A set of assumptions
What are the assumptions in your industry / niche / specialization / market? How does your market show up? What are the common expectations of your market? What are the common misconceptions your market has? What do they expect from you and your competitors? Etc. I’d love to hear about what you face everyday. And tomorrow get to ask you the second part to this question. 🙂
An approach on filtering your prospects
We talk (ok ok, “I” ????) about sales, the process and how all of this things work around. How to approach the sale, how to filter if prospects are good fits, how to identify early signs for us to walk away, how to talk money, etc. But have you really found something that sums it all? Or that at least gives you some guidance around that process? I know I’ve had to look and collect from different places to make one coherent thing. Would you be interested into having some sort of anti-guide/no-bs…
Working on the sale —as a process
Have you got your own sales process/checklist? This week I ran into a RFP template process checklist. It gave great insights on how to see certain things when preparing / training Sales for improving numbers and reaching your goals easier. However, in this whole checklist, they talked about: customer fit costs competitor analysis differentiators potential objections roadmaps prep proof of competence and case studies make it look good make it sound and read compelling Yet, there was never,…
The safe way to increase prices
Raising prices based on inflation, higher costs or whatever you choose. It all goes drip by drip. Not too much so that your customers don’t run for the hills. To not disrupt the system. Slow: 1,3,5,10… Small changes to increase. Safe: Keeping what you have. Short term: Not big changes now. Sales to keep. Revenue to keep. Profit not to lose. Don’t stir the pot. It’s a safe way. It focuses on the present. And it is irrelevant. Why would your customers have to pay for it? It’s not their fault…
Raising prices
It’s not a money problem. When your customer (or you) think that raising your prices is a matter of price-sensitivity, think again. It’s not necessarily that. Is $5 expensive? Is $25 000 reasonable? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the context AND the value your customers assign. When you get to set the context first, it’s simpler to get your customers to understand what’s going on. On how they can translate value into something tangible for them. When they don’t understand that, the only…
About your brand
Today’s message comes from friend-of-the-list and fellow emailer Russell Wadlin, from TailWhip. Your brand. Don’t talk about it.Be about it.✌️ —Russell.
It’s not about *your* worth
When you do work, you’re not supposed to charge “what you’re worth”. That’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is how you can figure out what’s worth to your customer. ‘Cause when you figure that out, you both can focus on the real thing that will move the needle. You’ll make more educated decisions. You’ll work together to get to that thing as fast. When you know what they value, and deliver, they’ll be delighted. And they’ll be happy to pay what you never considered before. What you charge will be…
5 guys, kids and hot dogs
These are 3 types of tricks our brains play in communication. 5 guys Using the same words, yet talking of (or at least thinking of) different things. If you don’t ask to clarify… things can (will) go sideways. Spend less time with your kids Hearing something weird and just assuming it is what you think you heard. That can also bring weird moments if you don’t dive deeper into what’s that you just heard. It could be “Spend less time with your kids”… or “Spend less time with dickheads”. The…
Maths is contextual
And here’s Rory Sutherland having a better explanation on why even maths is contextual. “We often, when we look at data, we look at averages. Averages are misleading because what matters is variance.” And averages are the common ground. The thing that “fits into the market”. The safe space of the known. Of “what is”. But not of the potential. Variance. Of what matters.
Life isn’t math
You’ve heard (I’m almost sure) that you can do whatever you want to achieve. All of that with formulas on: Exponential growth Compound interest Constant growth Time value 10% of the TAM (Total Addressable Market) Dividing how much money you want in a year and divide it by hours Reach You being in front of “more opportunities” Sending more proposals/quotations Etc. There are more nuances to that. The important thing here is: unlike math, a formula won’t apply to all of the scenarios to bring…