THE LIST

I’m not always the most methodical person in the world, but when I was in retail I did keep one very important list.  It was a list of jewellery requests that I hadn’t been able to fulfill out of inventory or easily find in catalogs.  It was the one thing I made sure I had with me at the jewellery show.  Half-carat pink diamond?  Rainbow suite tennis bracelet?  Over-the-top fancy colored-stone necklace?

Chances are that you can glean sales that might fall by the wayside if you can call your client from the jewellery show, text them a photo and tell them you’ve found just what they’re looking for!  If you don’t have a list already, it’s not too late.  Get the staff together and ask if there are any client wish-list items that they can think of.  Then keep that list handy because within a few days, you’ll inevitably remember somebody or something that you couldn’t previously recall.

See you at the shows, and don’t forget THE LIST.

Statistical Significance

When someone tries to sell you something based on “statistics” you can take it with a grain of salt, or you can analyze the analysis.  In other words, you can be skeptical or scientific.  Having studied behavioral science, including statistics, in university I make it a game to pick-apart useless statistics.

Good stats are ones that have poled a statistically significant number of people within a population.  Great stats are ones that pole a sufficient number and variety of the kind of population you’re interested in selling to.  If you want to know how people are going to respond to a jewellery line in Grande Prairie, Alberta and you’re given statistics accrued mainly from urban United States buyers, then you may not learn what you need to know.

Advertising reps throw around statistics like they are an instant roadmap to success.  The truth is that there are so many measurements taken by the ad industry (and the new car industry too) that every media outlet can pick and choose the most compelling statistics to make themselves look good.  Who do you think pays for that research and why?

Knowing what I know about standard deviation, mode, mean, median and statistical significance, I think the best policy is to take stats with a grain of salt.  When it comes to advertising, hold your ad-rep accountable for results.  When he or she says that an advertising plan will generate increased business for you whithin a certain segment of buyers, make your decision, run the ads, compile your own statistics and then report back the results.  Don’t let them use objective measurements to sell you something with subjective results.

What Would You Do?

What would you do if your key employee left and joined your competition and began to solicit your clients?  What would you do if another Blood Diamond movie came-out and had the massive effect that we all feared from the first one?  What would you do if “The Trouble Shooter” came into your store sticking a microphone and camera in your face to answer questions about an unsatisfied client.  What if diamonds increased in cost by 100% over the next two months.  What if they went down by half?

The world is full of unknowns.  Business is full of challenges: new ones every day.  How you react to life’s curve-balls is what develops your character and subsequently your reputation.  When all hell breaks loose, your character and reputation are sometimes all you have at your disposal.

On the sport radio station today, I listened to debate over whether a double amputee running on carbon-fiber springs in place of his lower legs and feet should have been allowed in these Olympics.  It’s a significantly difficult call for the IAAC and the IOC.  One set of tests reported that using his prosthetics allows him to carry similar speed to able-bodied runners while using 30% less mechanical force. 

I get the impression that Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee Olympic runner from South Africa has an iron will and rock solid reputation for excellence. If this is his first and only Olympic games, then I have no doubt that he will continue to open the eyes of the world to the heights that he and others like him can achieve.

Ahoy Maties!

I’ve been working with Peter in our office to create some visuals for a sales contest.  We’re running a themed contest.  Why bother?  Because it’s fun.  It’s not enough to give an incentive.  Heck, you’d be amazed at how little response you’ll get if you offer to give something valuable away for FREE!

Do you want to be the one who gave someone a good deal, or do you want to be the one who gave someone the most enjoyable experience of their week – the biggest thrill?  It’s not always about the deal.  Offer them a prize and they’ll talk about the prize.  Show them a good time and they’ll talk about you.

Hunters and Farmers

Should sales professionals be hunters or farmers?  It’s a common analogy in the sales training arena.  Hunters stalk and shoot prey, so the hunter-salespeople prospect and close new buyers.  Farmers tend their land, so the farmer-salespeople tend their existing clients.

Asking “which one are you” is a dumb question.  In today’s world, you absolutely cannot survive on one or the other.  Here’s why.  A pure hunter with no regard for the long-term viability of a client may make the first sale, but if there’s no continued support and no client satisfaction, then Twitter, Facebook, Angies List or Yelp will catch-up with them. 

A pure farmer will lose business by attrition.  People are more mobile than ever, so they may move away from your market area.  There are so many more choices now with increased competition from both bricks-and-mortar businesses and virtual ones.  Hunters can come along and lure a client away from a farmer.

The quick answer is that you need to be both.  Don’t rely on referral business as your only answer to “hunting” or generating new clients.  You need to go on the offensive and find great clients wherever they gather.  When I worked at Diamori, a huge client of mine mentioned that his industry was having a golf tournament.  While most of their sponsors were related to the road-building industry, guess who invited himself to host a hole-in-one contest?  I figured, if this guy could drop $70,000 on jewellery and he’s not even the senior partner in his firm (which was not the largest firm in his industry,) I want to know more of these people.

My wife Jana’s uncle Ian is literally a farmer.  He owns a bunch of land near Regina.  Over the past few years he’s not only milked his cows, he’s bought more land to grow feed, and he’s increased his milking quota by buying-out other dairy farms.  This is the kind of sales-farmer I’d like to be.  One who continually creates revenue from their existing client base, but is always looking to add more acreage.

The Twitter Olympics

The 2012 Olympic Games have been touted as “The Twitter Olympics.”  There will be more than 10 times the tweets about this year’s games on Twitter than Vancouver 2010, but something interesting is emerging.  While the phrase “good luck” has been used 1.2 million times during the Olympics, a CNN article on the subject has revealed the less savory side of Twitter’s instant communications.

Criticism of athletes, the IOC and Olympic officials are for some venomous, and for others seemingly sport.  Ignorant and cowardly comments are more easily made when you’re hiding behind your computer or smart-phone.  A 17 year old Twitter user gave the gears to a diver who “disappointed his father” by finishing fourth in synchronized diving.  His father died of cancer last year.

I don’t want you all to think that Twitter is evil and unworthy of your time and effort.  For most of us social media is a small universe.  For the Olympics it literally is The Universe.  When you have your own tribe of people who are following you because they are interested in you and your business, it’s unlikely that you’ll attract random cranks.

When Facebook changed their standard format to “Timeline,” they reinforced an important aspect of social media.  As time passes, so do the highlights.  It reminds me of my favorite bible verse: “It came to pass.”  Any conversations, users or triumphs on your social media site will soon fade out of site.  It will be there in your history, but social media is ALL about what’s current.  I assume that as the abominable Olympic tweets fade into history there will be a lingering celebration of the Olympic spirit.  

YouTube Channels

YouTube is becoming the unsung hero of the social media world.  If you are trying to develop a following, it is becoming more important to have a YouTube channel.  The videos I’ve included in my blog are all on my YouTube Channel.  When put together they tell a story, and they can be a great part of your social media identity.

Videos can include slide-shows that are saved in one of the popular video formats, videos you’ve filmed yourself, or ones which you have viewed on YouTube and want your followers to enjoy.  If you seek to use videos on your Facebook Fan Page, Twitter feed or blog, make sure you upload each to your YouTube Channel.  Once you have enough to make a good presentation of it, then you can begin adding the address of your YouTube channel to your website, business cards and other promotions.

If you have two minutes to kill, check-out this slide-show that I did for my personal Facebook page chronicling my birthday.  It literally took me about 20 minutes to do with iPhoto software that came with my computer.