Chet Holmes – Mega Marketing and Sales
Helping you build the ultimate business by working on your business just one hour per week!!!
The trick is that this one hour per week has to be proactive, versus reactive.
Unless you just opened your business in the last 12 months, chances are that you are highly reactive in your business. This means that each day you come in and react to the various activities in the business, and that there is not a lot of proactive time spent deliberately improving various aspects of the business, from time management to marketing and sales. The crucial difference in creating the ultimate business is when you sit down in a proactive manner and go about addressing the various nooks and crannies of your business, until each area is polished to a fine luster. In a moment, we will expertly and deftly outline which areas should be polished.
The Biggest Problem Owning A Business Today
In 1991, a research project that our company conducted for Pacific Bell revealed that the average consumer was besieged by 2000 commercial messages each day. In 1994, a new study we did for Thomson Newspapers revealed that the commercial clutter was now at an astonishing 3000 messages per day. Some sources say that the commercial clutter today is at 30,000 messages per day!
What has all this done to your dollars?
For one thing, the commercial clutter has virtually tripled the cost of sales today over just ten years ago. And it would be nice if tripling the cost of sales also meant that our sales efforts were now three times more effective. They’re not. Sales effectiveness has fallen by 50%. Meaning, today we pay three times as much to get half the result that we got just ten years ago. The point, it’s very hard to get noticed in the new millennium.
Less mystery in the information age
Great selling is great educating. Once upon a time, no one really knew what made great salespeople. It was a mystery. Some thought all it took to be good at sales was a good personality; some thought it was the courage to ask for the order, etc. Today, many studies tell us precisely what makes excellent salespeople. And the single most important trait found in all top producers is unbridled passion to help the customer, even if they resist you all the way.
Top producers really believe that what they sell is valuable and important. But top producers also do several other things, which can be easily modeled and then built into your organization. When you do this, business will sky rocket, but also, everything will simply run a heck of a lot better.
Work On The Business, Not Just In The Business
Michael Gerber, a colleague, wrote a great book entitled “The E-Myth.” The “E” stands for “Entrepreneur.” In a nutshell, Michael wrote that the problem with most practitioners who have a highly developed skill in a particular area is that they think they are also entrepreneurs. A great mechanic thinks he can run a successful garage. A great chiropractor thinks he can run a successful chiropractic business, or a great cook thinks they can be a great restaurateur.
Just because you are good at the service you want to offer, does not mean that you will be good at running the business that offers this service. The fact is that running a business requires different skills than working in a business. As my friend Michael puts it, you have to work on the business, not just in the business.
Two traits of people who go from zero to $100 Million
It is fascinating to study what makes the difference between a person who owns a corner store that stays a corner store or a person who owns a corner store that becomes Wal-Mart. Our company has studied this extensively, but let us at least share two of the traits for now. The first and most important trait is decisiveness. The person who is going to run an empire (whether hired into the position, or building it from scratch) is a very decisive person.
These are the people who make the big decisions, often with a total lack of proof. They use their gut instincts. They make the decisions to pursue a path that others are too timid to pursue. They make the decision to change direction, hire new people or fire weak people. The bottom line, they are decisive and they are decisive quickly, they simply don’t hesitate.
The second trait, we can help you with more readily than decisiveness, because decisiveness is a more innate personality trait that is difficult to teach people (though not impossible, and you’ll see how). The second trait of empire builders, or at the very least, successful people who have a business that runs without them, is that they use the three P’s. Without these you cannot build a successful business, period.
Running a business requires the three P’s:
Policies, Planning and Procedures.
One hour per week, if you’re smart, you are going to sit down with your staff with the three P’s in front of you and you are going to engage in the proactive process of improving every area of your business.
Wal-Mart simply would not ever become Wal-Mart if they didn’t have a policy for every little thing that goes on in the store. You cannot grow an organization unless you have excellent policies, procedures and constant planning sessions.
If you don’t have the three P’s
If you don’t have the three P’s, it’s up to each individual employee to decide everything from customer treatment to sales procedures to even filing systems. Without a constant focus on the three P’s, everything in your organization will vary according to the individual talent, skill and even mood of each employee. Make it clear to everyone how everything is supposed to be done. Do this in one-hour sessions each week. In a larger company this is done by department, with a separate weekly meeting for management of the various departments. In a smaller company, under 20 employees, do it with the entire staff.
In this one hour, keep taking different areas of the company to polish and perfect. We teach a very effective technique for really getting the most out of your one hour, but even without further help from us, be determined to have at least one proactive problem, solving, move-the-company-forward one hour per week (for larger companies, have one per department).
12 Competencies, One Hour Per Week
After thousands of consulting sessions and extensive research on behalf of our clients, we’ve discovered that there are 12 areas of competency that make for an excellent organization. If you will focus on these areas, once per week, for one hour per week, you will start to see a marked improvement in your business.
The trick is that your effort will be proactive and, more important, consistent. The lessons we’ve learned about consistency have taught us that it is the only way to really improve anything. The secret to great accomplishment in karate is not in learning 4000 different moves. There aren’t 4000 different moves in karate. There are 12 moves. Becoming a master is not about doing 4000 different moves; it’s about doing 12 moves, 4000 times each. The same is true for all areas of accomplishment. Golf, tennis, sales, customer service, ALL areas of competency require repetition of fundamentals.
Sales as An Example
Anyone who has ever managed salespeople knows this to be true: One salesperson is good at follow up, but has a tough time getting in the door. Another salesperson is great at getting in the door, but has a terrible time at follow up. Another salesperson closes like a champion, but has poor rapport skills, while another salesperson has excellent rapport skills but is very soft in the close.
These are all skill areas, and what we consider to be the “basics” of selling. The salesperson who is weak at follow up will only become good at it when there are standard procedures of minimum acceptable behavior. And so on for every area of your company.
The true secret to improvement in your company
How many times have you come back from a seminar with an idea that you knew was great, only to have the idea go nowhere. You explained it to your staff. They agreed it was a good idea. They agreed to try it. They even DID try it. It even worked, and within a few weeks, no one was doing it anymore. What happened?
The 12 areas of competency that are listed below will do very little for you if you do not consistently revisit them. Greatness is not accomplished by an event (a one time idea or inspiration); it is only accomplished by a process. A diligent and consistent process.
We recommend that you rotate the 12 areas of competency every 12 weeks. Go over one of the 12 areas once per week for an hour per week. This is three months of positive proactive working ON the business.
At the end of the 12 weeks, however, comes the real secret. Begin again with the first area, and go back through all 12 competencies again over the next 12 weeks. With this process, you will run through these 12 areas four times within a single year. That’s how you make real progress. Each time you go through the 12 areas, choose another single task/area of business/skill/issue on which you will focus. Take that area and apply the three P’s. Work on how you can make plans, policies and procedures that will improve and enhance each given area.
The 12 Areas of Focus To Transform Your Business
1) Skill Enhancement Through Training
Most people do not take the proactive time, on a regular basis, to engage in the three P’s. When you do, your business improves on all fronts, and so do your skills. But this cannot happen with you working alone, trying to fill in your people casually here or there. Whether you have one part time employee, or three thousand, in order to build a great team in which everyone is on the same page, you must involve your staff in the process.
Tell your staff that you want more and better procedures, policies and plans on how to improve the business and make it run better. If you want a business that can run without you, you need a policies and procedures manual. Most would think this is a daunting task, but we’ll show you how it can be done easily and in only one hour per week.
Building a “three P’s” manual will enable you to grow your business more effectively. Look at each area of skill necessary to run a business, choosing one small item or area at a time, and then look at what type of training and/or how the three P’s might make the area improve. There are also many different ways to help people learn. Find which ways work best with which individuals. Again, we can show you dozens of ways to implement anything, but with or without our help, YOU need to be proactively attempting this on your own.
2) Strategy Vs. Tactics
This single area of competency could be the most important of all. Most executives that we’ve worked with, in the biggest companies in the world, are so tactical that they don’t even understand strategy, even when it is painstakingly explained to them. To understand this important competency is to multiply all of your marketing abilities without spending a single additional dollar.
“Strategy” is the overall impact, the ultimate position that you would like to have in the market. “Tactics” are the things that you do to achieve that position. Every tactical interaction (meeting with a customer or any other situation where you come into contact with current or potential customers) can be a significant strategic opportunity. Every tactic (an ad, a direct mail piece, a trade show, a sales call) can be a significant strategic opportunity. The question becomes, do you have an ultimate position in mind, first as a company and second, for each particular strategy?
Let us give you a few ideas here. Here’s a great strategic position to which any company could hope to aspire: “To be the best known, most trusted and respected company in your target market.” If that is your overall goal, than you have to ask what your tactics do to achieve this important goal. If your salesperson is simply trying to make a sale, then they are operating tactically.
If you can think strategically, then you must be asking yourself “what’s the most I could hope to accomplish with each tactic?” If your answer is: “To make a sale,” then you will always be chasing the sale of the day, and NOT building anything sustainable. For example, let’s list other objectives you could achieve with the same tactic, given the right thoughts, plans, policies and procedures:
1) To build in brand loyalty so they ALWAYS want to buy from us whenever they need our type of product or service.
2) To generate referrals from every current, past and new customer. To do this you must have highly motivational policies, plans and procedures built into each aspect of your tactical deployment.
3) To be respected above all our competitors. Again: great goal, but what are you doing at the tactical level to have THIS actually occur?
We could give you at least six more additional strategic objectives for each tactic, but the point is that you need to be thinking and acting strategically so that your tactics maximize.
Meaning, if you place an ad in a newspaper or magazine to attract new customers, does that ad appeal to the broadest possible audience? Let’s take a chiropractic ad as an example. Most chiropractor advertising is completely tactical. Their ads say things like: “Smith Chiropractic, we’ll get you out of pain quickly.”
Studies show that only 16% of the population use chiropractic, while fully 85% of the population complains of neck or back problems (back pain is the second most common reason for visiting a medical doctor). The majority of people have not yet pursued chiropractic care, are not interested in chiropractic care, and may even be against chiropractic care. Therefore, the minute you put the word “Chiropractor,” or “Chiropractic” in the heading of your ad, you just reduced the potential appeal of the ad. How about a heading that says something like: “If you suffer from back or neck pain, there are three things you better know.”
An ad with a headline like this has a broader appeal. This heading appeals to 85% of the population, whereas an ad with the word “chiropractic” in it immediately limits the draw power of the ad to only those who are, as of the moment they see the ad, actually in the market for a chiropractor. Limited, versus broadest possible appeal. This is another example of strategy versus tactics. Don’t worry if you haven’t fully grasped this concept, or if you would like to further explore it, we have tons of help if you want it. Meanwhile…
One hour every 12 weeks, think about strategy versus tactics. Take a look at your tactics, and think about how much more you can accomplish with each. Look at everything in your business, from the way the phones are answered to using your brochure, to the education process with customers. These are all “tactics.” Strategy is what you do with each one of these tactical opportunities in order that every situation is maximized.
3) Get Customers
Once every 12 weeks, think about new and different ways that you can attract customers. But don’t just act randomly; see if you can add ideas to what’s working now. And then try adding a few more ideas to attract customers. Just by sitting around talking about this, by having the objective to think of more ways to get customers, you will begin to develop ideas. Most companies only deploy a handful of ways to attract customers (how many can you think of right now? Six? Ten?) Our organization has developed a program entitled “66 Ways To Get Customers.” This came from focusing on it continually over a several year period. Try to build “The 22 Ways (or whatever number) that Your Business Attracts customers.” But focus on it for a proactive hour, at least once every 12 weeks.
4) Effective Presenting
You must keep focusing on your presentation skills and the presentation experience. What will make you more and more effective at communicating? What will make every communication experience more effective? Studies show that 85% of all motivation is optically stimulated. Can you build some visual aides that will help you communicate more effectively? What are the rules for putting on a great presentation? If you own a retail store, how do you present yourself? If you’re in business to business or business to consumer, have you looked at what really attracts people to your business and how you present yourself? Visuals are critical. If you COULD do a formal presentation to sell to customers, what would it contain? How many times have you looked at this area? How about looking at it at least one hour every three months (12 weeks)?
5) Master The Telephone
The telephone is your best weapon for getting more business from current customers. What policies procedures and plans can you add that will more effectively utilize this important device? Look at every way the telephone is used in your organization and list what the current procedures are and how they are implemented. Then set about improving them. Also, how can the telephone be used for area six, below?
6) The 12 steps To Capture Your Best Buyers
Get in front of as many “buyers” of your service as you can. What is your program to help you get more and more exposure with potential and current buyers? We recommend that you build a special program for (what we call) your “best buyers,” and then work on them regularly. No matter what business you are in, there are always better buyers rather than all buyers. Focus on your best buyers and your business will grow much more dramatically than it ever will by focusing on “all” buyers. Why? Because there are fewer best buyers than there are all buyers and that means it’s even cheaper to focus on them than on all buyers.
This works better than you can imagine. We have a fabulous program in this area that has helped many a business virtually double sales in 12 to 15 months flat. We call it “The Dream 100 Sell.” Who are your dream clients? Do you have a special program just for them? Build it and they will come.
7) Follow Up
It’s one thing to get a “best buyer,” what is your program for keeping them? Once every twelve weeks, think about how you can better follow up with customers and with organizations to build better and better relationships. The most successful businesses have extremely strong relationships with their customers and the surrounding community.
Is your follow up planned out or is it up to each individual to do what they think is best? An ounce of planning equals of pound of results. Spend an hour every 12 weeks on this important area. That may not seem like enough time, but how much time are you spending on it now? Start with an hour. The reason most people don’t’ really change their organization for the better is because they try to do big things. Ultimately, the longest journey begins with but a single step. It’s the little steps that equal the big result. Get started with only an hour per week.
8) Time Management
Your productivity and the productivity of your staff can double and triple if you become more and more organized. Plan your days more effectively, and you will be amazed at how much more you can get done. We have developed a program entitled “The Six Steps To Time Management.” This was developed over a long period of studying dozens of time wasting time management courses. Time management shouldn’t take a lot of time. Once every 12 weeks, sit down with your staff to develop more and better procedures for time management. You can get our help here but with or without us, YOU have got to work on this area.
9) Goal Setting
Institute regular goal setting for yourself and your staff. Goals direct us; provide us with higher results, because they focus on results. Goal setting is highly proactive, versus reactive, which is how most businesses function. Look at each of the 12 competencies once every three months (12 weeks) and set out some goals for each. Have goals to increase your monthly new customer tally. Institute goals for improving productivity, etc.
10) Traits Of Overachievers
You must institute ideal behavior and motivate yourself and your staff to try and overachieve. What kind of behavior would be above and beyond the call of duty? What would make all your customers feel particularly special? Eventually, by working with your staff, you might develop as many as ten traits of overachievers and those traits can be posted for all current and new employees as you grow and evolve. Make it clear to everyone the behavior that is expected from them. We’ve built a program like this and you can have it for pennies of what it cost us to develop, but you can also develop your own. The point is, you can’t improve anything if you’re not focused on it.
11) Hiring and Motivating
Once you establish these traits of overachievers, as mentioned above, you now have the foundation by which to hire and motivate your staff. In the future, look to hire people who are more apt to behave like overachievers. When we put ads in the newspaper for new staff, we end our ads with “we don’t hire backgrounds, we hire superstars.”
This ad attracts some unusual people, but it also attracts some very bright superstar performers who might not have the ideal background, but who adapt very, very quickly and also end up outperforming people who might have the perfect traditional background. Additionally, if you want to motivate certain behavior, think about ways to reward said behavior. Run contests and give bonuses when certain behavior is performed as desired. A quarterly bonus of $200 costs you very little, and can result in $50,000 in new business if your entire staff gets behind a yearlong push to increase customer purchasing.
12) Understanding The Sales Process
If you analyze the steps that a customer goes through in order to make a decision to purchase, and then you break down those steps, and focus on improving them, you will become better and better at that process. In every field there are steps that a person goes through in order to make a decision to purchase. What are the steps that your customers go through in order to make a decision to purchase your types of products or services? How can you improve your ability to enhance each of these steps? Break it down and work on it once every 12 weeks. You will absolutely, positively improve if you do this.
The magic key
The important thing is consistency. If you consistently approach each of these areas, at least one hour per week, forever, you will experience an ever-improving organization that becomes bulletproof in the face of the massive change and onslaught of commercial clutter. Within these 12 areas, our particular company has found 2400 subtle little areas of potential improvement, all however, are centralized around the core 12 areas mentioned above. Consistently focusing on a few core areas of improvement will do more for your organization than 100 one-day seminar events. Great seminar events are like great comedy shows. You remember that they were funny, but you can’t recall any of the jokes. Very little occurs from a one-day seminar event. Except that it may provide the vehicles to begin the change you’ve needed. Once the motivation is there, a great deal can occur from a constant focus on a few simple proven areas. So in the future, when you DO attend event training programs, make a determination that there will be at least a handful of things that you will commit to forever.
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