjoy prospecting and making sales calls and could do it every day of the week which is exactly what I am doing. I think the draw back at this moment in time is that I now feel that I am doing it for someone else again, I am being 'managed' and receiving pep talk emails which in all honesty annoy the hell out of me. I set myself a personal target when I first launched Approach to make 120 affective sales/cold calls per day which I always achieve when I can just get on with what I enjoy doing but receiving emails telling me what my target is I am finding a little bit degrading. I am working with two very nice men that I want to succeed even though their business model is VERY close to mine. I have made that sacrifice as I feel it will benefit the UK economy in a major way allowing those MDs that are serious about staying in business to do so. I have passed up on opportunities that would have earned me the same amount of money as I will get over the year with this company and also brought across some of my opportunities to my client so they are fulfilled the way I would like them to be and to maintain the relationships that were already established.

I was told very early on in life that sales is no place to get my emotional needs met which I do agree with to a certain extent but I am also human and this experience is emotional.

Right, off for my bath as I'm up at 6.30 again for a swim. Any advice or feedback (yes, even critisism) is welcomed...

Food for thought...

I will be perfectly honest here I piched this from someone elses blog but I also know that she pinched it from somewhere else as I have seen it before (many times). That really is irrelevent as the message within the words is exactly the right message. I am a bit perplexed as to why I found it on an accountancy website although a tiny bit pleased that accountants now appear to be taking sales seriously.

There are differing schools of thought on what makes a successful sales person;

Tenacity – never taking no for an answer

Curiosity – willing and wanting to know everything about potential customers

Likeability – getting people to buy them before they buy their Company

Credibility – knowing what they are talking about and understanding your products or services and being able to fit those with the Customer needs

But is about far more than all of these qualities.

A natural born seller is someone who wants to take every meeting, every interaction through to a closed sale and doesn’t give up until they have.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how charming, or likeable, or empathic a sales person is - unless they can convert it through to a sale within a reasonable timescale.

So why is it that many Sales People demand high salaries?

In my experience across twenty years of Business, I have found one fact to be true; any fully dedicated sales person worth their salt will know that they can sell – be confident that they can close – and in knowing this will be happy to accept a low basic and a higher rate of commission as they know they will make it on the sales.

I have had many conversations with many Clients about this single fact and it has always proved to be true. Those Sales people who came in promising the earth and wanting a high basic to justify it NEVER delivered.

Here’s how you to get the most out of your Sales Team

• Offer them a low basic and a much higher rate of commission or bonus linked to (profitable) sales. The best case of this I have seen was a client who had a direct sales product where he paid 100% commission to his “agents” instead of ANY salary. All his “agents” came out with £100k plus every year.
• Ensure you set a range of prices for your sales people so you know what you expect them to “walk away” at – it is pointless making sales as loss leaders – turnover is vanity, profit is sanity
• Ensure they are covering their costs before you offer commission; normally you would expect a sales person to bring in between 3 and 5 times their total costs. Total costs include fully salary, benefits, cars, phones, entertainment, petrol etc.
• Measure their activity, sales people are notoriously disorganised so get them to report to you weekly on people seen & spoken to, appointments made and taken, outcomes, number of phone calls, new prospects; make them focus on the right activity
• Ensure they are logging all of their information – contact, outcomes, conversations – on a central electronic database or contact management system – you need to be able to monitor and control this at all times.
• Ensure your sales people have time to sell – don’t use them as Account Managers because if you want new sales then a) a successful account manager will rarely be able to hunt effectively and b) they will use it as a reason not to sell. A Sales Person is by definition a HUNTER not a FARMER
• Define their role from a competency based perspective and appraise them regularly on it. Use Standard Industry Competencies such as Customer Orientation, Planning & Organising, Technical & Professional Knowledge, Initiative & Impact etc…ask me if you want more information on these.
• Define their goals and targets. These are two different areas. Targets are usually sales targets and measured in £. Goals are number of calls, appointments, how fast you expect them to get proposals out after meetings, how soon they must return calls and emails.

Defining the role gives advantages beyond the obvious; it sends a message that you want them to be dedicated to the role and what your expectations are. It clearly defines the parameters they are expected to operate within – and highlights where you would like them to exceed these.

From a HR perspective it also enables you to identify where they are falling down and address the area rather than say “you are not doing the job” you can say”you are building strong relationships but you are letting yourself down because you fail to send your reports in on time and don’t get back to Clients when you say you will”. This ultimately allows you to focus them – and if that fails – discipline or terminate where necessary.

Your Sales Team are the best investment you can make in your Business for the future – not only financially but strategically – so make sure the people representing your Business out there in the market place are EXACTLY the ones you would choose to be seen as Brand “YOU”!

Anyway, I'm signing off for the weekend now just wanted to leave any of you that do actually bother to read my ramblings with a little bit of food for thought.

Don't spill your Candy in the lobby!

Who knows what that means? I do and no I'm not sharing... I've had the most amazing day, yesterday was good but today I feel I've learned sooooooo much. Had Presidents Club this morning which is a Sandler program. That's all I'm saying on the subject! If you are a serious sales person then you'll know what I'm talking about. I have always enjoyed what I do and have always found it rewarding but today I learned some new techniques and adapted some of my own to work more effectively, personal development always leaves me with such a satisfaction, I couldn't even put it into words.

Focusing on my goals too I have made a bit of a step. Stan bought me a Wii and a Wii Fit for christmas and I think because it monitors how much you use and adds your minutes etc I feel it is making me more accountable for when and how long I use it. Can actually see my waist returning. I am the official queen of Hoola Hoop lol!!!

Met with a chap today that was soooo fired up about what he does for a living made me feel that I was relatively normal with my passion and enthusiasm for work! Last week during the horrific weather I was sent an add on LinkedIn and instead of doing what most do and just clicking accept I followed it up with an email basically asking him to introduce and explain a bit about what his business does. We exchanged many emails and he came in today for a discussion about our service and his own. We are now in negotiations with regards to taking his business to a whole new level. I love it when it all comes together and we all get what we want!

Bring on tomorrow, I trully cannot wait!!! Enjoy your evenings folks and tune in tomorrow for the next episode. x

2009/2010

2009 Achievements.
Left previous job and took a massive leap forward.
New business established and full steam ahead! Approach Sales Services provide a free-lance sales service across the board within all stages of the sales process. Providing consultancy to established sales teams to ensure they are efficient and working to specific targets. Establishing new sales teams from chalkboard stage up to fully performing teams. Providing interim support to sales departments to hit targets and raise awareness. Marketing campaign follow up, event awareness etc. Prospecting for new and established businesses, developing relationships with prospective clients on behalf of companies across all industries.
Things to do differently in 2010. The main change to be made now things are in full flow would be to look at the back office processes which we are making immense headway with. I have appointed a virtual PA to take care of paperwork, admin, invoicing etc. T&C’s were something to be addressed which have now been sourced. I ventured into the High Growth program which has given me so much more insight into the world of business and changes came out of the last session which are now in place.
What I would like to achieve in 2010? It’s done! I wanted my dream client which would be conveniently located, doing the work I enjoy doing the most (prospecting), paying a certain figure in line with my business plan, working with lovely, genuine, professional people (there are a great deal of sales people in the world that don’t have the same integrity and ethos that I have). All boxes ticked and a contract won that takes Approach into 2011.

I will say at this point that for any new business the first thing you need to make sure you have before accountants, chamber memberships, book-keepers etc is a decent support network. Without people in my world like Amanda at Koogar and many others I would have failed before I even began. I think the turn of the year needs to be a time that folks acknowledge other people in their lives that have impacted on the hows, whys and wherefores... Thanks Amanda