Author: Nelson Miles

Regardless of how you are found a person will take seven steps before they become a customer. Whilst these steps can not all be controlled by the business, there are always ways in which the business can made it a smoother transition.

1. Discovery

Before this stage a person may not have any idea you exist. They may not have a need for your product or service and are therefore not in the market. However, this doesn’t mean that they won’t be in the market once you are discovered and they know more. As a business, it is important that you are actively looking for new ways to be discovered and how this can be made easier fro potential customers.

2. Awareness

Just because someone knows you exist doesn’t mean they know what you do. They may have a slight understanding that you sell something but they don’t know exactly what. This is a crucial stage of opportunity for you to inform the prospect of your offering. How you make them aware of what you sell could make or break the relationship. They may not need your product now but you want them to choose you if ever they do.

3. Top of mind

The awareness doesn’t stay around forever. People move on and see other things, they get distracted. In order to maintain awareness in the prospects mind you must reach top of mind. 80% of conversions are made after 5 follow up calls so you need to have a strategy in play to regularly contact the prospect.

4. Desire

Over time, be it through your awareness or top of mind efforts or simply a change of heart, people will find a need for your product or service. They have heard about what you offer through you, your competitors and friends and family and now believe they need this specific product. Having strategies in place to ensure that they opt for your brand is a necessity.

5. Information

Whilst the person may have a desire to own the product they still don’t have the required level of education to invest. They want to find information that is going to help them to make a decision. Being that business that is on the front foot and can provide them with the help they need will help to convert the sale.

6. Value

For more complex sales, value is something that is highly regarded. By this stage your business will have built a relationship with the person. Being able to concisely explain the value and point of difference is the final stage in the relationship build.

7. Action

Once the person understands the value, is informed about the product and has a desire to purchase it, it’s time to complete the sale. Ask them if they would like to purchase and highlight the benefits it will have for them.

When we are handed a project we are often filled with excitement and an instant motivation to get started and smash it out. This motivation, however, often dies quickly when we hit a road block or a challenge throughout the project. Finding ways to overcome these and stay on track is pivotal to your success.

1. Know why you’re doing it

Find a reason as to why completing this project is specifically important to you. Knowing why others want you to do it is a starting point but find intrinsic motivation to help push your through.

2. Visualise success

Know what it is going to look like at the end and regularly visualise it at each stage of the project. This gives you a clear goal to work towards.

3. Believe

Whilst we may often start out with enthusiasm, challenges may knock the belief out of us. Constantly reassuring yourself that you are the person for the job and will do it well is sure to keep you motivated and working to a high standard.

4. Break the project down

Approaching it as one giant task is always going to land you in trouble. It means that you don’t feel success until completion which makes it extremely hard to overcome the challenges faced along the way. Break it apart in stages and reward yourself at the completion of each stage.

5. Make a plan

This follows on from the above. Without a plan you can get lost and find yourself completing meaningless tasks. Make a plan and stick to it as it will give you direction.

6. Understand that nothing is perfect

When embarking on a major project there are always going to be challenges. Additionally, if it is something you haven’t exactly done before, you are going to make mistakes. Accept them and learn from them.

7. Tell people about it

Communicating your plans and success to others makes you both accountable and gives you a sense of pride. Informing others will ensure you stick to task and makes the successes more real.

8. Use resources

Look to other colleagues, friend, family or conduct research to understand how to best go about each part of the project. Drawing on other people’s past experiences and researching will make your more confident in what you do and likely produce a better result.

9. Create the right environment

If the project is going to take a long time it is important that you create an environment that gives you energy. This may require changing it throughout the project or completing work in different parts of the office or at cafes. Your environment has a huge impact on your work.

10. Look after yourself

One of the biggest limitations to motivation is wellbeing. Don’t get stressed over the project and constantly evaluate where you are at and what can be improved. This helps you to remain realistic and doesn’t allow things to get out of hand.

The relationship between a boss and his or her employees is incredibly important to the success of the team.

Having a strong relationship ensures that everyone in the team has a greater sense of enjoyment, success and productivity whilst also enabling greater development. The stronger the relationship, the more accountable everyone is of one another and the firmer they can be in pushing people to get tasks done.

Building a deeper relationship between your boss and the rest of your team not only benefits the business but it also benefits you in a personal manner. Those around you are now more likely to recommend you for a new position, they are more willing to help you and your boss is more likely to put time into developing you for greater responsibility.

There are a few simple things that you can do to help improve your relationship with your boss.

Be authentic and change your mindset

Successful employees are truly interested in the success of the team. Regular communication and support for other team members including genuine concerns about others’ goals, their professional desires and any personal concerns they have to build trust and reliability. Showing genuine care for team members and for the team’ success will go a long way.

Perception is everything

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is incredibly important so that you can get on the front foot and complete the tasks that you do best. This also means that you are able to benefit the rest of the team as everyone is then able to focus on the tasks that suit their own strengths. Seek feedback on your work to further identify what you add to the team. Without getting on the front foot you appear standoff-ish and may not be able to show the value you bring to the team

Be honest

When things go wrong or you face a challenge, don’t wait for things to get out of hand before mentioning it to the rest of the team. Once again you need to get on the front foot and inform everyone. This builds trust and means they are likely to give you responsibility in the future.

Have their back

Your teams work will be regularly criticised and backing up your bosses ideas and thoughts builds a strong, cohesive team. This also means that they are more likely to trust you in the future when it comes to outputting forward ideas. Constantly communicate in a positive manner with your boss when they are surrounded by peers and superiors as this will build an appreciation for your work and build a stronger relationship.

Time is becoming more and more precious everyday as businesses and employees find ways to get ahead of the game. However, in this strive for greatness, are we too often neglecting sleep or prioritising work over it?

Communication technology has been and still is one of the major players in this cultural shift. No longer is it simply a 9-5 work day as clients and bosses now want immediate responses to their queries and requests. Getting home at the end of the day doesn’t leave you out of reach of work and this can have negative impacts on sleeping patterns, either by choice or subconsciously.

These increased demands and connectivity means that we need to find better ways of managing our time, in order to get more done, and our fatigue, to ensure that we are productive with this time.

1. Prioritise

Focus on the tasks that are urgent or most important. urgent tasks that lack impotance should also be left until later. Getting the important tasks done that allow you to work through them thoroughly is going to have far better effects on the business and your own wellbeing. Being able to work at a steady pace ensures a higher quality of work.

2. Take a nap

This may be challenging for those working in an office but nap pods and quiet areas are becoming more common in offices. Find a quiet space where you can rest your eyes and won’t be disturbed. A quick 20 minute nap in the middle of the day will help you to reset, re-energise and innovate meaning that you be able to get more done for the rest of the day and potentially work longer.

3. Switch off

Your work can become overwhelming at times, especially with the increased demands of clients and employers. Finding time to completely switch off is essential to maintaining a high level of output. Find a whole day or specific times when you are able to switch off from work and not be in contact with colleagues or clients for at least a couple of hours.

4. Find a hobby/activity

Finding a hobby or activity that takes your mind off the job is a great way to refresh your brain and feel good about yourself. Whatever the activity or hobby, make sure it gets you out of the office and is something that allows you to engage with other people and/or nature are the most beneficial.

5. Self-care

Anything that contributes to your own personal development or wellbeing can be classified as self-care. This could be meditation, reading or a massage all of which help you to relax and find a sense of calm whilst benefiting your mind or body.

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and it’s important to identify them so that you can best utilise your strengths and avoid situations that rely on your weaknesses.

Once you have identified them it is about maximising your strengths in the workplace to take you to the top. There are a few ways that you can hon in your strengths and achieve success.

1. Identify when to use them

Not all of your strengths will be applicable in all situations. However, chances are at least one of them will be. Understand what strengths of yours are valuable in what situations so that you can step up when necessary and reach success.

The best way to find situations where you can use your strengths is to actively seek opportunities that focus on them. For example, if you’re really good at talking to people and building relationships then networking events might be the best tasks for you. Put your hand up to represent the team and show them what you are made of.

The more opportunities that you find to use your strengths the stronger they will become and the better success you will achieve.

2. Don’t overdo it

Whilst you want to seek out opportunities that allow you to utilise your strengths, you don’t want to become known as a one trick pony. Understand that you will have more than one strength and you need to constantly find opportunities to use them all.

Whilst it is great to be the go-to person for a particular thing, you want to be that person for multiple things. This means that you add greater value to your team and you get greater opportunity to be seen.

3. Look to improve

Just because they are classified as a strength doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement. You may be really good at something but that doesn’t mean you are the best and even if you are the best you can still get better.

Find ways that challenge your strengths in a way that they haven’t been challenged before. This may mean enrolling in a course that helps to develop certain areas or taking on challenging tasks within the office that suit your strengths but are unknown to you.

4. Understand your weaknesses

Your weaknesses are nothing to be ashamed of but it does mean that you should avoid helping out in areas that you aren’t well skilled in. Acknowledge that you have a weakness in a certain area and divert your time elsewhere for the benefit of your team.

Often a business will see that their lead to conversion rate is quite low and this is obviously one of the most alarming stats as it highlights an inability to really capture the customer’s interest.

One of the biggest reasons behind this is that a business will put substantial time, money and effort into the generation of leads but then lack the structures and processes in place to enable staff to convert them. Not investing in your sales staff and the conversion processes ultimately leaves your lead generation investment worthless.

There are 3 key factors that need to be considered when it comes to the conversion of sales:

1. Quality of the lead

The quality of your lead is heavily dictated by your marketing efforts. These needs to be highly targeted and accurate to ensure you have high quality leads to people or businesses that are genuinely interested or have a need for your product or service. If you fail to do this, you will waste time dealing with low-value customers and your conversion numbers will look bad.

2. Poorly-skilled sales people

Your sales representatives need to be highly skilled in the value proposition and providing additional value to the buyer. Too often companies fail to invest in highly skilled and highly relevant sales representatives leaving their customers unsatisfied. If the sales people talk about features and prices too early they fail to realise the value for the buyer.

3. Failure to follow up leads

Too often sales people will only follow up a lead with one effort. Statistics have shown that in order to convert a sale you may need to make up to 5 follow up calls and from the first showing of interest, a customer may not buy for three months. This means that sales reps need to be persistent and patient and regularly follow up leads and check in with clients and prospects.

In order to ensure that your business doesn’t miss out on leads, there are 3 important steps to take in your marketing and sales pipeline:

1. Know your business

Having a strong identity and goal will be reflected in your sales efforts. Make sure everyone believes in the businesses direction, values and is striving for the same goal.

2. Know your market

Capturing the right market is incredibly important so that your sales efforts are well directed and you don’t waste tie chasing low-value customers.

3. Align your sales process to your customers’ needs

This follows on from highly targeted marketing and ensures that you are providing your customers with value beyond your product or service. Look to provide relevant and meaningful solutions tailored to the customer.

Social media is all the talk of marketing in the modern world. The internet has allowed marketers to reach a wide variety of people and social media has made this even easier by automatically connecting like-minded people. This gives marketers unprecedented access to a large target market and one that they can divide into their own audiences.

The introduction of hashtags has added another element to this marketing labyrinth and understanding how to use them could have a significant impact on the success of your campaigns. Understanding what they are, how they work and how to use them will give your social media marketing a much needed boost.

What are hashtags?

Hashtags are the words that you see on a post that are clickable and accompanied by ‘#’, for example #hashtagmarketing.  When these are clicked, they take you to all of the recent posts that are related to that topic. Using a hashtag makes that post searchable using that specific hashtag or topic.

How do they work?

When you are posting about a specific topic, simple follow your post with ‘#’ and then relevant words that relate directly to your post. For example, when posting something about your new shampoo product you may use hashtags like ‘#shampoo’, ‘#thickerhair’ etc. or other trending hashtags.

There are a few things to keep in mind when using hashtags;

• Don’t use spaces, for the hashtag to work it must be one word.
• The case of the letters doesn’t matter but can be used to make it easier to read.
• Research existing ones so that you can link your content to other content and build a stronger profile.
• Don’t over dot it. Hashtags are great but too many can become overwhelming and annoying.

How do you use them?

Hashtags are a great way to increase the visibility of your posts and your brand in general. The most important thing about hashtags is making sure they are relevant and will lead users to other related content that could be interesting or useful.

It’s likely that you have seen posts with heaps of hashtags on them already. This may increase short term visibility but it is unlikely to win anyone over as it becomes too much to take in when ready the post. Use the hashtags sparingly with only a couple per post and understand whether it is best to use them within the text or at the end. Use them throughout the text if it doesn’t impact the readability but otherwise just put them at the end.

Using hashtags correctly will help you to build your brand and increase visibility to relevant customers.

Leaders will often oversee and bark orders to those working beneath them. The trouble with this is that it can often make employees feel disengaged from their leader and almost as a secondary compartment to the team. Leaders need to be engaged both on a business level and a relationship level with their team.

It is often the case that as leaders we can get caught up in the business goals and forget about the hard work that everyone else is putting in so that we can forward on the success. Going back to basic is the key to being an engaged leader. Here are 3 easy steps to help you get there.

1. Listen with intent

Knowing your employees well is the first step to 100% engagement and the only way to get to know them properly is by listening. However, knowing your employees is only the first step in building the relationship.

The second step is taking action when they voice concerns, complaints or ask questions. Employees respect a leader who listens and acts on their concerns and questions. It builds trust and also makes them feel worthwhile whilst also continuing to reach out building a better team.

2. Encourage and empower

Employees can often feel the pressure that a leader feels. Therefore, a leader must do everything in their power to make their employees feel relaxed and free. This means reducing the restrictions placed on them and trusting employees to complete tasks to a high standard and work hard when required.

Instead of placing time restrictions and not allowing lunch breaks during busy periods simply set your teams goals and deadlines and then leave them be to complete the tasks. This will likely improve productivity and also make them to feel empowered. The more you let them control, the more they will respect you as a leader and feel happier in the workplace.

3. Develop leaders

This point follows on from the above in allowing your employees to take responsibility for their work. Once you have empowered your employees find opportunities for them to influence and take control.

Giving them an opportunity to take control and lead themselves will motivate them even further to achieve success. Additionally it will help you to see their potential and work with them in a more meaningful way. Placing additional responsibility with your employees engages you and them in more work and also helps to build stronger relationships of trust.