Michael J. Kline, Entreprenologist

Become a Sponge

2011-10-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

By Michael Kline
Don’t you just love to absorb information? I suppose you’d say it depends on the subject; I hear you. As a kid in school, I paid attention in History, English, and Music; not so much in trigonometry or chemistry. Unfortunately for me, I earned a scholarship to study Chemical Engineering and Military Science. What were they thinking?!

With our children, as with our employees and applicants, we need to stop measuring only so-called aptitude and pay attention to passion. We need to stop measuring only IQ and start measuring EQ (Emotional Intelligence). When we have a passion, we can soak up knowledge like a sponge.
So, for what knowledge would you be a sponge? What information or lessons would benefit you? Not feeling passionate about learning? If you’re passionate about the benefit of the lesson, you could easily get excited about the lessons. Let me explain.
Let’s say you are passionate about buying your first house, retiring on a golf course, or whatever your goal might be. Let’s assume your work contributes toward that goal. Then being passionate about the goal, means you should be pretty excited about the work and the lessons that help you achieve more with that work. I already admitted to not really paying attention to math, but I think the equation was: if A=B and B=C, then A=C. In this case, if lessons = better pay, and better pay = goal, then lesson= goal. That’s mathematical proof. If you can’t get excited about the work that gives you your goal, you must not be very excited about your current goal.
In recent years, I’ve been trying to devour books, audio tapes, guru blogs, and as many live seminars as I can find. Here in rural New Hampshire, we don’t have much access to seminars. I suggest you take advantage of everything you can get; relax, this isn’t just self-promotion.
To prove my point of how important frequent and consistent education is, I teach my own seminar series as a service to the community. To be clear, we do charge for the seminars to cover our costs of advertising, etc. With such small class sizes, you don’t have to do a lot of math to know we don’t make a living by selling seminars. Speaking of math, when you try to calculate the return on the training investment, the results are a staggering no brainer. Kline Seminars exists to further the mission of improving the quality of life in the valley by improving the success of our small businesses. Another excellent source that is a perfect complement to my seminars is the Mount Washington Valley Economic Council’s boot-camp series. I’m looking forward to the fall lineup; from what I hear on the street, it’s going to be excellent.
Additionally, you should consider looking online for webinars or tele-seminars and buy recommended books and audio seminars on your most important topics. According to Brian Tracy (one of my favorite motivational speaker/authors), if you read a book a week, related to your field, you will have learned the equivalent of a university PhD in that field.

Finally, my best training tip ever – buy books on Audio CD’s (or download) and put them on your iPod. Now, walk an hour or more a day listening to your training programs/books. We all want to be a little healthier and we all want more time to do things like read or exercise – do them at the same time!
Become a sponge, my absorbent friend – soak up everything you can that relates to your goal in any way. You’ll quickly become unstoppable!
Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.

Living an Extraordinary Life

2011-08-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

By Michael Kline, Conway Daily Sun, Aug 23, 2011
Do you have an extraordinary life? What does it take to realize such a thing, and is it possible for ordinary people to obtain? I suppose we need to know what we mean by extraordinary. I feel fortunate to live such a life, and yet I can’t define it except to say you’ll know it when you’re there, and that if I can do it – well, anyone can.
The most astonishing thing to me is how simple it is to get an extraordinary life; problem is, it only becomes clear once you know you’ve already achieved it.
You would be hard pressed to find anyone more ordinary than me. The humblest of beginnings taught me well. A series of successes and failures taught me still more, and more importantly taught me that there is really no such thing as successes and failures; only outcomes and lessons. If I can schlep along, hammering out an amazing life, then surely you can too. Finding happiness or perhaps we should call it peace, or maybe contentment, or comfort, or fulfillment, or confidence, or faith; finding that elusive quality to define our life as amazing, is within the grasp of every ordinary person.
Is the answer money? I know you’re waiting for me to say something deep and meaningful about the riches of life not involving money. Bologna I say. I had the privilege of stating with nothing (being a slow learner, I even got to repeat it a couple times!). I’ve come to place a real value on having some money. Cash can be an ugly, divisive weapon that ruins people’s lives. It can also be an important tool that eases a great deal of stress; but so does faith or confidence. Money buys opportunities, but so does creativity. Money allows us to take care of ourselves, so we can contribute to others, which is the biggest favor we can do for ourselves. Money frees our minds and our time to pursue more leisurely thoughts and activities. These pursuits enrich our lives, expand our minds, and improve our homes, families, and community. These efforts help us find our own voices, so we can then help others find theirs, and nothing says extraordinary better than that experience. So I say money is not necessary, but it sure can help. If you have the ability to make, and the discipline to save money, life can be much easier, but remember, emotional pain and baggage has no budget. Hard mental and emotional work on yourself is the most worthwhile investment you can make, but there are no short cuts for anyone.
For me, the arrival at my happy place involves a deep appreciation of my past, faith in my future and the relationships I enjoy with family, close friends, community, and work. Work as a business coach deals with helping people make money and live a better life in a balanced and healthy way. I am so grateful I get to be of service to others and make a living doing it. Making a living is the financial reward; the love is the spiritual reward – well balanced.
I’d like to say my clients are extraordinary people, (sorry guys), but the truth is, they are really ordinary people just like you and me. They are ordinary people living extraordinary lives; even if some of them don’t know it yet.
I believe that if you are reading this article, you have the power and the responsibility to create or recreate your life into an extraordinary experience. You can do this through ordinary work, with ordinary skills, but not with ordinary attitude or beliefs. In fact, maybe I can define it after all - you arrive at extraordinary the moment you say it is so.
Your assignment is to know yourself, control yourself and motivate yourself. Try to remember who you really are and what’s important to you. Practice self-discipline and push yourself to take action beyond your comfort zone on a regular basis. Find the inspiration you need wherever and however you can, but not just in theory – make a commitment to take action right away. Get a constant source of fuel for your spirit and use it to get in the game. When you follow your passion and help someone else follow theirs, you will create two extraordinary lives at once. More importantly, you will become addicted to helping still more follow in your path. So come on, be ordinary; just do it extraordinarily well!
Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.

When to Fire a Client

2011-08-11T10:24:00.001-07:00

By Michael Kline
Imagine if you only worked with clients who inspired you and appreciated your knowledge, skills and passion. Imagine a world where most days, you felt almost guilty getting paid to do the work you do because you find it so rewarding. Welcome to my world. I consider myself incredibly lucky to get to do the work I do. Most of my regular followers know it wasn’t always this way, of course. I have spent plenty of time being grumpy, wrongfully unappreciative of my life, and wasting time placing my energy in the wrong places. Decades of hard work and lots of difficult and expensive lessons have taught me that happiness is a decision. There are plenty of people in this world whom I was born to serve. That makes me happy. I want happiness. Like you, I’m happiest when I feel productive. Productivity drives happiness. Passion drives productivity. Let’s follow our passion.
Are you doing the math yet? Passion = Productivity = Happiness = Success. If you work in your area of passion, and you work with clients who feed the passion, you can only be successful and happy.
If you truly want to grow your business and enjoy your work, you would do well to limit your work to those clients who feed your passion. It may be time to drop the duds. Eventually, you will get frustrated, limit your service to them, or get short with them. If you’re trying to please clients who are not your target market, or who don’t truly value your service, they will eventually become unhappy with you and fire you anyway. It is far better to be proactive with your less-than-festive client relationships. Here’s what I suggest:
Make a list of your favorite clients. I don’t mean just financially speaking, but that’s an important part, so let’s get that out of the way. Analyze the profitability of the relationship – those who pay the most are not necessarily the most profitable – sometimes they end up costing you money depending on the time, energy and resources they demand. Make a list of the best clients you have now, and write down why you identify them as your best. Write down if the issue is financial, friendly, inspiring you to do your best work, refers others to you, make you more inventive, a joy to work with, etc. Now make a list of your least favorite clients and their traits and characteristics that earn them a spot on that list.
Can any of the negative clients be coached into becoming a better client? If not, can you afford to tell them that you can no longer service them? You’re not going to like this – but I would argue that you cannot afford to keep them. It’s time to refer them out to someone else with whom they may be a better fit. If you take the time and energy now wasted on your worst clients, and invested it in marketing yourself to your ideal target audience (prospects with traits similar to your best clients), you will greatly improve your cash flow, your energy, your productivity and live a longer, more fulfilling and happier life.
At this point, most of you are in one of two camps. One, you argue that this is easy for me to say, but reality requires you to “suck it up” and stick with the dud clients. Or, perhaps you believe me, but you’re panicking over the thought of losing revenue. There is a caveat. If you’re going to make your life enjoyable and make more money, you’ll need a good plan to find the replacement client who will pay you more to do better work. More important than the good plan however, is to create the room in your life for the better clients in the first place, and to create the desperate need in your gut to go get the new clients, so you can stop taking the lazy, unfulfilling path of least resistance you’ve been stuck on. It’s scary, lonely and difficult; why do you think everyone isn’t wildly successful and happy?
Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com , or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.

Grateful vs. Satisfied

2011-07-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

Grateful vs. Satisfied
By Michael Kline
All the great teachers of personal success, life happiness and general well-being talk about gratitude. I agree it is one of our most powerful tools. In business, as in our personal lives, we have the opportunity to use gratitude to make our lives more fulfilling. The conflict comes when we confuse gratitude with the notion of being satisfied.
We’re told the easiest way to have what you want, is to want what you have. If we took this advice literally, and we all wanted what we had, there would be no desire for self-improvement; we would still be living in caves, and no business would ever be started. So if we don’t mean the words literally, what do we mean? How do we balance the benefits of being grateful with the benefits of still wanting better for ourselves?
First, let’s make sure we all understand the value of gratitude in the first place. Most powerful is the art of expressing appreciation for what we do have, shining our focus on the positive. We get more of that on which we focus our energy. If we focus on what we don’t have in our lives, or what’s wrong, we are more likely to get more of what’s wrong. If we focus our energy on what we do have and what’s good in our lives, we generally get more of what’s good. This goes hand-in-hand with having Faith (in the spiritual sense) or Confidence (same thing using a business word). When we express gratitude, we cannot be feeling fear at the same time. Fear of things not working out, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking like a fool, fear of losing our job, our business, our home, disappointing our family, our employer, or employees – all these fears disappear the moment you express gratitude for what’s going well. In the environment of gratitude, you are free to stop asking the question “Why doesn’t anything work for me?” and start asking “How can I create more of what I want?” When you ask either of these questions out loud, you are likely to hear your brain start thinking of answers to the question you ask. You don’t really want the answer to why bad things happen – you do want the answer to how to make good things happen – so ask the right question, and listen carefully for the answers to flow.
Gratitude is a powerful tool. Do choose to be happy with what you have. Do not be satisfied with what you have as being all there is, or all you need for the future. If you are not happy with what you have, having more won’t make you happy either. Be happy first (yes, that’s a choice). Then go about setting bigger goals and being grateful for the gifts you have that allow you to go after them.
Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, http://www.klineseminars.com/ , or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com .

The Important Work We Do

2011-07-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

By Michael Kline

This past Independence Day weekend, I worked at our stores every day. In between customers, I wrote this column and worked on some seminar projects for clients. Of course it occurred to me that the 4th of July is a perfect weekend to celebrate our nation’s history and enjoy fun time with family and friends. Does working through a holiday diminish our lives in some way? Actually, I feel a little bit lucky to have the honor of working so our visitors can enjoy there long weekend with their families. Living in a vacation destination, we need to serve and entertain our visitors on their holiday. We can take off on a week day and play when it’s a little less crowded and more enjoyable anyway. But this has me thinking about the value of our work.
Is the work you do really, really important? Did you save a life today? If not, what great contribution did you make to society that really matters? If you have a seemingly mundane job, please read on.
It doesn’t matter if you are support staff at a software company, a hotel desk clerk, server, lawyer, accountant, nurse or retail clerk… the work you do makes other things possible – important things.
You are making a valuable contribution. If you’re the nurse who literally saved a life today, your contribution is easy for all to see. If you are the retail clerk at a clothing outlet who helped a mother dress her daughter for a big event which boosted her self-esteem and made her confident to grow into the hero of our future, your valuable work may be less readily appreciated, but is no less valuable to the world.
Maybe you’re the host at a campground that rented a piece of ground to a guy in a truck. That $20 plot of dirt may have allowed a father to bond with his kids in a way his generation never did. This effect of your work could last for generations of child development and respect and caring for ourselves, each other and the earth. What could be more important than contributing to the experience of a family camping vacation?!
You see, it doesn’t matter how menial your work may seem, it exists because it supports a bigger world and when you look at the bigger picture of what really happens as a result of your work – you realize you are a super hero. Your approach and attitude can change your work from mundane acts to critical, life-changing heroic acts making the world a better place.
This is important work we do; put on your cape and go save the world!
Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.

Good News for Losers

2011-07-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

By Michael Kline, The Entreprenologist
It’s true! I’m not just trying to be provocative in my title; I really do have good news for all of us who lose at something from time to time. Today’s business losers have a shot at being tomorrow’s winners. Unfortunately for today’s winners, is they are at risk for being tomorrow’s losers. Let us talk about how to get ahead and how to stay there.
In 1999, my partner and I moved to Conway and spent a year studying the local market before deciding on a business to open. We came up with what at the time, proved to be a brilliant idea; we opened the Framed Art Superstore. Our thinking was that decorative wall art for the home was about the only item for the home that was not being competitively marketed. The world was full of naked walls and the housing market was booming, building more and more naked walls every day. Our role was not to compete with local artists and collectors, but to help decorate homes and make nicer home environments more accessible to more people. We bought aggressively to lower prices and be competitive with the TJ Max’s of the world, but with dramatically increased selection. Agree or disagree on the commercialization of art, the following years proved us to be correct in our thinking.
Big trouble. One day (yes, ask anyone in the real estate business, it seems like it happened on one specific day), people stopped buying homes. The next day, consumers stopped spending on discretionary items, especially for their homes that they once thought were so valuable. Meanwhile, big-box stores starting cutting into the art pie. This winning business would become a losing business if it stayed on course. We must constantly reinvent the business, which has gone through several reincarnations over the last eleven years in response to, or anticipation of market changes.
This is the problem I see with most start-up business clients who have a great idea. What happens when the marketplace changes and the good idea is no longer valid? Many people start a business to fill a void or to do something better than the competition. The problem is they’re only measuring the current competition, not the future competition. The void exists today, but what do you do when two other so-called entrepreneurs start to fill the same void you saw? This happened with art, coffee hoses, hardware stores and mattress stores, and many others in the valley in recent years. If you are a wanna-be entrepreneur, understand that you are not the only smart person in town, and that everyone else sees the same void you see. What will you do when (not if, but when) the market conditions that support your business change? To be successful, you cannot just be an operator who has an entrepreneurial moment, then goes back to being an operator. You need to constantly be entrepreneurial, constantly reinventing your business, not only to keep up with changing conditions, but to anticipate future changes and be ahead of the trends. If you’re really clever, you might even cause the changes. The point is, you can’t win by ignoring or fighting change, change is good.
Change creates opportunities for today’s losers to be tomorrow’s winners. People with twenty years of experience do not have one moment’s advantage over you, if tomorrow’s marketplace demands a brand new method anyway. All you experienced people want to argue with me right now, and that’s good – pay attention or become extinct! Take calculated risks on something new. Focus on the customer to find out what they want to experience today, what they value today, what solves today’s (or tomorrow’s problem. If you’ve bet on yesterday’s ideas and lost, this is your big chance to bet again on today’s bright idea. You have every bit of a shot as anyone else. Get advice from people who know what they’re doing. Get a SCORE counselor for free, hire an entreprenologist, get involved in whatever trade organization you need, take classes, read excessively, learn what you need to learn to make sure you line up your necessary resources, and decide if you have what it takes to consistently be entrepreneurial. If you have one good idea, give it someone else to do. If you have a million ideas and endless energy, go do it yourself.
Every day is a new day – people tell us that when we fail at something. You also need to hear that if you succeed at something. If you’re already successful, remember you have to start over every day in order to stay on top. I think it was Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem that called both success and failure and imposter. Don’t be fooled.

Making Money from Kindness

2011-07-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

By Michael Kline
Does Kindness Weekend have anything to do with business or is it just about school-yard bullying and politicians? I’d say it has to do with every aspect of our lives, but this being a business column, we should discuss kindness and its role in making money. I know; I’m crass.
First let’s get passed the actual business side of this particular kindness event. In life, as in business, we get that on which we focus our attention. If you want more sales, focus on your sales efforts; if you want more kindness in your life, focus on kindness. It is more effective to focus on sales than to focus on fear of financial failure. It is also more effective to teach and practice kindness, than focus on fear of bullying or conflict. Focus on what you want. This event is simply a community wide focus on kindness.
Cynics might say this is some sort of business gimmick, and I’m devaluing the message by talking about making money from it. Being involved in the event, I can tell you first hand it is about quality of life; both the benefits of kindness and making money. Kindness Weekend was conceived out of a desire solely for public benefit. To fund the event, the N. Conway Village Association invested in it to bring traffic to the valley, so it is being promoted as another reason to bring families to the valley for Memorial Day weekend. Of all the things we could create to sell for a profit, what could be more beautiful? The event is sponsored by The Evergreen Institute for Wellness, with their message that Kindness produces physical health benefits for the giver of kindness. When you do something for someone else, it can reverse feelings of depression, provide social contact and decrease feelings of hostility and isolation that can cause stress, overeating, ulcers, etc. With everything to gain, nothing to lose and no cost, who would even want to argue with that? So, what about you making a profit from all this?
Business is about making money. Some think it is more profitable to be unkind. They are wrong. K=R=P is a formula Tom Peters uses to explain the impact of kindness on business. In 1982, Tom Peters authored the world-changing business book In Search of Excellence, and more recently, his new book 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence. The formula stands for Kindness = Repeat Business = Profit. Far be it from me to challenge the mind of Tom Peters, but I would change the R to stand for Relationships. The repeat business he talks about comes from the same relationship-building trust that increases productivity, reduces turn-over, sick time and labor problems with employees. Better relationships also help negotiate better terms with suppliers. So my version of the formula K=R=P is Kindness = Relationships = Profit.
Consider an extreme example featured in a New York Times article in May 2008 – American Airlines and Southwest Airlines held annual meetings in Dallas on the same day. Airline pilots picketed the American Airlines meeting while Southwest pilots bought full page newspaper ads thanking founder Herb Kelleher for his 37 years of service. Animosity between management and labor is near impossible to navigate when there is no trust. We see this in our political system globally, nationally and locally. We see it sometimes with our own staff relationships. Without kindness, there is no trust, without trust, there is no relationship. Without relationship, we’re fighting and clawing our way through all our dealings. Kindness is no longer an option in business. It is critical to the customer and the employee and if you’re smart (and I know you are), you’ll make it critical with the supplier, landlord, neighbor and even wrong numbers. Everyone is a potential relationship.
My regular seminar students and column readers know I talk a lot about building trust. In all business relationships, trust reduces cost and increases speed. Dr. Stephen Covey calls it “moving at the speed of trust” in his book Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times. If your customer needs a lawyer before signing a contract, it is far more expensive and time consuming than making a hand-shake deal. If you have to “sell” your employees on a new idea, you would enjoy greater productivity if you had instant buy-in based on trust. This is not to say you should expect people to follow blindly doing as they are told; those days of curmudgeonly bosses are long gone. This is about leadership, which involves employee in-put, which is a form of kindness. I hear some of you grumbling, so hear me out. I know that you know what you’re doing. I know you don’t have time for every employee’s ideas. I know you want to be able to trust your employees as well, to empower them to be their best. So how do you become the cultivator of employee engagement? We have a system for that! Yes, we have a system for everything, as you have surely read in previous columns. An effective business development process has a management system that provides the framework and structure for employee engagement in an orderly fashion that respects input efficiently, maintains focus, creates accountability and drives productivity like nobody’s business. It allows for, no – it requires kindness. Good thing kindness is free.
In researching this column, I was online listening to Tom Peters lecture at Cornell University. When Tom tells you that his ridiculously over-the-top-big-time selling book In Search of Excellence really didn’t say anything more than take care of people – maybe there’s something to that. How to make it fit in the real world can be complex, but the message is simple.
Albert Schweitzer said: "Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate."
That’s good for business.
Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, http://www.klineseminars.com/, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.

Talk is Cheap. Communication is Key.

2010-06-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

Understanding Personalities Resolve Conflict, Improve Productivity
By Michael Kline
If there was one magic solution to just about every challenge in every business, it would be better communication. Whether you need to improve sales, cut costs, increase productivity or morale, resolve conflict between employees, stop walking on eggshells with key staff or get your partner to understand your point of view, communication is key.
In marketing, we talk about understanding our customer; knowing our target audience. We know to tailor our communications to appeal to those people who are most likely to benefit from our product. We seem to understand the need to focus on those benefits that our target audience wants most.
Why then, do we not apply this logic when dealing with employees and co-workers? We know our customers are all different, but when employees present themselves in a way that is different from our standards, we see them as wrong, inept, out of touch, clueless, self-entitled, spoiled, etc. The young employee wearing an I-pod while working at their computer may strike us as completely unacceptable regardless of their productivity – kids today! The methodical and analytic worker may make us crazy while we just want results and we want them now! Perhaps it’s the no-nonsense, pushy supervisor that creates unrest among the natives. All these scenarios drive down morale and productivity, costing us money. All contribute to turnover, absenteeism and even passive-aggressive behavior. How then, can we tailor our communication style with co-workers the way we do with customers? Actually, the process is relatively simple with an investment in educating yourself, working together with staff to learn some new lessons together and practicing some new habits. Most work-related communication challenges are blamed on personality differences, followed by generational differences, and finally other matters relating primarily to self-esteem.
Every person is unique – that’s for sure, and we love those differences when they help us solve problems, plan events or tackle tough issues requiring multiple points of view and new ideas. However, the same differences make us crazy at times. In spite of the millions of contributing factors to our personalities, generally speaking, everyone fits into one of four categories that have been defined and redefined since the Greek physician Hippocrates introduced the concept. Of course he thought the four temperaments were somehow tied to bodily fluids. Through the centuries, (without discussing phlegm), others have used new terms and theories to identify as many as 16 personality types by using sub-categories. In general though, most ancient and modern wisdom points to four major temperaments. Everyone in each category has enough in common that once we know which category best fits us and those we work with, we know with amazing accuracy, how to delegate, supervise, motivate and communicate more effectively.
We benefit from having as many as four generations working together in the same workplace. If you feel you’re suffering rather than benefitting, it doesn’t have to be that way. Work ethic is a common topic of unpleasant discussion, along with arguments over what defines a sense of entitlement versus basic working conditions. Each generation defines respect from a different perspective and see results and activities as completely differing approaches to what is important at work and how we go about doing our work.
The answer to all these seemingly complex issues can be simplified when we know the basic personality types and understand some basics on generational differences. I invite you to explore this critical topic further at the MWV Economic Council Eggs & Issues meeting on Thursday June 10th from 9:00 am-10:30 am at The Tech Village. Cost is $10 for members, $12 for non-members. Call 447-6622 to RSVP.

Business Dreams Come True

2010-05-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

The Conway Daily Sun
May 19, 2010

Business Dreams Come True
The Six Elements that Make it Happen

By Michael Kline

Do you remember your dream or did it get lost somewhere along the way? Where is that dream now? When was the last time you really thought about what you want from your life between now and the time you die? Not to be morbid, but that is the ultimate deadline and we’re not getting any younger, you know!

Nothing changes until we take action. Before we take action, we need to know what to do; we need to ask the right question, which goes along the line of “How do I do _______ given my current circumstances, in such a way that I can enjoy ______?” But, to ask that question, we need to fill in those blanks - to identify our ultimate goal.
Some people don’t know what their goal is; they feel they have no particular passion. If that sounds like you, we need to talk fast. Thoreau said “Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to their grave with their song still in their heart” - don’t be one of them.

Entreprenologist Warning: Most of us know someone who abandoned their responsibilities and even their families to pursue a pipe-dream. That is not the intent of using this quote, but rather to chase your dreams, find your voice, live responsibly, and help others find their voice and fulfill their dreams. This “living well” is hard work and sounds daunting, which is why so few do it. Once chosen however, it is easier than not living well which is far more daunting.

Goal setting is not an easy task. Often, I find otherwise successful business owners who mistakenly settle for goals that are actually just a strategy for their real goals. One technique for getting to your real goals is to ask “What is my goal?” then ask “Why” - get an answer, then ask ‘Why” again and again until you get to the ultimate true goal. For example, let’s say you have the goal of being rich. You might find that is not a goal, but actually a strategy to achieve the goal of being happy. By the way, I totally respect the strategy of being rich, but it is more strategy than goal. My point is the exercise is worthwhile before you devote your life to your goal.

Another source of soul-searching and goal setting is to contemplate your talents - what are you good at or could be good at? Consider your passions - what do you really love and care about? Consider physical needs of your own and of the marketplace. Finally, ask your conscience what you should do - what feels right to you - not by the standards of others; but in your gut.

Our most personal dreams and our businesses are inextricably linked, if our businesses are to be a tool for achieving the dreams. Further, skills are most effective in the workplace with correct intent and participation of the entire workplace team. For a comprehensive strategy for business and personal development, we concentrate on six key elements. Think of these elements as the essential vitamins that make your business grow up big & strong.

Passion, Talent, Focus, Alignment, Trust & Communication. Passion & Talent - Experience, for most businesses and even most jobs, is not nearly as important as talent. Experience is a study of our past; not our future. For most small businesses, (brain surgeons and astronauts need not apply) appetite and talent are far more important than years of practicing a skill. Most businesses that fail are begun by workers motivated by their desire to “be the boss”. A dramatically different scenario is an entrepreneur creating a company around passion and talent.
Focus and Alignment - Relentless focus on the goal moves you toward your dream when actions, relationships and support are in alignment. Incongruent words and actions can usually be found separating a frustrated entrepreneur from their goals. Finally, Trust & Communication - high trust equals low cost and speed. Low trust equals high cost and slower speed. Communication skills allow the creation of the interdependent relationships that make the dreams possible.
These six elements, studied and applied, will help any entrepreneur realize their dream regardless of the economy or other limitations they may face. Remember, learning about it is good, but knowledge in itself is not power. Knowledge applied is power.

Can People by Systematized?

2010-05-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Conway Daily Sun May 5, 2010
By Michael Kline The Entreprenologist
Is your success in business a result of your work or in spite of your work? Chances are if you’ve found success in business, you probably discovered the power of creating systems, at least for certain processes. The more advanced a small business, the more likely they are to have pretty good systems. Systems are created to produce predictable results again and again in any given task. Most small businesses start with an owner who is excellent at what they do. Developing systems is the best way for employees to produce results similar to the owner, freeing the owner to work on the business and grow beyond their own personal capacity for work. This is a must if the owner ever wants to grow their business, sell it, hire someone else to run it, or even to really enjoy running it themselves.
Ideally, systems run the company; people run the systems. Even the most advanced companies, who have their processes down to a science, realize that the beautiful, creative and unpredictable nature of people creates the biggest challenges. Can the leadership of unpredictable people be systematized without killing the creativity and valued differences?
If people are our most important resource, is it possible to create “people systems” to cope with the complexities of managing, developing, and leading our people? What about dealing with difficult people or smoothing communications between the Greatest Generation and Generation X or Y? Each of course, thinks the others have no understanding of the workplace, so how do we tap the incredible value each brings to the table? If you have a liberal definition of the word system, then I say yes, systems are possible. As we discussed in last week’s sales article, we all generally fit into one of four major personality types. Each personality type filters and presents information in their language. Add to this, the complexity of the self-esteem and self-image baggage people carry with them (didn’t you ever wonder what was in those backpacks?) and how that impacts their productivity and attitude at work. Now consider those who are too passive (at-risk for passive-aggressive), those who are too aggressive (at risk for driving a passive to become passive-aggressive), and we begin to wonder how people ever work together. If we add to the mix, vastly different motivators, you have what we call the US Congress!
The good news: Science has been researching the human psyche forever. The wisdom of the ages hasn’t changed that much, but how we perceive it changes dramatically every twenty years or so. Modern studies teach us how to bridge the communication gap of generational differences, personality types and self-image based fears, confidence levels and other issues. To a large extent, this communication bridge resolves conflict, miscommunication, absenteeism, lack of motivation and lost productivity, and drives high morale, higher productivity, less turnover, and a more profitable and pleasant work environment.
It is important to learn and use these communication skills in three ways. First, they are critical to succeed in sales, customer service and even bookkeeping. Second, in leadership and supervisory roles, it’s no longer acceptable or effective to use the military approach; you can’t really tell your staff to “drop and give you twenty” when they step out of line. No, you’ll need to understand the meaning and the position your staff is coming from if you are to communicate what you want from them. You can fight for your old-fashioned rights all you want, and being the boss, you will win the argument but you will lose the productivity and eventually the talent. Finally, you will want to consider the great balancing act; how to balance the need for strict systems with the desire for input and continuous improvement created by the people running the systems.
The goal is to create a company culture in which everyone learns the communication skills, so their other work skills can be their most productive. To create an environment in which ordinary people use extraordinary systems to produce extraordinary results.
Michael Kline is a local retailer, Success Coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website http://www.klineseminars.com/ or email mike@klineseminars.com

How to Sell Anything

2010-05-04T15:24:00.000-07:00

How to Sell Anything
Without Being Evil
By Michael Kline, the Entreprenologist
All sales people are evil, selling skills are the devils work, and there awaits, a special place in hell for people who recruit sales people and teach sales skills to others. Ironically, the people who are closest to agreeing with this view point often work in sales and don’t know it. Oh, you know who you are – you work in a business office, medical or legal office, retail store, food service, hotel, attraction, or you work in customer service and you don’t like sales and don’t want to be called a salesperson. First, let’s clear the air before we argue semantics because we have differing views on what it means to be “selling” something. A properly trained, professional sales person establishes what their customer needs, then uses their products or services to see if they can find a solution to the customer’s problem. Sounds like a doctor, therapist or consultant to me! That’s why we sometimes call it “consultative selling”. The successful salesperson knows they must always provide more in value than they take in money from their customer. That’s a difficult principle for some to grasp, but it is the shortest path to happiness and riches. A salesperson should never be a pushy, aggressive, manipulative con-artist trying to make people buy something the neither want nor need; rather quite the opposite.
Let’s dispel some more negative perceptions about sales. We all have wildly different personality types, communication styles and strong biases toward our way of thinking. A passive communicator, who just wants to make everyone happy, may dislike or even fear an aggressive salesperson. The aggressive (as opposed to the appropriately assertive) salesperson is not evil, but they may be misguided and do a disservice to their company whether they succeed in selling something or not.
However, a customer with a strong personality, wanting bottom-line answers to make a buying decision is just as underserved by the merchant so afraid to be pushy, they won’t help him buy.
You can’t help a customer who won’t tell you what they want. They won’t tell you what they really want until you engage them and establish some trust. This is fair and reasonable in our cynical world, but it is difficult to intelligently engage if you don’t speak the same language. You will not recognize even major points of the customer needs, much less small clues that hint at what the customer is really looking for. When we have different personality and communication styles, we are speaking different “languages”. Fortunately, unlike my CD-Rom French lessons, these languages are easily learned (Hint: and taught in my seminars). We need to learn our own communication styles and learn to recognize our customer’s styles to speak their language to be of the highest possible service to them.
No one loves to be sold, but everyone loves to buy. A professional salesperson will help, counsel and guide but never push; they are honest, trustworthy and deserving of the customer’s business. Yes, it may feel like walking a tight rope since it is technically your job to convince a customer to buy. Sales training is about learning the process of Service-First selling; the art of intelligent engagement, trust building and providing more value than you take in payment. If this is done properly, the prospect should come to the same conclusion you do and not need cajoling. In truth, “the close” is a step in the process you don’t need if the earlier part of the process is well executed.
Because selling is a process, to increase sales, we need only to identify which step(s) of the sales process need improvement. Fortunately, we have a management system to help us pinpoint the opportunity for increase, whether you are targeting the wrong prospects or too few prospects, or if it is the product, its price, or a lack of follow-up, etc. Many sales people think they closed a sale, but then it falls apart; this is almost totally avoidable with the proper sales system in place. Just about anyone can learn this process and provide the Service-First sales experience for their customers and create more success for themselves.
According to the IBM Institute, companies who win have “simple goals repeatedly revisited, together with clear target and strong follow-through, including the measurement of results”. Large organizations provide this support and structure. If you don’t have the luxury of educational and motivational sales meetings, or frequent sales training and re-training, constant improvement is a lonely and difficult mission.
To help fill this void for the independent local business, I have created two resources – seminars and Mastermind groups. For seminars, I recommend Service-First Sales Remedies and Advanced Sales and Management. Then, consider joining one of our Mastermind Groups forming this summer for a weekly meeting with peers from non-competing businesses to keep your continuing education and motivation going. The next seminar is scheduled in N. Conway on June 22nd. Reserve a seat online at www.klineseminars.com.
With the possible exception of the woman who attacked me with cologne at the mall last week, sales people are no more or less likely to be evil than anyone else. Help abolish the too passive or too aggressive sales problems by getting yourself and your staff trained in Service-First Selling.

2010-04-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

The Artist as a Business Person
Poking Some Fun at Both Sides of the Brain
North Conway Daily Sun Apil 21, 2010

By Michael Kline

We’re lucky to live in a beautiful place full of painters, potters, photographers and craftspeople of all kinds. I’ve been lucky enough to counseled many of them on the business aspects of their lives and found that most fit into one of three categories – Rock, Paper or Scissors.

The rock is committed, strong-willed, won’t change for any reason, lives for their art, works nights to pay only some of their bills so they can paint during the light of day, probably a vegan, communist, tree-hugging, hiker who detests all commercial progress and technology, but can’t be a minute away from Facebooking on their I-Phone - the easiest way to be with a crowd and not have to see a lot of people. They amaze everyone with their talent and wit, but they can barely count, much less understand their costs, pricing structures and gallery consignment contracts. They would be rich and famous if only someone would discover them, but they would never lower themselves to put their work on display at an art show, or local retailer to test the market.
Paper – You got it, paper trumps rock, at least in business terms, because this artist vacillates between talented artist and skilled salesperson. They use both sides of their brain to understand the marketplace and bend their skills to provide subject matter for which there is a market. This doesn’t mean they have to paint children’s portraits or local mountain scenes for tourists; they also can work to find a market for their subject matter. The biggest difference is they understand that selling their work is not “selling out”. Those who cannot sell enough of their original work for large sums, learn that selling reproductions is also not “selling-out” and it expands their market and pays the bills so they can pursue their craft.

Scissors – Annihilates paper when it comes to business – This artist cuts through the heart of a “real” artist by selling everything. Licensing is big these days – getting your art printed on everything from t-shirts to coasters to cutting boards can be the road to riches. These capitalists love structure and rules – maybe they went to catholic school and probably learned their skills in art school rather than experimenting with hallucinogens. They may or may not be expressing their deepest emotions in every work, but they work hard to produce a quality product and spend much of their time marketing themselves and their work to corporations. Their real artist friends (in the unlikely event they have any) will call them greedy sell-out hacks and break the scissors with their “rock”.
Now that we’ve had some fun picking on artists, the truth is there are no categories that sum up actual real people. Everyone, especially an artist, is an individual capable of choosing any path they like. However, most artists tend to put themselves into some limiting stereotype. Most of us have a tendency to prefer using one side of our brain over another, but we can all learn to use both sides to strike a little more balance in our lives. Rather than making disempowering statements like “I’m no good at math”, or “I’m no good at systems”, try “I have to learn some math skills” or “I’m working on getting better systems” or ask the empowering question “How can I get better at____” and prepare for powerful answers to come your way.

To prepare for those answers, I encourage all my artist friends (if I still have any) to consider business seminars you might think don’t apply to you. Truthfully, the skills are very similar for any profession – the chef, the hairdresser, the lawyer, the dentist and the artist all needs to learn business skills to run the business that supports their work. They get their power by understanding the need for systems for planning, financing, managing people or subcontractors, making sales, quoting prices, client fulfillment, meeting deadlines, record keeping, and so one.

Most people who don’t like this part of business could discipline themselves to learn it, if they just stop saying they can’t do it. They can and it doesn’t have to hurt – that’s why I became an Entreprenologist. To support my mission to help local businesses be more successful, I’m offering a series of small business seminars this summer. Don’t be left out. If you’re an artists, chef, dentist, surgeon, logger, blogger or programmer, visit www.klineseminars.com for a complete catalog and reserve a seat.

Michael Kline is a local retailer and Business Success Coach. He may be reached through his website www.klineseminars.com or email mike@klineseminars.com

Highly Effective Entrepreneurs

2010-03-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

How to Solve Every Business Problem with 7 Habits
Conway Daily Sun, March 24,2009
By Michael Kline
Sometimes the simplest thing in the world hits you as the solution to your biggest problem. I love that! I keep thinking about new applications for Steven Covey’s landmark book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Initially, I thought of it as another self-help manual - good in theory but near impossible in real life. I was young and foolish when I first read it; now that I’m old and foolish, it’s a much more enjoyable read. I’ve studied the book repeatedly, I’ve listened to the audio version repeatedly, I watched the videos and taught the lessons dozens of times. I still find new applications every time I think about the habits. I’m going to share with you some business insights from the 7 habits with the hope that you will want to learn them and create a program to improve your business.
Be forewarned, like learning a philosophy or a religion this is a journey, not a destination. It’s deeply rooted in principles so it remains solid no matter how our situations change. You can apply the habits to your health, family, job, or closest personal relationship, but this is a business column, so that’s where we’re headed today. Lately, I’ve been writing new workshops for small businesses and in my research I’ve been attending seminars like a Power Point slide-show junkie. It’s no wonder so many people think seminars don’t work when they keep teaching manipulative tricks to get people to do what you want. In the process I’m realizing that while you do need to learn the rules of the game, you don’t need personality trait-type “techniques” for sales training, customer service or managing people.
In sales training, there’s a process – some call it 5 steps, others 7 steps, but all agree the most important element of the process is listening to the customer; this is also called a needs analysis, but Covey calls it habit #5 “Seek First to Understand, Then be Understood”. Imagine if that was a habit - how helpful you would be to your customers in the sales process. Imagine in customer service, how surprised and happy a customer would be if seeking to understand them was the norm amongst your employees. The lacking of this habit is the source of so much poor service and indifference we feel at retail stores, restaurants or even so-called service businesses, and don’t even get me started on the customer service call-centers. In a recent seminar on supervisory skills, every situation that students presented could have been addressed using one of the 7 Habits, or prevented entirely by practicing and teaching all the habits in the workplace. On the topics of personal responsibility, surviving a recession, dealing with limitations around you – apply Habit #1 Be Proactive/Take Responsibility”. On goal setting, business planning or project management – Habit #2 “Begin with the end in mind”. Time management –Habit #3 “Putting First Things First”. Dealing with difficult people, or negotiating with suppliers, Habit #4 “Think Win-Win”. Any situation that suggests a compromise – refuse to compromise – that’s where no one gets what they want. Habit #6 “Synergy” in where you work together to find a new, third solution better than either party initially sought. Increase productivity, stop burn-out, improve morale, reduce turn-over and absenteeism – Habit #7 Sharpen the Saw.
Properly implemented, a comprehensive company culture initiative based on the 7 Habits could dramatically change your company and everyone in it. Having worked in a company that did this, I can personally attest to its effectiveness. I’ve never seen the buy-in of any other program like we saw from this initiative, because it values and empowers everyone, builds trust and turns the phrase about people being our best asset from lip-service to reality. Now, if you’re not a fan of singing kum ba yuh and hoping for the best, then you’re wondering how this works in real life. So glad you asked!
To bridge the gap between theory and application, I integrate these habits into my strategic planning and management system. This initiative fits perfectly with the management methodology discussed in my last column. If you missed past columns discussing the mechanical side of the management system, visit my website www.mikekline.weebly.com and click on “articles” or email me at klineseminars@yahoo.com with questions, thoughts or requests for help.

Business Success takes Rhythm

2010-03-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

The Mechanics of Running a Company, Non-profit or Organization
By Michael Kline
When you have this year’s annual-weekly meeting, you will undoubtedly have dozens of things you want to fix in your business. What’s an annual-weekly meeting? That was sarcasm, because so many businesses start having weekly meetings then stop and start over about once a year – like a bad diet. Weather you go to church on Sunday or Weight-Watchers on Wednesday, everything works better with a rhythm; a business needs rhythm too. When meetings happen infrequently, they’re ineffective. Ironically, the ineffectiveness of the meetings is why it’s hard to keep everyone coming in the first place. Why should we even have meetings when we see each other constantly? Let’s talk about that, but first let me intercept complaints from those who may think my methodology is too systems oriented at the expense of people. Everything I am about to suggest works really well in a company where the culture empowers people, builds trust, supports creativity and respects a whole-person approach.

Now about those meetings; to have something worth meeting about, you must identify your company’s top priority. That may be surprisingly hard to do, but an outside analysis of your business might help. You probably have too many priorities to focus; you may need to combine some. For instance, getting cash flow under control is an example of a priority – learn bookkeeping, collect receivables faster, establish a line of credit are all tactics to achieve the priority, but the priority is to fix cash flow. So, once we find your top priority, that’s where you need to focus with passion and execute relentlessly.

Next, whether it’s just you or a hundred employees, you need to align your company around the top priority. Using the cash flow example, you align sales people with training to sell cash deals and try to avoid taking more business on account. Everyone will need alignment to focus on finding ways to manage expenses. You need to walk around repeating your focus until your staff makes fun of you. They need to know you’re serious about this commitment – not just another diet plan. By now, you can see the power of getting company-wide alignment on a single priority. Let’s expand this into a comprehensive management system.

Your plan is written annually, modified quarterly, monitored weekly and pulsed daily. You start with a full-day Strategic Planning Meeting once a year. This is an art in itself; best accomplished with experienced guidance. This event produces an annual plan – in its simplest form, a list goals, strategies and tactics. If done properly, staff “volunteers” to take responsibility for each item on the list, creating their new position contract for the next quarter. If you don’t implement the entire package and see it through, the day will just be another wasted corporate-looking boondoggle that exasperates everyone involved. Goal, commitment, focus and alignment will get you through, but it’s hard to do alone and usually it requires the help of a coach, just like the diet or church analogy.

Now, every week, each person brings their position contract and quickly gives their report on their line items. This keeps everyone on track, and accountable to the group – they won’t try the excuses they might give you in a one-on-one meeting or the group will burst into objection. Weekly meetings invite creativity and new ideas in an orderly fashion. It’s part of your people system! Your company established a best-practices way of doing every little thing (didn’t you?) and you mandate compliance (don’t you?). Test new ideas that come out of the meetings and if appropriate, establish a new system. This method balances your appreciation of creative staff while running an orderly systems-based company.

Monitor the plan weekly, but only make strategic changes quarterly. This should keep the owner from constantly changing focus and making employees crazy. (You know who you are and you know it’s true). Now promote your entire staff. Yes, everyone gets promoted for something every quarter with our fun, line-item job description changes. Anyone can improve their job description every quarter by shifting lines on and off their list. The system allows everyone to flow toward their areas of highest talent and passion. Strengths grow and increase productivity, while weaknesses become irrelevant. Productivity and morale soar and turnover virtually stops except for people you don’t want in your organization.

Finally, we should touch on the daily pulse of your company. According to Verne Harnish, in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, successfully growing companies have a daily rhythm or a pulse. To make things happen, have a daily huddle. Not a meeting – a huddle. If you call it a meeting, no one will ever agree to it, so it’s a huddle. It happens every morning and lasts for five-fifteen minutes with a very specific agenda. Imagine having total alignment in your business every day! I know it sounds impossible, but as part of the whole package, everyone will love it and you’ll have focus, you’ll find and fix problems as they arise and remove clutter from weekly meetings so they can be more fruitful.

If you think this was too complicated and lengthy for a newspaper article, you are right. Contact me to find out how easily you can have a coach get you through the process. A year from now, your company could be a very different place.

Do You Own a Job or a Business?

2010-03-22T19:15:00.001-07:00

Reprint from the Conway Daily Sun March 10,2009
by Michael Kline
There was a time in your past when you were the best employee for someone else. Eventually you grew weary of answering to someone who wasn’t even as good as you, and you spent your unhappy days making money for them! It was time to be your own boss.

So now you proudly declare that you work for yourself. You are your business! If it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t even be a business! Since most small businesses fail, and you’re still at it after all this time, you must be doing something right! Is that a reasonable assumption? Well, are you succeeding at what you originally wanted? Or just succeeding at not failing? Are you making more money than you would be paid working for someone else? That is, can your business afford to pay you what you’re really worth for the time and talent you put into it? Are you working more hours than you should for the money you take home? Do you give yourself the benefits, retirement, security and paid vacations you could have as an employee? Are you building equity in your business that you can sell one day when you want to retire or move on? The big final summary question is this: You probably started a business with the goal of attaining the personal and financial freedom only business ownership can provide. Do you have personal and financial freedom? Do you have the time to do what you want, with whom you want, when you want and the money to do it?

If you answered yes to the above questions, stop reading and contact me! If you said no to any of the above questions, let’s talk about how a business becomes all that for its owner. The primary difference is the business owner reaping the most rewards is not just self-employed. They separate their own identity from that of their business. They spend more time working on their business, not in their business. If you spend all your time doing the tactical work your business does, (working in your business) who is doing the strategic work (working on your business)? Right, no one. One of the best examples of this is any fast food chain. How much time does the owner spend behind the counter or in the kitchen? Do they care any less? Does the quality or predictability of service change when the owner is there or away? Of course not. Do they sit at home counting money? Well of course, but that’s not all they do; they work hard, but they work on their business, not in their business. We spend five months a year away from our stores in N. Conway. Do we have good staff? You bet we do, but so do you! If you have to be at your store, what do I and every chain store know that you don’t? Why do the big name stores at the outlet malls run with managers not owners, and those managers make more money than most independent store owners? By the way, this is true for professional services, too, not just restaurants and retailers.

So if you accept that you own a job that you can’t quit, has low pay, long hours, no benefits and you may be working for an idiot, what do you do about it? How do you transition to owning a business that works for you instead of the other way around? Due to the limits of what we can cover in one article, I’ll just throw out one place to start. Make an organizational chart for every position in your company – even if you are only 2 or 3 people, make the chart with a box for every position – janitor, deliveries, receiving, bookkeeping, sales, service, receptionist, manager, sales manager, quality control manager, etc. Even if your name goes in almost all the boxes, the point is to define the responsibilities and work toward replacing yourself in as many boxes as possible as quickly as possible. This will cause you to create systems that work if you are to have others replace you. It becomes about the work, not the person doing the work. This will also requrie a combination of delegating responsibility to others as well as growing your business to justify hiring people to fill some of the boxes. Suddenly, growing your business is more important, isn’t it?! The goal for you and everyone on the chart is to replace yourself – that’s the only way to move out of the boxes you want to leave behind and spend more time in the boxes you like. As long as you’re always planning to grow, you will always have many more boxes than you have staff. Your staff has the job of building helping other people; to build them up take their job instead of protecting their turf and keeping coworkers down. Imagine the power in that attitude shift alone!

Your job is to spend more time working on your business and less time working in your business. Most owners need to properly delegate(with detailed goals, procedures, resources and authority), limit interruptions (email and social media can be a big time thief) and set deadlines for yourself and others (meet those deadlines). Most importantly, establish top priorities and without sealing your kid's Ritalin, stay focused.

Recommended reading - many of the lessons discussed here are covered in Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth Revisited. For help in applying the ideas to your real life business, contact me for a free consultation.

Our next article will discuss priorities and getting company-wide alignment to focus on your top priority.

Increase Sales from Inside Your Business

2010-03-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

by Michael Kline
Increasing retail sales is often within the power of the retailer. Let’s simplify what contributes to total sales. You have traffic, some of whom will buy and you have an average sale price. Your traffic X the closing ratio X average sale = total sales. So it’s simple – you only have three things to work on.

This article is not about how to get more traffic - let’s focus on what’s free, easy and immediate - selling more to the traffic you already have. A certain percentage of your traffic will make a purchase – this is your “closing ratio”. What do you consider an acceptable percentage? What was your closing ratio when times were better? What about on different days of the week or when different employees are working? By the way, this is an interesting evaluation of employee productivity and sales skills. It’s been proven that just tracking your closing ratio will result in an increase in sales. When I was doing business to business sales, I used to track 100 calls to set 10 appointments and close one sale. Tracking allowed me to notice when something was going awry or if I discovered something that worked better. It later helped me manage my own sales staff and identify where they needed support. Different businesses of course have very different standards. Let’s talk about more ways to increase the closing ratio.

Are you using a greeting that represents the best first impression of your business? “Can I help you?” is no longer acceptable. Does your staff use what you established to be the most effective script for each type of customer (regular, first timer, just browsing)? You want every customer to know you’re ready to serve, yet be comfortable. Think like a food server who is attentive yet invisible. The point is there is a best practices method of selling for every business. If your business is lodging, you track your conversion rate and average room rate, but how do you increase the conversions, the average stay and revenue? If you cold-call on businesses, what’s the difference between you and the stellar performer? If you’re in retail products or services, some are consistently better than others – why is that? How do you become the better one?

Have you and your staff received formal sales training recently? Selling is not about slamming a sale; it’s about satisfying a customer with a solution. You need to be proficient at interpreting the customers’ desires and hold a high level of expertise on your products. Making a sale is the reward for being able to help the customer. Formal sales training on a regular basis dramatically improves closing ratios.

Now that we’re helping more people buy, can we increase the average sale? No, it’s still not about squeezing the customer for more money. It’s about making sure the customer has the most thorough solution. Hear this report from a major travel company - most people who book low-priced rooms on their Hawaiian vacation packages upgrade on arrival once they get jealous of the ocean front people. The travel agent that sells the package only gets a commission on the low priced room. What upgrades does your customer really want? Not everyone wants to save money – in fact, it’s easily argued that people want more for their money and are spending money on better products having realized they no longer want to waste money on inferior items and experiences. Offer accessories that improve the experience or solution you’re providing.

How do you get it all done? Systems make everything run more smoothly. Do you have a sales system? Perhaps your product is sold slowly through a series of appointments. Perhaps your product simply requires time for a customer to make a choice. How do you keep the interest alive during this time? What follow-up steps do you take and what systems do you have in place to make sure no one falls through the cracks? Think this isn’t a problem? Just think about the last time you called an office for a quote and never heard back from them at all?! It happens at great companies. It happens at mine and it happens at yours.

All this tracking can make you crazy unless you have a system for every step of the sales/service process. That means a best-practices system for everything from greeting to needs analysis to presentations to closing and handling objections to follow-up after the sale.

Now do the math – if you increase your closing ratio and even had a modest average ticket gain, what would that amount to in dollars for you? If you have room for improvement in your company – retail, wholesale, hospitality, travel, insurance, business to business, you could benefit greatly by reviewing or developing a sales system.

It all sounds complicated, so contact me for help with all the above!