A radio program on NPR intrigued me recently when a guest was being interviewed on his opinion regarding Obama’s display of leadership and follow-through.  Motivating this and other discussions across the airways is disappointment by some democrats regarding Obama’s “soft style” and/or inability to take a firm stand on strongly-held democratic positions, arguing his actions do not line up with rhetoric used during his election and inaugural address. Similarly, Wisconsin Public Radio aired a discussion recently about the likelihood Obama can be reelected if unemployment remains high and his public approval ratings continue to decline.  In other words, if his leadership brand continues to sour.

All of this has me thinking about “walking the talk” and the importance that walking the talk plays in leadership branding.  Not only for the President of the United States, but also for the Presidents of High Technology Companies.  How we brand ourselves as leaders to our people is directly proportional to getting positive results.

Here’s what we can learn about corporate and personal leadership branding from Mr. President:

Principle #1: Be (and appear to be) fearless in times of difficult decision-making

Middle of the road is the road to nowhere. When we make “middle ground” decisions in an attempt to satisfy all people in our organization, we end up looking like losers (not leaders) to everyone in the company. Finding the middle ground in a difficult situation feels safe, but it will come back to haunt you as your once biggest fans (or loyal employees and customers) gradually turn against you.

Principle #2: It’s a wonderful thing to be loved by many and hated by many

To be loved AND hated is a solid indication you are living by your core values. If you are a great leader, it’s likely your core values lifted you to your position to begin with.  If you are not a great leader, your leadership brand is revealing your true colors to your employees and customers.  Check yourself before you wreck yourself

Principle #3: Give your customers what they want

By giving our customers what they want we can get what we want – loyalty. If you are not capable of giving your internal and external customers what they want, you should not be President or CEO or Mr. Executive.  You’d be a greater contributor doing something you’re good at.  Fearless, values-driven leadership gets results even amongst the strongest resistance and greatest challenges.  This is what your company wants!

So… how to appear and be fearless? How to be loved and hated by many?  Know your values and live by them always.  This is your leadership brand! Easier said than done?  Yes…if you are not a leader.

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Lately I find myself telling people I care about to be prepared.

Prepared for what?  Oh…just a few critical circumstances.

How about losing your job when you least expect it?  You thought it would never happen to you…

How about the special moment in time when you’re courageous enough to walk out on your job because, quite frankly, you can’t take it (or your manager/director/company culture) anymore?  It happens.

How about the time you admit to yourself you want to do something different, but you can’t quite put a finger on what it is?  It nags at you every day and you learn to live with it.  Or do you?

Or, how about living the rest of your entire life doing what you don’t love to do just so you can feel “secure”?

Ugh.

The following 3 steps are for you if you’re:

1) A CEO who doesn’t want to spend the rest of your career working for the company you’re working for right now.

2) An employee who is a leader, and you’re yearning for something more in your career and life.

3) A human being who wants to do more to achieve your full potential before you make your exit in this world.

Step 1: Discover your passion

I know…I make it sound like it’s easy.  What I’ve learned is that it’s our selves who make discovering our passion difficult.  All we need to do is observe.  Consider these 3 questions based on observing your behaviors:

1) In the last 1-2 years, what is it that you’ve been doing such that while you were doing it, the time seemed to fly by?

2) In the last 1-2 years, what was it you were doing such that afterward, you found yourself smiling?

3) In all of your lifetime, what are the top 3 things that, while you were doing it, you absolutely kicked ass?  And still do?  Of those three, which do you love?

Note: Questions 1 and 2 I give props to Robert K. Cooper, Author of The Other 90%.  These two questions literally woke me up in my late 20’s and helped prepare me for the rest of my life.  Thank you Mr. Cooper!

These are not easy questions for everyone (I’m still going over these questions with my mother of 56 years!).  I suggest thinking about it over the next week or so.  Do not force your answers (you’re only reporting to yourself on this one!)

Step 2: Create a powerful web presence based on your passion

This step involves reserving your own domain name (your name) at GoDaddy or some other web hosting platform, then selecting a blog platform such as Quansite, Weebly or blogger and creating articles, podcasts, or video posts about intel and topics involving your passion, followed by driving traffic to your blog via social networking.

For example, I have a friend who’s passionate about relationship building.  I have another friend who’s passionate about DIY home projects for women.  I know a CPA who wishes he were involved with the Theater!  All of these people are less than happy in their “other” careers right now, and would be ill prepared for a job loss or transition to boot.

It is a new day and the Internet is your tool for YOU, Inc.  Go there!

Step 3: Enjoy the ride

When you brand yourself on the internet by blogging about your passion and/or passionate cause, people will take notice of you before they even consider asking you for a resume. This is how opportunities – in tune with who you are – find you and ask you for a meeting, offer partnerships, new roles, etc…

When you do steps 1 and 2 you’ll be delighted to find that you’ve never been happier in your entire life, followed by only a brief moment of anger that you didn’t do this years ago.

This step is where you get the satisfaction of being prepared for an unexpected job loss, career transition, or other life-changing event involving your career and job security.

Why?  Because your brand has provided you credibility, thought leadership, and confidence.

You’re prepared for anything, AND you’re happy!  Fearless leadership at its finest.

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Because the growth potential and risk factors associated with your company are two key measures investors use to predict their profitability (and yours), the successful growth of your organization will absolutely hinge on your company’s organizational effectiveness – your company’s top-down ability to consistently achieve organizational goals!

It’s critical to always be assessing, developing, and measuring your organization’s effectiveness at achieving organizational goals in five core areas:

1. Management
2. Marketing
3. Sales
4. ‘Customer’ Experience
5. Executive Leadership

Part 1 of this article focuses on managerial effectiveness.

Demonstrate Organizational Effectiveness with your Management Team!

Although important, go beyond the track records and professional experiences of your management team and closely examine their managerial talent: their proven ability to increase the amount of profitable behaviors in your company.   Right now, can you make a list of all the profitable behaviors that take place in your company?

If you are a manager, ask yourself these additional questions:

• How am I effective at increasing the amount of results-driven behavior within my company, team or department?
• How have I been able to achieve and show measurable results that directly impact the strategic direction of my organization?
• What is the strategic direction of my company?
• When have I provided clear, strategic direction for my department?

One of the biggest challenges your management team will face is creating an environment where people are excited to perform for the results of the organization!  Managerial talent is proven through effectively…

• Leading in response to a variety of situations
• Setting goals to establish direction, define actions, and measure results
• Turning solutions into goals, and goals into actions
• Achieving Production, People, and Time Management Goals
• Planning with a clear and communicated purpose
• Making decisions employees can become committed to achieving
• Getting desired results from people
• Communicating in a way that cultivates knowledge and acceptance
• Dealing with negative behavior vs ignoring it or upholding its root cause

So how does your management team rate in managerial talent and effectiveness?

If there’s room for improvement, consider adding these concepts to your annual or quarterly performance appraisals, OR ask your management team to rate themselves in each of the above competencies prior to their reviews.  Follow-through with setting goals to improve and develop your team.

Sound like a lot of work?  It is!  That’s why the best companies are the best.  They’ve earned it.  Again…we have choices!

Only talented managers can create a profitable environment that demonstrates organizational effectiveness, and thus presents less risk to investors!

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Wouldn’t it be nice to have investors signing-up to receive updates on your progress and achievements, as well as contacting you for a meeting?  Establishing a powerful online presence and/or “hub” where you serve as a resource and educator in your industry will attract investors.

I’m about to give you ten steps to show you how, but first there are five “laws” to consider for successfully implementing these steps:

1) You need to know who you are and where you are going

Executive leaders have strategic business, marketing and sales plans to guide their organizations toward achieving critical milestones.  It will be impossible to create an online hub that attracts investors if you don’t know who you are or where you are going – guaranteed!  Your web strategy must be in alignment with a clear direction provided by your leadership.

2) You need to understand that traditional websites are dead

An internet-brochure (aka website) will not work for you.  At best, it will provide investors and other visitors information (like a brochure).  At worst, it will cost you time, money and opportunity (due to its ineffective ability to help grow your business).

Highly effective websites of today serve as a sales and marketing machine.  They are a hub of empowering information, inspirational ideas, personal connection, and motivational conversion.  Your hub is a one-stop-shop for investors and customers to build trust and loyalty with you and your company!

3) You need to implement education-based marketing strategies

Your online hub should be a distribution center of empowering information to help investors learn all they don’t know they didn’t know about your industry and scope of solutions.  Outside of proprietary information, you can never give away too much helpful insight how your innovations can solve specific problems or make something better, easier, or faster.  If you’re really good at this, you will help readers make important decisions about THEIR business.

Of course you should provide your latest studies for download.  But as interesting and informative as your studies are, are they empowering?  Do they hook your reader emotionally?  Do they move people to action?  It would be nice if they did; however, studies serve as proof only.

You’ll need more to pull funding in your direction!  Whitepapers, Case Studies, and Articles are great pieces for edu-marketing.

4) You need to target specific investors and investor groups

This is where sales strategy comes in.  Just like any other market segment, you have to identify your “targets” and keep track of your investor relationships. You don’t want to attract ALL investors, but only those who fit your predetermined criteria. Your online hub will effectively generate warm leads for you to consider adding to your CRM system/software.

5) You need to always be driving investor traffic to your site

By nature, the activities outlined below will help drive traffic to your site (for example, blogging provides fresh content for Google spiders.) But in addition, you should always direct investors to your site because this is your HUB.  You position and brand yourself on your hub.  You move investors to sign up for your updates on your hub.  All things important to attracting and getting funding happen on your hub, if done right.

CAUTION: If you can’t embrace these concepts it’s highly unlikely you will be able to attract and connect with investors online.  And I will tell you this, either becasue they’re skeptical or because they’re not interested in putting forth the effort to exercise new skills, I meet business owners every week who struggle to accept one or more of the above concepts.  This is good news for YOU!  Take the actions I’m about to present below and you’ll win!  You will stand out from the market, and increase your attractiveness in it!

10 Steps For Attracting Investors To Your Online Hub

Step 1: Define the sort of investors you want to attract.

You want to be able to speak directly to your ideal investor types.  Create a profile for your investors that include things like location, criteria, attitudes, and beliefs. You don’t need to be concerned with ALL investors being interested in your technology and company! Concern yourself with speaking only to those genuinely interested in your scope of innovations – you’ll ultimately earn faster results!

Step 2: Create a free whitepaper (or some other educational piece).

You’ll want to have empowering information ready for download when investors sign up to receive updates on your hubsite.  A whitepaper is a highly effective tool to educate investors on all solutions, history, and milestones in your industry, and then wrap up with your specific technology.  A whitepaper serves to tactfully educate and help people make decisions, while soft-selling your own solutions toward the END.

If you’d like to learn more about writing effective whitepapers that educate and earn thought leadership, pick up Michael A. Stelzner’s book, “Writing White Papers: How to capture readers and keep them engaged.”

Step 3: Determine your web platform and auto-responder

Here you must decide if you’re going to pay an expensive web developer/designer to do everything for you (which is fine if it’s worth it to you personally), or if you will go with less expensive options such as Wordpress, Weebly or Quansite, which don’t require you know code.

Quansite (formerly Blog i360) is what I use because it provides advanced features no other platform can accommodate, such as auto-updating all your social bookmarks for you. For this reason and many more, I highly recommend it.  You can learn more about Quansite by visiting www.quansite.com.

You will also need an auto responder to capture investor contact information and regularly communicate.  You’ve likely seen many examples of these by now, such as Constant Contact and iContact.  My favorite is Aweber because you can automatically broadcast your blog posts to your email list.  Whichever auto responder you choose, you will use it to save time and effectively edu-market your contact list of investors and provide them company updates.

Step 4: Design your site map for investor navigation

If you already have a company website, I recommend adding a tab called “Investors” which will take them to an “investor universe”. This universe is a blog platform of your choosing, as mentioned above.  Ask yourself, “What do investors want to know?” And create pages tailored to their needs.  The following tabs will make a great start:

• Welcome: The most important page, as explained below in Step 5
• About: Interesting info about your company; don’t be dry!
• Management Team: Picture/video and bio of each member highlighting relevant background that makes them an excellent choice for a management position in your   company
• Board of Directors: Picture and brief bio highlighting the value they bring to the company’s achievements and milestones
• Scientific Advisory Board (if applicable): Pictures and brief bio highlighting specifically why they were chosen to serve on this important board
• Blog: Include case studies, updates, opinions, etc…this is your space to differentiate your company, innovations, and most importantly, demonstrate your thought leadership!

Step 5: Shout your “cause” from your Welcome page!

Your welcome page should NOT say, “Welcome to XYZ company!  We bla bla bla…”  This is typical as well as boring!  Instead use your Welcome page to your advantage!

Your Welcome page is your opportunity to communicate – loud and clear – what you stand for and represent!  Have a conversation that hooks your readers emotionally regarding the problems your technology can and will help alleviate.  Avoid brochure talk.  Get investors inspired to sign up for your company updates regarding your milestones and technology.

Step 6: Capture investor name and email

Remember that whitepaper you wrote in Step 2?  Aren’t you glad you did!  It took time and preparation, but it was worth it because now investors get it as an added bonus once you’ve moved them to sign up for your company updates on your inspirational welcome page.

If your title on your guide/whitepaper is well crafted, they will begin to read it.  If the first few paragraphs are extremely helpful, they will keep reading and get to the page where you talk about your solutions (the last page, sorry!).  If they read through the whole whitepaper, you’ll have made a footprint on their minds.

Your updates and other educational material you provide via your auto responder will have greater impact and quickly grow your thought leadership in your industry.

Step 7: Nurture-market your list with your updates

Once you have your investor list, use it wisely!  Don’t email useless nonsense.  Only send things of high value as seen through the eyes of the investor.  They will want to know milestones.  They will want an announcement of your blog post that provides a video of useful or interesting information about your technology.  They will want to know of your latest research publications with a summary in lay terms.  Think before email marketing!

Step 8: Blog your case studies and other helpful information often

Blogging is Marketing 101.  I know it’s extra work, but those who do it effectively attract the market and grow their business.  If you are trying to decide whether or not to blog, a good question to ask yourself is, “Do I want to grow my business?”

Realistically decide how frequently you can blog on a consistent basis. The more frequently you blog, the more you attract your market/investors.

Step 9: Implement multi-media on your site

An important lesson I learned from one of the most amazing marketing courses I’ve ever taken, Tribal Seduction, is that people (no matter who) want to be entertained.   I realize this isn’t exactly new information, but it’s often easily forgotten when we’re getting down to business.  People are drawn to pictures, video, sound, “a cause”, controversy, drama, and other emotion-laden content.  Implementing multi-media will attract the market, even investors (Investors are people too, yes?!)

Step 10: Tap into 1-3 social networks

I’m easily annoyed every time I hear things like, “You have to get on Facebook”, or,  “You must be on Twitter”.  “Why”, you might ask?  “Because it helps you with your business”, people will tell you.

The only people who maximally benefit from social networks are those who have done something very similar to steps 1-9 above, plus understand that strategy comes before tactics.  Facebook and Twitter are tactics, and not quick fixes to lack of direction and/or a strategic marketing plan.  But, with a strategy and a plan, they can be powerful tools indeed!  Proceed with knowing who you are and where you are going!

Furthermore, don’t stress yourself out trying to learn all of the social networking tools at once, especially without a strategy.  Take one at a time!  If you have an effective online hub, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn will be ancillary (yet powerful) tools for driving traffic to your site, where your thoughts and company reign supreme.

The science and technology you work on everyday are more “rocket-science” (for some of you quite literally!) than social media tactics will ever be!  Keep these thoughts in mind, and you will implement these tools with ease and effectiveness!

A note on SEO: Of course SEO is a consideration for attracting investors to your online hub.  You can pay all kinds of money for search engine optimization services (and potentially discover disappointing results), or you can visit www.wordtracker.com…they will show you the inexpensive and effective way to apply SEO with keywords.

I hope you’ll find these concepts and steps implemented into your strategic marketing plans.  They will improve your marketing effectiveness and thus increase your attractiveness in the market!

When can you and your team complete Step 1?

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Yes…money is tight, investors are being highly selective with their funds, and they are interested in a return on their investment in the form of profits.   As mentioned in my first post of this series (I Continue Meet Scientists and Business Owners Who Need To Do MORE To Attract Capital Funding), this implies big opportunity for the fit-minded!

Times like these bring out the best in innovative science and discovery, because the fit-minded will adapt and change what they’ve been doing.  They will employ new strategies and a well-defined process to attract funding.

The Wrong Way To Attract Capital Funding:

In my opinion, there is only one wrong way to attract capital funding: Keep doing what you did last year!  Instead of growing a prosperous enterprise, you will grow a cynical attitude.

Investors and other financiers know passion when it presents itself.  You cannot have both cynicism and passion for the future of your company, research and products.  Great companies and innovations grow on passion!

If you have it in your head that investors “can’t see the possibilities”, OR “all they care about is profit”, you are going to be absolutely correct!  Your behaviors – being influenced by your mindset – will in turn influence your investors’/financiers’ perceptions of you, your company, and your future.

Do any of these behaviors sound like you?

• Settling with journals/studies to market your company and ideas
• Presenting a business plan that took you a day or less to create
• Communicating your innovative concepts in your preferred language and format
• Presuming you have all the skills you need to grow your business
• Lacking passion and vision for the impact your innovation will have on the world
• Focusing on a company acquisition verses the vigilance and sustainability of your company

The Right Way to Attract Capital Funding:

As with any market, Capital Markets need to be marketed to effectively.  You may have noticed that marketing today isn’t what it used to be – even when compared with one-two years ago!

Furthermore, and somewhat ironically, the slower economy has accelerated change in marketing methodologies.  End users and investors alike have new demands for products and communications, and many business owners fall far behind in knowing how to overcome these crucial market obstacles.

With the growth of your company at stake, this is not a time to turn a blind eye to the changes you must make to attract capital.  You are competing for funds like never before!

Below are my humble, yet highly effective suggestions for attracting funding.  No BS…I do believe they will help you!

Create a TRUE Strategic Business Plan

A true strategic business plan is for you and your executive team.  Consider that investors and others simply have the pleasure and opportunity to look at your plan when examining your credibility and viability.  A good plan will take at least 3 to 5 days to create with your team.  Don’t write a plan to check the box (kiss of death!)

Your plan is your vision for success.  It represents the values your company is built on, and how you see your company and innovations impacting the world in 5 years or more.

It shows the critical milestones you will achieve with funding in the next 5 months, and then the next five months after that, and so on.  IP Strategy, primary/secondary market research, “what if scenarios”, Financing Strategy, Critical Milestones…go deep here; spend some time!  This is YOUR guide!

To not create a true roadmap for success means you are open to allowing external and other market forces to guide you.  You will be a weathervane, and you’ll be seen as non-credible.

Communicate In a Way Investors Will Grow Interested and Understand

So you have a TRUE strategy plan to share.  Will this suffice?  No!  You need to provide your audience with a Strategic Plan Recap: One for your business plan, one for your marketing plan, and one for your sales plan.

Strategy recaps are succinct and to the point, helping to prevent you from going too heavy with speaking jargon. They will also stimulate interest in looking deeper into your strategy.  Remember, seek first to have your investors understand, then you can be understood!

Here is what a good Strategic Business Plan Recap should consist of:

• Your company’s 3-5 core values
• Your company’s core purpose for existence
• Your company’s 5-Year goal, simply stated
• Your Critical Milestones for achieving your 5-year goal
• Your objectives for achieving your critical milestones, with a special emphasis on your objectives for the next rolling 5 months

Including these concepts in your business plan recap will effectively show who you are and where you are going.  This makes for quick and interesting reading (without sacrificing pertinent details) and immediately helps investors identify if they care to learn more.  It’s all about stimulating real interest.

Here’s what a good Marketing Plan Recap should consist of:

• Your marketing philosophy (edu-marketing, traditional, new media, or mixture, etc.)
• Your market niches, capital markets included (as applicable by growth stage)
• Your Unique Value Proposition
• Your Competitive Advantage (s) (per your well-thought IP strategy)
• Your Objectives for “getting the word out” in the next rolling five months

A marketing recap like this one will effectively show investors whether or not you know how to attract your markets in order to achieve your critical milestones presented in your strategic business plan.  An excellent marketing plan will establish faith in your capabilities.

And finally, here is what a solid Sales Plan Recap Should Consist of:

• Key Differentiators (what about your company and innovations is both unique and valuable to the market, through the eyes of the market)
• Key selling tools (what you will implement to promote your key differentiators to the market)
• Product Strategy (Sales flow and points-of-contact)
• Sales Channels
• Objectives for bringing the sales plan to fruition, again with the next rolling 5 months in mind

A sales plan recap like this one reflects your dedication to action.  No matter what your stage of growth – seed, emerging or promising – you are selling, and you need tools and a plan.

Get out of the Past: Update your Marketing Approach

Studies are required, but whitepapers are desired!  By whitepapers, I mean any information that serves to empower investors and other markets with useful and educational information they can use to make decisions.  Recall the scientist I told you about from my first post in this series?  More of the same!

There is a real opportunity to differentiate yourself if you can be the first to establish thought leadership in your industry.  In addition to having your latest research study published in a peer-reviewed journal, you should provide additional educational pieces specifically geared to your audience in the form of guides, whitepapers, articles, videos or case studies.

How much more will equity financiers be attracted to your organization and ideas if you are educating them on the problems in the industry your innovations help to solve?  Who will they desire to watch, grow to trust, and potentially invest in?  The scientist/business owner with another study at the trade show, or the thought leader with a study at the trade show, who’s guides they’ve received education on pressing industry problems and solutions?

They will choose the latter because this group will have earned thought leadership above and beyond the competition.  There is nothing more powerful than thought leadership.  Earn it!

Attract Investors to Your On-line Hub

If you are confident and can demonstrate who you are and where you are going, you will attract the market.  Establishing a powerful online presence where you can serve as a resource and as an educator in your industry will attract capital funding.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have investors signing up to receive updates on your progress and achievements and contacting YOU for a meeting?

Demonstrate Organizational Effectiveness

Being able to demonstrate organizational effectiveness means that you can show you’re able to consistently achieve company goals/milestones.  How would you rate your company’s ability to consistently achieve organizational goals?  What would it mean to the growth of your company to exceed investor expectations with your ability in this area?

I notice this article is getting somewhat lengthy!  I have much to say about these last two points, and I want them be digestible and useful!    That said, I will break them into two additional articles for my next two subsequent posts in this series:

How to Attract Investors with an On-line Hub and Exceeding Investor Expectations: How to Demonstrate Organizational Effectiveness

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I continue to meet scientists and innovative business owners who need to do more to attract capital funding.  Please note that the operative word here is “attract” .

For instance, I recently had a conversation with a scientist who cynically declared nobody is providing any funding, and nobody is buying.  For this reason things are not going well for his business, and he doesn’t anticipate things getting better for him anytime soon.

I asked him what his thoughts were for sustaining and growing his business in spite of this conclusion.  With an outlook like that, I was curious indeed! What he told me: Another new research-publication and more trade-shows for its distribution.

Let’s think about that for a minute…why would another publication and an increased presence at trade shows save his business and support his vision for success?  Isn’t this pretty similar (not to mention a standard practice in his industry?) to what he’s always done?  What’s different?

New Skills and Strategies Are NOT Optional In Our Market

I’m not going to repeat at length what’s been in the media about the state of investing and the survival of many start-up and emerging technology-focused companies.  Funding is like oxygen, and although there is optimism that things are “looking up”, it’s been getting harder and harder to breathe!

Let’s consider mindsets and behaviors.  Scientists are accustomed to receiving grants and other equity resources to grow their research and businesses to the next stages of advancement and development.  And for the most part, they are continuing to do what they know – writing grants, preparing business plans and presenting to investors – and getting not-so-much good fortune in return!

Cynicism, panic, frustration, worry, fear, clamor, doubt, and “pushing in line” are a natural reaction.  The extent of competition for funding is a change from the usual. A new approach is required.  New skills and strategies are a must do if you want to be the one to receive the “well-guarded” funds.

Survival of the fittest?  Sure…but I prefer to think of it as survival of the fit-minded: open, strategic, conceptual, calm, EFFECTIVE.

You see, a majority of your competition will NOT take this advice (change is often deemed difficult).  But this is good news for you, if you do choose to change how you market your technology.  You will win.  You will grow a prosperous enterprise!

So how can scientists and emerging innovators stand out and ATTRACT capital funding?  How can they rise above the clamor and frustration and advance their innovations into the market?

To answer these questions, I will continue with the second part of this article in my next post: The Wrong Way And The Right Way To Attract Capital Funding

Stay tuned…!

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Time is the substance I am made of.
Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river;
Time is a tiger that can rip me apart, but I am the tiger;
Time is a fire that can consume me, but I am the fire.
~Jorge Luis Borges

I don’t believe there is any one secret system for everyone to effectively manage all the activities that make up our day.  But I do believe if there is one “secret” to effectively managing our time, it’s the fact that we are time itself.  What we choose to do every minute of the day is a product of ourselves, and hence, a direct reflection of our person and performance.

The quote above serves as an excellent reminder that it is ourselves who can overwhelm our “self” with activities, or streamline production.  In essence, Time Management is Self Management. 

To be successful, we need to get a lot of things done, fast.  Furthermore, the things that we “do” need to be done right (the first time)!  That’s why we need time/self management!  No one is exempt.

Here are a few suggestions to begin developing your unique system to effectively manage yourself:

• Make a list of your biggest dreams:

Seriously, what do you want to do in your lifetime personally and professionally?  Think in terms of life categories: social, physical, mental, career/financial, and spiritual.  Prioritize these “wants” and set S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, attainable, realistically high, and trackable) goals to track and measure your progress toward achieving your dreams.

If we don’t spend the time in our life reaching for our dreams, we will be unhappy, guaranteed.  To manage yourself and your time around your goals and dreams is step 1 in effectively managing your time.  To not do so, limits your potential for results.  What is your opportunity cost if you ignore your dreams?

Remember, someone is always willing to tell you what to do with your time.  Make your time yours; helping others with your unique skills and abilities in alignment with your passions and dreams is your time well spent, while serving those around you.

• Include your goal-oriented activities in your daily task list:

First, start using a daily task list.  If you think you’re too busy or important to keep a task list, you are probably feeling overwhelmed, disorganized or are oblivious to the inconvenience you cause others with your mismanagement of time and resources.  Good luck to you!

If you are one of those who is using a daily task list, save a line item for a task that will help you achieve a personal and professional goal everyday.  Do this, and you will undoubtedly achieve your goals.

Take a glance at your task list right now.  Is there anything on there today that serves you and your company in aspiring towards greatness?

• Spend most of your time in production (creating or providing your product/service), sales, and marketing:

I actually had a business owner tell me, “I have plans for marketing, but I’m just too busy to deal with that right now”.  Hold the phone!  None of us should ever be too busy to market our businesses, products and services or ideas on a daily basis!

A valuable insight I learned during a teleseminar hosted by Stephanie Frank, author of “The Accidental Millionaire”, is that 7-figure companies spend most of their time in sales & marketing-related activities, while 6-figure companies spend most of their time in production-related activities.  Those companies earning less than 6 figures were consumed with administration. This logic makes a lot of practical sense.

Take another look at your task list.  Which of your activities are indicative of someone operating or working for a 6- or 7-figure organization?  What is your Sales/Marketing : Production : Administration ratio?  What will your new ratio be?  Start your new activity ratio ASAP and reap improved results!

• When you fall off schedule or task, start over:

The beauty of creating a personalized self/time management system is that it is a “system”.  Systems can be modified, obliterated, and recreated according to need and circumstance.  And a good system can always be resorted to, even if you have a bad day.

I’ve fallen off schedule many times in a week as a result of a distraction or an emergency.  What saved me every time is having a system to go back to, and then picking up where I left off.  Without a system, an interruption or crisis can disrupt your productivity and results for weeks!

A good system consists of key categories according to days of the week, times of the day, etc.  Depending on your job functions, determine the appropriate categories for you, and segment your activities accordingly.  Don’t forget sales, marketing, and production should be integrated throughout!  Even if your role is administrative, you have ideas to sell and personalized products to create and produce.

What is at least one way you can improve your self-management today?

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“Most Salespeople try to take the horse to water and make him drink.  It’s your job to make the horse thirsty.”  ~ Gabriel Siegel

1.    Define success according to you!

Five years from now, what does success look like for you?  What are you doing in your free time?  How are you living?  Where have you taken your organization?  Where are you working and what is your position?  What value are you providing at work that causes you to smile when you think about it?

Your answers to these and similar questions will be your personal vision for success.  Envision your success daily to drive your sales goals and behaviors.  Working off of someone else’s vision of success will not maximize your potential.  Success is personal!

2.    Set transcendent goals!

Consider the following sales goals:  “We will increase sales by 20% this year”… “I will be the top sales rep on my team and in my region in Q4”…

How do those sound to you?  I’ve come across many goals like this as a sales manager.  In fact, I’ve set a few similar-sounding goals myself as a sales professional.  This is how I know they don’t help aspire to transcendent greatness and success.  They can motivate us in the moment but they lack in longevity and passion.

Go big! Transcend yourself beyond simple motivation into the realm of lasting inspiration: “Our company will expand on our core innovations to exceed revenue by 50% in the next six months”… “I will be promoted to sales manager this year due to consistent sales effectiveness quarter over quarter”…

Don’t be afraid to exceed your own expectations!

3.    Educate your market with empowering information.

Customer demands aren’t the only driver for sales and business growth.  More important is your ability to effectively sell your solutions where there is a need.  Often our target market is naive to the cause of their problem for which they have a need for our solution.  It is our job to help educate them on four key things: their industry, their problems, the implications of their problems, all available solutions, and the best solutions (aka our products/services as applicable).

You will often hear me say that educating is the new marketing.  There is nothing salesy about education.  Dive deep into your market’s problems and help them regardless of directly providing a related product or service.  When your prospects and customers can apply the knowledge you’ve empowered them with via a white paper, case study, etc., you will earn their trust and they will follow your lead in the marketplace.  Thought leadership is an invaluable sales tool!

4.    Educate yourself on the selling skills of today.

Old school selling involves brochures, internet brochures (aka your ‘traditional’ website), cold calls, hard closes, staged conversations, bill-board advertising, radio advertising, face-to-face meetings, driving around town all day long, dry sales letters, and press releases.

Contemporary school selling involves communicating on the customer’s terms, with information products, long sales copy, webinar meetings, white papers, case studies, blogging, podcasting, video, as well as  attracting and converting prospects online via various social media outlets.

Old school strategies are best implemented with a new media twist, and new school strategies can be severely screwed up if not taken seriously and carried out with integrity and a plan.  It is a whole new era in which sales and marketing have become a hybrid strategy.  Invest in self-educating yourself so you do not get left behind!  The selling skills of today are always changing!

5.    Sell on emotion always!

Day-to-day business is riddled with emotion.  There are many problems to solve and risky decisions to make!  Never forget, we all buy out of happiness or fear. It’s that simple!  Don’t shy away from communicating the value of your solution based on your prospect’s fears out of concern for appearing negative.  Many of their fears are very real AND justified – your prospect wants them alleviated!  Can you help them?  Tapping into happiness and fear will earn your prospects attention for communicating your value.

6.    Roll with the punches as you strive towards life-long excellence.

When we make mistakes during selling situations, we can beat ourselves up pretty badly.  We didn’t advance the sale to the next step like we visualized, for instance, or we couldn’t recall a pertinent piece of data to help us close the sale.  What’s worse, perhaps we define ourselves through the recent month’s sales numbers and worry ourselves sick about our value to the organization (I’ve seen this a lot in my big pharma days).

Excellent sales people excel because they forgive themselves for inevitable selling mistakes and they commit to life-long excellence. They know that spending their time in anxiety will blunt their performance and make things worse.  As long as you come from a place of integrity and value, not only will you be able to forgive yourself, but your prospects/customers will too.  With trying new and amazing things come mistakes!

7.    Think!

Selling today is hard work!  You can’t just roll into a meeting or give an unemotional presentation and walk away with a sale.  You need to prove yourself first, and then sell your product/service.  You need to understand your prospect simply to show them you understand.  You need to communicate according to their communication style.

In addition to skills, what about your products and services?  What opportunities are you missing?  Does all your revenue come from one product?  How can you better use the internet to acquire business nationally?  What info products can you sell on-line in addition to your services?  Are you connecting with your prospects before you try to convert them?  Are you pushing your research, product, or services on the market, or are you attracting the market with your education-based marketing practices and establishing thought leadership?  Can you trace the sales flow from attraction to conversion in your organization?  What is your strategy?

Like a solid business plan, a sales plan needs to be created, implemented and measured.

I chose these 7 keys as a result of comments I often hear myself saying when I coach my clients about sales and selling skills.  Be they business owners or sales professionals, I believe these “keys” serve as excellent reminders for what success in sales is all about.  

Based on your sales experiences and wisdom, what would you add?

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This past weekend I was visiting with my friend and former colleague who now works as a sales consultant for a large, specialty medical device company promoting capital equipment.  She shared some of the templates and tools she’s created in order to make hers and her clients’ jobs easier.  They were extremely impressive in usefulness and professionalism, and I could see immediately that she put many hours of her valuable time into creating them.

So I begged the question, “Doesn’t your company provide you with any of these things?” “No – nothing”, was her reply. In fact, the only sales tools she’s provided are clinical studies. Furthermore, the sales tools she created are being spread around the company like wild fire. Clearly the company’s internal and external customers (the sales force and the clients, respectively) desperately need them. 

The tools she made include process and procedure documents (with vital team information so customers can contact all the different people they need in order to effectively market, utilize and troubleshoot the device), Installation and Quick Start checklists, Calibration Log forms, directions on how to utilize a database for tracking outcomes, equipment and environmental parameters, and FDA approval ranges.

Wow!  Excuse me but what is marketing doing about this?

This is a classic example of organizational ineffectiveness.  This is not what you want your best sales talent to be doing – making their own vital resources for themselves and your customers instead of selling.  By not providing your sales force with effective tools you’ll leave them no choice but to create their own.  And who knows, maybe your best people will become so frustrated with your service they will jump ship along with your clients –ineffective!

So what are your marketing department’s tools for sales effectiveness?  Provide key sales tools, and you can directly improve effectiveness, customer loyalty and your company’s attractiveness in the market.

Provide your sales force with a comprehensive set of tools for selling

Using the example above, a clinical study serves one purpose: to provide evidence for the product/service.  A key tool, it will not get the job done all on its own.  In addition to data, create “rapport tools” that provide customers with extremely helpful information around their issues – such as a non-promotional and industry-relevant report or guide, for example.  This will warm prospects to your sales & marketing message more quickly. 

Improve sales conversions by providing “emotional tools” in the form of various case studies for your sales force to share and leave behind with customers.  Case studies help prospects relate to your message personally by helping them picture themselves benefiting from your product/service.

Tools that generate rapport, evidence and emotions improve sales effectiveness (online or offline).  Don’t just provide one of these tools!  Conversion rates will be weak if at all and your sales force will be depleted of motivation and performance.

Provide your sales force with tools for customer loyalty

The need for effective sales tools doesn’t stop at conversion!  Once your sales force has been successful at converting prospects to customers, you need to give them tools for customer loyalty.  To be clear, customer loyalty is earned as a result of providing positive customer experiences during every possible interaction with your company.

Because your sales people will be directly communicating with your customers, you will want to provide customer management protocols and interpersonal skills training.  You will also want to give your sales force the ability to pass along useful templates, ongoing education, lists, checklists, and procedures for how your customers can best work with your product, service and company (like my friend is forced to do nearly every day on her own!). 

Identify what these positive customer experiences and tools are as they specifically apply to your company (ask the sales team, I guarantee they will tell you!) and put them in the hands of your sales force.

Improve effectiveness; increase attractiveness!

Your sales force will be as successful as the tools you give them. If you improve sales effectiveness for conversion and retention, you will contribute to the overall effectiveness of the organization: the marketplace will see your company as an attractive place to work, do business, and emulate  performance!

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