George Sierchio's Coaching Blog for Technology Consulting & Service Business Owners

Planning Vs. Implementation

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:46:00 +0000

Many business owners that I come across suffer from the same problem. They have a very difficult time with getting their business to operate in the way they envision it. It's not so much a lack of planning, but really a lack of implementation.

The first step in getting past this blockade is to realize the thing or things that are standing in your way and making yourself accountable to break those barriers down.

It usually comes down to one or several of these six common blockages:

Fear of failure
Lack of direction
No proven system
Nobody to ask for help or a fear of doing so
Lack of organization
No clarity in goals

Ultimately these six items contribute to procrastination or no implementation of what needs to be done to bring a plan to fruition. Once you identify what's truly holding you back, then you have the ability to adjust to get around these items and/or get help in doing so.

Once you set yourself up to go from planning to actually executing or implementing, the best way to keep yourself moving forward is to keep things in bite size chunks or smaller goals to reach the ultimate goal. This will help in keeping you from slipping back into what was originally blocking you.

Of course setting metrics to measure how well you are doing with these smaller goals and let you know when you have reached the ultimate goal is a must.

Don't let any blockages get in the way of achieving what is your right to go after. Realizing there is a problem and doing what needs to be done to stay on the path you have chosen is the difference between a business that is OK and one that makes a difference for you and your clients.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

NASBA & Consultant's Coach Join Forces

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:59:00 +0000

Free Advice & Discounted Educational Material Added for Members to See Explosive Gains in 2010

Some cool news to let you in on. NASBA Executive Director Frank Raimondi and I have entered into a new agreement to supply NASBA members much needed business assistance and education to keep up with the changing economy and needs of their information technology channel clients.

As we slowly come out of a recession, 2010 will show great promise to those in the IT channel that understand what their clients and potential clients want. What they want is a technology savvy business advisor that has positioned and structured their company to be around for the long haul.

That's what these new NASBA member offerings are all about and I'm happy to supply them.

The new services for NASBA members include:

• A free 30 minute coaching/strategy session with me (George Sierchio)

• A special discount on the second edition of my B.Y.O.B- Build Your Own Business, Don’t Be Your Own Boss book

As the economy takes its twists and turns to recovery, this is an excellent time to be a business owner in the IT channel. The strong will not only survive but be poised to thrive and take on the clients of all that have failed to structure their business for success.

Both NASBA and Action Business Partners, Inc. have been committed to providing the support, services and education needed to make this happen since they each have opened their doors. This joining of efforts should prove to be a great asset to current and future members.

I'm looking very forward to providing these new member services to NASBA members and very happy to be working with Frank Raimondi on this.

If you're not a member yet, check them out as it's free to join the largest professional trade association for channel resellers in North America. You have nothing to lose to see what they have to offer IT channel providers.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Crucial Difference Between Mark-up & Profit Margin

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:30:00 +0000

When I markup my break even costs, I seem to not make as much profit as I calculated I would. Why is that?

That's a question I get now and then and I wish I got it more. Why? Because someone asking that question at least tells me that they are paying attention to their financials and associated goals/metrics.

I don't have an accurate number to give you but I would venture to guess that the majority of small technology business owners out there with this problem make what turns out to be a simple math error. This causes profits not to line up with what was expected. It also leaves a considerable amount of money unnecessarily on the table.

Barring the fact that it could certainly be a case of a fixed fee item taking longer than anticipated and also assuming they know their internal costs, most times the answer lies in not understanding the difference between a mark-up on your costs and establishing a profit margin.

Watch this 5 minute video to see what I mean:

Leave any comments or questions below. And feel free to contact me about this or any other business topic as I'm always looking for blog post material.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Do Your Sights Line Up with Your Targets?

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Who, What, Where, How and Why… Do you really have a handle on these items in your business?

More often than not, when I speak to business owners at events, those that have bought my book or those that take me up on my 30 minute free strategy sessions the same picture pops up.

The key components that make up their (and any) business just don’t add up.

Your business vision and execution relies on making sure all of your sights are lined up on corresponding targets. Let me show you what I mean:

Who- This is your ideal target audience.

What- These are the main target services your business is looking to deliver to the Who.

Where- This is the target location of your Who. Are you delivering to a city, county, state, region, national, international? Does your What and Who require a bigger geographic footprint or can you deliver fairly locally?

When- This is your timing target and has 3 parts. Is a main What or an addition income stream What? If a main What should it be used to open doors or after you are already in with the Who with another What? Is it best to be bleeding edge, leading edge or introduced when established in the industry?

How- This is a 3 part target. In which ways and formats will you deliver your What to your Who (project oriented, recurring revenue, reseller, etc)? In which ways will you set things up internally to most efficiently and effectively deliver the What to your Who? In which ways will you be attracting, telling and selling your What to your Who?

Why- This is a 2 part target. For what internal business reasons are you providing your What to your Who in your Where (i.e. high margins, recurring revenue, etc)? And for what reasons would your Who need and want your What (i.e Why are they your ideal Who for your What)?

Can you answer these basic questions for each one of your company’s main offerings?

The sad truth is many small technology business owners can’t. Often times it leads to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by offering to provide great services and technology solutions to the wrong target audience that just doesn’t see the value in it. In that case, which is wrong? The Who or the What or the How?

Maybe it’s the Where, When or the Why? Are you limiting your business by having a small geographic footprint? Are you trying to add services that your target audience doesn’t want or can’t use? Is it too new or bold to tell the Who about right now?

Thinking these high level items out thoroughly is a huge part of working on the business versus in it. These are executive type planning and decision items.

So I ask you again: Who, What, Where, When, How and Why… Do you really have a handle on these items in your business?

By the way, if you were looking to ask me which of these items comes first, it’s a bit of the chicken or the egg syndrome between Who and What.

If you already have a client base and you are looking to expand offerings to them, then the Who comes first as it already exists and the What should be fit to that. If you are starting a new business or getting into a new area of services, the I would recommend figuring out What you want to offer then the Who and Where that would best fit those offerings.

See you next week with a video blog. If you have any questions for me to answer, you can find me at consultantscoach.com

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

To Niche or Not to Niche- That is the Positioning Question

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:00:00 +0000

I’ve been reading on some forums lately a subject that comes up in many business circles on a regular basis. A true hot topic for those that deliver technology consulting and services especially in a business to business environment.

That topic is about positioning. More directly the conversation is about asking the question “do I really need to service a niche or be some kind of industry expert?”

You might be able to guess my 2 cents on this but watch the quick 5 minute video below to get the scoop.

Pricing Services and Your Competition

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:11:00 +0000

Although it should be rather alarming to me that many business owners don’t use their own numbers to price their services, it’s unfortunately a very, very common occurrence that I’ve witnessed in the last 7 years of coaching and advising technology businesses.

Besides regularly being asked directly about this subject, a few times a year I see it as a hot topic at events, in articles, in blogs, etc. And December to January is when it’s the hottest topic as many businesses start-up at that time, others are looking to change their ways, and yet others are ready to roll out a new service.

So right now the question is at its peak and I need to throw my 2 cents in.
A common suggestion given to people looking for pricing answers is “look at the competition”. And so the blind leading the blind begins…

I don’t want to make this a long post so I’ll say this; unless you already know your own break even numbers and the necessary profit margin you need/want (especially if you have sales people on commission selling this service), you can’t go looking at competitor’s pricing just yet.

The biggest mistake made in the consulting and service businesses is basing pricing on competitors without knowing how that compares to your own business financials. Is it important to know what others are charging? Sure it is. Do you have to be in line with a business of the same size as your business? Absolutely not.

Why is this, you may be asking yourself. Well, first off, you have no idea why your competitors are charging what they do. They could be undercutting themselves for all you know. Second, you are setting yourself up for an apples to apples comparison on price. This is especially dangerous when offering any kind of flat fee services.

The goal is to determine your hourly pricing based on your costs for break even and your needed/desired profit margin. Now you have some boundaries to play with. And since I am a huge fan of not working hourly but for flat fee projects or recurring revenue models, then you also need an excellent handle on the time it takes to perform services. (You do track this metric right?)

At this point you can look at the competition and see what they’re getting. Hopefully it’s at least what you need to price things at. If not, you better juice up the value proposition because you can’t go below your minimums.

Best case scenario is the market is bearing some great price points. If you can get double what you need because you see people are already paying for it, then why not go for it? You have nothing to lose as long as you don’t go below your minimum needs and you can prove the value of what your business delivers.

That’s it for now. Please leave your comments or questions below or contact me from the consultantscoach.com site.

Next week is video blog week. See you then!

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

How to Find Time to Work "On" Your Technology Business

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:03:00 +0000

It's the 800lb gorilla in your business. And I was asked about it at least 15 times last week so now it's this week's video blog.

The question being how do I find the time to get "work on the the business" off of my to do list and actually done". This question is usually asked in many different formats and phrases but THE most common question thrown out there by any company owner that has made the decision to run a true business and not be a glorified contractor.

It may shock some but part of the real problem is this whole business about a "to-do" list.

This is a quick 4 minute video talking about a very important tenant of time management. A small but significant piece to the whole puzzle.

Quick, to the point and packing a lot of punch. Time management at its best :-)

Leave any comments or questions below. And feel free to contact me about this or any other business topic as I'm always looking for blog post material.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Client Management- Things to do differently in 2010

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:22:00 +0000

All too often, the managing of clients goes to the back burner especially in a smaller technology consulting company.

So much emphasis is placed on getting the work done that little attention is placed on making sure clients are actually happy, dealing with those that are struggling or unhappy, or dealing with those that are making you and your business unhappy.

On top of that, not paying attention to clients beyond getting the current contracted work done leaves money sitting on the table. Literally.

Unfortunately for the masses that like to use “my company is too small to do that” as an excuse, it doesn’t work here at all. If you don’t have a client management system in place, you are just making life difficult for yourself. All you need is 1 client and this applies.

If you haven’t done it already, now is a great time to take a close look at this part of your business. Here are the parts to a solid client management system:

First personal contact- At one point or another, someone from your company will talk to or meet with a potential client after your marketing efforts bring them to your sales process. I’m not talking about a cold call situation but when someone raises their hand in earnest interest of working with your business. Handling this with a set process is key to consistency, starting a relationship on the right foot and seeing if you actually ever want to do business with them. Yes this is a sales system/process issue but I also put it under client management since it is a relationship issue.

Handling calls, emails and visits- Guidelines and policies on engaging a client when they contact your business, when they step into your office or when someone from your business visits them is critical. It’s a part of your company culture and consistency from all those have contact with the people paying your bills is a must. Respect and diplomacy is of utmost importance to make sure they return the favor and continue a good working relationship even when they are unhappy about something. (see the next part below)

Dealing with irate clients- Having in your back pocket for you and employees a way to deal with unhappy clients is truly a good idea and sometimes a life saver as you never really know why they are PO’d unless you ask. Why? Because something small that your business may have done (or not actually done) could have brought down a teetering house of cards belonging to the person on the other end of the phone or email. Having a process in the place to find out the problem, recognize/sympathize with the client and work on a solution that will satisfy them is needed. The client is not always right but getting to the bottom of an issue as calmly as possible allows you to pick your battles wisely.

Billing- Something else that is really from another system (financial) that creeps into client management land is handling invoicing and collecting your well earned money. Not making it clear to clients that you expect to get paid for what you do and in the timeframe that was agreed on is a huge mistake. Many smaller businesses actually fear discussing getting paid. If you don’t establish how your contract works up front and have a process to deliver timely invoices (if you don’t have some kind of auto-pay set up), it’s tough to enforce it later. Unfortunately some clients will take advantage of that when it serves them. Not necessarily to be malicious or exert power, but just because you were the easiest target to play “bank” for them when their cash flow was tight. You are not a bank.

Keeping in touch- This is the piece of client management that all business owners recognize but yet most still don’t actually have a process for. Often this is treated like their marketing systems meaning sporadic, inconsistent or non-existent. This IS part of your marketing system as well as client management system. And it needs a thought out process attached to it. When you hear about both leaving money on the table and selling to existing clients is easier than getting new ones, keeping in touch as a process applies to both. This process also becomes very important when your business is providing remote and/or preventive type services. When your team is rarely seen, especially when it reflects a good job done, there better be a “hello, how are you” process in place to keep clients from being suspicious of paying for no services being rendered.

Shedding dead weight- I talked about this a few posts ago but to reiterate, applying the 80/20 rule whenever necessary or at least at the end of every year is an important part of a client management system. Hopefully all of the above items in your system prevented most problem clients from entering your world and kept things professional and under control. But sometimes bad seeds fall through the cracks or clients just become less than desirable over time. Just keep in mind that the goal isn’t to have as many clients as possible. The goal is to have maximum income with minimum effort and headaches. Your bottom 20% is typically not part of that equation so why not make room for a better client or 2?

So that’s a solid client management system with the important processes inside of it outlined for you. Get to making this happen. Don’t forget that as long as you have 1 client, you are big enough to have and need a client management system.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

Knowing When Marketing Ends and Sales Begin

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:48:00 +0000

Here we are back again with another video blog post. This time I'm answering the anonymous question of "I don't know when the marketing process ends and the sales process begins".

An extremely important question that every technology consulting business owner, marketer and sales person should understand. And many don't to their own detriment.

I actually managed a short answer post this time so sit back, watch and listen to this 5 minute post.

Watch this as many times as possible to understand the difference between sales and marketing as well as how you can make sure you establish each of your marketing and sales processes within your sales and marketing systems. You'll be glad you did.

Leave any comments or questions below. And feel free to contact me about this or any other business topic as I'm always looking for blog post material as well as meeting new entrepreneurs through my free 30 minute sessions.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Reasons to Fire a Client In Your Technology Consulting Business

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:52:00 +0000

Now is the time of year, if you haven’t done it already, to pull out the 80/20 rule (or 70/30 or 90/10) and look to get rid of some bad seed clients bringing your business down. It really is true that about 80% of your problems are created by 20% of your clients.

Here are a few good reasons to determine who is an unnecessary client and drop the hammer on them. As obvious as some of them are, many business owners still feel reluctant to do it. Hopefully reading them on this post a few times will make the decision a little easier.

It’s All About the Price- If you have the same “discussion” every time you’re asked to work for a client that revolves around lowering your price or doing free work or something out of scope, drop them like a hot potato. To make yourself feel better, seriously look at how much profit you are making from them. If you know what your prices must be (and I truly hope you do) to break even and also make a profit and you add up all the work you’ve done for them this year, are you actually losing money? If so, your top line revenue will go down by firing them but your profits will actually shoot up and you will free up time to get and work with good clients.

Chronic Late Payers- In a rough economy some clients are going to need a break here and there. But if they don’t ask you for it and just decide to not pay you on time, that’s not a sign of a good relationship. Every day they are late; it costs your business money. Get them on some kind of EFT or autopay setup or get rid of them. They’re not helping you by sticking around.

Complaining, Whining & Insults- If you find yourself cringing or in a foul mood when even hearing the name of a certain client, it may be time to give yourself and employees a break and make it so you never have to hear them again. Some people are just on power trips and like to play mind games. If mutual respect for your business (including you and your employees) is not possible, why put up with it? I would suggest that you try and work out issues if they are a profitable client and it seems you are just not on the same page. But if they cause you a ton of pain, don’t value what you do and don’t make you money, it’s better to free yourself from that hell and use the time wisely to find a good client.

Ethics Issues- For some of you this will sadly ring true and I hope you open your eyes to how bad this is. There are clients that will get a little too comfortable with you and show their true colors by asking you to do something on the dark side (i.e. illegal). Not only should you not entertain them, but run away fast. Anything but a no will not only get you in potential trouble but now they shouldn’t trust you as much as you don’t trust them.

Clash of Standards- Sometimes you will just never be on the same page. It’s their way (which makes your company’s job very difficult) or the highway. I say get on the highway and forget about them. Other times they have such a poorly run business that no matter what they are paying you to do, you just can’t possibly get it done. This is a real problem if delivering managed services or project work as you will lose time and money no matter what. Figure this out fast and if a frank conversation can’t straighten out their ways, you are never going to be able to help them.

In some cases, such as the complainer situation, taking the opportunity to jack your prices to something that will make it all worth the effort actually works out. If they don’t take the new fees, you win. If they do, you win and they might be a lot nicer to you since they took the price hike because now they see your value and what would happen if you leave them.

In other cases, if a non-emotional, fact based conversation will not clear things up, then the talk will end up as a very professional bowing out of the work now or when the contract is over. All depending on the situation.

The key is to be professional as much as possible to avoid a true bridge burning experience. But remember you are running a business and there is no reason to deal with people or businesses that will hinder your success.

Shedding a client is not an easy thing to do. But just like the pain of removing an anchor employee that’s sinking your ship eventually goes away, in the end you, your employees and your business will be much better when that weight is lifted off of your shoulders.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

In 2010 Don't Be Held Back by "1"

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:02:00 +0000

As business owners and entrepreneurs the last few months of the year is a scramble to finish projects out, make sure all bills are sent, collect payments, close the books and plan for the next year.

Hopefully you take the time to reflect back on goals that were met and those that didn't happen. In addition, while you still have a few days left on the year, take an inventory on the things you have control of as a business owner and entrepreneur and how you handled them. Now is the time to resolve to and plan on taking full control of everything in 2010.

Not taking full control of the vital pieces of your business will sooner than later have you fall behind the eight ball never to recover. What pieces am I talking about? How about vendors, clients, employees/sub contractors, marketing, services offered, source of revenue, etc.

As a small business it's very easy to get owned by the business when you get held back by what I call the "1's" in your business. Here's a partial list:

1 Client- If the loss of 1 client can take you down, they own you and your business. Spread the wealth in 2010

1 Vendor- Don't let a vendor hold you hostage in a way that says if they don't deliver, you can't deliver.

1 Employee- I'm not saying get more employees or subs, but I am saying that you need to make them replaceable by having a written process for as much as possible in what they are responsible for so a person with similar skills, personality etc can take over. If it's all in their head, they own you. If it's all in your head, you won't fire fast enough and won't be able to quickly train another.

1 Marketing Source- It's all about having a marketing system with several marketing avenues (processes). If you have one and it gets neglected or fails, it owns you.

1 Revenue Source- If you have clients, you have the opportunity for multiple revenue sources. Why leave money on the table when you have so much more to offer?

Now more than ever a technology business is not about putting up a website and saying "I'm open for business" to people. The beauty of owning a business is nobody being able to fire you but you. If you're paying attention, you'll know when that writing is on the wall. It happens but you should be in full control of it.

A sure fire way to not have to fire yourself, or at least see it coming, is to run a true business where you are on the top of the food chain and by not "being your own boss" which implies that you are your own employee as well. You didn't start a business to wind up an employee again so why subject yourself to that?

Resolve to build your own business, not be your own boss in 2010. Plan to remove any and all "1's" that are holding you hostage.

Run a true business, be a true entrepreneur, be a true business advisor to your clients. That's where the fun , success, and money is at.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Easing the New Hire Training Pain in Your Technology Business

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:05:00 +0000

Back again with another video blog. It seems hiring related questions are all the rage.

This question is about how to ease the time and money pain of hiring then training a new technology business employee. This question was asked in the context of hiring tech service people but it really hits home for any type of employee including administration, marketing, sales etc.

I went a little more in-depth than originally planned so set yourself up for about a 14 minute video.

This question was asked by the IT solution provider folks (and new clients of mine) at paperlessconcepts.com

If you have any comments, post them below. You know where to find me if you need me. Until next time...

To Your Business Success

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

Proud to Be an Entrepreneur

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:13:00 +0000

As a reader of this blog, you are a business owner. And if I can have anything to do about it, you will be a true entrepreneur.

As 2009 finishes and 2010 begins to unfold, we need to be proud of what we accomplish even if most of the world does not give credit to our businesses being the crux of employment and the economy as a whole.

We don’t get credit for creating jobs and constantly putting the money we make back into the system. We don’t get credit for thinking of others first, such as employees, vendors and anyone else that sits on top of the “must be paid” ladder. We barely get help from the government and we certainly don’t get any breaks for doing what we do.

Sometimes we are even mislabeled as money grubbing people, but here are some statistics to negate that:

Charitable Giving by Household Income, based on IRS data:

Income Class              Entrepreneurs     Non-Entrepreneurs

$65,480+                       3.23%                      2.42%
$37,381-$65,480           3.47%                        1.84%
$21,661-$37,380           3.29%                        1.14%
$10,661-$21,660           2.25%                        0.74%
$0-$10,660                    1.55%    0.35%

Average                         2.53%                         1.27%

Those are some amazing statistics regarding money hungry, ego maniac business owners, huh?

Be proud of what we accomplish and do for others as entrepreneurs. You deserve every positive thing you get for being driven to do what you do with your business.

Know that as you keep heading down this entrepreneurial path that someone has already run into the same problems or scenarios you are going through right now as well as those you will hit in the future. That means there is always an answer and people that think just like you do to help you find that answer.

So as we head into the new year, keep on keepin’ on knowing that you are doing good for not only yourself but your clients and anyone else touched by your business. And you are not alone.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

PS Video blogs to return next week with another great hiring related question. Send me your questions if you have any that you want answered via video.

I'll Be at Spring Training March 2010...

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Baseball. Gotta love the sport.

I played in little league, through HS, into college and even semi-pro. Although I still coach HS baseball now and have enough in me to play on and run a team in the summer, my chances of going pro are most certainly gone. But...

I'm still going to Spring Training next March

Actually it's the Spring Training for Business event out in Mesa, Arizona from March 10-12, 2010 that I will be speaking at with my friends/colleagues Stuart Selbst, David Schafren, Harry Brelsford and more.

A great mix of business and fun with a golf outing before the event starts and everyone invited to stick around to go to a spring training game on the day after the event (game included in the package).

This event will be like no other that you have been to before or will attend in 2010. Spring Training for Business will help you develop the skills you need to set your company apart in today’s ever changing marketplace.

The following is some of the subject matter that will be covered by me and the other expert speakers and presenters:

Sales of Services
Marketing of Services
Marketing to Specific Verticals
Social Networking
Service Deliverables
Human Resources
Client Management
Customer Service
CEO Level Leadership
Time Management
Business Planning
Networking Skills

Early bird registration is already in effect so get yourself to the information page (click here for Spring Training for Business) to check out the agenda and details then sign up while the discount is still available.

Make sure you fill out that George Sierchio sent ya.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Avoid Hiring the Wrong "Personality" Into Your Technology Business

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:16:00 +0000

Next up on the special video blog posts that I'm doing for the end of 2009 is on hiring.

This question was asked to me by a managed service provider that also does custom programming and website development out in Arizona and it's another very typical small business issue.

The video will detail the full question but basically they asked how to avoid the employee "switcharoo". That's when you think you found the perfect personality and skill fit for your business but after hiring this ideal employee, they start showing their true colors which were not reflected at all in the interview.

I tried to shorten this answer up but failed. Sorry. It's almost an entire 12 minutes long. So clear out your schedule and watch below:

Looking forward to setting up the next video post. As you know, if you have any comments, post them below. And you know where to find me if you need me.

To Your Business Success

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

Slow Growth vs Lead Generation Marketing Systems

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:15:00 +0000

Now for something a little new for the blog. I asked people for some questions so I could answer them on the blog using video. I only picked out a handful for this method as they reflect issues common to most rather than truly individual scenarios better served in a different forum.

These will be 5 to 10 minute clips of me talking instead of writing out the answers or topics.

I'll be putting out a few to end out 2009 starting this week. Below is the first one:

The question I answered for this post is: When you have a product that everyone (seemingly) likes and that serves your clients well how do you jump off the “slow growth” train and start getting people to ring your phone more often?

Our biggest problem is we cannot seem to get enough inquiries to call or meet with us. I do not know if it’s an issue of exposure or just signs of the times...

Question from Vision Computer Solutions, in Michigan.

This is a terrific question and was picked for this post because it hits home with many technology businesses even those, like Vision Computer Solutions, that are well established and in business for over 10 years. Here's my answer in the video below (10 minutes).

Looking forward to setting up the next video post. As you know, if you have any comments, post them below. If you want to talk about this subject, set it up here for a free 30 minute coaching session.

To Your Business Success

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

Building an "Iron Cage" Around Your Technology Consulting Business Clients

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:05:00 +0000

No the Iron Cage is not a reference to pro wrestling. Well I guess there are similarities since I am referring to placing a cage around your clients so they can’t get out. Actually it’s more like they don’t want to get out because what’s in the cage is a lot better than what’s outside of it.

Everyone’s got their concerns about losing clients in this economy and rightfully so. That’s why high value is so important. High value meaning what you bring to the table helps clients in a way that allows them to effectively continue doing business. You help them to not go out of business as well as be poised for growth in a better economy and that keeps you humming along.

It’s a simple concept right? But how do you do it? The first thing to do is understand that although exceptional services and products are a must, these points are not necessarily going to keep clients from looking elsewhere. What will give them no choice but to stay with you is adding on services and products that are so important, priceless even, that they effectively can’t afford to lose them and suffer the pain it will bring.

Although there are some easier ways to accomplish the Iron Cage, this way just mentioned, if accomplished, can’t be beat. Let’s throw out some examples from outside of the tech world first.

I have a mentor that used to be an owner of a few menswear stores. One of the duties he partook in was buying merchandise for the stores. To help him with this he was part a buying group to leverage discounts from vendors. His annual discounts totaled over 20 times the yearly cost of membership into the group. Needless to say he didn’t leave the group until he sold the business. And he said even if they doubled the price, he would have been stupid to leave. Instead the buying group was the stupid ones for setting up an Iron Cage and not taking advantage of raising prices. But that’s another topic.

As another outside the tech world example, let’s look at a restaurant rewards program. There is a company I know of that provides everything a retail business needs to develop a loyalty rewards program to their customers. Places like restaurants, stores, repair shops, etc. And here is their Iron Cage; they have a terrific turn-key setup that these retailers can utilize very quickly, and it works well. But what happens if a retailer decides not to do a loyalty program anymore? Well, first off they would need a swift kick in the pants as this would be a bad idea. But from the program provider’s point of view, to stop a rewards program will require the retailer to tell all of his point holding customers that their points don’t have any value. Would you want to have to make that decision? That’s an ultimate Iron Cage.

So what super important and ultra valuable things can you add to your services and products?

Can you come up with a discount they could never get themselves for hardware/software/services that are bought or used on a regular basis? Maybe set up a buying group of your own. Are there any services you can add for free (without putting a dent in your pocket) that they would normally have to pay for? Is there a reward you can give to a client for doing a certain amount of business with you or signing a contract for a certain length of time?

The easiest way to think of Iron Cage possibilities is to make a list of activities you want a client to do to help your business out, and come up with a reward for it. Believe me that it works for every business model.

Just keep in mind that we are talking about clients that already employ your business. We always want to make sure they are happy doing business with us, but the Iron Cage is our way to guarantee that straying for any reason is really not worth the effort.

If you get stumped on this, you know where to find me.

Just follow this link to set up a free 30 minute coaching session.

To Your Business Success

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

Resisting Change- Bad Idea for Small Technology Businesses

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:04:00 +0000

Nobody really likes change. And that goes double for business owners. Triple it up for those business owners that have seen decent success.

Unfortunately, things always have to change in one way or another. Clothes go out of style, furniture wears out, and equipment breaks down. That requires a change whether we like it or not. For business owners, even if something seems to be working out really well, something will need to change.

Customers will demand different things, technologies get better and are needed to keep up with everyone else, clients will not respond to the same type of marketing that worked for a long time, salaries and contractor rates will fluctuate, other costs will go up. These will all cause you to make a change in the way you do business.

The good news is that if you are reading this post, you are most likely a small company. So even if you personally do not like to change, at least you know you can. Unlike a big, dumb company, you can make adjustments on the fly that can take a day to a month. Things that would take them the better part of a year.

This nimble status is something to utilize to the fullest. Something that allows you to take advantage of any situation that comes up requiring an adjustment with or without time to really plan for it. Being opportunistic is the name of the game. But being resistant to change is not part of that equation.

No time is a good time to sit back on your laurels and not take a look at how you do things to find improvements. As an entrepreneur, it’s also never a good idea to stop educating yourself on how to improve you and how you run your business.

Believe it or not, the leading cause of most business owners not looking for better ways to run their business and keep themselves educated is not lack of money. It’s also not lack of time. The real problem is a fear of actually having to go through a change in routine. Even more so is taking the risk of executing that change.

Sometimes when a business owner hits a small jackpot, it starts to make them resistant to change. Their drive to take risks starts to diminish as they think "I've done all I can" or "This worked so don't ever look at it again".

Risk taking is a cornerstone of entrepreneurship. And they don’t want to acknowledge that what worked before is no longer working as well. That’s a problem for your business and when trying to get clients on board with a change as well.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating fixing what is clearly not broken. What I am saying is that even the best things you have going will most likely not be everlasting and those things that are broke or not doing as well as they can should be looked at for a change. And doing so through a fresh set of eyes is usually not a bad idea.

Don’t stop getting new ideas to try out through your constant business education. Keep your eyes open for what’s working for other businesses in or out of your industry that you can adapt and try. And ACTUALLY USE your company’s nimbleness and ability to adjust quickly to your advantage and your clients’ advantage.

Ready for some change? Let's talk about it. Just follow this link to set up a free 30 minute coaching session.

To Your Business Success

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

Joint Ventures and Making Them Happen

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:37:00 +0000

There are misconceptions on the part of most small business owners. Many think that Joint Ventures (JVs) are a concept out of their reach and that they are only for big players. And this thought pattern happens in two ways.

First it’s thought that big players are the only businesses that do JVs and they don’t want to deal with a small fry. Second is the notion that small businesses are boxed out from being in the JV picture at all because they have nothing to offer. Another misconception is that the entrepreneur thinks they are not in a business conducive to doing JVs at all.

Without fully understanding what a JV is or could be, it’s easy to see where this train of thought may come from.

Let’s start with the first misconception and define a JV better. Although it certainly could be, a JV is not necessarily two bug companies leveraging off of each other or a medium sized business catapulting off of a huge business. As a matter of fact, many small business see tremendous growth due to a JV with any size other company. It’s not greatly publicized but that’s how most medium and big businesses actually “made their bones” in a relatively short time period.

Joint ventures come in all shapes and sizes but only one part of this widely misunderstood marketing medium is true. The true part is that it’s all about leverage. The real misnomer is in a small business thinking they have nothing to offer another party of any size. Yes, the odds of a $100k business being able to make a worthwhile contribution to a $100 million business is slim, but it could be possible. For our purposes here we want to aim a little lower, but not quite as low as you may be thinking.

The key to a JV with a business the same size as yours or one 10x bigger is thinking more in terms of two ways. First, the other party must be a non-competing entity but have the same target audience. Second you need to think in terms of “what would they want from me to let me borrow that list and endorsement”. If you can’t reciprocate by giving them an opportunity to use a similar sized list of targets, then high value information/education or money is usually the great equalizer.

What you are really trying to do is gain potential clients that fit your target audience without spending marketing and sales dollars to find them. That’s why you want the JV partner to do the introduction and endorsement for you and not just “rent” the list from them. That defeats the purpose of the whole exercise.

So the result of this is that you either get yourself in front of potential clients that you already know spend money and can use your services/products or actual instant clients without the dancing, courting, and waiting. For a service, door #1 is more likely and the best plan.

In return, the JV partner either gets a well educated audience out of what you gave their list or gets some kind of return on the gross revenue that you make for their part down the road. Depending on what you are selling, this could be a one time commission or recurring fees for a set period of time such as a year for each purchase made by each client you gained from their help. Just so you’re not hit between the eyes when negotiating a fee, you need to do your numbers to know just how much you can give up especially if you also included some kind of discount to the list to make the JV partner look good.

To not waste the effort or the possible slight loss you may have taken to acquire these new clients, you had better have your client management process lined up so you can turn them into long term clients. I’ve seen businesses triple their client list (and profits) with one carefully played out JV. Of course the rest of the business was also set up to handle this influx as well.

So let’s quickly go over the thought that you may not be in a business that can do joint ventures. The truth is, as long as another non-competing business/industry exists that has the same target audience as your business, there is a JV opportunity. All you need to do is open you eyes to the possibilities.

Before I tell you what I want you to do now, I want to make something clear. Although a JV can lead to some sort of true partnership, the nature of a JV is just sharing resources with a simple “you do that for me and I’ll give you this in return”. A true partnership is a much more complicated entity than a JV. But doing a few with the same company is a good litmus test on what a partnership with them may be like.

So here’s what I want you to do. Grab a piece of paper and list out what products and services you would like to form a JV around. Then list out what kind of break even margins or small loss you can deal with giving out as a payment. If you can barter with something else other than commission based payments such as providing their audience with superior information/education or reciprocating an endorsed offer to your list for them, write that down as well.

Next list out the specific target audience(s) for each JV item then find non-competing potential partners that serve the same target to contact. Keep in mind that sometimes a good JV partner is an independent sales person and not necessarily a business entity.

Remember, getting buy-in from a JV partner is the same as selling to a potential client. It’s all about spelling out what’s in it for them. In turn, you might just find someone to work with that adds a new passive revenue stream to your business as well.

If you would like to discuss these topics for your particular business, just follow this link to set up a free 30 minute session http://consultantscoach.com/FreeStrategySession.php.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach

It's All About the List- Part 4

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:15:00 +0000

In part 3 we talked about using Joint Ventures to generate a list of qualified leads. This time around we’ll go over some ways to do it all on your own.

This means not having a list at all to start with but utilizing a few of the many available methods to have leads find you versus you finding them. Most of the methods I like to use with my clients do not involve a budget at all but some may require a bit of money outlay to get done.

To keep it simple and the cost down, we’ll talk here about just a few that are at the top of my list:

Websites: 10 years ago a website for most was a way to cut down on printing costs by making it a big brochure. Information and branding was the name of the game. With the low cost and simple tools available out there to automate your website to a pretty far extent as a lead generation system, there’s no reason not to do this.

Some in the technology business world have been moving towards this by providing a sign up for an emailed newsletter. That’s a good start and better than nothing but it’s very hit or miss. Most doing this have nothing compelling a visitor to sign up for the newsletter so many lead capture opportunities are missed. Even worse, you still don’t know how well these “leads” stack up against your true client base criteria.

A newsletter is great and it should definitely be sent out to current/past clients but it’s not much of an attractor to new possible clients. But stepping up the technology behind it and utilizing a true autoresponder to capture those to put on your lead list, manage that database and separate them into what they are interested in so you can automate most marketing to them is a better idea.

Now you can go beyond just offering a simple newsletter that has a variety of information and start offering on your website pinpointed information in the form of white papers and reports that will separate those looking for Service A and Service B. You can not only just target market to them but keep them informed on your company and send them the newsletter.

Again we’re back to message to market match and your list(s) are now allowing you to take warm leads that told you what they were looking for and be able to use the autoresponder to automatically market to them based on this knowledge. You can also take your marketing offline if you move these leads into giving you other info such as phone numbers and addresses. And all it costs is some upfront setup time and a few dollars a month for the autoresponder.

PPC and Natural Search: Ok so this is still website related as you need to get people to the site and capture those that are interested in what you have to offer. This can be even longer than what I wrote above for websites (which was still much shorter than all the details involved) so I will really keep this simple.

Having a solid informational site with lead generation ability is great but you have to get people there and they need to be the right people. This is not a perfect science but doing what you can to have the right people find you will make a big difference in not wasting your time. There is no point in attracting 100 visitors a day if 90 of them got there by accident trying to look for something else. You are not Amazon selling 1000’s of items.

Setting up a website with all of your essential pages is a must but it’s hard to pinpoint how you come up in a natural search as you can’t really make a page work to be found for a slew of keyword phrases. So what you thought was a 5 page site might really be better off as a 10 page site that has pages that shoot off to talk separately about your products and services.

But we’re not done yet. To really get noticed in natural search you should have a variety of these 10 pages that are distinctly optimized for each search phrase you think your true audience is looking for. Now your 10 page site is a 30+ page site. Many small businesses fail at making a 5 page site into a 10 page site but almost all don’t take the time to become a 30+ page site. And it makes no sense since it shouldn’t cost you any more to host a bigger site.

Besides natural search, you can also set up this 30+ page site to attract visitors based on pay-per-click (PPC) methods. This will cost you a few dollars to use a service like Google Adwords, but if done right it becomes a much more effective version of direct marketing on the web.

It’s also a good way to test those keyword phrases you think are suitable for your business. For $1 a day you can find out a lot. And if you want to make PPC a full part of your marketing mix once again it’s automated, acts like offline direct marketing as you are advertising to those you don’t know, but you only get charged when a viable prospect clicks on the ad.

It can be a low cost effective way to generate leads depending on how well you construct the ad, but just as importantly how well the landing page they go to is designed to meet what they were trying to find and compel the to take action and make themselves a part of your list. Otherwise the flip side is you could lose your shirt, but let’s assume you wouldn’t go into PPC without getting help.

Speaking Engagements- Speaking is a very low priority to most technology business owners as even more than most, speaking in public is not on the top of the “like to do” list. I can’t blame you but that’s what makes it such a great separator from the pack. And it could be a low to no cost way of getting in front of a captive audience that chose to listen to you. In some cases you may even get paid to do this marketing/branding.

Although this is a variation on using a Joint Venture, I consider it a separate entity since it involves the speaking effort. Bottom line, groups and organizations that contain your target list are always looking for people to educate their members. So finding a few that fit your target niches will allow you to hook up with them to do webinars, teleseminars or in-person events.

This is really the best way to generate a list as you have knocked down a lot of barriers by being an expert, having them come to you, and moving right to establishing a relationship. Especially at in-person opportunities.

Ok this post is more than long enough and yes I know I could have gone into greater detail but room and individual needs make this the wrong forum.

I hope you got a ton of ideas from this 4 part series. If you would like to discuss these topics for your particular business, just follow this link to set up a free 30 minute session http://consultantscoach.com/FreeStrategySession.php.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

3 Steps to Your Most Dependable, Motivated & Productive Staff Ever

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:48:00 +0000

Ignore the media, market even hard and continue seeking the advice of your advisors. Most importantly, start improving the productivity of your staff today to make this most profitable year ever.

By Grant D. Robinson, President of People Values & Partner of George Sierchio (of Action Business Partners, Inc.)

Anytime you want to learn how to create performance standards in your company and then hire and develop a TOP Performing Staff, visit http://www.PeopleValues.com/ActionBusinessPartners.htm

Here’s a fact:

Without a productive staff, you simply are not going to grow your business or accomplish your important professional and personal goals.

In this time of economic turmoil, never before has it been more important to employ a dependable, motivated and productive staff.

Here’s another fact:

Not all businesses are experiencing hard times.

The top 10% (or so) of every industry have remained on pace to shatter previous revenue records. From what we’ve found, all of them have something in common.

The leaders of these businesses are ignoring the dreaded news spouted by the local and national media. They have continued to seek the professional advice of their business coaches and advisors. They have NOT discontinued or cut marketing efforts to attract new customers…

And most importantly, they have all taken the following steps to improve the productivity of their staff to assure 2009 is their best year ever:

Step 1 – Establish Performance Standards

If you haven’t set minimum productivity standards (goals) for your positions, how do you expect your employees to produce to your expectations?

They can’t and won’t.

The most productive businesses have established, WRITTEN systems to assure every employee becomes and remains productive. And it’s important to know, a system is much more than a “Job Description” that your employee tosses in their file never to be seen again.

Productive businesses always have productive people. Productive people have “blueprints” for success which include:

1. At least five “S.M.A.R.T. Goals” and objectives of their position

2. All major duties and responsibilities (what they must do to accomplish the goals and objectives of their position)

3. Five to 10 “success strategies” for their position that they can initiate on their own to improve their performance.

By having these performance standards in your business, you and your managers spend less of your time micro-managing, externally motivating your unmotivated and will improve your productivity.

Step 2 – Hire the Right People in the First Place

If you don’t follow a proven system to attract and hire the right people, studies have shown up to 84% of your new hires will fail in their first year on the job.

And when they do, they will damage your customer service, employee morale, productivity, sales and bottom-line. Even worse, you and your managers will spend most of your time solving the problems created by having these people in your business.

Now, if you’d rather spend your time, energy and money on business development and increasing sales, start hiring the right people.

To do so, learn the best practices of TOP Performing companies. They all start with written performance standards, then “actively” recruit and never rely solely on their “gut” to make critical hiring decisions.

Step 3 – Continually Develop the “Individuals” on Your Team

Once you have created performance expectations and hire people who “fit” these standards, I guarantee your staff productivity will already have doubled.

You’ll also soon find it is much easier to take an employee doing 100% of quota to 120%, than taking an employee doing 50% to 60% of what is expected.

But the only way you are going to do this is to establish a system of continual performance review and at the same time, provide them the skills, strategies and “individualized” coaching they deserve (and require).

Your market’s leaders insure that every employee, from their executives to entry level, are reviewed and developed at least twice a year. You need to realize that if any employee is not reaching their performance and productivity expectations, your organization will also fall short on reaching its productivity, sales and revenue goals.

Many business leaders struggling to accomplish their goals act as if they believe not every employee can be a TOP Performer. Do you think market leaders believe this?

They don’t and neither should you. Start developing your greatest asset today to make this your most profitable year yet.

****************

To learn how to create performance standards in your company and then hire and develop a TOP Performing Staff, visit http://www.PeopleValues.com/ActionBusinessPartners.htm

****************
About the Author:

Grant D. Robinson is the President of People Values and partner of Partner of George Sierchio (of Action Business Partners, Inc.). Since 2000, People Values has been perfecting their 7-Step Job Matching Process. A system small businesses use to make it easier to hire and develop a TOP Performing Staff.

It's All About the List- Part 3

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:11:00 +0000

In my last post on this subject of creating lead generation lists, I spoke about buying lists. This next round is about using Joint Venture partners (JV) to cut down the cost and find already active potential clients.

I would recommend setting yourself up with JV's that work in a quid pro quo manner versus paying somebody for use of their list. The reason why is because these lists are not exactly vetted in particular for you so you would be back to buying 1000 names that aren't a particular fit. That is except for the fact that the JV you are working with should have been checked out enough to have a good chance that their list fit at least your basic criteria and maybe a point or 2 on the detailed criteria.

I may be confusing you so here's an example. Let's say you have a niche in the medical field for general practitioner doctors that you sell your IT services to. A joint venture opportunity would be with people that sell niche specific software packages to these doctor's offices.

Buying that list would probably get you a bunch of doctors with office too small or in locations that don't fit your geography etc etc. So why buy that 1000 name list when 50 fit your criteria. That's wasted time and money.

Besides, the real point of a JV is to have your partner ENDORSE you and send out the notice for you. Not make you pay for a list of people that don't know you causing you to have to set up a mailing campaign with 4 to 8 sequenced mailings to get some bites or a bunch of emails that can get you spam canned.

Them endorsing you will also give you the opportunity to help them not waste their time by doing their own vetting so they send it to those that can really use your service, thus making them look good in the process.

There are a variety of ways to do this and I'll list out a few here but this is not the forum to get into heavy details. You know where to find me if you want to discuss this in detail to fit your business model exactly. So here it goes:

Total Quid Pro Quo: They send out an email for you that you write and they add in their 2 cents at the beginning with an introduction and endorsement and you do the same for them. Cost = nothing. A little tough to do if you have a much smaller list than them but it's possible if you ask. And if the JV is with an association or community often they will endorse anything that helps their members.

I think it's necessary for me to add in that we are talking lead generation so this is a free offer to capture name, email and/or other info. Unless you are selling a low cost product, this is not the time to go in for the kill. We're looking for leads from true prospective clients to put into the marketing funnel and build you personal list.

Back End Payment: This may take a little trust on their part unless you can set up some kind of system to track it, but usually a quick written agreement will work. They agree to send an endorsed email, or an insert in a regularly mailed newsletter, or with their bill mailings, etc and they get a cut of any business gained. Depending on what you are selling the "cut" could be all over the place so I can't go into detail but let's just say you shouldn't be stingy as your costs are minimal for them to do this for you. Don't forget that this is for lead generation so you should be selling in the endorsement but giving something away for free to capture the lead. Then you track the lead to give them a cut of the sale.

Website Thank You Page: In this case you have 2 choices. If selling a low cost product, you could make an up sell offer on a thank you page to something they sell and give up a cut again. In most cases it's better to truly make it a lead generation tactic so giving away an audit, white paper, teleseminar, webinar, etc makes more sense. It doesn't have to be on a thank you web page but think of it this way.

A thank you page indicates that this person already bought something or got something for free so they are already in the right frame of mind to take you up on something else since they are already there. As long as it fits with what they just received from the JV as you are selling this to the JV as something good to put in front of their customers to make them look even better.

These are some basic ways to use other people's lists. Especially lists that are actual customers, not just prospects as they have the propensity to be the decision makers you are looking for. Again the objective is really to pull from their lists those that belong as prospects on your list.

So I encourage you to write down what businesses in your niches would make good JV partners. Then fiddle around with a pitch to them that says you can help them look like heroes to their clients and even better if you can put some money in their pockets.

In the next part for this series we'll go into generating your own lists from scratch.

If you would like to discuss this for your particular business, just follow this link to set up a free 30 minute session http://consultantscoach.com/FreeStrategySession.php.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

It's All About the List- Part 2

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:41:00 +0000

OK, so in Part 1 of lead generation- the secret is in the list we talked about why segmented lists are important to your marketing system. You may want to reread that post as a refresher and then get into the info below talking about how you actually compile segmented lists.

So I left you off telling you that I consider 3 ways to generate a segmented list to market to. I will repeat again the notion that marketing pieces should be done talking about 1 particular product/service and worded to fit the audience AKA message to market match. And this goes for web pages, direct mail, telemarketing calls, seminars and everything in-between.

Now let's get to the generation of these lists. The 3 ways are: You buy them, you joint venture with someone whose list matches your segment(s), or you generate your own.

Let's start off with buying a list. This is more of a science than an art as the first thing you need to do is breakdown your current best/ideal customers into what makes them the best/ideal. If you don't have any or many customers, you still need to have criteria in your head as to your true target.

Basic things to include would be industry, specific industry niche, location, revenues, employees, ideal decision maker (Owner, VP of XXX, Manager of YYY) etc.

Then you want to get a little more specific depending on what you are selling to really fit your ideal client. Do they use specific systems? Do they need to have a specific network infrastructure? Do they cater to a specific client/consumer/industry niche? Do they subscribe to particular industry magazines or resource organizations? Are they members of a particular organization? Do they have a specific internal department structure? Do they have a solid budget for your service/product? Do they already buy services/products that compliment your offer?

Again, anything that would distinguish them in your mind as an ideal client, which obviously includes the need for your product/service and the ability to pay for the value you deliver.

Now you have enough to go on to employ a list broker service as this is the fastest and most accurate way to go about obtaining a list. And there are list brokers servicing all kinds of industries including yours. Google them and you will see this very quickly.

Providing them with this very exact criteria will yield a compact list of targeted prospects. Of course this compact list will cost more than giving them only the basic criteria but wouldn't you rather target 100 that fit your need than 1000? The increased cost of the list you bought pales in comparison to the amount of wasted time and marketing dollars that a bloated list would cost.

For example, would you rather pay $150 for a 1000 name list that will cost you $4000to do a direct mail campaign on (assuming 4 mailing sequence to the list) for a 1% to 2% repsonse rate? Or would you rather pay $500 for 100 names that have a good chance to respond at a 10% to 20% costing you more like $400 for the same sequence of mailings?

That's what I thought.

Next is joint venture lists. This is the quickest way to find and move people into your marketing funnel and is fairly accurate if you pick the right partners. It's not the most accurate as there will rarely be an exact fit, but it can be free or it can cost you on the back end after a sale. Not bad either way.

But again, this is another posts on its own so you'll have to wait until next time. (you can get to part 3 here http://www.georgesierchio.com/2009/10/its-all-about-list-part-3.html)

In the mean time, write out your ideal client criteria and check out some list brokers if you like to use that route in your business. Find a couple for your short list that fit your budget and have the capability to produce the list based on your basic and detailed criteria.

If you would like to discuss using list brokers to build a targeted list, just follow this link to set up a free 30 minute session http://consultantscoach.com/FreeStrategySession.php.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Going to Vegas Baby- For SMB Nation

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:45:00 +0000

Just a quick blog and shout out about my upcoming trip. I'm leaving on Friday (10/2) to head out to Vegas for the weekend. This year's home to SMB Nation.

If you're going out there, look for me floating around the Expo Center on Saturday and ask me the prizes I'll be giving away. Karl Palachuk will also be giving away prizes with my name on them on his Big Wheel of Fortune so check him out at the SMB Books booth.

Sunday I'll be jammed with activities including being on a Business SME panel at 8AM, a podcast interview with Karl and then "speed dating", which is sort of a floating guru round table things. Lots of fun.

There will also be some other podcasts from Friday through Sunday that Karl Palachuk will be conducting. Here's the schedule if you want to listen in.

Here's the schedule:

Friday Oct. 2nd:
1:50 PM to 2:20 PM
VOIP Podcast with Karl Palachuk / Jay Weiss
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/881510992

Saturday Oct. 3rd:
2:25 PM to 2:55 PM
SharePoint Podcast with Karl Palachuk / Robert Crane
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/749350137

Sunday Oct. 4th:
11:25 AM to 11:55 AM
Business Coaching Podcast with Karl Palachuk / Matt Makowicz / George Sierchio
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/156829056

Talk to you all when I get back.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

The Secret to Lead Generation- It's All About the List

gsierchio@actionbusinesspartners.com (George Sierchio) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:22:00 +0000

When attempting to generate sales in a technology consulting and service business, you need to market your business. Directly going for the kill is not going to work unless you get a call from someone that says "I need help now and I want you to do it".

Of course that happens here and there as you are an established (well positioned) player in a particular niche, but it's not a normal occurrence. The typical sale is made by marketing your business, getting prospects into your marketing funnel and then leading them into your sales process.

Unfortunately the skill of lead generation escapes many technology businesses or seems like a very difficult process to get right. But just like any other skill and process, it takes learning and testing to get it right and keep it working. That's how this particular necessary business operation works.

But the real secret to low cost and effective lead generation is in the list. What you are marketing and the medium in which you are doing it are best served with a targeted and segmented list. Any other way is usually a dissapointment to say the least.

Let me explain. A targeted list represents only prospects that fit the same criteria that make up your best customers. That means the same industry, size, revenues, operations structure, etc.

A segmented list takes this targeted list and breaks it down into like parts. This is how you get a message to market match as you get much better results tweaking your marketing to fit exactly who you are talking to. If you are doing a marketing piece on a service (and you really should only talk about 1 thing per piece) you are going to get much better response by talking to each segment directly.

For example if your marketing piece (direct mail, telemarketing call, particular web page, PPC ad, etc) is selling Service A, you will get much more traction by making your content talk directly to Small Construction Companies and change things up to make more sense to Large Manufacturing Facilities That's matching your message to the market.

So now you're probably thinking "where exactly am I getting these list from". In my book there are 3 ways. You buy them, you joint venture with someone whose list matches your segment(s), or you generate your own.

Since that's a post of its own, come back next week for that explanation. (You can get to Part 2 right here.)

If you would like to discuss building a targeted list, just follow this link to set up a free 30 minute session http://consultantscoach.com/FreeStrategySession.php.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach