Saturday, October 30, 2010

Brevity

I tend to talk too much, I know. And I tend to write too much and too long, I know.

But I love words and ideas.

I write applications that analyze text, that précis text, that indicate the progression in comprehension of text.

Amongst my favorite authors is Steven Pinker.

From his book “The Language Instinct, page 227, comes this little gem:

Woman: I’m leaving you.

Man: Who is he?

Pinker offers this as an example of the difficulty in developing a mechanical parser.

I am struck by this as a six-word drama - romantic, tragic, stark, fully comprehensible, real,

Talk to Me !

Friday, October 29, 2010

5 Easy Problems

Friday, October 29, 2010

A Staples blog reads in part “During a July 2010 survey, Staples Canada got a glimpse of what’s keeping many small business owners up at night. Here’s a look at some of these key issues and what business experts have to say about them“.

I’ll make it easy for you. Instead of asking you to work, I’ll just list (in alphabetic sequence) the five problems they address:

  1. Attracting business
  2. Money
  3. Staffing
  4. Taxes
  5. Tight deadlines and lack of work-life balance

All you have to do now is circle JUST ONE of the five that YOU feel is your major, major problem.

Then tackle it today.

It really is as easy as that.

And make no mistake. Just chip away at that biggest problem TODAY.

Rinse and repeat.

Talk to Me !

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Too Good a Contact?

Frankly I’m not sure that that’s the right heading, but here goes …

Working my way through my CRM, up pops the senior partner of (we’ll call them) Bloggs and Co.

I’ve not spoken with him.

I did chat up Griselda (no, not her real name) ten months ago. We met a month later for coffee, and it was off-site, and she was somewhat cool in reception. In the end, thanks but no thanks, she wasn’t interested in what I had offered.

Today, here comes Joe Bloggs. Now I don’t want to contact Griselda; she is too negative for my liking, but how did I get in touch with her in the first place?

Through a CNW press release.

Let’s search all the press releases for Bloggs and Co.

Odd!

She no longer appears in them.

Has she been let go?

My mass mailing to her six weeks ago was not returned, but maybe someone opened it, saw the flyer and mail-merge letter and just shredded it.

I find myself in the unfortunate position of having a contact that I don’t want, and I don’t know how to find out that she’s NOT there!

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Sleuthing for Contacts

(1) The name in the press release is “William Anderson”, but when I dial the number I reach a receptionist.

I quickly switch to “May I speak with MISTER Anderson”, because I fear that asking for William will sound too pompous if he’s really Bill, and asking for Bill will sound too presumptuous when I say we haven’t met or spoken before.

It is generally easier to grow less formal than to grow more formal.

The receptionist puts me through, the phone rings four times and then “You have reached Bill Anderson; please leave a message”.

So it is “Bill”, and I update my contact data to read “William (Bill)”.

(2) The name in the press release is “Kolch”.

How do you pronounce it?

I don’t know either, but my reasoning is that people with weird names are accustomed to errant pronunciations and know how to correct their callers gently. They wouldn’t be successful if they didn’t have people skills.

So I call.

And get voice-mail, where the name is pronounced for me, by my contact.

(“Coal-ch”, in case you were wondering).

(3) A search by phone number reveals several “bio” pages, one of which states “MS 1970 McGill University BS 1967 McGill University”.

What do you know!

He is my age; that’s the year I graduated (albeit on the far side of the globe).

Now I know we are peers by experience.

Plus he must be close to retirement.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Lessons from Bob Dylan

I am of an age where I can get away with this: Most of you won’t remember this line: “When you’ve got nothin’, You’ve got nothin’ to lose”.

Bob Dylan, circa 1965.

Another unscripted moment in my life:

"Hello. Could I speak with Vic Alboini please?"

“I’m afraid he is out of the province until Friday”

“OK. Should I speak louder then?”

A pause, then a peal of laughter.

Once I hear the laughter I know I’ve won.

I said I’d call back on Monday, but Wendy asked if I’d like to leave a voice-mail.

No, I said, we’ve not spoken before and he’ll be playing catch-up on Friday when he returns.

Wendy then asked if she could send an email on my behalf (!), but again I declined. No, I said, he’ll have a ton of email and voice-mail to work through, and I don’t want to make it any worse.

(See how I am strenuously trying to avoid contact here?)

I figure that on Monday I’ll call back, ask to be put through to “Wendy, Vic’s secretary”, and she’ll remember me and I can pile right in and ask for a luncheon date, any time in the future.

Wendy is on my side, now.

Talk to Me !

Monday, October 25, 2010

The Direct Approach

If I seem to focus a great deal on the telephone calls, it’s because I’m good at it, and getting better each day, but it’s the one thing I thought I was rotten at!

I am skipping much of the folderol and cutting straight to the chase:

“Good Morning Beverly; my name is Chris Greaves. We haven’t spoken before, but I’m calling to ask you out to lunch”.

Peals of laughter from the other end, then “Who are you?”, “What do you do?”, “Why me?”. As predictable as a wound-up clock.

These are easy questions to answer: “I am Chris Greaves, an independent consultant”; “ I phone people up and take them to lunch”; “Because your name was on yesterday’s press release.”.

“Why don’t you want to speak to the President, CEO or CFO?”; “because everyone else is taking them to lunch, but I want to go straight to the person who runs things”.

More laughter, and I just KNOW that we will be setting a lunch date.

“Good morning Doctor Walker; my name is Chris Greaves. We haven’t spoken before, but I’m calling to ask you out to lunch”.

No laughter this time, but the same questions.

“After reading the press release I noticed your address and it seems to me that you are right across from the Tim Horton’s on the West mall where I have coffee four times a week:”.

He is busy for a month, call him November 22nd.

I will. In the meantime I’ll send him a hand-written card, and by November 22nd he will remember my name, but not who I am, and he’ll agree to the lunch. I just know that he will.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Phoning the Family

Not that family; I don’t have that sort of family.

I mean my fellow consultants, fellow entrepreneurs. The ones who support me with technical knowledge, the ones who stiffen my spine.

I need to call them, and they pop up on my Follow-up list as regularly as my Target Market Prospects.

However I need the prime time 9 a.m.-noon and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. to call my prospects.

So at four in the afternoon I scoot through my CRM database, looking for family that will soon be up for a call. And I call them.

Usually there’s not a lot to say; “Hi, how are you doing”. We might make a date to meet for supper before the networking meeting; we might not.

But they are family, so the esteemed guest gets served first, and family gets fed later.

After four o’clock.

Talk to Me !

Friday, October 22, 2010

Own the Best Notebook

A recent Staples Blog makes sense. The first item on the list “Five little tools for small business success“ is “Own the best notebook”. “Profitability relies on keeping overhead costs in line while striking just the right balance with business performance.” And so on.

But who has the time or money to rush out and buy a new lap/net/notebook every six months/year?

Not me, that’s fer sure.

So why not make your current computer better than the latest computer-off-the-shelf by tweaking yourself?

Huh?

Today you are using your computer inefficiently. I can guarantee it. You are performing some mouse or keyboard action that is inefficient compared to some other way.

By changing a single computer-habit each week, you can save far more time than you can by getting a 3.8GHz computer to replace your aging 3.7GHz computer.

And it won’t cost you a cent!

And it will work on every computer you use during the week, INCLUDING EVERY COMPUTER OWNED BY YOUR CLIENTS!

How?

Call me, email me, or just SUBSCRIBE to the FREE “Win Tips” newsletter.

Talk to Me !

Thursday, October 21, 2010

I Just Get Better and Better

Really, I do.

I have discovered a new source of direct contact data – the PDF files on corporate web sites.

It is the work of 60 seconds to click on the link, scoot to the end of the PDF report and then copy-paste the CEO’s email and direct line.

That 60 seconds can save me many minutes of aggravation through the main number, gate keepers, phone directories and so on.

Boom!

And when I begin to speak, “I got your phone number after reading the … report from your web site” I gain in credibility.

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

"I Have A Cunning Plan …"

If you are a fan of Baldrick , you’ll know what I mean.

I mailed out 150 flyer-and-letters for a training course I was giving a few weeks back.

From that mailing have come two serious enquiries about Application Development - business unrelated to the training course.

The flyer-letter was enough to bring me to the front of people’s minds.

Of course, I have the attendant cost and risk of booking a room, setting aside time to prepare the course material etc.

STOP!

Reflect.

Suppose that once a month I issued a letter-flyer combination to my contacts without actually booking the room or setting up the course.

It wouldn’t matter whether anyone subscribed to the course or not.

I’d have no expense in time or money setting up the course.

I could publish a new course offering every month for the cost of the paper, envelope and stamp.

If anyone actually called me up to book a seat, my response would be “I am afraid there are no more seats available”, an honest response if ever there was one.

And I stand to get $10,000 of business (in Application Development) from each mailing.

Money for Jam .

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Expected Values

I had coffee this afternoon with Rick Shea of Optiv8 , always a rewarding and educational experience. I am a firm believer in the dictum “Management Measures”, and Rick is an expert at putting this into practice. (From which you a free to infer that I am strong on theory but weak …).

Chris Greaves the prospector and Chris Greaves the salesman.

Chris Greaves the prospector can measure his progress daily, should he choose to. Ten phone calls, one meeting, twenty phone calls, two meetings. Instant gratification.

Chris Greaves the salesman with a much longer wave-length needs a different tool for measurement.

Chris Greaves the salesman has chosen expected values as his tool.

For every contact in the his database, Chris Greaves assigns a dollar value to the potential project, and a percentage probability of achieving it.

After the first face-to-face meting (“Hi! How are you”), no project is mentioned, so the dollar value and probability are both zero. The contact is valued at $0.

Three months down the road the contact phones or emails asking about a tool to do something-or-other. Yes we can do that. Immediately Chris Greaves makes an educated guess that the project, if it comes off, might be worth $5,000, and the probability of it coming off is 10% at this stage. The expected value is, therefore, $500.

A meeting is arranged at which Chris Greaves demonstrates a proof-of-concept of the process, and the client keeps saying “send me a quote”.

After this meeting Chris Greaves might consider the project worth $8,500 and the probability 75%. The expected value is, therefore, $6,375.

Once a month, Chris Greaves sums up all the expected values in the data base (actually he generates an Access or Excel report!) and submits this figure as the potential worth of the contact database in its current state.

Of course, Chris Greaves the Chief Financial Officer wants to know how much marketing expense the other two Chris Greaves incurred to generate all these expected values, and whether those marketing efforts are working. You see, Chris Greaves wants to hold Chris Greaves and Chris Greaves accountable for how they spend his time, or something like that.

(If Chris Greaves the Chief Financial Officer gets really picky, he can set the initial value at $-30.00, because Chris Greaves the Prospector spent that much on taking the prospect out to lunch!).

You can learn more about this technique from Rick Shea of Optiv8 .

He is the expert, not I.

Talk to Me !

Monday, October 18, 2010

What Am I Selling?

Nothing, sort of.

But then again, there are TWO of me selling.

I’ll explain.

I had coffee this afternoon with Rick Shea of Optiv8 , always a rewarding and educational experience. I am a firm believer in the dictum “ Management Measures ”, and Rick is an expert at putting this into practice. (From which you a free to infer that I am strong on theory but weak …).

During the conversation I realized that Chris Greaves the prospector phones prospects and tries to set up a face-to-face meeting. When he succeeds, he considers that he has “made a sale”. No money is changing hands, but Chris Greaves the prospector considers his target to be setting up two meetings with new contacts every week. If he makes his quota by mid-day Tuesday he figures he can goof off for the rest of the week.

Chris Greaves the salesman, however, starts where Chris Greaves the prospector leaves off. After that first face-to-face meeting, Chris Greaves the salesman’s task is to convert a known being into a project that will bring in money. Chris Greaves the salesman considers that he has made a sale when the client acknowledges a proposal and sends a cheque (usually a 50% deposit).

Chris Greaves the prospector has a very short wave-length for sales. Make ten phone calls on Monday morning and get one of them to agree to a meeting, usually at lunch time. Ten more calls Tuesday morning can net another meeting, and the week’s quota has been reached over a span of twenty-eight hours.

Chris Greaves the salesman needs to be more patient. It can take several years for a contact to surface with a request (”Do you know how to …?”). Chris Greaves the salesman has a very long wave-length.

Both these guys needs to measure the effectiveness of their sales techniques, but Chris Greaves the prospector has by far the easier measurement, because his results are immediate, same-day results.

Talk to Me !

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Let Them Quote!

Another great meeting downtown; one hour of discussion followed by a short demonstration of my Proof-Of-Concept.

As the meeting draws to a close, the client says “We’d like to go ahead; Please draw up a proposal and quote us a price”.

I agree (The Answer is Always YES!) but on the way home I feel trapped.

There are too many unknowns and the client may think that it is but a short development step from proof-of-concept to fully-functional application.

If I quote too low I’ll get the job, but will have cheated myself out of my due rewards; If I quote realistically, the client may well perceive it as too high, and I won’t get the job.

I can calculate and estimate quite well, having years of practice and corrective feedback. I know to within ten thousand dollars how much the client spends on the current document process. If I quote half that figure, then the ROI takes a mere 6 months.

Then - a brainwave!

Why shouldn’t I write the specifications, draw up a proposal based on those specifications, and ask the client to suggest a price.

Now it’s the client who sweats bullets; I can assist by providing my estimates of what they currently spend per year on their current manual process.

If the client quotes too low they know I’m likely to walk away saying “I am sorry but I cannot do it at that price”, and if the client quotes too high, the deal won’t be approved.

Now it is the client who walks a fine line, and to make things better (for me), will probably err a little on the high side, just to be sure of getting the job done.

Why aren’t more entrepreneurs taking this approach?

Talk to Me !

Friday, October 15, 2010

Staying in Touch 4


Friday, October 15, 2010

This business of getting business from people who know me nags me no end.

I know that’s where my business comes from.

I feel in my heart that it is a matter of staying in the front of people’s minds so that when a problem arises, my name springs to the fore.

An idea has struck me:

If I want to “touch” people once a month, I should prepare a simple report (at the end of each month) from my contact list, of all the people whose contact record has not been modified that month, that is, who have not been “touched”, and they should, at least, receive a card or a short mass-mail-merge newsletter, separate from my other e-letters or mailings.

The testing question therefore is “Did each person on my contact list have a reason to think of me at least once this month?”

Talk to Me !

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Thanks!

The debate continues.

I can only tell you what works for me.

I met this lunchtime with a Director of Corporate Training for a provincial organization. It was not really a sales call; we had not met, but we had been recommended, so the obvious thing to do is eat lunch.

Which we did.

We struggled to find topics of conversation, we each probed a bit, but not too much. After all, this isn’t a sales call.

We think alike about at least three things, and I’m gratified to find we are on the same wavelength.

I carry those DUCA greeting cards with me when I’m out.

I already have the mailing address on my printed crib sheet.

It is the work of TWO MINUTES while waiting for the subway train or bus to use my fountain pen and write thirty words, address the envelope, and put a customized postage stamp (bearing my face!) on the envelope, and best yet, drop it in a postbox in time for the 5 p.m. collection.

It should land on his desk tomorrow morning.

Tell me he won’t be impressed ….

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Indxr.ca is DEAD!

For a year now I have maintained a domain www.indxr.ca – if you click on that link right now you might see it, but chances are strong that by the time you read this it will be gone.

Why is it there?

A year ago I got the nudge to promote my 1-click indexer as a free give-away to attract attention. It hasn’t worked for me.

I tried various ideas to get out the message, but either I am hopeless or the freebie just isn’t as broadly useful as I thought.

During the past year I have inspected the web site daily with a Google Search set up in my Daily Dose to let me inspect the ranking of the home page, and ditto in YouTube for the little video.

It all adds up.

On top of that I have spent several hours trying to help basically incompetents who like the idea of a free tool but don’t know how to unzip a file (you double-click on it and follow the instructions).

That Time Will Never Come Back

Now the domain is up for renewal, and I don’t like the agent (they have multiple-billed my credit card in the past), and I have just too much going on right now to spend time transferring the registration to a new domain.

So it goes.

And what a relief I felt this morning when I woke up, having made the decision yesterday.

But Indxr is still around.

You just can’t type www.indxr.ca anymore and hope for success.

http://chrisgreaves.com/indxr.ca/ works, as it has for over a year now.

Talk to Me!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Who Ya Gonna Call?

  • Alain Blackburn
  • Ammar Al-Joundi
  • Claudio Mancuso
  • Daniel Racine
  • David Smith
  • Donald G. Allan
  • Eberhard Scherkus
  • Ingmar E. Haga
  • Jean Robitaille
  • Louise Grondin
  • Marc Legault
  • Patrice Gilbert
  • Paul-Henri Girard
  • Picklu Datta
  • R. Gregory Laing
  • Sean Boyd
  • Tim Haldane

The list above is from a local web site. I have sorted the names in alphabetic sequence by first name.

You don't know the title, age or service in the company of any one of them.

You need to make a cold-call inviting one of them to lunch

There is almost certainly a gatekeeper.

Which of the 17 officers will you call?

Why that one?

If you want to know my answer, Ask Me !

Monday, October 11, 2010

Reducing Un-Necessary Work

No matter how I crunch the numbers, I am spending far too much time pulling up a contact record and/or notes, dialing a number, and getting voice-mail.

Especially when I’m trying to establish first-contact with a President/CEO of my target market firms.

I need to change my tactics.

For the next three weeks I will dial the President/CEO.

If I get sidetracked by a gatekeeper, I’ll try to let go gracefully.

If The number I dial is the direct line (or I am given the extension) and I get voice-mail, I’ll record it as such but immediately mail out a hand-written card with one of my personalized stamps on the envelope.

That card will serve as an introduction to my NAME, after which I might feel better about leaving a short voice-mail, either asking for a call-back, or something.

But this business of dialing six times and getting six voice-mails has got to stop!

Talk to Me !

Saturday, October 9, 2010

What Makes Another Reasonable Goal?

I have 240 contacts on my list.

Of these, because I’ve been slacking off, 188 are due for a call.

(I maintain several date fields, one of which “Followup” tells me the date on which I should “touch” the client again).

Strictly speaking, at the end of each working day, there should be zero clients needing to be touched. I should be completely up to date.

So a goal might be “Clear out all follow-ups by the end of the day” or in quantified terms “Show that the follow-up list has zero entries before 5pm each day”.

Of course, I can’t spend every day phoning, so the goal at the end of any “phoning” day is “Show that the follow-up list has zero entries before 5pm today”.

How quickly can I trim the 188 entries down to zero?

If I can make 20 calls in 4 hours of dialing I can do one or more of the following

1: Spend more than 4 hours dialing on a phoning day.

2: Make more than 20 calls on a dialing day.

3: Recognize that some of the 180 follow-ups are established contacts, and an email or a postal card will suffice, providing it contains information of value to the contact.

4: Other?

Bearing in mind that I can add four new contacts from The Prospector every business day, my total of follow-ups will increase by 4 every business day, regardless of whether I phone or not.

So I need to make an average of 4 LIVE phone calls per day (not dial-outs!), and then I need to make more to whittle down that backlog.

Howe many dial-outs do I need to make?

As many as I can! (Within reason).

I shall aim for 50 dial outs per day, with the follow-up count being reduced by 10 per day (which means 14 per day when I factor in the new prospects), and I shall record my efforts for two weeks to see if, in deed, that is attainable.

A reward system always works for me.

As I cross each threshold of 50 (150 outstanding items, 100, 50, 0) I shall trot across the street to Bruno’s and purchase either a slab of Brie or a 2-liter tub of vanilla ice-cream, and eat it all in one night.

Or two.

Talk to Me !

Friday, October 8, 2010

What Makes a Reasonable Goal?

I’m describing a personal goal related to my strategy of building business relationships, but what is written here applies to any goal you choose to have.

I have stripped my contact list down to 238 entries. I shed the small organizations which are too small to think big, and am gradually building up my numbers of contacts, CEOs and VPs of large firms.

I want to be known to each person on my list, say 240 contacts, right now, but by the end of the year could be 300, if I add one good one each working day.

Another word for “reasonable” is “rational”, which means, “can be worked out”, and that means some form of logic or numeric calculation, and remembering that Management Measures (and Management Measures – Part 2 ) I need to quantify my goal.

I’ll state it this way: ”My goal is to establish face-to-face contact with each person on my contact list within 3 months of placing them on my list”.

To do this I will have to phone/email/mail most of them in order to be known well enough for them to risk spending half an hour with me.

Or, to put it another way, I can do only 260 lunches in any one year.

I know how many dial-outs I need to make before I get an agreement to meet.

A few days ago I made 21 calls in 4 hours and got a single presidential agreement to meet for lunch. The same effort rewarded me with a total of 4 “please send an email”, which establishes a channel of communication.

If I did that every day, I’d get 4 emails out each day, but I really need only two emails out every day.

I can’t phone out every day – some days I am at client sites, so let’s say I phone out only half of the 260 working days in each year.

That means I need to make 20 calls every other day.

The mathematics is not difficult.

If I want to “touch” each contact by phone twice a year, I need to get 240 “live” phone conversations twice a year, that’s 480 live conversations each year.

If I can get 4 live conversations in 4 hours of an all-day phone day, I need to spend 120 days on the phone full time.

Is that reasonable?

Talk to Me !

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Papering Myself Into a Corner

I grew up with a pencil and paper. I make penciled notes on paper. It’s what I do.

Along the way I took possession of a database program on a computer, so my contact list is a database table, with all sorts of fields and buttons on the main form.

Works well.

The trouble is, I still love paper!

So for each new contact I grab a sheet of scrap paper, write the date, time, company, phone number, and start making notes as I research the company.

When the time comes to dial the company, I take the sheet, log the date and time, and dial the number.

The result of the call will be “got voice-mail”, “left voice-mail”, “got meeting" and so on, mostly ”got voice-mail”.

The paper goes to the bottom of the pile and I reach for the next sheet from the top of the pile.

And so the pile of paper grows and takes control of ME.

I have to learn to copy my paper notes to the database after I’ve made that first call, once I’ve worked out what, of all my notes, seems truly relevant to that FIRST conversation, the conversation that piques the prospect’s interest enough to ask me for an email.

After that I should shred the paper, and rely on the much better tool – the computerized contact management file.

Podcast: PaperingMyselfIntoACorner.MP3

Talk to Me !

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Tungle

http://www.tungle.me/Home/help/tungle-me-page/

It's early days yet (for me), but a colleague sent me an email asking to set up an appointment.

He uses Tungle.

I tried it and it seemed to work flawlessly, which always amazes me, me being me.

Tungle.meTM is your personal scheduling page that lets you choose and publish available time slots, and lets others send you meeting invitations, regardless of whether they use Tungle or not.

Lets others easily schedule meetings with you

People you share your link with can visit your page, see your available times and send you meeting invitations that propose multiple times.

It’s quick, easy and they don’t have to sign up to do it. They simply confirm their email address and they’re done.

It’s on your terms

You choose the days and times of the week to show as available on your page.

Only the available slots you choose are shown. Your calendar details are kept private and people will not be able to propose times in slots you have not made available.

You receive invites and choose the final time to book the meeting. Nothing gets booked without your say and approval.

You control who sees your page. Your page is only accessible on your custom Tungle.me link and you choose who you share this link with.

You can even customize your page with a photo or company logo, personal message, links and contact information.

It works with your calendar

You won’t be double-booked. As you book meetings and add new events to your calendar, Tungle automatically updates your availability on your page.

Once you book a meeting, Tungle automatically adds it to your calendar for you.

Talk to Me !

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Staying in Touch 3

It has happened again!

I mailed a training course letter-and-flyer to my contacts four weeks ago.

Last week I took a call from a contact who “didn’t have time for lunch nowadays, my life is far too hectic, but I had a problem and thought of you”.

Turns out I had had the same problem and solved it by writing a little program called “Snare” which, we think, might be modified to solve his problem.

We meet next Wednesday at 11 a.m.

Strangely, that will give us an hour to demonstrate my solution and his problem, and take us conveniently up to – lunch time!

Talk to Me !

Monday, October 4, 2010

Prospecting Perspective

It can take it out of you, the so-called “cold calls” made each day.

My Goal yesterday was “Make 50 phone calls”. I have 25 press releases on my desktop, and 27 sheets of notes in my folder. A total of 52 companies I’d like to contact.

At the end of the day I see that I made only 21 calls (“dials”) in 3.93 hours.

  • What Went Wrong?

Nothing!

I took incoming calls for help, accepted a new mini-project, let go of one obstructive gatekeeper, and got FOUR requests for emails, one of them an agreement to meet me for lunch two weeks from now.

I need to keep things in perspective. If I meet one new President or CEO/CFO each week, I’ll have made 52 new high-level contacts in a year, and that means I’ll have 52 people in my target market to whom I can send the occasional email, mail, or coffee invitation, and out of that will come relationships. And out of those relationships will come paid work.

It is too easy at the end of a single day to feel let down, but my daily goals are merely to dial out.

My weekly goal is what counts – to establish a NEW face-to-face meeting each week.

I achieved that in the one day this week that I dialed out!

That is a GREAT success, isn’t it?

Talk to Me !

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Are Canadians Too Polite When it Comes to Collecting Owed Money?

A press release from Thursday, a thinly-disguised advertisement for Interac, raises the question.

(I’ve held for 25+ years that Canadians are just too darn polite, but I’m still here!)

The article makes a valid point:

Interac is a superb way to transfer money.

I started using it about 18 months ago. It costs the sender $1.50, which has to be close to the cost of a check and a postage stamp, when all’s said and done.

And it is FAST.

Most commonly I use it in response to a request for a small job.

My target market is the Deep Pockets Club, but right now I won’t turn down a $500 quickie-project from a known contact.

If the contact is the “Head Of” or “VP of” or “Director of”, they can pay out of their personal bank account, for all I care, if they really want the report/macro/proposal by tomorrow.

I issue an invoice, so it is all taxable and above board; they can use the invoice as an expense claim so they aren’t out of pocket.

And the best part: I’ve been paid in advance for my work.

Try it.

Even I know how to use it …..

Talk to Me !

Friday, October 1, 2010

Same-Day Bookings

I have known this doctor for about 25 years. Tried to help him with a non-standard hard disk drive 25 years ago before either of us knew about IDE drives (don’t ask!).

Lost touch.

I don’t like my new doctor, so I called Martin’s office to book an appointment. He was open-minded about computer technology; he might listen to my symptoms instead of reaching for a prescription pad.

So this afternoon at 4 p.m. I called to make an appointment for next week, or the week after.

No go.

His office policy is that one calls first thing in the morning for a same-day appointment.

What?!!

Yep.

No issuing little cards, no need for me to remember. No need to have staff dialing people to remind them, very few cancelled appointments (“Something came up ...”).

Smart!

My guess is that Martin does his hospital rounds early morning, hits the office at, say 10 a.m. and has a full slate until it is time to go home.

If he is successful (and I suspect he is VERY successful), a cancellation probably means he can read a research paper in the office instead of taking it home.

Of Course, this Model Won’t Work for Me

Or will it?

What would my business be like If I took only same-day half-day appointments?

A client would have to call me first thing in the morning and ask me to attend from 1pm onwards.

That would give me until noon to make my prospect/contact/sales calls by telephone and in person.

It would put pressure on the client to hit the ground running and focus their time on the afternoon, instead of letting things drag out all day.

Before you dismiss this idea out of hand, spend two minutes (not three minutes, not one minute, but exactly 120 seconds) and follow through the line of thought.

Think of Your Last Ten Appointments

What would be so different about their outcome if you took the call in the morning and arrived on-site (or sat down to develop the computer application) at one p.m.?

I have been delivering training sessions, all-day sessions.

What would happen if I delivered ½ day sessions, and the training center staff took bookings that morning for the afternoon sessions?

I’d have to think about the financial side of it – how do I bill in advance for a class that doesn’t exist until 9am?

But let me wait until I’ve had a chat with Martin ...

Talk to Me !