Advice: Use financial incentives to increase motivation and productivity of the people in your company.

Despite the predominant opinion that most employees respond positively only to financial enticements, you can greatly improve employee performance in your company when you diversify the types of incentives you use.

A payment that reflects the talents, experiences and expectations of employees is a necessary condition to attract quality resources in your team. I said necessary condition. I haven’t said sufficient! Good salaries and an attractive benefits package will help you hire quality people for your company and, to a certain extent, to keep them. But these incentives are not enough to retain valuable employees!

Entrepreneurs and managers assume too often, that what motivates themselves also motivates their employees. In reality, each person has his own idea of what a good bonus from the company means. And usually, the view from the top of the company is different from the one perceived by employees. That’s one of the reasons why some people are entrepreneurs, and others are employees.

But what expectations do employees have of their employers in the 21st century? Taking the example of innovative companies such as Google, that has built a five star employer reputation by offering their workforce excellent benefits, people have rising expectations. Some employees want more freedom and flexible working hours. Many appreciate when the company makes their life easier as parents. Others will prefer a certain management style based on teamwork and merit recognition.

Use financial incentives to increase motivation and productivity of the people in your company.
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Non-Financial Incentives for Increasing the Productivity of Your Team

Here is a list of 12 things you can do to raise the level of motivation for the people in your team. The list is inspired by the methods I apply in my business; many of the ideas I started testing after I visited Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

1. Give your employees maximum freedom, let them plan their week how they think it is effective, let them explore their ideas about new products or simply try new ways of doing things

2. Allow for flexible working hours.

3. When delegating, take into account what type of tasks and activities each member of your team prefers, what are they best at?

4. If you have resources in your company, provide certain services to your employees in order to create more productive time. Allowing people to take time out some personal business like collecting their dry cleaning, picking up a package, or taking the children to school; all these will help them to be more focused on professional issues.

5. Recognize in public employees and the team’s performance(you and other managers). Make it a habit to praise an employee every day.

6. Make simple constant discussions with employees to show a natural interest in people.

7. Say “thank you” and praise people.

8. Treat every one fairly and impartially.

9. Honor your promises.

10. Assign responsibilities and always be prepared to assist employees.

11. Support, provide training and guide your team to success.

12. Challenge your employees.

Once you have implemented these measures, you can establish a way of working that will help you to keep your employees and transform your company into a more attractive place for other quality employees.

What is essential for you as an entrepreneur and manager is to understand that your trick of offering a bonus or increasing the payment will not work for an employee who believes it is essential to enjoy a flexible work schedule. To determine what people really want I recommend you establish an open system of communication with the people in your team. You have to listen, to observe, to remember individual differences and take care to give people the benefits that really drives them.

But what happens if you don’t have resources to make a competitive financial offer for the employees you want? A non-financial incentives lesson is especially valuable in this case. For businesses that are just starting out, small companies in the startup stage, the impossibility of offering generous pay may be offset by a good mix of non-financial incentives such those included on our list. In addition, offering a percentage of the business for key employees may be an excellent way of motivating employees in the running of your company.

Did you know it costs three times the salary of an existing employee to replace the employee? Think of the time required to find and recruit a new employee and the training costs at the same level of productivity. This is why it’s so important to establish what really motivates our employees!

Have a great idea that worked for you ? Write it in the comments section below.

The post How to Motivate People to Give Their Best for Your Company appeared first on Tooliers Blog.

Advice: Consider the 3 distinct stages in your buyers’ journey (awareness, consideration and decision) and adapt your communication to your client’s specific needs in each stage.

People buy when they want, not when we want to sell to them. Discover how to correlate your promoting messages to the buying stage where clients find themselves.

Everybody talks about a communication centered on client needs. Very few companies manage however, to put theory into practice. Why is this happening? Because it is not enough to adapt our messages to the general needs of our customers but we have to build our messages according to the buying journey they are on. In each stage, potential customers have some specific needs.

Unfortunately, most companies are trying to convince their clients that red wine is better than white wine, although the client has not yet decided whether he wants wine or beer with dinner. I will present a simple example to help you avoid such mistakes.

People buy when they want, not when we want to sell to them.
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Buying Is Like a Journey

Think of the persuasion process as a journey through which clients get closer to your product. Stops on the route of purchase are “Awareness”, “Consideration” and “Decision”. Our mission: to create relevant messages to specific needs in each “station”. Of course not all clients travel the line all the time, some already know what they want to buy. Most of your potential customers are just beginning the journey and if you ignore them you will narrow the base of potential clients enormously.

Let’s take an example. Biofresco Ltd sells juices made from premium ingredients in its own location and deliveries to companies. How can Biofresco reach more people and convince them to consume its natural juices? The first “station” on Biofresco’s journey is “Awareness”.

The First Station: Awareness

Never talk about the product, talk about the benefits.
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The worst thing you can do, in the awareness stage, is to sell red wine to the beer drinkers. The objective at this stage is to qualify a relevant audience. Biofresco can post on their own blog healthy lifestyle articles to make this work. An article about the benefits of taking vitamins and other antioxidant nutrients from unprocessed fruits and vegetables will attract good potential customers for Biofresco and will eliminate people who consume Coca-Cola. The presentation of a natural antioxidant juice recipe that can be prepared at home on the Biofresco Facebook page is another excellent idea. Those who wish to follow a healthy lifestyle will be naturally attracted to this information.

What we aim for at this stage is for the potential customer to want our product benefits and to associate our brand with this type of benefit. The first rule of “Awareness”: we never talk about the product, we talk about the benefits.

The Second Station: Consideration

In “Consideration”, the audience is already prepared to hear about our product but the focus is still on the benefits rather than the product itself.

Potentials drinkers of Biofresco juice can be helped to choose the drinks through a comparison table between juices and drinks that are sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners.

The comparison between benefits and risks may be presented as a blog article, a Facebook infographic, a poster in the store location, and / or leaflets promoting a table and include a discount coupon.

The Final Station: Decision

 Finally Biofresco is free to talk about their greatest passion: their own product. At this stage they talk with customers who have been qualified through the Awareness and Consideration stages, so they will react positively to the information that will confirm their buying decision. Nutritional information and information about the quality of ingredients used can strengthen purchasing decisions. During this station we will also present special offers and discounts.

A Compass for the Purchasing Journey Followed by Clients

You can use the following questions as a compass for relevant customers to purchase your product or service:

1. How can I help my potential customers to better realize their needs and to relatet hose needs with my brand(Awareness Step).

2. How can I help my potential customer to evaluate more easily and accurately the alternatives which satisfy their need, by informing him of the advantages and type of product / service offered by my company (Consideration Step)

3. How canI help the client to decide which solution is better and give them more reasons to choose my offer(Decision Stage)

Discover more about how to build your online sales funnel. Watch this 1-min video so you make the most of the new opportunities the Internet-driven economy has created.

The post How to Communicate with Your Potential Clients in Each Stage of Their Buying Journey appeared first on Tooliers Blog.

ADVICE: Personal branding strategy works well online because people prefer to communicate with other people rather than with companies.

The Internet has simplified the task of entrepreneurs and professional services providers. Anyone nowadays has access to social media channels such as a blog or Facebook page to reach a relevant audience. Personal branding strategies are especially effective online because people prefer to communicate with other people rather than with some companies.

People prefer to communicate with other people rather than with companies.
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The Power of Personal Branding

Have you ever heard of Robbins Research International? Probably not. But Tony Robbins? I bet yes!

Here’s an example of how powerful a personal brand can be. Everyone wants to benefit from the coaching, training and mentoring services of Tony Robbins. Millions of people follow him on Facebook and LinkedIn. Few of these admirers know that, actually, Tony owns a group of companies that develops and promotes its training programs. His companies hire up to 500 people during peak periods of activity! Why then, do we perceive Tony as a top trainer rather than as a CEO of a group of companies? Because his strategic choice was for the Tony Robbins personal brand to become the symbol of excellence in training and coaching rather than the name of one of his companies.

This strategy works well for small and medium companies and professional services providers. Whether you have a B2B or B2C business, your business is primarily H2H, i.e Human-to-Human.

You Don’t Have to Be Tony Robbins to Build a Personal Brand

You’ve already figured that I am an avid fan of Tony, whose classes I participated in religiously. This example could be daunting for you. Very few experts and professionals achieve the level of acclaim enjoyed by Tony Robbins. It’s ok. It’s important to became an expert in your potential’s eyes, not in everyone’s eyes.

The most frequent reasons why small businesses and professional services providers hesitate to build a personal brand are:

1. I don’t have the necessary expertise
2. I don’t have time and I don’t like to write books or blog articles
3. I’m not the kind of person to stand in the spotlight

Let’s take these “excuses” one by one:

1.The Expertise – Your expertise consists in what you know (and what your customers do not know and want to learn from you). These are the professional informations that allows you to deliver quality service. Positioning yourself as an expert in your industry is not just a stylistic choice but the best way to create interest in your services.

2. The Publication – All you have to do is repackage the information that you and your team already use (in sales processes, in delivery of services, customer services, etc.). If you have no one with writing talent in your team, hire someone quickly. You don’t have to start with the publication of a book. Start with the first small step: publishing a weekly article on your blog.

3.  Media Expose – Start by providing visibility on your personal blog and then you’ll get used to media exposure.

Why is it worth going out of your comfort zone to build a personal brand? Once your name is associated with excellence for services in your industry, you will create an enormous interest for your company’s services. Customers will come to you rather than you chasing them.

Let me tell you a secret. In my experience, the time invested to build Ozana Giusca personal brand was much shorter than the time I invested in activities such as cold selling or meetings with potential clients.

It’s important to became an expert in your potential’s eyes, not in everyone’s eyes.
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Instead of Conclusion

If you decide to promote your services through your own blog, Facebook or LinkedIn, it is good to understand something from the beginning. Nobody wants to read advertising! Be the “Discovery Channel” for your audience, not a commercial break. Educate your customers, put expertise in value and show them what to do to solve problems. So they will come naturally to you to help them implement these solutions.

Watch this 1-minute video to discover why you are not selling more in the new Internet-driven economy.  Watch now and get a free spot to my next online masterclass on how to create a sustainable lead-generating online presence!

The post Why It Is worth Promoting Yourself through the Internet by Creating a Personal Brand appeared first on Tooliers Blog.

Many professional services providers offer quality services, but only few manage to market them successfully. Too often, the problem is the way they structure the offer. Finding the most favorable formula to “package” these services is vital for market success. Subsequently, implementing a smart pricing strategy is also vital in order to sustain good sales.
Pricing for the right service doesn’t start with the amount described in the potential client offer or the one displayed on the company’s website. So, for a fair price strategy in this Internet age, it is not enough to ask the question: “What is the right price for my service?”

The first questions, actually, should be:
1. How to best package my expertise to meet market needs?
2. How to structure my offer to create maximum interest for my service?
3. How to initiate a relationship of trust with potential clients to sell at a fair price?

A good strategy starts from your first conversations via the Internet, between you as a contractor for your company, and your potential client. This approach leads to more sales than the classical approach.

Three Steps for an Effective Pricing Strategy

Show the value of your services so you create maximum interest
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1. Show the value of your services before asking potentials clients to pay you

How can you create maximum interest for your services? Give something for free. You read correctly! A fair price for the first piece of professional advice you give to your potential client is ZERO $. This does not mean that a trainer will deliver his course for free or that a consultant will always provide the initial session pro bono. It simply means that you will find a way to create value for potential customers without asking for a fee (yet).

A management trainer, for example, can teach his potential clients through a blog post or a short video posted on YouTube how to design the company’s organizational chart. This “free service” will attract the attention of HR, which is precisely the group of people who have the decision-making power when it comes to purchasing training services.

2.Create interest for your services through informational products

The second “price” proposed to your potential client is a small fee. The suggested retail price for this type of sale is a maximum of $7. The trainer can develop a guide explaining step-by-step how a company can create a chart for a performance management system. This informational product is a simple PDF guide. To create it, the company only repackages its expertise, i.e. the content delivered during the regular performance management training. The guide will be sold at a token price, so there are no unnecessary impediments to purchase.

Selling the Informational Product Has Many Benefits:

-Initiate a buying relationship between your company and potential clients;

-Anchor a future achievement for the service at a fair price (Performance Management course in the chosen example)

-The client’s purchase decisionis influenced in your favor on the basis of pre-existing relationships

-It is a source of passive income that will fuel your marketing budget

3. Capitalize the Long-Term Relationship with a Satisfied Customer

After your initial delivery , in the moment of maximum customer satisfaction, you could give the client another offer for similar or complementary services.

Training consultants can use the feedback from the training report forms and use that favorable feedback to approach other managers in the same company.

For example, if the company provides executive coaching, this complementary service can be offered to several key managers of the company immediately after submitting the training report.

You better sell your expertise rather then selling your time

Service providers who present their offer this way have a major advantage. For example, a training company that creates informational products can generate a constant passive revenue stream. Once you learn how to create successful info products you can realize even more: online courses, webinars, e-books etc. The major advantage of these products is that, unlike the company’s primary services, they are not limited to the physical time trainers have for delivery.

You better sell your expertise rather then selling your time
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Wanna discover more about how to sell successfully in the new Internet-driven economy? Claim your spot for my next masterclass on this topic.  Join Free Cracking Today’s Business Code – the Missing Piece in Creating a Sustainable Lead-Generating Online Presence.

The post How Can Services Providers Increase Their Sales Using Effective Pricing Strategies appeared first on Tooliers Blog.