The Entrepreneurial Savant

When someone asks you for a price quote, resumé, copy of an article, name or phone number, estimate or for any other information, get it to them as soon as possible. My brother Richard, who owns a custom cabinetry business, has found that one of the most effective ways to beat the competition without price cutting is to get his quote back to the client ASAP, the next day if possible. This sends a clear message that he is businesslike and will not drag his feet through the job, a primary concern people have when hiring outside contractors.
We’re all time conscious and with the advent of overnight delivery and email, the expectation time frame for delivery of information went from weeks to days, hours or minutes. Most e-commerce businesses are now including one or two day shipment as a matter of course compared to those ‘delivery in 4-6 weeks’ notices that used to be common in mail order. All of these things mean we are time conscious to a degree never known before. The early bird truly does get the worm nowadays.

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 *Virginia Satir

When problems crop up look for the specific problems and attach specific solutions to them. It is easy to generalize when something seems difficult to cope with or is beyond your immediate ability to solve or resolve. Virginia Satir was a founder and very effective practitioner of family therapy. She believed in getting immediate results from therapy rather than discussing problems endlessly. Going for the specific source of a conflict was one of her most effective tactics for helping families change the way they interact. This problem solving approach of avoiding generalities can serve as the first step in the process of handling difficult situations or challenges. Look for specifics.

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Listening is a skill that has become increasingly vital in our busy self-centered society. Active listening means listening with your full attention, in the here and now. It means listening with a clear head, without making judgments. More importantly it means listening with your other senses. What is the person’s tone of voice? Is it calm and relaxed, nervous and jumpy, high pitched, slow and hesitant? What about their physical presence? Are they intimate or reserved, breathing slowly or rapidly? Are they perspiring or red-faced? Do they make eye contact or do they appear to be looking inward? Where are their hands? Do they gesture or hide? Non-verbal communication is as much as 60% of the message-bearing part of our interaction with others.
Once you’ve become aware of the other person’s non-verbal communication you can start to match it, relaxing with them, walking along when they get up and move around, responding quickly when their thoughts are moving at a fast pace. If they are leaning towards you and speaking in something close to a whisper, lean in, match their tone and volume and listen to the message behind the words. These techniques will help you achieve a rapport with the other person, bringing you both in sync and establishing common ground for the expression of ideas, desires and questions.
You cannot successfully listen when you are preoccupied with your own agenda. And unless you learn and practice active listening skills you will have difficulty communicating and sharing your vision with others.

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Every salesperson knows what a ‘cold call’ is. Its a telephone call to someone you don’t know that you make for purpose of furthering your cause. If you’re selling something, you may be seeking an appointment to make a presentation. If you’re raising money for a cause you may have a similar goal. If you’re trying to learn about a new career or resource you may simply be trying to find the right expert for advice. Whatever the reason you make the calls, they are often the only way you can accomplish your goal(s). Unfortunately a very human and common fear of rejection keeps most of us from making cold calls and we get stuck, unable to make forward movement.
There are many methods of beating the fear. Use a script so that when fear freezes you up, you can keep going with what you wanted to say. Rehearse your script ahead of time with a co-worker or spouse. Find common ground ahead of time through research so that you can turn a feared encounter into an opportunity to share interest. Most importantly, make a certain number of ‘cold’ calls everyday. These shots into the dark can lead to many new resources and profitable relationships.
Give yourself an incentive to make your calls everyday. Think of them the way a salesperson might. A good cold caller knows exactly how many calls they need to complete to make an appointment and how many appointments it takes to make a sale. Knowing their average profit on each sale, they can assign a dollar value to each and every call, no matter how successful. For instance a real estate agent may call on homeowners to get houses to list and sell. She knows that for every twenty calls she completes (reaches a person), she gets one appointment. One half of her appointments result in listings for which she averages a commission of $1500 each. The math shows each call she makes to be worth $37.50. ( 40 calls = 2 appointments = one listing @ $1500. 1500/40=37.50) It kinda warms up those cold calls doesn’t it? Take your goals and reduce them to the value of a phone call done three times a day, day after day. The value of each of those dials may be a pleasant surprise.

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Consistency is a cardinal rule in advertising. Once you have defined the message you want to send, keep sending it in a consistent fashion. This accomplishes a number of things. First, it takes many impressions to make your message stick. This is because we are buried in information and only the clearest, most consistent messages get through. The second reason to be consistent is that it says that you and your product are dependable. You will get the job done, not flake out and you will still taste the same a year from now. Years ago, Diet Coke changed their long time campaign from the tried and true “Just For The Taste of It” to “Taste It All” . The original campaign had been around for thirteen years and was very successful. The ad agency and the marketing people decided it was time for a change for change’s sake. The new campaign was a failure, blowing thirteen years of effective brand recognition.
Consistency isn’t just an advertising rule. Anything that lasts in our disposable society becomes respected and solidly successful. Consistency of action on an individual’s part means that others will come to view you as someone who can be trusted to do the job right. Big companies spend millions to deliver a consistent message. Decide what you want to convey and plan your delivery around that message in a consistent fashion.

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• Did you ever notice that the people who are early don’t miss anything?
• That the people who are early, get in on the project from the start and become decision makers?
• That people who are early meet the other early people and establish relationships before getting down to business?
• That the person who is early never misses an unexpected success or announcement?
• That early people are relaxed and organized when things get started instead of playing catch-up?
• That the early person gets a chance to warm up and get a cup of coffee?
• They don’t rush, don’t forget things, and enjoy life a little more.

Be early. It’s an easy way to give yourself a promotion in the eyes of your mentors and bosses. It also puts you at the advantage in a negotiation or interview.

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A lot of us don’t understand the concept of profit, in spite of growing up in a capitalist economy. We earn our wages based on an hourly or yearly figure and hope for raises or bonuses. When you go into business for yourself and that paycheck stops coming in like clockwork, the profit concept becomes a lot more important. When you price something, basing your price on your overhead and paying yourself a reasonable wage, always add in a figure above and beyond for profit. As obvious as it sounds, many of my self-employed friends fail to mark up their services. Profit is the future of your business. It pays for the bigger projects, it pays back loans, it creates equity and it provides an incentive. The profit motive has turned out to be a very effective motivator. Remember the USSR?

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Speaking in public is allegedly the number one fear in America, ahead of death and taxes. Yet it is a skill that all successful people should cultivate. Public speaking ability helps you reach large numbers of potential supporters all at once, magnifying your ideas and projects. It demonstrates your poise and confidence and provides introductions in a way no amount of networking can do.
Organizations like Toastmasters International teach all of their members to speak effectively through a rigorous and fun approach to this fearsome task. Like all bogeymen, public speaking loses its scary aspects the more you get to know the ropes. Good speakers are always in demand and there is no better way to build a business or introduce an idea than by the public, yet personal, skill of speaking to a group.

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Selling is one of the least understood and most maligned skills around. Yet the ability to sell yourself and your ideas is essential to success in any endeavor. We are brought up to regard salespeople with disdain even though we live in the greatest consumer economy in the history of civilization. Sales are the grease that keeps capitalism running smoothly and are what makes everything you sit on, eat, read, look at, etc., easy to acquire. No salespeople, no good life.
Every successful person has a vision that keeps them going. Their ability to convince others of the value of that vision is what makes things happen in our lives. Learning sales skills will give you a strong basic knowledge of how people interact and communicate. They will give you insight into an individual’s character and motivations and they will enable you to build a business or an idea into a profitable enterprise.
What is selling? Selling is problem solving. Selling is finding a need and filling it. Selling is learning what your potential customer needs and desires and providing it in a way that is mutually beneficial. Therein lies the key to raising the art of selling to a respected position. The salesperson’s goal is to provide a solution to both his own and his customer’s problems by offering a solution for a price.
How do you learn to sell? Start by learning basic sales techniques from a course or book. Practice in your day to day life as you convince people to back your dreams. Good sales technique comes from a combination of continuous education and practice because it is based on a clear understanding of what makes people buy (or not buy).

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Always return calls as soon as possible, starting with the worst ones first. It is amazing how many creditors, irate family members and people on deadlines just need to know you will return their calls. Remember, when you return someone’s call quickly, you are instantly higher on their respect list because everyone else procrastinates. We live in a society with a very short attention span and the person who responds more quickly will be more successful. Those who hesitate or put things off will be lost in the shuffle.

And, if you’re competing for someone’s business, a fast response can mean getting the business. In many cases even a higher quote that is turned around quickly is preferable to a cheap quote that shows up weeks later. As the cliche goes, time is money, and a fast response is a positive indicator of how your business relationship will develop.

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