That’s great, what they need to ask themselves is whether it’s realistic at the current stage of their business.

There’s nothing wrong with aspirations at all. However, using goals to try and achieve them in the short-term (by that I mean a year) can be counterproductive.

After all aspirations by their very nature tend to be out of our comfort zone and more difficult to achieve.

So in order to get around the problem of mixing aspirations with goals I like to use a 3 year target so that I can show my aspirations developing over three years.

Aspirational Target

For example maybe I want to have an office in Australia. However, there are a number of things I need to do before I can achieve that. So it makes sense to put the project "opening an Australian office" into year 2 of my target. Year 1 might contain things like increase profit by £250,000 to £750,000 and recruit a new sales person.

So in the target picture the numbers 80 to 60 would represent year 1 (this year), 50 to 40 year 2 (next year) and 30 to 10 year 3 (the following year).

Then on the target you’d write down your aspirations as a line leading from the centre. Then along that line you’d write what could be achieved in each of the 3 year rings.

The net result is that I can show my aspirations being achieved over three years. And obviously each year I create a new aspirational target.

The good thing about doing it this way is that it’s a visual prompt to your brain that reinforces your aspirations and what you want to achieve over the next three years.

Vital Few Goals

Now I have my aspirational target I can look at those I believe can be achieved, or part achieved, this year. Then I decide what are the 3 or 4 Vital Few Goals I need to meet to move forward on those aspirations

I list those down and then brainstorm projects that can help move me forward on one, or preferably more than one, of the vital few.

I assign project deadlines for each project and also a measurement of how I’ll know that I’ve succeeded.

Then I breakdown the projects into steps I need to take to achieve each one.

As I work on each of the projects I know I’m working towards completing them. In completing them I’m meeting the Vital Few Goals and in doing that moving forward with my aspirations.

Ultimately those aspirations are what makes a company grow and prosper.

And this approach is part of what is incorporated into my time management workshops.

Unfortunately from long and sometimes bitter experience I can attest to the fact that there are very few people who are great presenters from the day they start.

I’ve actually sat through presentations where the presenter simply read from their notes, without looking in their audiences direction. One presenter I saw even got so befuddled with their notes they had to stop and go off stage in a fluster. Others wind their way round to the point they’re making and take so long  that it feels like you’re sliding down an old-fashioned helter-skelter.

At other times I’ve witnessed presenters who obviously thought they were the cream of the presenting crop and yet lack of rehearsal meant they inflicted pain on their audience. That pain was from the obvious fact that they didn’t know which slide was coming up or whether the questions they were asked came up in a later section of the slides.

And of course we’ve all seen presentations where the presenter is so taken with their company that they waste a lot of air talking about their business, their history, their clients, their success and worst of all make their audience sit through the company video.

So if you’re looking to improve a little on your presentation skills learn from what others get wrong…

Presentation technology

It really doesn’t matter how you do the presentation: webinar, Powerpoint slides, flipchart, video or simply standing on a stage. Never blame the technology if you fail to deliver your objectives for your presentation.

The oft-quoted “Death by Powerpoint” is not Powerpoint’s fault. It’s the fault of the wielder of the technology. The types of issues you tend to get with people who use Powerpoint as a crutch are as follows:

1) They start off running without any introductory slide or estimate of how long they’ll take

2) They don’t investigate what their audience is interested in

3) They deliver the same canned content to different audiences (related to previous point)

4) They have slide after slide of text with no images to break it up

5) They have more than about 5 bullets per slide and/or they have long sentences on the slide

6) They read from the slide verbatim without adding any thoughts related to the slide content

7) They spend too much time on each slide, or one particular one they think is important and no one else does

They don’t look at their audience, rather looking at the screen or their notes

9) They have large amounts of data and/or text on a slide, which tends to mean an impossible to read font

The Presentation itself

When it comes to the presentation there are aspects which only the presenter can do. And if they fail to do them a dire result is inevitable.

The issues presenters have include:

1) Not rehearsing so they’re struggling for words or ways to phrase what they’re talking about

2) Going on about them, their company or their product. Instead of talking about the things the people they’re presenting to are interested in: themselves, their company, their issues

3) Not keeping the pace of the slides reasonably fast so that people read ahead and get bored

4) Not varying their tone, pitch and energy levels during the presentation

5) Not having appropriate images to illustrate most slides, even though they’ve heard more information is retained with image and text together than just text alone

6) Not rehearsing the whole thing OUT LOUD, that way they’ll see whether they trip on words they think they say well when they’re rehearsing internally

7) Not looking at their audience or engaging them in some way

Post Presentation thoughts

A bad presenter considers themselves to be an expert and if the feedback is that some of their content wasn’t clear, well it was the fault of the audience. Others might be complacent, because the audience really liked the content and yet they know they could do better. In reality they should go back to their presentation and polish it so that it is better. Particularly so if it’s being emailed out to one or more audience members.

They never sit back with a trusted friend and see what they could have done better.

Does any of that describe you? I must admit to one or two of them, but having learnt by trial and error I’m better now! The thing is you don’t need to learn by trial and error. Learn from this. And thanks to some of the people before I’ve trained them in Presentation mastery and in the horrible pitches I’ve sometimes had to sit through for giving me these ugly examples of presentation hell!

Over the years, I’ve realised that there are some people who just need some guidance, a bit of training and focussing to develop themselves and/or their business. And I can really help those people, if they’re the right ones.

So how do I make sure I’ve got the right people to coach?

Simply, when people are referred to me I have an in-depth chat with them, not as in-depth as the company audit I do, but close!

I want to find out if they are people who are …

1) Able to approach business with a sense of humour

2) Actually wanting to grow their business more (and yes I’ve met companies who don’t want to…)

3) Confident that they have a good business that can grow

4) Aware of some (no one is aware of all) of the shortcomings

5) Completely committed to meeting when we agree (either by phone or in person)

6) Understanding that coaching is an investment and NOT a cost

7) Willing to take action, because without action all we do is generate hot air! And I’ll fire you as a client if inaction continues

And I avoid people who are…

1) one man bands, I used to help them, but usually they can’t afford to pay anything, so I’ve written a book that gives them a hand instead

2) Companies that are quickly sliding downward, unless there is a new MD at the helm who is willing to work like a Trojan

3) not nice to know

Whenever I’ve gone against one, or more, of these golden rules I find that the assignment becomes more of a slog. We do achieve stuff but it’s much harder than it needs to be.

If you feel you meet these rules and you’d rather do it under your own steam that’s ok. I can guarantee it will be much slower than coaching, however I can still help you, just sign up to get my book: “How to leap ahead of your competitors.”

You can also connect with me through LinkedIn, just to make sure I connect with you add the fact you’ve come from here in the message.

And yet, we’re only human, we need someone to talk these worries through with.

Someone we can trust to not dig the knife or start to stir up a worry with the intention of undermining us.

What about when we “know” in our water we should be in a new market and everyone else around us has their own agenda and doesn’t want to “chance” it?

Maybe they’re worried it could affect their own shareholding, or make it harder for them to jump ship if they need to. Or it might entail a lot of hard work that they don’t want to do!

Different Viewpoints Are OK Too

And there’s actually nothing wrong with different viewpoints. However, it’s better for the chief executive to be able to use a sounding board who has no company agenda and simply wants to help the business grow.

And as I’ve been going round doing my executive coaching I’ve noticed there are CEOs who are looking for the opportunity to sound out what they’re thinking, without it being a career limiting move.

In reality that sort of confidential sharing can’t happen until the CEO and mentor have reached the right level of trust. And of course the CEO must know that those confidences are held strictly against the chest of the mentor and never divulged.

CEOs Are People Too!

I’ve discovered that the managing directors or CEOs who’ve used me as a sounding board or as “old and wise counsel” (hopefully wise!) have really come up with very interesting points of view. And they themselves can be very different to the perceptions of them held by others in their own company.

So, my recommendation, is for you to look out for someone who you can unburden yourself to, someone who won’t share the confidence with anyone and who has a good understanding of business. That way you can thrash out ideas and worries before they become too entrenched or bothersome and before fellow directors, or owners, are presented with them.

Well here we are…

If you scored

1-5 and you’re the Blind Entrepreneur. You started the business. You work incredibly hard and long hours. You probably never thought the term “work-life balance” applied to people in real life.  And in reality you’ve just swapped your job for another job with a tougher boss – you.

6-12 and you’re the Complacent Entrepreneur. Yes you’re doing well. And that’s why you know that you and your business can instantly react to any change in customer behaviour or market conditions. Boom and bust, it’ll never happen to us is your thinking.

13-18 and you’re the Blame-Free Entrepreneur. Your business reflects your industry. If it’s doing well your business does well. And the reason you give is all down to the economy, or maybe the banks, or your competitors or worse still your customers.

19-20 makes you The Active Entrepreneur. You know that you don’t know everything. You’ll try and find ways of bringing people in to help. And you’ll try out different ways of getting and retaining customers.

Obviously this quiz was just a little bit of fun. However, it does have a semi-serious message. And that is that people from all walks of life start different businesses. And just because they start them doesn’t mean they can get them to a million in turnover. And even if they can do that it doesn’t mean they can take it to 10 million in turnover.

And the reason is that they may be missing one of the 12 vital ingredients that go to make up the super successful entrepreneur or company director.

We both agreed that the common trap entrepreneurs seem to fall into is making excuses for their business. After all it’s their baby. And it can be very hard for any parent to see that their baby isn’t well and needs some medicine.

We’d just returned from our nephew Ben’s 21st birthday party and we were unwinding with a glass of wine and a cup of tea for me ( I still had a bit of a drive back to Manchester).

And it suddenly struck me that there are several different types of entrepreneur. In fact after coming home I identified 4 entrepreneur types.

So I’ve compiled a fun little quiz to see what sort of entrepreneur you are. Simply record for each question the answer letter and then we’ll score it.

What Entrepreneur Questions

Question 1: You’ve realised that your profits are down this month. Do you

a) start telling the sales people to sell more
b) look at all the reasons why profits are down
c) ignore it as a temporary blip
d) Ring the bank and ask to extend your overdraft

Question 2: You bring in a web consultant and they advise you to change your web site. Do you

a) agree, but it’s low on your priority list and is unlikely to happen
b) examine each recommendation and decide whether it makes sense before using them
c) You’ve paid for the advice so you implement every recommendation
d) implement each one using split testing

Question 3: Your whole team is professionally trained in presentation skills for free Do you

a) think “that it’s a great motivator for the team and it means they’ll work harder”
b) think “it was fun, but it was free so it probably wasn’t that good” 
c) think “we didn’t learn much as the team were already fully trained”
d) think “I can’t see how we could possibly use these new skills to make a difference in the business”

Question 4: Your best customer tells you that they wont be renewing their contract in 2 months, do you

a) urge them to stay and offer large discounts to really make it difficult for them to leave
b) say, “we don’t need your business"
c) Work out whether redundancies are needed
d) Tell the sales people to sell more

Question 5: Another business is being offered for sale very cheaply, do you

a) buy it because its cheap
b) investigate the reason for the business being sold cheaply
c) say, “it’s cheap so there’s probably a flaw in it so I shouldn’t buy it” and ignore it
d) say, “we don’t need to grow any bigger”

Now to the scoring:

Question 1: a=1, b=4, c=3, d=2
Question 2: a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4
Question 3: a=4, b=1, c=3, d=2
Question 4: a=1, b=, c=3, d=4
Question 5: a=1, b=4, c=3, d=2

Now record your total score and tomorrow I’ll give you the type of entrepreneur you are along with a description of what you’re like. And remember this is just a bit of summer holiday fun!

In fact now is the time that enables you to concentrate on polishing the way you do business so that you’re ready for the upturn. Don’t think there’ll ever be one? There always is…

Plus looking at ways you can improve your lead to order ratio and reduce your customer loss.

To help businesses I’d like to offer these 10 tips to continue to grow your business.

1. Stop working so hard on tactics, step back and look at your business strategically
2. Implement a joint venture partnership to access your particular prospects
3. Use the Windows of Opportunity matrix to see if there are products you believe your current clients need that they don’t yet get from you
4. Improve your current sales processes, do it for an hour every week, until it works brilliantly
5. Innovate to create new, or better products
6. Use strategic marketing to get your message to your key customers and prospects
7. Look at your whole business with your entire staff. Improve one process at a time
8. Manage your time more effectively (I’m currently writing a book on this as it’s a subject particularly close to my heart as an ex IT Project director!)
9. Institute regular weekly staff training, it doesn’t need to be for more than 60 minutes, but it does ensure your staff learn the best ways of doing their jobs
10. Look at the assistance you can get from government bodies (I’m currently going through accreditation as a Business Link supplier – I’ll let you know how I get on)

Above don’t let the fear the rest of our economy is showing affect your attitude. You need to be confident that your business will survive. Follow these tips and you’ve got a much better chance of doing that than people who don’t!

If you’ve got a particular low, or no cost, tactic or strategy you use let us know by making a comment.

This post goes through a 7 step process to get the best sales person you can get.

Step 1: Your Industry Is Different

Of course your industry is different. However sales is based on human psychology and relationships.

So understand that if you recruit a super star sales person they don’t need to have worked in your industry at all. Truly great salespeople can apply sales principles to any industry. So don’t limit yourself to sales people in your own sector or niche.

Some sectors, such as finance, do require sales people to have certification. However getting a great salesperson means you seriously need to consider whether you’re willing to train them to get their certification.

Step 2: Advertise The Right Way

Too many sales recruitment adverts are all about the job, very little about the sort of person they want to recruit.

Your advert needs to stand out, capture the attention of the best sales people and to challenge them to apply for the job. At the same time you want to use the advert to frighten (yes I mean frighten) the people who think they "might be OK at sales", or "I usually make my figures."

Your advert needs to go into the best media to capture the type of sales people you want.

Step 3: Give Sales Spiel Short Shrift

Make sure the advert asks them to ring so you can talk to them before revealing further details about the sales job.

Again, use a short phone interview process, that challenges their ability as a sales person. Break into their sales spiel about how great they are, make sure they sell themselves to you. Ruthlessly get rid of people who obviously aren’t sales superstars. Those that are make sure that you interview them quickly (within a week). Otherwise they’re off with another company – if they’re looking you’re not likely to be the only iron in their fire.

Step 4: Conduct A Psychological-based Interview

Use a structured interview that you ask all the candidates the same questions. I use a pre-formatted series of questions that experience has shown brings out the best (and worst) during interviews.

A psychological-based interview is used to understand the attitudes a person has and brings to their work. These sorts of attitudes are reflected in their childhood and their experience in the job market so be aware that the best sales people can have very unusual CVs.

Also make sure your prospective sales person can mark themselves against a series of sales abilities you know every sales person needs.

Finally make sure they can really sell themselves to you before you even consider short-listing them.

Step 5: Perform A Sales Profile Test

It’s always important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of any candidate. If you’re convinced they’re a strong contender it’s useful to ask them to take a sales profile test. I use one that’s been tried and tested to find hundreds of great sales people.

The reason for the test is not to second guess what you’ve found out during the interview. It’s more about confirming what you’ve found. identifying strengths to build on and weaknesses to be aware of and to counteract.

Step 6: Decide Fast Slowly

Like I said before once a great sales person starts looking for a job they have any number of opportunities to go and work for companies. So if you’re sure they’re for you offer them the job as soon as is practicable, and of course you should make it dependent on references.

That said don’t offer it so quickly that you don’t check what they’ve said or thought about their answers, or considered their profile.

And always make sure that you ask for and take up references. Check the reality of the CV with the referee and also ask about some of the attitudes your interview and the profile has revealed.

Step 7: Hire Slow, Fire Fast

I don’t mean make the hire decision slowly. I do mean make sure you go through every step of your sales recruitment process properly. Don’t be tempted to jump to the job offer after the first 15 minutes of the interview!

Then once they’re in place. Make sure that they understand your industry, what you’re selling, your key competitors, your current customers and where you’d like to sell more.

Then monitor their sales activity. Be aware of their weaknesses but don’t harp on about them.

If they don’t start bringing sales in, ask yourself the reasons. If they’re outside of the sales person’s control work to remove them. If they’re in their control work with them to remove them. Finally if they just don’t perform for you get rid of them.

Keeping on a salesperson who doesn’t bring in sales is rather like having your brakes on when you’re going uphill in your car. The likelihood of getting to the top of the hill is nil. And in fact with the brakes on the rest of the car is more likely to go straight back down the hill!

And of course we all probably know people who represent that particular image very well.

But we still need sales people to bring in sales, or your company withers and dies.

However, the best sales people aren’t like that.

So employing someone who is like that is doing your business a distinct disservice.

After all, do you want to be known as the company shark who preys on their customers?

There are 3 distinct problems with sales recruitment that I’ve seen.

They’re Just Like Me!

Recruiting someone because they’re like you is dangerous.

If you’re the business owner you’ve a vested interest in making sure your baby survives and thrives and you’ll do whatever it takes to make a sale. Someone else who maybe is rather like you doesn’t have your incentive (after all to them it’s a job) and they wont go that extra mile, they wont get up that half an hour early or go and see that troublesome client and sort out their issue for them.

Maybe, they want to run their own business (sound familiar?) and the job they’ve got with you is a stop-gap until they find the business they want to run, or maybe copy yours if you’re successful!

They’re Great At Customer Service

Maybe you’ve come across someone in a shop or other business who really pulls out all the stops to make sure your order is sorted out completely to your satisfaction. Or perhaps its one of your own team who your customers keep praising as being fantastic to deal with?

The next logical step is to get those great relationship skills working for you as a sales person, right?

Wrong!

Admittedly star salespeople are great with their prospects and customers. However, it’s important they have some backbone so they don’t offer customers all sorts of freebies that are great for the customer but leave the company with a small margin on the sale.

Some "customer service" oriented sales people almost side with the customer against your company. "Yes, we shouldn’t have done that, I completely see your point, we’ll make sure that your order value is discounted." That’s not something you want to hear coming from a sales persons lips unless the company has made a major mistake!

They’re One Of My Friends or Relatives

When recruiting a sales person you always want to feel you know a great about them. Understand how they would react in a given sales situation. Forsee how their strengths can best be used.

The problem with recruiting your friends and relatives is that even though you know them well socially you don’t usually know them in a business setting.

They may work out fantastically, and I have seen that work sometimes…

More often if it’s a relative they can cause problems in the company by using your relationship to get priority treatment for their prospects, or to get staff to do work they wouldn’t do for another sales person.

And relatives, or friends, may turn out to be the most appalling salesperson you’ve ever seen once they get in to gear. Then what do you do?

Think about how your relationship changes if you fire them? How do you discipline one of your relatives? How will it affect your wider circle of friends and relatives if you do bite the bullet and "let go" someone who’s under performing?

Sales Recruitment: Aim At The Best You Can Get

Limiting your recruitment pool to friends, relatives or people you’ve met severely restricts your choice of sales person.

Recruiting people you know or already think are great means you’ll tend to view them in a rosy light (known psychologically as "the Halo Effect"). That means you’re more likely to see all the positive aspects to the interview you have with them and downplay the negative.

If you’re interested in getting the best possible sales person for your business (and no they don’t need to cost the Earth) you need to have a complete process and, preferably, a proven sales test.

In my next post I’ll go through the steps to recruit the best possible sales person for your business.

For example, "We want to grow our business and make 25% more profit next year."

That’s the wrong way to go about it. After all if you haven’t done some investigation how do you know whether your business can grow by 25% or 200%?

It would seem a shame not to grow 200% if you could by spending the same time and money you would growing by 25%.

Business Growth Requires Focus

Every business can improve the way they do business and deliver their products and services to their clients and services to the people inside their own firm.

All it takes is some commitment, a few goals to aim for and someone to keep you focused on those goals when business life just assumes a life of its own and keeps you working hard in it, rather than on it.

Improving a business easily falls by the wayside when there are "more important business issues" such as making payroll.

Business Growth Lacks Ego

The reason why people are wary about employing a mentor or business coach is for two reasons:

1. They’ve got their business going, it’s their baby and no one can know what they know or do what they do or offer advice that’s convincing or useful
2. They’re afraid that a mentor will uncover the skeletons in the closet and everyone will find out that the business isn’t as solid as they represent to the world

Both these views are understandable. However, don’t let them stop you from growing. Firstly you should choose a mentor you can trust. Secondly remember by avoiding coaching you you don’t know what your business is really capable of.

Business Growth Needs Help

You may really know everything there is to know in your industry and you may be making the most profit in your industry and you may be best business in your industry.

However, what if a mentor could improve your business massively simply by getting you to focus on what you need to do to grow your business by 200%? Because if you could already do it by yourself you would already have achieved  massive and continual growth by now.

What I’m saying is you need to make a New Year’s resolution to get someone from outside your company to help you build your business. Someone who isn’t afraid to tell you they don’t agree, someone who’s willing to be a devil’s advocate and someone who really wants to help your business grow.

They don’t need to live next door to you as the phone and Skype have shrunk the globe as far as communications is concerned!

Certainly when I coach companies I find the biggest issue now is making sure that we know which time zones I and the client really mean and whether it’s summer time or not!