Evaluating Strengths and Weaknesses

Have you ever met someone you thought was good at everything? Did you believe that anything they attempted to do never failed? I'm sure if we think back, we all know someone who falls into this category. In reality, that person does not exist. Every single person has certain strengths and certain weaknesses. Some rare people are extremely good at covering up their weaknesses, but believe me they are still there.

It is very important that you take the time to make a serious evaluation of your overall strengths and weaknesses. You need to evaluate all areas of your personality including mental, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual attributes. To properly engage in this type of thinking you have to be okay with the fact that you have actual weaknesses, and that some of your perceived strengths may in actuality be weaknesses in disguise. You will derive absolutely no benefit from this exercise if you cannot or are not willing to take a true and honest picture of yourself. I myself am aware of my glaring weaknesses, but sometimes fail to recognize some that obviously exist. That is why a complete and thorough examination is needed to really understand your abilities.

The main benefit from this evaluation is creating opportunities to channel your energy toward your strengths and minimize your exposure to your weaknesses. In simple terms, do what you do best and let others help you with what you do not. Adopting this philosophy will help boost your confidence and reduce your frustrations in both your business and professional life.

Clearly Define Expectations

As a business owner with employees, manager, or anyone else who supervises others I am sure that you have experienced the problem of someone not correctly doing their job. It could have been caused by carelessness, poor attitude, inexperience, or a number of other causes that effect someone's performance. One area we sometimes fail to consider are expectations. Did you properly explain what you expected from someone, or did you just take it for granted they knew what to do? Did you have a system in place that can measure actual results against predetermined objectives? Did you help them through proper training and support to be prepared to meet these expectations? These are questions you have to ask yourself when trying to examine someone's work.

I have managed enough people to know that with some, no matter how much time you spend working with them, they just aren't going to get it. You want to focus your attention on the people who can truly perform the job, but need some additional guidance to get it done right.

I spent most of my career in the wholesaling industry. One of our biggest tasks was to gain additional distribution for our products. We were having tremendous difficulty gaining distribution for a particular brand. Being extremely frustrated at our lack of progress, I immediately blamed our sales people for the problem. When I examined things a little closer, I realized they did not fully understand the company's expectations and there was no system in place to convey them. By developing a set goal, an action plan to achieve that goal, and a tracking system to measure results, each person knew exactly what was expected from them. This was also designed to hold them accountable for their results. The end result was a consistent gain in distribution, leading to a consistent gain in sales.

Take the time up front to make sure someone knows what their job is, how you want it performed, and what results you expect. Creating a system that communicates expectations will have a positive impact on performance. It will also help eliminate some common excuses such as "I did not know that was my job", or the more blatant one, "that's not my job." Once expectations are clearly communicated you pass the responsibility of properly executing work tasks onto their shoulders and off of yours.

Sampling: A Powerful Marketing Tool

I did some work this week with an associate on a marketing plan for a company that is looking to launch a specialty food product. It is the classic story of someone cooking something up in their kitchen, serving it to their friends, and then deciding to try and sell it to the general public. There are thousands of successful products that got started this way. In fact there are quite a few very successful companies that got started this way. The one thing they all have in common, is that they created a product that people liked.

When putting together a plan to market this product, we went over the basic steps that need to be done to get this project off the ground. You have to formulate your pricing strategy, fine tune your packaging and presentation, define your target market, create a promotional plan to support your roll out just to name a few. A vital part of this plan has to be an aggressive sampling program. After all, why did you decide to try and sell this product in the first place; the people who tried it, really liked it.

Sampling is the most cost effective way to promote your product. Your plan should include as many sampling opportunities as possible. Getting your product into people's hands, or mouths is the fastest way to generate interest as well as sales. If people like something they will buy it. Not only will they buy it, they will recommend it to their friends and family. Word of mouth advertising is still the most effective form of advertising there is. Offering to sample your product is also an effective way to gain distribution in outlets where you hope to sell your product. Store owners will be much more willing to carry your product if you agree to conduct some samplings that will encourage sales. Even if you just supply product for the store owner to use as samples, it is a good use of your marketing dollars.

Remember this simple formula; distribution is vital for growing sales, sampling will create demand, and demand will increase distribution. As long as you keep producing a quality product that people enjoy, use sampling to continually fuel the fire of sales growth.

A New Year's Chance

As we come to the end of another year it gives us a chance to reflect back on everything we have accomplished and everything that still remains to be done. This can be a bit overwhelming given today's tough environment. Accomplishments become harder to achieve and unattained goals seem even farther away.

I reviewed my marketing plan for the year and found that certain assumptions I made in the beginning of the year were overly optimistic as I fell way short of the planned goal. There were other areas of the plan where I exceeded my expectations and made some deep inroads that should pay dividends in the future. The main point I took away from these reflections was that growing your business as well as living your life is one big road trip. There are no right or wrong paths, just paths of opportunity. You can choose to play it safe and drive around in circles, or throw caution to the wind and drive around without a map. I personally would not recommend either of these choices, rather I would chart a course that is well planned and thought out, but will take you out of your comfort zone and force you to explore new and different paths of opportunity.

I came to the realization a few years back that you only get one chance to live your life, and there are no do overs. I decided I can live with the regret of failure, but not the regret of never trying. Given all the challenges we face on a daily basis, one of the few things we can control is attitude. Attitude is what causes people to quit or drives them to persevere.

The New Year Holiday has always been one of my favorites because it gives you a chance at renewal. While the majority of people's resolutions will quickly fall by the wayside, vow to not let this happen to you. Set some goals that will improve your quality of life in a mental, physical, and spiritual way. Forget the past as it can not be changed. The future will take care of itself. Live in the present and set these goals as high as you can. The trick is to not let the fire go out when you encounter the inevitable obstacles that will urge you to quit. You may not accomplish everything you set out to do, but you will end up far better not having the painful regret of giving up.

Decision Making- Black, White, and Grey

Decision Making: Black, White, and Grey

There were many times I sat in a meeting when an important decision had to be made. Someone from accounting or operations would say “That is a black or white situation.”
With my background being in sales I was not always sure this was the case. There are many business decisions that are cut and dry, however too many times people look for a simple yes or no answer to solve a complex problem.

Company policy is a vital part of any organization. You have to have structured processes in running any business. These policies need to be set in the best interests of the company and then properly communicated to the employees responsible for following them. Too many times companies do not have set policies, so when situations do arise there is no consistency in their reactions. Internal policies are important so that everyone is treated fairly. Employees must know what is expected of them in the role they fill. They must also know what behaviors are acceptable and which ones are not. External policies are equally important so the company’s vision and mission can be achieved. Without these policies chaos will certainly ensue.

My problem with black and white decisions arises when the concept of flexibility is removed from rational thought. Too many times I found myself in situations where someone, citing company policy, made a wrong decision that drastically affected the company. If you have a policy that states that any order received after 9:00 A.M. will not be delivered until the next day, there probably is a good reason behind it. If you don’t set a cut-off time you will never be able to maintain a delivery schedule that accommodates all your customers. But what happens when one of your biggest customers is out of stock on your best selling item and forgot to call their order in on time? My answer always was that if we can physically make this delivery we would. These were the decisions that were not black or white; rather I liked to call them grey.

In the world of sales we constantly exist in gray. To ensure customer satisfaction you can’t throw the rule book out, but you better have the flexibility to bend it a little. I would always look at a problem as an opportunity. How can I handle a situation that goes from a loss for someone to a win-win for everyone? While that was always my goal, it certainly was not always achieved. You have to decide what you can live with and what you can’t. Once you do this you can render a decision that takes everyone’s best interest into consideration but still protects the company’s best interest. Anyone can make a black or white decision. The ability to make those “grey” decisions is what makes a person successful in the long run.

The Rule of Seven

I recently attended a sales seminar and one of the topics discussed was the number of times you need to contact or touch someone before you can truly make a connection and open the door to a sale. The presenter referred to this concept as "The rule of seven." The theory is that it takes seven forms of communication in order to gain some trust and begin to build a relationship with a potential customer. Examples would be a phone call, an e-mail, a direct mail piece, a personal letter, a written article on your product or company, your website or a reference from another associate. All of these can be used to reach out to prospects in the hope of gaining them as customers.

I'm sure everyone knows of sales people that close most of their business on the first call. If you have a superior product and a flawless presentation, a one call close is very possible. The decision to buy is often an emotional one rather than a rational one. If you hit the right nerve with the buyer you can immediately close the deal. While there are the sales superstars who can achieve this result on a regular basis, for the majority of us it will take a number of efforts to close the sale.

The key to sales is to be consistent with your message and remain persistent, but not pushy. You need to present the benefits to the buyer in multiple ways in order to get your message across. Some people respond to visual stimuli (letters, e-mails, written articles, websites) while others respond to audio stimuli (phone calls, voice mails, a reference from an associate). That is why using a combination of both forms of communication helps insure your message gets through.

Most decision makers are bombarded with sales messages on a daily basis. They have built up a defense mechanism to deflect most of the information they receive. If you have something special or unique to offer, you may catch their eye, but chances are it will take several efforts to do so. Your role as a sales person is to use everything at your disposal to cut through the clutter, once again in a persistent, not pushy way.

It is easy to get discouraged when the only word you hear all day is no, but do not use this as an excuse to give up. Keep track of your efforts and make sure you remember "the rule of seven" as it pertains to them. Most sales people tend to quit asking for the order after the first no, when in reality you might need six more attempts to turn that no into a yes.

Staying Positive Amoungst So Much Negativity

It is extremely easy to find constant sources of negativity in the world. One of the easiest ways is to simply turn on the local news as it is often filled with negative stories. Unfortunately, most of the stories revolve around bad things happening to good people. There is nothing that anyone in the world can do to change this, as it is part of everyday life. I would sum up this type of negativity as unavoidable. The negativity you want to avoid is usually brought on by the various people you interact with on a daily basis. The ones that want to bend your ear about everything that is wrong with their job, their boss, their life, ect.

I worked in an office setting having direct supervision over a staff of twenty people. In my eighteen years of management not one day went by without some kind of major problem arising. In fact most days there were multiple problems all worse than the one before. While I know it is a cliche, my first response to "we have a problem" was "there are no such things as problems, only opportunities". In all honesty I really believed that to be true. I found that in managing people, if you start to panic, all hell will break loose with the rest of the troops. Now that I work on my own I sometimes have to remind myself that problems really are opportunities in disguise.

While I think most people would like to think of themselves as optimists, in reality there are very few people in the world who truly are. I myself, a staunch optimist, will let negativity creep into my psyche. It is only the fact that I can not stand to be around negative people that snaps me back into a positive state of mind. It is hard for me to dwell on some minor issues in my life that given the right attention and some time, will correct themselves, when there are so many people in this world facing serious, often life threatening situations everyday of their lives. You need to put things into their proper perspective before you start complaining about the problems you may face.

Negativity will never go away, as it is woven into the fabric of society. How you choose to deal with it is entirely up to you. You can easily succumb to the masses and join in the rant, or rise above the complaints and find a better way, a positive response.