Are you OK with the price?

How do you feel about the service; have we met your expectations?

Is this product/service what you need?

Do you see yourself owning/using this product/service and how it will make your life easier?

Do you have any concerns?

It’s a matter of always leading up to the next step, and getting small commitments—“yes” answers—along the way. If you’re just shooting the breeze and talking about whatever for an hour and then suddenly try to close during the last five minutes, that becomes very uncomfortable for both parties. By the time you ask for the order, it should feel like a natural progression because you have been closing all along.

All communication should be laying the groundwork for the close, always.

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

Craig Zuber

But we are entrepreneurs, in the trenches, where education has life-or-death urgency! Here in the business trenches, you can’t pause the movie and take a time-out. You must learn in action while you’re still running the business. You need to earn while you learn. You need to find out what it is you don’t know that’s getting you killed and learn it RIGHT NOW so you can start using it and start winning.

Bottom line is this: You do not need a college degree to succeed in business. You absolutely DO need to educate yourself, on an ongoing basis, to succeed in business.

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

Keep your cool and kill them with kindness. If the other party senses hostility on your part, they’ll withdraw and you’ll lose the opportunity to gain critical information from a comfortable discussion. He who keeps control of his emotions keeps control of the negotiating process. And the same goes for the party who does more listening than talking.

Sometimes one word can give away a hidden agenda. Or a fleeting change of facial expression will reveal their true position. Dig in with probing questions—then shut up and listen! Often, they will slip up and give you more information than they meant to. Generally speaking, the more you can get the OTHER party to talk, the more you will learn about their stated position and their true wants and needs behind that position.

Armed with everything you learn by listening, you’re then in a position to negotiate from their point of view—using their own arguments as leverage to show how agreeing to YOUR plan will help them get what they want. The best approach is, “How can we work this out so we both get what we want?

Bottom line: Negotiating honestly and respectfully builds trust. Demonstrations of aggression erode it.

F.O.R.D. – Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams

We talk about their family. I ask how their career is going, whether the economy has had an impact on them. If that doesn’t get much response I’ll go to recreation. “Do much skiing this year?” “Catching any fish these days?” “How about those Cowboys/Steelers/Broncos, etc.?” Or move on to dreams. “When was the last time you took a vacation? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Really? Why?”

It’s simple compassion. Succeeding in business means genuinely caring about the people you do business with. That does NOT mean you have to be best friends with every client or call them up and invite them to your house every weekend. It just means you take the time to settle in and focus. Tell a joke. Talk about the weather. Engage your listener by opening up with something other than your message to see how they respond. Ask them if they’re winning these days. You’ll get all the clues you need to read their reactions and shape your style and delivery to match what fits their personality.

The funny thing about using this getting-to-know-you approach is that the conversation always leads back around to business and to what I do—but it happens on their terms, when they start asking me about the market or about whether interest rates are up or down. That way, they never feel rushed or pushed. And because I’m not rushing them, everything goes smoother and faster.

A friend of mine is in the process of buying a car. She’s smart, successful, and single. And frustrated. “It happens every time,” she tells me. “I walk into the dealership and everyone who works there assumes that I’m shopping on behalf of a husband I don’t have.” End result? She gets fed up and leaves. NO SALE. Assumptions like that will get you KILLED.

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

• Write a paragraph about yourself, your product, or your business/service.
• Describe the strengths of what you offer.
• What is the #1 benefit your Ideal Clients/Customers get from what you offer?
• What do your Ideal Clients/Customers get from what you offer that they can’t get anywhere else?
• How is what you offer different from and/or better than the competition?

Specificity counts! Remember, trying to be everything to everybody gets you lost in the sauce like a meatball. Specialists are ALWAYS more valuable than generalists, and it’s better to be known as THE expert in a well-defined niche than someone who does a little bit of everything. Whether it’s true or not, the common perception is that “jack of all trades, master of none” is worthless!

Your unique value proposition must be based on what’s in it for your audience. If you spend a fortune to broadcast to the world, “I’m the best!” or “XYZ Company is the industry leader!” What does that mean and who cares? Will that make me pick up the phone and call you? Hell, no!

“We sell houses,” is not a value proposition. “We work exclusively with pre-qualified buyers so we’ll sell your house faster for a higher price,” is getting closer. Outdoor retailer REI could say, “We sell quality recreation products.” So what? So do dozens of other retailers. But REI’s value proposition is that everything they sell is 100% guaranteed, period. No matter when you bought it or how heavily used it is, they’ll take it back if you’re not happy. If I’m about to invest $300+ in a new pair of mountaineering boots, where do you think I’ll buy them? That’s right, someplace where I can be sure I won’t end up screwed and out $300 bucks if they don’t work for me.

Specificity has other advantages besides keeping things simple and compelling to your target audience—it helps you keep your focus on what you do best.

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

Craig Zuber

Validation is an incredibly powerful skill. Why? Because it establishes trust, courtesy, and respect. When you take the trouble to ask clarifying questions and repeat back what they just said, to make sure you got it right, people realize you’re actually listening to them. It establishes the foundation for the entire relationship.

And—validating everything you hear guarantees that you are paying attention and not missing anything important. When most people are in a conversation, they spend the entire time the other person is talking formulating what they’re going to say in reply. We all do it; we’re all guilty of it at some point. But, if you know you have to confirm what you’ve just heard and repeat the gist of it back to them out loud, you know you have to listen.

Remember the Golden Rule? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?” Forget about it!   Find out how they want to be treated and give them what THEY’RE looking for, not what YOU ASSUME they’re looking for.

Awhile back I made breakfast for my kids. I went all out and made pancakes, thinking I was giving them this great treat and they’d love the surprise and think I was the world’s best dad. By the time they got to the table, each one had a plate all dished up with pancakes, butter, and syrup. That’s how everybody eats pancakes, right? Wrong.

My daughter took one look at her plate and started crying. She only wanted butter. Instead of making her day, I made her feel like nobody cared about what she wanted. It’s mind blowing, the kind of life-changing information you can get just by asking instead of assuming.

Validation continues even after the transaction is over. Ask for your clients’ feedback with surveys or emails or a phone call. Following up shows that you’re still listening, even after you’ve finished the job. It’s crazy that more business people don’t bother to do this, because it makes a huge positive impression on customers. And that’s not the only payoff—it also gives you priceless feedback on how to make your product or service BETTER. Ask them what you did well and what you could do better next time.

The idea is to create a relationship where they’re excited to talk to you when you do call to follow up with them. Because they know you listened to them, and more importantly that you CARE. That’s what it all boils down to. This person cares. He’s not just out to make a sale.
To find out what your clients or prospects or customers want, ask them. Just ask. And when they tell you, ask another question or two to make sure you heard them right. It’s that easy.

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

Craig Zuber

Adapting and overcoming requires holding everything and everybody accountable. You must know what you are spending money on and what you are getting for the money spent! If any expense is not providing an adequate ROI, get rid of it. You may have to do more with a bit less, but that does not mean slashing quality or service—or your prices.

Get very clear about which aspects of your business are non-negotiable—the core of your business model, your plan and your reason for being in business in the first place. Be careful not to act in desperation and undermine the principles that make you successful in the first place. That’s not adapting or overcoming, that’s RETREATING.

Your commitment to excellence doesn’t change. Your commitment to superior service doesn’t get scaled back in any way—in fact, a down market is a powerful motivator to make you service better than ever. It forces you to do things the way you should have always been doing things.

Go back to your BBB—beans, bullets, and Band-Aids. When I was on active duty as a Marine, we’d get hand-me-down gear from the Army, so stuff was broken and beat up and we had to adapt to that reality. It was a case of fix it, tie it, duct-tape it, figure it out, make it work, shut up and do what you’re here to do! No excuses!

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

Craig Zuber

When you’re a true leader, you take responsibility for clear, two-way communication with your team so they know exactly what you expect of them. You stand up for them and make sure they have the resources and support they need to fulfill their mission.

We all need respect. And we all need chances to learn and grow and stretch ourselves. And sometimes that means failing. A very critical part of great leadership involves trusting your people to use their own judgment, because that builds their confidence and decision-making skills. The flip side of that is that you have to give them permission to fail. Failure is an inescapable part of learning; so if they do make a mistake, treat it as a learning opportunity. Instead of ripping their head off, you talk about what they could have done differently, or what you might have done in their place to get a different result. You take on the responsibility for whatever happened, because you’re the one who gave them permission to fail. Then you go the extra mile and take responsibility for seeing it through. You help everybody learn from the mistake.

But leadership isn’t only about when things go south—team spirit grows from rewarding hard work and setting benchmarks that tell you when you’re making progress so you can celebrate! We’d all rather be congratulated than get our asses kicked, right? Small steps are worth making a fuss about. Small steps are just fine, as long as they’re going in the right direction. And celebrations must include everybody—everybody needs to be included as a team. There’s no “I” did it, there’s always “we” did it.

Your confidence comes from your absolute belief that what you’re offering is truly the right thing for them to do. If it isn’t, NEVER push someone into buying something they shouldn’t. Closing is supposed to be about pushing them into buying something they should.

Sometimes business people are so intimidated by the close that they project desperation, but closing doesn’t need to be like that. The trick is to create an enjoyable experience—the close should be fun. It’s supposed to be a step everyone will be celebrating about before, during, and after.

It works because of your confidence, your unshakable faith that your product or service is the best. It also works because of your sincerity. You are genuinely looking out for their best interests and they will be able to see, hear and feel that. On the other hand, if you’re only out for yourself at their expense—you’re DEAD! It will show, every time.

Here’s the bottom line: if you’re intimidated about closing—GET OVER IT. Learning to close is not optional, it is mandatory. The secret? Believe in your mind that you already have the client’s approval to proceed and act accordingly.

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

Craig Zuber

So what do you do then? Pack it in, close up shop, sit down and cry, go back to bed, head to the nearest bar? Do you GIVE UP? Hell no. It’s just LIFE and changes and surprises are all part of the game, so you pick yourself up and take a good look around and get creative about new tactics and a better strategy for winning. THEN you act.

The worst mistake people make in the trenches is getting that sequence backwards—they want to react first before taking time to think it through. As in, “Shoot first, ask questions later.” And that’s what gets them in trouble.

Let’s say a landscaping business is suddenly losing long-term customers. They think “Oh, no! We better start advertising, right away!” And so they start shelling out big bucks for radio and TV spots and full-color newspaper ads. Pretty soon they’re not only out of customers, they’re also out of money, and maybe even on the verge of going out of business.

When crisis strikes, the first step is always to stop and think. Before doing anything, remember to remain calm. Create a strategy. Come up with a new Plan A. In some cases, you’ll even want to come up with Plans B, C, D, and E as backups.

Even though nobody can control all the variables in any business environment, one of the best possible strategies is to be prepared, to expect the unexpected. If you’re coaching a football team, you could focus on the three plays your team performs best and drill them on just those plays until they could replicate them flawlessly, every time, no matter what.

But you wouldn’t get away with that for long before the other teams’ coaches caught on and came at you with plays calculated to surprise your guys and exploit any gaps or weaknesses in your game plan. Your team would be sitting ducks because of their predictability.

On the other hand, what if you were to train the team to master a broad range of game scenarios, so that they’d be prepared to deal with practically anything that got thrown at them? No matter what happened in a game, they’d be trained to handle it. That’s being prepared. That’s a strategy.

It’s a strategy that happens to work very, very well for the United States Marine Corps. They train soldiers for every possible scenario that could arise on the battlefield. Then they surprise you with completely new do-or-die emergency scenarios you’ve never seen before until you either get extremely good at adapting to anything and everything or you risk fatality.

And that brings us right back to the business battle plan. A key element of planning is to prepare for the worst as well as the best. That’s the reason for having a file backup system, liability insurance, and spare car keys. Go through all the possibilities you can think of with your team and explore, “What’s the worst-case scenario that could happen for us? And what’s the best way to deal with that and still come out on top?”

All hands must be on deck! Everyone must be on board. Although change is inevitable, an agile organization is always prepared and trained to act strategically, not desperately. By thinking ahead, you and your team will learn to see change as an opportunity to adapt and achieve a stronger competitive edge.

Turn any business problem into an opportunity by answering four simple questions:

What exactly is the problem?

How can I fix this problem?

Do other people have this same problem and if so, how do they handle it?

Would there be people willing to buy my solution if I fix this problem?

Kick Ass, Make Money & Have Fun Doing It!

Craig Zuber