Jon Cooper: Jungle frolics to teach us about business

Here is a fabulous little story, both in the sense that it’s a kind of fable, and that it’s quite excellent!

A tiger was stalking through the jungle looking for dinner. He spotted a lone coyote in a clearing and set his sights on it.

As the tiger roared and stomped his way towards his unsuspecting prey, the coyote sensed imminent danger from his feline nemesis and froze for a moment.

Recovering his guile and composure quickly, he trotted over to a nearby pile of bones and exclaimed, “Mmm, what a delicious tiger that was!”

The tiger, shaken by this unexpected revelation, skulked away and vowed to avoid coyote-hunting for evermore.

Meanwhile, a monkey had witnessed the remarkable scene from a tree and skipped off to find the tiger, and offer him a deal.

“Mr Tiger,” he pronounced, “I have some very interesting and valuable information, which I’ll give you in return for a little protection.”

The tiger agreed to watch out for the monkey’s welfare, and was told the whole truth about the coyote and the bones.

Shortly afterwards, the tiger appeared in the clearing with the monkey on his back. (Now there’s a metaphor waiting to happen…)

Mr Coyote, snoozing smugly by the life-saving bones, opened one eye and spotted the peculiar couple, intent as they were on spoiling his afternoon nap. He looked away and declared loudly “I’m starving; why does that lazy monkey take so long to get me another tiger…?”

So what’s the moral in this tale of animal cunning (and, probably, monkey-eating tigers)?

Well, there are several. Firstly, that you can overcome pretty much any obstacle with the right effort. Secondly; in the story, the coyote had to overcome the same challenge not once, but twice. So; never give up, even when a problem refuses to be solved first time around.

He also didn’t exactly work hard to escape a grizzly and macabre death. “Working hard” would have meant running away, and dying exhausted a minute later as the big cat inevitably caught him.

Credit to Mr Coyote; he chose working smart over working hard. Works every time!

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting, and an Accredited Business Adviser with the IBD group. Exclusive to Jupiter Dawn Blog readers - contact jon@jupiterdawn.com for a free one-hour business mentoring session with Jon, worth £175. Follow @jonnycooper.

Jon Cooper: When opposites attract success

Supercharge your business with the right partner!

I met two halves of a brilliant partnership over breakfast the other day; they’ve built a fantastic business in recycling and waste management, and they have at least three unique products which make their competition look simply, well, rubbish (sorry…).

What fascinated me were the striking differences between the pair of them. One, a natural born leader, with a massive handshake and projecting serious gravitas. He seemed to be holding a crowd effortlessly, and was entertaining them with an amusing anecdote.

His partner was less conspicuous, and spoke quietly yet effectively about what they had achieved, and what they had yet to achieve. He also held the purse strings!

When I got to talk to Mr Big, he made a surprising admission: before he teamed up with his unassuming “other half”, he had been nearly bankrupt, having risked the crown jewels on some brave yet misguided venture.

I realised that here was a classic double act; comparable to the great comedic talents of Laurel and Hardy, Morecombe and Wise or Cannon and Ball (ok, that’s enough), this was a pair who truly sparked off each other, and whose whole was infinitely greater than their two halves.

I suggested that he had found his perfect foil; someone who could distil his crackpot ideas and turn them into a business, and who could temper his wild imaginings for the sake of long-term growth.

He agreed, and added “He doesn’t distil all my ideas; some of them are just too crazy or risky to use, so I think he just kind of ignores them. But when he likes the sound of a plan, he’ll move heaven and earth to make it happen. I guess I’m not so good on the details, and he loves working the small stuff!”

Many entrepreneurs have significant skill gaps when it comes to service delivery, project execution, time management and cash control. It’s just not what they DO!

If that sounds like you, don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re the Bill Gates of your enterprise; the Richard Branson.

When your peculiar talents are forged in white-hot creativity, blue-sky thinking and ultra-positivity, it’s no surprise there isn’t room in your head for the daily logistics.

But like our Mr Big, you’d better find your calming nemesis before you drive your ideas-train right off the rails!

Jon Cooper is the founder of www.JupiterDawn.com. Marketing for your business.

Jon Cooper: Let’s try the most useless opening line EVER!

Don't blow a good campaign with a lousy follow-up!

A friend of mine has a small business selling blinds to homes and workplaces. He said a few weeks ago that he’d had a new colour brochure done and was going to post it out to around 200 of his past customers.

I told him he would multiply his hit-rate maybe 10-fold if he followed up with chaser phone calls, and he set about his campaign.

I met him again over the weekend and asked him how things were going.

“Waste of time!” he blurted. “Something wrong with the post!” he continued. “Hardly anybody got their brochures!”

He’d sent them out as planned, and then starting calling around, using the opening line – “It’s Craig here from Acme Blinds” (names changed to protect the dumb) “Just wondered if you got the brochure we sent out last week”

Hmmm…Craig, you just used the most useless opening line in the history of useless opening lines! Here’s why, mate -

1- The only people who need to know whether a piece of post has arrived or not are customer service researchers at the Royal Mail.

2 – If the customer answers no (he hasn’t received it) he’s either lying to stall any further conversation (most likely), or you have his address wrong. Either way, it leaves you with next-to-no chance of recovering to a selling situation.

3 – If the customer answers yes, where does that leave you? You’ve then got to hit him with another question to move the call forward; usually “so…was it of interest then?” He’s probably already rehearsed the answer to that one, and it doesn’t help.

4 – Asking a “yes-or-no” question as an opening line is, always has been and always will be a pretty lame idea.

“Craig” could have supercharged his chances of success with this kind of pitch –

“…as you’ve been a customer of ours before, I wanted to let you know about a great deal we’ve got on at the moment: [Insert short, sharp, sexy info-hook] I can pop over Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon to work out some prices for you…which would be better?”

And about that brochure – they definitely received it; it had either warmed them up nicely or they’d already thrown it away!

Have a question you'd like Jon Cooper to address? You can submit it by either adding a comment to this post online or by e-mailing it to jon@jupiterdawn.com

Jon Cooper: Top ten biggest sales mistakes.

Easy ways to ruin a sale.

As you read this, salespeople around world are doubtless hard at work inventing
new methods of screwing up their chances of success. To give them a helping
hand, here are my top ten ways to lose a sale!
1: Talk about yourself. No prospect wants you to listen to his story, and in any
case, you are far more interesting than he is.
2: Talk technical. Make sure you baffle them with enough confusing jargon, so
they have to buy just to find out what you were on about.
3: Let the customer take control. You need them to call the shots. Anyway, it’s
only polite, as they’re the ones paying your wages.
4: Make sure you recite your canned pitch. Everyone loves being assaulted with
a heavy sales spiel.
5: Insist they hear all the features of your product. Don’t bother talking benefits;
how should you know how they’re going to use your stuff anyway? They’ll have
plenty of time to work that out for themselves once they’re bought it.
6: Don’t worry about asking for the sale; after all, nobody ever makes decisions
on the day, so just assume they’re going to get at least three more quotes and
then want to think about it, like all the others.
7: Don’t waste time chasing prospects. They’ll always come back to you if you’ve
done your job, right? If they don’t, it just means they were wasting your time all
along.
8: Aim your pitch at the lowest-ranking employee. Get him excited and he’ll tell
his boss, who’ll tell his boss, and so on, until your sparkling message reaches
the actual decision-maker.
9: Don’t bother checking early on if they need or want your product. Just hit
them with your standard pitch, and they’ll sure as heck want it by the time
you’ve finished.
10: Love ‘em and leave ‘em. Your job is to make the sale, not deliver the goods.
The only reason they want to speak to you later is to complain about something,
so leave all that to Customer Service. Wouldn’t be so bad if they rang you with a
recommendation or referral every now and again, but of course; they never do.
Have a question you'd like Jon Cooper to address? You can submit it by either
adding a comment to this post online or by e-mailing it to jon@jupiterdawn.com

Are you working ON your business, or IN it?

Let your enterprise work for you, not you for it!
I meet many people engaged in their own enterprises, and it’s striking how there
is a clear divide between those whose lives are controlled by their business, and
those who have learned to control it to their advantage.
The first group are often no more than employees who happen to be their own
boss, whereas the latter enjoy the freedom and wealth which flows from being in
charge of a successful venture.
Here’s a 6-point self-test to decide which group you fall into –
1: Are you working more hours with fewer holidays than any of your staff? If yes,
the business is running you, and you are merely working IN it. Get to work ON it,
and you will find ways to accomplish your goals and still have time for a normal
social and family life.
2: Does everything go wrong when you’re not there? If yes, you need to create
systems and processes which function entirely without your input, and then
delegate their operation to others. Success in this area is a sure sign you’re
getting to work ON your business.
3: Are you constantly juggling cashflow to pay unexpected bills or last-minute
demands? If so, you have probably been focussing on small urgent tasks instead
of sitting back and planning the big important things, and are too busy earning a
living to make any money!
4: Do you have customers who will only deal directly with you? Worse, do you
believe they will only ever deal with you? If that’s you, you need to be working
ON your business, and educate your customers to buy from others in the
company, leaving you free to focus on strategic planning and growth.
5: Is your office door “always open”? Does all your staff come to you for advice
and clearance on everything? If so, you need to break the dependency culture and
empower them to think for themselves. You’ll get far more out of your people, and
free up your time to plan for the future.
6: Do you work to a business plan, with clear, measurable goals? Do you review
and amend it regularly based on actual results? If you’re not planning where your
company is going for at least the next 3 years, that’s a clear marker that you are
only working IN it, not ON it!
Thanks to Khawar Hussain from Business Link for the inspiration on this topic.
Have a question you'd like to Jon to address? You can submit it by either adding a comment to this post online or by e-mailing it to jon@jupiterdawn.com

Sharp lessons from a wily creature

Are you a hedgehog or a fox? And which provides a better model for leadership and success?

According to business guru Jim Collins, and contrary to what you might imagine, it’s the prickly one we should be emulating!

The reason is all about focus; developing a single idea and doing it superbly well, rather than creating endless new strategies, divisions and projects in an attempt to stay ahead of the competition.

Embedding the “Hedgehog Concept” into your enterprise requires you to understand your answers to the following three fundamental questions -

1: What can you truly be the best in the world at? This won’t necessarily point you to your current endeavours, qualifications or experience. In fact, if you’re engaged in something which you’re not particularly good at, you need to look further to discover your true calling. Do you go to work feeling that you were born to do this, and that you have found your niche? If not, why not?

2: What drives your financial success? All the great achievers and organisations understand where their cashflow and profit comes from. Both are essential to business survival, so you shouldn’t waste time on anything which rewards you with only one or neither. Furthermore, eliminating those parts of your activity which are holding you back financially gives you more time to concentrate on the worthwhile stuff.

3: What are you passionate about? Here’s a test. Today, you win the lottery. Do you enjoy your work so much that you would carry on doing it tomorrow? If you would, you’ve already found your true calling. Furthermore, in your business, is there a universal culture where everyone feels motivated, excited and valued in everything they do?

“Hedgehog” thinking operates in the space where the answers to all three of those questions overlap.

In case you’re wondering about the analogy with forest wildlife, remember that whether the fox creeps towards him slowly, lunges at him from behind a log, or leaps from the bow of a tree in an attempt to surprise him, Spiny Norman only ever has to execute his one single, perfect move.

He curls into a ball and leaves his “cunning” attacker reeling in defeat, usually with a bloody nose!

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting.
Email jon@jupiterdawn.com with feedback and business strategy queries.

CRM for success

Get the sales cream with CRM

Most businesses know their products, their message and their market well enough to produce a sales strategy that works pretty well. But they forget how important TIMING is in the whole mix.People will buy when THEY'RE ready, not when YOU’RE ready to make a sale.

We all know sales calling can be a tedious, stressful time-consuming process, which is sometimes easier to ignore. After all, if the customer doesn’t buy now, he’ll come back to us when he’s ready – right?

Wrong! Your “customer” will buy from the last person he talks to before he’s ready to make the decision. If that’s not you, it will be one of your competitors.

So, you have to be in front of your customers when they're ready to buy. In other words, you have to follow-up constantly to stop someone else catching their attention!

And in today’s contracted market, the last thing you want to do is to leave business, and money, on the table for someone else to grab.

Fortunately, there is a simple and easy way to ensure that you leave no stone unturned, and no opportunity open to your competition.

It’s called a Customer Relationship Management system, or CRM for short.

This is basically a log, detailing the last contact you had with your customer, and containing a date and time for the next agreed contact with them.

In the old days, this could have been no more than a note in your diary, or some kind of card index. I know people who still use a 1-31 filing drawer-based system for their personal follow-ups.

In 2009, however, there’s no excuse for not running a fully automated system, often linked in with your email software. If you’re not yet using MS Outlook for email, diary and task management, try it out right now, as it’s an accessible and cost-effective way to keep on top of things.
In fact, one of the main reasons my clients log on to their PCs in the morning is to open their CRM systems and check for that day’s follow-up calls.

I read an industry survey recently which estimated that a staggering 99% of SMEs don’t effectively follow up on sales enquiries. I want you to be part of the enlightened 1% this year, so get that CRM system in place, and use it religiously!

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting.
Email jon@jupiterdawn.com with feedback and business strategy queries.

Reading and meeting for a Tremendous Life

Reading and meeting are the keys to a Tremendous life

Like many in business, and with an interest in the success habits of others, I’m an avid reader.

I was reminded again of the power of a well written phrase when I picked up an article celebrating the life of Charles “Tremendous” Jones, an inspirational American speaker, author and life coach who died in 2008.

For six decades he toured the world imparting his wisdom and touching the lives of millions of people, but the one thing he’ll be remembered for above all else is a simple 26-word mantra –

“You are the same today as you will be next year except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read.”

It’s a beautifully simplistic view of course, but how true! If you read nothing and meet no-one for 12 months, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be particularly successful.

It’s also a given in that statement that it matters what you read and who you meet. If you read the Beano and meet only the postman every day, you’ll get what you get.

In a life devoted to advancing the understanding of business fundamentals, Jones published nine books, all of which have become reference works of their kind.

I’m about to re-read my copy of his 2 million selling “Life is Tremendous”, still available online and in bookshops.

Peppered with memorable quotes such as “To know what to do is wisdom. To know how to do it is skill”, his output consistently redefined how we should think about generating lasting wealth and happiness.

Like many business icons, he was a passionate philanthropist, and firmly believed not only that to receive anything you first have to give something, but also that giving is simply returning what you owe anyway. “Everything I have was a gift from someone”, he said recently.

Charlie also said that the secret to success is two words – “I will”, as against “I’ll think about it” or “I might”, or (God forbid) “I can’t”.

This year I’m going to follow Charlie’s “Tremendous” guidance. I WILL meet some more exceptional people, and I WILL read some more amazing books. I hope you do too.

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting.
Email jon@jupiterdawn.com with feedback and business strategy queries.

Focussed Upstream Networking for success

FUN takes practice!

One of the hardest things to do in business, as in life, is to make connections with those people who can truly enhance your prospects for success.

Most of us are reasonably good at networking, but often only in a close comfort-zone, interacting with those in a similar position to us. Doing that can be great for shooting the breeze and comparing tales of woe, but isn’t always a recipe for creating any radical change.

I have a friend and client with a plot of land which he wanted to develop, but wasn’t sure what to build or how. He asked me who I knew who might be able to help him. I suggested he picked the phone up to the wealthiest and most successful property developer in the City over recent times. I’d met him recently, and felt sure he would listen to my friend’s dilemma and try and help.

Sure enough, when asked “can I have the benefit of your opinion on a project I am considering?”, Mr Big invited my friend to come along to his office, and not only offered advice, but is now working with him to create a fantastic new site which will reap far more than either of us had imagined.

The technique we used there is what I call FUN, or Focussed Upstream Networking. It’s a massively powerful way to move your business forward, and easier than you think.

Start by making a list of the ten most successful/wealthy (often one and the same) people you know. Even if you only know someone else who knows them, put them on the list if you can get their contact details.

Then, email or call each of them with a (very) brief intro and a request such as “I’d like to get the benefit of your experience on…” or “as I know you’ve been very successful at…can you spare half an hour to look at my situation?”

You’ll find most people are flattered and more than happy to open up to you, and you will create at least 2 or 3 worthwhile lasting relationships.

Remember the key is to choose your network carefully, and always be looking to expand it outside of your current reach.

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting.
Email jon@jupiterdawn.com with feedback and business strategy queries.