Likes Like Likes
Like likes like.
This is the core of sales: people buy from people who they like, who they feel understand them and their needs.
Previously this used to be about making a good impression when you knocked on someone’s door, or served them in your shop. A little later having a great phone manner and nattering away on a sales call was the skill everyone wanted to have.
Getting people to buy your product has never been a hard sell: it’s always been a social sell.
And now, thanks to the Internet, our social sell has just got more demanding. Now we have to show our customers what our ethos is through our website, woo them with our newsletters and tell the world what we’re like as people through blogs like these!
Social networking doesn’t have to be a demand though: it can be a key to finding out what your customers are like, and what they want. It can help you to anticipate their demands and give them what they want.
As an active twitter user, facebooker, blogger and general social media geek I’ve had the opportunity to experiment with what makes people ‘like’ you, how to communicate with your clients and how to tap into the most powerful piece of market research you can get.
If you have a following through social media, or just through a regular stream of client phone calls/ email enquiries; you’ve already got all the tools you need to find out what your clients want and how to sell it to them. People tell us what they want through their ‘trance’ words: the words that they use when they’re really expressing themselves.
Trance words are the words that make people buy.
They are the words that your clients always mention in their email enquiries, they’re the words they mention during your sales calls; and now they’re the key words from your conversations via social media.
Let me give you two examples:
Fred calls up Human Resources Ltd and Bonnie answers. Fred doesn’t get to his point immediately: he tells Bonnie about his day, the trouble he’s had finding staff, what happened to the last person he employed… Bonnie sticks with it though and eventually gets Fred to open up. Fred explains that he really needs staff that are reliable and that have a sense of responsibility. Jotting these words down, Bonnie allows Fred to talk some more before calmly and concisely explaining that Human Resources Ltd pride themselves on having staff that are reliable and responsible. Fred quickly agrees to use Human Resources Ltd.
Rachel is skimming through her company, Cookie’s Inc, Facebook friends. She is pretty sure that there’s room in the market for a skinny double choc chip cookie for professional women in their twenties. She writes a status update about this and gets a great response. Clicking on her inbox she sees a message from Katy who is enquiring about when the cookie is going to launch. Checking out Katy’s profile page she notes down that Katy is in her mid twenties and works for a PR company in London, she likes new restaurants, yoga and music festivals. She collates this data as and when Cookie Inc’s facebook friends interact with their company’s page: and before long sees trends developing between what different customers interests are and what type of cookies they prefer. She decides that doing a product stand at Glastonbury would be a great chance to trial run the double choc chip cookie; and also contacts yoga companies about whether they’d be willing to endorse its health benefits. The skinny choc chip cookie is a huge success: and Rachel gets promoted.
Knowing what your customers want has always been key to effective sales and marketing. Now social media has opened a door for us to build on our ability to listen to what our customers really want (their trance words), make better products, sell more, and know what business ventures make sense for us to take.
To get to a place where you can use these trance words effectively; you can’t just be a great communicator, you need to be a purposeful communicator.
You need to know how to get Fred to open up, how to encourage a conversation on your social media, how to close down that opportunity to network, to create business, become more confident.
And this is where I come in. It’s been my pleasure to speak and work with the BWN on numerous occasions and now I want to teach you the true secrets to negotiating low prices, effective networking, doubling your sales (or just winning an argument with your partner!) so I’m going to host an exclusive coffee morning event for the Business Womans Network.
I usually only work on events in central London but to give you this fully interactive (that means some audience participation and real learning) seminar I’m going to come to the Five Lakes Crowne Plaza Hotel in Colchester Essex on Tuesday the 24th of April 10.30am-1.30pm.
Not only will I be hosting the event in your local area, I’ll also be offering tickets at a fraction of their normal cost: with none of the hassle of travelling into London.
So if you want to continue to improve your communication tactics, make more sales, learn negotiation tactics taught at the best Business Schools, by top NLP practitioners and have fun! Please send a paypal payment of £50 to hq.hayleyquinn@gmail.com by Friday 20th of April. Just click on the button below and a new window will open to take you to paypal
I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon
Best wishes
Hayley Whittle
A funny question on What Radio has to do with getting more customers and keeping them
It’s a funny question but it’s one that needs asking “When did I turn into a Radio 4 gal from a Radio 1 girl?”
It may not seem that relevant a question to ask a website laden with business women traffic, but bear with me here.
Seriously since I can remember I’ve been listening to Radio 1, bemoaning a change in a DJ and then falling in love with them and furiously postulating that Radio 1 would never be the same if that person left, only to fickly move on to the next one within 5 years. I’ve seen and copied every hair cut from frizzy Kylie perms and the same leggings and brogues that are back in fashion again today and it got me thinking.
It wasn’t a conscious decision. I didn’t wake up one morning and think “That Chris Moyles isn’t for me, I need a real voice to educate and inspire my mind today.” I just found the radio had other stations I could listen to beside my childhood love Radio 1 and the lovely Dave Monk (BBC Essex will always feature in my gotta listen category – he’s safe!)
And that’s the thing to remember in business. Peoples needs change, and half the time they don’t even realise they are changing. Half the time if you asked your customers what they needed they would say they are getting it. And that’s because we are pre-programmed by our subconscious to go through the motions of what has worked before. Find yourself going down certain aisles in the supermarket more than others? Why is it you never look at the top shelf? What makes you never considered a different brand?
It’s not a conscious decision, it’s a going through the motions, on autopilot kind of process. And we do it all the time. In every aspect of our lifes.
You need to bring it to the conscious part of people’s mind, why they should try you instead of their regular supplier. Why giving you a whirl could be the best decision they ever made.
You see we are all on that autopilot slowly turning from Radio 1 girls to Radio 4 gals. We are unconsciously having decisions made for us. Rarely do you see an 80 year old saying “Loving this Radio 1, the lyrics are just divine”, and why?
Because taste change the whole way through our life.
Would you say you are tapping into that?
(On that note remember peer group pressure – my kids get in the car and I get “Ergh Mum, get this old folk radio off, put Chris Moyles back on, and I enjoy it just as much. I’m enthused by my kids to remember being younger, on the cusp of life and ready for anything and a slight hint of a desire to stay that way, encourages me to keep the radio tuned in.( There’s something to remember in your marketing there – getting those feelings, and emotions flowing! Why do you think products aimed at your age group has music that you like from your teens years blasting in the background?)
But then without even being aware of it, like when you drive along and don’t remember the last mile of your journey, the music to the Archers starts playing.)
Being Mandie
As I’m running The Business Womans Network while founder Mandie Holgate takes a sabbatical for her health, I found myself saying to someone “I’m being Mandie”
On the way home that day I asked myself what did that mean and realised it had some important lessons for anyone in business. Here’s what I learned.
I can’t be Mandie.
Mandie is Mandie and to try to be Mandie is ridiculous. We share a vision for The BWN but we have different approaches.
So LESSON ONE is Be Yourself.
It’s no good going into to a meeting, thinking “So and So would say this and do that”
If you try to do something that isn’t you, then people will spot you as a fake.
Next, I need help to be Mandie. Yes I know I’ve just said I’m not going to be Mandie, what I mean here is to do the things that Mandie does that make The BWN such a success.
One of the things that people tell us that they love about The BWN is that there is always a new blog to read. Now I love writing, but as I have my own business to run as well as being a mum, a school governor, on the PTA and on a charity executive committee there is no way I can write as much as Mandie. So I’ve asked the other co-ordinators to write blogs and have reminded all Business Premier Pack Owners that they can write blogs. (which has the added bonus of raising their profile)
So LESSON TWO is delegate
Too many business owners try to do everything and are reluctant to hand over any responsibility to anyone else. But if you have a team then use them. It’s a bit of cliche to say “There is no i in team” but it’s so true. Working together for a common goal makes sense.
If you work by yourself, you may be saying “OK clever clogs, what do I do?”
Well for my own business I do work by myself, so I have answer for this! Which takes us nicely to Lesson 3
LESSON THREE
Surround yourself with experts and ask for help. Just because you are running a business doesn’t mean you know everything about business. You may be the world’s expert on making purple flowers that sparkle and remind when your next meeting is (patent pending!) but that doesn’t mean you know about marketing, on contracts (what do you do if the sparkles you’ve ordered don’t sparkle like you thought they would), on employment law, on websites, on SEO, on bookkeeping, on tax returns….you get the picture
But there are people out there who love doing those things. So use them. Yes you’ll probably have to spend a bit of money but if you work out how much time you’ll save and what you could be doing in that time, it makes sense.
So as I’m “being Mandie” I’ll be asking people who I know do things that Mandie excels in for hints and tips. There’s nothing wrong in saying you need help. It’s the smart thing to do.
So there you go, three simple lesson that are true no matter what you want to achieve in business.
Now share some of yours! (see how I’m putting lesson three into practise!)
7 Tips for Networking Success
- If going into a networking event seems scary look for someone on their own and ask if it’s their first time at the event. If it is you can give each other moral support, if not they will probably introduce you to other people
- Don’t go to sell sell sell! Be genuinely interested in other peoples’ businesses even if they don’t seem to have any sales potential for you. You might be surprised!
- Remember networking is about getting and giving support and inspiration not just about sales. Once people know, like and trust you they will give you business and recommend you to others.
- If you go to a networking event with someone else from your business don’t stick together circulate separately to make the most of the chance to meet people.
- Chose the kind of event you will find the easiest. If your brain doesn’t wake up before coffee time don’t chose a breakfast meeting. If eating lunch makes you sleepy those are not the events for you. If you don’t like to talk or can’t hear well in a noisy environment chose smaller groups.
- When you take someone’s card at an event write something brief on it to help you to remember who they were (pretty scarf/ curly blond hair/ has 3 dogs )
- Contact people you met at an event but make sure that you send a personal email and that you have something relevant to say.
This tax year or next…..that is the question
It’s almost the end of the tax year and some of you may be wondering how to deal with those receipts that come in around this time of year and how to account for them. In accounting terms this problem is known as ‘cut-off’ and literally means to look at your receipts and make a cut off point and decide which tax year they fall into.
This equally applies to limited companies whenever their year end falls, as the principle is the same.
The trick is to work out when you ‘earned ‘the receipt. So, if you did the work relating to the receipt on the 28th March 2012, and raised the invoice then, but your customer didn’t pay you until the 28th April 2012, this would be treated as income in the tax year ended 5th April 2012 because it was earned then, even though you didn’t get paid until the next tax year.
Most importantly:
- Don’t hold on to cheques and delay banking them to get the income into the following tax year. If you are doing your accounts correctly, include income in your accounts when you earned it which is not necessarily when you banked the money.
- Don’t delay sending out your invoices to push the income into the next tax year either. Accounting rules which are required to be used by HMRC mean that where the work is completed before 5th April 2012 but invoiced afterwards, this will in the majority of cases be treated as income in the 2011/12 tax year.
Whilst this may seem pedantic, it makes sense really, as otherwise no-one would raise any invoices towards the end of their financial year, because of the additonal income and hence potentially higher tax bill as a result, and of course it can amount to tax evasion which as we all know is not a good thing.
The only exception to this is where the amounts are small in relation to your total income as they would not make a significant difference to your accounts.
This guest blog was written by Lorraine Dale from Rightway Accounting Services
Urgent or Important
Meg Reid, co-ordinator for Suffolk and highly experienced coach, looks at what’s urgent and what’s important and why you need to know the difference!
I was listening to the radio when a sentence leapt out at me.
“The important gives way to the urgent”
It’s so true. My coaching clients tell me that they feel they are always fire fighting- reacting to what comes at them rather than having space to think.
They get up intending to eat a healthy breakfast, talk calmly to their children, organise things to work smoothly at the office, get some exercise during the day and invite friends round in the evening.
The reality is that keys will have disappeared, deadlines be brought forward, inboxes and in trays will be overflowing. It will all seem so urgent. Breakfast will be eaten in the car, tempers will be frayed, exercise will be tapping the keyboard and you’re home too late to invite the friends.
When I used to run a theatre company Tim the technical stage manager of one theatre had a big notice on the door of his office “Your crisis is not my crisis” Tim was very helpful and efficient until it was time for morning coffee, lunch or an afternoon tea break. Then no matter what terrible disaster we needed sorting, he would disappear.
The strange thing was that everything always got done anyway. The show always went up on time scenery, props, lights and sound effects working perfectly.
We’ll all die with a “to do” list. I’d rather that the things left on mine were some of those oh so urgent tasks not the things that are really important to me.
Worst Ice Breaker
Speaking to strangers should really be simpler shouldn’t it?
Yet when we see someone that we really want to say ‘hello’ to, inspiration nearly always fails us, and we end up reverting back to terrible conversational habits.
Let me give you an example.
Imagine a time that you really wanted to speak to a stranger: it could be someone you want to network with, a prospective customer who’s walked into your shop, the person who you end up sitting next to every day on the bus… but never quite managing to speak to.
Even if you manage to squeeze out a ‘hello’ you know it’s going to be followed, rather boringly, by the world’s worst ice breaker question:
“How are you?”
It’s so safe, so utterly predictable, so uninspiring! A bit like sweat pants really.
And also completely impossible to answer! I defy ANYONE to think up a good, succinct response to such a question. I mean do you say the automated response of ‘fine thanks’ (which is both untrue, and offers the other person in the conversation no material to respond to) or do you burst into tears, sigh deeply, or scream with joy, and tell them the whole story of how you’re really feeling (including your life history, details of your tangled love life and financial woes in the process)?
Hmm tough one.
I actually think it’s way better to be a lot more specific than this and give someone something specific to respond to. My logic is if you make it easy for a person to respond to you, then you’ll get better responses from them.
Along with people who work for the Inland Revenue, and traffic wardens, I’m also very suspicious of questions generally. They make you feel a bit put on the spot-no?
“What do you think about the Olympics then?”
Ha! I thought that would catch you out! Questions are also hard to answer when you’re not ready for them. Maybe if you had ten minutes to think about it, the ‘How are you?’, would be easier to answer. When you’re speaking to strangers though you don’t have ten minutes: you have to make them feel comfortable in the moment.
We do this by making specific ice breaker statements. Watch this video to learn a little more about my unique conversation kick starting system:
If you attended my talk for the BWN on Tuesday the 20th of March in Essex you will know there are tons more details that I just didn’t have time to squeeze in on the day.
To make sure I get to teach you the true secrets to negotiating low prices, effective networking, doubling your sales (or just winning an argument with your partner) I’m going to host a one off coffee morning event.
I usually only work on events in central London but to give you this fully interactive (that means some audience participation and real learning) seminar I’m going to come to your local area at a time that is convenient to your group in April. The day will be content packed, with take home exercises, and a really fun relaxed feel… plus I have a feeling attending is tax deductible!
Not only will I be hosting the event in your local area, Essex, at a time that is convenient for you to attend, I’ll also be offering tickets at a fraction of their normal cost: with none of the hassle of travelling into London.
So if you want to continue to improve your communication tactics, make more sales, learn negotiation tactics taught at the best Business Schools and have fun! Please send a paypal payment of £50 to hq.hayleyquinn@gmail.com by Saturday the 31st of March to secure your place.
I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon
Best wishes
Hayley Whittle
A brief guide to the 2012 budget
Lorraine Dale from Rightway Accounting Services has supplied us with this brief guide to the 2012 Budget
I am sure budgets are getting more boring! There never seems to be anything truly revolutionary, and this budget is another case in point.
Welcome news is the increase in personal allowances which will benefit everyone and take a lot of people on low incomes out of the tax bracket. For 2012/13 this will be £8,105 and for 2013/14 it will go up to £9,205 – one of the biggest increases for some time!
Don’t forget though that if you are a higher rate tax payer, the threshold at which you will start to pay higher rate tax has fallen, so if your taxable income exceeds £34,371 you will now be into the 40% bracket.
Is this Budget a serious case of granny bashing? It seems unfortunate that the age related personal allowances will be frozen, but with the personal allowance guaranteed to increase in due course up to £10,500 and with the increase in pension, this will not be as hard on pensioners as the press will have you believe.
More welcome news is the reduction in the main rate of Corporation Tax paid by companies from 26% to 22% by 2014. Although this does not affect the majority of very small companies who only pay CT at 20% anyway, this will be a big help to many of the slightly bigger and growing companies over the next couple of years.
Take special note that the level of turnover you need to reach before you register for VAT has increased from £73,000 to £77,000.
It seems to be a bit of a political gesture to reduce the highest tax rate from 50% to 45% from 2013, but hopefully this will revitalise the incentive to work harder without fear of 50% of your income being taken away if you do well.
If you were expecting a sudden wave of mansions for sale at a reduced price, then be disappointed as the increase in Stamp Duty Land Tax to 7% on properties worth over £2million takes effect from today. However this may mean that many properties originally valued at around that price will now choose to sell for less as this will only attract stamp duty at 5%. Keep your eyes open for a bargain!!!!
This is of course just a summary of the some of the main points of the budget. Do contact Lorraine for more information or if you need clarity on any of the points.
Ten things you might not know about The Business Womans Network
Here are some things you might not know about The Business Womans Network
- The BWN had its first meeting in March 2009 in a small cafe on Mersea Island. It was born out of founder Mandie Holgate’s frustration that there was no local support just for women in business.
- Our first speaker was Lynette Allen, an internationally renowned and recognised coach. She recently “returned” to us and spoke on being credible at a meeting at our Suffolk branch
- Our Suffolk branch is now run by Meg Reid A professional coach for over a decade, Meg is a published writer and founder of the UK Coaching Partnership which trains personal and corporate coaches.
- Bridget Greenwood, our Norfolk co-ordinator spent months making round trips of over 120 miles travelling down from Norwich to Colchester to attend BWN meetings as there was nothing like it in her area. She had such enthusiasm for The BWN that we decided to expand into Norwich. Bridget was the perfect person to run it.
- It’s not just businesses we support. We have a strong sense of community and help charities – both national and local ones. Colchester Mind, LAM Action and Farleigh Hospice are just three of the charities we’ve helped.
- We raised around £5000 for Farleigh Hospice by starring in a naked calendar. We could have organised a pamper evening or a skills bank, but a calendar seemed like more fun!
- Our Herts co-ordinator, Tina Walker, is a Virtual Assistant which means day in day, she deals with a wide variety of businesses. Can you think of a better qualification for a BWN co-ordinator?
- We really really understand marketing and social media. On google we rank higher than many older and bigger womens networking group and our IT fairy has been into social networking since the mid 90s. To put that into context, the Facebook guy hadn’t even finished high school then!
- We don’t believe in block outs or membership fees. OK, we know they exists but they have no place in the BWN. There’s no way that one accountant, web designer, coach, lawyer, PR agent, etc could handle all the businesses that come to The BWN, so we don’t have a silly rule that says only of each type of business can attend.
- There are so many great things about the BWN, we now realise we need a longer list…..
- Two women were once at a different network “arguing” about who went to the best network. Each was convinced they were correct and they were – they both attended the BWN but hadn’t met until that day!
- Even though there are no membership fees, we say that if you’ve been to a meeting or get our newsletter then you are member of The BWN
- Speakers flock to us and ask to speak. And we only say yes to the best. Mary Keightley from Mind Associates , freelance writer, print and broadcast journalist Harriet Griffey and Alexandra Watson, The Happiness Coach(as seen on The X-Factor and in Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, Eve, Psychologies, Now, The Independent, Daily Express) are three we were delighted to say yes to.
- Even though we’re a network for business women, we have male speakers too as to be the best we believe in learning from the best. Steve Clarke (UK Sales and Marketing Mentor), Nick Looby (famous for his invisible powerpoint show) and Marcus Oakey (The Charisma Coach) have braved our all-female network. They loved the energy and positive attitude to business so much that they were keen to speak for us more than once!
- For 15 consecutive months we have attracted new members to our meetings. Women keep telling other business women how we have helped them to grow their business.
- We could go on for longer, but you have work to do! But if there’s something we haven’t mentioned that you think we should mention let us know!
How do I get my blog out of Never Read Land?
Last time I spoke about how to write a great blog and if its a great blog what it would be doing. If you missed it you can read that here.
Now what do you do to ensure that people actually find it?
Firstly ideally it will be on your website for a variety of reasons but the most obvious one is that it brings new fresh relevant information to your website – and trust me that’s good for your SEO.
If you can’t get it on your website relying on WordPress or Blogger, etc is better than not having one. And they are free and pretty easy to set up and use.
So you have an interesting relevant useful blog now its time to get it seen;
Talk about it on social media – Youtube, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter are the main ones. But don’t just do endless links to your blog – you have to build up interest and get to know people first. If anyone in their very first tweet to me says “Hey check out my website, blog, FB page- I’m instantly turned off. They have never met me and they are already assuming that I need what they have. If they took the time to build a relationship with me I would be more than happy to “check out their blog” etc. So build relationships first and you do that exactly the same way as you would face to face.
Be interested in others, share useful tit bits (this works really well, commenting on other peoples discussions on Linkedin etc allows you to get to know other people’s opinions and then share yours. If you have had a great conversation with someone then you can say “Funny enough I wrote this about this very subject…” but only after being interested, considerate and getting to know others.
If you have a mailing list (Please god tell me you have one of those!) whatever effective ways you have to stay in touch with your client base (Please tell me you are doing that!) share your blog ideas there too. Don’t share the whole thing, just put something like “A client had the issue ………. so I shared this great solution and so I thought I would share it with you too. To read more…….”
Remember in this fast paced world everyone wants instant answers so sharing little useful titbits makes you a very useful golden nugget to keep in touch with – what’s that going to do to your sales?
If you publicly speak (and where ever you go NEVER turn down the opportunity, you never know who is in the audience and who they know!) finish with something like “There are a ton of free ideas on …………on my blog, so help yourself.”
Tell people about it in every form of your marketing in a useful relevant informative way ALL OF THE TIME. People make the mistake of assuming you can tell someone once on Twitter and that will get you a thousand hits – it won’t!
You have to tell people over and over again in a useful, relevant informative way (Hope I’m getting that across – lol!) in short succinct chunks. It’s the drip drip drip approach. That if you keep telling people they will get the message and want to know more and keep in touch and what does that do for your business success?
These ideas will work, we have a ton more to share but get this right for starters, be consistent and you will see positive results and a great impact on your business.
And do share your results on our social media which you can access on the home page of our website – because we just love to see what you are up to!
(You can access our social media world on the home page – old.thebusinesswomansnetwork.co.uk)