The Power of Priorities

The Power of Priorities

Brought to you by Action International Business Coach Michael Bedard

There are two things that business people find very challenging: thinking ahead and doing things in order of importance

Doing these two things makes the difference between success in business and just surviving. And the same is true for all areas of our lives.

Leadership trainer and author John Maxwell says, "thinking ahead and prioritizing responsibilities marks the major differences between a leader and a follower."

Most people have heard of the Pareto Principle, more commonly known as the 80/20 Principle. Roughly stated this says that in most businesses 80% of your business comes from 20 % of your customers.

Other examples of the Pareto Principle are:

Reading
20 percent of the book contains 80 percent of the content.
Job
20 percent of our work gives us 80 percent of our satisfaction.
Products
20 percent of the products bring in 80 percent of the profits.
Picnic
20 percent of the people will eat 80 percent of the food!

So... when it comes to your priorities, 20 percent of your priorities will give you 80 percent of your production IF you spend your time, energy, money and personnel on the top 20 percent of your priorities.

When you do this you are getting a 400% or fourfold return in productivity. Think what this would mean in your business!

How to Sell Price Focused Shoppers - Part 2

How to Sell Price Focused Shoppers - Part 2

From these questions the customer gets the idea that the sales person is genuinely interested in their needs and the salesperson is able to offer options in the most suitable kettles for their needs. The price is therefore negated. It is just a matter of now asking the customer to buy.

A good salesperson would then ask, "well based on what we have just spoken about there are two options to choose from, model x and model y, which one suits you best? Great, I can either put that away for now or I can process it on credit card for you and have it delivered to you tomorrow - which do you prefer?"

If the option is credit card ask "which credit card is it easiest to process that on?" and make sure the prospect is aware there will be a delivery charge of x amount. If the option they choose is to have it put away, this gives the sales person the opportunity to get the customers name and contact details. If the customer chooses this option make sure the sales person gets a time frame for them to pick the item up. Be definite with the infinite. If the customer is in your business the sales person then simply takes them to the point of sale terminal and transacts the sale.

This example was based on a kettle, a relatively small dollar item. How does this apply to your business? This process works equally well on cars, houses, furniture, service based businesses and any other product I can think of, including funeral homes. You just need to work out what your customers are actually looking for when they ask for the price, and what's most important to them in their buying decision!

How to Sell Price Focused Shoppers

How to Sell Price Focused Shoppers

By Action International Business Coach Michael Bedard

The most common complaint we get today as business coaches to small to medium sized business owners is that, "we can't compete with the big guys on price."

The perception in the market place is that people are shopping on price alone. The only reason your customer asks the price up front is because that is what we as business owners have trained them to do.

How many times have you rung or gone into a business not really knowing what model, style, color or features you were looking for and purely asked for the price? At this point did the sales person come back with "that is $29.95" or did they ask you some questions about what you were looking to use the product/service for? In this instance let's say it is a kettle.

Now in most people's eyes a kettle is a kettle; but, they have many different features and offer many different benefits. So what if the sales person simply said to you when you inquired about price, "just so I can help you best is it okay if I ask you a couple of questions about the kettle you are looking for?" Would you have answered yes? My bet is that the answer would have most definitely been yes!

The sales person could then ask questions like; are you looking to replace an existing kettle or is it a gift for someone? Do you regularly use your kettle or is it rarely used? Would you like a kettle with a quick boiling time? Have you seen the cordless options that are available? Are you looking for something to match your kitchen? So what color are you looking for? Is it important that it has an automatic cut off when the kettle is boiled? Are you after a stove-top option, or an electric kettle? Kettles come in different cup capacity; do you require 10 cup capacity or is 5 a better size for you?

Making Business Work...Simply - Part 2

Making Business Work...Simply - Part 2

Another business is a physiotherapy practice. Health professionals tend to think that they should not have to sell their services and skills; people should just discover them. The practice's Action Coach wrote a simple script for the physiotherapists to tell their patients that it is in their best interests to come back regularly for treatment until the injury they had was completely cured. Up until then they would just say 'thanks for coming I'll see you later'. This alone increased their number of patient visits from 190 per week to around 230...a 21% increase in business. Next, the practice discovered that their patients were leaving their office, walking around the corner, and buying strapping tape, etc. from the local chemist. We stocked the practice with these products. Sales of these have substantially increased the cash flow. This business has grown by some 30% in ten weeks without implementing any of the more impactful strategies that we had identified in their initial analysis.

In another of Action's mentoring businesses, we simply implemented a dress code for their sales team. The most dramatic impact of this came recently when their leading sales person had gone into the field in a dark blue shirt and tie. He spent six hours and had not made a single sale. He walked into a menswear shop, bought a white shirt and red/blue tie, he went to the dry cleaners and had it pressed and then he changed. Within 40 minutes of this change he had sold his entire inventory.

There are many more examples of this sort. The message is clear. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to make money in business. Unfortunately most owners are so close to the coalface that they cannot see the opportunities. That is why an outside mentor who can give advice, encouragement, correction and discipline is the best investment a business owner can make.

Making Business Work...Simply

Making Business Work...Simply
Brought to you by Action International Business Coach Michael Bedard

There are some things in life that are supposed to be really complicated; being a parent, learning how to invest and running your own business. When you look at all of these things nothing could be further from the truth. Parents are taught by their children, investors are taught by their experiences and business owners should be taught by a mentor. Often when I look at businesses it is clear that the owners have given up trying to improve their lot in life because they think that it is too complicated an issue to generate more activity. They think they need to be Einstein to invent some radical new way of doing business. Let me give you a few real-life examples of how simple it can be to change the direction of a business.

Usually a business has no coherent direction established within its culture. The first thing I seek to have the owner and their team do is spend some time deciding exactly where they want to be in 12 months time. This process must include all of the members of the business, because they will all contribute to getting there. Once this is done the goals are well publicized. One of Action's clients implemented this as the first step and this alone without any other changes produced a very significant increase in sales.