Sorry to disturb you.
Sorry for taking up your time.
Did I interrupt you? I’m sorry.
Sorry for what?

I’ve been to hundreds of events over the years. And it amazes me how many people apologise to their audience, before they start speaking.

It is not uncommon to hear “sorry for boring you with this”.
“Hopefully I won’t put you to sleep”.
“I’ll try not to waste your time”.
“Sorry for talking about such a serious subject so early in the morning’”

The list is endless.

Why is this?
I believe it is a deep rooted fear of being seen to be “selling yourself”. God forbid if people think I’m selling myself or my business. They might not react well. They might be offended. They might be threatened.

Well I’m sorry. This is just rubbish. This is just in your mind. NOT THEIRS.

I absolutely believe 100% that people love being sold to. That is by people who have genuine belief in their product or service. Who have passion and commitment. And are sincere.

Are you in this bracket? If not well then, now we are getting to the root of why you are apologising. You don’t believe in your product. You don’t have undiminished pride in your service. You are kidding yourself.

If you have a great product or service then SELL with pride. SELL with joy. SELL with enthusiasm. Why? Because you are making someone’s life better! That can’t be a bad thing.

You are helping make more money
You are saving them money
You are helping them or their business become more effective
You are helping their business become more compliant
You are helping them make better decisions
Your are helping them gain a competitive advantage
You are helping them become more innovative

What are you helping them do? Do you really know?

Actions
Define how you are helping your prospects and customers clearly. Really clearly as this will motivate you and give you a sense of belief that by selling to them you are really helping them.
Helping is never something you apologise for. So NEVER apologise.
Take action now and watch your language. Be proud to sell. And sell with enthusiasm. You’ll get the results you need.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

Fears are not unique to the limited few. They are pervasive and hold most of us back from our goals at some point in our lives. Fears are mostly irrational but nonetheless they are very real. And destructive.

So how can you learn from your kids about fears? Well firstly you don’t have to have kids to learn from them.
I have two kids. One three and the other five years old.
It may be anecdotal but I talk to a lot of parents of two and they confirm my own experiences.
Generally the second child has less fear. And in my kid’s experience I get 100% validation of this theory.

Why because they leverage the experience of others (in this case, his older brother) and learn from them.

Let me explain by using a simple example. My eldest son when we first started taking him to a playground was terrified of most of the rides. Even a slide was a major obstacle. His fears were so strong that he’d hurt himself, that he wouldn’t participate. It took a huge amount of cajoling and nurturing to enable him to take the first leap of faith.

Not so my second son. And I firmly believe that he looked to his older brother, realised he wasn’t phased or fearful. And simply accepted this as the norm. So he just got stuck in.

This type of incident has been replayed over and over again in our household where the younger son has leap frogged his older brother’s progress at an earlier age. He simply has had less fear, because in effect he had a mentor.

So how does this relate to you and your business.
In a word Leverage.
For every challenge you have had in your business, someone has overcome it before.
For every fear you have about the future of your business, someone has overcome it before.
For every personal fear you have about your own future, someone somewhere has overcome it.

All you need to do is emulate them. Just find out how they did and copy the steps. Not only can you be assured with full confidence it can be done. You’ll have the proof it works, by either reading about it, or better still talking directly to the person who have done it.

Leveraging other people’s knowledge. And other people’s failures can give you enormous confidence about moving forward. Just as my youngest son, simply followed in the footsteps of his older brother. You can follow in the footsteps of those before you.

You have NO reason to feel alone or alienated. You just focus on finding the proof that what is seemingly impossible, can be done.

As you know I am a great admirer of John Boyle of Boyle Sports. He has built a €1billion business from scratch. And he is unashamed in admitting that he did so by following the structure others taught him. He looked at what successful people did. Emulated them step by step. And got results.

You can do the same.

www.ronankilroy.ie

Actions;
Write down now your main fear.
Now challenge that fear directly and with determination. Argue against it. Find the evidence of people and businesses before you who have overcome that fear or obstacle. And simple disprove your own doubts with hard evidence.
Follow in the footsteps of those who’ve done it.
Yes learn from your kids. You were a kid once. Who did you emulate?

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

Alternatively you can decide to do what most Business Owners will do in 2012. Stay the same. And to be blunt about it, it’s just dumb. So

1) Don’t make a plan. Why bother. You’ve winged it so far. Planning just consumes time and anyway we all know that business plans just gather dust on shelves. Anyway how can you plan in a world that’s so topsy turvy?

2) Don’t think big. Whatever you do don’t create a vision of a bigger better business. Don’t dream. Dreaming is for the birds. There’s more important things to do like counting the till receipts. Dreamers, I mean what have people like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Denis O’Brien and Brian O’Driscoll every achieved by dreaming big?

3) Blame everything and everyone else for your misfortunes. Blame the economy. Blame the Euro. Blame your sales team. Blame your staff. Blame the taxman. It’s never your fault. It’s much easier to blame others that take responsibility.

4) Don’t measure your key numbers. Measuring key business numbers is a waste of time. You can’t control the numbers in a downturn. People aren’t spending. Nobody’s buying. Why remind yourself of your poor performance by focusing with a razor like mentality on numbers.

5) Don’t change. For God sake don’t rethink. Re assess. Reevaluate everything you do. Your strategy. Your people. Your clients. Your products. Your skills. Your competencies. Stay the same. It makes it easier to blame the world.

6) Don’t ignore the media and the news. We all love our bad news and there’s so much out there to take in. We love it. We revel in it. And we allow our mindset to be blunted by it. But why change? Why switch channel and listen to some motivational books. Why not read only in areas where there are opportunities. Why not consciously decide to focus on the positive. No. It’s just too much hassle. It’s easier to fit it and be miserable in unison.

7) Don’t look for opportunities. Focus on the problems. If you’re spending 80% of your time or more just dealing with problems. It must be necessary. No? Why change and flip that percentage, where you consciously try to spend 80% of your time focused on new solutions? Once again it’s easier to stay constant. And bemoan the lack of time available to get anything done.

Don’t set goals. Let’s not be ridiculous here. We all know that if we set ourselves goals, we are just giving ourselves the rope to hang ourselves on. No, no goals for you or your team. We don’t want people failing any more do we?

9) Procrastinate; Don’t hold yourself accountable to your priorities. Whatever you do, don’t move forward until everything is perfectly aligned for success. Perfect everything before moving forward. Put all of the major priorities on hold, while you focus exclusively on the minor issues. When they’re done you can then get the big stuff done. Don’t change that habit.

10) Don’t learn more. Who has the time to attend courses. Read books. Listen to audio programmes. Watch video programmes. Read industry reports. Attend industry gatherings. Assess new trends. Wait until next year. You may have the time then. When the economy picks up.

So there you have it. Just 10 really Dumb Business and Personal Strategies for 2012. There are many more, but you’ll know these too.

Of course there is the alternative….

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

You are all facing a New Year so what are your New Year Resolutions?
I was with someone I am very close to on New Year’s day and asked the obvious question. “Have you any New Year’s resolutions”.
There was a pause and then the response. “Ronan, I don’t believe in New Year resolutions. You are setting yourself up to fail. And I’m sick of doing that”.

Oh No!! I was stunned to silence. A condition I’m not often afflicted with.

I didn’t know whether to reach across the table and strangle, or embrace her. I chose to let this moment pass and move on.

But it has played on my mind ever since.
As you know your success is largely a factor of your thinking and your belief system. You simply can’t achieve success without the right beliefs about yourself and your abilities.
You simply can’t achieve success if your own self talk ( or language) is self defeating. In other words if you beat yourself up constantly. If you reaffirm your inability to be successful. If you focus so much on the reasons you can’t achieve success. You won’t achieve success.
You must have resolve. And you cannot resign yourself to failure.
This is what my friend in effect did. She has resigned herself to failure, because her fear of failure has prevented her taking a first step.

2012 can be your most successful year ever. If you believe it. This is not simplistic BS!! This is fact. And believe this you must.
Not fluffy belief based on ridiculous expectations. But genuine belief based on you deciding to make the necessary changes in 2012 to ensure your success.

Actions;
Start today. Call them resolutions. I’ll Call them Goals. Call them what you wish. But set yourself some written goals for 2012.
Secondly write down the reasons you don’t believe you will achieve these goals. Yes just do it!
Now challenge that belief. Argue with yourself on paper. Write down every reason this belief is phony.
Now write out a new belief statement. One that if repeated twice daily for the month of January, will galvanise you. And make it your new reality.
Resolve to change any negative beliefs you have about achieving the results you never thought possible.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

The challenge outlined above is a typical challenge for many businesses.
Sales teams are spending time writing proposals. Marketing people are spending time creating presentations and strategies.
There never seems to be the time for more tactical work. Tactical from the point of view of actually generating leads.

Let me ask you this question first.
Is Marketing your NUMBER 1 priority in your business?
Is it subservient to operations, finance, customer service, and IT?
Now before I get emails from those of you in these functions criticizing me for undervaluing them. I don’t. I place huge value on these functions.
However a business needs customers. And in order to get customers you need to generate leads. And in order to generate leads you need marketing activity.

What often happens is that Marketing and Sales are the functions that get done if there is time left over in the week. Operations, finance and IT, get done first.

Are you genuinely being proactive in ensuring that your marketing is done EVERY week. Consistently?
Is your business diary blocked out every week for these critical activities?
Do you measure these activities weekly? Consistently.
Do you consistently test and measure your marketing strategies to ensure you get a return on your investment?

The answer is really simple. If you want to have a business that has sustainable growth. More clients. More sales. More leads. You have to schedule marketing FIRST every week.

Here’s a great way to position this in your mind if you are for example a business owner.
You may be an accountant, a retailer, a solicitor or an engineer. But first and foremost you are a MARKETER.

Yes a marketer first and your day job second. This is not me being trivial. This is a very important distinction. And one if taken seriously will absolutely transform your mindset, and the results of your business.

Actions;
Write down now, the number of hours you or your business spent last week actively marketing or selling your services.
Now write down the number of hours a week a successful business should spend actively marketing? Do some research and I guarantee you you’ll find that the Top 5 businesses in your industry, are the most consistent at marketing. It’s never a coincidence.
Finally start today to prioritise your marketing. Everyone is involved in marketing. Everyone has a role, so you are not undervaluing the other key functions. Make it your No.1 Goal and guess what. You’ll get better results. Guaranteed.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

This is an interesting topic for me. And I would welcome your views. Clearly as someone who works with entrepreneurs this is a challenge I come across all of the time. And there is no catch all answer from my experience.

The reason I love working with entrepreneurs or entrepreneurially minded executives, is that they have that in built instinct to generate new ideas. Ultimately many I’m sure like you ended up being an entrepreneur by listening to your instinct, your gut, in the first place.

This is definitely a major asset. And many many successful businesses have been built or sheer instinct, drive and ambition.

I also believe that we have an innate ability to tap in to our “gut” and get answers to problems that have troubled us. As you know I am a passionate believer in the power of your Subconscious mind, which for me is constantly sending us messages, and guiding us. Most of the time though we don’t act on these impulses or messages.

Truly great entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, James Dyson and Steve Jobs, have relied heavily on their gut when making decisions. Arguably today this instinct is needed more, and more as your markets and industries adapt and change so quickly.

But we also need to plan better in order to execute better. Often the best ideas falter in the execution. Which is again why I am obsessive about the need for great planning.

And don’t be deceived. Your plans don’t have to be lengthy. Your plans don’t have to be mind numbingly detailed. Often your plan just needs to tease out some level of detail, in order to get you started in a more structured way.

There are two building blocks to successful businesses. One is Vision. Clear visions are often generated from your gut, your instinct.

The other is Structure. Structure and planning are unavoidable if you want to get to the next level of success your business.
Maybe you are not the right person to be doing the planning. And if you’re not fine, get someone else to do this for you. It is too important to leave to chance. However whether you write the plan or not, you have to have input.

In my view the most important of the two is the “gut”. Call it innovation, call it brainstorming, or mindstorming or just plain dreaming. You need to spend time thinking, clarifying and experimenting. You need to spend time allowing your instincts the room to connect with you. You need to listen more to your gut.

You need to allocate time every week to work on refining your skill in developing your instincts. On your skill in developing new ideas. This is pure Entrepreneurial Time.
You don’t have a choice. If you don’t innovate you die.

Once you have an idea that excites you or opens up possibilities to you. Then you work on a plan. Don’t skip this step. Planning saves time, money and a lot of heartache. Planning is essential. A business without a business plan is going nowhere fast.

Actions
Remember what got you in to being an entrepreneur in the first place. Remember how you got started. Remember your ability to act on impulses and deliver.
Now spend time every week deliberately developing this skill. It is the essence of entrepreneurship. It is you at your best.
Track your impulses your ideas and what your gut reactions were to the idea. Keep a log.
Then and only then set about writing a plan. Don’t get hung up on the detail just yet. Just flesh out the idea. Allow your gut to guide you through the plan also.
If you marry these two skills you will get results beyond your expectations consistently.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

We all know a lot of what is needed to be successful. So why aren’t you as successful as you want to be.
Do you suffer from Persefearance? The fear of pushing on when you face adversity and pushing through the inevitable barriers that face you?

If you were to analyse parts of your life where you have achieved great success. And you have all achieved success. You just don’t give yourself the credit you deserve often enough!
Do you see how important perseverance played in your success?

Are you are a great footballer, golfer, sports person. Did that come overnight?
You are a great communicator, leader, team builder. Did that come overnight?
You are a great success in saving, investing for the future. Did that come overnight?

No you probably had to persevere over a long time, in order to get the outcome you wanted. Maybe you are still persevering.

But how many of you are persefearing the very thing you need to do in order to achieve the success you want?
The fear of pushing on despite of the inevitable resistance and obstacles you’ll face.
The fear of failing by continuing to move forward, even if it seems that for every two steps forward you take one step backward?

Well unless you live a charmed life, then you will have to develop a strong sense of perseverance in order to succeed.

This isn’t as daunting as you may fear at first.
Are you guilty of looking at the enormity of a challenge, rather than breaking your challenge in to small incremental steps.
Check out the brilliantly simple GOSPA method to help you do this in my blog The GOSPA according to Ronan.

If we look at our challenge differently and intuitively we can change how we feel about it.
What I mean is that very often people will say to me “Ronan there’s just so much to do to get started, that I don’t know how to start”.

The task seems so overwhelming that it literally stifles people.

A great example in this market is that of sourcing new customers, and new products for new markets. We all need to grow our business and yet the first steps seem daunting.

When we set up our business focused on the UK market, at first it seemed a daunting a task too.
But the UK is just a collection of mini territories. So we broke it down. We focused on territories near regional airports that were easily accessible from Dublin.
We started in Scotland and targeted clients near Prestwick, Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.
We simply narrowed our task down to a few simple progressive steps. And persevered until we got a foothold in those local markets. We then widened our net to focus on Scotland as a market.
Next we focused on Northern England. We targeted Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle and created little clusters of focus.
All the while we still had our overall goal of €20 million to hit, but we chipped away at the goal in small steps.

We knew that through perseverance and determination as well as a relentless focus, we’d succeed.

And did we have lots of failures along the way. Too many to mention here. We got it wrong many times, but we just kept moving forward.

You too can do the same. Get rid of the Persefearance and develop perseverance. You’ll get results. But don’t think for a minute that’s it’s easy. It won’t be, but it will get less hard with perseverance.

Actions;
Identify the key areas in your business where you have lacked the perseverance to be successful. Be straight with yourself.
Now set a goal to persevere for at least 12 months. And to do what is necessary daily, weekly and monthly to move you forward.
Next get an ACCOUNTABILITY partner to hold you accountable to your daily actions. Everyone needs a coach. Find yourself someone who can act as your coach in this regard. It can be your colleagues, your spouse, your friend. It just needs to be someone who will genuinely hold you accountable.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

Here’s something to do right now. Get a blank piece of paper and write down the advantages to you and more importantly to your business of YOU being the Chief Problem Solver?
Now write down the disadvantages, to YOU and your business.

My guess is that the page is weighted heavily on the disadvantage side. And your thinking to yourself but how do you solve this problem. And get your team to do the work.

Well the answer is easy, but the solution is hard.
Let me explain.
Numerous research projects have clearly shown that directive leadership ( i.e. when you tell people what to do and how to do it) gets you a 1 in 3 chance of a satisfactory response. 33% return on your time invested. Not bad.
However using a “coaching” approach ( which is asking for input, and getting people to solve their own problems themselves), gets you a 70% response rate.
You can give me 70% any day and I’ll take it. But there is a catch.
It takes longer.
My experience may help explain this.

Defaulting to a “tell” mode is easy. And I took to it with ease. Running a business which seemed at times to be running faster than us, meant making decisions quickly.
Having a large team of people, most of whom were relatively new to the business as we were growing, meant growing demands on my time.
When someone asked, I told.
When someone had a query, I gave them the answer.
When someone had a problem, I solved it for them.
Yes in other words I was a poor leader, but was I untypical?

The consequence was obvious and damaging, both to me personally and the business. My day simply was consumed with interruptions. I never took the time to really explain, to question, to probe and to get my team to think things through.
It would have taken longer to do so. And it lead to a dependency. A dependency on me.

I had great people that in effect I had trained not to think for themselves. They weren’t to blame. I simply did what seemed to be the best thing at the time. The quickest thing. Either do it myself or tell them what to do.

Are you in this situation yourself? Are you the Chief Problem Solver?
An ability to solve problems is a terrific attribute, but beware.

Learn to take a little extra time and get your team involved, by resisting the temptation to get back to your own work. And get your team to solve it themselves. To learn, to think, to rationalise. In other words “coach” them a little. You’ll be amazed by the results over the longer term.

This takes a lot of trust but it is essential. When I have analysed where people spend their time in the week, up to 50% of it is taken up in unscheduled interruptions. 50%. Wouldn’t you like to take this time back?
In my case the results were dramatic. I moved from 7 day a week where I was taking calls, answering emails, handling operational issues, to 5 days. Other people simply got on with doing their jobs. And they were better than me at solving those problems. Win Win for the team. And Win Win for you if you take action.

Actions;
Starting today, work on your awareness of the extent of the interruptions you get.
Then start to review how you reacted to these interruptions. What percentage of your time were you Chief Problem Solver. What percentage were you leading or training?
Start the habit of asking your team, how they would solve their problems. Start trusting others to do the work you do, with great guidance from you.
Start standing back from doing to orchestrating.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

Let’s be honest it is a challenge that we all face. I was reminded while starting to write this , of a standout example this year of how this challenge affects people.
I met a business owner for an appointment. He wanted to discuss business coaching and as you know I had done my preparation. And sent through an agenda. I was prepared but he certainly wasn’t.

The meeting resonated with me, as I did catch glimpses of a former self.

When we met you could see he was distracted. Does that ring true for many of you.
“Ronan I need to send through a tender by 11am this morning or I’ll miss my deadline. Can you hang on a second”?.
No problem. I waited and I observed. It was kind of surreal. The next 30 minutes was a series of interruptions. By phone. Two physical interruptions with people looking to have queries answered.
A quick email here, a quick email there. Another phone call. Quick change of direction as there was a fire to extinguish somewhere.

“Apologies Ronan. Just give me a couple of more minutes. Would you like a coffee?” Sure.
I drank my coffee, while chaos continued.
The 11am deadline was missed. Oh no. Several phone calls. A quick call to the client to apologise for being late. This had happened before but this would be the last time.
Reception calling. We have a delivery problem. Do you have the original order handy?
Paper shuffling, followed by a quick scan. Then a quick email. All very quick I have to say.
11.20am he sat down. But he was elsewhere. His mind was completely distracted. He listened but as he listened he was focused elsewhere. It was obvious.
Another knock on the door. Another urgent requirement. This time it was John. We need a sample for customer X. Do you know where it is?
No. Ask Joe. Already did. He doesn’t know.
Ronan can you give me a couple of minutes.
Coffee was cold now so not much to occupy me now except to read my own notes again..

Back to the desk 3 minutes later. Now where were we Ronan?
Oh sorry. Quick dash to the door to remind John to take another sample to Customer Y.

Just a quick check on the emails to see if the tender had been accepted. No response. Temporary pause to think.

Need I go on?

Now the best analogy I can use for this scenario is that he was in Snow Globe mode. What do I mean.
Well as parents or indeed as kids we all have either owned or bought a snow globe.
Let’s for a second use this as a metaphor for our mind and our thoughts. The globe being our mind. The snow flakes being our individual thoughts.
Now visual yourself shaking the globe up. What do you see. Chaos?
Now picture your own mind and your own thoughts. Are they similar to this business owners? Are they like this often?
Are you so cluttered with different tasks and thoughts that you are literally snowed under with the clutter?

Now I’m not being harsh on this business owner at all. It was like looking at myself at various stages of running a business in the past. And you know what, I lost sight of what was important, very quickly.

How do you control this? Simple.
Back to our Snow Globe. What happens when you sit it on a table and allow it to rest for a while? It settles. And so too with your mind.
If you believe as I passionately believe, that your outer world reflects your inner world. Then chaos in your mind, and thoughts is reflected by chaos in your business.

However if you also believe as I do that time spent literally letting your thoughts settle, leads to clarity. And clarity leads to better business decisions. And better business decisions lead to better plans. And better plans lead to having more time to THINK.

Then why aren’t you planning more time to THINK?

You have the ability, that’s not the issue. You just need the discipline. And for this you need to create a new habit. A habit focused on you. Yes on you. Sound a little selfish? Well it’s not. It’s a must.

What happened to my meeting. I had to ask for a postponement. There was just no possibility of getting a meaningful conversation started. And I knew I could not help him, until we had time to talk in peace. Funny the very reason I had to postpone, is the very reason we should be working together.

Actions,
Buy a Snow Globe. I’m serious and put it on your desk as a visual reminder of the importance you place on letting your thinking settle.
Create a daily routine of slowing down to think. Don’t over do this initially. 5 minutes a day can be a very effective starting point.
Put the time in your diary or your phone and set a daily reminder to do this.
Do nothing other than concentrate on letting your thoughts slow down and settle, like the snow flakes in the globe.
Clear mind, clear thinking. Clear thinking, better results.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.

I was struck recently by some meetings I attended to where I was being sold to. They were lessons in how not to sell and I wanted to share these, in order that you assess your own approach.

One in particular was simply atrocious. Do you or your sales team sell like this?
Firstly, it was clear that there was no preparation made for our meeting. Great preparation is essential.
Secondly whether we like it or not, first impressions count. Massively. You cannot escape the natural inclination to judge people by their appearance. It’s just a fact of life and of selling, that people will make instant judgements based on your appearance and manner.
There is unlimited research in this, proving that a decision to buy or not to buy is made in under 3 minutes. 3 minutes? So you’d better make a great first impression.
He didn’t.
Yes he was smartly dressed, but not in keeping with the service he was selling. Secondly he had a beaten up cheap folder which was filthy and worn.
This could easily have been forgiven if there had been a professional approach to the sale. There wasn’t.

He did what most sales people do. He launched straight in to the pitch. Pitch is doing the word a disservice.
This was a “feature dump”. A “verbal dump”.

I sat and listened for 50 minutes, and hardly got a word in. The first 20 minutes wasn’t too bad because he’d bought me a cappucino and I relaxed over this, while I thought about stuff of concern to me.
It was pretty clear, he wasn’t interested in me, my business or my challenges. He had a presentation to make and he was on a roll. Or so he thought.

There was no presentation. He just talked. Talked in circles, because I didn’t say much.
He had nothing to show me. Nothing to direct our conversation. No handouts. No explanations. Nothing. He never even opened up his folder.

To top it all off he was selling a course worth over €5,000.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with the cost, and maybe it is a brilliant course.
But do you seriously think you can sell me a major investment. And that’s what it is. Over a cup of coffee, and over the course of one hour without
Asking me about me and my business
Questioning me to find out if I have a need or to uncover a need I’m unaware of.
Showing me how it works. How I can benefit from it.
Giving me some information to help me make a decision

NO. NO. NO. You haven’t earned the right to sell to me. And in selling you must earn that right first.
In order to earn that right you have to listen, listen and listen.
If you think you can sell by talking you are seriously mistaken.
This is the trap too many sales people fall into. You don’t sell by sheer force of your personality or your ability to exude your charisma.

Selling successfully requires a systematic approach. (Check out my article on my own model I call it PRESENT).

The steps are simple and the process is intuitive. But here’s the main point. Selling is about listening first and always. Selling is about structure and system. Selling is about practice and more practice until you get it right. Right for your customers as well as you.

Actions
Be honest with yourself and honestly appraise your team. Do you launch in to the sales pitch as soon as possible. Or do you have a structured approach like PRESENT? Do you listen first and then sell? Or sell first and then listen, when it’s too late?
Don’t sell like our friend above. It’s all too common, and too unsuccessful.
Learn to sell more successfully. It’s really simple and can have an enormous impact on your business.

Best of luck.
Ronan
Ronan Kilroy Certified FocalPoint Business Coach
Profitability, Productivity, Possibility.