Ideas To Deals

Increase Your Sales Prospecting Success Through Relationships

Yesterday I was moderating a panel for the Ohio SBDC on building sales as a small business owner. It was a great discussion with Mark Gilicinski founder of Mobile Expeditions, Chaz Freutel of Get-U-Connected and Jack Windsor of the Windsor Group. One of the areas we covered was how to prospect and specifically how to get a meeting.  In my experience small business owners typically don't see themselves as sales people and they let this hold them back. There is no one better positioned to sell the product than the founder/owner. They know more about the product than anyone else. However it can be kind of intimidating trying to get appointments to discuss your product but it doesn't have to be if you set the stage in advance. The key is building a relationship. Taking the time to build trust is critical. It drives me crazy when I just meet someone and they start pumping me for referrals. Why would I risk my relationship with one of my contacts by referring you to them when I don't know you? A better strategy is to build the relationship over time. Make it about them and how you can help them be more successful. This will make people more willing to reciprocate and discuss how your business might help them or who they know that might need your product. Note...This is not a quick process but if you build enough activity in your pipeline you should be able to afford to take the time to build strong relationships.

Action Step ~ Build time into your work plan to meet with new people each week and to meet with your existing contacts. Start by picking an upcoming week and set five meetings every day so that you have 25 meetings set. Split this up between new and existing contacts. If you do this I bet you will have new sales by the end of the week that you would not have otherwise had.

Any thoughts you have no making prospecting more palatable and successful? Leave a comment to share your ideas.

New Business Funding Opportunity Announced

A partnership between Columbus State Community College,  the Columbus College of Art and Design and TechColumbus has established the  second 1492 business launch competition aimed at finding, funding and launching Columbus' next great companies.  Entrepreneurs are encouraged to begin developing their pitch for submission to this accelerated business launch competition.
 
Based on a written business brief, ten finalists will be selected to make formal pitches before the 1492 judging committee.  From those, five will be chosen to receive funding (up to $20,000 per startup), along with business coaching services to help launch their startup.

 MobileXpeditions, a finalist in the inaugural 14ninetytwo competition, used the program to launch their company which now has local and national clients. MobileXpeditions enables venues and brands to extend their marketing and engagement to mobile phones and tablets.  Their platform can rapidly create and update content rich mobile apps for consumers or an enterprise.

 Want to see your idea come to life, just like MobileXpeditions’ founder Mark Gilicinski?  Then start preparing your pitch today. 

 Deadline for submission is October 12, 2011.  If you are interested in submitting visit http://www.onefourninetwo.com

Gini Dietrich and Spin Sucks ~ Who I Look To For GREAT Content

If you are thinking of getting your business or your non-profit more involved in on-line and social media activities you may need help. I know that I take all the help I can get. Where do you look to find good resources? Certainly there are all kinds of experts, gurus and strategists out there pumping out content but which ones are good? Given that I have been doing some work this week at the ASBDC Conference on building a social media strategy for SBDCs I thought I would share a resource that I look to on a regular basis for great content on the subject.

Spin Sucks ~ This is a site put out by the team at Arment Dietrich in Chicago to provide expert information and advice on current issues and trends surrounding marketing, communication, social media, entrepreneurship, search engine optimization, and advertising. Arment Dietrich founder and CEO, Gini Dietrich, is the lead author for the blog and is a MUST follow on Twitter. I don't just say that because I think she is awesome and I have a huge crush on her (of a professional nature of course) but because of what she and her team put out really helps.  Not only is the content on social media and marketing extremely useful Gini often shares her experiences in starting her firm and what she deals with as a CEO.  Really good stuff that helps when I am dealing with entrepreneurs or in my own endeavors.

A very cool thing Gini does each Friday is a Follow Friday post to introduce you to people she knows that have informative blogs and are great twitter follows. These are people she knows and reads herself. That alone is good enough for me but once you check the recommended people you have more practitioners of strong content that will help with your business.

Finally something that I have found very valuable are the webinars that Spin Sucks puts on. I participated in two of these sessions recently and learned things that I didn't know and was able to immedatly apply them to my social media strategy. Now I will say that there is a charge for these but it is minimal and well worth it (note...I pay for these out of my own pocket not out of an expense account). The other advantage that you get on these paid webinars is that there is no 30 minutes of content and 30 minutes trying to sell you something. These sessions are well organized, on time and all content.

So if you are looking for resources to augment your knowledge as you build out your strategy I recommend you subscribe to Spin Sucks and follow Gini Dietrich. I guarantee that your strategy will be better for it.

Building an SBDC With Social Media

I recently was asked to do a presentation at the Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC) Annual Conference in San Diego. My presentation was "Building Your SBDC with Social Media". I based the presentation on what we have done in Columbus to build our local SBDC. It has been quite a journey over the past three years but our social media trial and error strategy has allowed us to build something pretty cool that I hoped could, at minimum, serve as inspiration to other SBDCs that they can do the same thing. As my friend Herb Lawrence, Director of the Arkansas State ASBTDC, says "We should be eating our own dog food and using the on-line tools we recommend to our clients". The presentation followed a history of the evolution of our on-line strategy from the days where we were looking for an effective  alternative to expensive direct mail, media advertising and ineffective channel partner strategies to today. As I put the presentation together it became very clear that even without knowing what we were doing we were building a community of people interested in the same thing
we were, entrepreneurship and business development. From this blog to our SBDC Free Advice on-line community we were building content to drive entrepreneurship. It wasn't about pushing workshops and training it was about bringing together like minded people that we could bring our resources to and help them grow businesses in central Ohio and beyond.  

I'm always amazed that more SBDCs and economic development entities don't use social media. SBDCs are grant funded and to be honest public funds/grants typically don't provide much money for marketing so social media is perfect. I guess the lack of adoption is because many of these entities, while very good at what they do, are often time crunched and unable to spend the time to figure out how to implement an effective on-line strategy for themselves. The funny thing is that it is not uncommon to find an SBDC consultant at a live networking event discussing business needs with area businesses and quite frankly on-line social media is really the same thing ~ remember when we used to call it social networking?

On a side note if you look at the picture of me at the presentation you will see that it is kind of dark. Five minutes before I was to present there was a massive power outage that affected five million people over two states including 1.5 million people in the San Diego area. Doing a presentation on implementing on-line strategies without a computer, presentation or access to the internet and in the dark was not optimal but we persevered and made it work.  Below you will find the presentation that was to be delivered so if you were in the session you can access it here and if you weren't there turn off the lights and pretend you were there.

Now is the time. If you are an SBDC get on-line and meet your clients. You'll find it is easier than you think and far more valuable than you ever imagined.

 

Asbdc building your center with social media

View more presentations from mbowers030.

Being Your Own Boss ~ A Barefoot Executive Guide

Have you thought of starting a business but don't know how to go about it? Pretty common issue. I meet with people everyday that are looking to take more control and go into business for themselves but they really need to think it through. Often times they are planning to venture into uncharted professional territory when they should really look at their strengths and what they have to offer that would make a nice business. This is one of the key messages that is found in the new book, The Barefoot Executive ~ The Ultimate Guide to Being Your Own Boss & Achieveing Financial Freedom. Carrie Wilkerson, The Barefoot Executive, has built a step by step guide for starting a business that will allow you to achieve your professional and personal goals. The great thing about Carrie is that she has been there and done that. Carrie has overcome numerous obstacles to build the kind of life she wanted for her and her family. For the past several years she has been sharing her tips for business success through various blogs, social media outlets and from stages across the county but now she has pulled her lessons learned into a great guide for those seeking to build an on-line business. This book breaks the process down into very manageable steps from Why to start a business to How to start a business and How YOU can start a business. Each chapter has action steps from Carrie and case studies from people that have developed businesses to make their dreams come true. The book is very results oriented and real. There is no sugar coating here. Building a business takes work and Carrie is clear that you have to work, no get rich quick stuff here just real world "how to" steps that you can apply.

On a personal note, I have known Carrie for a couple of years and she is a great role model. She was the keynote speaker for the 2010 Ohio Growth Summit and she was easy to work with and very genuine.  She is real and what she says on-line, on stage or in her book is how she feels. She is passionate about her family, her business and helping others achieve success.  I fully endorse this book for those that are looking to add to their income or want to look to follow their passion and build a business.