Rome Floyd Chamber Small Business Spotlight – Tina Bartleson with the Exchange Club Family Resource Center and Rontavious Coley with The Early Way on Broad
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: Selling is About Solving Problems
BRX Pro Tip: Start an Email List
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: Start an Email List
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with BRX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I don’t know, I think sometimes people feel like this sounds a little bit old school or antiquated. It’s not. It can be incredibly powerful. Start an email list.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Yeah. I think this is a must have activity for any business owner, especially a new business owner. And it’s something we recommend every studio partner in our network do right off the bat, an email list. And I would recommend, in our case, three email lists. Every one of our studio partners should have three email lists. One of their guests, prospective guests, anything guest related. Another one that’s of all the PR and marketing folks out there. And then, the last one is just fans, superfans, people who believe what you believe and that want to get involved in some level, listeners, things like that. Anybody that just cares about what you’re doing.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:55] So, if you build those lists, what that does is it’s helping you have a way to communicate with those folks when you want to, when you need to. And this activity, not only should our studio partners be doing this, they should be recommending that their sponsors do the exact same things. Because their sponsors need to have a database of guests, PR people, and fans of their show. So, this is something that kind of trickles down to everybody in the organization.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] Now, the importance, again, is that this lets you communicate and sell something if you want to when you want to. Because if you’re relying only on these third party platforms – like LinkedIn or Facebook or any of the other kind of social media apps out there – to communicate, you’re not going to be able to communicate to your entire list unless you pay those third party apps money to boost your post in order for all of your people to see them.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:55] So, it’s really not a good move to rely on these third party platforms to communicate with the people most important to you. You have to take that control into your own hands, so make sure, on LinkedIn and Facebook, you’re able to pull those contacts out and put them in the appropriate database and your own email list so you can reach out to them when you need to and when you want to.
BRX Pro Tip: Summarize Before Recommending
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: Summarize Before Recommending
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I’m well-known for not wanting to propose anything. I always want to recommend. But it’s important to recognize before we recommend, we need to summarize.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Yeah. This is something that happens when you’re doing whatever you call an exploratory meeting with a sales prospect. We call it a whiteboard meeting sometimes. But it’s important at some point early on to listen to what your prospect’s issues, and problems, and urgent pain, what those issues are. And summarize it back to them to make sure that you have kind of clarity and you got kind of buy in from the prospect that you are hearing them, and that you are kind of understanding exactly what their issues, problems, and pain are before you recommend any solution.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:55] Like, how can your doctor prescribe a treatment before they examine you and understand what the problem is? And what the problem really is, not what the problem that you say is or you think is. This is something that you have to get clarity about and you have to kind of get your prospect to articulate it and verbalize it, so that when you recommend a solution, then you’re making a recommendation that truly solves that prospect’s problem and it truly helps them.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:24] So, it’s important to spend some time to clearly understand the problem. A lot of salespeople rush too quickly into their solution and kind of just bombard the prospect with all the features and benefits of their service before they really understand what the prospect’s issues are or the problem they’re trying to solve. And you can’t help somebody solve their problem unless you truly understand what their problem is.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:52] So, invest some time in truly understanding your prospect’s problem so that you can recommend a solution. And that solution might be, “Hey, my service isn’t a fit for you, you should go somewhere else.” So, you want to help them solve their problem. But in order to do that, you have to listen to them and understand what that problem is.
BRX Pro Tip: What Do People Value
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: What Do People Value
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you this afternoon. Lee, a lot of times selling involves a great deal of asking questions and getting answers. But one of the things that we have to get answered, one of the questions we need to be asking ourselves is, what do people really value?
Lee Kantor: [00:00:22] Yeah. You’re finding a lot of people nowadays are valuing convenience over everything. You know, these people are looking for some magic pill that solves whatever ails them. And in our business, that person might be the one that’s like, “Hey, I’ll pay for a service that automatically spams all of my LinkedIn contacts to try to sell them something.” And we’re all bombarded with those LinkedIn messages. As soon as somebody connects with you, in two seconds, they’ve sent you a note trying to sell you something.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:52] And other people don’t value the convenience. They’d rather kind of enjoy the journey. They value the work. They value the relationships. In our case, those are the people that are actually better fits for our service are the people that value relationships. Not that kind of spams lots of people. Our ideal client is someone that would pay for a service that allows them to create and build meaningful relationships at scale. That’s a good fit for us, not just anonymous relationships. So, you got to find your ideal fit and understand what it is that your prospect values the most.
Rome Floyd Chamber Small Business Spotlight – Jeff Sinnock with the YMCA of Rome, and Andy Welborn with Riverside Auto Group
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: Documenting Your Systems
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: Documenting Your Systems
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, today’s topic, bottling your processes and documenting your systems.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:10] Yeah. I think that every business owner at some point aspires to delegate and kind of build a team around the work that they do in some regards. And in order to efficiently and effectively do that, you have to document your systems. And your systems are things that you take for granted right now.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:28] So, for example, I host a lot of shows, so I have a system for hosting shows. I have to press certain buttons on the mixer. I have to press certain buttons on the computer. I say certain things to inform the guests prior to the show what’s about to happen. And then, inform them that at the end of the show, “I’m going to play music, hang with me through that.” And then, I’m going to come back on and let you know what happens next regarding the content.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:53] There are certain things I say every time. I have to document that because if I ever want to tell or share with somebody else how to do this, I want them to understand these are the steps that I do. And then, here are the steps that is required in order to execute a hosting a show.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] So, it’s important to document these things, and the tighter that you have it, the cleaner it is, the more clarity you have in communicating, the easier it is to delegate. And then, once you’ve documented one system, then put it in some sort of a manual. And then, look for another system you do. This is how we get guests. Every day I invite one guest on to a show every morning at 7:30. This is the note I send. This is how I communicate. This is how I identify the person. Then, document that and put that in the manual.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:42] And if you do this all the time and just really be mindful of all of the systems that you already have in place that you already take for granted, if you start documenting each one of them, you’re going to find in a short period of time, you’re going to have a complete operation manual on how you do what you do. And this is going to let you delegate more efficiently. It’s going to let you then focus on the things that are most important things that move the needle in your business.
BRX Pro Tip: Adding a Set Up Fee to Your Offering
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: Adding a Set Up Fee to Your Offering
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, what’s your perspective on adding a set up fee to your offering?
Lee Kantor: [00:00:11] I think that having some sort of a set up fee or any type of fee at the beginning of a relationship is the easiest way to add more revenue to your bottom line. I don’t know if calling it a set up fee is the best way to do that, but some version of a fee when you start a relationship, whether it’s calling it a set up fee, calling it a launch program, calling it a training certification. But some sort of an upfront fee for doing something at the beginning of a relationship, I think, is the easiest way for you to add revenue to your bottom line, because this is the honeymoon period. This is the time where people are already kind of bought into whatever it is that you’re providing.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] So, throwing in some money for something that begins the relationship makes sense. And there’s some upfront costs. Everybody understands that. And so, I think that by neglecting putting some sort of a setup fee or some sort of an initial fee into your offering, you’re leaving money on the table.
BRX Pro Tip: Being Small is a Competitive Advantage
/
RSS Feed
BRX Pro Tip: Being Small is a Competitive Advantage
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. This ought to come as welcome news, but I believe it’s true, and I know you do as well, Lee. Being small is, or at least can be, a real competitive advantage.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Yeah. I think that when you’re a small business owner, you look around you and you see all these bigger players going, “Oh, they have so many more resources. They have so many more people and bodies to throw with things that I can’t compete.” But I disagree with that.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] And there’s a lot of advantages of being small. Some of them are, number one, you are the only person who can do exactly what you do. So, really, you don’t have any competition. That means that you can look at competitors, not as competitors, but as collaborators. You can help your perceived competitors in ways that they can’t help themselves, because you can collaborate with them and use your services to fill in gaps that they’re lacking. So, I think having no competition because of your unique ability to do specifically what you do is a tremendous advantage.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:19] Another thing that’s an advantage when you’re smaller and you’re focused on the niche is that you can gain a deeper expertise in the niche, because, number, one you’re interested in. And number two, you don’t have any bureaucracy stopping you from being nimble and reacting to any new development in your space.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:36] Larger organizations, if something new comes along, they have to have meetings, they’ve got to go to committees, they’ve got to get approval. You can just pivot on a dime and move and just focus on anything new, because you’re interested in it and that it can really be an opportunity. And you can kind of jump on it before a larger organization can.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:56] Another thing you can do is you can do the things that aren’t necessarily scalable. Because all you are is focused on your client success, where bigger businesses have to create systems to have the ability to scale. You can do one off things for your established clients because you don’t need hundreds of clients. You only need a handful of great fit clients to have a successful practice. So, you can do these things that don’t necessarily scale or can’t be replicated a bunch of times. You can do it as a one off just to help your client.
Lee Kantor: [00:02:33] So, this ability to kind of customize your service is a tremendous advantage. The ability to be nimble is a tremendous advantage. The ability to not have any true competition because you’re unique is a tremendous advantage. So, lean into being small because it is an advantage.
