Win a Free Healthy Business Assessment!

Do you know how healthy your business is? What parts are working great, and what parts could use some oiling? Now you can find out by entering the Possibilities Unlimited contest for a free 2-session Healthy Business Assessment.

What will you win? Through August 31, 2009 we invite you to enter our drawing for a free, 2-session healthy business assessment. The winner will receive two 45-minute phone coaching sessions designed to set you and your business on a path to success. Through a series of specific questions we will help you determine the areas of strength your business contains, and the areas of weakness where you could grow. You will walk away with specific tasks you can implement to help move your business forward onto a more successful path. The winner will choose from the coaches on staff - either Bonnie Landau, Mary Mullenhoff or Lee Ann Farmer.

How to enter
1) Write out 3 ideas you could implement right now to better manage your time. It could be work, business or personal time.
2) Share a brief paragraph on how you believe each of these ideas will impact your business life.
3) Send your ideas via email to Lee Ann Farmer at Possibilities Unlimited.

Announcing the winner
The winner will be randomly chosen from the entries received. The winning entry will be announced and read on Consulting2Win Radio on September 2, 2009.

Who is ready to win?

Managing Lasting Relationships

“Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.” Anthony J. D’Angelo, The College Blue Book

Relationships are critical to maintain with family, friends, significant others, and your staff and colleagues. This is true for everyone including busy entrepreneurs. I dedicate this blog to David Anthony Ferrara “Dino”, who died on Saturday July 18, 2009 at the age of 44. Only 500 people (of the thousands who’s lives he touched) attended his funeral; these were family friends and business contacts with whom he’d been affiliated over the years. He was a truly successful person and entrepreneur. He helped build and sell a $30 Million company all the while:

1. Making plenty of time to spend with his kids: coaching their lacrosse teams, teaching them about charity and to care for others by volunteering at their church. He fed the poor and led bingo for the elderly at retirement homes. There were countless stories of how he’d hop on an airplane at the drop of a hat to help his brothers, cousins, aunts; anyone in his family who was in need.
2. Participating regularly at events that united his friends: he played golf annually with over 30 buddies he met in grammar, elementary and high school in Baltimore, in college at Bucknell, and during the years through other friends and family. He’d do things like drive out to the desert to play golf with a friend he hadn’t seen in a while and make it back in time that evening for his daughter’s lacrosse game.
3. Managing key relationships throughout his life with staff and colleagues: he went to college with Pete Henig who at the time was editor of Red Herring. Pete introduced Dino to Michael Schwab. Dino nurtured that relationship and was able to raise money for his company. His partner in the business was his grammar school friend David Boden and most of the employees were also either long time friends or became close friends.
4. Supporting his wife April. Their relationship was fun to watch. When you saw the two of them you could tell they were meant to be together. April, an entrepreneur herself, was looking to sell a catering business she’d built and had been running for years. She approached me to check it out and see if I would be interested in buying it. She had an event scheduled with a very influential client (Maria Shriver) to see how to run the business. My husband was out of town that day, and at the time my son was not even a year old. I didn’t have anyone to leave him with so Dino brought their two young kids up to my house to baby sit our kids, so April and I could work at the event. He’d do anything for her.

When you think of all the key elements of the whole life matrix, none is more important than your relationships. To be successful and to have it all, you need to make maintaining relationships your primary goal. Dino did. People were willing to introduce him to their cherished contacts because they knew he’d take care of them too. Though Dino died at very young age, he lived an incredibly full very successful life, and through his treasured relationships built a legacy.

Identifying Prospects - Knowing Where to Win

“The harder I practice, the luckier I get.” Gary Player, South African Champion Golfer

One of the first and most important keys to successful selling is identifying and qualifying prospects. It’s well worth your time to search out and pursue prospects who have a high likelihood of buying your product. The more calls you make to people who have a need for what you’re selling, the more often you will convert those calls to paying customers.

Assess your product – Know what you’re selling, what it costs, and how it can help your prospects. Start thinking about who is in a position to buy that product. If it costs $10,000, don’t pursue clients who have a $5,000 budget.

Ask questions. Determine what your client needs and wants. If they want pizzas, don’t try to sell them caviar. If you sell caviar, look for places where there are likely to be people to buy caviar. If you have a broad range of products or services, take time to zero in on what your prospect feels will fill their needs. If you sell pizza and caviar and your prospect wants pizza, sell them pizza. Maybe you can interest them in extra toppings, but don’t waste your time asking them to buy caviar if that isn’t what they want.

Go where the good prospects are. Join networking groups where there will be people who need your product. Professional associations, leads clubs, chambers of commerce, all of these are excellent resources for meeting new people and potential clients. The more specific the association is to your ideal client type, the more likely you will make contacts that are useful.

Check the competition. Who are your competitor’s clients? Are they buying what you’re selling, but not from you? Maybe you can offer a better deal or a more customized product. Study what’s selling at other companies and consider how you can distinguish your product in the marketplace.

Research other available data. The internet is an amazing resource that can provide you with lists of companies that are in your industry, are of the size range you market to, are in your geographic area, or match up to some other indicator of being an ideal prospect. Spend time daily reading blogs or annual reports to learn more about your target market.

Referrals, referrals, referrals. The best way, hands down, to identify a prospect is for someone to refer you. If you have good relationships with your clients, ask them for referrals and ask them often. You will be surprised at how many times your clients know people who can use your product or service. With a referral, your client has laid the groundwork that gives you an automatic edge. Your client has, in essence, prequalified the prospect for you.

By taking a little time to research and focus your efforts on reaching out to the right people, your sales efforts will be more productive and profitable. And you will be winning the game of sales.

Are you ready to win?