In my small business sales and marketing consulting practice, I never cease to be amazed at how many awesome small business owners can't find the words to articulate the amazing things they do. This is too bad since you only get one chance for a good first impression.

Recently I met a small business owner who introduced me to 15 Second Pitch wizard.

This pitch wizard was not created by my small business consulting firm, but it rocks and every small business and owner should check it out!

You will be blown away at how your small business will garner more attention for your product or service by having a stronger pitch.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Naked Selling is a class is dedicated to owners and professionals that sell. Our goal is to strip away all the fluff that surronds most sales trainging classes and provide a learning environment that is straight forward and fun.

All of our classes are powered by Innovation Games (www.innovationgames.com), so you can be certain this will be a training experience unlike any you have experienced.

Course Over View:

Basically, most people dread the notion of selling and most owners and business professionals are passionate about things other than selling. Naked Selling desinged to provide nothing but the bare necesseties, helping owners & professionals be more effective at selling and to make it as much fun as it can be.

Class Style:

We cross-pollinate our classes with individuals from a variety of industries and encourage a lot of interaction. This high energy, diverse environment creates really cool synergies between the participants. Additionally, we use Innovation games to help take the edge off the fact that you are in a sales training class.

Key Learnings:

Selling Sucks: Learn about the myths of selling that contribute to so many people dreading it.

I Hear Voices: We will examine how what you believe can take away from how you sell.

Throw Yourself Under The Bus: In depth examination of how to create refferals, network and avoid the dreaded cold call.

You Don't Matter & Neither Does Your Product: Exploring the art of figuring out what people really want by collaborating with the customer instead of pushing your wares upon them.

The Devil Is the Detailz: Detailed discussion abou how to build the right solution for prospective consumers of your service.

Barakology:How to rock out presentations/proposal and get prospective buyers to take action

It's All About the "O": How to negotiate agreements where everyone wins.

 

Deliverables:

Opportunity to interact with other professionals.

Learnings that should take the sting out of selling and help you win more deals more consitently

Myndology not taking system

Naked Selling T-Shirt

Action Packed Half Day of Sales Training

Exposure to one of the hottest market research systems in the world (Innovation Games)

Who Should Attend:

Any professional service provider

Owners that sell

They person that got sucked into selling because no one else in the company wants to do it.

Accountants, Lawyers, Architects and all service professionals

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Fo Real Man?

 

I was pinging around on google the other day and found these fine folks at trizle.

Finally, someone that is willing to go out on a limb to prove business, even small business, is fun. You can be serious and smart without wearing a suit.

This post is a shout out to a group that I think defines the word "Innovation". I could say more but I think they say it better than I ever could.

Exercise Room:

1.) Does you business rock?

2.) Why not?

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

9:53 AM

So there are no easy answers to today’s economic problems. With that said there are a myriad of ways out of the problem and opportunities to grow. This post is about the importance of having a business that is able to re-think, re-engineer and re-tool so you can increase sales in an economic downturn.

It’s an awesome sunny day and I hop in my old car (it’s a 2005) and fly off to the Apple Store to pick up a new case for my laptop. I arrive at the mall seven minutes early. It’s 9:53AM and there are about 10 people milling around the door, 2 men and the rest were women.

As I walked up you could tell a few of the folks were hurried. I on the other hand I was content that I had arrived seven minutes early and welcomed the short break from the hustle and bustle of being a business owner, husband and proud papa of 3 girls.

My attention turned to the three women who found a common bond in their iPhone. Being the proud papa of two iPhones, one MacBook, one MacBook Pro, one iMac and and a Mac Mini; it pains me to make the following admission; they were all having trouble with their iPhones. Here is the punch line of this blog. Two of the three women had the new 3G and the other one had the first version that she sheepishly referred to as the “old one”.

Get out! Since when did one year become the end of a product life cycle? All the businesses I consult for are still using flyers that are 5 years or more old and the product mix has changed so little that they can actually pull this off. Other than the printed materials being dated, their products or services have changed very little.

So what am I trying to say, change, change fast, change often or die. There is a reason Google has nearly three times the number of searches when compared to Yahoo who is second; Apple maintains 70% market-share of the iPod market and commands more profit per machine than any other computer manufacturer. Moreover, if you look at any other organization or individual that is number one, change and evolution is part of their DNA. Tiger Woods is clearly the best golfer, when he walks off the course, he shifts his attention from competition to figuring out how he can be better.

Exercise Room:

If clients lined up at your door from one year ago:
1.) Would they see any improvements in your service or product offering?
2.) Are there any product or service changes in your product or service pipeline that could be rolled out within a year?
3.) Do you have the mechanisms or individuals within your team that can drive change that positively affects sales results?

Call us to ask how we can help and check out Bob Kriegel to learn more about the importance of being change ready.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

According to the NIST, eight out of ten businesses are looking for ways to increase sales and grow their business. Please keep reading to uncover one of the greatest tools I have come across this year to help your company increase sales.

This is my hypothesis, genius does not drive product and service breakthroughs, they are driven by tapping into the mind of the consumer. In turn, small busineesses that are dialed into the mind of the consumer will be on the cutting edge of creating breakthrough products and services.

Luke Hohmann, author of Innovation Games has uncovered the next generation of product and service development. Essentially, he has developed a system that allows you to collaborate with clients to drive innovations and breakthroughs. Innovation Games is a proven qualitative market research technique, designed to answer specific questions.

There are two particular aspects of the Innovation Games model that stand out:

First, it is built on the platform of collaborative play with customers. Traditionally, small businesses and owners send out surveys and assemble advisory boards to gain feedback from consumers. The Innovation Games model would have these same small businesses and owners interact with clients trying to answer specific questions using games. Additionally, Innovation Games puts the control in the hands of the consumers leaving ample room for product and service breakthroughs to evolve.

Second, is the aspect of multidimensional communication; not everyone learns or communicates in the same way. Innovation Games creates a variety of mediums for customers to communicate. I can't think of the last time I filled out a survey, however, if you ask me what is wrong or how I would improve something, get ready to sit down and take notes.

Going back to my original hypothesis, consumers control the throttle on innovations and breakthroughs. The myth of product or service geniuses is simply untrue. The genius is the ability to dial into the consumers mind, extract what is in their head, and build a product around it. Steve Jobs' genius is not the iPod; it is his ability to dial into the customers mind.

If you are a business owner or small business and want to increase sales, read Innovation Games and start working with customers to drive innovations and breakthroughs.

EXERCISE ROOM

How frequently are you interacting with clients to drive product or service enhancements?

When was the last time you revised your products or service offering?

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Often times, when my phone rings it is a company looking for strategic advice or creative solutions to resolve problems they are experiencing in their own business. My interest is peaked and I listen as the business owner describes the situation in detail. I respond by conducting a straight forward line of questioning which goes something like this, “Help me understand the problem. What are you trying to accomplish or what are the barriers to the situation?” My responses vary yet, as anticipated, the business owner will often say, “I already tried something like that once.” While the conversation winds down and the business owner thanks me for my time and new perspective, I find myself wondering why the heck they called if they are not going to try something more than once or entertain an innovative way of thinking. In fact, I wondered why people are reluctant to explore opportunities to improve, period.

I was reading the book Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney (link to cult of mac.com) and the answer came to me when Kahney shared the following, “Apple’s labs are littered with prototype products that never made it out the door.” Apple has accepted the fact that many great ideas and innovations will never make it to market. Yet, they continue to explore innovative ways to generate revenue while realizing full well many will never be implemented.

It struck me that businesses are afraid to explore innovative ways of thinking and new ideas for fear of not being able to return to their old ways of business. Companies typically do not explore new ideas or innovative solutions because they simply do not know how to say no to some of the prototypes. In light of their inability to say no, many companies tend to avoid any creative pursuits all together.

In a sense, innovation and breakthroughs are cut off at the pass because companies are concerned they will have to bring any new discoveries into fruition.

Apple, on the other hand, understands how to say no. They can safely make their way down the innovation trail because they know full well they will not execute all of the prototypes. When you are unable to say no, great ideas get stifled, companies cannot make the distinction between forward thinking and forward acting.

In addition, there is a huge difference between great ideas and the process of bringing a concept to fruition. Many times, an innovation or breakthrough can happen without making any radical changes to a product or service. Sometimes, a simple change of perspective can have a huge impact on the way in which a company resonates with a client.

The ability to say no is one part of the equation in keeping the throttle on growth idle. Companies today are missing the boat by having many “sacred cows” and in effect, remaining clueless about the “customer experience.” Please keep your RSS feeders on as I shed some light on the throttle to driving more profit for your company.

Exercise Room:

At some point it becomes important to step back and ask yourself some questions. If I strolled through your company today, how many artifacts (product or service concepts) would I find?

Is your organization guilty of squashing innovation and fresh thinking for fear you will have countless prototypes to develop? What impact would it have on our business if you could roll out one new product or service innovation that your clients are willing to pay for?

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.