065 – Avoid Sales Mistakes, Build Better Backup And Hire A Specialist

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This week:
00:04 – Asking before you tell
00:16 – To meet people, be introduced by someone else
00:28 – The importance of backup
01:28 – Money today is worth more than money in the future
02:15 – When training or consulting give the minimum effective dose
02:33 – Sometimes you should hire a specialist

 
Transcription:

James Schramko here with a business news update.

Here’s a tip, ask before you tell.
If you put the wrong pitch to the customer then you blow your chances and you’re not going to make the sale. So ask before you tell.

How do you get to meet people that you really want to meet?
Here’s my number 1 tip. Find someone who really knows them and have them introduce you. That is far more powerful than a direct approach or a cold call.
 

Be introduced By Someone Else

Each week I can talk about this and it’s just as important. Backup.
Over the last few weeks there’s been a lot of flooding in Manila and that’s where a lot of people have their teams. And some people I know have not been able to reach their team for a week or two and that is detrimental for business. They’re not able to get stuff done. They can’t communicate with their customers and tell them what they’re up to.

In my case, I have a lot of backup, I have people in different parts of the country and I have a lot of people. And the same goes for collecting money. I have several different ways that people can pay me. They can pay by cheque, cash, bank account, a credit card swiping machine, PayPal, online merchant facility; in Australian dollars or US dollars. So I’ve got all my bases covered and you should have your bases covered.

You want multiples. Multiple staff and multiple ways that people can pay you and multiply customers who pay you in multiple ways. That way you’ve got a solid reliable sustainable business.

Here’s a lesson about money.
Money today is worth more than the same money in 2 years from now. So you need to create a discounted value. If you’re talking about a customer that’s worth $500 to you for the lifetime of that customer. If that $500 is actually paid over 2 or 3 years, you might want to discount the future value of that $500. It’s probably worth $300 in 2 or 3 years from now.

Money today is more powerful than money in the future. So whenever you’re looking at doing transactions or deals or calculating the lifetime value of a customer remember that whatever it’s worth today is probably the high point. Take today’s money as the highest possible value and discount future earnings for contingencies or problems or just inflation.

When you’re training or consulting, you want the minimum effective dose.
That is the no fluff, no filler, no bonus stack version. Just the meat and potatoes. What the people need to know and nothing else. Give them the minimum so that they can implement and get the maximum result.

Sometimes it’s not worth learning to do something yourself
taking that time and energy to invest in learning it and that the long result is that it might be a year away until you’re very good at something.

Consider instead hiring specialists. If there’s a specialist who’s the best at this certain task and you can just hire them today, pay what they charge, get the result done and more forward way faster. I see people trying to learn stuff they should not learn.

For example learning how to build a website. Learning how to design. There are designers out there. There’s website programmers out there. Don’t try and learn it, just hire a specialist or bring on a team member if you want to build it up and scale it into something big. But if it’s just a small one time job, just pay someone who’s good at it, get the job done and that’s it. You don’t have to pay the monthly wage. You don’t have to hire, you don’t have to train. And this is what I see people do too often. You’re not one of those people coz you now know, hire a specialist.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this news update of business tips.

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