Thrive Time: Advice on how to take your business to the next level
Quite simply, you cannot allow the economy to dictate your success. You should and can thrive in any economy, good or bad. The bottom line concept is sales. Furthermore, you will consistently need better sales and more of them to not only stay afloat, but to thrive. Here are some tips on how to make that happen:
Keep flexible and change as needed.
Nowadays, as the world is changing very fast and technology is changing even faster, the phrase “adapt or die” has never been truer. Companies and business people have new interests, new opportunities and new needs.
Can you assist people with their newfound interests, opportunities or needs? What will it look like?
How can you marry the new with the tried and true? How will you make it valuable to the customer? What is the learning curve for you to be able to provide it and do it well?
Look for holes in the system.
Always be willing to shake things up in your day-to-day operations, your products and your sales pitches. Change things that aren’t ideal, even if it hurts to do it.
Is your financial model to your advantage? Is there another way that people can work with you? Are your sales tools bulletproof and do they answer questions that a savvy client would ask?
What do your clients ask for that you don’t provide? Is there a way you can start to provide it? What’s wrong/missing/flawed with your product/service that would make it work better or do more?
Be a provider of help, not a seller of promises.
Salespeople aren’t typically ushered happily through the door — but consultants are, because they provide assistance with a problem. That being said, this is your opportunity to become a problem solver and change your sales approach. Stop selling and start helping. Capitalize on your ethics and create an environment of transparency. The more transparent you are, the more trust you will earn, and the more you will be asked for help.
How do you want to be treated? How do you generally buy from people? If it were your best friend, how would you help? What questions and discovery methods can you infuse into your process to help identify need and create demand?
Be willing to do what others are not.
You can adopt services that people are not willing to do for themselves, or that your competitors are not willing to do.
Another way is to push past typical boundaries. When others stop, you keep going.
Others are not always willing to cold call, knock on doors or get up early in the morning to network with people. But you could be, and you could be the beneficiary of those efforts by meeting more people, creating more opportunity, and having more people curious about how you can help them.
What do your customers complain about having to do? What could you create to solve their problem? How can you increase your opportunity? What are others doing? What does your competition not do?
Change your attitude and believe in possibility.
Attitude is everything, and whatever you believe is going to be the case for you. Ignore the news and the doomsday evangelists in their cries that the world and the economy are going down in flames. It doesn’t matter and only affects you if you let it.
Do you surround yourself with “Debbie Downers,” or positive people? What small change can you make today? Will you move on to the next article, or will you extract even one nugget of wisdom from this and act on it?
Laura Briere is the founder and owner of Vision Advertising of Worcester.
She can be reached at laura@vision-advertising.com.
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