Author Archives: business copilot

About business copilot

Sitting alongside business owners to help keep them on the business flight plan - call 0117 230 3166. Practical and workable business coaching in Bristol, Bath and the South West.

Increasing awareness – JDI

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The first step in the development of the marketing funnel is building awareness.

You have your product or service offering sorted, you know who your target audience are, where they hang out, and you can make contact with them.

What needs to happen next is to build awareness. Advertising in journals, radio, TV, Direct Mail, blogging, and social media campaigns using Twitter and Facebook are all valid ways to do it.

What I find hardest to do is to persuade clients to undertake this critical part of the process with any enthusiasm. The reason being that building awareness is a rather messy business. Its like fishing: You just don’t know which fish will bite, when and how hungry they are when they do bite.

My advice is to persevere with it. There will be more failures than wins, more rejections than acceptances. But as the awareness pot fills up, you will notice that over time and with the right sort of effort, they will transform from “I don’t know who you are, what you are selling, why I should buy from you, and you charge how much!!!” to enthusiastic advocates for your offering.

To help you to stick with this task, have a look at the things you like to do and build on that. For instance, if you like writing, then write. If you like social media then do that and if the telephone is your preferred form of communication, then use it.

JDI!

Call us on 0117 230 3166 or email me at robh at businesscopilot.co.uk

Business Coaching in Bristol, Bath and the South West

Lead Generation – the heart of the business

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Networking is not working, your Facebook exchanges have settled down to lists of your contacts lunch venues and OMG exclamations and Twitter is a blur of soundbites and links.

What you want is some leads - some potential customers to call and see if you have what they are looking for.

Its simpler than than you think. Click here to see how we do it.

6 Habits of True Strategic Thinkers

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Looking around the internet, I found this fabulous, insightful posting by Paul J. H. Schoemaker: Founder and Chairman, Decision Strategies Intl. Speaker, professor, and entrepreneur. Research Director, Mack Ctr for Technological Innovation at Wharton, where he teaches strategic decision-making. Latest book: Brilliant Mistakes

“You’re the boss, but you still spend too much time on the day-to-day. Here’s how to become the strategic leader your company needs.

In the beginning, there was just you and your partners. You did every job. You coded, you met with investors, you emptied the trash and phoned in the midnight pizza. Now you have others to do all that and it’s time for you to “be strategic.”

Whatever that means.

If you find yourself resisting “being strategic,” because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you’re not alone. Every leader’s temptation is to deal with what’s directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you’ll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you’re on is leading off a cliff.”

Read the entire article here.

Nail that sales pitch

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Got a big sales pitch coming up?

Here are my 5 top tips for nailing that important sales pitch

1. Understand the clients brief. Delve deep, ask the awkward questions, help to clarify their thinking. Do not begin the pitch planning process until you are absolutely convinced that you know what the client wants from you.

2. Are you making up the numbers. Establish your chances of winning the pitch before you go any further. The easiest way is to ask the client directly. OK, the client may not answer a direct question, but they might tell you who the current supplier is, how long they have been in place and the quality of the relationship. If in doubt, refuse to quote. You will save so much time and energy by not going for work you had no chance of winning.

3. What is the budget. Make sure you know the budget before starting the creative process, even if it is an estimate. Keep badgering away until you know the amount they want to spend. The feed it back in writing prior to the actual day of the pitch.

4. Answer the questions. Craft your pitch around how you will resolve the issue they posed in the creative brief. What SPECIFICALLY are you going to do to help the client achieve their goals and objectives? It’s not about how good you are but how well you answer their question.

5. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Never ever attempt to wing it. Do a full dress rehearsal. Nerves will play a huge part. A famous military regiment had this motto – “Train Hard, fight easy”. Work hard at the rehearsal stage, preferably in front of an independent but knowledgeable expert. If you have butterflies then at least get them to fly in formation. A full dress rehearsal will ensure that the key points are made clearly and in the right order.

If you want to know more about how to improve your sales pitch – call me on 0117 230 3166

Business Coaching in Bristol, Bath and the South West

What do you do when the business stalls

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It happens to every business at some time in its existence. The causes are legion and the impact varies from an irritant to a catastrophic failure. Some embark on the blame game, others take it on the chin and accept defeat.

We are talking here about those times when the business stalls. The new business didn’t come in, there is excess capacity and cash is tight. Confidence is at a low ebb, nerves are jangling and relationships suffer.

But there is an upside! You have time. And it is what you do with that time that makes all the difference.

The doldrums are an opportunity to ensure that the business is facing in the right direction, doing the right things as opposed to doing things right, and is   fully prepared for when the business picks up.

Here is a quick check list for those doldrums times

1. Go back to the vision – check nothing has changed

2. Do a quick external analysis to ensure that the situation has not changed

3. Do a quick internal analysis to ensure nothing has changed within the business – suppliers, employees, cash etc

4. If anything has changed that materially impacts on the business then rewrite the plan

5. If nothing major has changed – keep doing the things that worked in the past – as you have spare time, you can do even more

6. Take a break – use the time to refresh your batteries

7. Seek help if you need it – there are plenty of ways to access help so choose the one that suits your needs and ability to pay

In summary, unless there is a material change to the business, the environment, your customers needs or your ability to supply, then keep on doing the things that worked. Success will come. Or as someone famous once said “Just Do It”.