Author Archive
How are you doing on price?
Posted by: | CommentsI first published this discussion six months ao. Since then, I have had more and more discussions with my clients about their pricing strategies and being squeezed in this market.
In a lean economy, many sales and business development people feel obligated to discount their prices; at least, the discussion of price and where it fits in the sales strategy becomes more important than ever.
Many of my customers struggle with the issues of pricing to be competitive and also maintaining a viable profit margin.
So I’ve spent some time exploring best practices and considering what we should recommend in this market.
I’ll say at the outset that The Whale Hunters way is never to discount a price. If we believe our price is fair, and if we have a market for products and services at our prices, then discounting will only take us into a downward spiral. If a customer wants a service, and the service is more than the customer is willing to pay, we are often willing to renegotiate the scope of work, but not the price of our work.
If this is an issue you’d really like to study, I have three resources to recommend:
Ten Tips to Earn Stimulus Money Contracts
Posted by: | CommentsFederal dollars from the stimulus package are slowly making their way to state and local governments, which will award contracts for all kinds of goods and services with this money.
Money that was formerly spent in the for-profit sector is now being spent by government entities. If your business is not prepared to tap into this fertile source of contracts, it is time to pay attention. Of course you need to start by educating yourself on the stimulus package and the types of things that are being funded and will be funded.
But beyond that, I offer you ten tips to access stimulus-funded contracts:
Five Sure-Fire Ways to Irritate Your Prospects
Posted by: | CommentsI am a hot weather person—can’t tolerate cold, or even chilly, and love hot whether it’s dry or steamy. Yet every summer, when the outdoor temperature finally gets comfortable for me, I have to deal with the battle of the air conditioners.
Yesterday I walked to lunch in gorgeous weather for mid-summer—82 degrees, slight breeze—from my perspective it was perfect. The doorman greeted me, held the door wide open, and said, “Come in, out of the heat!” He was only being polite, making small talk, but it occurred to me that he had no idea whatsoever that I would not feel about the weather exactly as he did. To me, it was not hot. It was just right.
That is often true when we communicate with our prospective customers. We have a mindset that we know what they need or want, and sometimes we neglect to test our assumptions or, simply, to ask.
Here are some lessons from the restaurant scenario that are applicable to our relationships with our customers—the assumptions that make for bad business:
Two items in the news really grabbed me this week. I blogged about them at my home blog, but today I want to talk about how they are related.
First, I received an invitation from Forbes magazine to join a new site called Forbes Woman. I was angry and insulted when I visited the site because I thought it was not about primarily about women in their roles is business people. Rather it featured a lot of trite headlines about fashion and beauty and depression and the wives (who are not business women) of recently discredited men.
About Competition and Sales
Posted by: | CommentsOn June 4th, I hosted the Whale Hunting Women Summit in Indianapolis, Indiana. The event provided inspiration, motivation, and direction for the more than 165 women who attended.
As part of my own presentation to the audience, I talked about what I see as the movement from a culture of competition (a 20th century idea) to a culture of collaboration (a 21st century idea.) I have written extensively about this concept, as I believe it is critical to understanding how the new global economy works and, especially, how it tends to favor women’s traditional ways of working and leading.
The argument goes like this: the 20th century U.S. economy was dominated by a “military-industrial complex”, focused on a military model of strategy in which there is a winner and a loser, and favored an aggressive model of leadership. By contrast, the 21st century economy is dominated by consumer power, fueled by international connectivity, and favors a collaborative model of leadership. And by the way women tend to be very good at leadership in that model.
4 More Great Women Bloggers
Posted by: | CommentsI’m completing my Virtual Blog Tour (organized by Nikki Leigh) on June 30th. The tour is promoting my newest book Whale Hunting Women, and I have been hosted by more than 25 bloggers, podcasters, radio interviewers and book reviewers.
I have met extraordinary women and men on this tour, all of whom have been gracious and generous in sharing their forums with me. This week I wanted to introduce four more of the women bloggers that I’ve met along the way.
Best Question on the Big Sale Proccess
Posted by: | CommentsThis week I had the privilege to present to a gathering of three Phoenix-area chapters of the Women Presidents’ Organization. My topic was “Whale Hunting Women: How Women Do Big Deals.”
Here’s the best question posed to me about a large account sale.
“What’s going on when we’re pursuing a deal, we’ve identified the buyers’ table, we have a strong internal champion, and we’re getting all good signals; then all of a sudden the buyers go quiet and no longer return our calls? What should we do?”
First let’s talk about what’s going on. Here are some possibilities on your end:
- Your team is not good at this stage of the process
- Your most recent encounter(s) did not measure up to the whale’s expectations
- Your harpooner (salesperson) needs more training on how to break this kind of barrier
Here are some possibilities on the whale’s side:
- Someone higher than your champion has pulled the plug on this project
- Someone who matters has decided not to buy from your company
- Someone in charge prefers the incumbent or a competitor
- The project has been delayed
4 Great Women Bloggers
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been on my “virtual blog tour” for one month now. This is an activity in which on every business day, a blogger or radio host invites me to be interviewed or contribute a guest post. Several hosts have invited me to be “present” in their blog space for several days. The purpose of my tour is to promote my new book Whale Hunting Women, and Nikki Leigh of Promo 101 is coordinating it.
A great outcome of the tour that I must admit I hadn’t really thought about is the fantastic women who are hosting me-many of them women that I did not know previously.
So I thought I would introduce you to a few of them because they have interesting businesses, inspirational ideas, and practical wisdom.
Business Women Retreat to Refresh
Posted by: | CommentsI took 48-hours “off” this week to go on a retreat with the women who are fellow members of the Women Presidents’ Organization [WPO] chapter to which I belong. We had the good fortune to be hosted by one of our own members, Sharon Lechter, who with husband Mike is proprietor of the Cherry Creek Lodge on Cherry Creek Ranch in Young, Arizona. The drive from Phoenix into the Tonto Mountains is spectacular and soothing—even the 13 miles of challenging unpaved roadway! The Lodge is a phenomenal setting for a team or company retreat [it's available--check out the website].
I think every woman in my group had at least a twinge about whether or not to attend. Like you, we are busy. Our businesses and our families need our attention, perhaps more this year than in past years. A strain of anxiety and even fear permeates our subconscious; many of us have financial challenges that are new, or renewed, in a tough economy.
So here we are making a decision (1) to take time off for ourselves, and (2) to spend money on ourselves to take that time off. Not really an easy decision for responsible business women to make.
Whale Hunting Women
Posted by: | CommentsLast week I started a “Virtual Blog Tour” to promote my new eBook, Whale Hunting Women: How Women Do Big Deals (Volume I).
Nikki Leigh is the inventor/promoter of Virtual Blog Tours, which is the digital equivalent of an author’s book tour-only cheaper, easier, and broader. It consists of visiting other people’s blogs on a carefully crafted schedule. The blogger may use your guest post, or conduct an interview with you, review your book or event, record a podcast, and/or feature you as a radio guest. There is about a month of preparation in which Nikki makes all arrangements for the visits and you write guest posts and respond to interview questions.
If you want to promote a book, a training course, a webinar, an event, a new product, new website, etc.-a virtual blog tour is worth considering.
