How to Deal With 4 Types of Customers |  |
- How to Deal With 4 Types of Customers
- Build Your Listening Muscle
- How to Grow A Smart SMB Team
- Tips Reveal Path To Better Entrepreneurship
| How to Deal With 4 Types of Customers Posted: 24 Apr 2012 11:30 AM PDT If you’re a consultant, you deal with all sorts of customers. Some you’d love to duplicate, while others, well, let’s just say you really earn your money working with them. Have you noticed how customers fall into a few categories?
Read these descriptions to determine which best describe your customers: Laissez-Faire You may tend to like this type of customer. They’re laid back and happy to let me run the show when it comes to their marketing. The laissez-faire customer knows you’re the expert, and trusts the decisions you make. For the most part, they’re happy with an occasional check-in from time to time.
Micromanagers The opposite of the laissez-faire customer is the micro-manager. And just like those bosses you remember from your days in the corporate world, these customers breathe down your neck with every move. It is, after all, their money they’ve invested into your services, so they just want to ensure you’re doing what you’re supposed to do.
Utterly in the Dark This type of client needs your guidance, though may be unwilling to relinquish what little control they have. For example, a client may come to you for social media services, though they know little about how to use Twitter for business. If they have bias against your services (i.e. is a technophobe), it may be a hard sell, but typically they will bend to your advice once they see the benefits for their brand.
Savvy and Perfect Wouldn’t you love more of these types of clients? They know what they want, and either don’t have the time or knowledge to do it themselves. The good news is – they have the money to pay you to do it! You’ll spend less time selling them on your services, which is nice.
Remember that you can always fire your client! If one client type simply rubs you the wrong way, work to eliminate that type from your portfolio and work on drawing the ones you work more easily with to you. Mask Photo via Shutterstock From Small Business Trends |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:30 AM PDT We know the importance to our health of building our muscles and working on them every day. Well, building our listening muscle is equally important to our business. Yet this is a muscle that often goes untended.
We are often so focused on the next step, the next sentence, the next opportunity that we forget to be present and pay attention. In addition, there are so many more influences and stimuli these days that we can feel like we have adult A.D.D. Between our electronic devices, social media, email, and texting, we are bombarded with information and activity. It can be very hard to focus in this environment. There are a couple of problems with an inability to listen effectively. The first is that we don't discover the information we need to make relevant decisions or present accurate proposals. This is a huge issue in sales. The sales person is so focused on sharing information about their product or service that they don't take the time to ask questions and listen to the answers. Because of this, they don't build a rapport with the prospect or help the prospect feel valued. People buy from people they like and trust. If they don't trust you, they won't buy from you – no matter how fabulous your product or service is. In addition, they don't find out enough about the prospect to determine if it’s a good fit for them. Not all prospects are qualified. The only way to find out if the one you're talking to is a good fit for you and your company is to ask questions and listen to the answers. This can also be a problem when vetting vendors or referral partners. If you don't take the time and attention to really get to know them, you could enter into a relationship that is not the best for your company. Bad business relationships can destroy a company. You end up spending money, time and energy unnecessarily – all things that should be spent on good relationships. John Jantsch talks about different types of listening, the best being “active” and “perceptive.” According to John:
I have to say that I think this is probably the hardest kind of listening to learn. It really takes complete attention and tuning out of everything else. Because of that, it is the most effective kind of listening. The other party can feel this kind of listening. When someone feels this kind of listening they also feel valued. They believe the other person is genuinely interested in learning about them and their needs. They believe you really want to help them solve a problem; they start to trust you. That genuine interest is the key to a successful business in my opinion. It not only works with prospects, but clients and vendors. Anyone you have a relationship with will notice this level of commitment and attention. They will be more inclined to participate in the relationship and you will come to better decisions and solutions when you are listening closely. You'll truly hear what someone is saying and will be able to absorb it. Now you are open to ideas and collaboration. Perfect! Because 'perceptive' listening is more complex, you most likely won't master it on your first attempt. This is why active listening is so important. Active listening is simply listening to what is being said. When you are actively listening you aren't thinking about what you are going to say next. You aren't reading your email on your smartphone while the other person is talking. You are present, attentive, and engaged. You may not be thinking about what the other person's motivation is. You may not be paying close attention to their body language, but you are paying attention to their words. You are taking notes and responding to what they are saying. This behavior is a great first step. Active listening can build trust and value with your prospect or employee. There are so few people actively listening (unfortunately) that this behavior stands out. You can learn a lot at this point. You can respond to their answers and provide them with a solution to their issues. You can empower an employee; you can come to a compromise with a vendor. You can be tremendously effective. So, how well developed is your listening muscle? Are you actively listening? Have you mastered perceptive listening? If not, start working on exercising that muscle today. Practice tuning out other influences. Engage someone in a conversation and monitor your listening ability. Create a system to help yourself focus during conversations with prospects, clients, employees, and vendors. Your business will be healthier when your listening muscle is strong. Listen Photo via Shutterstock From Small Business Trends |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT Small business owners have a lot on their plates Рit's become clich̩ because it's true! Between marketing, running, and growing their business, there are always more tasks than hours in the day. However, among the most important and difficult of tasks is trying to build your team. It can be hard to find people who you can trust to come in and help you get the job done. It's even harder to find people who share your values and your commitment to your customers. But it's doable. More than that, if you want to grow a successful business, it's a must. You can't work in and on your business at the same time. Whether you're in the process right now of trying to build your team or you simply aspire to one day being bigger than yourself, below are some tips to help you grow a smarter SMB team.
1. Assess Your Skills Knowing the skills you'll need to hire for means first understanding the skills that you (and possibly your existing team) already bring to the table. For example, maybe you're great at customer service but you're terrible at marketing. Or maybe you're awesome at using social media tools to connect with people, but you can't keep your books straight for the life of your business. Start creating lists of skills – skills you have, skills you can acquire, and skills you'd need to hire for. Once you know what skillsets you're looking for, prioritize them to help you identify what is most important to your business. 2. Seek Out Referrals Once you know what roles you're looking to hire for, put it out to the universe. Talk to the people in your community and your local network about the types of people you're looking for. Post the required skills on LinkedIn or Twitter and see if anyone in your network can help. Talk about in in the online groups that you're part of. I'm always surprised by how easy it is to find the perfect person as soon as you let people know you're looking for them. The world is smaller than you think. 3. Go Online Talent Shopping If your local referrer network wasn't able to come up with a match, it's time to go online talent shopping yourself. One of my favorite tools for this is LinkedIn's Advanced Search.
With LinkedIn's Advanced Search you can hunt for potential employees by experience, industry, salary, job title, current company, previous company, etc. Better yet, you can then narrow it down to employees living within 50 miles of your storefront, helping you focus on the people who could actually come and work for you. Once you have a list of people you'd like to get an introduction to, see who in your network is already connected to these people or what groups/ associations they're a part of. This is a really great way to get your foot in the door with an applicant who could bring a lot of value to your business. 4. Find Shared Values But finding a great new team member for your SMB isn't just about the skills they may have on paper. It's about finding someone who thinks like you do and who values the same things that you're trying to instill in your business. Getting that "culture fit" right is invaluable in helping to avoid potential pitfalls later on. If a person doesn't match what the rest of the company believes, then they're not a good fit for your business. No matter how impressive their resume may be. Use your gut and look for people who show a history of action, being a team player, and who appears receptive to challenges. 5. Trust them Once you find that person who compliments your team's skillset, get out of their way and trust them. Sure, put procedures and policies in place to help make them accountable, but avoid your instinct to hover over them to make sure they're doing things "your way". Delegating does not mean hiring Mini-Yous. It means creating a more diverse team. Get comfortable with that. Even the most-skilled CEOs will eventually need to invest in growing his or her team. You can't do everything. By carefully and deliberately putting together a team of complimentary skillsets, you help set yourself (and your business) up for success. From Small Business Trends |
| Tips Reveal Path To Better Entrepreneurship Posted: 24 Apr 2012 02:30 AM PDT If you want to be a better entrepreneur, don’t miss these important tips. We’ve collected from far and wide on the Web to help you make your business better today. Success MetricsEnsuring your business success. Simple tips can make your business better, increasing your odds of success. Is success in business luck, skill or a combination of both? Check this list and you’ll see steps every entrepreneur can take. Entrepreneur Want to succeed as a government contractor? Certainly, small businesses can and have done this. If you want to learn more about how to break in to the industry and start working for Washington, don’t miss the above post. Small Business Trends Social Media TipsWhat social media content works best? Clearly the answer is different for everyone. However, as you can see in these responses, the one common thread is that social media must engage the audience it seeks to reach. Does your social media do this? The Washington Post Making mistakes on Twitter. Sure, everyone makes mistakes. But these errors could cost you big and come where you can least afford it, in followers on Twitter. If your Twitter community is important to you, listen up! Birdie’s Typing Services Management BasicsDoing what you love. Entrepreneurship must be about this, if it’s about anything at all. Are you doing what you love? If not, why not? It’s very important to follow the right path today and, if you aren’t following that dream yet, find it. You’re the Boss A family affair? There are definitely plenty of examples of successful family businesses. But be aware that anytime you superimpose family issues on business issues, you open yourself to trouble. USA Today Learning CurveEntrepreneurship starts even before graduation. This story of a senior who’s internship on Wall Street convinced him the corporate world wasn’t for him led him to make plans for an entrepreneurial path before he’s even left college. LehighValleyLive.com Speak in a way customers understand. One of the most important skills for you to cultivate as an entrepreneur is the ability to speak to your customers. Speak to them in a language that clearly communicates the value you offer. B2B Marketing Smarts Leadership GuideUnusual ways to inspire creativity. Entrepreneurs must inspire creativity in their teams if they are ever to become successful. But how can you inspire creativity if you fall into the same old routine when trying to lead? Open Forum Are you stuck in the wrong decade? No matter what kind of entrepreneur you might be or what kind of business you might be trying to start, keep up to date with your market and how to communicate with them. MarketingHQ From Small Business Trends |
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