I have an amazing dad. He’s one of those people who genuinely cares about others, gives freely of his time and encourages people to be their best just by the way he is. When I was growing up, I took it for granted. I figured everyone had a father like that. As I became a teenager and began smacking into those challenges to self-esteem that most teens face, my dad tried to give me advice about how to cultivate a positive attitude. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen much. (Read more…)
 
A couple weeks ago, I attended the Dan Kennedy 4-City Tour that Infusionsoft sponsored. We were in Anaheim on Tuesday, Chicago on Wednesday, NYC on Thursday and Orlando on Friday. In total, we had 1475 small business owners attend. Dan spoke about thriving in a tough economy. He covered about 3 hours of great material. I talked for about an hour on fixing follow-up flaws in your small business. Tomorrow I’ll post some pictures of the packed-house crowds we spoke to. It was SRO in every city. Nuts! And a lot of fun to speak to crowds like that. It was fun to catch up with some customers, hear how they’re doing and talk to business owners across the country about the struggles they’re facing. Here’s what amazed me… I asked the same five questions in every city:
The most interesting thing to me is that out of 1475 business owners across the country, three were happy with their revenue and profits. And only three were satisfied with the amount of time and effort they are putting into their business. That was amazing to me. And sad. Because it doesn’t have to be that way. But that’s a story for another day. I went to my quarterly workshop for entrepreneurs the other day. I love this workshop because I get to speak with a roomful of savvy entrepreneurs in all different business types. The workshop is led by a great mentor and he delivers some powerful concepts for entrepreneurs. Stuff like time management (entrepreneur style), process creation, team-building, planning, systematizing and growing your business. The program is called The Strategic Coach. It was founded years ago by a brilliant guy named Dan Sullivan. You can learn more about it at www.strategiccoach.com. I highly recommend it. But this isn’t a commercial for Strategic Coach. I just happened to be there when it hit me. The “it” I’m referring to is the power of guru status. See, my team and I have been very fortunate to work with some of the world’s leading small business gurus. As awesome as that’s been, we at Infusionsoft sometimes take for granted the fact we get to work with these “stars.” As I listened to a bunch of entrepreneurs talk about these gurus who use our software, they spoke in reverent tones. And the respect they showed for guys like Michael Gerber, Dan Kennedy, Mark Victor Hansen, Jay Abraham, Dan Sullivan and others was very interesting. Mind you, the entrepreneurs talking about these gurus were successful in their own right. So their comments made me grateful to be able to work with such gurus. But their comments also reminded me that even successful entrepreneurs like the ones in my class are quick to look up to, and follow, a guru. There’s a lesson in that for all of us entrepreneurs. I’ve been on a 10-day, road-trip vacation through the Midwest with my wife and five kids. We saw 10 states, a ton of interesting sites and more corn than I care to mention. With the exception of three 10-minute glances at my Blackberry, I left work completely alone. It was great and my family LOVED it. My oldest son said on the last day of the trip, “This is the best vacation we’ve ever had!” Success. Last Monday, we went to an amusement park. The roller coasters were great, the games stole a bunch of my money and the stuffed animals I won were, well, cheap. But we had a good time because my kids and I love riding roller coasters. The interesting thing was a comment my wife made as we left. I thought the day was a huge success, but she said, “Well, it’s certainly not Disneyland.” I thought the rides were more fun than Disneyland’s. But she was annoyed that the grounds weren’t clean. I started asking her questions about what she loves about Disneyland. It all came down to cleanliness, familiar characters and happy, cheerful employees. Truth is, I think the characters were the least important part to my wife. She spreads word-of-mouth wildfire about Disneyland because of clean grounds and happy employees. She won’t tell anyone about the amusement park we went to the other day. Considering the cost of acquiring new customers, this was a great lesson for me.
In working with business owners and entrepreneurs over the years, I’ve noticed that when it comes to acquiring new customers, most of them are hunters. They pounce on new leads, chase the prospects, make themselves readily available to the prospect and then bend over backwards to land the new customer. On the other hand, I’ve noticed that the most successful business owners and entrepreneurs take a different approach to customer acquisition: they are harvesters. They gather in all their leads, work hard to prevent any from slipping through the cracks, cultivate those leads and then harvest them when the time is right for the customer. The most interesting thing about these two styles is that the hunter usually gets tired, a bit humiliated and ends up getting small margins. On the other hand, the harvester stays fresh, confident and usually earns higher margins. What I’ve described here is the difference between a sales mentality (hunter) and a marketing mentality (harvester). Every business owner or entrepreneur who experiences some level of success has hunting skills… and that’s good. But the difference between minor success and major success is the difference between hunting and harvesting. Oh, and just so we’re clear… I’m not saying that harvesting is an easy, non-aggressive job. When it’s time to harvest, you swing the sickle sharp and fast. Happy harvesting! « Older Posts |
