Biz Buzz

What are Your Goals?

What are your goals in contract training this year? Pick a dozen do-ables and be sure they're measurable. Prioritize them. What are the handful of things that you could do that would really move you in the direction of success?

Get out your contract training manual and have a look at the LERN benchmarks. How's your operating margin? Are you collecting the right demographic data? How is your lifetime value? Getting enough referrals? How much money do you want to make? Are you looking to increase numbers of contracts or does it seem more interesting to have fewer, high-dollar events?

Set some goals. Got a question? Ask me. I am right here to help.

You are What You Think?

What do you think aobut this sales consultant's idea that for sales people

“Everything in your life is an exact duplication of your consciousness.”

here in the Sales Trainer Newsletter?

Radical Marketing Idea

OK, Seth Godin never surprises me anymore--because I have come to expect brilliance at least once a week. Check out his version of a great marketing idea:

One way to think about running a successful business is to figure out what the least you can do is, and do that. That's actually what they spent most of my time at business school teaching me.

No sense putting more on that pizza, sending more staff to that event, answering the phone in fewer rings... what's the point? No sense being kind, looking people in the eye, being open or welcoming or grateful. Doing the least acceptable amount is the way to maximize short term profit.

Of course, there's a different strategy, a crazy alternative that seems to work: do the most you can do instead of the least.

Radically overdeliver.

Turns out that this is a cheap and effective marketing technique

What's a Good Résumé Worth?

A polished and interesting résumé is key to getting an interview and possibly to getting a job.While that might not have been so interesting a few years back, in these downturn-times, it's downright fascinating.

You can write your own or you can hire a professional résumé writer, but either way, the key to success is knowing how to look good enough on paper to stand out from the crowd and get that all-important interview. And let's face it. Standing out from the pack in writing is a challenge in this world of hyped up self-descriptions.

For the average employee, it's about $150 to have a pro take your resume from run of the mill, to a shot in the running. They'll improve the type and design, making special efforts to make your résumé a good "quick read," so that an employer with a stack of 50 will get what they need to know from your résumé in a skim.

If you've had a stack of 20 résumés and were facing the prospect of having to do half that many interviews, you know the sense of dread that can arise if you can't tell on from another. You can take out the two printed on flowered paper, get rid of the one whose last job was in his 20's and then you still have 17 that are likely to seem more or less the same. If one of them strikes you a just a little more clear, a little more organized, a little more "rubber meets the road," you're likely to pick up the phone, aren't you?

So get online, find your local résumé writer and get a class going and let your clients know you've got a lead on someone who can help the people they lay off. Maybe while you're at it, you'll dust off your own résumé and get it spiffed up a bit.

Other related classes/services you can offer--how to conduct an interview; how to be in an interview; preparing for your job search and how to decide what your best "next" is.

Do you offer these things? Are they selling?

Get Yourself There for 2010

Get yourself there--wherever you want to go--in 2010. Here's a simple, crisp method by blogger and social media expert Chris Brogan. Get yourself a cup of coffee and get this done--before the bottom of the cup!

He summarizes the method:

Determine 3 guiding words for my efforts in 2010.

List 1-3 paths to accomplishing those goals (aka strategies).

List distractions that might possibly scuttle my efforts.

List the steps for each path (these are the projects that map to the goals).

List what the “finish line” looks like.

List what comes next, should I actually accomplish something major along those paths.

This snippet is fun, but read the whole poste. You'll like this site.

My 3 words for 2010:

Vision, Contact, Pause.

Vision:  I am going to get clear this year about the next 10. I want my work and my personal time to be guided by a clear sense of where I am going and why. To the degree that my vision is clear, my actions will also be. My own clarity will help guide others in tangible ways.

Contact:  I want to reach more people this year. More customers. More friends. I already speak, teach and train for a living and I come into contact with a few thousand people a year. But with technology, I think I can reach more. I want to know where my leverage points are. What can I do that will take a handful of good ideas and get them out to others who can make good things happen with them?

Pause: I love work hard and play hard. This year I am also going to build pause into every day, every hour, every month. I want to have strategies to make sure I am also resting, recharging and just plain stopping. Something in 'pause' makes the forward momentum more intentional, more clear and potent.

What are your three words?