How to grow my small business?

Hi All

There has been one question that has been haunting me over the last couple of weeks… am I a “plumber with a leaky tap?” – and no… I am not actually a plumber – but the CEO of a marketing and advertising agency in Melbourne, Nexus CG.

do I let it continue to “leak” or should I do something about it?!

You see… what has prompted this question is a little bit of “self evaluation” – I am 31 years old… and am I where I thought I would be 3 and a half years ago when I started this business with my business partner… and mother… Sheila?

In order to answer this question I have to take you back to those days and what was happening, what is happening now – and try to figure out – have I reached my goals – or do I know theoretically what I “should” be doing and just not “getting around to it” – or is there a deeper problem?

Why am I doing this in a blog that is open for speculation, criticism and even cynicism? Simple… it is how I started this business – open and honest to the public in order to hold myself accountable – plain and simple – and if anyone can learn from my challenges then even better.

So what has led me to the “self evaluation”?

Well I have just come out of hospital for the same operation that I had 3 and a half years ago – that prompted me to start this business.  I wanted a fresh start – to be able to build something for myself and my family that we can have an element of freedom of choice and the ability to leave a legacy.  In order to do that I needed to rid myself of some very toxic things in my life…

• an ex-boyfriend, that I probably should never have been with in the first place
• living in Canberra in a role that I probably should never have accepted in the first place
• some friends that just wanted to go out and get drunk… who I probably should never have fallen in with in the first place
• A work situation - which I probably shouldn’t have let get as far as I did….. in the first place.

…. seeing a pattern here?  I was making some very bad decisions based on some very bad reasoning… I was unhappy.  It was time to create a life that made me innately happy being me.

So I did… the creation of “Nexus Coaching Group” – as it was known then was created – whilst lying in that hospital bed over three and a half years ago.  So no wonder I was starting to “evaluate” matters whilst lying in that very same bed for the very same operation all these years later…. here is what I have discovered so far:

• my love life is the best it has EVER been.  I have met the love of my life and I am “different” with him – I am kind, I am warm, I am open… and most importantly – I have found “that bliss” that people talked about, that I never understood.  It wasn’t always this way – we have had to work hard at our relationship, but everything we do we do as a team, and I am excited about what this team can and will create.  Mushy I know! (but notice… I am not apologising for it… more change)
• I am not living in Canberra… I am living in Melbourne.  Up until this operation I was living with the best gal pal ever… Kim… in Elwood – but since then we have both decided to move out.  She has moved in with her boyfriend who she met one week later than I met mine… after going online dating together – weird huh? I am living with mum, until mine and Krish’s place is ready to move into… exciting!
• friends…. hmmm… ok, not nailing this one so far… but working on it… will shed more light shortly.
• I love my work! BUT…. it isn’t growing in the fashion I thought it would.  Surprise, surprise… all of the “formulas” that I have followed have only gotten me so far…. herein, lies my challenge!

So the two things that are not working “as well as I would like” is the “friends” component and the growth of Nexus.  Maybe I can look at them both in the same light.

In one particular friendship I have… I am trying really hard.  I am doing everything a friend should do… I am texting, I am calling, I am Facebooking… and I am constantly getting the same responses… nothing, or one word short replies. As hurtful as this is, I thought… come on Naomi… make this work – don’t give up…. so I continued – I was doing the same thing over an over again and hoping for a new outcome?! definition of insanity right there. I then looked at one of my other friendships… Kim… we are always there for each other, there is no drama, we miss each other, and we genuinely want to hang out… but I don’t feel that I need to follow “certain rules” to have this friendship… it is easy and successful – I just went about it in my own unique way.

So how can this help the growth of Nexus?  Well no surprise here, but when I got into business I bought very heavily into “modelling others’ success” and I have to admit – it got me further than the average business starter…. but not as far as I want it to go.  So I kept doing the same thing over and over again – hoping and believing all would change… that was what the “formula” said… but it wasn’t… it’s NOT working.  I am working with the same sort of customers time and time again… but we want more… we want that freedom that we once dreamt about – and in order to achieve this I believe we need to look into a new pool of customers, look at a new way of doing things… and ultimately looking BIGGER at the things that we are doing.

I was told about a conversation recently about a new business starter that was speaking to a friend of mine… she told him that she has started a new business and instead of handing out business cards, she is going to hand out her own book.  Great! I thought… this is the start of a very well known formula…. when my friend asked this business starter to give him a 30 sec run down of why her business was better than others (as he doesn’t have time to read the book), she walked away… the formula is floored, as are so many others….

So… no more formulas for me… I am going to work with my business partner in a whole new way – we are going to look BIGGER than ever before, and there are going to be some massive changes, and some risks that we are going to go through together… that’s my promise to myself, my business partner and our employees… I am ditching the formulas that are holding us back and I am going to create our own unique way…

As for my friend… who knows… but that formula of doing all of the work is now ending as well.  It breaks my heart that this could be the end of “a beautiful friendship” that I held so dear to my heart – but I cannot and will not flog a dead horse for any longer… that’s my promise to me!

let’s hope this is the case….

I am not sure if this blog is going to be of any use to anyone…. but I hope it is… self evaluation will stop me being the plumber with a leaky tap – and ensure I know how to grow this small business… our way!

Cheers

N

 

 

The GOOD the BAD and the UGLY of Sales in Australia

HI All

We are nearing the end of the year, and the dreaded Christmas shopping is rapidly creeping up at a very nagging pace.  There are so many great aspects of Christmas but the crowded shops, the irate sales assistants and the endless cues at the toilets are not them!

I think Christmas “Cheer” has dissappeared over the recent years alongside friendly and helpful customer service, whether it is a telecommunications company, a clothing store, a cafe or a bank reality is the friendly, helpful sales assistants are very few and far between.  And quite frankly, I have had a gut full.  As a sales trainer I am constantly dissappointed by the service I have received – and I am really easy to sell to if you simply show me some care and consideration… but that doesn’t seem to be part of the sales training these people are receiving.

To really understand what is going on here – I have decided to run a new campaign… “100 brands in 100 weeks” this will see me and some very eager and enthusiastic members of the Nexus team go undercover to one top name brand every week and assess their sales capabilities, the friendliness and their overall customer service.  oooh  and we are going to write all about it right here in this blog!  Yes we are going to name and shame a few, but we are also going to give praise where deserved.

The names on the list will be kept top secret until after they have been assessed – and then the information is there for you to read and do with what you please.

We are currently in the process of drawing up the list of names – and there are some on there that make me more than a little nervous, but excited all at the same time – BUT WE NEED MORE!

We want to hear from you as to who you would like us to investigate – it could be a large retail business, it could be a large car dealership or it could be your energy company – whoever it is we want to know about it.  Post your requests here and we will decide whether or not to add them to the “list”.

This campaign probably won’t earn us any friends, but it will get the truth out there about customer service and sales in the Australian market place…. oh and this will be written about in a large business magazine as well! – So keep following us to get all the juicy info here FIRST!

Have a great day, and I look forward to seeing all of your “100 brands in 100 weeks” requests!

Cheers

NA

Why have a different terminology for sales and marketing… surely it should all just be called SALES!

Hi All

It’s been 81 days since my last blog and I was feeling strong until I recently opened a discussion on Facebook with:

“should we just get rid of the term marketing all together and just call it sales? thoughts?”

Who knew that this topic would get such a big response…. I received 21 comments within half an hour and my inbox was flooded with opinions from both sides of the argument.

So I thought I would share my thoughts and opinions with you, and maybe you can either add to the controversial statement or simply add your own views!

To do this blog justice, I wanted to have as many facts as possible – so I went to Google !  I typed in “what is marketing”, and low and behold the first link to pop up was the definitions page, so I clicked on it and the first sentence reads: “selling:  the exchange of goods for an agreed sum of money”… interesting – that the first definition is all about selling!  However, I can’t simply use that as my proof – so hear is the real definition:  ”marketing is the process by which companies decide on the right products and services to promote to their clientele, and therefore the strategy for the sales teams to use”.

Seems like a fair definition.

I wonder why it is that large organisations both here in Australia and overseas insist on having separate sales and marketing divisions, when they have clearly the same objectives – get the right message to the right client so they buy the right product or service… seems simple.

In my company we teach marketing as part of our sales training, we believe that you can’t and shouldn’t separate the two… in order to be able to market properly you need to start with the objective, the sales objective – then you work backwards until you are able to delineate exactly what it is that you need to be marketing and the message that you need to get across.  The type of marketing and sales activities may vary – but the process is always the same.

I am aware that there are many types of marketing degrees and that they even teach marketing subjects in MBAs, but is there no wonder that many people struggle with selling when there is no formal education – so the Australian market is forced to seek out privatised sales training, some of which are very good, but most… very poor.

This causes a form of an “elitist” attitude between marketing and sales, where in all honesty I believe there should be a degree called “sales and marketing” – because as previously discussed, you can’t have one without the other.   Marketeers are currently getting the best form of education and sellers are left to use their innate ability to be flexible to the environment and learn what they can on the fly.  The best sellers are high achievers, can you imagine what would happen if they received formalised training in both sales and marketing???  Would be fantastic.

It is said that if you were to place a seller into a marketing role that they will do very well, because a seller knows that the key strategy is to always understand the clients needs, where as if you put a marketeer into a sales role then they will simply hand out a brochure .  Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, what is blindingly clear is that sales skills help marketing ability and maybe all marketeers should start with sales training and experience?!?!

This leads me to believe that all marketing is is a pre sales activity… so why the need for another term.  I wonder what kind of questions you would ask a sales trainer if marketing was simply part of the process of sales – and therefore they needed to include it in everything they taught?  I think the number of sales trainers would diminish rapidly – and maybe that’s not a bad thing!

I would love your opinions on sales and marketing and where you see it all fitting in.  Are you with me in saying that marketing is simple a pre sales activity or do you believe that marketing is bigger than that.. and if that’s the case how do you go about designing your marketing strategy?

That’s it for me today… I am off to the gym, I have 300 cardio minutes to complete this week…. wish me luck!

N