Sales – Page 12 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Gurus, Ninjas, and Morons: Losing Credibility One Business Card at a Time

May 31, 2011/22 Comments/in Communications, Entrepreneur, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Titles matter. A lot. So do email addresses and signature blocks. As unfortunate and as shallow as it is, people make a first impression snap decision about you and your business in an instant. If that instant includes your title it can make or break your business opportunity.

Yes, CxO, Vice President, Director, Manager, Analyst, and other vanilla titles are boring. They’re not edgy. They don’t have panache. That said, they quickly convey a certain level of skill and experience that the majority of the business population can interpret. Your contact isn’t left scratching their head wondering what the heck you do.

Then there’s the other end of the title spectrum: Guru, Ninja, Overlord, Grand Poobah, Super Hero. They sound wicked awesome. They get people’s attention. But you have to realize not all attention is good.

On top of that, these titles are usually paired with a cool signature block quote or catch phrase and they have sweet email addresses too. Unfortunately all of these things can undermine your credibility and cost you business. Here are a few of the biggest mistakes I see people make when it comes to the arena of titles and personal branding:

Read more

Your Thoughts on 2011 – Signs of Optimism

December 16, 2010/0 Comments/in Career, Entrepreneur, Innovation, Leadership, Sales, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

As many of you know, I write the weekly analysis of the SmartPulse poll for SmartBrief on Leadership. If you’re not reading SmartBrief, you HAVE TO (www.smartbrief.com). Great articles. Great abstracts. Anyway, we just conducted the end-of-year poll and I want to share the results with you here.

The end of year polls covered three major questions. The theme of all three is what do you think the new year has in store for all of us:

– What strategy will be central to your effort to enhance profits in the new year?

– Which of the following is of most concern as you look forward to the coming year?

– What of the following best describes your top personal goal as a leader for 2011?

The poll results are both interesting and encouraging. From the looks of your replies, 2011 should be trending in the right direction. I know it’s still scary out there but there are signs of hope. Check out the poll results and my analysis on each of them…

The Best of thoughtLEADERS 2010: The Greatest Posts You’ve Ever Seen

December 6, 2010/3 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Career, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Sales, Social Media, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

2010 is almost over so as usual it’s time for the year in review list of the BEST posts we’ve published in 2010.

We’re now making this an annual event therefore the award needs a name. I proudly introduce you to The Figgies! A tip of my hat to all my McKinsey buddies who used to call me that. Winning a Figgie is indeed prestigious. Here’s how it goes: this list is comprised of our most viewed, most forwarded, quirkiest, most provocative work as judged by you the readers (with a little of our discretion thrown in). We’ve also included a few hidden gems we think deserve another shot in the spotlight. There’s also a kicker bonus post on the list just for good measure (it’s a “wayback” – and speaking of wayback, check out the photo on the trophy… yes… that’s me ’80’s style baby!).

Enjoy. Share. We’ve loved writing them. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I don’t ask a lot of you folks so here’s my one request for a holiday gift – invite all your coworkers, friends, and family to come check out the blog and become readers. The only way we get better is by raising everyone’s game. I would love if you would invite your friends and colleagues to come read our stuff. I’m not asking a lot here. If you found this blog helpful at all this year, here’s your chance to return the favor for all our hard work. Just email them and tell ’em to come take a look.

Thanks for your incredible support in ’10 and best wishes for ’11! We hope to be a part of your future success! A little foreshadowing for 2011 – I’ve signed a book deal with Jossey-Bass and my book on leadership will be hitting stores next fall. This is a REAL book (not one of those self-published vanity press jobbies). I hope you’ll sock away a few bucks and save up to buy a copy. More to come on that soon.

Enough sentimentality. Here’s the best stuff we’ve written all year:

4 Surefire Ways to Destroy Your Brand

October 4, 2010/7 Comments/in Communications, Customer Service, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Brands. Some are worth billions of dollars. We revere them. Coca-Cola. Nike. Apple. thoughtLEADERS (hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?). They seem monolithic and untouchable. The dirty little secret is they’re as fragile as a porcelain doll.

A brand is nothing more than a promise. It sets an expectation with a consumer or customer. They know what to expect when they interact with your brand. And I don’t care how big or small your brand is, it promises something to your customers. The operative key to all of this brand building is that point of interaction. That is where your brand is at its most vulnerable.

For example, if you get a can of Coke that’s filthy and the soda in it is flat, the brand is diminished. You tell 10 friends about it and it’s diminished more. You get an iPad that doesn’t work. Same thing. You run into a rude associate at Best Buy and the brand is tarnished. A brand becomes the summation of all those small touch points with your customers. The risk is you’re likely doing some things every day that are putting your own brand at risk.

From where I sit, I’ve seen four major points of failure that destroy brands:

Can’t Diversify Your Business? It’s Because You’re an Addict

September 27, 2010/1 Comment/in Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine. He was bemoaning the fact that his company was almost completely dependent upon one huge customer. He saw the inherent risks in that relationship but confessed his organization had a bad habit they couldn’t kick. They had succumbed to the addiction of predictability and comfort.

Is your business overly-reliant on one key customer? Is your organization tied closely to one key client or partner or supplier? If that customer went away, would your world come to a crashing screeching halt? The rule of thumb I’ve always heard is no customer should be more than 25% of your business (and the same holds true for your suppliers or partners).

We always hear about diversification but usually it’s in the context of our stock portfolios. If your 401k became a 200.5k in the past few years, you know what I’m talking about. It’s easy to do the diversification thing in a portfolio – sell a few stocks, buy a few stocks and presto! you’re done. Diversifying your customer base is much harder to do.

If you’ve never thought much about this topic (or even if you have) you need to understand the true risks involved in not diversifying, understand why it’s hard to diversify, and use some practical methods to achieve the diversification goal.

Valet Park, Self Park or South Park – What’s Your Brand?

September 9, 2010/1 Comment/in Communications, Customer Service, Guest Blogger, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

I’m again happy to bring you AmyK Hutchens as today’s guest blogger (last time she was here she talked about reducing stress). No, that’s not her to the left. That’s Kenny from South Park. Here she is:

Stephen J. Cloobeck, Chairman and CEO of Diamond Resorts International, a company with 150+ branded and affiliated resorts in 26 countries, shared that if you want “to bring value to a busted brand, you start with the details.” For Cloobeck, this means a direct access email address available to every customer and a winning smile with the word “yes” at the tip of his tongue. With these details, and a few others, Cloobeck has built one of the largest vacation ownership companies in the world in an era when the words “time share” can leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

Brand Overhaul

How did Cloobeck sustain success despite turbulent times? He started with a brand overhaul, beginning with the classic time share sales pitch. “It was too aggressive,” stated Cloobeck. “We needed to soften the customer experience. We had to bring the value back to a busted brand.” So they shifted the pitch to a connect, and Cloobeck went straight to the consumer’s children to start. When he heard they had a menu kids refused, they added mac n cheese and other child-friendly foods. When he heard the kids were bored, he changed “baby-sitting” hours to outdoor adventure sessions and opportunities for physical and mental activities, and… he added an adult beverage to the “meet & greet” for parents, so they too could have a little more fun. Diamond’s new mantra? We’re listening!

You too can stimulate and reinvent your brand. How do you know if your brand is successful? It creates and retains customers. Successful branding is actually that simple. Ask yourself two questions: What are you promising? How can you best deliver that promise?

3 Simple Steps for Achieving Global Domination

August 9, 2010/3 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Innovation, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

So you want to take over the world, huh? Not quite sure how to get started, you say? Then I have a treat for you

Building on our last post about how to think about capturing the huge global opportunities that are out there to improve your business, today I’ll offer some practical advice on how to get started.

Going global is intimidating. For some, anything beyond buying toys with a “Made in China” stamp on them can freak them out. But with a focused and measured approach, you too can start down the path of making your organization global.

In the last post, we covered some notions around evaluating opportunities on the revenue side and the cost side of the ledger. To capture them, you have to think about market entry, product/service delivery, and communications. Without those three, your efforts are dead on arrival. Are there other considerations? Sure. These are simply the first three I recommend considering as part of your global conquest plan.

How Your Business Can Achieve Global Domination

August 2, 2010/2 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Innovation, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

I’m going to take over the world!

It’s really fun to say that. It’s even more fun to take action toward that goal.

Our world has gotten smaller. Way smaller. Globalization is an unstoppable trend. But as they say, the trend is your friend so why not take advantage of it? I don’t care how big or small your business is – there are huge opportunities out there for you beyond the shores of your country (assuming yours has shores).

The real trick is understanding what globalization can do for your business then figuring out how to exploit those opportunities. Today I’ll cover some simple notions around what the global opportunities are and in the next post I’ll more importantly discuss a few key ways to capture them.

Going global is intimidating. It sounds huge. You need a passport and visas (and we know what a joy those processes can be). You need to understand new languages and cultures. And heaven forbid you have to take a coach class 14 hour flight across the ocean (trust me, it’s painful). Okay. So get over it and dive in.

To illustrate today’s points, I’ll use examples from two businesses I’m running: thoughtLEADERS (leadership training) and TiXiT (discounted event tickets). Sure, they’re simple businesses but they’re microcosms that will help get the following points across.

Think about it simply – opportunities exist in terms of revenues and costs. It’s not that hard. As far as how to capture the opportunities, it boils down to market entry, product/service delivery, and communication. So let’s go global! Here we go:

All I Need to Know About Marketing I Learned at a Lemonade Stand

May 31, 2010/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s frickin’ hot, huh? Wow. But the dawning summer heat is a great reminder of good, solid marketing principles.

Many of us make “marketing” some arcane science. Focus groups, market research, surveys, brand consultants. Meh.

I learned everything I need to know about marketing at a lemonade stand.

As I was tooling around in my car this weekend, I was reminded of what it takes to be a great marketer. Really, it’s not as hard as the Marketing Group makes you think it is. The reminder of these principles came in the form of the perennial lemonade stand.

I drove past four such stands this weekend. Each one demonstrated a core principle you must adhere to if you want to be a successful marketer.

Marketing is about understanding a need and meeting it

It was hot this weekend. Unfortunately for Lil’ Jimmy’s Big Ade Stand, it wasn’t hot at 815AM when I drove by. I give the kid bonus points for getting to work early on a Sunday but he clearly missed the mark. He was out there selling his little heart out. The problem was the market did not have a need.

Lil’ Jimmy was targeting a market that didn’t exist. No need equals no sales. He had his dreams crushed by about 10AM and had packed it in thinking no one wanted lemonade that day. Jimmy’s problem was the market of overweight underexercised middle-aged homeowners doing yard work was just ramping up at 10. Jimmy missed the market. Right product. Wrong time.

Look at your business. What is THE MARKET asking for? Are you delivering what they want when they want it or are you pushing your product into a market you hope exists?

5 Steps to Entrepreneurship With Zero Risk

April 19, 2010/8 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Career, Entrepreneur, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

I’m sick of people asking “Do you know how crazy you are for making the decision to go out on your own as an entrepreneur and taking on all that risk?”

I’ve barely taken ANY risk as I’ve pursued my entrepreneurial ventures. You can take this (almost) risk-free approach too if you plan carefully and deliberately.

First, let’s dissect the kinds of risk you typically take as an entrepreneur then we’ll get into making entrepreneurship (almost) risk-free.

There are a few discrete types of risk you’ll take as you set forth on your own: financial risk, career risk, brand risk, and lifestyle risk.

Financial risk: you have the potential to blow it all. Or you can simply run out of cash and face foreclosure. This happens when you build a business that can’t sustain the cash demands you’ll face as an entrepreneur. I recently explored this risk in the 4 traps that destroy entrepreneurs.

Career risk: you can derail your career progression because you spend a few years out of corporate America pursuing your dream of building www.BoogerSculptures.com (by the way, that URL is available in case you’re interested…).

Personal brand risk: you become known as the guy who “couldn’t cut it” as an entrepreneur.

Lifestyle risk: your family hates you because they forget what you look like since you’re working 94 hours a day. You also become such a stress bomb that everyone around you develops a nervous twitch.

Now that I’ve scared off the lily-livered posers from pursuing the entrepreneurial dream, I’ll tell all you real want-to-be-my-own-boss types how to de-risk entrepreneurship:

If You Want to Close the Deal, Go Naked

March 29, 2010/7 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Entrepreneur, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

No one will deny business has become infinitely more complex and exponentially more efficient. Kind of. The challenge we face in the information age is there’s too much frickin’ information. Even worse, you’re usually trying to cut through the clutter to make your sale. It can be you’re selling a product, a service, or an idea to internal customers but the point is you’re always selling something.

Well I have news folks. I found a new trick for cutting through that clutter to make the sale: go naked.

I know how important clarity of communications is to making these sales. Heck, a huge part of my business is based on clear, concise communications training. You wouldn’t believe how much demand there is for tools to help us persuade and influence people more effectively and efficiently. One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was about getting to the “so what?” in a compelling way.

I try to practice what I preach. I try to make my communications succinct and punchy. I don’t always succeed. I’m always looking for new ways to get to “yes” with my audience. The other day I tried a new one. I went naked to two separate and hugely important meetings. And it felt so good I plan on going naked much more often.

Since you all know I kept my clothes on for those meetings (really being naked would be kinda creepy) let me explain what I mean.

Two More Traps that Destroy Entrepreneurs (Part 2)

March 22, 2010/2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

In my last post I talked about the traps entrepreneurs face with respect to cash (not planning it well enough or managing it rigorously enough) and being your own boss (which means you might not have coworkers to help you make decisions). If you missed the post, go read it here.

Today I’ll cover two more traps that can ruin your business faster than Takeru Kobayashi can destroy a Nathan’s hot dog.

If you’re an entrepreneur you likely have a cool idea for a product or a service. That knowledge and innovation is the core of what you’re about. You somehow intuitively understand a market need and that’s the source of your success. Or failure depending on how you play it. That’s the third trap.

The fourth trap is that as the Big Cheese, you don’t need to sweat the small stuff. You’re the king of rock. There is none higher. Sucka MC’s better call you sire. Well guess what your majesty? You DO have to sweat the small stuff. All of it.

Let’s explore these two traps, shall we?