OBNA Ottawa Business Networking AffairNEVER MAKE A COLD CALL AGAIN!

Prepared for: SSNBy: @ProfBruce

Date: Nov 1, 2012

Professor Bruce Murray FirestoneB. Eng. (Civil), M. Eng.-Sci., Ph.D.

Founder Ottawa Senators, Ottawa Senators Foundation and Scotiabank Place; Entrepreneurship Ambassador, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa;Executive Director, Exploriem.org; Head, Learn By Doing School; Novelist, Quantum Entity Trilogy;Writer, Entrepreneurs Handbook II; Columnist, Ottawa Business Journal; Broker, Century 21 Explorer Realty

•Follow him on Twitter at @ProfBruce •Read his blogs at www.EQJournal.org and www.DramatisPersonae.org •Current motto: “Making Each Day Count”

Single most important thing for entrepreneur? 

SELL, SELL, SELL

or

CHECK, CHECK, CHECK

Single most important thing for entrepreneur? 

Cannot be successful entrepreneur unless you can sell/negotiate effectively

Sell to launch clients, clients and customers Sell your ideas to suppliers (e.g., for supplier

credit) Sell above average employees (to come to

work with you)

Single most important thing for entrepreneur? 

Sell bankers (to lend you money) Sell shareholders (who co-invest with you) Sell partners (who also co-invest and

provide sweat equity) Sell media (to get earned media exposure) Sell government approval agencies

(licensing or zoning requirements…) 

Single most important thing for entrepreneur? 

Professor O. J. Firestone: “Check, check and check again!”

No ‘fire and forget’ missiles in business You have to make sure stuff gets done

What did Michael E Gerber of E-Myth say?

You need to be: Entrepreneur and Manager and Technician

Need to all three And you can never delegate Entrepreneur

role in sales or Management role to ensure stuff gets completed

How to improve your sales skills?

Do more of it! Practice, Practice, Practice Ben Affleck in Boiler Room said: “ABC!

Always be Closing.” Darren McCarthy from the Brick to the Sens Opens the Yellow Pages!

How to improve your sales skills?

Try to sell a $250,000 in-ice ad Or a $100,000 suite Or 4 club seats for $25k Or a 12-pack of tickets for $600! ABC

How to improve your sales skills? 3 possible answers to any question: YES,

NO, MAYBE ‘YES’ better than ‘NO’ but ‘NO’ better than

‘MAYBE’ MAYBES waste time If someone says ‘MAYBE’, tell them you’ll

treat that as ‘NO’ They say, well, ‘I don’t want to say NO.’ So say ‘YES!’

How to improve your sales skills? When you hear ‘YES’, whip out contract and

ask for signature Then thank them and get out of there! After a ‘YES’, only thing you do by sticking

around is muck up deal So make like a tree and leave

How to improve your sales skills? ‘Selling is telling’ Don’t sell to clients Help them buy Become trusted advisor Grade A Techs advises clients on hardware

and software, ‘Do you prefer Vendor A or B?’

How to improve your sales skills? ‘I’ll pay you to hire me!’ Negative cost selling Know your client and your clients biz almost

as well as s/he does Show that the cost of using your

product/service is more than offset by decrease in their costs or rise in their revenues or both

Where to find clients today? Tell them! Via Twitter Via LinkedIn Via Facebook Via Google+

Where to find clients today? How did @ProfBruce get Michael Gerber to

write for TIMReview.ca? He tweeted him He emailed him He wrote a blog post about him: One-Sigma Business Processes

http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=938

Where to find clients today?

“Those mundane and tedious little things that, when done exactly right, with the right kind of attention and intention, form in their aggregate a distinctive essence, an evanescent quality that distinguishes every great business you’ve ever done business with from its more mediocre counterparts whose owners are satisfied to simply get through the day.”

Michael E. Gerber, The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, HarperCollins, NY. 1995.

Where to find clients today? Prof Bruce told him a story and sold him! Reverse sell your Accounts Payable (e.g.,

plumber at SBP, is he a Sens season tix holder?)

Find a trail of bad marketing and follow it upstream (e.g., FSBO listing not selling)

Existing clients (best place to go for more biz/referrals)

Firing bad clients (make time for good 1s)

Where to find clients today? Use six degrees of separation to make

contact Identify your competitors by asking your

suppliers who they sell to Then sell to your clients’ competitors Be creative– if you sell high end suits, find

high end car buyers and sell to them Find out who your competition is selling to Go after biz dev people not buyers– show biz

dev how you can increase revenues

Where to find clients today? Give away product or create an event but

use service like awebber to capture email address

Each email address is worth > $10 Get strategic partners to resell your stuff

(PODS asks REALTORS and home stagers to de-clutter client homes using PODS)

Where to find clients today? Increase average transaction size (Jeff

Bezos, ‘Would you like to know what other people who bought this (CD/DVD/Book…) also bought?’)

Answer phone/emails/@mentions/be available/show up!

‘Dial for dollars’ every week Develop a marketing plan and quantify it!

@ProfBruce

Prescriptions

Build on your strengths Give young people economic opportunity,

they will stick around or come back Nothing is sustainable unless it’s

economically sustainable

@ProfBruce