The Brad Miller Show - Growing You, Growing Your Business

This podcast was inspired by two Jim Rohn quotes:

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job”

“ Make it your goal to earn $1 million, not for the money – but for the kind of person you become in the process”

Because you may be in the business world – the For-Profit world – here is the rest of the quote:

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job, you could make a living. If you work hard on yourself, you could make a fortune. Income seldom exceeds personal development.”  ~Jim Rohn

This was the absolute game changer for me.

It is THE central idea of a self-managed business.  If you don’t understand this principle, you will never have a self-managed business.

Simple definition:  Working in your business is the order fulfillment part, and everything that must be done to get the orders out.

Working On your business is the work of creating the systems that make the Order fulfillment work better.

Working on the business is slowing down to think about all of the work and how to do it better, rather than working harder and harder to get it all done.

Working ON…

Get excited about the results of working On your business

Use the amazing gift of your Imagination:

The Language of Working On:

It is an important and essential part of every self-managed business

Because of the nature of business, it has two and only two functions, marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation make money, everything else is a cost.   ~Peter Drucker

Innovation.

First, let’s define it.

Innovation is the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage.

And here are some others

“Innovation is the creation of something that improves the way we live our lives”  ~Barack Obama.

“Innovation is something fresh (new, original, or improved) that creates value.”  ~Jeff Dance.

“Innovation is any idea that adds value.”  ~Baxter Healthcare – Australia

“Innovation is significant positive change”.  ~Scott Berkun

“Innovation is change that creates a new dimension of performance.”  ~Peter Drucker.

“I define innovation as executing new ideas to create value.”  ~Tim Kastelle

“Innovation is the commercialization of creativity.”  ~Anonymous

“Innovation is the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage.”  ~Government of New Zealand

“Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas.”  ~UK Department of Innovation and Skills

“Innovation is the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization.”  ~Professor Teresa Amabile

And this is my own:

It is about Doing Your Best Work the best way.

Let me say that again…It is about Doing Your Best Work the best way.

Your Systems flow from your Vision

Your Vision flows from your Imagination

Your Imagination is a Beautiful and Miraculous Gift from God that enables you to see something that does not exist.

Our imagination is an essential part of our systems creation – because we can see into the future A Preferred method.

Right now, we are doing something that is hard or clunky or outdated.

Maybe our business has grown and what used to work – does not work any longer

What is Not working as good as it could?

It was Michael Gerber who taught me that all successful businesses are Systems:

All extraordinarily successful businesses are systems – Totally integrated systems which work in a logical and consistent manner – a manner which can be described, systems which can be duplicated.   ~Michael Gerber

We are talking about Vision in the context of Growing a Self-Managed business

As you just heard in my podcast intro:

Vision can mean a lot of different things, but for a business it is an essential part of your strategy for leadership and growth

It is an overly used word that loses its meaning – its Impact.

No!  Guard against that.

Vision is HUGELY important for your success.

Vision answers the questions:

Visioning is Dreaming – and thinking BIG!

If you are the Owner of the business, then your personal vision and business vision must integrate – they must fit together elegantly.

Here’s why…

Horst Shultz, co-founder of The Ritz Carlton talks about interviewing potential candidates for a GM or other leadership position and he asks them, “What is your vision for your life?”

IF they start talking about how to raise occupancy or improve the hotel – he knows that they don’t get it

Create the Vision for your life, Then go to work on your business to make that Vision a reality

You’re at the right place to, get a bigger vision of Your Life AND Your Business, and THEN, learn how to make that vision a reality.

Know exactly what you want. Have a big vision that is crystal clear.

Painter Agnes Martin on the one thing you have to know in life:

THIS is exactly why Vision is so important – If you know what you want – you will likely get it.

“Be Careful of the success you desire – bc you will likely get it”

Knowing your Vision gives you clarity in your work

Know your vision before you go to work OR you will likely work on the wrong things.

You as the leader of the Business Must not only Know the Vision and be able to clearly state it for yourself – you must be able to communicate to your team in a memorable and consistent way!

I am going to give you 3 quotes that have been a Guiding force as I built my business:

They all speak to Vision without using the word vision:

Every one of these quotes is about Vision!

Vision is effectiveness – Doing the RIGHT thing

I have seen this in my own company many times.

Wonderfully capable staff, working hard – On the wrong things.

AND as the leader, that’s my fault.

Here’s another quote by Deming:  “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that does not need doing.”

Ouch that one hurt if you’re a leader.

FOCUS On One Thing

Where the FOCUS Goes the Energy Flows

Keep the Vision in front of you – or else you are chasing Shiny object and Squirrels

Andy Stanley – Making Vision Stick

“Vision is about what could be and should be.  As important as we believe it is for people in our organizations to embrace our pictures of the future – – – their lives are consumed with the present life –  about deadlines and decisions and problem-solving, about the house and the bills and the yard.  To get people to sit still long enough to understand your vision is a challenge.

We need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves how can I make the vision clear, simpler and more accessible?

Sales professionals learn how to Optimize and Maximize their – Golden Hours of Selling

And there is some language that needs to be defined.

There is Sales Language around the Activity of Selling

Last week covered the first five:

6. Discovery and Rapport

You have a very specific agenda for your Discovery and Rapport appointment.

YOU are the Driver!

This is exactly what you are doing:  Discovering needs and building Rapport

Rapport begins the second you great the prospect.

Then you ask, “is there someplace we can sit down”. That was a game changer.

Get to know the prospect – Rapport, AND find out how you can best serve them – Discovery.

How do you find out how to best serve them?  ASK them.

We call it the key question.

This is the most important part of Discovery because they will tell you how to sell them.

“There are many different benefits of a live plant program – From YOUR perspective as a Country Club GM, what’s the most important benefit to YOU?”

Then when you begin to create your proposal, you make sure you are including that answer

7. Proposals

Begin with the end in mind when creating your proposal – You have to Present this to the prospect.  How to make sure the presentation is a win

There are two big problems with creating proposals – and they are opposites ends of the same stick

The second one first:

A winning proposal has considered the unique needs and desires of THIS prospect and When they present it – the prospect knows it.  The language of the presentation is obviously connected to your Discovery process.

Spend the time customizing and tailoring it.

The other problem is spending too much time – comes from not having a Process for creating proposals.

There are a lot of elements in the proposal writing activity that can become a process.

Not only these, but even more – the Realization that you only have so many quarters today – how many quarters are you going to spend creating a proposal?

If you’re spending too much time creating proposals – ask yourself, “am I doing this bc I don’t want to do the other work of prospecting and phone calls?”

And, “Am I busy being busy?”

8. Presentation

The presentation is the time you are pitching your big ideas – with the Expectation you are going to get a Yes!

Zig Ziglar – “you have to plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win.”

If you go into the presentation and expecting them to say, “well… let me think about it”

Here are the key words I think of for presentation:

Those are the Soft Skills of presentation

The hard skills are the order and neatness of your sales materials

9. Most sales don’t close bc the salesperson does not ask for it

You have to have some type of closing question – or questions

The close happens smoothly when you have done all the other sales activities

10. Follow Up

Not every sale will close on the first attempt.

You have to have a follow up process.

Follow up also applies to the First sale – selling the appointment

“do not underestimate the amount of effort it takes to close a sale”

The appointment OR the sale.

It is phone calls

There is a balance:  You are a welcomed Guest – Not an annoying pest.

With this Language and this kind of approach to your Selling Activities – all of your prospects will be in one of those stages – and the Best part – you’ll know which one

This episode is about the Language of Sales and Selling.

Let me start right here and define these words:

Selling is a much more powerful word.  Verbs are action words.  Sales requires a lot of Selling activity.

That’s what we will focus on.

Innovating your selling activities So That you can achieve more sales in the limited time you have.

Sales professionals learn how to Optimize and Maximize their – Golden Hours of Selling

And there is some language that needs to be defined.  We will start with that one – and here are the 9 others…

Sales Language around the Activity of Selling

Sales Language around the Activity of Selling

1. The Golden Hours of selling

Every day you get 32 quarters, every week you get 160 quarters

How you use your quarters today, this week determines your success.

Stop being busy being busy and Get to Work Selling!

Work on the Best Work you can do!

Don’t get bogged down in miscellaneous busy work – and get to work On the selling activities

This language is also the Best Activity of selling.

2. Lead conversion –

Marketing is Positioning You and your company as the best option.

Selling is taking those great leads and converting them to a new customer.

“Someone has to separate the customer from his money” – and that is Your job as a salesperson

Every else is Busy work.  Your job is to make sales to create customers!

How do you do that?  With a sales funnel

3. Sales funnel

A sales funnel is all the steps of taking a good warm prospect – all the way to becoming your next customer.

Like a funnel it is wide on one end and narrow at the other – bc as you take prospects through the steps many will fall out.

That’s not bad or sad – it is the reality of selling.

Tom Hopkins – “Some will, some won’t, so what, next!”

You have to have a funnel so that you know where your prospects are in the sale.

The sales funnel starts with prospecting.

Prospecting is where marketing and selling cross-pollinate

4. Prospecting

Prospecting gets its own podcast – BECAUSE it’s that important.

Here’s why!  You want to invest your 32 quarters today with the best prospects.

Everyone is Not your prospect!  And you need to know why they are not

Not all business is good business – see episode 77

Tune in 2 weeks for deep Dive in prospecting

5. Selling the appointment – Language!

We say, the first sale you make is the appointment.

You have to sell the appointment So That you can begin selling.

If you get yourself in front of a quality prospect – there’s a very high probability of selling them.

But getting in front of a prospect is hard – it requires a strategy and a lot of work.

Selling the appointment is ASKing for it!

Sales is Asking!

One tip from Steve Shiffman in his book:  Cold Calling Techniques. That really work

Your variation of this:  “the reason I’m calling is to ask for an appointment to show you what we’ve done for other companies like yours to…”

Selling the appointment is ASKing for it!

Then when you get the appointment it’s your opportunity for Discovery and Rapport

The language of Selling is so important it requires two episodes.

Here’s my favorite way to start a conversation about marketing – and it’s why it is the first topic of creating a shared language….

“Marketing is the business you are really in”

Thank you to Dan Kennedy

Why are you in the Marketing Business?

Marketing is the lifeblood of any business – because it is the source of a continuous flow of new prospects who are interested in doing business with you.

AND without customers – (a continuous Flow of customers) you don’t have a business.

Businesses Fail because of a lack of customers!  Period.

That’s why you must Fix the customer acquisition problem before you do anything else.

Actually – you should fix the customer acquisition problem Before you even start the business – that’s how important Marketing is.

The Sole Purpose of Business (Episode 76) is to Create and Keep Customers.

A key word there is CREATE!

Marketing is about how to Create Customers

Today we are going to talk about- The Language of Marketing

With a better language, a bigger language – you can Then have bigger and better ideas!

First:   Marketing is Lead Generation – Sales is Lead Conversion

Your marketing creates the qualified leads – Your selling Converts them to Customers

Second:  Marketing is not selling and Selling is not marketing.

Creating quality leads is the job of marketing

Don’t be selling when you should be Marketing AND…Don’t be marketing when you should be selling – – –

Good friend in Senior Living sales would always say:

Marketing is Setting up the sale for success

This is what I mean by that…

If you are in sales and show up you want to hear – “Oh yes, I have heard of your company.”

That’s the job of marketing – Your Reputation Precedes you – IN THE BEST WAY!

But before sales is marketing – or lead Generation – OR Customer Acquisition.

Great quote:  “Anytime you can solve the customer acquisition, financing conundrum in any business, you can get fabulously rich”

Here’s a new belief system or language to try on:  “There is more value in the process devised for marketing and selling the “thing” than there is in the thing itself.”

The thing of course being your product or service – the core deliverable of your business.

Focus on this:  more value in the process devised for marketing the thing.

That’s what we want to focus on – The marketing Process!

Your marketing process, once you have Created it and Fine-tuned it is a valuable Asset!  An asset you can sell – and an asset that can make you Fabulously rich

Another Word in our marketing language is Process.

“Your Systems are perfectly designed for the Results You’re Getting” – Deming

Language that is part of Creating your marketing process:

Prospects or Prospecting

Everyone is not a good customer for your work – You want the BEST customers

Prospecting Will Be its own podcast

The Marketing Equation

The marketing equation – is a PROCESS

Been around for a Very Very long time.  Another term is funnel.

Marketing funnel – are the steps in the process.  Like a funnel it is wide on one end and it captures a lot of leads – then it gets smaller as leads go through the steps and Qualify themselves as a good lead or not.

Interrupt

Lead magnet – the lead magnet is your offer – it engages them and offers the promise of learning more – educating.  A special report. A free book.

Then:

Then,

Tune in next week – for the language of sales and selling.

A great definition of a Self-Managed business – thanks to Dan Sullivan:

At Strategic Coach, we define a Self-Managing Company as a business that manages itself to greater growth. It’s a company that can run smoothly and effectively — and even grow! — when the entrepreneur isn’t there.

Creating this kind of company frees you up to focus on being the visionary and innovator rather than managing cash flow and the day-to-day activities in your business.

When your company runs itself, you have the freedom to pursue worthwhile interests outside your business and to participate only in the areas of your business that you love.

What I want to do in this podcast series is provide a definition of terms for the Key concepts you will need to Grow Your Business.

To create a shared language for these key words:

I am not saying that my definitions are the only right ones – Most words have more than one meaning.

The word RUN for example – has over 100 different meanings.

But for my Work – my work of MMT – and growing You and growing your business – I want to dig into the Precise Meaning of several important words.

The goal is to Expand our Thinking – a bigger Vision – get rid of limiting beliefs and mental lies that are holding us back.

To Dream bigger – you have to think bigger – to think bigger, you have to think Better!

We all have some old limiting beliefs – or Wrong mindsets.

And to have those beliefs transformed – we have to renew our minds with New Ideas.

Thank you for being a part of the MMT community – And for you to get the most value from anything you hear – you need to know what I mean.

I am creating A Shared Language

Entrepreneur:

A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

Wrong ideas of Entrepreneur:

My Test:  these 2

Now of course there are seasons and phases of all business

 Solopreneur has been around for quite some time. Macmillan dictionary defines Solopreneur as a business owner who works and runs their business alone.

An Entrepreneur – for our Shared Language – the language of MMT

That my friends is an Entrepreneur – and a Worth Goal

Next week:  The Language of Marketing