Let the train take the strain

On a June Monday morning, leaving the house to sunshine and a suggestion of warmth, I battled the burnt toast of the children’s attempt to make breakfast, the struggle to deliver my lad to his half term tuition and attempting to peel off a deliciously clingy 5 year old daughter in an attempt to regain my composure, head into Manchester for a significant meeting in one of the Big 4 accountancy firms. (All without spilling coffee on my dress, removing the cat hairs and not getting jam in my hair which now reeked of burnt toast).

Having just about managed this, it was heavenly that the iPhone was charged, the car park was within walking distance and I confidently strode through the automatic doors of the car park and into a Gail force wind and driving rain.

Horizontal rain, freshly (lightly) tanned legs, dress and suit jacket did nothing to prepare me for the extreme change of weather.  Turning blue instantly, streaked like a watercolour, hair now resembling the mess that it was after getting out of bed really put me in the mood for entering the shining slick building in front of me.

Lady luck was with me again, Costa sat shining proudly like a beacon of warmth and hope on the corner.  It didn’t have hair straighteners, umbrellas or a makeup team but it had tea and respite from wind and rain.

The recovery was swift, the meeting was good and I strode back into the storm to take on the next challenge of the day.

The stress was all mine, I had a choice to let that stress take me head on or try to put it away in a box marked “don’t be daft, it doesn’t matter”.  It sort of worked, on that day anyway.

Following this Monday morning, was a Tuesday morning of similar challenges however the storm from the day before had turned into biblical proportions that night, making the trials and tribulations of the Game of Thrones seem tame in comparison.  With the main family car in the garage, I was destined for a 3 hour drive each way for a 10.30 meeting in Hereford in the family Noddy car.

“KEY” was the meeting, in capital letters.  For our little business, this account was crucial.  The thought of sitting on the M6  (and possibly aqua-plaining across it) at 6am did nothing for my state of mind (not to mention having to muck it out, fill it with petrol and remove the Ikea furniture that was still flat packed waiting to be built).

Light bulb moment, what about the train? Aha but this was not London that I was travelling to, this was Hereford – is this possible? Yes it was, there was only one change, and it was an hour and a half on the way there and back.  The starts were aligned.

Sitting here reflecting on some personal time, having a bit of space to admire the view is a nice change.  Fingers crossed I may even get a new client …..

The deep drawer drawer of disappointment

In our office, the beauty of a ‘niche’ team means that we all can have our say, we all can feel the pain and strain of the day and we can all benefit from one another’s triumphs.

I often hear Penny sighing “put that one in the drawer” (sometimes her language is more colourful than that!) when receiving another rebuff or cold shoulder from a closed gatekeeper or decision maker.

This phrase has now swept the office and is used and encouraged to be used by everyone so that we can shed the seemingly continual churn of closed calls, wipe the slate keen, pick ourselves up and move on to the next attempt.

We as a business, must always be aware of the situation unfolding at the end of the phone call.  Visioning the journey that we are about to embark on.  The phone rings, someone picks up the call – in the old days of Secretarial College we were trained to always pick up after 3 rings and always smile.  You can hear a smile at the end of the phone, its true.

Sometimes we benefit from the smile at the end of the phone with the person picking up the phone being open and receptive.  90% of the time we are dismissed and passed on with the swiftness of fly swatting coming to mind.

Seen as a pest at times, a cold caller trying to baffle some poor unsuspecting business owner into a corner, we can be verbally abused, stopped in our stride, cut off and put down.  This will happen regardless of what message we were attempting to pass on, regardless of the benefits, regardless of whether or not the person answering the phone was actually qualified to make that decision to cut us off or not pass us on.

It is obvious, with this knowledge, why many people are terrified of getting on the phones to use this phenomenal invention to talk to people.

As a business, we do not sit and make 250 calls a day, nor are we targeted on making volume appointments.  As a team it is our job to research, run the gap analysis tools, check that we are actually calling a company that could make an informed decision as to whether the product or service could benefit them.

We work on aligning clients with services or products, with a lot of planning, research and thought going into the energy of each call, the reason why that person at the end of the phone should talk to us and why we should listen.

I wonder if we took a moment to slow down and take more time to listen, a little more time to be open and communicate, whether our business decisions would be better informed and more strategically aligned with where we want our business to grow to.

So as Penny and Sophi’s drawer overflow with the fall out of the day, we hear the sound of the Bell ringing announcing a significant call and breakthrough as a result of a call being balanced – between two well informed individuals having a polite, interesting conversation and taking time to listen, heavens there was even laughter.

Whether the defensive gatekeeper was at lunch and the decision maker was free from back to back meetings to take the call is irrelevant.  Numbers in a sales pipeline matter as much as the opportunity to communicate.

May the stars align a little more often, may the terror of picking up the phone to communicate never infect our team and may the sole purpose for which the telephone was invented for, be remembered.  Let’s take more time to talk and listen.

Scared of human contact…

So, Sales is Sales and Marketing is seen on the one hand as separate to Sales and on the other hand totally linked to Sales.

But….

Sales people, we imagine are the stereotypical pushy, not listening, dodgy wheeler-dealer Del Boy or the smooth and smarmy, suited and booted, selling anything to anyone with only the ££ flashing in their eyes.

Marketing people we imagine are hanging out, creatively thinking up witty one liners, spending hours behind their Mac with cool music playing to enable them to have free thought to produce the magic that sells brands and vision.

Reality, businesses are often running at 100%, reacting to delivery, managing accounts, putting out fires and wondering at the end of the day, where did the last 10 hours go.

The serious business of any business owner actually sitting down to plan the daunting task of managing a sales pipe line (especially if it is cold) and driving a strong and affordable marketing strategy which can be measured against sales (really???) – seems to be as elusive as a cuddle from the Virgin Mary.

Moving onto the even more “shrouded in expensive methodology” SEO planning and the like – well we may as well book onto that course to learn Mandarin.

Every morning I wake up and I am bombarded with messaging from social media. I know I read some of it and you tend to scan to find relevant things relating to your own life or business activities. These channels are used to raise awareness or promote what they are doing on a grand scale. It’s a bit like trying to catch rain or fly fishing in the pacific.

The thing is there are so many people on social media and so much noise that these messages get diluted. It is a form of prospecting but without the 1:1 connection.  People need people, we like to feel special, understood and valued.

Then there is networking, where you actually meet people and talk. People buy from people so the physical social engagement is a very important aspect of what we do I hope you all agree.

So what I don’t understand with all this activity, all of these options to make the Sale easier, to make Marketing more direct the one questions is: are we substituting this for the old school techniques of talking face 2 face?

• Did you know that over 80% of people that visit your website will never contact you
• 80% of sales are closed on the 5^th – 12^th contact.

So all this activity to drive people to actually make the effort to come and find you yet they will not contact you. Lots of reasoning behind that but we are still fishing.

So, if you followed up all of the people that had made the effort to seek you out (they have a need) and you spoke to them face 2 face and you listened to what they wanted and you offered them a solution, could you turn a lot of activity into orders?

Reverts back to being in the right place at the right time.

Then all the activity you set out to generate in the first place would make sense.

The problem is most people are great and generating activity but not great at measuring the results. This is the historic gap between sales and marketing. The art of good sales and marketing strategy is to join the functions up seamlessly this has always seemed impossible but now there intelligent and affordable tools and techniques to make this happen.

That is where we come in, Reach Communications helps companies to turn marketing activity into appointments and sales for the B2B sector. Contact us to find out more!

Late For Work!

So Lisa came for an interview, this was back in ooh September 2013 now.  Reach had moved out of the kitchen and I rented an office in a posh Regus – it was great, we didn’t have any windows or employees but it had a proper desk and no cat to get in the way.

Lisa arrived, all purple hair and piercings but quietly demur and strangely conservative if you looked past the rings in her lip (sorry Lis x!!).  Am bringing Lisa into this as she has been laughing at me over the desk divider for long enough.  Coming in as a temp to perm, Lisa hit perm in Jan 14 and has propped me up (and occasionally dropped me in it) and is generally fab to work with.  The funny thing now is that she is our client manager and so clients clearly build up this vision of helpful, intelligent and capable persona and when they come into the office they clearly have a little step back! Anyway, we are all different, we are all unique and expression is all part of vision and passion.

Let’s face it, you can’t make 100 calls a day and not be passionate, you need edge!  She has many talents, one of which is being able to sing (which I can’t, so my daughter tells me and to anyone who will listen) and she has managed to find over 5000 followers on twitter – think she should be writing this!

So, She (aka Lisa) rang in today, car won’t start – that old chestnut.  So have called her to say that under no circumstances yet can we justify a company car so hurry up and get in.  Which leads me to ask another age old question, to be flexible or not in the work force? I think that this is so key to all of us.  We need that flexibility for life’s random events and we all need support when things go wrong and are out of our control.  It is a difficult act to balance when you have a small team and clients on day rates, how to manage them, what to shift around and when to be upfront about the challenges that come in each day.

Providing a service that is relied upon by your clients means that the decision to come clean when the vision of the duck gliding calmly on the water is counter acted with the feet paddling so hard under the water that a mini tsunami has been created in the duck pond, is essential!

Honesty and integrity I think are the answer.  Also, understanding on all parties.

So, back to windows, our goal back in 2013 was to get windows, not just internal glass windows (that was move 2) but proper opening windows that allowed sunshine in and the ability to daydream at the rugby players working out across the road…… goals, it’s all about goals.

We are now proud to boast a wonderful selection of windows that all open, function as they should and allow us to enjoy the pleasures of the weather outside.  With this growth, which we believe has be borne through hard graft, a stroke of luck, the integrity of people in our team that are valued and a lot of paddling.  We look forward to more goals – perhaps Lisa, this could be company cars who knows? Let’s be innovative build our vision together.

Now, where is Lisa???

In The Beginning...

OK so lets get this straight, for those of you looking for a  little “spice” in your life and a naughty insight into call girls – this is the wrong place to be (sorry to disappoint!) you’d best re-google and look elsewhere for that sort of action…

My sins are far more mundane than the delights of silk stockings and elusive heavy breathing encounters.  However, heavy breathing can be of benefit on some days and to be fair ‘sauce’ does sell.

So, in Oct 2012 I was sitting at home after the demise of a 12 year stint taking a food brand from my kitchen to market – started at home and then went on to sell to the multiples, lots of miles, stress, fun and drama – it was all over.  The question was – what do I do next?

Crying was one thing, kicking the cat just wasn't fair and doing lunch just wasn't my thing.  It’s a bit tricky to try to reinvent yourself sometimes, especially when self-esteem is so low it’s through the floor and on its way to Australia.  Its one thing having a career and being made redundant but when you have run your own company that ends in what-ever fashion, being attractive for employment is a no-no.  Quite simply, you are unemployable, you are a threat and you are one to watch.  That’s OK when you are buoyant but when you have bills to pay, energy is at an all-time low and your sparkle has been extinguished by a tornado,  a job as a Christmas cashier at Marks and Spencer is attractive.

Then the phone started to ring, just once or twice but it was enough.  It seems that a few contacts needed some help and guidance on either reinventing their products to take to market or another just wanted an answer to that age old problem – “I need more sales and I can’t get my sales team on target”.

So I dusted myself down, swallowed my pride and responded to the enquiries.  One of them was an enquiry for a growing company with a sales team issue, I made a pitch of the obvious points on what I would do in their situation and left them with it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I made my application for the Christmas role at Marks and Spencer, passed the interview on £6.50 an hour and booked the interview slot in the diary.  “It’s OK”, I told myself, it will work around the school (could get 10% discount of course!! Perks, at last perks!).

The day of my interview came and I headed over to the store, at this point I was waiting on responses for the other couple of enquiries that I had had, but feeling like damaged goods, I was not pushing and had not followed the golden rules of follow up.

The woman on the checkout wasn't expecting me for an interview, I was taken up stairs and sat in the canteen.  Deliveries were coming in and I could not stop myself from getting involved and asking questions – funny how you resort to type!

So, after half an hour and the supervisor had checked her notes, my letter and contacted head office, I was told that it was a “one in a million” chance and that the website had not talked to HQ and there was not slot for me today, they took my number and would call me back to rearrange….

There I was, sitting in my car in the car park, in the rain thinking “I can’t even get a bloody job in M&S” when the phone rang.

The company that was having issues with its sales team made me an offer, a good offer and so then my little company of Telesales, Lead Generation was borne.

So this blog, when I get my head round writing this blog, this is the beginning, this is how this started.  I am a Call Girl and I am going to share and give an insight into this life…