Browse Blog Categories
- General (90)
- Business (94)
- Business Coaching (71)
- Business Management (97)
- Business Systems (25)
- Entrepreneur (71)
- Executive Coaching (34)
- Family Business (83)
- Leadership (99)
- Management (91)
- Marketing (16)
- Profitability (19)
- Sales (18)
- Speaking Topics (5)
- Success In Business (97)
- Team Building (41)
- Time Management (3)
Janna's Blog
When I was a kid, my family camped at Calaveras Big Trees in California. The camp-ground was awesome and allowed us to play all day in the woods, climb hills, and never worry. My dad always made it his goal to leave the campsite in better shape than he found it. He would clean up leaves and twigs, fix benches, and make the campsite a delight for the next people to arrive. (As an aside, my dad opened the zipper to our tent one night and came nose-to-nose with a bear. I am not sure who was more scared, but both Dad and the bear were shocked. The bear ran away, and my dad was speechless.) Think about the trace you leave behind in your career or business. Does it improve the business, or do you leave a path of destruction and waste? What investment do you make in the people you work with?Marketing without sales is a waste of time and money. Yet, as a business coach, that is what I see continually in businesses I meet. The marketing team (even if it is a team of 1) does the marketing activities: advertising, networking, strategic alliances etc. Yet, when the phone rings does the sales team know how to close the sale? Statistic indicate that almost 70% of sales are not closed due to the sales person never asking for the sale. If you don’t ask for the sale, you 
probably won’t get it. The sales team needs training. I have joked that the sales team needs WEEKLY training, only to have sales people agree with me. It isn’t a joke, train your sales team, train them well and train them often!
Who is your sales team? My answer – every employee in the company? Who needs sales training – every employee. Who is the core sales team? The team of people who regularly talk, meet with customers and prospects. That includes receptionists, customer service, Presidents, management etc. All it takes is one word to make the difference in a sale.
What do you train the sales team on?
- Conversion rate – The phone rings – a prospect – everyone is excited (or at least they should be). How do you talk to them? What questions do you ask PRIOR to your answering their question? As prospects very few of us really know what we want to purchase. We just think we know. If you don’t help to educate us – we will then buy on price.
- Products – You know your products (or do you). How do you describe them? Do you create emotion as you share the value of your product to me? Do you know how to create emotion for your product? Does everyone really understand the value of the product? For 98% of companies I believe the answers to the above questions are no. Changing those answers will make a difference.
- Customer – Do you know what the customer wants? Not what YOU think they want, but what they truly want?
- Competition – Who are your competitors and how are you different? Why should they buy from you and not them? If you are more expensive then why, if you are less expensive – then why. Know your competition – they probably know you.
Attitude is all about how you look at things. I recently took a trip to New Orleans flying through Houston. The Polar Vortex that has been hitting the US made for cancelled flights and a one day delay in actually making the trip. Then upon my arrival in Houston my connecting flight was cancelled. Rather than waiting around hoping to make it on another flight (the standby list was over 200), I chose to drive. The situations on that drive will generate some good stories during my speaking event!
That drive and the resulting situations (i.e., getting pulled over, having the road closed for 125 miles and getting detoured twice etc.) could have made for a very unhappy person who was grouchy, blaming the airlines, mad at the world and generally miserable. What I chose was the pure joy of having 6 hours to myself in a part of the country I haven’t driven before and the peacefulness of my thoughts (when I wasn’t singing at the top of my lungs to a favorite song).
The event that happened was the cancelled flight, my response was – ok now what happens. My actions created the outcome; “this is a journey and who knows where it will take me”. My response could have been much different and the outcome could have ruined the whole conference for me.
My questions to you:
- How do you respond during challenges?
- What are your first thoughts and resulting actions?
- Do you take it out on others – therefore creating a bad awful day for them?
I have learned that one great joy is to take a bad situation and NOT take it out on others. I love watching them respond when they expect you to yell and get mad. I love putting joy into their day of not having an irate customer in front of them. Now this doesn’t mean I allow them to walk on me, or am a push over (those who know me probably haven’t even dreamed of that situation.) You would be amazed at how often I then get told: Thank you for being so understanding. Thank you for your attitude.
How do YOU respond? Do YOU need to change your response to life, business, and personal situations which not only change your world – but those around you?
Ready to get started
Call or contact Janna Hoiberg online to schedule a free, initial consultation.
There is no obligation and you're guaranteed to learn a few new things about your business.