In my recent article, 5 Reasons Prospects Don’t Like Your Website, I mentioned how important client testimonials can be. Well, one of the comments really drew my eye.

See, one of our readers, George from Darklit Web Design and SEO, has a great testimonials page – we’re not talking those old boring text testimonials either. We’re talking video testimonials. George explains how easy and cost-effective this can be in his comment, where he states “Windows movie maker, a digital camera, and a little planning is all it takes.”

George’s comment reminds me of a client of mine, who runs an employment agency for travellers visiting Western Australia. For many travellers, they haven’t ever been to that part of the world, let alone worked on a large remote farm, or worked as a laborer in a vineyard, so this client needs testimonials that not only give great reviews of their service, but also of the casual employment they’ve gained.

What this client does is travels to their workplace, and films them telling the camera why their business and the job they’ve landed, is great. This not only reaffirms why travellers should use this client, but also gives them a valuable insight into the work that can’t be done in text form. Simple yet very effective!

Thanks for sharing your idea, George. I appreciate it.

The next time you ask a client to provide a testimonial, consider asking if you could record it on video instead – the difference can be very effective.

Everyone knows good design when they see it.

Unfortunately, everyone has a different opinion about what “good design” actually is. This is a problem if you’re creating products, software, graphics or other media for a client. Your design may need to be agreed by multiple people all with their own notions and prejudices about how the product should look, feel and work. If you’re banging your head against the wall in frustration, here are five tips which could help…

1. Outline Your Process

Walk your client through your design process. In the web sphere, this could be:

1. collate the requirements and objectives
2. devise concepts, walkthroughs, story boards and wireframes
3. produce a final mock-up or prototype for approval

A little tweaking at all stages should be expected, but avoid falling into iterative traps; i.e. the client demands 27 different concepts, scavenges their favorite parts of each and creates a Frankenstein design which has little hope of satisfying the original requirements.

2. Avoid Design-by-Committee

Ideally, your final design should be signed off by one person — two at most.

Unfortunately, many organizations have a culture where employees are afraid to make mistakes; it’s safer to sit on the fence than take responsibility for a decision. You may encounter situations where a decision is reached by compromise: half liked the blue design, half liked the red, so they settled on purple (which no one liked).

The problem is exacerbated by design meetings. Meetings can be dominated by one or two people who force their opinion on others or use the forum as a battleground for political posturing. The design suffers and the opinions of quieter members are never heard.

3. Approach Decision Makers Individually

If the final sign-off absolutely must be agreed by multiple people, approach them individually. You can explain why the design satisfies the original objectives on a one-to-one basis and collect feedback. It gives everyone a voice, prevents internal politics and documents the responses. It’s also makes it harder to raise objections at a later stage.

Obviously, this can take more time than a single meeting but it’s less likely lead to design compromises. Rather than performing your presentation multiple times, you could consider creating a video or slideshow. That should reduce the effort required and it’s impossible for viewers to interrupt!

4. Ask Direct Questions

“What do you think of the design?” is the worst question you can ask (especially by email). It turns an objective critique into a subjective discussion. People will resort to their gut instinct or first impression; you’ll rarely get anything more informative than “I liked it” or — worse — “I didn’t like it”.

Ask direct questions such as:

1. Does the design satisfy requirement X?
2. Does the design meet the defined business objectives?
3. Does the design implement all features outlined in the wireframes?

This makes it easier to identify and document specific issues. Avoid obliging decision makers with open-ended discussions: if they can’t pinpoint a problem accurately and concisely, that problem doesn’t exist.

5. Use the Wisdom of Crowds

If the client steadfastly refuses to appoint a single decision maker, you could consider taking the process to the other extreme. Ask everyone’s opinion: all company employees, their customers, website visitors, passers by, social media users, etc.

A decision can be made by poll statistics; it’s difficult for an individual to complain if 94% of respondents stated the design satisfied all objectives.

Please share your sign-off scare stories. Was approval expected from 93 people? Did a client dither for months? Did a lovely original concept turn into a monster? Was a design rejected because Amy in Accounts didn’t like a shade of green which reminded her of broccoli?

Comments welcome…

An SEO client of yours is approached by another web company with a unique marketing solution which you cannot provide. When your client asks your opinion, you …

1. Take an unbiased look and give the client your honest advice
2. Tell your client this would “conflict” with the work you’re doing for fear that, if your client begins working with another web firm, you might wind up losing their business

In my last article, Transactional vs. Consultative Selling: Knowing the Difference Makes All the Difference, I compared the transactional sale with the consultative one:

Transactional Sale

A simple, short-term sale in which the customer already knows what he needs. Little or no product knowledge is required on the sales side. Buying criteria is usually based on “how much?” or “how fast can I get it?”

Consultative Sale

A complex, long-term sale involving the collaboration of both buyer and seller. The sales person must first understand the customer’s needs before offering a solution.

It becomes a problem when a prospect attempts to engage our services using the transactional approach. Yet, we can do our clients an equal dis-service when we assume the transactional approach, but disguise it as consultative.

Harvard Business School professor, Ranjay Gulati, explores the fallacy that media companies are “consultative and customer focused.” According to the article on BIA/Kelsey’s Local Media Watch blog, salespeople are saying “I’ll talk about your needs so long as it leads to you only buying my portfolio of solutions …” but that they are “communicating with customers through a product lens (with a pre-determined end in mind).” That’s a problem.

Consultative or collaborative selling is about transparency and building solutions that fit the customer’s needs and not necessarily the media company’s balance sheet. If a salesperson is aiming to sell a specific product set, and is willing to un-sell other potential solutions, then this version of consultative selling is merely disguised as the same transactional selling of old … (Italics Mine)

Are you willing to walk away rather than propose a solution that won’t truly meet the prospect’s needs? Or will you “un-sell” another potential solution by providing disinformation to convince the prospect that your offering is superior to another type of advertising or marketing medium?

Incidentally, the scenario I shared at the beginning of this article actually happened to one of our sales reps, and his client’s SEO “consultant” chose Option B. Shame on you, whoever you are.

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Unlike many “natural-born salespeople”, I never had the childhood epiphany of, after selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door, gloriously realizing that I loved to sell things. I never imagined myself in a position that would require selling, much less that I’d be blogging about it and teaching others how to do it.

I learned to sell out of necessity; because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to do what I truly loved—developing websites and helping clients market. Oh, and I wouldn’t make any money … did I mention that?

In the beginning, I felt a certain disdain for the word, because it didn’t seem to fit what I did when I met with clients. Yet, when things didn’t go as planned, I sensed that the missing ingredient had something to do with “selling”—or my lack of skill at it. Perhaps “selling your services” feels more comfortable, but make no mistake, it’s still “selling.”

Sales people are not needed to quote prices. They are the bridge between the selling price and the perception of value provided to earn the sale. – Jeffrey Gitomer

Perhaps it will help to define exactly what type of selling our industry requires, because there are two different types: transactional and consultative.

A Transactional sale is a simple, short-term sale in which the customer already knows what he needs, so little to no product knowledge is required on the sales side. Typically, these are product rather than service-based. Buying criteria usually hinges on price or ease of acquisition. Consultative selling is a more complex, long-term process involving collaboration of both buyer and seller, in which the latter must first develop an understanding of the customer’s business, industry, and needs, and then craft a solution to help the customer achieve their objectives. This is usually service or solution-based. The difference between the two can be easily understood from best-selling author Roy H. Williams’ comparison of the transactional vs. relational shopper:

The Transactional Shopper

1. Transactional shoppers are focused only on today’s transaction and give little thought to the possibility of future purchases.
2. Their only fear is of paying more than they had to pay. Transactional shoppers are looking for price and value.
3. They enjoy the process of comparing and negotiating and will likely shop at several stores before making their decision to purchase.
4. Transactional shoppers do their own research so they won’t need the help of an expert. Consumer Reports are published primarily for the transactional shopper.
5. Because they enjoy the process, transactional shoppers don’t consider their time spent shopping to be part of the purchase price.
6. Anxious to share the “good deal” they’ve found, transactional shoppers are excellent sources of word-of-mouth advertising.

The Relational Shopper

1. Relational shoppers consider today’s transaction to be one in a long series of many future purchases. They are looking less for a product than for a store in which to buy it.
2. Their only fear is of making a poor choice. Relational shoppers will purchase as soon as they have confidence. Will your store and your staff give them this confidence they seek?
3. They don’t enjoy the process of shopping and negotiating.
4. Relational shoppers are looking principally for an expert they can trust.
5. They consider their time to be part of the purchase price.
6. Confident that they have found “the right place to buy,” relational shoppers are very likely to become repeat customers.

The article goes on to say that, because some shoppers will be in transactional mode and others in relational mode, your success or failure hinges on knowing which and adjusting your selling style accordingly. In context, the article is talking to merchants and store owners, so his advice makes perfect sense. Some sales (like buying a cell phone) are not so black-and-white and end up being a mix of both transactional and consultative, depending on the buyer. Yet, in a purely consultative industry like ours, problems occurs when buyers attempt to engage our services using the transactional approach. These are people who won’t answer your questions, demand yousubmit a bid or want to know “how much?” without providing any information in return. Your success, however, lies in how you deal with them, and not—I repeat, not—in adjusting your selling style to match their buying mode.

Unless you enjoy being dictated to by demanding clients for whom “getting the lowest price” is the primary reason they buy.

The trick is to get your prospects to change their buying mode, rather than adjusting your selling style. Can a transactional buyer be converted into a relational one mid-sales stream? In my opinion, yes, but not all of the time. Knowing how to “flip the switch” is one sales skill I learned to master. But knowing how to deal with those who can’t (or won’t) be converted is another one entirely.

Continuing to deal with a prospect struck in transactional mode generally doesn’t turn out well, at least in my experience. What about you? Have you learned how to get transactional clients into a relational/consultative mode? Or do you default to switching your style to match theirs, then wonder why you lose the sale or end up cutting your price? Post your comments below.

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In my last article, I talked about five reasons why you lose a sale. Each of those can be avoided by asking a few simple questions. But these last three are a bit more complex. For starters, what do you do if the prospect refuses to answer your questions?

The prospect won’t answer your questions

A prospect might not want to answer your questions because …

1. He’s not far enough along in the buying cycle to be a serious prospect. People who are in the “Interest” or “Desire” stage may never become buyers. At this point, they are still researching.
2. He’s using you just to get a competitive bid. Because he’s not seriously considering you, he won’t want to divulge anything about his buying motives, or lack thereof.
3. He’s purely a price-driven buyer whose only criterion is the cost. Since he values the lowest price more than a consultative relationship with a qualified expert, he’ll view your questions as a waste of his time, none of your business, or both.

For Prospect 1, you need to switch from sales mode to marketing mode. At this point, you’re better off becoming a valuable resource to help him make a buying decision. This is not someone you want to write a proposal for; rather, dip-market to him over the next few weeks or months by sending him your newsletter, a link to your blog, etc.

Prospects 2 and 3 are the ones who will want to ask the questions, not answer them. And you can count on their questions being mostly about price. There are a couple of ways to handle this. The first is to quote a ballpark:

“The starting cost for a basic site is around $x,xxx. Is that within your price range?”

Or, you could use the “how much does a car cost?” approach:

“That question is a lot like asking ‘How much does a car cost?’ The answer depends on what type of car you want and what you want it to do—which means I need to spend a little time asking you some questions. Are you willing to do that?”

The prospect doesn’t have any questions or concerns

So you’ve reached the end of your meeting, and you’ve covered everything that needs to be discussed. I’ve found that there are generally three reasons a prospect won’t have any questions.

1. He didn’t understand what you were talking about and has no clue what to ask
2. He is not serious about the project or not seriously considering hiring you
3. He’s ready to buy

If you simply default to offering up a proposal, you’ll never know which of the three you have. The solution is to recap the conversation, get his agreement that you’ve covered everything, and ask if he’s ready to move forward. Remember, you don’t have to write a proposal to close the deal.

The prospect doesn’t perceive you as an equal

It’s important to establish a peer-to-peer relationship with your prospect; otherwise your credibility is at risk. One way to knock yourself down a notch is to tell your prospect, “Thanks for meeting with me.” At first glance, this might seem like the polite thing to say. But the unspoken implication is that he’s somehow “doing you a favor.” Once you’ve laid that foundation, a peer-to-peer relationship is unlikely.

The relationships you build with your clients ought to be based on mutual commitments, and that starts with the very first meeting. You showered, dressed up, fought traffic, paid for parking, and took five flights of stairs to commit the next hour or so to giving your prospect ideas on how he can improve his business. It’s not unreasonable to expect that he reciprocate by disclosing his buying intentions, timetable, and other information so you can determine how much time to invest pursuing him as a lead. To do so, not only must you ask questions, you must ask the right questions.

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Two weeks ago, I penned 20 Must Do Business Boosters for 2012. Being a big believer in acting on your own advice, I took it upon myself to implement the first two points.

To refresh you, they were:

1. Call one of your biggest clients and wish them a happy new year. No catch, no sales spiel, simply call and thank them for their business and wish them a happy new year. This will be genuine and a great way to reinforce your relationship.
2. Run a report in your accounting package to determine who spent what with you last calendar year. Print out the top 10 clients and ensure you give them extra special treatment.

Rather than do these individually, I combined the concept, found my top 10 clients by spend last year, and wrote an individual, personalized email to each of them. From running the report to sending the emails took a touch over two hours.

The response? Eight of them wrote back, and two are still on leave. Out of those eight, three of them asked me to meet with them over some new work. That meant three proposals out the door a few days later.

So far, I’ve won one of these, and it is very likely I’ll win the other two too. So, for just over two hours work, I’ve sold three new solutions, and I never made any hints towards a sale in that first email.

I urge you to do the same if you haven’t already – this is a real example of why this advice works.

Imagine if you acted on even just your favorite 5 points out of my list: where that would take you?

Good luck!

In my last article, Act Like a Salesperson and Sell Something Already, I quoted legendary consultant and author Peter Ducker:

Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.

Let’s talk about each of those.

Marketing

Everything you do to find and be found by potential clients is marketing. Without it, you have no sales. And as I said before: nothing happens until a sale is made. Your first love may be designing or programming; yet you don’t get to do any of that until you land a client.

Even before Web 2.0, there were a myriad of advertising and marketing options, so choose wisely.

Innovation

The word comes from a Latin root meaning “to renew or change.” It sounds like such a lofty ideal, especially when you consider the following Wikipedia definition:

The creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society.

When you say “innovation,” companies like Apple and Dropbox come to mind. Apple cannibalizes its own product line before its competitors can—with products consumers don’t even know they want yet. And before the term became popularized, Dropbox created a breakaway “cloud” service by combining two existing technologies—FTP and data auto-sync.

Yet, it’s not just mega-corporations and well-funded start-ups that do all the innovating. In the 1930s Noah McVicker, founder of a family-owned Cincinnati-based soap company, created a composition of flour, water, salt, boric acid, and mineral oil as reusable, non-toxic wallpaper cleaner. But in 1955, McVicker’s nephew discovered that nursery school children were using the wallpaper cleaner to make Christmas ornaments. I suppose the McVickers could have thought, “Isn’t that cute?” and continued doing what they’d always done—but they didn’t … and Play-Doh was born.

But is innovation merely synonymous with a new or novel invention? Innovation can also be a change in the thought process for doing something. Take Wal-Mart, for example. Rather than bringing new products to market, its innovation lies in its supply chain and fulfillment, allowing the company to bring existing products to market at a lower cost. Innovation might even mean not doing what everyone else is doing. In 2008, when small businesses began moving their directional media advertising from print to online, and the chiropractic heading in AT&T’s Lancaster-Palmdale Yellow Pages went from six pages down to three, one chiropractor clinic decided to keep their ad in the directory … and saw their call volumes increase. New doesn’t always mean better.

Sometimes we do things merely because it’s the way we’ve always done it, or because that’s how everyone else in the industry conducts business. Being innovative means you’re always looking for new and improved ways of doing things.

So how does one become more innovative? The problem is, most of us are so busy working in our business that we don’t take the time to work on our business—unless we’re forced to, that is. When something unexpected is thrust upon us, we’re often forced to improvise, to invent or perform with little or no preparation. Sometimes, innovation is born out of these situations. So let me suggest a more practical definition of innovation: “to improvise in advance”.

You see, oftentimes when change is forced upon you, it’s simply too late. More than a decade ago, when the Internet began driving innovation, many didn’t move fast enough. One such company, a provider of marketing data, didn’t port their product to the web until their customers began demanding it. How many of these customers didn’t bother to demand, but instead, quietly defected to their competition, who had already beaten them there? This company has never regained the market share it lost.

In 1995, author and entrepreneur, Guy Kawasaki, delivered a baccalaureate speech at Palo Alto High School, in which he exhorted the audience to “challenge the known and embrace the unknown”.

In the late 1800s there was a thriving ice industry in the Northeast. Companies would cut blocks of ice from frozen lakes and ponds and sell them around the world. The largest single shipment was 200 tons that was shipped to India. 100 tons got there un-melted, but this was enough to make a profit.

These ice harvesters, however, were put out of business by companies that invented mechanical ice makers. It was no longer necessary to cut and ship ice because companies could make it in any city during any season.

These ice makers, however, were put out of business by refrigerator companies. If it was convenient to make ice at a manufacturing plant, imagine how much better it was to make ice and create cold storage in everyone’s home.

You would think that the ice harvesters would see the advantages of ice making and adopt this technology. However, all they could think about was the known: better saws, better storage, better transportation.

Then you would think that the ice makers would see the advantages of refrigerators and adopt this technology. The truth is that the ice harvesters couldn’t embrace the unknown and jump their curve to the next curve.

What might “the next curve” of this decade be? Some are quick to jump on the next big thing; others are too slow. Perhaps the key is to always be prepared to embrace the next curve, but don’t be so quick to abandon what currently works—so long as it’s still working.

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They say there are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. If you’ve ever lost a big sale and wondered, “What happened?” then, in no particular order, here are the top five reasons why.

Reason #1: The project is not “mission critical”

The prospect is talking with you for one of two reasons: either he has an objective he wants achieved or a problem that needs solved. If the objective isn’t urgent enough, or the problem not painful enough, you risk losing to a decision to do nothing.

Must-Ask Questions:
“Is this project ‘mission-critical,’ or is it a back-burner issue?”
“What would happen if this project didn’t move forward?”

Reason #2: You didn’t meet with the final decision-maker

The decision-maker isn’t always the owner or CEO. So long as the person you’re meeting with has the final authority to make a buying decision, you’re good. If you’re being prevented from meeting with that person, you’re facing a losing proposition. The only person qualified to explain the value you provide is you. You’re better off walking away from a meeting than waste precious time presenting your solution to someone who is not empowered to hire you.

Must-Ask Questions:
“Who else needs to be involved in this decision?”
“I’ll need to meet with them. Are you able to arrange that?”

These questions ought to be asked over the phone, when setting up the meeting, rather than waiting until you get there, only to find you’re not talking to the right person.

Reason #3: You were denied access to all the decision-makers

Oftentimes, there are other influencers or decision-makers who must give their approval. Whenever more than one decision-maker is involved, it’s critical that you meet with all of them. You may spend two hours with Partner A, explaining exactly how your services can bring him 10 new clients a month at $3,000 each. But when he goes back to Partner B, all he’ll say is: “Hey, Joe, this web guy wants to charge us $1,500 to build our website,” to which Joe will respond, “Are you outta your mind? Forget about it.”

Again, you are the only one qualified to explain the value you provide.

Must-Ask Questions:
“When making a decision like this, who else must sign off on it?”
“I’ll need to meet with them. Are you willing to arrange that?”

As with Reason #2, ask these questions over the phone when setting up the meeting.

Reason #4: You were asked to submit a proposal and told, “We’ll get back to you”

When this happens, you have a couple of options. The first is to do what they ask, otherwise known as the “Prepare a Proposal and Hope Method for Obtaining New Clients.” Your other option is to first get the client’s verbal agreement to hire you, and then write up a proposal to finalize it. After all, Proposals are for Wimps.

Must-Ask Question:
“What is your process for coming to a decision?”

Forewarned is forearmed. If their process requires a proposal, you’ll have to deal with that at the end of the meeting. If a proposal is not mentioned, by all means, don’t offer one!

Reason #5: The prospect didn’t commit to a decision deadline

Prospects who are serious will have no problem revealing their timetable. Not-so-serious prospects will want to avoid being pinned down.

Must-Ask Questions:
“What is your deadline for making a decision?”
“If you decided to move forward, when would you like to start?”

Sales ought to be based on mutual commitments. If a prospect won’t commit to answering your questions, don’t be so quick to dash back to the office and prepare a 15-page proposal, only to find yourself wondering, “what happened?”

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Identify Your Ideal Clients

Not all clients are ideal. The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, states that for many events roughly 80% of the effect comes from just 20% of the causes. In our case that translates to: “80% of your revenues come from just 20% of your clients”.

Not only have I found the Pareto principle to be true, I’ve also found that it works in reverse too. The worst 20% of our clients seem to monopolize 80% of our unbillable time doing account service, quoting projects that never reach fruition, and resending statements dealing with accounts payable.

You can free up so much energy and drive up your profit margin and overall revenues by identifying which of your clients are the 20%. We did this by creating a list of criteria we feel is important in a client, and we then rated each and every client on those criteria.

Find Opportunities with Existing Clients

Once you know who your top clients are, it’s time to do more work with them! You know how to almost guarantee more work from a client? Talk to them. Often.

That’s right, there’s no secret strategy – if you don’t ever talk to a client there’s a good chance they won’t talk to you either. Out of sight out of mind. So pick up the phone and give them a call. Take them to lunch or out for coffee and ask them about their recent challenges. What has been bugging them, what problems do they have?

When we do this we often find creative solutions to those problems naturally. We aren’t “selling” them anything, we’re just trying to help them find solutions to issues they are experiencing.

Find Other Clients with Those Same Problems

So you’ve found several opportunities with existing clients, and solved them. Don’t stop there … if they had that problem there’s a good chance other companies have, too. They are your ideal client (top 20%, remember?) so find some other clients like them with the same problem, and resell that solution.

They don’t have to be competitors, or even in the same industry. Often times it will be a problem entire categories face (service companies, for instance). Seek out other companies with those issues, and offer your expertise.

Repeat

We do this often with our existing clients, and it has led to both small and extremely large projects, and to new clients as well. Give it a try with one of your clients and let us know how it works out!

But I’m not a salesperson, you say … I’m a freelancer, consultant, programmer, web designer, etc.

Guess what? Once you decided to freelance or start a web business, you gained a new job description: Business Owner. So what’s the purpose of this enterprise you’ve undertaken? Most people think it’s “to make money”—but that’s not a purpose, it’s a result. According to the renowned Peter Drucker, the purpose of business is “to create a customer.”

Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.

Let’s look at that one more time: “…the purpose of business is to create a customer.” Is that what you wake up thinking each morning, that I must create a customer? Or is it to design, program, search-engine optimize, or whatever other technical skill you perform for your client?

Make no mistake—in order to create a customer, you must provide something of value, something that improves your customer or client’s circumstance. But you don’t get to do that unless you first create a customer. In other words, nothing happens until a sale is made. Marketing is everything you do to find and be found by potential clients. Reaching an agreement to do business with those clients is selling, even if you don’t call it that.

Sales … selling. Do those words leave a bad taste in your mouth? After all, you’ve probably heard that old-school direct selling and outbound marketing are obsolete, now that we’ve entered the enlightened era of social media and inbound marketing. But regardless of how a lead is generated, that lead is still just a lead unless turned into a sale. And that requires … well, selling. Admittedly, the type of selling we do—consultative selling—is a far cry from other types of selling. I’m not suggesting you behave like a used car salesman; but I am suggesting you act like some type of salesperson and (dare I say it?) … sell your services.

That begs the question, are salespeople born or made? I believe that anyone can learn and master the skills needed to successfully sell their services. But even if you do, it isn’t a given you’ll be successful. There are innate characteristics you must possess to be a success. The following comes from a landing page I stumbled upon, entitled Great Salespeople Are Born … Then Made. It claims that:

“…the vast majority of high performance salespeople start out with three personality characteristics that cannot be taught … you either have them or you don’t.”

That got my attention, needless to say. Here they are:

1. Need for Achievement
2. Competitiveness
3. Optimism

I’ll take it one step further and say that these characteristics are a prerequisite for the entrepreneur, business owner, or successful freelancer as well.

But, here’s my question. The company claims that you must “start out with three personality characteristics that cannot be taught”—implying that you must be born with these traits, or develop them at an early age. As a sales trainer and sales manager, I know firsthand that I cannot “teach” others to have drive, competitiveness, and optimism. But can we teach ourselves? Can we learn to be more achievement-oriented, competitive, and optimistic? Post your comments below.

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It’s the start of a fresh new year, with 2012 less than a week old. Here are 20 actions to do over the next few weeks to ensure your business gets off to a flying start for the year ahead.

1. Call one of your biggest clients and wish them a happy new year. No catch, no sales spiel, simply call and thank them for their business and wish them a happy new year. This will be genuine and a great way to reinforce your relationship.
2. Run a report in your accounting package to determine who spent how much with you last calendar year. Print out the top 10 clients and ensure you give them extra special treatment.
3. Using the same list, look at the bottom ten spenders. Do you see a few that seem to take up a lot of your time, yet their spending doesn’t reflect this? Perhaps you should consider letting these clients move on, so to speak. Don’t leave them in the lurch though – send through names of suppliers that will look after them well.
4. Schedule in a time in your calendar every week to spend on marketing. It could literally be half an hour to write a blog post, or an hour a week to attend a networking event.
5. Call a client that you haven’t done any work for in the last twelve months and say hello. Offer to catch up over a coffee (your shout) and enquire how their business is going, and how you could help.
6. Cast a critical eye over your own website. Can you spot any improvements that you should be making? Schedule some time over the coming month to get these done, and ensure your website is in tip-top shape for 2012.
7. Look at overhauling your email signature, to include a line with services you offer. It’s amazing how often clients don’t realize the full spread of services a supplier may provide.
8. Rekindle a relationship with an old friend. If there’s someone who you haven’t seen socially for a while, call or email them and invite them to meet for a coffee or meal. Being happier in your social life means you’ll be more productive in business life too.
9. Schedule your leave for the year. That’s right: I’m ordering you to take a holiday. Plan when a good time would be, and mark your calendar with the dates now. It gives you a goal to work towards, and ensures you take time to refresh yourself.
10. If you have employees, take a moment to share your vision for the year ahead. A ship with the whole crew working towards the same goals gets there faster than a ship with a crew kept in the dark.
11. Buy yourself some new professional attire. It’s important to always look the part, and if you haven’t bought some new shirts or clothes in a while, this may be just what you need to feel more confident in what you do.
12. Write a list of goals for the year. I’ve written about this a few times, including my last newsletter for 2011. Take time to have an action list and stick to it.
13. Start a new healthy habit. Maybe an early morning walk or making time for a healthy lunch each day. Whatever it is, the start of the year is a good time as any to build a new habit. Healthier means more productive and happier too.
14. Thank your employees. A big complaint amongst full time workers is the lack of appreciation they often feel. Take a moment to verbally thank a colleague or employee for their hard efforts – they will appreciate the gesture.
15. Look at your top ten clients (point two above). What makes them different than those further down your profitability list? Look at ways you could advertise or market yourself to more of those sorts of clients, and less of the low spenders.
16. Ask a colleague to review a recent proposal or pitch document. Get them to provide critical feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Make changes to your documents to make them sell and read better than the ones you used in 2011.
17. Buy a book on a topic you want to learn about this year. It could be developing mobile sites, a how-to primer for HTML5 or more accounting or productivity knowledge – order it now and start reading it as soon as it arrives.
18. Using the same list I mentioned before, look at the next group of clients, the ‘B group’, so to speak. What services are our ‘A Group’ using that your ‘B Group’ should? Contact them and market these particular services to them: you’ll end up with more clients in that A group than before.
19. Look at the list of goals you had at the start of 2011 – is there still one or two you haven’t crossed off? Make a point to dive into these straight away.
20. Take time to enjoy life – your world shouldn’t just revolve around work. Learn a new language, take up a hobby or visit with friends more often.

If you complete all 20 of the actions above, I am absolutely positive that you’ll be putting your business in a better stead for the coming year. Best of luck with 2012!

Dolly Parton wrote and recorded her hit song, “I Will Always Love You” in 1974. Soon thereafter, Elvis Presley approached her, wanting to record it himself. Dolly was thrilled … until Presley’s manager told her it was “standard procedure” for the songwriter to sign over half of the publishing rights (and half the profits) to any song Elvis recorded. Parton refused. Over the ensuing years, she imagined how an Elvis version would have sounded and wondered if she’d made the right decision. But in 1992, the song was recorded by Whitney Houston and used in the film, The Bodyguard. It became a huge crossover success, propelling Whitney to stardom and making Dolly millions in royalties.

Dolly Parton chose to hold onto her copyright, and it paid off. You may not be a budding songwriter wondering if you should do the same. But as someone that creates content, how should you handle issues of ownership and copyright? Retain all rights, like Dolly? Or is it more realistic to assign the copyright to your client?

[Disclaimer: I am not an attorney. This article is not intended to take the place of legal advice. The information here applies to U.S. Copyright law and may differ from country to country.]

U.S. Copyright law states that the creator of a work owns the exclusive rights to that work from the moment it’s put into some tangible form. Simply put, copyright is the “right to copy” (i.e., reproduce) an original creation. The mere fact that the client paid for the work does not automatically assign him ownership. This means that, unless you are working as an employee rather than an independent contractor, anything you create—be it logo, website, or some PHP code—belongs to you … unless you specify otherwise.

This is why having a contract is so vital. Lacking one, the client might assume everything you created belongs to him. Your contract should state, in no uncertain terms, what belongs to whom. That begs the question: Should I retain the rights to what I’ve designed or built?

How that question gets answered depends largely on who you’re talking to. I recently had a conversation with Jon Valk of Jon Valk Design. He explains his reason for retaining full rights to all his print designs:

… for me the biggest reason to retain copyright is to prevent my design from being butchered. Clients buy reproduction rights, not the physical design. It’s always been that way in my experience (with print design, anyway). The GAG [Graphic Artists Guild] totally supports this and says it a lot better than I do here. Protecting the integrity of that design is the biggest reason to hold onto the copyright. My designs equal my reputation. If a client wants to pay me enough for me to give that up, I would do it.

Coming from a print design background, I understand this completely. If a client has full rights, not only can he reproduce the design, he can also modify it. Once I transitioned to web design, however, I found that my thinking needed to change. My first few websites were like “works of art” in my mind, but my clients viewed them as a business tool, not art. So surrendering control of my design and risk them breaking it (which a few did) was a necessary part of the web industry.

With print design, it’s easier to maintain this copyright model. The Internet, not so much. But before you give away the entire farm, consider how your client might reuse what you’ve created. For example, it’s not unreasonable for your client to expect to be able to “reuse” your logo design on his advertising and marketing material. He’d also expect to reuse the database-driven membership management application you developed, and not have to pay you a fee each time he logged in. But unlike that unique logo, the web application has the potential to be not merely reused, but resold. Assigning him full rights means he could potentially [1] resell the application himself and not owe you a dime and [2] prevent you from reselling the application to another client. That’s not a good position to be in.

Be sure your client understands his usage rights upfront; otherwise, you both may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Having a client feeling like you’re holding his design hostage may land you more ex-clients than current ones. As a rule-of-thumb, here’s my take on what I would and would not give away:

Items I would give the client full usage rights to:

• Website front-end design (i.e. design, layout, graphics, text, and HTML)
• Marketing collateral and corporate identity such as logos, business card, brochures, etc.
• Source files for any of the above (i.e., .psd or .fla files)

Items I would not give the client full usage rights to:

• A unique photograph or illustration
• Any code that actually qualifies as being an application
• Anything that could be resold by me or the client

What about you? Are usage right something you haven’t give any though to? What do you keep and what do you assign to the client? Post your comments below.

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When I was 14 years old, when the Internet was still ARPANET and “Amazon” was a female warrior from Greek mythology, I discovered science fiction. Satisfying my craving for new and exciting stories each week meant riding my bike to the nearest bookstore, which was just over three miles away, but felt more like ten. Soon, however, the ache in my legs (and posterior) began to pale in comparison to the joy of  getting lost in a bookstore. An hour or more of searching the shelves for “just the right book” was all part of the experience, and the discovery was at least as satisfying as devouring the book once I got home.

But along came a wife and family and with it, less free time. My trips to the bookstore became fewer and further between, eventually becoming an exercise in frustration, as there were far more books to read than time to read them. Still, I managed to slip in the occasional trip. But in the late 90’s, things began to change. I watched as Amazon went toe-to-toe with retail booksellers like Barnes & Noble, and I discovered that online bookstores were wonderfully convenient for the time-strapped working man with 2.5 kids. Then ebooks became all the rage; but somehow, reading a book on my computer wasn’t all that, despite the novelty. Even when devices like the Kindle and Nook came out, I stuck with my good-old-fashioned paperback. Although I have an iPad and use it mostly for online reading, given the choice between a printed book or its electronic counterpart, I’ll opt for paper and ink every time.

I realize I’ve become a minority. The tipping point came in May of this past year, when Amazon announced they were now selling more ebooks than printed ones—105 for every 100 print copies. For the majority of consumers, price and convenience has trumped the bookstore experience, and brick-and-mortar retail bookstores have become an endangered species.

James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones, one of the U.K’s leading book chains, thinks otherwise. He says that people who shop for books online are “denying themselves the pleasure of browsing in a bookshop.”

The computer screen is a terrible environment in which to select books. All that “If you read this, you’ll like that”—it’s a dismal way to recommend books. A physical bookshop in which you browse, see, hold, touch and feel books is the environment you want.

So sorry, James. For at least 51 percent of consumers, a physical bookshop “in which you browse, see, hold, touch and feel books” is not the environment they want. Steve Jobs was fond of Henry Ford’s quote, If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said ‘a faster horse’. And while that philosophy worked well for innovators like Ford and Jobs, with vast amounts of capital, high-rolling investors, and the brightest minds in their employ, you and I (and perhaps Mr. Daunt) might be well-advised to discover exactly what our customers want.

I’m not making a case for the death of printed books, or that bookstore lovers like me will disappear from the face of the earth. But telling 51 percent of your market that they should “want what you want them to want” doesn’t seem like an effective marketing strategy.

A design teacher of mine once told us, if you come up with an idea that no one’s ever thought of before, you’re either a genius or an idiot. I would issue the same caution regarding your customers. If you think you know what they want without asking them … well, you can decide which of the two you are.

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I knew someone who made good money building custom homes in Missouri. He’d buy a plot of land, hire a construction crew, build five or six houses, and put them on the market. With a portion of the profit he’d make, he’d buy another piece of property and do it all over again.

As the builder, he was ultimately responsible for the end result, so it was in his best interest to make sure that the individual sub-contractors all did their jobs correctly. The sub-contractors, however, only had a limited amount of liability. The foundation contractors were not responsible if the framers did a poor job and the house collapsed. The framers were not to blame if the roof leaked, nor were the roofers at fault if the pipes burst.

Marketing—especially web marketing—is much like building a house, because a successful outcome depends on many disciplines, much more than a single person possesses. And this is becoming even truer as web marketing fragments and becomes more social and more mobile. I recall a business card I designed for a client in the pre-Internet days. I almost felt guilty designing it for him, because I knew the poor sap had no clue how to market his business. On some level, I felt I’d done him a disservice.

When I began designing for the web, it became even worse. At least the poor sap could hand his business card out to everyone he met, but how do you hand out a website? Oh, I knew the standard fare: “Be sure to put your website address on all your marketing materials …” But if that was going to be the extent of his web marketing—having his URL on his print material—he might as well have just printed a brochure to hand out. It may sound strange, but to build a website, knowing that it would be lost in the vast sea of what had become the Internet, left me feeling like I had not done my job. I wanted to build the entire house, not just lay the foundation.

Because my house builder friend took the greater risk, he reaped the greater reward. As his crew labored in the humid Missouri heat, he was able to spend the day with us at an amusement park (occasionally checking in with his foreman on his cell phone). He also fared better financially, because he took responsibility for the end result, not just a few pieces of the puzzle.

What about you? Unlike the construction industry, there are many more pieces in the web marketing puzzle than a few short years ago. Not everyone wants to be a business owner, nor should they be. Becoming one might mean hiring employees, outsourcing or forming strategic partnerships with others who possess different skills. It also means taking responsibility for outcome—successful or otherwise.

Are you content with building your part of the puzzle? Or do you feel the need to build the whole house? Post your comments below.

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