Customers have high expectations. Gone are the days of transactional sales with faceless individuals who breeze in and out of your stores and on and off your websites. Today’s new normal is all about relationship. And one of the best ways to establish that relationship is through routine follow-up. What is follow-up? Follow-up is not…
When sitting down with decision makers, there is a tremendous amount of pressure on us, the business owner, to sell – to close the deal. So, we take out our gadgets and flip through our brochures, determined to convince them to end their search and sign on with us. And after all that time and…
One of the hardest things for small business owners to do is figure out how much to charge. This is especially challenging if you’re a consultant or coach and don’t have a tangible product for customers to see and feel to help them visualize the quality of what they’re paying for. Often times, there’s no…
When many of us are asked who our ideal customer is, our immediate response is ‘everybody.’ As small business owners, we don’t have the luxury of being picky, right? Wrong. It’s not about being picky, it’s about being specific. And taking the time to get to know who your ideal customer is, not only benefits…
Most conversations about “nurturing” today revolve around lead generation and lead scoring. Getting leads “sales ready” is one of the benefits of popular tools like marketing automation software, which aims to, through a series of consistent and meaningful touches (like emails and social media activity) move leads from the top of the marketing funnel, where they simply display interest in…
One of the biggest challenges all of us face in business is growing our business. We lie awake at night staring up at the ceiling wondering how to connect the dots… how to move the needle. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? You know you’ve got something to offer and nobody’s getting it.  So, we go out and buy a ton of books…
During the holiday season, many of us are looking forward to some downtime. As a small business owner, you may not have the luxury of taking extended time off during the year because you are your business. But, the long hours and sacrifice of time away from family and friends have taken a toll and we’re…
I’m a talker. That’s a surprise to some, but not to most. But my daughter, a thriving kindergartener, puts me to shame. As soon as she opens the car door, it starts. Talking 100 words per minute, I know who did what to whom, who spilled milk in the lunchroom, who got into trouble – I know…