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Stop Hoping for Mind Readers

Every week night, my kid’s lunch boxes sit on the counter, waiting to be filled for the next day. And nine times out of ten, it’s me who fills them-a job that for some reason drives me crazier than it should.

My husband, who I will say, right up front, will do anything I ask him to do-note the operate words “ask him to do”.

When my husband comes home late from a meeting, or networking group, I make a point of doing all of the nightly chores, so he can just come home and relax. However, when I am out late and come home, I always find those darn lunch boxes right there on the counter, waiting for Mama to fill them.

But….

Have I ever asked him to make the lunches, or told him how I’ve felt about this? No, because for some reason, I think he should just “get it”. Read my mind, I guess. But for all the gifts and talents my husband has mind reading is not one of them.

I share this story, because I often see this scenario with many of my clients. There’s something they really want, or need in their business, but they don’t ask for it. They aren’t clear with others about what they want. This might be from employees, business partners, life partners, or it could be around asking for the order, or the opportunity to serve, or for a raise or promotion. Maybe it’s around getting a referral or a testimonial.

People aren’t mind readers and when you expect them to be, you are doing two things.

One, you are putting your future in the hands of mind readers (which there are very few in this world). And two, you relinquish your ability to control your own destiny.

Why don’t we ask for what we want? There’s a variety of reasons: fear of rejection, a belief that asking makes you selfish. Sometimes we don’t know how to ask, or perhaps we are indirect communicators, so it’s never clear on what we’re really asking for. And sometimes subconsciously-as in my case-we don’t think we should have to ask!

So if you are somebody who has trouble asking for what you want? Or feel you should “just be happy with what you have”, or afraid to ask because you might be seen as greedy or selfish, join me, Thursday, March 21^st 1-2pm EST for my fr*ee teleclass, “How to Ask For What You Want”. Click here for more information. And be sure to leave a comment below about the topic-I’d love to hear from you!

Mandy works with talented, high energy self employed professionals and very small businesses who struggle to market their business effectively, stretch their capacity and play a bigger game. Mandy’s client’s receive proven, specific information on what they need to do to get more clients and grow their business. As a result, those who coach with Mandy increase their business, get more clients and make more money, faster and easier than they ever would have on their own. Sign up for her free Cd “7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs” right down below.

3 Signs It’s Time to Raise Your Rates

by Mandy Schumaker Leave a Comment

One of the most challenging things to do as an entrepreneur is to develop your pricing, particularly if you are in the service business. Because most of us struggle with valuing our products and services, and when starting out, we just want to get new clients, so our tendency is to establish pricing that is too low.

I spoke this week with a very talented events planner who shared with me a great story about how she learned her prices were way too low. She had been hired by a bride to help her plan her wedding. In the process, the bride shared a Google Doc with her not realizing that on the document were the bride’s notes pertaining to other wedding planners she had spoken with before she hired her current events planner.

The events planner told me, she could clearly see that her prices were “way lower than everyone else on the document”. The bride had also made other comments next to several of the other events planners she spoke with such as, “never called me back”, “didn’t like her attitude”, and next to the event planner she hired, she wrote, “loved her energy, really nice”.

The very talented (and very smart!) events planner immediately raised her prices!

So here’s three signs you need to raise your prices.

1-Raise them right now-because I guarantee they are either too low or on the low side. Every time I work with a new client-the first thing I do is raise their prices. It’s hard and they rarely want to do it-but one, it gives them renewed confidence and two, they ALWAYS get more clients-so without reading number two and three below-raise your prices!

2-You’re starting to resent doing the work for your current prices. Whether you know where you stack up with your competitor’s pricing or not, there comes a time in our businesses where we start feeling resentful that we’re not making enough money for our time. I have seen this over and over with my clients-it’s some kind of intuitive sense that it’s time to tweak their rates again.

3-Your practice or business is full. Whether it’s a program you offer, or you’re in a service-based business, when you’re full-it’s time to raise your rates.

Just to clarify, it probably isn’t a good idea to raise your prices on current customers and clients. I’m not saying don’t ever do this, but if you’ve been in business 3-5 years, you have probably tweaked and changed your rates frequently over the time you’ve been in business, and you don’t want to always pass along those price increases to the clients who’ve been with you from the beginning. At some point, you may have to give a price increase to your long-term customers, just not every time you raise your rates.

So, take a look at your pricing-does it make sense? What’s it based on? An hourly rate? Is there logic behind it? Do you feel good about it? Do you feel valued from it?

Remember, you can always test it along the way, before you make a wholesale change, but reviewing your pricing every 6-12 months is a very worthwhile, and lucrative exercise.

5 “Must’s” for Hiring the Right Salespeople

by Mandy Schumaker Leave a Comment

For most people, “sales” is a dirty word. And I’ve found in my experience, most small business owners and entrepreneurs don’t like to sell. They view it as doing something “to someone” rather than “for someone”.

So, they often go out and hire someone to do the dirty work for them…in other words, sell for them. However, often times things end up in a bigger mess than ever before.

Why is this?

To be honest, business owners don’t put the time into developing a job description or at least a one-sheet on expectations of the job. So no one is really clear on the expectations-the business owner knows what they expect-in their head, and the salesperson doesn’t have clue what’s expected. What’s their goal? Who should they be calling on? Who’s an ideal prospect for the business? How many calls should they make in a day? Can they work from home? What are the hours? Do they turn in call sheets? All of these questions (plus many more) need to be spelled out for salespeople to be successful.

Secondly, after the salesperson is hired, the business owner is SO grateful to have someone else doing the dirty work of sales, they just kind of let them go, giving their new salesperson lots of rope to do their job…and usually just enough to hang themselves!

And third, the business owner does very little training with the new salesperson. Usually because they are so anxious for the salesperson to start making sales, and they believe that since they weren’t successful at the sales role, the salesperson must know more than they do.

Add all these up and voila-you end up with a big mess!

Here are the 5 Must’s for Hiring the Right Salespeople:

1-Job Description Develop a solid job description for the position-before you even advertise for the job. This doesn’t have to be complicated. Think of it as creating an ideal salesperson profile for your company. What characteristics do they have? What’s their experience? What’s their weekly goal, monthly goal, yearly goal? How will you measure their performance? Can they work from home? Will they turn in call sheets? You must be very clear with YOURSELF on what you are looking for before you even start interviewing for the position.

2-Don’t hire the first person Too often, business owners are so ready to get someone in the position selling, they tend to hire the first or second person that comes along. That’s okay, if you’re sure the first or second person who applies is the best candidate, but I would bet rarely does that happen. Try and get a good selection of resumes for the position. Share your ideal salesperson profile (see #1 above) with friends, family, neighbors, associates to see who they might know or recommend. Have a first interview with at least (I said at least) four or five candidates. Then have the top two or three back again. Have them speak to others in your organization (if you have other team members or employees), or maybe you have a colleague in another business who’s opinion you respect who would be willing to interview the top two candidates. Get as much different perspectives on the candidates as you can.

3-Yes, call references I am always amazed at how many clients I speak with, who are unhappy with their sales hires, who never called a single reference. Not only should you call the references your candidates give you, but also call those that they DON’T give you. For example, if you notice on their resume, they worked at a particular organization that they didn’t give a reference from, try and find someone you may know, or that your colleagues may know who can connect you with someone from that particular company. LinkedIn is a great source for this kind of thing.

4-Train, train, train Make sure you have some kind of plan in place to train your new salesperson. Remember, nobody can sell your product or service like you can. It’s your baby, you created it and really, trust me, even though you think you can’t sell, no one else will be able to talk about it with the passion you can. So even if you think you can’t sell, you must instill all the product knowledge and passion into your new hire. Don’t just turn them loose on the road. And training by the way, means sharing the ideal salesperson profile with your new employee, because they must know what you expect of them! Including giving them some kind of goal(s)!

5-Follow up, offer support and manage them Notice I didn’t say “micro-manage” them. Most good salespeople do not like to be micro-managed, but they do want support, follow up and frequent feedback (both good and constructive) on how they are doing. Don’t just let them go without daily or twice a day check-ins. Communication is crucial in building a successful relationship with your new hire.

Yes, this all takes time, but the pay-off can be tremendous. You don’t want to have a lot of turnover with your salespeople-it’s not good for customer service, relationships or perceptions. Having the right person in your sales position can make a huge boost to your bottom line-if you put in the time and do it right!

Off Your Game?

by Administrator Leave a Comment

The game has its ups and downs, but you can never lose focus of your individual goals and you can’t let yourself be beat because of lack of effort.

Michael Jordan

This week was school vacation week in our house and instead of taking a big trip away, we chose to take day trips and stay closer to home. It was a great week, lots of family time and fun activities, but I had recently just returned from a week away with a friend in Europe and was already feeling a bit “off my game” in my business.

It happens to all of us at one time or another. There are disruptions in our lives that can often pull us in another direction for awhile and we can lose focus of our goals.

I experience this with my clients and I often see it happening eight to ten weeks into the New Year. Remember back to January, where we were all so gung-ho to get our goals in place for the year and really commit to what we want? Then something or some event or situation demands our attention and we wonder how we got so off track to our best laid plans?

The trick is recognizing where you are and where you need to be, and getting yourself refocused and back on your game. Don’t beat yourself up, or make negative comments about any of it, because this happens to everyone. The muscle you need to learn to develop is how to refocus your attention and continue on your path and “get back in the game”.

Here are three suggestions to help you get refocused on your business-and they work because I just used them for myself this week!

1-Schedule a ½ hour with yourself (yes, put it in your calendar) to review your business plans, goals and visions. Figure out where you are in the process and write down the next three steps you need to take, from where you are today, to get back on track.

2-Surround yourself with positive affirmations, tapes, people, quotes, build a vision board; make a mind movie-whatever works for you. When we get off track, we usually start giving ourselves negative messages, which in turn spiral us further down and make it increasingly difficult to get back on track. Find a way to circumvent the negative tapes by creating lots of positive input for yourself.

3-Make a list of everything you are grateful for-nothing puts us in a better frame of mind than to be grateful for all the wonderful things in our life. It helps us focus on what’s important and puts us in a state of abundance, rather than lack.

I can guarantee that taking these three steps will help get you refocused on your goals, give you renewed energy and help you continue the success you’ve already created for yourself!

Be sure and let me know how this works for you!

What’s Your Why?

by Administrator Leave a Comment

Do you know “why” you do what you do? Would you be willing to do what you do for free-all day long? This week, I spent a lot of time with several different groups of entrepreneurs. In each group we spent some time trying to understand why we do what we do. What’s our compelling story? What was our defining moment?

Why is it important to determine all of this? Because people buy your why-they don’t buy how you do it, or even what you do-they buy WHY you do it.

One of the best examples I’ve ever seen in explaining this, is Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk, “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action”. Take a look and be sure and leave a comment below…

What You Think About, Matters!

by Administrator Leave a Comment

“Wow-aren’t you lucky!” “You’re kidding me, how did that happen?” This is the response I’ve gotten from lots of my friends and family, when I told them I’d be going to Florence, Italy for a week (without my husband and two sons).

I have a friend who travels to Italy every year for 6-7 weeks and she has invited me to join her a time or two before. For whatever reason, it never worked out, because I felt for me, it was too hard to figure out how to leave my family, business, etc and run off to Italy. (Read that last line closely, I felt it was too hard, impossible, really).

But the last few years, I’ve been doing a lot of work on my belief system, which some people refer to as mindset. One of the exercises I did last year, was to create a mind movie, which is a visualization tool using pictures and affirmations set to music to help you manifest the life and business you desire. (You can search mind movies on
You Tube, to see some great examples of mind movies people have created) *

You then watch your mind movie once or twice a day, so the images, music and affirmations that support the life you are creating for yourself, are always top of mind. It’s the same theory as listening to motivational tapes and speakers, or frequently reading affirmations.

In my mind movie, I had placed quite a few pictures of the places I wanted to see around the world, including a beautiful picture from a terrace in Italy. And for nearly a year, I watched my mind movie everyday, sometimes twice a day.

When you see a picture over and over and over, it can really get into your subconscious, or your belief system. So this summer, when my friend asked me again to join her in Italy, I felt it was totally possible for me to take advantage of the opportunity. And things just fell into place, my husband encouraged me, I easily found childcare for my children, I easily found someone to help me book my flights, using my points from a credit card-it all became possible.

So, I don’t believe it was by luck, or by chance that this opportunity came; I believe that through the visualization of what I really wanted for myself, I was ready when the opportunity came again.

Your thoughts do matter. What you think about, what you believe, what you put in your brain, ALL matter!

What are you thinking about? Will you be ready when the opportunity presents itself?

*Mind movies can be created a variety of ways using IMovie, Animoto and many other software programs that are available. If you’d like more information on how to create your own mind movie, please feel free to contact me at: mandy@mandyschumaker.com and I’d be happy to help walk you through the process (and share some more results!)

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