Setting up for 2010

Have you ever noticed how the older one gets, the faster the years seem to blow by? It’s one of those time-relativity things. When you’re five, a year represents 1/5 of your life. When you’re 50, it represents 1/50. Each year, our perception of time compresses, so the years roll by, seemingly faster and faster, until the next thing you know, AARP is filling up your mailbox with membership invitations and you find yourself considering which Medicare plan is best. Now then, isn’t that a cheerful proposition?

But this post isn’t about our ever increasing race toward oblivion. It’s about planning. This year went by with head-spinning speed and the new year is upon us. Now is the time to close out 2009 and start to set things up for 2010. If you play your cards right, you can schedule your work for the next several months or more.

To do that, you’ll need to get chummy with your clients for more than holiday get-togethers and toasting the new year. Consider contacting your best clients – the ones you want to clone – and inviting them to lunch, on you. It’s a nice way to say, “Thanks!,” for sending you all that work during the year. But, it’s also a way to glean a lot of useful information.

During your lunch, ask your client how you did during the previous months. Scary? Maybe. But, it’s something you need to know. Are they pleased as punch? Were there some things you could have done better? This exercise will aid you in providing a better client experience in the future.

But, this breaking of bread shouldn’t be all about you. It should be mostly about your client. Once you have a handle on how you’re doing, ask them what their plans are for the upcoming year. Will they be presenting at any trade shows? Are their new products or services to be launched? Are they expanding into new locations? What are their goals and how can you help them attain them?

For example, during your conversation, your client tells you they’re planning to go to trade shows in June and October to support the launch of a new product they plan to roll out in May. You’ve just been presented with an opportunity to pitch a lot of work. Odds are they’ll need a product logo, some literature, website updates and, perhaps, a new trade show display. If you manage things correctly, you can schedule several projects for the first half of the new year, all for the price of a nice lunch.

Do this with several clients and you can see how your calendar and job roster can fill up pretty quick. Plus (and it’s a big plus), you’ll avoid the crunch of rush gigs, which are often the result of poor planning.

The thing is, your client will likely hit the ground running come January. They know they have a product to launch in May, but other, more immediate things, take precedent. Next thing they know, it’s April and the product launch has become a scrambled rush.

You can avoid this scenario simply by addressing their future needs now. And, you’re client will thank you for it. Taking some time now to plan the coming months will help them do a better job with a lot less anxiety. You’ll avoid that nasty feast or famine syndrome, too, knowing that you’ve got projects scheduled months in advance.

Now, isn’t that a nice way to start the new year?

The Cycle of the Sale

Since sales is probably the one business function that most of us would prefer to steer around, or completely ignore, I thought it might be good to visit. So, put on your favorite pair of checker slacks and that stunning plaid jacket - we're goin' sellin.'

Selling services are different that selling a tangible product. With product sales, the prospect looks it over, compares features and benefits, compares competitive prices, etc. In days gone by, people would visit several stores before making their buying decision. Now days, they compare products and prices on the Net, often long before they ever step into a store or showroom. With service sales, the "product" is intangible during the sales cycle. That's one reason why the sales cycle (going from first contact to signing on the dotted line) can be 6 - 8 months or, often, longer. To keep yourself afloat, you'll need to have several irons in the fire at various points in the cycle. Some will close sooner, some later and some not at all.

Typically, there are three phases of the cycle: making contact; building the relationship and, finally, closing the sale. Let's take a look at each.

Making Contact
There's several articles across the Web (and on this blog) that talk about self-promotion and marketing tactics and techniques - all the fun ways to get the word out. None the less, it's always good to have a reminder. Here are some of the typical methods:

• Networking events such as ad clubs, chambers of commerce, trade shows, clubs & organizations.
• Direct Mail such as postcards, sales letters, printed samples, brochures, 3-dimensional pieces
• Cold/warm phone calls
• Speaking engagements such as seminars, lectures or talks and workshops to a targeted audience
• Press releases
• Writing articles
• Online prospecting
• Working on charitable events and programs
• Award competitions
• Skywriting above your prospect's place of business (Okay ... that's a wee bit extreme).
• Asking for referrals from business contacts, friends and family
• And of course, your Website, blog and social media of choice such as LinkedIn, Biznik, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The idea during this phase is to actively be working several methods to get your name around, known and remembered. You want to meet people. But, not just anybody. Ideally, you want to meet and qualify folks who need what you provide and have the dough to pay for it. Plus, it's a good idea if they also offer the potential for repeat business.

Find those techniques that fit your style and personality. Shoot for at least three to five activities each day. If you plan well it won't take too much time. Maybe you make a few phone calls, attend a chamber breakfast, shoot off an intro letter with a few printed samples one day. Then, on the next, you give a talk at the local Rotary Club, attend a Board meeting at a nonprofit and crank out some emails to current clients and friends reminding them that you're always on the lookout for referrals.

If you're diligent, you'll meet several new people who just might become clients. But, to do that, you'll need to build a relationship with them.

Building the Relationship
Building a business relationship is like building a personal one, so don't sweat it. Unless you're a total hermit, you've already got the experience you need. Just like with a significant other, you need to show up. What I mean is to be available. Listen. Learn and remember what's important to them and help out where you can. Timing is the trick. You don't want to come off like a stalker or pain in the hind quarter.

Here are some methods

• Take notes during your conversations.
• Find out their spouse's and kids' names. Who's their boss? What are the challenges they face in their job and industry? Who are their key competitors? What kind of hobbies do the enjoy? Look around their office if you've gotten that far. What's on the walls? Any nick nacks and perhaps a paddy whack or two?
• Pop all this info into your handy contact manager (you've have one, right?) and set it up to alert you on important days.
• Be sure to ask how their family members are doing.
• Send out cards for birthdays, special achievements, etc.
• Send a handwritten thank-you note when appropriate
• Take them to lunch, dinner or a special event
• Forward articles of interest, special deals you may hear about, special events (Like that club meeting where you'll be speaking. What a coincidence!)
• If they've mentioned a problem or challenge they're having, and you know the answer, for goodness sake, tell them. Don't go too far with this, though. You can easily cut into your billable potential if your answers to their woes are the services you sell. Think of it as sampling and whetting their appetite for more.

The point is to become a resource and someone who is looking out for them. It's very important that this be true and authentic. People can usually spot a thrower of baloney. Have some integrity. Integrity, by the way, is rooted in the word, "integrate." That means what you believe on the inside is what you do on the outside. That's one reason why it's good to find prospects you like as people. Hopefully, you'll be spending a lot of time with them working on that big project. But first, you've got to close the sale.

Closing the Sale
The day finally comes. Mr. Marketing Manager gives you a call and asks you to submit a proposal for Da Big Project. You set up a meeting to go over the specs, at which time Mr. Manager clues you in that you'll be competing against three other groups. You're still not as "in like Flint" as you may have thought. You've still got one big hurdle to jump. You also learn you'll be presenting to a couple of VPs and the CEO, along with your buddy, Mr. Manager.

After the meeting, you get to work and begin to craft your perfect proposal and plan your presentation. You review the company again, its products, its competitor and audience. You go through the project goals and draft some delicious prose showing how you're going to meet them with your brilliant work.

Judgment Day comes and you make your pitch, showing what needs to be done and why your the right solution for the project. You ask for the sale. You're in good shape from all you learned during the relationship building process. You have an edge over the other groups who were called in cold. Your presentation is dead on-target. They give you a standing ovation, sign on the dotted line and write you a deposit check on the spot. The planets align and rainbows appear in the sky. You've closed the deal - all because you're the one who took the time to make the best use of the sales cycle.

Scoping Out Suspects & Prospects

Before you can become a leading designer, photographer or writer with great clients and a wall full of awards, you’re going to need to scope out some suspects and prospects. A prospect, simply put, is a potential or “prospective” client. They’re in your sales loop and qualified, but haven’t yet graduated to being a paying client with loads of work for you.

Just before them in the sales and marketing food chain are “suspects.” These are the folks you think may need what you’re selling, but you haven’t confirmed that through the qualifying process. Qualifying, simply put, is the process of determining whether or not a suspect needs and buys what you have to offer and can pay for it. The process can involve much more detail, but the previous is it in a nutshell.

While I’m writing definitions, this is a good place to define marketing and sales. If you look in the newspaper want ads, odds are, you’ll see several jobs for marketing reps. In most cases, they’re not looking for a marketing rep. They’re looking for a salesperson. Marketing and sales aren’t synonyms. Marketing tasks are those activities do to warm up the sales playing field. It’s sending out a mailer or press release, writing some articles or white papers, attending networking events, along with other tools and tactics to get your name out there and become visible. Sales, on the other hand, is about face time, making calls, drafting proposals, giving presentations and ultimately closing the deal.

Speaking of making calls, contrary to popular belief, most design firm principals do make cold and warm calls. As a matter of fact, design firm consultants, Design Management Resources, did a research study a while back. They found that as much as 30% of a designer’s or firm’s business comes from cold calls and sending cold letters with a phone follow up. That’s pretty significant. If you’re not sending letters and making calls to prospects, you might just want to rethink your efforts.

Okay, I wrote all that to write this. Where the heck do you find suspects and prospects? Search engines and the Web are good places to start. Poke around and look for some growth industries or businesses that are similar to work you’ve already done. Swing over to the library and hit the reference desk. Ask them to point you to the Index Guide of Advertisers and/or the Index Guide of Advertising Agencies, if you do trade work. These hefty tomes are also called the “Red Books” and they provide a wealth of information. Others are The Million Dollar Directory and O’Dwyers Directory of P.R. Firms. There are several other directories the Reference Librarian can suggest. Over the course of an afternoon you can build a pretty decent list.

The Web also offers some helpful sites. LinkedIn.com and Biznik.com are two popular business networking sites. You put together a profile and then build your network. The idea is something like six degrees of separation. Folks you know know others who know yet more. That's a whole lot of knowing going on. In a couple of steps you can gain introductions to several suspects and prospects. Another is Jigsaw.com. It’s an online directory of business cards and pretty slick. The other day I was trying to find contact info for a prospect. They have several locations, but I couldn’t anything about their corporate office and contact info. I popped the business name into Jigsaw and bingo! It returned several key contacts at the corporate office, complete with addresses, phone numbers and even phone extensions. How handy is that? For a pretty small investment, Jigsaw can bring you some big returns. Yet another is Spoke. It’s similar to Jigsaw and they might be just the ticket for you.

Finding and contacting suspects and prospects should be part of your regular week, if not your day. Schedule in the time to do it as though it were any other project-oriented task. Because if you don’t, there aren’t going to be many projects.

Ideally, you’ll want to build a list of about 300 or more people. Sure, it takes time and effort to build that amount of contacts. Obviously, the more contacts you have, the better your odds are of landing a juicy gig. Keep in contact to ensure you’re on their radar screen. Drop them a handwritten note, a link to a pertinent article, a phone call and promo piece here and there. When the time is right, you’ll be the one at the top of their mind.

The Importance of Follow Up

Well, I’ve been a very bad boy and haven’t posted for a long time. Bad, Neil! Bad! You know ... busy at work, life, yada, yada, yada. Excuses, excuses.

Let’s see if I can change all that and pick up where I left off.

Today’s ditty is about following up when you don’t win the gig. It’s one of those things that a lot of folks forget to do, or simply don’t want to do. But, it’s important. When you don’t land the project, you need to know why so you can adjust things, as needed, for the next go around. Without that information, you run the risk of repeating the same mistake (if there was one) over and over. That’s generally bad.

Some prospects will let you know, others will blow you off, but at least give it your best shot.

Here are a couple of examples:

We had a prospect call a while back to invite us to pitch their account. They’re a heavy industrial manufacturer. It’s an industry where we’ve historically had a lot of experience. And, it would be a high six figure chunk of change if we landed it.

So, we rolled up our sleeves and started to do the background research, went to several meetings and drafted our proposal. We felt good about things. The proposal was solid. The chemistry seemed positive. We didn’t get it.

Why? It turns out, when I followed up, the president of the company felt our experience was too much on the consumer end of things. He felt that way because the work on our site showed a lot of pieces with that slant.

Lesson learned? NE Ohio is still an industrial area. Even though the economy here for heavy industry is pretty much tanked, there are still prospects out there who need what we do and have money to spend. Needless to say, I’m working on adding more industrial pieces to our site.

Here’s another one. We had a former client contact us about a site redesign. We had done a few projects for them in the past, so they knew us. It was one of those Friday calls where they needed an estimate for a Monday meeting. I scrambled to put together the estimate and we got it to them late Friday afternoon.

Tuesday we got an email. We didn’t get that one either. My cohort here at the office called to follow up. Silence. Nada. Zilch. So, we figured they went with some other shop and blew us off.

A few days later, said cohort received an email from his contact. As it turns out, our numbers were fine. Pretty much the same as one of the other shops. They also had the place that did their current site quote the gig. They were lower than us, but the client didn’t have confidence in them anymore. Another firm came in roughly three times higher than us. What gives?

What gave was politics. One of the client’s employees spouse’s recommended the company that did their site and that’s who ended up winning the work.

The moral of the story is that sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But, when you follow up and learn the reasons why you lose, you can position yourself in a better way down the road.