Tag Archives: small business

The Last Thing That Should Stop Is….

We all know that good old saying “When things get tough, the tough get going”

Sure, things right now are a bit uncertain

BUT things right now provide you with amazing opportunities

So the last thing that you should be stopping is your marketing

A good marketing system is the lifeline of your business

When things get tight you should be doubling down on your marketing and spend more time, effort or resources

So what could you be doing:

1.       Get yourself seen more online through your social platforms

2.       Reach out and engage personally with your clients and networks

3.       Organise virtual coffees and still have meetings to create collaborations and opportunities

4.       Concentrate on adding value and serving at a higher level than ever before

5.       Talk to your CRM and offer value

Bottom line, you can’t just stop and you shouldn’t

Our Partnership Club clients are looking at how they run monthly online trainings, do more live Q&A on social platforms, make sure they have daily social content adding value to their audiences.

They are getting on podcasts and webinars, creating partnerships with associations, clubs and other businesses.

Bottom line, they are doubling down on their marketing and sales and not just stopping.

So what is your plan to make sure you continue to attract, educate and get prospects who have the pain point you solve to raise their hand and reach out to you?

The Big “O” Word

Your thoughts control your actions and your actions control your results.

It is a powerful thing to remember as a business owner… We are in control of our thoughts and therefore our actions.

Right now there are so many opportunities.

Opportunities to be a better leader to your clients.

Opportunities to change your business model and be more efficient.

Opportunities to educate and nurture your audience and add some real value.

Opportunities to help your clients and engage with every single one of them personally.

Opportunities to think bigger, better and on a larger scale than before.

Opportunities for new products, services or programs.

You have opportunities all around you and you just need a positive mind to realise that most these opportunities are yours for the taking.

Start by asking yourself ‘how can we do this better’

Then look at what needs to be tweaked, thrown out, re-modelled or just created from new.

Turn off the news, turn off social media (other than you putting up amazing content) and focus on thriving.

Sometimes 2 minds are better than 1, especially from someone that isn’t as emotionally attached to your business as you are.

If you would like any assistance to look at where your opportunities are and how to maximise this time to get them then please just comment below and lets brainstorm together.

Who Do You Ask When You Want Recommendations?

I was in Melbourne last week for a conference.

It was late on Wednesday night, finished for the day and needed something good to eat.

It’s not my town, I don’t know the spots close to me or what’s good or bad.

So what do you do?

You ask people for recommendations!

You get onto your social media or you send out a few texts or even maybe you phone a friend or two.

The point is we rely A LOT on other people and what they know and who they know.

So why don’t you do the same thing to build up a list of referral sources.

A referral source is someone who sells to the same people you sell to and you don’t compete with one another.

We simply just don’t use our networks well enough when creating new referral sources.

Do this right now with me, open your Facebook/LinkedIn Connections.

Have a scroll through the long list of people you have there.

You’re looking for people that have a similar audience to you, without actually doing what you do.

You should start to see 4-5 peoples names stand out to you.

Now, send this simple message to those people – ‘Hi Name, saw your face pop up and knew it was over due saying hello! How are things with you?’

Start the conversation. Once they reply, you can then chat with them about promoting each other to your networks

By doing this activity 2-3 times a week, you’ll easily get an additional 5 referral partners a week.

A simple 5 minute activity, can much such a difference in your overall performance.

When You Build Trust, You Build Relationships

Trust is the foundation of any relationship, so we can appreciate the importance of building trust when networking, facing new clients or customers and generally anyone we’re doing business with.

Keep these small things in mind in your next interactions and you’re sure to build trust quickly and connect with the person you’re talking to.

Be Predictable.

It’s almost an insult to call someone predictable because it implies they’re simple and boring. But predictability is a major ingredient in trustworthiness and it makes sense. The more consistently you behave, and the more congruence there is between what you say and what you do, the more transparent and trustworthy you’ll appear to others.

Be Humble.

The most trustworthy people aren’t just self-aware but also genuinely humble. Humility helps us take responsibility for our mistakes instead of blaming others. This makes self-deception less likely in the first place, and with that comes a lower likelihood of deceiving others. Think about it, when people are arrogant and self-important, that’s a pretty good sign to keep your distance. Chances are good that they’re more willing and able to deceive you and aren’t to be trusted.

Be Vulnerable.

A number of studies have shown that highly competent people can make themselves appear more approachable by being vulnerable. Something like a bad joke, revealing a secret, making a small mistake or blunder is all it takes to appear a bit more human, approachable and warm.

Balance is Key.

If a stranger came up to you and asked you to hold their wallet for them, would you trust them? Contrary to popular belief, trustworthiness is arguably best in moderation. As in this situation, if you trust someone excessively then you risk being naive, increasing your chances of getting taken advantage of. On the other hand, if you’re completely unable or unwilling to trust others, you won’t be able to build and maintain relations.

What are You Providing, Holding Back and Giving?

What are you providing, holding back and giving?

Sometimes we get stuck with the wrong thinking that you have keep things up your sleeve for later… HUGE mistake and here is why.

It’s about red, yellow and green people, plus what you are really there for!

Remember to jump over to our Facebook group ‘The Million Dollar Referral Network’ and grab your training on using the 9 accelerators in your business. www.facebook.com/groups/michaelgriffiths

Make sure you subscribe to get great small business marketing tips, video’s and how to’s on referral marketing, using your business networks better and creating partnerships to fill your sales funnels. Great for any coach, consultant or professional service business.

Remember to jump into the ‘ Referral Network’ group on Facebook  and create new opportunities with great business owners. www.facebook.com/groups/michaelgriffiths

Remember to Subscribe to our YouTube Channel right here for more great coaching.

Remember to grab your copy of the Referral Game Plan at www.referralmarketingguru.com.au/gameplan

Who is Michael Griffiths? Michael is the founder of Referral Marketing Guru & the #1 authority on referral marketing training around the globe. He speaks some 60+ times just on referral marketing and partnerships and runs the leading referral marketing training program to help you build your own Million Dollar Referral System. He encourages active networking in BNI, Chamber Of Commerce and Referral Groups to build your own referral teams.

Focus on 1 marketing channel and it is a matter of time before you get burnt

Focus on the next shinny thing and it won’t work out just like all the other things haven’t so far

Focus on building the foundations and systems and now the big bad wolf can’t blow it over

Here are my thoughts…

Remember to come hang out and get our insider trainings on growing your business by referrals

www.michaelgriffiths.com.au/facebook

Make sure you subscribe to get great small business marketing tips, video’s and how to’s on referral marketing, using your business networks better and creating partnerships to fill your sales funnels. Great for any coach, consultant or professional service business.

Remember to jump into the ‘ Referral Network’ group on Facebook  and create new opportunities with great business owners. www.facebook.com/groups/michaelgriffiths

Remember to Subscribe to our YouTube Channel right here for more great coaching.

Remember to grab your copy of the Referral Game Plan at www.referralmarketingguru.com.au/gameplan

Who is Michael Griffiths? Michael is the founder of Referral Marketing Guru & the #1 authority on referral marketing training around the globe. He speaks some 60+ times just on referral marketing and partnerships and runs the leading referral marketing training program to help you build your own Million Dollar Referral System. He encourages active networking in BNI, Chamber Of Commerce and Referral Groups to build your own referral teams.

Learn More by Keeping Quiet

Indeed, you should be having multiple conversations every day in order to create more opportunities and generate more business. Yet, don’t underestimate the advantage of keeping quiet. Here’s when to bite your tongue and what you can learn by doing so.

Zip it. You can’t learn when you’re talking. If you spend most of a meeting or a conversation talking, trying to impress or trying to sell, you’re not learning anything. You’re also going to miss out on potential partnerships and you likely won’t hear enough about the challenges the other person is facing to know how you can help solve their challenges.

Listen. It is not only important to let other’s talk at meetings or in conversations, it is more important to listen to them. Nobody is going to be motivated to talk if you are not listening. People can tell if you are asking them to talk just to check off a box or whether you and others are actually listening and digesting what they are saying. More importantly, no one will trust you and they definitely wont want to do business with you.

Don’t ignore. Learn to leverage the suggestions and ideas everyone has. Learn how to connect your contacts and tap into each other’s networks. The goal is to get the best comments from everybody and have the team work together to synthesize the suggestions into an idea superior to anything anyone (yourself included) initially had. Come out with a better idea.

How to be Smart at Being ‘The Dumbest Person in the Room’

Growing up, we’re praised for getting good grades and doing well in school. So it’s no surprise that many of us might scoff at being told to aim at being ‘the dumbest person in the room.’ Not really the soundest advice, is it?

However, consider the endless instances when you’ve been around people who want to be the smartest at a meeting, or on an email thread. Their need for approval can become a detriment to any progress. Ironically, the most successful people are actually the ones who want to be the ‘dumbest’ at the meeting.

While highlighting your intelligence may seem important for your career or management, the opposite is true. Instead, by focusing on trying not to be the smartest person in the room, you’re more likely to be the most successful. Allowing others to be the ‘smartest; enables better input, more creative ideas and improved team performance. Here are some guidelines for how to be the smartest ‘dumbest’ person in the room.

Surround yourself with the best people available. Great people generate great results and you need to be willing to surround yourself with great people. These top performers are the ones who will drive success.

Everyone has good ideas. No matter how smart any one person is, there are millions of other very intelligent people on all levels, from the best physicists to the smartest marketers to the best product managers. While you may have some very creative solutions to a problem, do not think that others in the room do not have even better ideas. Letting everyone speak and respecting their ideas gives you the option of selecting the best one.

Great leaders are not great at everything. If you are a great leader, there is no way you are also great at every functional area you are responsible for. You may have wonderful leadership skills, but you should enable your team to do their best and defer to them as experts rather than trying to tell them how to do their work.

Measure on results, not sound bites. The measure of success of a meeting, or a working group, or an email thread is not how smart it made you look but that it generated the best possible results. These results are what will also drive your long-term success, not how much you impressed the others at the meeting or on the email.

Rather than trying to sound the smartest at a meeting, you should aim to be the dumbest. It is more important to surround yourself with great people who will bring performance to a level higher than any individual can achieve.

Accelerator #7 Leverage Access. What does that even mean?

The problem starts with how you have been taught to think and it is that same mindset that is stopping you from using this accelerator.

How are my thoughts…

Remember to come hang out and get our insider trainings on growing your business by referrals

www.michaelgriffiths.com.au/facebook

Make sure you subscribe to get great small business marketing tips, video’s and how to’s on referral marketing, using your business networks better and creating partnerships to fill your sales funnels. Great for any coach, consultant or professional service business.

Remember to jump into the ‘ Referral Network’ group on Facebook  and create new opportunities with great business owners. www.facebook.com/groups/michaelgriffiths

Remember to Subscribe to our YouTube Channel right here for more great coaching.

Remember to grab your copy of the Referral Game Plan at www.referralmarketingguru.com.au/gameplan

Who is Michael Griffiths? Michael is the founder of Referral Marketing Guru & the #1 authority on referral marketing training around the globe. He speaks some 60+ times just on referral marketing and partnerships and runs the leading referral marketing training program to help you build your own Million Dollar Referral System. He encourages active networking in BNI, Chamber Of Commerce and Referral Groups to build your own referral teams.