“Oh boy… a RFP!  I get to do a lot of research and consulting for free, with very little chance of winning the deal!!”  Is this not the thought that really comes to your mind when an RFP comes to you?  After reading the RFP you come away with tons of questions because the whole project seems very vague.  It is because the prospect, 9 times out of 10, doesn’t know what they really need (wants are not the same as needs).

The prospect will pick the proposal that most closely matches the prospect’s “needs”, correct? Well then, why would they want a proposed solution that isn’t in complete alignment with their company’s goals and objectives? With an RFP, that is what they are going to get.

When I have a prospect that asks for proposals, the most helpful thing I can do is to help them understand that they most likely have not done enough planning because if the plan was solid enough, the only thing left to do is to find the people to implement.  And of course, implementation is really the easy part and the costs go way down when you are very specific in the work that needs to be done.

So to get out of doing proposals (that I won’t win), and to position myself as a trusted advisor in the eyes of the prospect, I attempt to get the prospect to back off of the RFP and consider hiring somebody (me) to do a strategic planning process with them (yes, a proposal – but one that is in complete alignment with their overall goals and objectives).  However, it’s something that you get paid to do, allows you to get in the door with a small project, and is a way for you to truly bond with the client and get to know them and their business extremely well.

Unless you have a small team of elves that come out at night and write proposals for you, don’t do them.

I have a tendency to get in the way of my own success.  However, I implemented a system that removed me – i.e. my head trash – from the process.  Now I use a system that is an autopilot. Now I coast to the end.

I’ve always hated the saying “if you don’t plan to succeed, you automatically plan to fail.”  That was so much pressure.  As if I can just sit down with a pen and some paper and plan myself to more time, money and better health!?! Well, I actually stepped out of my comfort zone and on faith implemented a method that was recommended to me by many successful people through the years and I’m happy to report that…. IT WORKS.  It’s a process that doesn’t make me have to be self disciplined (other than just initially committing to do it).  Also, it’s not limited to just one goal.  I now use this process for all the goals of my life.

1.  Determine the High Impact Situations You Need More Of

Every accomplished goal had a series of situations that happened before the end result was realized.  Most likely you know exactly what these high impact situations you need more of are.  Some examples are:

• face to face meetings with decision makers
• interviews
• telephone conversations
• referrals
• introductions
• high impact situations for people you manage

High impact situations involve the help of somebody else and which you can’t directly control and is usually the step right before, or very close to, the realization of the goal.  Concentrate on only a few.

2.  List the Repetitive Activities that Lead to High Impact Situations

For the job seeker, sending out resumes and filling out online job applications will lead to more interviews.  For the salesperson, activities like outbound calling and networking with centers of influence will be good things to do that will lead to more face to face meetings with decision makers, right?  Perhaps the CEO of a company who’s tasked with turning around poor sales should be consistently interviewing sales consultants, or masterminding with other CEO’s.  Whatever the high impact situations you need more of, ask yourself “what activities should I be doing consistently that will ultimately help accomplish more of those situations?”

List as many activities that would lead to high impact situations that you can think of and then pick no more than five activities that YOU can do – i.e. what you can control.  For instance, while it would be beneficial for the job seeker to have more interviews, the job seeker can’t control how many interviews he/she will get invited to.  However, the job seeker can send letters, spend 15 minutes improving the resume, or applying for jobs. Some examples might include:

• outbound phone calls (dials)
• networking events
• tweets, facebook posts, linkedin introductions
• blog posts
• correspondence sent
• job application

Perhaps you don’t know what the BEST activities are. That’s okay.  Don’t get hung up.  Through this process the most rewarding activities for you will surface to the top from our process of tracking results (explained below). Just get down a few.

3.  Create a Weighted Point System

If everyday I do the repetitive activities that leads to the important high-impact situations, will I not be making significant progress to accomplish my goal?  In the past, my problem was not knowing how many activities to do, and I would often not get much done, of any significance anyway.  At the very least, my lack of a system was extremely inefficient, not to mention disheartened at knowing I was not accomplishing anything.  I never knew how much work was enough. Today, my sales and marketing activities goal is to get 25 points per day and I weight and assign all of my activities according to the type of results I get.  For instance, while cold calls are proven and would be able to generate sales leads for me, I would have to make a lot more of them to equal the value of a meeting with somebody face to face.  So, now I get 5 points for meeting with somebody, and only 1 point for a dial (the act of trying to reach somebody on the phone), and 2 points for a (meaningful) phone conversation.  And when I attend a networking event – an activity I frequently found myself not doing frequently enough – I now get 4 points; a strongly weighted activity.

Look over your list of repetitive activities that leads to the important high-impact situations and assign points to those activities that would add up to 25 points.  However, make sure you’re properly balancing the scoring system so that you’re not done for the day after one phone call, and likewise, you can be done early if you’ve honestly put in a respectable amount of work.  Here is my list of my activities and their points:

• 1 pt – review vision board
• 1 pt – dial/tweet/fb post/email
• 3 pts – conversation (phone, twitter, fb)
• 5 pts – face to face meeting
• 3 pts – call/meeting scheduled
• 4 pts – networking event
• 4 pts – marketing asset created (blog post/sales proposal)
• 2 pts – give freely/help somebody

Want to earn some extra points and help balance out your life a little bit?  Put down “exercise/healthy eating” as one of your activities and give yourself some nominal points for either working out or staying on a healthy diet for that day.  Being healthy leads to the best you and you should be rewarded for it!  In my 25 per day point system I give myself 2 points.

4.  If You Track It, You’ll Do It!

So you’ve determined what activities you need to do consistently that leads to important high-impact situations.  You’ve also created a way that will help you know how much you should be doing on a daily basis to continually move your toward accomplishing your goal.  Now we have to actually get to work, which was something I’ve tended to fight. Wouldn’t it would be great if we could drink some sort of an elixir everyday that somehow made us wake up at 2 in the afternoon with all of our activities completed?  Well, I haven’t found one yet, and would be concerned for my health even if there was.  However, my tracking sheet is what I use now and is just as effective.

The tracking sheet is a one page document I print every Monday morning and put right in front of my on my desk (important).  For every activity I do I track.  When I have 25 points accumulated for the day, I’m done. The track-it sheet is merely a spreadsheet with your activities listed vertically on the left, and the day of the week across to the top.  Make it so that you can print it out on one page.

I recommend you add to the tracking mechanism “success metrics”.  Examples of my success metrics are:

• nibble (somebody who raises their hand for my offering)
• new opportunity
• no/killed opportunity (yes, getting a “no” is good)
• future call
• referral/introduction
• money event

The most important part is that you have your tracking mechanism in front of you at all times because you will find that you will naturally do your work without having to think about it.  So every Monday morning you should print out your “Track-It Sheet” and put it right in front of you.  Now your activities get done without having to beat yourself up!

Download My Track-It Sheet

If you’ve had troubles getting to a major goal because you know you aren’t focused on the activities you need to do to get you there, I recommend trying this “Success Trap”.  Let me know how it works.  How have you changed it to work better?  I’d love to hear from you!

Turnover Percentage

A ______________ How many people have you hired in the past five years?

B ______________ Number of salespeople that have left or have been let go in the past five years

C ______________ Turnover percentage (%) = (B/A) x 100

Cost of Interviewing

D ______________ Approximate number of people interviewed

E ______________ Average time of interviews (hrs)

F ______________ Value of your time and/or HR costs ($ per hour)

G ______________ Cost of Interviewing ($) = D x E x F

Cost of Payroll

H ______________ Average base salary you pay salespeople ($/month)

I  ______________ Average length of employment of salespeople no longer with company (months)

J ______________ Cost of Payroll ($) = B x H x I

Cost of Sales Training

K ______________ Approximate time invested in training, managing and coaching one salesperson (hours)

L ______________ Average cost of outside training per salesperson ($)

M ______________ Cost of Training ($) = (K x F x B) + (L x B)

Miscellaneous Hard Costs

N ______________ Recruiter fees paid ($)

O ______________ Cost of leads ($)

P ______________ Cost of phones bills and/or contact lists ($)

Q ______________ Advances and/or commissions paid in advance on non-collected accounts ($)

R ______________ Cost of travel and /or reimbursed expenses ($)

S ______________ Miscellaneous Hard Costs ($) = N + O + P + Q +R

Total Costs

________________ Total Cost of Sales Duds ($) = G + J + M + S

It can be frustrating to know what “sales duds” have cost you, but at least you have a benchmark that will help you know what you can invest to fix the problem.  If you would like better results, contact me.

The barrier to entry in the web development and internet marketing space is low <in any space it’s low>, which makes vetting website and Internet consultants very difficult <with any consultant it’s difficult>.  Watch this quick video to learn how to vet website development and Internet marketing consultants <the principles apply to any consultant>.

How to Vet Website Development & Internet Marketing Consultants from Scott Smeester on Vimeo.

What do you think? What have you learned?

The previous landing page didn't do much to tell the visitor what they could get.

I did not like the previous lead capture process for my website for Hire Sales Stars, and I didn’t think they were very effective either, mainly because it didn’t have much of a purpose, nor did it provide a way for visitors to reach something of value.  It did a fine job of telling the visitor what the site was about, and even gave some great benefits of why this site/company is great, but not much else.  I did these pages to get something up in the way of a conversion form, so I did not expect much.

The landing page had a short video of me encouraging the visitor to click the “Get Started for Free” button to move to the next page – the lead capture page. The whole video bothered me; I suspected it turned people off because I’m somewhat higher than the camera and I’ve been told my body language is too bold – an overall intimidating stance.

The previous landing page funneled to a lead capture page

The lead capture page had a nice quote on it, as well as a form that asks only for your first name and email, but that’s it. Nowhere in the process did it say what somebody would get – i.e. why they would want to fill it out, what value they would get, etc.

Granted, the site does not get a whole lot of traffic right now (10 to 15 clicks per day), which is why I also wanted to improve the funnel – to provide much more value - so that perhaps it could get more viral traffic (word of mouth).  So I decided to make a free tutorial video available that really would help the a visitor who has problems that this site could help.

Revised lead capture/landing page.

Now, the new landing page and lead capture page has been combined into one page and is now the current home page.

No video and only one simple step. Will it work?  I have no idea! What do you think? Do you think that the revised page makes more sense?  Do you see what you get?

The other night, my friend Jonathan Senger and I got to talking about who we connect with, on what platforms, and what our general rules are for connecting on social media tools (we both agree that we do not connect with “just anybody” on Facebook, as that is primarily for personal use).  He told me about a recent situation whereby he wanted to contact a person that was connected to one of his direct contacts on LinkedIn. When asked, Jonathan’s direct contact replied that he did not know that person very well and felt uncomfortable, if not inadequate, about making the introduction.  Jonathan solidified a dormant belief I’ve had about LinkedIn when he said that participating in LinkedIn that way completely defeats it’s purpose.  Connections with vague or very casual acquaintances for the mere sake of having “big numbers” means that nobody will have trusted relationships.

I Want My LinkedIn Connections to Know That They Are Trusted and Can Count on Any of My Other Connections

In the past I accepted, and even sought, connection requests from pretty much anybody on LinkedIn.  My thought was “what can it hurt to be connected with tons of people?” And luckily my LinkedIn participation had been cold until recently, and I did not concentrate on building connections as much as I did with my Twitter following, (281 on LinkedIn as of this post, versus 36,000 on Twitter).  Nonetheless, I have begun cleaning up my connections by removing people I don’t know very well or that I wouldn’t be absolutely comfortable with in a referral situation.

Use LinkedIn the way it should be used and the trust factor will be restored for all of us.