Touch Systems: Worth their Weight in Gold

If there was one thing Jack Daly got across in Auckland it was the value of having a formal touch system in your company. One that ties in with data bases but allows for reaching out and touching past, present and future clients (and people of influence who champion your business) with a personalised card, note or whatever you choose. Just do it Jack says!

Being unique from from your voice mail to after sales follow up means you remain top of mind and become part of a conversation or a referral. Hand written cards or personalised notes are gold in an age of e-mail and printers. A quick hand written card gets placed on a desk or in a prominent place and keeps on selling the message.

It also builds trust and people do business with those they like and trust....simple as that. Selling is the the transfer of trust. So try it.....one of the team here got a call from a prominent business owner yesterday thanking him for his follow up card and note after a meeting. Do you think that person will mention it to others? You bet!

Karl

Getting Stuck In...!!

As another week screams to a close what have I learnt? Most of the businesses I come across have the same issues time and again. Namely lack of sales, lack of accountability, a bottleneck with the owner and concerns around how to make the business get some traction in this market.

Across my team it is the same with those they are working with.....accountability (setting realistic targets, getting buy in from those who need to hit them and then holding them accountable when they don't!), measuring KPI's, Planning, internal communications (the right info to the right people in the company), having a unique point of difference on which the business bases marketing and sales pitch and most of all the bottleneck that the Owner of the company causes....because all key decisions have to come to them.

It is time for some time out before we roll our sleeves up next week and get stuck in again.

Karl

Wacko Jacko

Here's the thing, i actually liked Michael Jackson. For all his weirdness, insecurities, strange family, attitude to kids.....put all that aside and look at his music and wow....a real point of difference. His voice, energy in dance....lets face it skills on the dance floor even! What a brand and what earning potential.

So what went wrong, why was he so heavily in debt? Put into business context you have to ask what his 10-15 year goal was? Did he really use his obvious points of difference in a positive way? Why was the "Michael Jackson" brand replaced by the "Wacko Jacko" brand? There is also the begging question as to whether he really had the right advisers, employees with skills and were they all working towards the big goal?

So as we watch the media frenzy unfold and we are fed the edited version of what happened in his life and watch his bank accounts fill up to the brim "post humously" it is always healthy to look at why his business model did not work and remember his positive aspects...the song and dance he gave the world.

Karl (see our website)