The Wisdom Or Lack Of Wisdom Of Changing Branding

Changing Your Branding 

Making a change in branding can be expensive so one should think it through first. Why do you want to change your branding? Do you just want a change or is there a purpose to it?

I often lament over people who buy a business and change the name. Why? You bought a bar called Poofies it because it was profitable. It was profitable because it had clients who recognized that name, even if it was a crazy name like Poofies. If it is a small business, it is likely they are coming because they know the owner. So you buy it, then you change the name to Muffies because you like it better, or because that is your name, or your cat's name. Don't be stupid. That just made a huge declaration that the bar has changed ownership and all of your current clients that you paid for are not coming to Thursdays wing nights anymore. The cost is HUGE. Now you have to change the sign out front, and get a new logo, and change the menus, and remake the website and buy a new URL. You lost 60% of business overnight by making a name change. Seriously if Poofies was working, why do that?

Here is a better idea. Spend some time asking questions and doing some research first. Ask your existing customers what drew them to you? What are they expecting more of? Is there something you could do to make you more attractive to people like them? Then look at your existing branding and give it a facelift. Go with a little different theme or extend the existing them. Then you may not have to change everything that went with that name.

A little over a year ago I was looking at one of our programs called mastermind. This was successful for the members who participated. Over the years we have had some great stories come out of our mastermind of people who built an empire, others who profitably sold their business, and more who grew their bottom line revenue. But over time things changed. Coaches started using the term mastermind a lot, and "experts" from the US had better access to selling their programs to Canadians (due to CASL giving them an unfair advantage) and these things were causing our prospects to diminish. Our new sales people were having trouble explaining why we were different. The program was still working for those who came but the intrigue was being compromised mainly by new competition in the market.

The answer - We did a branding facelift. A few pictures on the website were changed and we made some test videos. We went back to an idea that worked well in the past and this time really capitalized off it because of recent trends. The number one show on television is "Game Of Thrones," and the movie series for "Lord Of The Rings" has been a huge hit in recent years. We realized that adults now read books and play video games that are focused around kingdoms, castles, and don't forget that one of the best business shows on television is "Dragon's Den."

The Excalibur MasterMind was reborn. We had used the term before, but now we really went to town on it. We added some really cool paraphernalia to the mastermind meetings which made it seem more old world, with a knights of the round table theme. We changed some of the wording on the website. After the initial test videos were put up on YouTube we did not see too many numbers sharing it or watching it, but we did not need to. Our existing mastermind members started attending with more fervor. Our new Sponsors showed an increased interest immediately. Most importantly, the phone started ringing. People were asking about the video they watched that came out in an email. These were the signs we were looking for. One year later, we have a robust Excalibur MasterMind Program or EMP for your business.

What Can We Learn About Rebranding?

A small business needs to think branding through before they begin. If you already have made significant investments in a name, a logo and a look, try instead to brighten things up. What pictures can be added? Can more blogging be done to make if found better by Google? What videos could we make that got our point across clearly? What pieces of marketing can we create, that we can use, and use again and again?

We get ideas thrown at us every day and we need to count the cost before we begin. Rebranding is expensive. If we are not yet billionaires then we shouldn't experiment with anything that has such a huge increase to immediate costs.

There are a few good reasons to rebrand such as:

• You are going through a divorce and your business is named after your spouse.
• The business you have purchased has a bad name in the community.
• Your name no longer reflects what your services are.

There are some really bad reasons to rebrand:

• You want to name your business after your kids or your pet. They would rather you had the money to spend on them than the name on a business they don't understand.
• You change the name of your business on a whim every year.
• You are making too much money and it is time to sabotage your business.
• It is time for a change. There is no good reason for one. You just want a change. Try Tinder instead, and save your business.

Just think it through. Why are you wanting to rebrand? Is it really necessary? What if you just sharpened things up a bit and saved yourself a lot of trouble and costs?

Why You Need Email Marketing

Why You Need To Be Email Marketing

I don't hear too many people talking about email marketing these days. It is like they think it is no longer relevant. The chatter is always about Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram. Fun Fact - According to HubSpot research - Email marketing brings in at least 6 times the revenue of any of those. I would agree. There is nothing better if you are:

• Trying to keep your raving fans raving about you in a positive way.
• Getting one time lookers to be long term buyers.
• Turning one time buyers into consistent users.
• Wanting return business.
• Training your clients to use your products or services better.
• Training your sales staff to do the right things every day.

Maybe you are a little confused, so let me explain further...

Real Email Marketing Is Not:

• A nice monthly email newsletter.
• An email blast.
• A sales letter.

What Is Real Email Marking?

Real Email Marketing is an opportunity for building relationship. It is a beautifully designed communication system that blesses you with the ability to live in the hearts and the minds of your followers. You can be creative. You can win their affection, devotion, and loyalty through life, laughter, colour, and fun. It is a tool like no other, because it goes right into their in-box and if your marketing piece is good, it can stay there in a special place, called a saved file where it will be viewed again and again and again.

Most people never get to that place with their email marketing, and that is because they are viewing it like a sales tool or worse yet, an unwelcomed interuption.

Email Marketing Is Measurable

One of the reasons I love email marketing is because it is so measurable. It is an exact science. You can tell if it is working. You send out an email to 100 people and if 20 of them open, you have a 20% open rate. You work on it a bit and you get the subject line better so next time you have a 40% open rate. It is satisfying.

You send out a series to train your clients how to use your products. You make your automated series fun and colourful and you include video. The open rate goes up to over 100% because they keep it in a file and watch it over and over again. You can see what people are clicking on and what is giving you a return. You can count the clients who come in and ask a question about what they seen, or those who upgrade because they saw something that they liked in your video. You watch the subscribers go up on your YouTube Channel based on how many times you asked your email list to subscribe. It is rewarding.

You collect names and email addresses at networking events and ask those people if you can send them information, or you put up a draw box in your store where they subscribe. You watch those numbers go up. Then you create a lovely series for your prospects. Your series includes tips, videos, pictures, gorgeous backgrounds newsletters and the occasional offer. You can see how they are responding. Some email you back. Others call. You can put a code on your offer so you can be absolutely sure where every customer comes from. It is so measurable. It is perfect. It is profitable.

Every Business Needs Email Marketing

I highly recommend every business owner to use email marketing. We all have prospects we are trying to get to buy. There is nothing like sending something directly to their in-box. We all have clients that we want to buy again, and there is nothing like sending them tips to their in-box to get that to happen again. We all have followers that we want to lead in some direction. There is nothing better to get folks to walk the path behind you.

Every florist should be sending out beautiful pictures of their arrangements and fun facts about the flower of the month in ongoing monthly campaigns. Every business coach should be sending his coaching clients the quick tips he has that reinforce the exercises he gave us so we actually get that stuff done in auto-responders. Every accountant should be sending out tips to their clients about keeping track of mileage and putting those receipts in the right place for next year. Every car dealership should be keeping in touch with us with maintenance tips for our new car. Do you get a sense of what kind of loyalty this can bring?

Email marketing is permission based marketing. They have given you permission to send, so send something valuable and well-thought-out. Send it regularly. That is what they signed up for. Then enjoy the responses..

Getting People To Sign Up

Don't say "Get My Newsletter." Nobody wants that. Nobody is signing up for email either. Get them to sign up for tips. or offer them a white paper for signing up. Give them a reward. This works better.

Below you can sign up for Biz Tips from The CIBN and Kerry George. We have quick tips that will help you grow your business. You will also get information about networking events that we put on, and occasionally something from one of our Sponsors that will help you in your life and business.

Sign Up Now

For Email Marketing you can trust.

Building A YouTube Channel

My YouTube Story So Far...

I have been thinking about building a YouTube Channel for my company CIBN for probably 5 years. Then Google bought YouTube. That made up my mind. Google is the largest search engine in the world and YouTube is the second largest. Google bought YouTube, and that is just more proof that they love videos. It is well known that they love fresh content, so videos will be the next big thing.

Before we started our YouTube channel Francois Alphonse, my beloved who is a videographer and I did a lot of research. We could see YouTube had made huge strides at the end of 2018 to make their platform more desirable. One can actually edit videos right in the channel now. We watched dozens of videos on how to build a channel. We followed some big players to see what they were doing. We read books, and we subscribed to some gurus. We could see that some local people were making money from having ads on their pages after only 18 months. We could also see that most people were doing nothing with video and that would create a huge opportunity for those who did something.

Our plan was to launch our CIBN TV YouTube Channel and get 100 subscribers as fast as possible so we could customize our URL. The CIBN has a few thousand people on an email list so a few email announcements got us up to 100 in no time. Step 1 accomplished.

The second 100 came over time. People found us, they liked us. We shared videos, it was not that difficult. We would really like 1000 though, and that does take a concerted effort. So we are still working on that.

Why YouTube Is Better Than Facebook

If you have put in the effort to make a YouTube Channel, you have to take the time to also populate it with more content. There are lots of good reasons to do so, including improvements to your business bottom line. The fact is, on Facebook or LinkedIn you can now do live videos, and you can post videos you made there as well. However, people don't watch long videos on those channels. They don't go to Facebook to watch videos; they go to YouTube and they watch videos there for hours. I was not the only one who figured this out. Social Media Examiner had a huge following of over 300,000 on Facebook and in the Spring of 2019 made an announcement they were moving all video to YouTube even though they only had 20,000 followers there. Why? People watched the whole video and they bought things. That was not happening on Facebook. Not that they are looking for my approval, but I totally agree.

We have not made much money in our B2B business from Facebook. Occasionally if we can get someone to sign up for the email send outs from one of the Facebook Groups we get a member but that only accounts for about 3% of our marketing return. LinkedIn still gets the highest at over 80% of the return but we can see YouTube is coming in as a player. All we need is the 4 Cs of marketing that I am always going on about: Content, Connections, Consistency, and Call-To-Action.

By the time we had a mere 200 followers on YouTube we were exceeding our Facebook returns, and I have over 15,000 followers on all of our Facebook groups and pages.

How To Get Weekly Video Content

That pesky second C is Content. That is important. One must have content and it must be consistent on YouTube to get any traction. You can do it yourself, but generally that will look like crap, even if you think it doesn't, and it won't be consistent. It also is going to take your valuable time as a business owner to get it done.

I use Francois at Exposure Video. He has a great plan to do 4 videos a month for only $1000 a month. He makes sure they all have a phone number and website and a call to action. He also posts them to your YouTube Channel and keeps the channel updated. Then even if I do get creative I can add more, but at least the basics are covered. It is a great deal! Now we put out new videos each week, usually on Monday and that really helps keep new people subscribing. Every month now we are getting a few calls because of the videos, so it is bringing in a solid return on our efforts.

What Is The Point Of Having A YouTube Channel? 

Of course we want more business. That is the main reason we have a YouTube Channel, but there are lots of other reasons:

• Our company The CIBN is getting found more.
• Our online offerings and masterminds are getting found more.
• My personal name Kerry George is getting found more.
• Our members are liking the extra material. It is a value add for them.
• We feature our Members and our Sponsors on this channel giving them more reach and exposure.
• The sales team is liking the videos, because it is making their job easier.
• I am repeating myself way less often because now we have a video that describes all of the things that I had to keep saying over and over for our team, our members, and our prospects. That is worth it all by itself. If one is trying to build processes into their business, I don't know how you will do it without creating videos.
• When we reach 1000 subscribers we should be able to monetize the whole thing by allowing YouTube to sell ads on our channel. In no time it will pay us back all of our investment of time and money.

Don't Wait To Start A YouTube Channel

Seriously, don't wait. Right now, many of your competitors are having a video made. Most however, do not have a YouTube Channel to post their videos. If they do, they have only created a graveyard where they parked their one or two projects. It is empty. Remember those Cs. That is how you get any marketing to work. Your competitor is not making ongoing content, posting consistently, to a growing number of connections, while using a call-to-action. The sooner you do, the sooner you steal the market!

Here are a few different kinds of videos that Exposure Video has done for me. We have had a lot of fun doing this and using different tools, but best of all, it has been profitable.

Some Video Examples

This video was filmed in front of a green screen. Sometimes I have him put a very nice lead in on the front of these or use nice music. This one however, was created with the intent of educating the network and/or our sales team to be able to network properly at a large event, so I had him not use so many bells and whistles. It gets it done and it is nice and simple.

This video is done with a drawing tool. It is mesmerizing. Even my 3 year old grandson is captivated for the whole thing.

This is called a Promotional Video. It is short and sweet. It runs nicely on Facebook as well when people are scrolling and don't want the sound on.

There are lots more on our YouTube Channel. Please Subscribe while you are there and ring that bell thing so you get notifications when our new videos go live.

Loyalty In Today's World

What Does Loyalty Look Like?

I am going to say some things here that some people are not going to like. I am sure they will send me comments about how their circumstances are different. This is a huge subject and I am not sure I can do it justice in a few paragraphs, but it is a topic that has been of great interest to me for a long time.

Dogs are Loyal2U
even when you are undeserving
of loyalty...

To me it seems to be a funny world when people don’t know what loyalty looks like. I think it used to be more common. When a person got married 100 years ago, they usually stayed married to the same person for the rest of their lives. It took a death or a disaster of some kind to make people deviate from their marital course. I have read stories from the Victorian era about men who cheated on their wives and they used the rational that they were protecting their wives from the burden of additional child bearing or the suffering of sex. I am not saying they were right, but even when they cheated they had more loyalty than we see nowadays.

When I was a Pastor I did a lot of reading about a movement in Columbia and Argentina where hundreds of thousands of people were joining a church group. The common motivating factor was loyalty to a leader. Several evangelists here in Canada tried to adopt the model to bring on growth and overall it failed miserably. What was missing? Loyalty. The average Canadian would say they are loyal but in reality they don’t even understand the concept. Somewhere along the road we learned from McDonalds that things can be thrown away. We stopped valuing stuff and we also stopped valuing people. Relationships could be replaced. Leadership became a dirty word and people were afraid of domination. We forgot how to be loyal in a positive way.

Loyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause. Sounds simple enough but in practice, not so easy. These days we question everything. Questioning is not such a bad thing, it helps us to understand, but it has come to the point where many are rebellious against every form of authority. Sure we all want to be free, but even in freedom somebody with authority is keeping the peace. Without any loyalty to a cause, or a system, or a leader, there is anarchy. There is nothing to hold the fabric of society together any more.

If we can’t tell how loyalty looks in relationships or in a cause then we certainly don’t know it in business either. Once I had a businessman invite me to talk about the kinds of social media marketing that my company Loyal2U does. We had a good conversation for over an hour and he invited me back later in the week saying that he would like to add our services to his offering and white label it. He suggested a partnership of sorts where we would each profit from the enterprise. On the next visit to his office however, I overheard him telling a client that his company would use our marketing technique and he offered it to them for a third of our price. There was a flyer on his desk with the language taken right from our website. My impression of this man was that he is a snake oil salesman. The main flaw being: He lacks loyalty.

Another gentlemen asked me for coffee one day and then wanted to know how business was going. He asked a few questions and then told me about the real reason for his inquiry. He wanted me to forfeit all of my hard work and my relationships to join him with a competitor. I have watched that individual jump from job to job, and business opportunity to business opportunity many times over the last few years. What is the real problem? He lacks loyalty.

If you have ever taken part in training with a good network marketing company they usually try to train people on loyalty. They tell their members not to poach the recruits of other members. They teach the members to honor each other and to say good things about one another, and to lift up the leadership. It is a funny thing that this needs to be taught, but it does. I was at a meeting with a reputable company only months ago when a friend that I was with noticed a mutual acquaintance of ours came in with another person we did not know. She leaned over to me and said, “Kerry, you should go get that gal on your team before they sign up with that guy.” I was shocked. I told her that would be really improper, but the point is it smarts of a lack of loyalty. If I had done that, I would be teaching everyone who seen it that poaching is fine. It is not fine. It is without integrity. It smarts of a lack of loyalty.

What Does A Lack Of Loyalty Look Like?

• You don’t like the discomfort of living with others so you can all work together to gain a better lifestyle or buy new homes for each family member. This is something we see immigrants doing, but we would never do. 
• Your young adult child is selling vacuum cleaners and you buy a vacuum cleaner from a stranger at the door instead of supporting your own child.
• Your grown child has financial struggles and needs a hand but you let them land on the street even though you are in a position to help.
• Your brother opens a gas station and you drive across town to avoid buying there.
• Your sister-in-law joins a multi-level business and you take great joy in stealing her dream by telling her how she is going to fail. No matter what she sells, you would buy it anywhere but from her.
• Talking about someone that you are supposed to love in a negative way when they are not present, or even when they are present. That is not only a lack of devotion but spiteful as well.
• No desire to look after the needs of one’s child, mother, brother, sister or relative. No pre-planning for the future.
• You have no respect for your manager at work and go over their head to tell on them. You are an adult tattle tail…

Have you ever watched the Godfather? I am not saying we should cut the heads off of horses or shoot people who disagree with us, but the Godfather had one thing right. He was loyal to a fault. He taught his family to be loyal to each other and to have each other’s back. They could count on one another to be in their corner, even when they were wrong and no matter what the cost was. They didn’t throw each other under the bus to avoid personal repercussions and they all ate together regularly even when there were family tensions.

What Does Loyalty In Business Look Like?

I have a couple of businesses so let me explain what loyalty looks like to me from that perspective. Loyal2U is a marketing company. So if have a client we are a defender of that brand. We write content for the business as though we are them. We try to understand their heart, their values and their culture and we create the message accordingly. We make sure the client sees the content and signs off on it before it goes live. We watch the responses on social media and report back promptly with both negative and positive comments. We make your clients more Loyal2U so they buy again and again.

The CIBN is a chain of networking referral clubs and we also offer educational events and mastermind sessions. We do business with the people who do business with us. People contact us every week wanting us to promote them for free. They don’t want to pay us for a membership and they have no loyalty to any member of our clubs. We on the other hand look for ways to add value to our members lives and businesses. We work tirelessly to add programs that are of benefit to our members. If we need a service we get it from one of our members. If we need a product we look at our members first. We give leads and referrals. We teach our members how to give leads and referrals. We try every day to create win/win situations and build strong and valuable relationships. We are loyal to our members and sponsors and we encourage them to be loyal to each other as well.

So is loyalty important in your business? Is it important to you in your life? What does that look like to you?

Sincerely and always,

Loyal2U

Kerry

Who Is In Control Of The Sale?

There are subtle aspects and techniques used in sales and in presentations that are rarely discussed. We assume that some people are just good in front of a crowd but in reality these are skills that can be learned and practiced until they become second nature.

It seems that it was 100 years ago when I learned these things but in reality it was only a quarter of a century ago. I was 18 and I was in sales. I had a mentor Russ, who was part of a dynamic business group that took an interest in developing young people to their full potential. He spent many hours training me on the small, subtle responses that a prospect reflects and that I would not have noticed without his guidance.

The World According To Russ Baldwin

As far as I know Russ never wrote a book, but Russ read many books. He was an ongoing wealth of resources always challenging me to read another biography, another self-help book, another book about business. He instilled in me a love of reading and for the kind of reading that would make a difference in my life. He asked about what I was reading. He had me stand in front of groups of people and promote the latest good book. He showed me how to find bite-sized nuggets of wisdom which now in this age of information overload has become a defining skill for increasing knowledge.

Russ taught me that “readers are leaders.” I completely bought into that and it has become a mantra of my own. I have to this day fed my own education and sought out the information that I needed to become credible with my peers and in industries and businesses where I did not have formal training. Russ showed me that I would set my own fate by the information that I fed my brain and that if I succeeded in leadership it would be because I had become something worthy of being followed.

The One Who Asks The Questions Is In Charge

Critical thinking is a good skill to have but thinking on one’s feet is often what keeps us in the lead. Have you ever been part of a conversation where you were trying to lead someone’s decision and they stumped you with a question? In sales we call these objections, and the unseasoned salesperson can become discouraged by a question that disarms them. The reality is however, that a question shows interest and it is even the first step in the buying process. How you answer the question is what determines if you are a professional or a novice.

A professional is never threatened by a question. It is a good sign to get a question. However, the expert realizes that he who asks the questions is in charge. This person has just taken ownership of the conversation and you are now in the position where you must defend with an answer. But do you defend? Have you tried that? How did that work out? Usually becoming defensive just causes a greater loss of control of the conversation. So a better response is always to ask another question and to regain control of the conversation.

I was in a presentation where a young leader was describing the advantages of doing business with his company. He did a good job. His powerpoint was well done. Everything looked good until he made the mistake of opening up the floor for questions. It was an open invitation for disaster and I cringed in anticipation even before the inevitable stream of negative began. He was going to allow and even encourage questions that would redirect the conversation away from the answers he was alluding to.

The first question came from a poverty-minded, negative, domineering person who immediately took control of the conversation and the room. She put him on the spot with a question that could be easily answered and in fact it should have been answered before he even allowed questions. So mistake number 1 was not answering the obvious objections that were sure to come. Mistake number 2 was letting her go on and on, and mistake number 3 was answering that drivel instead of asking a question in return. In fact, one simple question that interrupted her early in her diatribe would have ended the debate. He should have politely stopped her in a pause and asked just one question. He could have said, “That is a really good question, may I ask what you do for a living?”

In this case that would have been the perfect question because not only would any question take control back this particular person was unemployed and that would have immediately showed the room full of business people that this was not a credible person and by association then the question is not a credible question. Then any answer he may give to the question is simply out of being gracious and offered in a good spirited way of encouraging her and others who may have the same question.

While that may have been a great question for this situation, any question would work. Asking a question shows interest. It allows for positive interaction. It redirects any animosity and changes the course of the conversation. It flushes chunks of negative away. It puts the speaker back in charge of the room.

Out On A Sales Call

 
When I was out on sales calls with Russ back in my early twenties he showed me how to arrange the seating when sitting with a couple. They should be side by side so they are close and comfortable with the sales person across the table. If the salesperson is in the middle between them, then they are able to send each other negative signals and read each other’s body language in a way that is a detriment to the sale. She sees him cross his arms and perceives he is uncomfortable so she responds by showing disinterest. Or he sees her looking tense or rolling her eyes so he decides he is not interested before hearing any of the facts. If they are side by side they are both looking forward and making their judgements based on the presentation and on the subject matter that they are learning about. They can ask questions as they come up but they are real and legitimate questions out of sincere curiosity instead of out of manipulation by how they think their partner might be feeling.

These are simple techniques that keep the control of the sale in the hands of the salesperson. People will have questions and comments. That is natural and not a threat to a competent salesperson who understands the value of their product or service. It is not necessary to control the people, it is necessary to control the direction of the conversation. You are there to sell. You are not there to waste their time or yours. They let you into their life with the expectation that you had something of value to offer, so controlling your time and offering the item of value is the best practice.

Know what you can control and what you cannot. There are so many things you cannot control. You can’t control the dog that is barking. You can’t control the mother-in-law from dropping by. You can’t control the triggers that they have in their life from some past trauma or even another salesperson. You can control the number of people that you talk to, and you can determine how many you need to see to make your goals. Once you know that number you are free to be yourself, build relationships and bring value to your potential customers. You can control yourself. You make a decision to become a better you and control your growth and your expertise. You control your own learning to become a better salesperson. That is what truly allows you to control the sale!

Always Loyal2U,

Kerry George

 

 

 

 

Watch for our sales accountability training sessions offered on the CIBN website.

Fast Decision Making

Fast Decision Making

I recently put my finger on one other thing that has been making us grow quickly. Have you ever had to go to court? The lawyers are happy to put off for next month all that could have been done today. You have to endure at least a whole morning if you go to court. Nobody is motivated to make anything move faster. These people get paid more, the longer they take. Is anyone happy there? Can you see the frustration of a bloated system that has no corporate motivation to be profitable? They are cursed with too much money from a government source so they don’t require efficiency. If a new company were to operate like that, would they succeed?

Bureaucracy Decision Making

A government institution or an old company with lots of money has the luxury of bureaucracy. My company did not have that luxury and I thank God every day for it. We had no money. We had to make money. So we had to make fast decisions and stay light on the long winded discussion panels. It has made us sleek and profitable.

There are 3 partners at CIBN. We all are free agents with the ability to make decisions in our own area of expertise. If it falls into the area of one of the others we hook up that process immediately and let it go. I don’t second guess Zechariah’s decision to reject a potential member to one of his groups, or to place a member in a new group, or to book an event that will help the group grow. He is free to make a decision. He needs to be able to do what needs to be done to get a sale and he doesn’t need my permission to succeed. He already has it. Bob is a relationship builder. If a club needs a little more love, we send in Bob. Bob also works on processes behind the scenes. He handles banking and coordinates with the bookkeepers and he is free to make decisions. We communicate as a team every day and talk about the decisions we are making. We share why we feel we need to make those decisions and often we are asking each other for feedback but we never have to worry about emotional responses, manipulation, or dragging feet. We get things done.

Healthy Decision Making

I am the CEO of the CIBN. That means I have the power to decide. I oversee the marketing and give out the assignments to the printers, the writers, Loyal2U and I final edit the publications. I decide who goes into what spot and why. I meet with most of the sponsors of the network. We have packages which were put into place after research, but research was gathered, advisors were polled and a decision was made. If something does not work, I change it. I monitor it. I decide to try something else. I don’t need someone’s permission to do so. I don’t need someone’s permission to negotiate a deal or make a sale. We determined what the boundaries are for those things as a team and as long as I stay within those boundaries I don’t need to even discuss it. However, out of respect for my team I often do discuss it, or at least bring them up to date.

At CIBN we believe this is healthy decision making. Sometimes we do make a mistake and then we have to pay for it, but it is a known fact that leaders make decisions quickly and stick to their decisions. They only change course after a significant test trial. If prices are set and then we make sales, there is no point in changing the price, but we know that 100 people need to be approached before we can say with any certainty that the price point does not work. We make decisions based on facts but we decide quickly.

Disturbing Decision Making

In business though I see some disturbing things. I see sole proprietors that can’t make up their mind. Fear and indecision keeps them from moving forward. I see people quitting a project before they gave it a real chance. I see salesmen claiming their product is no good when they have not even had 20 appointments to present it. They are swayed by the decisions of a couple of naysayers. I have seen new members buy a membership, come twice and then not show up anymore because networking did not produce a referral in two meetings. They made a decision and now they don’t stick to it. They have no sense of delayed gratification so they miss the long term results. I see corporations with engineers and IT people as the CEO and that seldom works because they want to examine every decision and make it a month or six month process before they get all in. I see companies that are old or that have too much money tying the hands of their decision makers and slowing down what needs to be done to keep business coming in. I see salesmen that don’t know how to sell, or close. They can’t ask for a decision from their prospect. Sometimes it is because their company has not given them any wiggle room to negotiate so they make a decision to spice up the offer on the spot. They can’t get a quick decision from their potential client who would buy immediately if it could be done right now. Sometimes these sales people are uncomfortable in making their own decisions so they are even more uncomfortable “selling” or asking for a decision from their prospects.

Long and lean is the sales machine – one must be able to make a decision, or nothing gets done.

We did make some mistakes making quick decisions. So then we had to decide how to fix it. We made that decision and moved on rapidly. We are able to make decisions so we succeed faster than some who get bogged down in the long line of discussion.

Slow And Nasty Decision Making

Trying to work with companies that have no decision making processes or slow decision making processes is a frustrating endeavour. The fact is that some salesmen will recognize the long process of this sales cycle and invest in it, but a smart salesman gets a few of these in the funnel and then goes and looks for real business people who can make a real decision. A salesman will starve if he waits for the big one that might someday make a decision based on all the accumulated data that went through the repeated board meetings covering the same things over and over again. These processes hurt people. They cost money. They starve unsuspecting sales people who try to do business with them. They cost the money of the decision makers too because they could be spending that time more productively. It is just plain nasty.

A company that makes decisions this way is also sowing a dangerous seed. What we sow is what we grow. If you take six months to pay for something you could have paid for today others will do this to you. It is Karma or the law of attraction, or what comes around – goes around, or whatever you want to call it. I once had an engineer tell me that his company would pay me every 90 days. I responded that we would then begin the work in 90 days from now. We pay as quickly as we can. We move fast. Others move fast with us. That is the seed we sowed. It is making a really nice crop.

This week I had a discussion with a handful of entrepreneurs about this subject. Their viewpoint was enlightening. Each of them also make quick decisions that they typically stick with. Each of them expressed frustration with those who do not make quick decisions. Each of them acknowledged that they consider such drawn out behavior unprofessional. They compared it to government inefficiency. Each of them spoke of their longest termed business relationships as being with corporations that had a clear leader who had the ability to make a decision or who at least had a defined process to get an answer quickly. Some of them shared stories of firing CEOs that tied up the decision making process and how turn around happened immediately after someone had the courage to make a decision.

So I have added one more thing to what has caused us to have quicker than average success. We have the ability to make a decision and we decided to be successful.

If you need more facts, great... Ask more questions, gather more data, and then pool it together in a strategy meeting and make a decision. Learn to make decisions and feel comfortable with them, and if you cannot decide quickly, step down from the "ownership of decisions." Hire a CEO and let them lead, because in today's world everything is changing fast. Dinosaurs die because they move too slow. Social media changes daily. Being engaged is being ready to respond to situations but also to prepare in advance for what is coming. A decision maker is ahead of the curve, not continually responding to it in a knee jerk reaction.

Controlling Decision Making

If you have to feel like you are in control of every decision, I have a newsflash for you. YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL ANYWAY! Life, natural disasters, God, your spouse, your kids, your competition, your health and several other factors continually rebel against your control. Get over it. You have as much chance using a Magic 8 ball to make a healthy decision as you do from operating well out of a spirit of control. If you feel like you need to be in control, you are totally out of control and even worse oblivious to your own demise. Learn to overcome that by making decisions and allowing others on your team to make decisions. You will be glad that you did!

Always Loyal2U,

Kerry George

Kerry George is the CEO of the Canadian Imperial Business Network and the Calgary Business Network and she is a happy capitalist! Kerry works tirelessly bringing new value to the CIBN members and is always looking for methods to increase their bottom line. She is a speaker at many member events sharing knowledge about online marketing, sales techniques, motivation, LinkedIn, networking, entrepreneurship, and more. Kerry is a serial entrepreneur so she knows how to be a happy capitalist and how to create other happy capitalists in the CIBN!

 

Fiercely Canadian

I am very patriotic. My grandfather was proud to fight in the Second World War as a paratrooper and he left a lasting image on my life. I joined Cadets as a teenager and the Reserves as a young adult. I still snap to attention when I hear the national anthem play and I shed a tear when I hear a bugle play taps or the bagpipes in a parade.

I am also a Westerner through and through. I live in Black Diamond, AB because I absolutely love it. Today I had to stop my car on the highway to watch ranchers on horses heard cattle across the road. It was a finely tuned machine of men in wranglers and animals moving in perfect harmony. Horses, cows and a couple of dogs all working together.

Black Diamond is one of the few places in the world where chivalry is not dead. As a woman I have walked down the street as a cowboy literally tied his horse to a post and then rushed his quick bow-legged body ahead of me to get to the bank door first so he could tip his hat as he opened the door and utter a polite “Mam.” Seriously this place rocks! Where does that happen?

People ask me why I don’t move to Calgary because I am in the city almost daily to do networking meetings or to work with social media clients but if they saw what I see they would all move to Diamond Valley. The drive is nothing anyway. I love to drive. I have put 70,000 km a year on my car and I enjoy every minute of it. I love the city. I love the country. It is easy to make the drive each day and it is refreshing to think and plan as I drive. I get to see the country that makes me feel so blessed to live here. The foothills are a peaceful backdrop to a hectic life.

Living near Calgary reminds me daily of being Canadian. Prairies on one side, mountains on the other. It goes together like maple syrup and bacon.

It was absolutely natural to me to name our new network the Canadian Imperial Business Network. It is Canadian. It is the best and it is business networking. What else would we call it? It is as delicious as Grade A Alberta Beef with bannock and then beaver tails for dessert!

Why not enjoy my favorite band playing one of my favorite songs.

Canada Is Really Big