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!

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 !

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 !

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 !

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 !

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 !

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 !

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 !

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 !

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 !

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 !

I Make More Mistakes Than Anybody I Know

Not a day goes by but I make a hatful of mistakes, some trivial some major.

I learned this afternoon that you are supposed to add an egg to the ground meat when you make burger patties. I’d guessed at the dried herbs and spices, and had shanghaied in some chopped onions. But an egg? Who knew?

Now I know.

My first effort at chicken burgers resulted in lovely crumbly fork-size pieces of fried meat and onions. Great as a late-night snack.

Next time I’ll add an egg.

I was experimenting, do you see, and didn’t end up with perfect patties, but did end up with a few servings of a tasty cold-snap snack.

Next time will be better.

Same with computers. I tried a new procedure for the results of a mail-merge and it went awry.

Thing is, I took a shot at it, so I am ahead of anyone who thinks a mail-merge is daunting.

It’s the same with my approach to prospecting: No one I know calls the President of a major firm direct and unsolicited. I get some knock backs, but I get a lot more meetings with presidents of major firms than anyone else I know.

I also get to make more mistakes because I get more done each day, and that’s because I get up early and clear the “housework” office stuff out of the way before 9 a.m.

I need as much time as I can get to make mistakes with other people!

Talk to Me !

NOT dead at 65

Are you growing older?

Does the age of 65 seem to loom closer every year?

Are you worried that you’ll reach 65 without making your pile (of retirement cash)?

Fear not. 65 was the age chosen – in principle if not in precise value -one hundred and thirty years ago by Otto von Bismarck around and after 1880. The essence was to arrest the revolutionary movement by proving cradle-to-grave support for the masses. That meant that older workers needed to be removed to make job-spaces for younger workers. Hence retirement on a pension.

Look around you at the number of males, especially, who work until they are 65, take retirement, and die within 2 years.

As entrepreneurs we don’t have to retire; we do not fit the factory-worker mold.

As entrepreneurs we do what we do because we are passionate about doing it.

Why stop doing what you enjoy?

Don’t stop!

But do embark on those 3-year, 5-year, 10-year plans, even the 20-year plan. Who are you to say you won’t live until 90.

And if you do die before achieving your 20-year plan, won’t the first part of the trip have been worth it?

Talk to Me !

Budgeting on $100 for Beginners

Budgeting is not difficult.

Planning a budget is no less difficult.

If you are starting a business you will want to know your anticipated expenses for 12-month periods.

A quick-and-easy way to estimate your bare-essential expenses for the next 12 months is to map out every expense of one hundred dollars or more.

Why a hundred dollars?

Because anything less than $100 is probably discretionary spending and we can deal with that either by (a) tightening our belts or (b) providing a lump sum per month for small incidentals.

Grab a spreadsheet, key in 12 months across the top.

Key in your monthly rental or mortgage under each month. Stagger the payments like stairs, and in the 13th column (at the right) key in “Rent”.

Don’t worry that only 1/3 of your rent payment is an business expense; your accountant will work that out at tax time. For now you need to know that you have to find $1,200 every month, or you’ll be homeless.

Can you remember when you purchased cartridges for your laser printer? No. Can you remember how many you have bought this year? Yes? Good. Jot down $140 at equal intervals across the chart.

Your cheque book stubs, bank statements, and that shoebox of receipts will offer some clues.

When you are done, your spreadsheet will look a little more cluttered than this, but it will be a better starting-point than a wild guess.

This (partial) example tells me that I need at least $12,000 to survive. Of course I haven’t yet gone back through my receipts, and tonight I’ll think “Oh yes! My web-hosting costs me $120” or stuff like that.

Now what about those small discretionary items?

Perhaps you meet entrepreneurial buddies for breakfast once a month; perhaps you have supper at the local diner once a week with a close friend. Estimate those on a monthly basis, say $10 for breakfast and $15 four times a month for supper and call it $70. Write in “$100 for meals”, to give yourself a coffee when you meet someone downtown.

That it isn’t, and won’t be $100 doesn’t matter. That it is closer to $100 that “I dunno” is important.

And from now on each time you spend $100 or more on any item, record it in your budget sheet. You will soon build up a clear idea of your requirements.

Talk to Me !

Doing the Job Without the Quote

Something strange happened on Friday.

An existing client phoned me and asked for a small job, to be done in a hurry: “We need the amount of capital raised for resource companies (with $5MM market cap or less) in Canada over the last 2 years (since June 2008) so it can be compared to our company. The data should be amenable to be put into a bar chart, e.g. GLD raised 16 million; The average resource co with less than $ 5 million market cap raised XXX$, the top 10% decile raised YYY$.”

I’ve done a similar job for this gentleman before. I set up a few constraints, set the computer running and walk away, returning in an hour or so to massage the results and deliver a short list of 100 or so companies from a pool of about 4,500 candidates.

Good work for me, good value for the client.

Except this time I forgot to write the 1-page proposal and get a cheque up front.

This is the first time I’ve had it happen this way.

How much should I charge the client?

Every job is a little different, takes a different chunk of my time, has a different impact on, or value to, the client.

And therein lies my clue.

(1) I’m comfortable with the client, and they with me. We do business and we neither of us are in the rip-em-off mode, ever.

(2) I really never know the value of my work to the client, but I know it is significant.

(3) There is an urgency about this job (I read the press releases daily!) so I know that this is an above-average job.

My theory is that once delivery is made, client will ask “How much do I owe you?”, and my response will be “Let me know what this is worth to you and I’ll send you an invoice”.

We know the response won’t be “Five dollars”, for that would see me issue an invoice for %5, plus tax, as my last communication with the client.

We also know the client won’t feel obliged to think of a number and double it, because they don’t want to set a precedent for future business expectations.

The figure has to be reasonable, and since I asked the question, they have to supply the answer. Otherwise no invoice gets issued, no payment gets made and the relationship terminates.

And neither of us want that to happen.

The result ought to reflect our mutual appreciation of the business relationship.

We want to do business together. That is the primary goal.

The dollar value is a secondary issue.

Talk to Me !

Be Accountable for Every Goal

If you are having trouble reaching your goals, and if you are choosing attainable goals (size and time-span) then perhaps the problem lies in your accountability.

Here’s a direct advantage of the written-down goal (I print out a goal sheet each morning, and complete it). (“ My Goal Today Is ”)

IT STARES YOU IN THE FACE!

The printed sheet, filled in by hand as you wait for your computer to re-boot/your coffee to brew, stares at you in silent accusatory mode, and continues to stare at you until you have achieved your goal.

The printed sheet is a cheap but effective substitute for an in-office business partner.

If you share an office room with someone else, use them and tell them at the start of the day “My Goal Today is ...”, and at the end of the day have them ask you "Did you reach your goal?”.

Make yourself accountable for each goal on an individual basis, and you’ll get into the habit of focusing on delivering each goal.

Talk to Me !

When Networks Pay Off

I’ve written previously about maintaining a group of about half-a-dozen like-minded entrepreneurs as a support group. Your buddies are probably NOT in the same business as you, but they probably ARE in the same mess as you – got-the-business-running-but-want-it-to-grow, or whatever best describes you.

This proved valuable this week.

I am promoting a new course. I plan to mail out two hundred flyers.

I compose and edit the draft, and wait for a promised testimonial, that has taken 3 months to arrive from one of my little group. When it did arrive it was well worth the wait.

I left a printed copy of the draft with a potential client, asking for “typos and, you know ...” to be corrected. She, bless her heart, put all of her sales and marketing skills behind it. Rewrote it, in fact, making my efforts look like vermicomposting fodder.

On Thursday morning at 6 a.m. with just under 3 weeks to the course date, I emailed another member of my support group to “Print 200 copies, double-sided, glossy. Delivery by Friday 5 p.m. if at all possible”.

The call came at 5 p.m. Thursday that the job was done and ready for pick-up.

Wow!

In less than 36 hours I went from shoddy-draft to professionally laid out and printed. And I am a day ahead of my slippery schedule.

There’s no doubt in my mind that a close-knit group of like-minded entrepreneurs looking after each other is worth its weight, as they say, in gold.

Talk to Me !

Get A Regulary Salary As An Entrepreneur

One of the biggest problems facing the entrepreneur or self-employed consultant is fluctuating cash-flow. One month a windfall, enough for three months running costs, then nothing for the next four months.

One minute you are wondering if the British Racing Green Jaguar is a possibility, the next you are comparing pasta prices in each supermarket bin.

Consider opening a Credit Union account.

(I am indebted to Cathy Nesbitt of Cathy’s Crawly Composters for this suggestion)

There is a credit union near you, but if there isn’t it doesn’t matter. Typical requirements are some photo-identification, your social insurance number and $50.00 refundable deposit.

A credit-check is run.

And there you are with the minimum account – a personal savings account.

The frills can come later.

Your credit union branch manager will advise you that you can mail in cheques for deposit, and fax requests for bank transfers (if they don’t have Interac access).

You will receive gallons of information about ATMs, mortgages and so on, but you don’t need any of that.

Here’s How You Work It:

You receive a cheque in the mail from a client; scan and print it so you have a hard-copy copy for your 3-ring binder.

Endorse the back of the cheque and mail it off to the branch manager.

Once a month fax a request to transfer $2,500 (or whatever your running costs are) to your regular checking account at the major-bank-which-pays-you-no-interest.

Now you can match your $2,500 budget to your $2,500 monthly “salary”, and you can trim costs, excuse yourself from big-budget restaurants etc.

Here’s the Bonus

Your accountant will love you, because EVERY deposit in your credit union is a direct reflection of revenue earned; you will match each deposit with an invoice, and for tax purposes your 12 credit union monthly statements are a direct record of your business revenue.

Talk to Me !

Put the Relationships on the Shelf

As the weeks turn into months I become more and more conscious that while my revenue comes from solving problems, the business comes from relationships.

Mine is a very personal business – I get work from people who know me.

So when I’m not doing billable work I should be phoning or meeting people.

If this is so then a serious proportion of my shelf space should be set aside for the papers, files and folders related to my business relationships.

I though this today while I tidied the office. I have a narrow shelf set aside for my working papers – a sheet of notes for each prospect, a folder of prospects, my diary of appointments etc.

I ought to have set aside a complete bookcase for these materials – they are the life-blood of my business.

So part of my thrust at tidying my office today was freeing up a six-shelf bookcase which will hold nothing but materials related to converting prospects into contacts into clients.

Talk to Me !

The Joy of Shredding

If like me you are a bit of a pack-rat, take heart.

Buy a powerful cross-cut shredder that can take seven sheets of paper at a time and doesn’t flinch at staples.

Then shred stale documents.

Think about it

How often, really, do you re-read the penciled notes you made four years ago?

That’s right. NEVER.

Start small. Find a folder with notes of a client who was reluctant to pay the invoices after the work was done.

You wouldn’t miss them, would you?

I thought not.

SHRED THE FILES.

I promise you this: Once the last sheet is gone and the hanging folder returned to the pool, you’ll feel so good that you’ll walk across the street and treat yourself to a sit-down cappuccino and a chocolate-chip cookie.

Well-deserved.

Filing and Un-Filing

We all know how to file – get a stack of related papers, staple them together, grab an empty hanging folder, label it, drop it into a cabinet drawer.

Easy!

My system includes UN-filing stuff too.

I have several cabinet drawers variously labeled “Clients”, “Projects” and so on.

“Clients” has a hanging folder for each individual or organization for whom I have done paid work. If they haven’t paid me, then I’m not going to keep track of them for free.

“Projects” has a hanging folder for each project NOT related to a client. Typical examples are the numerous end-user and developer applications I produce, and the courses scheduled for September 28th and October 13th.

I obtain a fresh hanging folder by taking the stalest hanging folder (from the rear of the drawer) and shredding its contents.

The nature of my business is that I keep notes on a client project, but after three or four years have passed, the notes are useless (because the project has outlived its life) and can be discarded.

The nature of business nowadays is that there’s a strong chance that my contact has left the organization, too,

In any case, if the hanging folder hasn’t been “touched” for 4 years, any contact will be treated as a “new client”. A folder is “touched” when more paid work flows, in which case the folder is moved to the front of the drawer and gets a new lease of life.

There are, perhaps, 3 dozen hanging folders in each cabinet drawer. I can’t deal with more than 36 clients and/or 36 projects.

So UNfiling is a necessary act, and stops the office from being swamped with paper.

Talk to Me !

Working Backwards Towards Progress

We each have a long-term plan, right?

Mine is a 3-year plan, to be taking in a modest revenue of $10,000 per month three years from now.

Your 3-year plan is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I work backwards:

After two years I might expect $7,000 per month and after one year $4,000 per month. Attainable (and I hope exceedable!)

About that first year: After 12 months I expect to be raking in $4,000 per month. Nothing in the first three months, perhaps $1,000 in the fourth month, $2,000 in the fifth month, and so on. If I were to plot a chart there’s be a curve, sloping upwards.

In terms of paying clients, that might be re-written as “No paying clients in the first 3 months, 1 paying client after 4 months, 2 paying clients after 5 months” and so on.

Now we all know our conversion rate and we have all been measuring our activities, right?

I know that I have.

I record (BillT) the time spent each day on the phones and preparing data for the phones.

I know the new clients, because I cut invoices for them; I know when they arrive because I record the time I spend on their projects (there’s BillT again!).

I know how many people I engage in a face-to-face telephone conversation (not voice-mail), and I know how many times I dial a number an leave a voice mail, and how many times I dial and decide NOT to leave a voice-mail.

A lot of work? Not really. I use a simple data base table for my contact management, and clickable buttons record the date/time and event “Got vm”, “Left vm”, so it’s easy to produce a statistical report of how many voice-mails took place in any month for any contact.

Use a child’s abacus to count your dial-out efforts; use beans in a bowl to record live conversations.

Your paper diary (Grand & Toy or Staples) records on-site and downtown meetings with prospects.

It’s all there, you see, and when you keep track of it you can see a pattern emerging from the theory.

The THEORY is that for every 10 prospects harvested, one will result in a meeting, and for every ten meetings, one will result in revenue this year.

Measuring my efforts tells me how close my theory is to the truth, and whether I need to spend less time on the phones, or change my voice-mail strategy, or spend more time on the phones, or be even more pushy about a meeting.

Talk to Me !

Milk it for all it is Worth!

Sometimes I get lucky and no one picks up the phone.

Then I hear the bit about “Press STAR and key in the first 3 letters ...”.

I’ve Learned to Wait

Today that bit was followed by “ ... or stay on the line to hear a list of staff members”, so I figured “Why not?”.

I’ve spent a few minutes pulling up the contact record, re-reading my notes, sketching out a rough plan-of-attack, and do NOT want to be rewarded with zero.

I don’t get to speak with someone, and I don’t know anyone well enough to leave an unsolicited voice-mail, so I figure I may as well jot down the names of (it turns out to be 16) staff members given that I’ve got this far.

One of the names rings a bell.

The fellow whose dad I worked for a quarter of a century ago.

Both the CEO and my long-lost friend delivered voice-mails messages, but at least, next time I call, I’ll have two bites at the cherry; if that’s the correct expression.

Talk to Me !

The Tip and the HST

A recent article in the Toronto Star discussed the mobile card devices and the impact of adding 15% tip to the bill, when the presented total already includes the 13% HST.

“Tipping a restaurant for good service is one thing. But why tip the federal and provincial governments for applying a 13-per-cent harmonized sales tax to your bill?”

My response?

This is excellent advice for personal use, and I've done it for years.

I especially liked the idea of CASH in hand being scooped up by the wait staff and dropped into their apron pouch; it is an immediate feedback on good service.

I find it useful for business lunches too.

I don't run a car anymore, so colleagues pick me up.

Because they are paying for the car (lease, registration, gas etc.) I insist on paying for the meal.

They protest a bit, so I say "You leave the tip", and when they drop cash on the table THEY come away feeling that they have contributed, so that is a win-win-win situation.

As well as refraining from tipping the govt. for the HST!

Talk to Me !

4 Reasons for Goals of Seasons

I sometimes have troubles with reaching my goals. I have no trouble setting the goals, but some of them seem just too long-term.

I think the solution might be to start with an annual goal.

For example:

• By this time next year I want to have eight new paying clients from large financial institutions.

Now I just can’t achieve that goal as it is stated.

It is too large and too far away.

I could have a decent chance at “two new paying clients“ per quarter. I think that is attainable.

Indeed, if I aimed at “one per month” and achieved that in the first two months of the quarter, I could then goof off for a month (or get a head-start on the next quarter).

You can see where this is going.

Suppose out of every ten Presidents/CEOs/CFOs I meet I ultimately get some work.

Then I need to meet (lunch, supper, coffee) with ten of them each month.

That’s one every two business days.

That sounds like a lot.

I already know ( The 1-6-10 Rule – How Did it Work? ) how many phone calls I need to make to reach an executive, and I know the conversion rate of dialing-to-live-conversation, and I know the conversion rate of live-conversation-to-meeting.

That gives me a figure of just how many times per day I need to dial a telephone number.

I know how many hours per day are spent on the phone ( Dropping Clients ).

So now I know how many hours per day I need to spend on the phone. If that figure comes to more than five, then I’m not going to reach my goal, assuming my assumptions are correct.

Nonetheless, it gives me a goal as short as a day against which I can measure progress.

And remember: Management Measures

Talk to Me !

My Goal In The Kitchen

Do NOT let this business of Goals and Objectives rattle you.

I grew up in Southern Cross , population 1,500 partway between Perth and Kalgoorlie. Hardly a day went by without some traveler dropping in, unannounced, for lunch, to break the nine-hour car trip. My mother’s record was twenty-one unannounced visitors in one day, and my thighs grew strong bicycling up-and down to buy another sandwich loaf, more sausages, another Swiss roll.

My other job, once total strangers had wolfed down MY lunch and departed, burping along the straight-and-narrow highway out of town, was to wash the dishes. The scene was not unlike the one shown above: too many dishes in too small a space, and yes, we had no dishwasher. This was 1956, remember.

My loving mother would suggest that perhaps I should wash and dry (and put-away) just the glasses and cups, and if space permitted, a few of the side-plates. The “clean” stuff.

This sounded a lot easier than doing everything down to the frying-pan with its congealed beef-dripping used to fry eggs.

So that’s what I did.

But being a proud eleven-year-old, I made an effort to show what a man I was by doing ALL the side plates and ALL the dinner plates. I also did the cutlery because that could be stood on end in a tub alongside the dish-drainer.

Of course by the time that was done, I was on a roll, and determined to do a second-load, right down to the frying-pan with its congealed beef-dripping used to fry eggs.

My mother was not only good-looking, she was smart! (And yes, she loved me)

You can see above the result of breaking a goal (“wash the dishes”) into two objectives (“steps” if you like).

Objective 1: Wash and rinse then put-away the easy stuff.

Objective 2: Wash and rinse then put-away the hard stuff.

I have almost completed Objective 1, and can now embark on the very small task known as Objective 2 and be done well before lunch time.

AND I still can slot in planting a few maple keys, checking on my neighbor’s cat, and so on.

Life is easy when we break goals down into objectives, and better yet, The Job Gets Done!

Talk to Me !

Relationships Bring Business

Every serious cheque I’ve received has been from a person I have met, face-to-face.

I guess that’s been the nature of my business.

I meet people, create a good impression, and months, sometimes years later they call me “I have a problem and I wondered if ...”.

This strengthens my belief that my most important work is building relationships, not solving problems.

And that means that during business hours I should be either sitting face-to-face with a President, CEO or CFO (or on my way to/from such a meeting), or I should be sitting at my desk making telephone calls.

Which is why I’m writing this blog article in the early morning, well before 8 a.m, right?

Talk to Me !

My Goal Today Is (Tidy)

The goal sheet works for me on the weekend.

Today’s goal is “Tidy Office”; I know it is time to tidy when I can’t lay my hands on the evaluation forms from the May 28th course I delivered. I need the forms, but can’t find them.

Both my ten-foot desks have turned into storage vehicles.

There’s not much floor space left to vacuum.

My objectives read:

1: Clear desk 1

2: Clear desk 2

3: Clear gray shelves

4: Clear 2 bookcases on wall

5: Tidy 3 window bookcases

And no, I didn’t get it all done; I took a lunch break then went shopping for 2 hours (stamps, library, switches etc).

Nonetheless I completed Objectives 1, 2 and 3 and did a great deal of 4.

The basic thing that made it work was “turning off my computer”. When I’m in the office I’m tempted to look up the lyrics for the song that’s playing, check email, the news etc., all those little things that distract me.

So this morning I did all the must-do tasks (publish the blog, reconcile cash receipts from my wallet), then shut down the machine, and didn’t turn it on until after eight o’clock at night.

Here is one end of my working desk. The red tray holds papers I must deal with. The filing box holds scrap paper, used on one side. I’ll use it for penciled notes or for draft printouts.

Here is the far end of my working desk. It really is empty. I decided to re-cover my huge Canadian Oxford Dictionary, and you can see I am using a weight to help seal the glue between the new cover and the hard-cover of the book.

Here is my second work desk. All the electrical stuff is at one end. Also my little vermicomposting separator experiment .

The table cloth is an unwanted plastic sheet for a booth at a trade show. I ought to slide it towards the rear so that I can access the top drawer of the filing cabinet.

Tomorrow! Because that is NOT part of any one of my objectives.

The written objectives helped me to focus on “clearing the desk” rather than “dealing with stuff on the desk”. It was sufficient for me to collect paper and drop it into labeled folders which now hang in the appropriate drawers.

And yes! I found those evaluations during the second hour!

Talk to Me !

When Your Exchange Rate Hits 97c

So I’m sitting in the Tim Horton’s at West Mall and Q.E.W., the first (of over 300 outlets in Toronto) that you reach when traveling from the USA up the Q.E.W.

The little sign says “U.S. 97c” and we all know what that means.

They accept U.S. Dollars.

Of course.

I hope the rate is at the discretion of the franchisee, that is, the local manager of the store.

I have a horrible vision of the staff ringing up $2.68 for a large coffee and a raisin bran muffin, and then having to re-calculate it as $2.60 in $US, a patience-sapping delay for the sake of eight cents.

All of this serves to remind me that when I Focus on My BEST Relationships , I’m not to worry about the ten minutes spent answering the occasional email. That I should focus on customer satisfaction.

Talk to Me !

Focus on Your BEST Relationships

So you have your contact list with hundreds of names, and you sort it in ascending sequence of “Date last Modified”, and one by one you work through each name, phoning to say “Hi!”.

Don’t!

As each name comes up, ask yourself if it is one of your best relationships.

Now of course we need to define best.

What does “best” mean to you?

It will always involve a quantifier ( Management Measures ), so it might be “Produces more than 5% of my annual revenue” or “Brings in more than $10,000 a year” or “Brings me at least 3 good referrals every year”, and so on.

Focus on Those

What do we mean by “Focus”.

Sounds to me like it’s a phone call (not a voice mail) setting up a lunch date, “My Treat”, for this relationship deserves an hour away from the office. Doesn’t have to be The King Edward hotel; a good diner or burger joint is OK, if that’s your (plural) style.

And the Others?

• Stay in touch.
• Drop a voice-mail
• Write a post card (while in the train or on the plane)
• Mail a magazine article or newspaper clipping
• Email a link to a good story
• etc.

But keep it brief.

Your other consultants pals know that you are out there, and you aren’t getting much new business from those who serve well by stiffening your spine.

Acknowledge them and move on.

This was all brought home to me when I had reason to “blitz” all my contacts in Mississauga, and found that eight out of eighteen were consultants or other non-revenue contacts.

Check your contacts, city by city, and mark those that wrote you a cheque in the past two years.

That’s a good starting point for “Best”

Talk to Me !

My Goal Today is Progress

It’s early days yet, but it IS working well.

On Sunday I decided that my goal was to issue all the personal (domestic) Christmas cards for 2009 (traditionally I am a bit late in my mailings ...).

The objectives ran:

1: Compose message to card

2: Print cards

3: Print envelopes

4: Stuff and Stamp cards

5: Mail cards

By half-past-noon I had 65 cards printed, stuffed and stamped, except for a few overseas cards that need extra postage. I’ll get them done this lunchtime at the Postal outlet across the street.

That’s been bugging me for a while, so I’m glad it is done.

It shows me that the technique I’m using works for both my business and personal life.

During the print exercise something went awry with the laser printer on the network, so my morning included a quick install on the laptop. That gave me the incentive to Get The Job Done by hurdling obstacles as they threatened to divert me from my goal.

After lunch I fixed the lamp socket in the living-room. That too had been bugging me!

This morning my goal was to reduce the 158 contacts awaiting a follow-up call to 108. I reckoned on doing 50 today in a six-hour telephoning window.

My objectives:

1: 9am-11am

Get 20 new contacts done (these are contact fresh from press releases)

2: Noon to 2pm

Get 10 done (these will be current contacts which I feel should be “touched”

3: 2pm-4pm

Get 20 new contacts done (these are contact fresh from press releases)

Here we are at 11;30. I have reduced 158 to 148, far short of my objective 1.

But it tells me before I break for lunch that I need to spend less time dithering and get to the phone a lot faster than I have been doing.

Talk to Me !

Keeping it Up

For more than a year now I’ve pumped out, and been pumped up, by all sorts of ideas.

Today, a confession:

Although I’m still following my own advice on some issues, other issues have dropped by the wayside.

That is, some of my ideas seemed like ideal solutions to my problems at the time, but after a few days, or weeks, I’ve stopped doing what I wrote about.

For whatever reason – too much work, not enough results, the problem wandered away, and so on.

So is it bad advice? And if so, how would you know which items have proven successful?

You’ll Never Know!

I have logged each idea as it has come to me, and tried to follow it. Each idea is a result of MY thinking about one of MY problems.

And if the idea didn’t work for ME, then I dropped it.

You may not have the same problem, in which case you may not be bothered to try my idea.

You may have the same (or similar) problem, you may try the idea, and it may work for you.

Or it may not.

My point here is that unless you try something (that is well thought-out), you’ll never know if it works for you.

And of all the ideas I’ve come up with for over a year, some of them still work – for ME!

And that’s why it was worth trying each one of them, just to find which ones serve ME well.

So try them all. If any ONE of them works for you, then you are ahead of the game. And you can always discuss the idea with ME

Talk to Me !

My Goal Today Is (Diary)

Just for Today

It will not have escaped your notice (but just in case it has, I’ll note it here!) that this hard-copy method is going to provide me with a hard-copy diary or journal of my business-day efforts at phoning people, or whatever major aspect of my business life I choose.

For example, at the end of the week I should have five pieces of paper that I can file in a binder, but a review of those five pieces before they are filed is going to let me see how my week went.

“Could do better” appeared on my mathematics report card one term.

It will probably appear here from time to time.

But that gives me an opportunity to BE better!

Talk to Me !

Giving Gatekeepers a Good Rap

Gatekeepers get a bad rap; they are all too often seen as The Enemy.

I’ve just got off the phone with Maureen, executive assistant to David and to Lucas.

I had spoken with her last week in my first bid to get a meeting with Lucas.

I called back this morning, explained that I’d called last week (I don’t know whether she remembered or not), and asked if David was available.

He is “in the building”, but ...

“Perhaps you can help me? I’m calling to set up a meeting with David. Is his schedule free late this week or early next week?”

Turns out he is just back and is catching up.

“Oh I understand; he will be wading through a backlog of voice-mail and email” – see? We are on the same team, Maureen and I.

She asks me to send her an email, which I will do, asking for a meeting sometime Monday through Thursday next week.

This might just work.

Talk to Me !

My Goal Today Is (Follow-up)

Just for Today

At the end of the day, when I start the daily backup procedures, I’ll take down the sheet of paper and examine myself. What went wrong? Let’s not do that again. What went right? Let’s keep on doing that!

Here you can see what I see at the end of the day.

I reduced 25 outstanding entries to 16, a reduction of 9, not 20 as planned.

What went wrong?

Well my billing system tells me I spent only 3.45 hours on this between 8:00 and 16:00.

I spent 9:30-11:30 with David Sappleton, a pre-arranged meeting.

I spent half-an-hour on the phone congratulating Cathy Nesbitt.

I spent valuable phone time assembling notes for each call – I KNOW that I should be doing that out-of-hours.

On the other hand one of my calls bore fruit: I have an appointment next Tuesday for lunch with an “Executive Vice President Corporate Development”, which is good.

And How is Your Prospecting Coming Along?

Even though one appointment for 3.45 hours work doesn’t sound like much, I still think that if I make one new face-to-face contact per week, that’s 50 contacts per year, and that’s probably more than I can cope with.

It is one more appointment than I’ve made in the previous week, that’s for sure, and I did this with just one day’s effort. Not even!

Meanwhile Back At the Ranch ...

The next day my stated goal was to whittle 16 down to 5; that seemed a reasonable goal in the light of my experience.

I decided to work in two-hour bursts 6a-8a, 9a-11a, and 1p-3p.

To my surprise I was all done by 11:15 a.m.

I have moved a three-week backlog of work in under two days!

Of the original set of contacts, one turned out to be a slugfest between a company in Texas and its former CEO. Apart from the fact that I’m not a referee, My goals do not include active participation in Texas firms, so that was an easy document to jettison.

Talk to Me !

Getting Past the Gatekeeper

It is always worthwhile doing a bit of research into extension numbers.

A web search for the company or the president’s name will often enough turn up obscure news items or papers with the president’s extension number.

Asking for “extension 5301 please” is more likely to get you through than “Could I speak to Mister Greaves, please?”.

In the first case you come across as knowing who you want and that you deserve direct access.

In the second case you are asking the receptionist if they would deign to do you a favor, and why should they? They don’t know you!

Talk to Me !

My Goal Today Is

Like many entrepreneurs I have trouble sleeping nights because I’ve allowed myself to be diverted.

You know you feel good when you go to bed at night and you’ve gotten that cheque of to the tax people, or finally paid down the phone bill, or any one of a number of administrative tasks that make you feel guilty.

You probably feel good too when you’ve spent time well establishing new contacts or maintaining old ones.

My main drive comes from The Prospector and all the data (leads) it generates for me. If I’m not careful the two to four leads a day build up into an avalanche of outstanding calls – 25 as I type.

The solution is really easy: Have a sheet of paper that you fill out at the very start of the day – before the coffee is poured. On the sheet you write the guilt that greeted you when you woke up.

Today for example my goal is “Reduce the backlog to five”; realistically there might be 5 contacts I just can’t reach in any shape or form. 25 is not acceptable, 5 is, and I don’t want to set a goal that might be impossible.

Below that I write Objectives, and these are not in a serial-project style, just a few just-for-today thoughts that will help me to reach today’s goal: “No personal emails”, “No game playing”, “No quick-fixes to your software” and so on. Yes, I play games, but for today ONLY I have promised myself no to, and to ignore personal chatter until after 5 p.m.

Just for Today

At the end of the day, when I start the daily backup procedures, I’ll take down the sheet of paper and examine myself. What went wrong? Let’s not do that again. What went right? Let’s keep on doing that!

Here you can see a blank sheet clipped to the laptop. I use a standalone monitor, so the laptop sits off to one side, but I’ll see the sheet whenever I

1) Reach for the phone

2) Turn to look out of the window to my left

3) Turn to look at my diary (out of view bottom left)

If you’d like a copy of the Microsoft Word document – comes with automatic date – you can download it here .

I have placed a shortcut link to this document as part of my first-boot-of-the-day sequence so that I’m prompted to print off and complete a copy first thing each morning.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Here is a link to an article that promotes the idea of written feedback.

Talk to Me !

Success is Not Always Measured By Dollars

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

This month I presented my talk "Proposals" to a group of young entrepreneurs at the Etobicoke City Centre. "Proposals" is one of a collection of talks in my series " Business Communications for the Mature Professional ".

I anticipated 8 attendees, but 27 booked and 19 showed up.

The reviews were good.

The reward? The number of people scribbling notes as I spoke.

I am not the world's most successful business man, but I am good at thinking and reasoning and nutting out top-class first principles by which one can live.

The session finished at 9:30 and two hours after that I left the site. I gave away two extra hours of information for free, but was re-assured that my thinking for people migrating across the workforce is on-target.

Talk to Me !

Wavelength of a Business

I chatted yesterday with a colleague who works for a company that services the retail business.

How’s business? Oh, You know .... the words trail off.

His business reacts very quickly to the consumer mood.

If a wave of fear (or exhilaration) sweeps the nation, people stop buying cute clothes, shoes and handbags with a reaction time measured in days.

Jim can pick up the paper on Monday and watch the sales figures drop on Thursday. It doesn’t take long.

Me?

I get calls from people I’ve been chatting with for 2, 5 or in one case 15 years. My business is “keeping-in-touch” against the day when a firm needs my special-niche skills.

Wavelength is usually associated with sound or light, where a short wavelength means high-pitched and very bright.

In terms of revenue, wavelength refers to a gestation time.

Talk to Me !

Access95ibility

So I’m wading through my contact list, phoning people who are “due for a call”, and the next call has a surprised Cindy on the line. “I was just thinking of you yesterday”.

I love those responses, sort of.

It’s great to hear that my call is timely, and the way is smoothed for a meeting.

But why didn’t she call me yesterday?

So what’s it about? It’s about something she mentioned 24 months ago, conversion of an old Access 95 database to Access 2007 standards.

I followed up 2 years ago, but the time was not right. I then assumed that she had worked out how to do it herself, or found someone else to do it. My fault for not following up.

But no, here I am, Mister foot-in-the-door.

And why?

Because I picked up the phone and called.

Success Comes from Growth and Nurture

The solo consultant can get lonely over the Christmas break, so last December I took action.

I emailed about 50 consultants known to me and invited them to The Traditional West-End Solopreneur Christmas Get-Together .

Seven showed up, which is good when you think of those who travel away to be with family, spend a week in Cuba or Aruba, or who are just too shagged out from partying to want to attend another.

We seven chatted for four hours, and took a closer look at each of ourselves (seven consultants seated at a round table, being asked in turn "So what do YOU do?" provides for a lively conversation).

I had no idea how many would show up, but am closer now to some of my colleagues than ever before, and all for the price of a small Caesar salad with grilled chicken, courtesy of The Montreal Deli .

In January I considered a variety of promotional schemes in a network of solo consultants and entrepreneurs.

Same thing - phoned and emailed 17, five showed up.

The result - three of us have formed a small and manageable compact to take action and see if we can't get this thing working. No critical mass of 10 to 15 required. Our small team is flexible and active.

If we get it working, we can extend invitations to join us, in our established and proven methods of promotion.

And yes, the three of us were all present at The Traditional West-End Solopreneur Christmas Get-Together !

Why I Am Broke

Ari called yesterday, his template has stopped working. Must be a result of a Windows Update, no?

I Don’t Know

When you click “SEND” button it should fire up the macro “SendISR”. But nothing happens, bizarre! Looks like the template must be corrupt. I wish I had more time to work on this, look like fun trying to figure all of this out! Anyway, I tried opening up a new document importing the code. I then copied and pasted all the tables, same problem. I think I’m going to need a quote on the redevelopment of this form ASAP.

Ari is running Vista/2007 and I am not, but as usual, it’s not really the technology that’s the problem.

I take his code and examine it on my XP/2010 system; it appears to run OK (could use some cleanup through), so I suggest a test.

Take the old document version and the new template version and try them out on two other Vista/2007 machines in his office. That makes six tests altogether.

Think About it

If they work for Brenda and Carol but not for Ari, then the problem is likely with Ari’s system, not the templates.

If the document fails on all three systems but the template works on all three systems, then the problem is with the document.

And so on.

The Result?

“I think I’ve found a solution. I’ve just saved the document as a .docm, as opposed to a .dotm, and the command buttons work every time.”

My Response:

Well you just saved yourself a bundle of money AND time!

Congratulations!

Talk to Me !

The Prisoner of the Red Cabin

You have one near you, a “greasy spoon” burger joint. Mine is called, I think, The Red Cabin, on Dundas Street, corner of Aukland, right by Kipling subway station. Décor as it was when the building was erected back in the 1300s, the hinged seats sometimes have a hinge missing, the tables have laminated plastic somewhere under the layers of grease – but the food is worth it all, especially the breakfast.

I was in there last week on one of my rare days off, for a 30-minute sit-down breakfast of sausage and bacon and egg, toast & jam, endless refills of coffee, and the sausage and egg stayed hot until I got to them; most places they’d be cool to cold, but at The Red Cabin it’s magic – they are piping-hot for the entire meal.

My guess is that the guy behind the counter is the owner/manager. He has been there since I started eating there back in 1989. The waitress, too, I think she is a fixture.

“Good Morning”. Good morning. I deserve the world’s best breakfast. “Well you’ve come to the right place. Waddya want?”. Bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, jam, coffee (before I’ve even found a seat with unbroken hinges). How do you like your eggs? “Cooked”.

That’s it.

Five minutes later a perfect breakfast, friendly at-home at-ease service, rich coffee, forever. A great start to my day off with a rented car.

Then I started thinking about the guy behind the counter.

I think they are open seven days a week.

365 or perhaps 364 days a year.

That means that they guy behind the counter spends, let’s say, 12 hours a day, year in year out, in a narrow area about 12 feet long and 3 feet wide. On his feet.

He may be skimming cash, he may be making a small fortune, (but I bet it’s not millions of dollars), but he is in effect imprisoned in a cage smaller than a tiger’s cage, day in, day out, with never a trip downtown to meet a prospect, or a morning off to coffee with the girls (or guys).

I think of that more and more as I sit down each morning and pick up the phone to make calls.

How free I am.

What a wonderful job I have – phoning people and setting up appointments to meet and chat, outside of my home office.

I’m free. I’m FREE!

Canada Post Goes Snoopy and Secretive

So off I go to buy one UK, one NZ and five AUS stamps for my overseas mailings. “They are all the same price. Seven?”

Yes please.

The seven $1.70 stamps are pushed across to me, then the clerk grabs one of my envelopes before I can protest and begins keying in from the return address portion.

What is going on?

Are Canada Post now keeping track of who uses their service to send messages overseas?

Apparently so

I’m old enough to protest, so I ask why the envelope is needed. “To give you the tax exemption”.

It’s like drawing teeth etc. but I finally get an explanation that can be coalesced into “You don’t have to pay the 13% H.S.T. if you are buying more than five stamps AND you have the envelopes with you.

Sounds a bit like the old donut scam when the GST came in. A donut is taxable because it is for consumption, but 6 or more are NOT taxable because they are groceries. Or the other way around.

So who ever heard of this latest exemption? Not my off-site accountant’s secretary – she buys the stamps. Not my canoeing buddy Fred, and HE walks to the post office in his lunchtime to do postage stuff.

Last Friday I bought a roll of stamps. I assume that there are 100, which at 57 cents should have been $57.00. Add 13% and you get $64.41. I’m not sure why I was charged $67.52, since all I got was the debit card receipt.

Moral: next time I buy a roll of stamps, I’m taking a stack of 99 blank envelopes and an addressed envelope and getting nearly $8.00 lopped off the price.

Talk to Me !

The More I Practice . . .

. . . the better I get.

I continue to process two, three or four press releases per day (when I get off my backside and actually DO it!), and I must tell you that it just gets easier.

“Dori”; what kind of a name is that?

I used to be hesitant to call not knowing the sex of my target, but now I realize that it all falls out.

I place the call, and reach a gatekeeper. “My name is Chris Greaves and I was wondering if I might speak with Dori Segal”.

“Just a minute and I’ll try that line” (although sometimes “Just a minute and I’ll try HIS line”). A pause and then . . .

“I’m sorry HE is in a meeting right now …”.

So there, I have learned something. It’s MISTER Dori Segal, and the usual follows “Do you know when he will be free? No? I’ll call back after lunch”.

The gatekeeper has written down my name, I’m sure, so after lunch I’ll be a known quantity.

Talk to Me !

Freebies – do the Math!

A CNW press release tells the short story of a guest walking into a hotel and being checked-in by the President & CEO of the chain. Who, presumably, had been nursing a coffee in a wing-chair until the check-in counter ticked over to twenty million.

Not surprisingly the bewildered traveler received a few freebies - round-trip airfare for two; two-night stay for two … including all meals; Swedish massage for two; dinner for two; $250 Gift Card; tickets to one of Toronto's major live theatre shows and so on.

Apart from the air-fare my guess is about $300 per item, say $1,500; add the airfare and call it $2,000.

OK, you think I’m low-balling? Then double it, $4,000 or even triple it to $6,000.

Now estimate the revenue from 20,000,000 guests, including trickle-on such as payments from service businesses lodged on the hotel premises (percentage from the coffee shop, percentage from the gift shop etc) and how does it all stack up?

I’m guessing $500 per visitor (not knowing the length-of-stay), so say $10,000,000,000.

Now go back and double my cost of the freebies to $1,200.

It doesn’t really matter does it?

In fact, the freebies seem a bit cheap by comparison.

A two-week all-expenses paid stay in Paris (France!) at peak season would seem cheap alongside $10,000,000,000, whether it is $US or $CDN.

We are left with the question What is the value of the Press release?”.

I’m not sure.

Who (besides me) reads Canada News Wire? With this article, cub journalists looking for a space-filler? The editor of the North Bay NUGGET ?

When all is said and done, it seems like a drop-in-the-bucket for no visible return.

The loser seems to be the President & CEO of the chain, who had to set aside a half-day to chat with local managers while watching the taxis disgorge customers and drumming his fingers on the arms of the wing-chair.

Talk to Me !

Starting a CEO Newsletter 2/2

Nearly six months have passed since I decided to start a CEO newsletter ( Starting a CEO Newsletter 1/2 ) and while I have assembled eight monthly articles I’ve not yet actually produced, which is ridiculous because I have the machinery to issue copies on a regular basis to a table of email addresses etc etc..

Then yesterday Rick Shea’s inaugural newsletter arrived and put me to shame.

Rick’s newsletter is EXACTLY the style I’m aiming for, in terms of layout, content, color and so on, and to make it worse he talks about measurement and quantifiers, which is what I wanted to talk about.

To see what I mean you’ll have to send Rick an email and ask for the current issue. I promise you that you’ll enjoy the read.

And yes, I called Rick (416-469-9935) and scolded him for doing a better job than I could ever hope to do ...

Found on the First Page!

Please see also Found! By the Search Engines .

I keep track with a Google search daily for the ranking of my Indxr.ca page.

I am still at number 9.

But now I appear “above the fold” (on my screen)

Either one of the top 8 has reduced their text or Google has abbreviated the text shown for one of the top 8.

I think this is the first time I’ve appeared on page one of search results, excepting for the trumped-up search which includes Chris Greaves, Vermicomposting, Beetroot and Etobicoke.

Talk to Me !

Entrepreneur’s Day

Unlike Secretary’s day or Father’s day, Entrepreneur’s day comes twelve times a year.

Entrepreneur’s Day is the first Monday of every month. If that day is a public holiday, then it is the Tuesday.

Entrepreneur’s day need not take all day, but it is a day that we are prepared to devote to our own maintenance.

That means that you can assign that day to yourself RIGHT NOW!

I’ll wait while you pull out your diary and pencil through twelve Mondays with a diagonal line and “Entrepreneur’s Day”.

Good.

Now those days are assigned to a very important client – You! No other client can have those days. A polite request “Can you come in on the 4th” is met with a polite ‘I’m sorry – I am already booked that day”; they don’t need to know that you have booked yourself.

On Entrepreneur’s Day you can

• Clear both your desks OR
• File every piece of paper that is visible OR
• Make a start on your paperwork for taxes OR
• Empty the two bookcases of tools and cart them and the tools out of the office where you receive clients OR
• Clean your windows OR . . .

If your business, like mine, involves hours spent sitting at the computer, then on Entrepreneur’s Day you do NOT do any computer work. Indeed, you start a major scan of your hard drives, unplug the keyboard, dis-assemble it and clean it.

If you are smart like me, you’ll work until 5 p.m. in old clothes, then take a shower, walk across the street, order a large 5-topping pizza, and spend the evening re-reading a John Grisham novel.

The "Getting Started” Problem

I spoke with two fellow-entrepreneurs this morning.

Both stated their greatest problem was “Getting Started”; their words.

In The Winning Goal for the Day I stated the idea of a single goal.

It seems even more significant now that I know I’m not the only one who suffers of end-of-day-remorse.

I need to ask myself what’s been getting me down more, Not issuing my CEO newsletter or not making 4 warm-calls per day to new prospects?

(Fill in two of your nagging worries here)

Whichever it is, THAT is the nagging worry that needs be tackled FIRST THING tomorrow.

Get that one thing wrapped up tomorrow, and you’ll feel better about yourself that night.

Bonus: Assign the day after that to the OTHER thing.

Trigger Words

I am blessed with an accent, a left-over from my Australian days. That’s often enough to strike up a conversation and get things going.

But even without the accent, I have trigger words.

Domestic example: In the elevator on my way back from Bruno’s with a peach and four apricots, a gentlemen says “Hot, isn’t it?”.

The standard gambit.

“Humid”, I reply and when I lived in Australia and grew apricots they loved this heat, grew to be the size of peaches”, and away we go!

Start with a small set of trigger-words suited to your business and monitor which evoke the worst (null or dead-end) response. Drop them off the list.

After a new conversation, make a note of how it started. What were the trigger words? Add them to your list.

Now a casual conversation can remain just that, but you are shifting the odds in favor of generating a conversation that leads to a business opportunity.

Referrals – May WE Contact YOU?

Another great tip from Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach.

He tells me that he issues a sheet of paper and asks attendees to draw five circles; in each circle they are to write the name of one of their colleagues who, they think, might benefit from Dan’s program

Then he asks if they’d mind writing THEIR name on the sheet of paper and handing it in.

Note that at this point we have six names, that’s all. No email addresses, no phone numbers, no incriminating information.

Of course Dan has your contact details.

The question is “May we contact YOU to discuss these colleagues with YOU”, not “May we contact your colleagues?”.

Spot the difference?

Who wants to subject one’s colleagues to a flurry of unsolicited sales calls? Not me.

Who would be willing to help Dan out with a bit of background information? Me!

During the follow-up call, the salesman already knows that each of the five names is a potential sale, and he also knows that each of he colleagues is probably a close fit to your profile.

It becomes quite easy then to build up a warm picture of each colleague, and the sales pitch, in the end, is ‘They seem like a good fit; may we contact them?”.

No contact has yet been made; all we have is permission to contact them at a later date.

Meanwhile you are most likely to contact them and tell them what has transpired, so they are pre-warned and pre-warmed when the follow-up call does arrive, and there’s little time waste din beating the bush for details; the essential stuff is already known.

I’ve not attended one of Dan’s seminars yet.

But I think I’ll register for his next freebie – in Toronto, ON September 15, 2010 8:30 a.m.–11:00 a.m.

Talk to Me!

The Time-Based Ceiling

I was told ten years ago that the difference between a consultant and a contractor is that a contractor bills by the hour, a consultant by the day.

I believe that to be true.

I can sell my services at $110 per hour, or at $1,000 a day, and yes, the daily rate is better.

Here’s the catch: I have a fixed number of days left in my life.

If I billed out every day from now until then, there’d be an upper limit to my revenue, and I wouldn’t reach it until, quite literally, the day I die.

Even pay-by-day consultants at $2,500 per day have a time-based ceiling. Their maximum annual revenue cannot exceed one million dollars.

However, a solution-based service or product can easily exceed that ceiling. In fact, the sky is the limit.

When I package what I do in a day and sell it as a self-contained solution, I can sell it to multiple clients in one day.

If I can package my training material I can license it to other instructors, or charge a fee for a download from my web site.

Although it took me, say, seven days at $2,500 per day to develop the software product, I can sell it as a software package as many times as I like for $15,000. Or for for $1,500. or for for $150.

With next-day delivery!

Talk to Me!

Found Again By the Search Engines!

Please see also Found! By the Search Engines.

I keep track with a Google search daily for the ranking of my www.Indxr.ca page.

Last June 25 after watching my page stay on about page 2 for ages I edited the page, added a few choice key words, recompiled it and waited – nothing!

Two days ago (August 9) I performed more surgery and sat back to wait.

I didn’t have to wait long. Here is my usual search:



I have jumped to number 9.

Yet if you look closely you’ll see that it is my June 25 page that has leaped up.

When I click on the link the page shows a compilation date of Auguust 9th.

Go Figure!

Talk to Me!

Staunch the 8-9-10 Bleeding

It will come as no surprise to you that this blog entry parallels The 1-2-3 of Moving the 1-2-3.

If getting a contact to be a prospect, and making the sale is so time-and-effort consuming, how do those great clients slip out the back door without us noticing?

The 8-9-10 stage is that part of the spectrum where you rate your contacts on a scale of one to ten, ten being those who have sent you a cheque that hasn’t bounced (to re-quote Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach ).

It shouldn’t be that hard to retain your eights, nines and tens.

Here’s Why

You already know so much about them!

You have kept notes all the way along the trail from one through ten.

You have interacted with them during the development, deployment and training stages of your product or service.

You even know what branch of which bank they bank at! (Not that that knowledge will do you much good).

You probably know where they like to dine, their spouse’s name, …

Here’s How

Stay in touch.

You have their feedback and evaluation form. If you don’t send them a copy now, and phone them (no voice-mail) to let them know why it is headed their way.

Email them in response to their comments on the evaluation form.

Invite them for coffee or lunch. Be honest. You are ,meeting someone you know, someone you’ve worked with.

Add three more ways of staying in touch.

Then ask yourself where they fit on the one-to-ten scale.

Rank them there, and re-read The 1-2-3 of Moving the 1-2-3.

Talk to Me!