There are many business items that are expenses which require a full financial review as well as budget analysis but we don't happen to be one of them.
We don't cost our clients a dime, in fact we typically make them at least 3 times what they pay us.
Think of us like a sports agent - we're here to make you money. That's our full time job!
Since I spend quite a bit of my time meeting with prospective clients and then following up to get them to move forward with a strategy, it always seems to boggle my mind when a deal is a touch slow or it's being treated as an expense.
When we have an opportunity in our agency to invest money into something that will make us more money, I personally clear the approval lines and get the finance people to cut the check because income lines need to be lightening fast and disbursement lines for expenses and budget related items need to be relatively slow and thorough.
My point here is this, review every financial item within your company and separate them in two columns:
1. Expenses that cost money but are required and related.
2. Expenses that drive revenue.
Once this is done you can prioritize and make the 2nd column items urgent. Buying a few desks can wait - put the urgency on income related spending!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Art of the Follow Up....
These days people are busy.... Busier than ever. This isn't to say more productive than ever, just busier. They are on iphones, facebook, downloading apps, juggling work tasks and projects, trying to keep their heads above the ocean of emails, handling personal problems, dealing with company problems and the list goes on.
Call it dispersed or distracted or even unorganized but whatever the case, your communication to them is not impinging or making an impact or getting a response. Well, before you get too discouraged realize that the above listed items are diverting your message and causing chaos which is part of the problem to why you are not getting a response.
Too often I see salespeople burn deals they are working on simply because they have "followed up" and not gotten a response therefore the deal is cold or dead. While this seems rather logical... It is not. You must keep clearly in mind the facts above that people are busy and easily distracted.
Your job is to be organized for yourself and your prospect to follow up diligently over and over to stay on the prospects radar and keep interesting the prospect until you have gotten a response and can move the deal forward.
Following up could be by phone, email, Linkedin messages or connection requests, Skype, facebook, Twitter or anything else. Just focus on getting yourself in front of the prospect and on their radar however appropriate in order to keep reminding them until they are ready to commit time and energy to whatever it is that you want to discuss or propose.
I apply the above and consistently get comments of appreciation for my diligent follow up because without it.... They would have forgot. This isn't to toot my own horn but rather to point out that while it may sometimes seem like the prospect is not interested... The fact is, they are but they are simply too busy or distracted to respond. So always be diligent and follow up until your prospect is ready to discuss, this will dramatically improve your sales.
Call it dispersed or distracted or even unorganized but whatever the case, your communication to them is not impinging or making an impact or getting a response. Well, before you get too discouraged realize that the above listed items are diverting your message and causing chaos which is part of the problem to why you are not getting a response.
Too often I see salespeople burn deals they are working on simply because they have "followed up" and not gotten a response therefore the deal is cold or dead. While this seems rather logical... It is not. You must keep clearly in mind the facts above that people are busy and easily distracted.
Your job is to be organized for yourself and your prospect to follow up diligently over and over to stay on the prospects radar and keep interesting the prospect until you have gotten a response and can move the deal forward.
Following up could be by phone, email, Linkedin messages or connection requests, Skype, facebook, Twitter or anything else. Just focus on getting yourself in front of the prospect and on their radar however appropriate in order to keep reminding them until they are ready to commit time and energy to whatever it is that you want to discuss or propose.
I apply the above and consistently get comments of appreciation for my diligent follow up because without it.... They would have forgot. This isn't to toot my own horn but rather to point out that while it may sometimes seem like the prospect is not interested... The fact is, they are but they are simply too busy or distracted to respond. So always be diligent and follow up until your prospect is ready to discuss, this will dramatically improve your sales.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
All things to all people...
The thought of being all things to all people consistently mystifies me. I see agencies who are clearly traditional PR houses and have extensive expertise in traditional PR and media, recently add things like social media, new media, seo etc etc. I also hear these same agencies tell their prospective clients things like "oh, ya... we handle that too" or "yes, we can take care of the social". My first question is .... What is "the social" - please define.
So far I have only seen people and companies that are very good at a niche do extremely well and have yet to see watered down companies do well at everything. Michael Jordan is an incredible basketball player.... But baseball.... Soccer.... ?
Companies that focus on what they are good at and know in and out do very well and are truly the companies to deal with for a specific need. If I have a need or a want regarding men's suiting, it's a certainty that I will get better knowledge, customer service and recommendations from a niche fine mens suit store rather than going to macy's. While macy's is a good store and has a wide variety, you won't find the very best in mens suits or in expertise regarding mens suits.
If you need a litigation attorney.... go get a litigation attorney and don't try to get a general law firm that possibly can handle your litigation needs and since you are hiring them anyway... maybe they can also do your legal papers and corporate filings and on and on. This strategy will lead to mediocre results and if that is what you are searching for... well you can find that by the hoards. However if you want the very best solution to handle your exact needs or problem, my suggestion is to go with the niche specialized people or companies. It's a smart move all around.
You wouldn't put all of your HR work and recruitment work on your treasury or admin people because they are somehow related would you?
I would much rather be surrounded by incredible niche people and companies that I work with that do incredible work and get the desired outcome I am going after because they know their stuff rather than trying to find the one company that is trying to be everything to everyone jamming every service under one roof trying to make it all fit rather than truly focusing on what they are good at.
So far I have only seen people and companies that are very good at a niche do extremely well and have yet to see watered down companies do well at everything. Michael Jordan is an incredible basketball player.... But baseball.... Soccer.... ?
Companies that focus on what they are good at and know in and out do very well and are truly the companies to deal with for a specific need. If I have a need or a want regarding men's suiting, it's a certainty that I will get better knowledge, customer service and recommendations from a niche fine mens suit store rather than going to macy's. While macy's is a good store and has a wide variety, you won't find the very best in mens suits or in expertise regarding mens suits.
If you need a litigation attorney.... go get a litigation attorney and don't try to get a general law firm that possibly can handle your litigation needs and since you are hiring them anyway... maybe they can also do your legal papers and corporate filings and on and on. This strategy will lead to mediocre results and if that is what you are searching for... well you can find that by the hoards. However if you want the very best solution to handle your exact needs or problem, my suggestion is to go with the niche specialized people or companies. It's a smart move all around.
You wouldn't put all of your HR work and recruitment work on your treasury or admin people because they are somehow related would you?
I would much rather be surrounded by incredible niche people and companies that I work with that do incredible work and get the desired outcome I am going after because they know their stuff rather than trying to find the one company that is trying to be everything to everyone jamming every service under one roof trying to make it all fit rather than truly focusing on what they are good at.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Adding a face to personal relations...
While having breakfast at Paradise Bakery today I noticed a person in business attire come in and look around the entire room clearly trying to locate the person he was supposed to be meeting with. He looked over at me as if I might be the person he needed to meet with and then walked over to another person in the restaurant and said "Hi" and asked if he was Tony and the person replied no. Looking puzzled and slightly awkward, he then decided to sit down and wait.
This sort of thing happens everyday. Meetings take place in local restaurants every single day with people who have never met and don't know anything about one another including the way they look.
This made me immediately realize the value and importance of the Social Media Press Kit. I personally feel every single business person should have one. The above scenario would not have occurred because they both would know what one another looked like and also a little about each person which would give the relationship a head start and allow them to get into business without the awkwardness upfront.
The Social Media Press Kit is a relationship tool that is meant for this very type of circumstance. It includes contact information, social media profiles so one can learn about you, video introductions or a promo video about the company, a bio with vital information, real time twitter updates and photos for the person the SMPK belongs to which helps add a face to the name.
Here are two links that explain it:
http://whywebpr.com/smpk
http://whywebpr.com
It's such a simple tool to have and use that builds relationships and improves overall communication which ultimately is the essence of business. Oh, and if you would like to start a relationship with me, please visit my Social Media Press Kit here - http://whywebpr.com/robertcornish
This sort of thing happens everyday. Meetings take place in local restaurants every single day with people who have never met and don't know anything about one another including the way they look.
This made me immediately realize the value and importance of the Social Media Press Kit. I personally feel every single business person should have one. The above scenario would not have occurred because they both would know what one another looked like and also a little about each person which would give the relationship a head start and allow them to get into business without the awkwardness upfront.
The Social Media Press Kit is a relationship tool that is meant for this very type of circumstance. It includes contact information, social media profiles so one can learn about you, video introductions or a promo video about the company, a bio with vital information, real time twitter updates and photos for the person the SMPK belongs to which helps add a face to the name.
Here are two links that explain it:
http://whywebpr.com/smpk
http://whywebpr.com
It's such a simple tool to have and use that builds relationships and improves overall communication which ultimately is the essence of business. Oh, and if you would like to start a relationship with me, please visit my Social Media Press Kit here - http://whywebpr.com/robertcornish
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
PR as a Sales Tool
While many people view PR as a tool to change public opinion, get in the news or be featured in an article or even to put on an event, we view it and use it entirely as a relationship and sales tool.
All disciplines go through changes over time. PR was started around 1928 and has shifted in the overall discipline and practices over the years. With new media aggressively emerging and the ability to reach millions of people through the web, PR needed to change as well.
To us, PR means communication with a specific target public to build relations that result in reach for the purpose of sales. Sales is about relationships and making oneself known to the people they want to be known to. In other words, you have to first become a known quantity in the mind of the public you are going after and then you have to develop a relationship, get them interested and cause a reach that can be worked into a sale. It's a new type of PR. We call it Web Media PR.
The goals are as follows:
1) Making the client known to the target public to create the initial relationship and gain interest
2) Creating tools using new media that shorten the sales cycle dramatically which can include case studies, videos, Social Media Press Kits, Sites, Press Releases, Testimonials, social media strategies etc
3) Increasing the probabilities that the target public will decide to do business with the client therefore solidifying sales and revenue from the strategy.
Using what we have coined as Web Media PR can be your strongest sales strategy yet.
We have found one of the biggest problems companies face is not being known by their target audience and not having enough new prospective clients to speak to and sell their products or services which ultimately is the main source of their revenue problems. This is what we handle with our strategies.
Our goal as a company is to consistently deliver new reaches to our clients that improves their sales.
Here is a link to our resource page that has downloadable PDF's with case studies and testimonials to show the results of our services - http://www.richter10point2.com/resources.php
For more information about a full Web Media PR strategy, contact us the following ways:
Richter10.2 Media Group
http://richter10point2.com
info@richter10point2.com
All disciplines go through changes over time. PR was started around 1928 and has shifted in the overall discipline and practices over the years. With new media aggressively emerging and the ability to reach millions of people through the web, PR needed to change as well.
To us, PR means communication with a specific target public to build relations that result in reach for the purpose of sales. Sales is about relationships and making oneself known to the people they want to be known to. In other words, you have to first become a known quantity in the mind of the public you are going after and then you have to develop a relationship, get them interested and cause a reach that can be worked into a sale. It's a new type of PR. We call it Web Media PR.
The goals are as follows:
1) Making the client known to the target public to create the initial relationship and gain interest
2) Creating tools using new media that shorten the sales cycle dramatically which can include case studies, videos, Social Media Press Kits, Sites, Press Releases, Testimonials, social media strategies etc
3) Increasing the probabilities that the target public will decide to do business with the client therefore solidifying sales and revenue from the strategy.
Using what we have coined as Web Media PR can be your strongest sales strategy yet.
We have found one of the biggest problems companies face is not being known by their target audience and not having enough new prospective clients to speak to and sell their products or services which ultimately is the main source of their revenue problems. This is what we handle with our strategies.
Our goal as a company is to consistently deliver new reaches to our clients that improves their sales.
Here is a link to our resource page that has downloadable PDF's with case studies and testimonials to show the results of our services - http://www.richter10point2.com/resources.php
For more information about a full Web Media PR strategy, contact us the following ways:
Richter10.2 Media Group
http://richter10point2.com
info@richter10point2.com
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Are you in communication?
Over and over I notice many people and companies are out of communication or at least have lethargic communication systems. What I mean by that is that they are slow to the draw. Slow to reply. Slow to take action or don't take any action at all.
Communication is the very essence of business as well as the economy. The more you can create and the faster you can get it going, the more revenue flows.
Currently it seems there is quite a problem with communication. As a business owner myself, I value the importance of communication to be extremely high. I demand from my staff that a lot of communication go out to the world and more specifically, to our target audience. I also demand that we handle communication rapidly, as fast as we can to handle it and keep our flows moving fast.
If I get an email related to someone interested in our company, we instantly reply to move the cycle forward. Phone calls are returned the same day and everyone in the company has a mobile device that allows for immediate response via email at any given time. Additionally, we developed the Social Media Press Kit (http://whywebpr.com/smpk) for the purpose of making ourselves more accessible in every imaginable way be it text message, email, Skype, Facebook, Linkedin or to download our communication details through a vCard.
We rate communication highly. However I have noticed that not everyone operates this way. People delay in getting back via email or phone. They are slow to communicate many times if at all. This type of operating procedures hurts them and their company. Procrastination has no place in the business world. Slowness is not a strength and being out of communication is damaging.
Take a look at your communication systems this week and test them. Do you immediately respond to emails? Phone calls? How much communication are you sending out to the world daily? Your company? Is that enough?
If handled, your revenue will skyrocket. Get yourself and your company into communication with the world. Send communication out, even if you simply start by sending out 6 hand-written letters per week or 10 emails to introduce yourself to people you would want to do business with. Get communication flowing and fast.
-Robert Cornish
CEO Richter10.2 Media Group
Communication is the very essence of business as well as the economy. The more you can create and the faster you can get it going, the more revenue flows.
Currently it seems there is quite a problem with communication. As a business owner myself, I value the importance of communication to be extremely high. I demand from my staff that a lot of communication go out to the world and more specifically, to our target audience. I also demand that we handle communication rapidly, as fast as we can to handle it and keep our flows moving fast.
If I get an email related to someone interested in our company, we instantly reply to move the cycle forward. Phone calls are returned the same day and everyone in the company has a mobile device that allows for immediate response via email at any given time. Additionally, we developed the Social Media Press Kit (http://whywebpr.com/smpk) for the purpose of making ourselves more accessible in every imaginable way be it text message, email, Skype, Facebook, Linkedin or to download our communication details through a vCard.
We rate communication highly. However I have noticed that not everyone operates this way. People delay in getting back via email or phone. They are slow to communicate many times if at all. This type of operating procedures hurts them and their company. Procrastination has no place in the business world. Slowness is not a strength and being out of communication is damaging.
Take a look at your communication systems this week and test them. Do you immediately respond to emails? Phone calls? How much communication are you sending out to the world daily? Your company? Is that enough?
If handled, your revenue will skyrocket. Get yourself and your company into communication with the world. Send communication out, even if you simply start by sending out 6 hand-written letters per week or 10 emails to introduce yourself to people you would want to do business with. Get communication flowing and fast.
-Robert Cornish
CEO Richter10.2 Media Group
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Strength in Team
This is a little off topic for me especially since most of my blogs relate to my business however, I am in New York traveling on business right now and was thinking about the general state of the economy and country in general as I passed magazine stands with our President's face among other things.
I had a thought or viewpoint about leadership in general. To me, running a country is similar to running a company as a CEO. Since I am the CEO of my company it brought me to thinking about the divided nature of our country as it relates to our political leaders. A red vs. blue sort of mentality.
As a leader or CEO or anyone in charge of a group of any kind, the thing you need or want is a team. Constructive input. Solutions put forth to problems and a coordinated effort to attain the given goals and strategy. The last thing in the world you would want as a CEO or leader of any type would be people on your team that are against you and your ideas as well as your plan, causing counter-intention to your initiatives and not contributing to the solution but making more of a problem. I can say with confidence that if I had someone in my company actively against me, it would take very little hesitation of any kind to remove that person or people immediately from the company.
Our President or political leaders cannot fire anyone within the country for obvious reasons so they have to make due with what they have.
I personally feel our country would be strengthened dramatically as well as the economic climate in general if we became a unified group or team to support our leadership that WE as a country voted in by majority vote, even if we don't associate with that party. Rather than nit pick, we figure out solutions and work on sending them to our political leaders or getting involved in some regard to work on and focus on the solution. If there is something we don't like, work to change it while supporting the current initiatives and our President to make the very best possible outcome we can attain.
Why, as a country, do we highlight our President's flaws rather than work to assist them or strengthen their strengths? I can name strengths for George W. Bush as I can name strengths for Barrack Obama. Let's work to make the country better and focus on what can be done and what we can help our leadership with rather than propelling problems and complaints. The day we fully operate as a coordinated team is the day this country will truly flourish.
Teamwork has proven successful countless times be it in basketball or any sport, companies, families or running a country. So I propose a challenge to anyone reading this, think about how YOU can support our leadership and make up for any weaknesses or help to correct non-optimum situations and how YOU can be the best team player for the good and purpose of making the country better overall. Let's all play our part to handle the economy while supporting the strategy, building businesses, suggesting solutions and working as a true group, a true team. To me, this is what is needed now regardless of personal disagreements with the leadership or affiliated party or who you voted for. What can you do to help our leaders to make this country better and attain a huge win overall? I own a company which consistently hires new fresh talent and helps other companies expand aggressively, that's my part. I'm not perfect, but I don't complain, I come up with better solutions to improve my teamwork and team.
- Robert Cornish
I had a thought or viewpoint about leadership in general. To me, running a country is similar to running a company as a CEO. Since I am the CEO of my company it brought me to thinking about the divided nature of our country as it relates to our political leaders. A red vs. blue sort of mentality.
As a leader or CEO or anyone in charge of a group of any kind, the thing you need or want is a team. Constructive input. Solutions put forth to problems and a coordinated effort to attain the given goals and strategy. The last thing in the world you would want as a CEO or leader of any type would be people on your team that are against you and your ideas as well as your plan, causing counter-intention to your initiatives and not contributing to the solution but making more of a problem. I can say with confidence that if I had someone in my company actively against me, it would take very little hesitation of any kind to remove that person or people immediately from the company.
Our President or political leaders cannot fire anyone within the country for obvious reasons so they have to make due with what they have.
I personally feel our country would be strengthened dramatically as well as the economic climate in general if we became a unified group or team to support our leadership that WE as a country voted in by majority vote, even if we don't associate with that party. Rather than nit pick, we figure out solutions and work on sending them to our political leaders or getting involved in some regard to work on and focus on the solution. If there is something we don't like, work to change it while supporting the current initiatives and our President to make the very best possible outcome we can attain.
Why, as a country, do we highlight our President's flaws rather than work to assist them or strengthen their strengths? I can name strengths for George W. Bush as I can name strengths for Barrack Obama. Let's work to make the country better and focus on what can be done and what we can help our leadership with rather than propelling problems and complaints. The day we fully operate as a coordinated team is the day this country will truly flourish.
Teamwork has proven successful countless times be it in basketball or any sport, companies, families or running a country. So I propose a challenge to anyone reading this, think about how YOU can support our leadership and make up for any weaknesses or help to correct non-optimum situations and how YOU can be the best team player for the good and purpose of making the country better overall. Let's all play our part to handle the economy while supporting the strategy, building businesses, suggesting solutions and working as a true group, a true team. To me, this is what is needed now regardless of personal disagreements with the leadership or affiliated party or who you voted for. What can you do to help our leaders to make this country better and attain a huge win overall? I own a company which consistently hires new fresh talent and helps other companies expand aggressively, that's my part. I'm not perfect, but I don't complain, I come up with better solutions to improve my teamwork and team.
- Robert Cornish
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