Without a doubt, the best task management software should be up and running in seconds, enable countless integration, import and sync with ease, ensure complete customisation and help you manage your projects in one place.  

Project managers need task management software that support their project planning, assists in completing tasks and making quick checks of assigned tasks. The user should also be able to easily view and filter task lists, reprioritise tasks and view what’s next in line.

A single project can have many tasks to be completed, some concurrently while others may require the support of teams to meticulously complete it within expected timeframes. 

Luckily (for today’s managers), there is a plethora of task management tools to consider. To help you avoid wallowing in the ocean of options, it’s best to examine a small set of task management software that meets your business needs, analysing key reviews to enable you hit a bulls-eye option the very first time.

• The Ultimate Guide to Task Management Software
• Finding The Best Task Management Tools on the Market
• The Deep Dive Into Task Management
• Project Management vs. Task Management
• Most Reliable Technology For Managing Tasks
• Facilitating Task Management
• Effective Management of Your Team’s Tasks
• Understanding Your Task Management Tools & Software
• Tracking Tasks Using Management Software Features
• How To Update Task Lists?
• Can I Share Task Lists?
• How To Save Time With the Right Task Management Software?
• Choosing a Task Management Software

The Ultimate Guide to Task Management Software

Ask any seasoned project manager and they will tell you that working on a new project can sometimes seem like climbing a high mountain. Hence, the most effective way to handle such a project would be to cut it out into a string of tasks.

Being able to manage everyone’s tasks in the project is what helps project managers to remain relevant and effective in completing projects on time.  

The most critical part of managing projects is simply task management. Basically, task management refers to the colossal to-do lists of every job that must be completed.

This often becomes overwhelming when handling the more complex projects that feature high volume tasks and numerous work streams.

Thankfully, there are countless digital solutions designed to streamline management of tasks.

Finding The Best Task Management Tools on the Market

In the past few decades, the task management software market has significantly evolved. If you have a small business, you may require a simple tool to help you run your project even on a slim budget.

Conversely, enterprises Project Management Offices need more scalable and robust solutions. No matter the size of your business, there’s an all-in-one task management solution for you.

While majority of solutions on our list tick all the boxes for what the best task management software must have, they are not entirely free but have trail versions for a given number of days to enable project managers to try them out.

The Deep Dive Into Task Management

Task management is a term that describes the way project managers handle tasks through the project’s life cycle which includes planning, analysing, assessment and reports on the progress of individual tasks.

Following the project step by step enables managers to closely monitor their projects at every stage from start to finish, ensuring successful completion.

Huge projects can be broken down into a sequence of tasks that will see a project completed within the expected time frame. Hence, task management is a crucial part of your project management.

While theoretically the term task management simply refers to the long task list of every component of the project, this methodology might not be ideal for managing multifaceted projects with varied workloads.

Fortunately, in this time and era digital solutions are readily available and easy to outsource. Whether you’re looking for support, advice or guidance in effectively handling your projects, or software to help you achieve your targets, the system is a click away.

Here, you’ll get valuable information about task management solutions. Use this guide to find everything you need to learn about task management.

Project Management vs. Task Management

The words “project” and “task” management are intertwined and can sometimes be confusing. Yet, they are quite different.

Basically, tasks refer to a unit of any given job, and task management involves managing every aspect of a single task. Projects come with timelines for each individual task. Hence managing projects encompasses the management of all tasks in a project.

Project management and task management apps are closely related and are interchangeably used to describe tools, though the main difference between project and task management software is in their comparative scope. 

Essentially, a task management tool is basically a to-do list that allows users to store and systemise tasks. Based on how complex a tool is, the software may also incorporate various features for due dates, prioritisation, alerts, assignments and attachment of files, though these may be unnecessary.

Project management apps are designed to sort and track numerous tasks, sub-tasks, communications and documents needed to run and successfully complete projects.

These apps can also create several programs and projects, assign tasks or sub-tasks, distribute resources, share files and evaluate data points.

Most Reliable Technology For Managing Tasks

Task management apps help project teams to effectively manage their tasks. If you’re not proactive, you could be working reactively and that can be quite unproductive.

You can’t work and accomplish a lot efficiently if you were more reactive to your last email, call or message you received.   

Effective management of the project at task levels enables people to continually prioritise their work and save time on having to figure out the next task and when it should begin.

This is crucial considering the many distractions in this time and age. Regardless of how focused, dedicated, diligent and enthusiastic about completing your projects successfully, even the most greatest of us are susceptible to distractions every now and then.

Without reliable task management tools and software, it can be difficult staying abreast with your assignments and ensuring that every team player meets their deadline with consistency.

The use of task management apps comes with several benefits including:

• Ability to give highest priorities to tasks in your to-do list.
• Being able to view and track the progress of tasks assigned to your teams through the project’s life cycle.
• Being able to know the timelines and the available time for completing tasks within the project
• Integrating tasks and grouping them for better operational efficiency.
• Accessing all tasks any time and from anywhere to evaluate progress.

Facilitating Task Management

Management of tasks becomes faster and quicker when the best tools are used. Whether relying on a simple spreadsheet, sticky notes or complex software, effective task management will be determined by the tools selected.

While you may be familiar and comfortable with using sticky notes or a simple list approach, it becomes difficult to assign and reassign tasks, group similar tasks and prioritise them in an excellent order.

But once tasks have changed or shifted, it becomes tricky to update them without wasting time redoing them.

The best task management app will enable you to automate your project’s processes and give you the flexibility to set up and update tasks. This is done by simply listing tasks to be completed by people in the project and adding new tasks or sub-tasks to every item as required.

Moreover, the task management software does more including:

• Generate lists of tasks for easy dissemination
• Define custom views that simplify projects
• Filter tasks based on timeframes of a day, week, or month
• Store detailed information of tasks and links to relevant files
• Tracking task time against a project’s overall timeline
• Drag reports of billed hours for employees including vendors, freelancers and consultants.
• Simultaneously manage and access several tasks with some clicks.

Effective Management of Your Team’s Tasks

Project managers should steer to manage projects more effectively as well as each team member’s tasks. While a manager may complete their work on time, the same might not be said about other members of the project.

More often than not, project managers waste time following up other team members to find out their progress, even when the assignment is scheduled and what needs to be done.

With task management software and applications, project managers can save lots of resources. When an action is taken during a meeting, a manager will only need to make a note and add the same to the task management tool.

The project manager will then assign the task to the rightful team player and this will automatically reflect in their own to-do lists. This enables team members to easily access and be immediately responsible for their workload.

The best part of it is that project managers can easily monitor the progress of teams and see how specific tasks on the project are proceeding.

Moreover, they can filter tasks within the project based on available resources and check on what each team member is working on and their workload, with a single glance. Project managers can send team members reminders about an impending deadline.

To-do lists in task management software are usually connected with the resource reporting feature, and this allows managers to see how the workload is distributed.  

Furthermore, project managers can be able to determine whether the work is evenly spread out or not. This saves time and reduces duplication of tasks as it helps to reprioritise and reallocate resources as per the need.

Understanding Your Task Management Tools & Software

Once you’re signed in, you’ll be able to view available tasks and work allocated to each team member in a given day or week. The assignments can further be split into separate tasks that a manager can prioritise as the project evolves.

For instance, if your access is limited to a resource or team member during early morning, be sure to front-load every task assigned to them so that it may be tackled at the required time. 

When you click on a task, you can view comprehensive details of any assignment. Sometimes, a manager can add notes and hyperlinks, update task status and upload task files.

Everything required for the project for a given day or week will appear at one place accompanied with visual reminders of what should be done and by whom.

The software will then highlight in red any overdue assignments. This comes in handy in helping to identify and place urgent tasks on your to-do list on top or change the expected task completion time.

The best task management software will also enable you to schedule notifications or get an email at a specific time with pending tasks for that day, the next task to be completed and overdue tasks.

Tracking Tasks Using Management Software Features

Based on your preferred task management software, there may be a column indicating “% Complete”, which shows the team’s progress in the project’s life cycle. Anything above 0% is a clear indication that your project is ongoing, and once the task hits 100%, it should be complete, and you should be moving forward to the next task at peak efficiency.

Team members are allowed to update tasks manually as they continue or the project manager can do the updates during reviews and status updates.

The data provided flows automatically and is reflected in timesheets and the manager’s project dashboard and timelines get updated to reflect the team’s progress and what remains of the project.

How To Update Task Lists?

When teams are busy trying to meet the project’s targets, they can be tempted to procrastinate updating their to-do lists, and project managers can fail to get a true picture of the status of the entire project.

The best way to keep your finger on the pulse of the project and track its progress at every phase is for each team player to update their to-do lists once an item has been successfully completed.

Alternatively, managers will require every team member to update task lists every end of day and mark them off as completed tasks.

Again, a manager can scan through to-do lists for each team member that is yet to be updated and make necessary changes on new input delivered by the member. 

An update to the to-do lists is fast and easy, enabling every team member to start their days with a clear overview of pending workloads and what should be prioritised.

Project managers should always spare some few minutes at the end of a day or week to perform updates as team members update their timesheets.

Can I Share To-Do Task Lists?

While task management is more focused on project managers, it becomes more effective when everyone in the team has visibility.

The right task management tool will make it easier for managers to share task lists with everyone on the team. Team members can track progress of project tasks as they zero in to change the status of the items that are linked to them. 

To ensure more clarity, managers need to separate their own tasks from project-related tasks, as they should not be shared by other team members. 

How To Save Time With the Right Task Management Software?

It’s smart that you ensure optimal productivity every hour you’re at work. Effective management of your tasks and your team’s needs time, but when it is done right, it saves time.

Without the help of great task management software, project managers easily get overwhelmed, miss deadlines, lack clear priority and mismanage teams and resources.

Ignoring useful task management tools can ultimately cost you money, time and make the project even more complex.

Here are top tips to help you save time with your task management app

Tip 1 – Prioritise your workload

With a single, centralised task list for the project can be helpful, though it doesn’t guarantee productivity. Always prioritise your tasks and delineate tasks that are more urgent. With the software, project managers can update the priority and urgency of various tasks on a daily basis with just a click.

Tip 2 – Get organized.

Project managers should stop sending reminders, task lists and meeting action points via emails. Immediately there’ a fresh entry, a manager should quickly update the to-do list, schedule and allocate it to the respective team member. While this seems straightforward, the routine of “touching” an item just once can really help to reduce your cognitive workload.

Tip 3 – Use a real-time calendar.

Your calendar is a very important resource, however if you still use paper to track tasks or a spreadsheet, it’s time to upgrade.

Linking a real time calendar to a task management tool can make it easier and faster to assess your task schedules and track their progress.

In addition, you’ll achieve faster and more spontaneous visibility of your tasks as per day, week or month.

This will help you know beforehand the coming busy days, have enough capacity and when to delegate. As such, you’ll manage your time more effectively, and your teams will have more clarity for the projects.

Tip 4 – Tracking your time.

Time is certainly a precious resource. You can employ timesheets to help you know which tasks take up much of this resource. When you determine where you or your team members spend most of the time during a certain period, it will be easier to give priority where this resource is needed most. 

The ability to track time as tasks are completed ultimately saves time when a project manager has to remember precisely what was done, by whom and when. The most accurate way to capture time used is to record it at the time a task is being carried out.

Tip 5 – Less meetings means more work time

To spend lesser time in irrelevant meetings allows you and your teams to spend more time working on your tasks. In any way, who loves those long meetings or chaotic back-to-back days?

Meetings should be left for times when critical decisions are to be made and queries answered, and tasks have to be set up to complete some work outside the team’s expected timelines. Everyone will thank you later.

Choosing a Task Management Software

While the market has numerous task management tools and software to consider, collaborative projects are becoming easier to manage. Fortunately, finding the most ideal tool for your needs is possible. All you need to do is take time to try 3-4 tools before you make a decision.

As you sign up for those free trials, be sure to note down their pros and cons to help you compare and make an informed decision.

Involve your team and let them help you choose the best option, after all, they’ll also be interacting with the software. With this, you’ll wish you got the task management app way before.

Image Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stress-free-business-woman-office-310940804

The post Are You Getting The Best Out Of Your Task Management Software appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

Of course, the emotional pain that comes with rejection can damage our self-esteem, moods and affect our well-being. Yet, as you shall see in this article, the biggest damage caused by rejection is actually self-inflicted.

Three months into the year of 2021, four of my major clients backed out of our contracts almost at the same time. In no time, my monthly income plunged from $15,000 to $1,200. My world crushed insultingly; so unbelievable how all the four could leave at once. And honestly, the rejection I felt run deep.  

Whether you experience a slight inconvenience or major happening, the emotional pain of rejection really hurts. When you decide to pursue a promising opportunity only to be met with the stings of denial, it hurts even more. 

Yet, being rejected doesn’t spell the end neither is it innately negative. Actually, it’s how we interpret it that turns it into an opportunity or impediment. For me, losing the four key clients was just a setback that set me up for a greater comeback. I’m glad it happened that way.

But why does rejection hurt so bad? — and how should we internalise it? 

We cannot sugarcoat the agony, shame and embarrassment that come with rejection. According to fMRI studies, feelings of rejection are associated with the same neural pathways that trigger physical pain.

As a matter of fact, one study discovered that swallowing Tylenol reduced the emotional pain caused by rejection.

Scientific research aside, our society today looks at rejection and failure as two sides of a coin. If you’re not considered for a promotion, you’ll inform everybody around you that your boss “rejected” you or that you “failed” to meet what was expected for promotion.

Eventually, we start thinking that the reason we didn’t get the promotion is because we lacked something. That explains why we get fussy over rejection—since it caresses our ego to make it focus on itself. What didn’t I do? Why did they give him the promotion instead of me? Was I not qualified enough?

Rejection taken personally inhibits your growth 

Look at rejection as a chance to reflect, make changes, grow and become successful. Unfortunately, our reactive perception of rejection swathes it with negativity making it difficult to look at it otherwise.

For instance, when you keep telling yourself that….

• Rejection must be avoided → That’s pre-rejecting yourself. The state of pre-rejection will make you stop applying for jobs, shy away from taking up new challenges at your workplace, or you will stop making proposals and asking someone out before they even say no.
• When rejection hits us → The world is against you. When we see rejection as unfair, we end up feeling like the victim. Yet in reality, life isn’t out to intentionally harm us—it’s totally mediocre. Such a neutral mentality plays a key role in helping us make bold decisions.
• Rejection is permanent → It stops you from trying. When we keep telling ourselves that rejection would last forever, we shut ourselves from making the most of future opportunities. And just because you were denied a particular opportunity such as a role at your dream job doesn’t mean you’ll never have chances. Steven Spielberg is a living testimony of this. 

Why rejection has little to do with you 

Not taking rejection personally can be hard but the best way to overcome it is by applying reason. Here are some reasons which prove that rejection isn’t always as serious as it seems.

1. It’s a way of communication

Looking beyond the emotional hurt you will realise that rejection passes a message.  According to blogger Amy Tang, this message “is simply information regarding compatibility between you and what you were rejected from.” 

So, what you do with this information is entirely up to you. But again, rejection has a lot to do with information relating to compatibility.

For example, the MIT’s announcement explaining the reason as to why they were forced to re-institute the SAT/ACT (no, ACT isn’t Advanced Card Tricks) requirement after taking a short break: their research revealed that standardised tests were more accurate in predicting student academic success at MIT.

Here’s their explanation about the change: 

​​When we talk about evaluating academic readiness for MIT, that doesn’t mean we are measuring your academic potential, or intrinsic worth as a human. It only means that we are confident you, at this specific moment in your educational trajectory, can do well in the kind of hard math and science tests demanded by our unusual education.

MIT announcement

If you find yourself rejected by your Tafe or university owing to your exam scores, the message is simple: your quantitative skills couldn’t match your theirs. Period!

2. Our inner narrative doesn’t say the truth

In our minds, the world is all about us. Every interaction is filtered through our perceptions. When we are rejected by someone, then they have poor thoughts about us. But hey, we have NO idea what others think about us.

Brianna Wiest, the author of 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think, explains:

We assume that people think the way we do—because our internal narrative and process of the world is all we know.

Brianna Wiest

In reality, there are a million and one things going on that we can’t see. 

From the face value, we’ll only see the job rejection but won’t see the company considered an employee who has been working with them for years. We’ll focus on the “Read at 7:55 p.m.” pop up. But won’t see how the recipient of the message is driving and can’t respond right away.

3. Rejection takes up only a splinter of our identity

Rejection can prompt us to re-think our attitudes and re-evaluate our self-worth. However, rejection only highlights a very small portion of who we truly are. Imagine yourself proposing a fresh idea at work and your boss ignores it. It’s your initiative that gets measured up and assessed, not your whole self worth as a person.

How to turn rejection into opportunity—not a barrier 

It’s surprising that rejection can end up being the most constructive thing to ever happen to you. Even when that means losing all your best clients within a week.

Look at rejection as a sign of growth 

Have you been rejected lately? Great! This is an indication that you’re on your way forward. Since, if you’re not facing any rejection occasionally, it could mean you are evading change hence stagnant.

Keep in mind that rejection is a sign that you’re taking up new opportunities. The world will never throw opportunities at you—you have to take yourself out there and go for them.

When I lost four of my biggest clients at the beginning of the year, it had to do with the fact that my business depended more on these four clients. As an entrepreneur, I needed to increase my client base to achieve more stability.

Sure, this was a setback. But it was a sign that my business had grown to a point of attracting such serious clients that could sustain my business.

Just a reminder that rejection is also an indication of healthy resistance. For instance, if customers reject your rates for your products or services, it could also mean that your prices are great. You can’t appeal everyone.

Take rejection as an opportunity to learn

You may not see it right away, but rejection gives you a great opportunity to learn.

You can use it to gather information about a given situation. For example, during a job search you may send your resume to 30 companies and only hear from two.

What if you improved your resume instead of lamenting over the 28 unresponsive companies? Would the results change? Consider rejection as a data point and make relevant adjustments, then continue with your race to greatness.

Rejection gives you a chance to enhance your skills. You can start by asking yourself, “why not?” And this entails understanding the reasons behind a specific decision so as to enhance it in the future.

If you’re a digital marketer, then you will be familiar with the ‘split testing’. Use method this in everyday life. You will be surprised at how much faster you will excel professionally and personally.

Rejection was a blessing in disguise

After my four clients dumped me, I took time to analyse the reasons that led to the situation. This happened in the thick of COVID-19 when lockdowns were the order of day and people had to work from home. Managing employees virtually put a strain on my ability to deliver services effectively in the way that I use too. Past this shame of burnouts and rejection, I felt something else, relief.

Being a seasoned sales professional, rejection is built into my professional identity. I am still human though, holding my clients close to my chest. This aside, I still had to go through the motions.

I took a break just to revitalise and recover from the pain of rejection. I gained the courage to ask my clients what exactly had happened and to my surprise, it was nothing personal—two were experiencing similar challenges as I was, another’s budgets dwindled along with staff moral while another closed down operations shortly after. And even if their reasons could have been personal, for example, negative feedback on my services, this would still have been an opportunity to learn and improve my solutions.

Clearly, none of my ex-clients pinpointed my inherent self-worth. Yet the situation of the rejection gave me the opportunity to cold-pitch new clients, find new ways to provide solutions virtually and become more forward-thinking.

And finally, the rejection got me writing this article.

The post Don’t Take Rejection Personally appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

This philosophy was founded on the belief that everything you can think of can actually be improved and that nothing is status quo.

The process involves ascertaining problems and opportunities, developing solutions and implementing them, and making a cycle through the process again for any emerging issues that were ineffectively addressed.

I also call it ‘testing in production’.

Ten principles of Kaizen

Given that rolling out Kaizen requires you to tweak the right mindset all cross the company, below are 10 principles believed to address the Kaizen mindset considered core to this philosophy. These include:

1. Let go of any assumptions.
2. When it comes to solving problems, be proactive.
3. There’s no set template so don’t accept the status quo.
4. Let go of perfectionism and take an attitude of iterative, adaptive change.
5. Be on the lookout for solutions as you find mistakes.
6. Create a culture and environment in which everyone feels empowered to contribute.
7. Don’t accept the obvious issue; instead, ask “why” five times to identify the root cause.
8. Cull information and opinions from multiple people.
9. Use creativity to find low-cost, bite-sized improvements.
10. Never stop improving.

The first time you try changing something, whether a process, people’s perceptions or a corporate culture, it’s crucial that you ensure complete participation of your teams. Allow them to own and manage the process in order to drive improvements to be done.

Kaizen for continuous improvement

You can implement Kaizen using four condensed steps popularly referred to as PDCA/PDSA, the Deming or Shewhart cycles. The four-phased approach designed for continuous improvement of processes, products and services, entails systematically testing potential solutions, evaluating results, and rolling out those that seem to work.

The four phases are:

• Plan: Identify and assess the issue or opportunity, create hypotheses about what the problems could be, and choose the one to test.
• Do: Test the possible solution, basically on a small scale, before measuring the results.
• Evaluate/Examine: Examine the result, measure its effectiveness, and determine whether the hypothesis is supported or not.
• Act: If the solution was effective, implement it.

Kaizen is a philosophy designed to support continuous and incremental changes in processes that sustainably deliver a high level of efficiency. Kaizen can help at certain levels to improve your way of working by eliminating any form of “waste”. At the organizational level, this philosophy can form a powerful team-approach to harness recommendations and engagements of workers at every level.

Extensive participation can also help improve the morale and satisfaction of workers as it improves costs, production as well as other critical measures.

When you decide to invest in Kaizen for your workplace, you’ll be amazed at the vast impact small changes within your processes or organisation can make, and how the culture to make continuous improvements can sustainably thrive.

The post The Continuous Improvement Philosophy appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

Taking sales notes is not only an effective selling skill that makes one stand out, but it is also a valuable resource that will help you and your sales team to consolidate the entire selling process and corroborate the final purchase decision.

Usually, sales people engage in a myriad of conversations with their customers and prospects; hence too many details can easily be confused or escape. And yes, taking notes is one way to impress your customers and show them that you’re attentive and focused on them.

Unfortunately, majority of sales people frown at the thought of taking notes. As a matter of fact, most sales reps don’t like it.

And it’s not hard to understand why…

Of course, taking notes sounds so old school, bringing to mind those afternoons when you were forced to scribble down everything your history teacher dictated about how the ancestors of the indigenous Australians migrated from Africa because it would be in the next test.

Thankfully, gone are the days when you had to take notes in preparation for a history test. However, as a good marketer, taking notes is a must.

Yep, I know you’re thinking about those days when you have to bump into folks who believe note-taking is a waste of time. Forget about them for a moment and keep in mind that the value of taking good sales notes is more than just remembering the information.

Great sales notes are a sure way to improve productivity, boost collaboration and increase your sales revenue as it gives you greater chances of closing that deal.

Below are some tips on how to take effective sales notes in addition to actionable ways you can integrate in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to make note-taking worthwhile.

But first, let’s understand the importance of sales notes.

Why sales notes are important in 2022:

1. Enables you to retain information
   
   Basically, selling is more about providing a solution by matching your product or service with client’s need. Certainly, it’s not humanly possible to remember every detail of a 60-minute conversation via phone unless you have a superb memory. What’s worse, you are likely to remember less in your next follow-up meeting, and this makes it extremely difficult to customise your product/service pitch to suit the unique needs of the customer.
   
2. Makes your customer/prospect feel special
   
   Taking notes is impressive and assures the customer that you are keenly listening to what they are saying.
   
   Have you ever placed your order at a restaurant where the waiter didn’t jot anything down? The thought that pops on your mind would be, “Gosh, I hope they’ll bring the exact thing I ordered”. Taking notes is a way to confirm to the customer or prospect that you are diligent and taking the time to accurately capture the details they are providing.
   
3. Enhances the sales process
   
   Accurate and well detailed notes aren’t just for the salesperson; they are also an essential resource for the sales team as well.
   
   When a sales team gets into the habit of comparing notes, collaboration is improved immensely as team players help each other to successfully close deals. This also enables the sales manager to stay abreast and remain on top of deals and comes in when necessary.
   
   In addition, sales notes can be used as a quality control measure as they help sales managers to have greater insight of the entire sales process as well as sales pipeline, and this helps them to determine the right mechanism to use and when to guarantee better results.
   
4. Births fresh ideas and queries
   
   Sometimes it can be challenging to talk and evaluate at ago. Taking time to review your sales notes after a call or meeting often opens your eyes to fresh points or connections you might have missed while engaging and speaking with your prospect.
   
5. Enables you to create an excellent pitch deck
   
   An impressive pitch deck cannot be build without comprehensive sales notes gathered during a needs analysis exercise. The more detailed your notes are, the better the sales deck you’ll build to speak powerfully in a way that addresses the needs and concerns of your prospective customers. 

7 Steps to help you take better sales notes

Excellent sales notes can be a means to developing effective selling cycles, establishing rewarding relationships with prospects, keeping your team abreast and most importantly assisting you close that deal.

(Hint: Bring your CRM along with you).

1. Develop a game plan

Don’t schedule a call or meeting with a blank sheet of paper. Before interacting with a client, be sure to have clear goals, game plan and questions. This should be engineered as part of your selling cycle.

Carefully review each stage of your selling cycle. Keep in mind that the processes of prospecting, needs analysis, pitching and retaining customers involve distinct strategies and hence different approaches are required.

So, what specific information is required when it comes to client discovery or developing a selling cycle?

The type and number of queries will depend on how efficient and effective your sales team is; but basically it should include:

• Contact details (include name and titles)
• Goals
• Pain points
• Main agenda (discussion topics)
• Willingness to purchase
• Outcome of the meeting

You can make the process simpler and save time by creating this directly into your CRM:

a) Add notes to each contact as you progress, but better still you can customise your CRM with each field and question.

b) Integrating custom fields in your CRM to draw vital details of your leads guarantees consistency that enables your sales reps to ask similar questions while providing a coherent framework to guide your sales team. 

2. Personalise your sales notes

When it comes to sales, your focus shouldn’t just be selling. The process also involves building solid relationships hence every conversation should sound and feel as though it is with someone you truly value.

Once you’re through with your conversation via call, quickly jot down the most important sales information as well as any personal details.

Did the prospect mention a hobby, favourite restaurant or an upcoming anniversary? Those little things matter and can make a really huge difference.

Here’s how it looks for me:

I visit my doctor for a general check-up twice a year. My doctors some what of a champion in my eyes. He always remembers my family and my work. It may not sound such an important detail, but I appreciate the fact that he takes time to make me feel special and looked after.

3. Don’t capture everything word for word

It’s worthwhile to know that sales notes are not direct transcriptions; hence you don’t have to write everything word for word as this may make you too busy to engage and give maximum attention to what the customer or prospect is saying.

It’s better if you can think and focus on more insightful, important and actionable information. This will help you think of the ultimate goal. While at the information-gathering phase carrying out your needs analysis, consider only the information you need to keep handy during pitching.

What important details are you expecting to gather during the conversation? Breaking down your thought process to the essentials can help you stay focused during a call.

Pro-TIP

It would be more prudent of you if you recorded a call on Zoom or Google Meet as this would help you pay more attention to the conversation and take your notes later. Nevertheless, don’t skip this crucial step since taking good notes is still an important skill.

Sometimes sales persons adopt acronyms that make note-taking easier. For example, the acronym “BANT” is common in sales frameworks as it refers to budget, authority, need and timeline.

No doubt, acronyms and shorthand forms of writing are a great timesaver and you can always use them whenever you want.

4. Keep your sales notes consistent

Both CRM and sales notes are important resources for personal use as well as use by your sales team and the company at large.

Therefore as you take notes, don’t just write them for yourself, have others in mind and write in such a way that they will find it easier to read and use them to build up a database that can help the team identify common themes and problems over time.

PRO-TIP:

Ensure your notes are clear and concise, and save time and energy. Integrate CRM fields, sales acronyms and call frameworks that are standardised to enable everyone else to read and understand them with ease.

5. Note every actionable detail

Always note down any idea or issue that requires immediate action, follow-up or has a timeline. This should include tasks, customer follow-ups and internal to-dos.

You should also add actionable items to your Calendar and set reminders for tasks that need follow-up.

6. Conclude your sales notes

More often than not, this is a gap in the sales process. Have you ever tried to read through your notes only to realise you can’t read your own handwriting? Or a keyword you thought you jotted down but can’t be traced? Well, this can be avoided when you spare some minutes after a sales conversation to complete your sales notes. Finish your thoughts, fill any blanks and ensure your notes can be understood and used by the next team member in the next phase of your sales funnel or customer journey.

7. Quickly update of your CRM

Sometimes you may not take your sales notes directly in CRM. As such, ensure you update your CRM as quickly as possible. When your notes have important updates for your team or entire company, be sure to tag them using the @ within the CRM so they get to know the state of the deal or opportunity.

This is particularly where the deal is whopping and the sales process will take longer—weeks or even months, involving multiple calls and demos, and you’ll need all the information handy and synchronized in one place.

Sales notes give you all the relevant information whenever you need it

Regardless of the sales phase you are in, having your sales notes well updated in the CRM enables you to find any information needed to push a deal to the next phase and eventually close it.

While note-taking can sometimes be cumbersome, it’s a sure helpful means to build relationships and improve your chances of closing that deal.

Take time to learn the art of note taking and once you master it, you’ll find it easier to remember the small things about your customers as you impress them with your level of attention to detail. We find it a sturdy foundation for lasting relationships.

The post How To Take Better Notes As A Sales Rep appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

The construction industry has amazing opportunities albeit the high risks. But the pressure is even more intense for executives, given the tight profit margins and little room if any, for errors. In essence, project outcomes directly impact business outcomes.

Despite the steady growth experienced globally, alongside new, impressive technologies that are transforming the sector, today’s rapidly changing landscape insinuates that companies ought to operate at higher levels of efficiency and sophistication in order to keep with fresh client demands and fierce competition.

Not forgetting the industry-wide challenges that are becoming huge stumbling blocks for construction companies spanning all sizes. For instance, even with the current need to ensure high levels of productivity, the shortage in labour is taking a toll on the industry.

Today, about 80% of contractors are concerned about their ability to find and hire certified workers, according to a 2019 study carried out by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC).

To mitigate this emerging risk, majority of construction companies are growing beyond digital infancy by making the most of the available selection of tools to effectively measure performance, automate processes and improve visibility.

Nonetheless, contractors still struggle to determine the kind of innovations that can propel their businesses forward. Given that a mere 25% of engineering and construction (E&C) firms report they are effective in managing risk, it’s obvious that there is a huge gap between the adopted technology and its impact.

According to suggestions provided in a new AGC report, forward thinking companies in this industry that yearn to stay ahead should consider implementing one-off technology solutions and, “prioritise technology strategies to create innovative corporate cultures.”

With this, construction executives will have to adopt the rightful technology that enables digital transformation by establishing a solid foundation from ground up; one that links up the entire project lifecycle.

Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation is a term commonly used to describe any digital initiative undertaken in a company. However, in most cases technology is usually applied on a one-off basis, taking on a role like that of a patch fix than a part of a real business strategy.

A single solution can significantly improve a given process or workflow, but in the absence of seamless integration with goals and other systems, inconsistent and disconnected processes render it impossible to minimise risk. Consequently, fragmented information and teams result in costly reworks, delays and resource waste.

For beginners, let’s first see the definition of digital transformation. The Enterprisers Project defines “Digital transformation as the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers.”

That’s correct. Digital transformation isn’t just centered on fixing issues but building change cross businesses. Within the construction industry, new technology implementations supporting this transformation should deliver:

• Sustainable and foreseeable profit margins
• Superior resilience throughout the industry
• Agility in growing and transforming, so as to make the most of new markets, connections, and business opportunities
• Better collaboration and partnership between all stakeholders so as to deliver better outcomes to the construction environment

Digital transformation focuses on developing a new model for innovations within the business. When it comes to the construction industry and the challenges of linking huge volumes of data and users, the main aim of this change should be centered on connection—connecting users, data, processes and the various project phases. So far, no one is yet to deliver on this promise of connecting construction from the design phase through to operations and turnover.  

The Future of Building

According to one expert Jay Snyder, FMI, Technology Practice Lead, “While construction firms continue to invest in technology, the business-critical issues of communication and data management need more strategic attention than they currently receive.”

At kelpee, the focus is on creating a foundation to enable digital innovation to succeed, allowing project stakeholders to pool resources early in the project, delivering greater transparency in changes and guaranteeing data continuity. All these would support better decision-making and more predictability—the cornerstone to establishing scalability and business resilience.

Kelpee is founded on three key pillars of connected data and technology:

• Cloud Technology: Best-in-class technology designed for simplicity and power – uniting office, headquarters and field teams starting with sales and design through to construction and operations
• Industry Network: The sector’s main online network of builders, owners, designers, and trades
• Process Automation: Process automation means more resources can be allocated to professional services.

So, how exactly does the connected construction system enable executives to design, develop and effectively manage a technology strategy capable of supporting their business objectives? Let’s find out.

Build an Innovation Strategy

When it comes to creating a winning business strategy, any construction company must ask three important questions:

• How can we make money?
• How can we save money?
• How can we lead the competition?

At the centre of it all, kelpee empowers construction executives to strategically and effectively manage their most valuable business outcomes by improving quality, controlling costs, winning business and staying on schedule.

Improve Quality 

Well-established construction companies boast robust quality control and assurance plans. With a connected construction environment such as that which kelpee supports, facilitates and improves existing quality plans. 

• Improve Handover Experience: A seamless handover process enhances customer satisfaction and the contractor’s reputation.  There’s better experience during project turnover/handover thanks to reduced defects, improved digital documentation and enables the customer to seamlessly move from the construction phase to operations.
• Reduced Number of Variations Onsite: In most cases, variations or constructability challenges are discovered too late in the process. Managing potential problems using designs that ensure the ultimate build is successful demands collaboration between all project stakeholders and an effective review process to handle emerging issues before resulting in reworks on the site.
• Reduce Rework During Construction: Reworks are unplanned works and mostly happen in the process of changing orders, rectifying errors, poor scheduling or poor quality. With keen insight and visibility at all design problems and proper team communication, reworks and their cost implication on the project can be significantly minimised.
• Reduce Defects at Handover: Defects at handover do reduce a project’s profit margin, and arise as a result of problems not detected and resolved during the construction process. But with improved transparency and standardised workflows, departments can systematically identify, track, and resolve all issues as they arise.

Control Costs

Cost control is certainly imperative for business leaders focused on risk management and ensuring financial stability. Armed with innovative technology that links the entire construction lifecycle, construction firms can achieve more financial stability through:

• Improved Forecast Accuracy
• Improved Subcontractor Qualification
• Reduced Costs

Stay on Schedule

Stringent project schedules put increased pressure on construction executives to ensure teams stay on track. kelpee offers software for leaders to enhance productivity and detect issues in schedules before they occur. This is made possible through improved:

• Plan to Actual Ratio
• Resource Planning
• Schedule Control
• Lean Planning

Win Contracts

Staying ahead of the competition requires construction companies to own a comprehensive strategy that will see them win new and repeat business. With a well established builders’ network, you can connect to project owners, contractors and sub-contractors and take advantage of smart risk analysis to position each project well-up for success. With this, you are guaranteed:

• Increased Bid Efficiency
• Increased the Number of Successful Projects
• Improved Win Rate
• Improved Stakeholder Engagement
• Expanded Service

Digital Transformation Starts with Connected Construction

Risks within the construction industry will only continue to grow. Willing forward-looking companies in the sector ready to embrace a new construction model will be able to manage risk and push their businesses to greater heights. It’s time for leaders to invest in digital transformation well integrated with connected construction.

The post A Smart Guide to Connected Construction appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

While the end to end encryption, or E2EE, is one of the simplest encrypting tools around, it is also the only reliable technique to protect your data from anyone luring between you and the person you are sending a message to. Regretfully, only a handful of SMS and messaging platforms use this option, and most government institutions avoid it because it reduces their operating speed. While this may be true for the obsolete systems used by government agencies, it is not for a regular user, as both premium VPN providers and the best Instant Messaging Apps offer this type of encryption without any reduction in internet speed and only minimal processing power usage.

There are only two reliable ways to protect your information when you are chatting someone up online. The first option is the IT equivalent of abstinence, as you should share as little as possible of your private life and sensitive information online. Regrettably, this is not always possible. The other option is using a VPN on all of your devices that will operate an E2EE. Apart from using first-party software in your company, this is the only reliable solution to secure all of your chats and messages right now.

While all VPN providers should encrypt their services with an end to end encryption, free VPN apps usually sacrifice this feature to promote larger speeds. To have the best from both worlds, you will need to use a reputable, professional VPN provider, such as OpenVPN, that offers both good speeds and a necessary E2EE connection.

Saving What’s Left of Our Privacy

For anyone being casually aware for the last two decades, our privacy has been under attack from multiple sides. While the media would like to portray the risk coming from lonely hackers wearing ski masks for some reason, the truth is that threats come equally from governments, large corporations, different institutions, and malicious individuals. On top of all that, there is a lot of malicious software that tries to collect some pieces of our personal data. This is usually so that it can provide us with better ads but often leads to something much worse.

Finally, because of social media, much of our basic information is already out there. Our names and phone numbers are usually connected with our profile picture. Because of this, it is of utmost importance to use a VPN and connect all of your devices, especially your mobile phone, to connect from a secure server.

Who is Eying Your Data and Why?

Three major groups would really like to know every move you make and every breath you take. The biggest one of those is not the Gotham Cities Commissioner Gordan, but the actual police, or more accurately the government behind it. Domestic governments use this for either censorship or security, depending on the country, and foreign ones are usually more interested in financial information and political ideology that citizens of another country might have.

Short of a few countries that wish to control the internet access of their citizens quite a bit, and average internet user will rarely see any consequences from governments spying on them.

This can’t be said for corporations, which are the next group in line. Corporations would want to have as much data on you as possible, and the recent scandals have shown that they are not beyond breaking the law to get there. Everything is done to record your internet patterns to provide you with ads that you won’t be able to miss and determining which services they would be able to charge you more. In general, companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Facebook collect about $9 worth of data from each of their users daily.

What Data are Cybercriminals After?

Finally, although individual cybercriminals are the least numerous group from the bunch, their attacks have the biggest impact on their victims. Namely, individual hackers are either looking for financial data or sensitive personal data. Financial data, such as your passwords, social security numbers, or saved banking logins are usually used in identity theft. While a timely response might save you from someone draining your bank account, it is possible to destroy your credit rating by making credit card debt, or even taking out online loans in your name. Even if you solve the problem, you might have issues for years to come from this one incident.

The second and often neglected information is your private correspondence. This may include anything from discussions about work to romantic texts and images. Hackers often take these messages and try to ransom them from you. The trouble is that paying would rarely make them stop, and later pushes them into blackmail long term.

The only way to protect your messages is to have an end to end encryption, and the safest way to be sure that everything you are doing is encrypted is to have a premium VPN installed on all of your devices.

What is End to End Encryption?

Not to go in too much technical detail, an E2EE connection means that there is a private key that only the sender and the end recipient have that decrypts the information sent. These encryption keys are quite long and complex keys and are nothing like a simple password. For anyone in the middle, the message you have sent would seem like gibberish, even if they would be able to intercept them.

This solution is very simple and quite similar to the ‘’decryption rings” that used to be in cereal boxes. Anyone that has the ring can read the message easily, and those without one just see random letters and numbers.

How does End to End Encryption Work?

To use the favourite couple in cryptography, Mark and Eve, as an example, it is very easy to understand how an E2EE (end to end encryption) connection works, and what happens when there is no such safety measure.

Mark and Eve want to communicate through the internet, but don’t know what sort of medium is between them, and they don’t trust it. There might be compromised servers, faulty nodes, or some malicious entity lurking between the two that can intercept their message and steal their information. That is why they are using an end to end encryption to make their messages safe.

Once the connection is established, two personal keys are made, one for Eve and one for Mark. These keys are very large prime numbers that very few humans can cite, especially as Prof. Hawking is no longer with us. These two numbers are shared between Mark and Eve and multiplied to create a public key encryption. This key can be intercepted, but without knowing how it was multiplied, it is nearly impossible to reverse the calculation, except if you have one of the numbers.

Now, when Mark wants to send a message to Eve, this data is encrypted with the public key, and decrypted with Eve’s private key. Anywhere between that the data is severely scrambled and impossible to decode. Read more on how data encryption works in our article here.

End to End Encryption Everyday Uses

In most cases, E2EE is used to secure personal and business conversations between people. Two decades ago it was only possible to do this on Short Message Systems, or SMS, while most phone calls couldn’t have been recorded digitally in the first place. With the development of the internet the risk of some software collecting your data increased exponentially, but so did your options when it comes to encryption.

Regretfully, many government institutions and large companies don’t want to use this type of encryption as it can slow correspondence down a bit. This small lack of patience often results in major data leaks and following lawsuits.

Similar to Mark and Eve, you shouldn’t trust any medium to be secure unless you have made it secure yourself.

End to End Encryption: The Top 6 Messaging Apps

Instant message apps, or chat apps, are something that most of us use every day. By current generation etiquette, it is even considered rude not to send a message prior to calling and to ask if you can call directly.

Technically, even the basic SMS app on your phone is a chat app, with stock Android users using the Google Messages app and iOS using an app of the same name, but from Apple. As these are widely considered not to be secure, people usually exchange these apps for something better, such as Whatsapp.

As these applications are one of the biggest sources of interpersonal communication, they are an often target of hackers. Using an unsafe app can be troublesome as you never know who might be looking. While you don’t think you are oversharing when chatting with friends, or that the data you are sending is not important, there is software that can go through thousands of messages as to find something that they can use. Encrypted messaging is the only way to be sure that your info is really safe.

#1 WhatsApp

WhatsApp is the most popular chat app in the world, and for a good reason. The main selling point for WhatsApp users is that it has a simple and reliable E2EE connection that is safe and secure for all parties. Additionally, there is very little involvement from WhatsApp in the encryption process, meaning that even if someone were able to break into the company files, your data would still be secure.

There are some issues with WhatsApp, which it shares with almost all apps. While the data you are sending is secure, your location and phone number are not. If combined with some other data points this can make a huge issue, and that is why you should still have a good VPN even if using WhatsApp.

#2 Viber

Viber used to be a contender for first place with WhatsApp at some point but is now fairly far behind. This is not due to safety, as it offers a comparable amount of protection, but mostly due to the app being a bit clunky.

Generally, the same rules apply here as well. Use a VPN, and you will be good.

#3 Signal

Signal is a new-comer and is one of my personal favourites. If full end-to-end encryption is what you’re after then Signal is the app for you.

Unlike Telegram, Signal doesn’t give it’s users the option when it comes to end-to-end encryption-It’s built into every single conversation. This includes message sync between all of your devices as well as group chats.

Because the app encrypts all messages, there’s no need to create private chats or group conversations with friends, family or co-workers. This makes it easier and there is no need to explain the ‘private or secret chats’. It just works.

#4 Facebook Messenger

While the Facebook Messenger app is only the second most popular messaging service, there are many more people using this service directly through Facebook than using the app. This connection does have an E2E encryption and is considered to be fairly safe as far as the messages themselves go.

What might be an issue and the reason many people prefer Whatsapp is that Facebook itself is not as safe as they declare. In the past few years, many leaks and data breaches have lowered the confidence in Facebook protecting our privacy. The scandal with even the company’s free VPN, Hola, being hacked means that you can’t use this sort of VPN. It is much better to use a premium VPN and be safe than to risk it.

#5 Telegram

While seen as a relative newcomer when it comes to instant messages, Telegram has incorporated a lot of good ideas from WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger while solving a couple of issues that these services have. Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram uses a cloud-based service to make chatting faster, as well as accessible from multiple devices. And unlike Facebook, this cloud server is not under direct control and supervision from the company.

While Telegram is generally considered to be safe with their MTProto protocol, the fact that there is data staying online is always a liability.

Thankfully, Telegram has incorporated an option to switch your chats to be strictly P2P, removing this issue for anyone concerned. Due to their data safety policy, using Telegram with a good VPN can make your messages virtually impenetrable to crack.

#6 Skype

When using an instant messaging app a lot comes down to personal preference. That being said, Microsoft objectively made a mistake when trying to make Skype a chat app instead of a professional service for video calls and voice calls.

First of all, the encryption on Skype is not an E2EE, but rather third-party encryption made by Skype itself.  While this makes your voice and video messages somewhat safe from anyone on the outside, the third party encryption technology that they use is severely vulnerable against hacks that are coming directly at Skype or Microsoft.  While the usual reason people cite for not using apps with E2EE SMS message security, the fact that Skype for mobile phones is slow, unreliable, and glitchy means that there is little reason to use it.

If you need to use Skype on mobile devices for any reason, the only way to keep your text messaging private is to us a very good VPN service provider. If you don’t rely on Skype as heavily, it is probably better to exchange it for some other application.

All previous mentions have both apps for Android and iOS, meaning that there is no reason not to use them.

Did GDPR Help?

The GDPR is often mocked due to the abundant emails that we all received about companies updating their privacy policy, but it is actually a great help in securing user data. While the law itself applies only to EU users, all companies that have headquarters or major audiences here have also complied.

By definition, the GDPR ensures that all of your private conversations can’t be recorded by companies and that any company that stores private information needs to have an encryption protocol for that information.

The law does dissuade EU companies from trying to access your data without asking but does little for your private text messages. To be safe in this regard, it is best to use a messaging service that has an end to end encryption, as well as a good VPN that will both encrypt your data and conceal your location and identity.

Accessibility over Protection

Some people might think that it is reasonable that, for some data, you don’t need to use a VPN or any encryption protocol as nobody would be interested and internet speed would be greater that way. While the latter might have been true a decade ago, now neither statements are correct.

First of all, there is always someone who can misuse the content you have on your computers, Android phones, or any other source. If there is no safety protocol in place, your info can be grabbed and used at any point in the future, for any kind of malicious purpose.

Lastly, with a modern VPN service provider, your internet speed will be only marginally smaller than without protection, especially if you connect to a VPN server in your country or a close by location. Regardless of the device you use, you will have good bandwidth and the possibility to use SMS messages and voice calls with certainty that your private conversation will stay private.

Using a VPN

If you are using a premium VPN provider, there will be very little issue in having your VPN connection on at all times, with no loss to speed for both the internet connection and your device. All VPN connections have an end to end encryption and are impossible to intercept.

Additionally, if the provider has a good app, it takes just seconds to connect, and the connection is always stable. Even switching servers take next to no time.

Finally, as there are many other advantages in using a VPN, it is best to use it as a cornerstone to your internet security. All other apps, encryption, passwords, or other features work best if supported with anonymity and security provided by a VPN.

Stay Private

When talking about cybersecurity, most people focus only on the software and hackers, which is not the most common source of data leaks. Most times governments, companies, and individuals obtain our information because we gave it to them directly.

This is why mindfulness while on the internet is as important as cybersecurity. Know who you are talking with and never give your private information away. By Australian and US laws, no government official will ask for your data online. If someone asks for your verification by requiring your private information, it is best to report that person to the authorities immediately.

Conclusion

An end to end encryption is a very simple but very reliable piece of software, and it is regretful that many large companies and institutions avoid using them. Any private person on the internet should not make the same mistake and should always keep him or herself safe, anonymous, and private.

By using a VPN you can relatively cheaply ensure your privacy and safety online, both when texting and when browsing the internet. Finally, on top of your VPN security, you should only use apps that have some sort of encryption protocol, and in case of your instant messaging apps, this should be an E2EE.

By using these tools, you can be certain that both you and the person on the other end can speak freely and safely. The only question you will be left is what to say.

The post End To End Encryption On SMS And Messaging Platforms appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

No business requires convincing that in today’s scale-driven and tech-intensive global economy, great supplier relationship is the supply chain’s lifeblood. Businesses, particularly the well-established ones, are buying services and components from suppliers more than ever before.

Companies are increasingly relying on suppliers to improve quality, cut costs and develop new products and processes faster than their competition. As a matter of fact, experts agree that businesses looking to succeed in today and tomorrow’s marketplace must consider turning their arms-length relationships with their suppliers into close, well managed partnerships featuring close-knit networks that enable them to continuously learn, improve and prosper.

So, how can you achieve this? Truth be told, it’s tougher to build seamless relationships with suppliers than most businesses imagine. Yes, but not anymore.

As it is, majority of manufacturers work with a myriad of suppliers, rendering the supply chain complex. With stiff competition necessitating a need to reduce prices for the end-user, most small and medium enterprises are compelled to squeeze margins to their detriment.  

In order to maintain profitability, forward-looking start-up’s must adapt a systematic approach to their supply/sourcing strategy. This is when efficient supplier relationship management comes in handy.

Supplier relationship management (SRM) refers to a systematic, enterprise-wide assessment of suppliers’ assets and capabilities with regards to overall business strategy. An effective SRM strategy will not only help you build strong partnerships of mutual collaboration but also help reduce risks of errors.

Hence adopting a strategic approach to supplier management is a crucial step towards boosting the profitability of your business.

Why supplier relationship management is important

A small business without a reliable supplier relationship will eventually feel like veering off the road in your family car—wobble and risky. To ensure a steady flow of new and better products to your inventory, strategic supplier management is the magic you need.

3 key factors driving supplier relationship management

Reduce cost: Most business transactions and expenses relate to supplies. Hence, when you build a mutually-enriching relationship with your suppliers, you can enjoy discounts, incentives, special deals and more. Additionally, having a good relationship with suppliers reduces the extra cost that may be due to errors and delays in procurement.

Encourage supplier-led innovation: Establishing a great relationship with your suppliers ensures efficient communication. This encourages suppliers to share ideas about product improvement, service innovation, supply chain process efficiency and more.

Supplier evaluation: It’s vital to assess your suppliers and make sure they meet all qualifications needed by your company. With an effective supplier management system, you can detect areas that need improvement as you do business with the suppliers.

How to manage supplier relationships better

Effective supplier management is a no-walk-in-the-park, however, it isn’t impossible. Below are some ideas you can consider when thinking of rolling out a supplier relationship management.

1. Segmenting suppliers for SRM

Start by segmenting purchased items or raw material into two main categories—Profit Impact and Supply Risk. Here’s why.

Note that your profit impact is basically the impact that the supplied items have on your bottom line. Profit impact is usually higher for raw materials or items that make the biggest portion of the final product like Colorbond steel for the construction of a roof or processed fabric for a dress manufacturer.

Supply risk happens when the supply chain is disrupted due to unavailability of a given item. Supply risk is considered high for those raw materials that are scarce, rare or whose supply is impacted by government policies, delivery logistics or when suppliers are fewer. For example, the unique material or fabrics like silk which are required by a saree manufacturer.

Once all the commodities have been classified, with products and components according to their profit impact and supply risk, the products can then be segmented into the product-purchasing categorisation matrix as follows:

• High-Profit Impact and High-Supply Risk: Strategic suppliers
• High- profit and Low-Supply risk: Leverage supplier
• Low-Profit Impact, High-Supply Risk: Bottleneck suppliers 
• Low-Profit Impact, Low-Supply Risk: Non-critical supplies

Segmenting your suppliers enables you to Plan for Purchase. Using supplier segmentation, you are able to ascertain reliable suppliers and group them in one category based on their price, quality and product importance, enabling you to make better and more efficient decisions concerning purchases. Furthermore, you can employ cloud technology like Xero Projects to enable you keep track of your payments and purchases with real-time data, allowing you to manage your supplier relationship more effectively.

2. Shift from competitive to collaborative relationships

After segmenting your suppliers, take time to approach each supplier and discuss the relevance of their product on your business. For leverage and non-critical suppliers, look for alternative suppliers in the market so as to establish a competitive relationship with them and optimise your profit margins and product abundance.

Be sure to build collaborative relationships with both your bottleneck and strategic suppliers whom you can’t substitute and are crucial to your supply chain. This demands that you establish a strong partnership and or alliance-based relationship approaches.

SRM is undergoing great transition, with strategies varying from one company to another.

Gone are the days when just managing expenditure and securing the best business deals from your suppliers was enough. You have to continuously keep an eye on the yield delivered by your supplier.

With an effective SRM strategy coupled with the right application, you can establish long-term and trustworthy relationships with your major suppliers. In addition, you can also come up with an exit strategy well in advance for your troublesome suppliers.

A Technology-Driven Approach to Supplier Relationship Management:

Looking at the above supplier segmentation matrix, there’s no doubt that all the suppliers that fall in the Strategic supplier segment are your most esteemed suppliers.

This explains why today most organisations rely on technology to better manage these relationships in a bit to reward their businesses with a superior edge over competition.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are yet to define what a strategic supplier really is for their business before determining how technology can come in handy in helping them build those relationships.

While understanding the art of segmenting your suppliers is the first step towards ensuring better supplier relationships, knowing the most suitable technology to enhance that relationship is quite important. 

A survey on Procurement 2025 carried out by Efficio in conjunction with Strategic Suppliers cooperation Cranfield University revealed that technology is simply making more data-driven decisions in procurement.

As a small or medium-sized business owner, you may have to consider investing in the latest technology to improve or transform your SRM efforts. If you plan to integrate technology into your business so as to maximise and fast-track value from supplier relationships, an ERP is the platform for you.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) enables you to access all your tally data on whenever, wherever. If you use an ERP to manage your inventory, then having full insight of the data will enable you to ascertain and categorise your Strategic Suppliers and improve your relationship with them.

As it is, SRM is all about integrating the right resources, practices and technologies required to align your small or medium-sized business with your suppliers in order to build stronger and lasting relationships.

Armed with the right tools to foster supplier relationship management, you will then focus on what is more important to your business.

When you take time to identify and classify top suppliers and create better relationships, this leads to efficient operations.

ERP’s are designed to provide complete visibility of your stock details including stock items and stock groups which include relevant information about sales, purchases, closing stock, top sellers, top customers, stock value for the group, go-down wise breakage as well as the items in the group.

This information can be used to segment your suppliers in 4 different categories as mentioned above and better manage your relationships with them.

The post Supplier Relationship Management in Small Business appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

But recently, the media has been hinting that we’re right in the thick of a recession.

According to a survey carried out by PwC, CEOs are no longer optimistic. The ongoing economic deceleration both locally and globally, besides the political distress and trade conflicts all around has forced the topmost brass in businesses throughout Australia to express little confidence in the nation’s growth prospects.

However, it’s not so much about whether the market will contract but rather when.

If tomorrow’s media headlines screamed of a potential disaster and consumer sentiments plunged to the floor, what would that mean for your business? Would you be afraid or stay optimistic about new opportunities that would emerge? Or become worried wondering whether you will withstand the crash?

This guide is designed to assist you in preparing for the worst case scenario even if it never gets to happen.

The article features 5 important steps to protect you against a possible market crash. And not only will the guide help safeguard you from bad times, but also give your business a competitive edge in good times.

1. Cash Buffer

Stockpiling cash sounds easier in theory than in practical. While this step looks clearly obvious, a recent ASIC report showed that 40% of business failures are caused by a lack of cash flow. A substantial part of the problem emanates from what’s known as the ‘Parkinson’s Principle’. This principle states that ‘Work expands to fill the time available for its completion’.

Have you ever realised that when you have to complete a task within an hour, it takes an hour? And that when you only have five minutes you’re somehow able to get it done within that time?

That’s Parkinson’s Principle at work.

The concept is applicable to other areas too.

Take losing weight for example. Humans have a tendency of eating everything that is on the plate (Yes, my hand’s definitely up on this one). If we made the plate smaller, we will eat less food without realising any difference in satisfaction. That too is Parkinson at work.

So, if you apply this principle to your money, it’s important to understand that you (or your team) are most likely going to spend any available cash.

Keeping money away for a rainy day is one of the ancient tricks in the book but from experience many businesses can’t survive without fresh revenue generated for a period of 4-6 weeks.

As your business continues to grow and cash accumulates, somehow, you will find new ways of spending this money. Obviously, most of the new expenses will be genuine operational costs relating to your growing business.

Yet, after close examination, you will recognise that a good chunk of the new spending relates to non-core activities. Maybe you may decide to re-brand despite there being no good reason to do so (other than the fact that you got bored with the usual ‘look’ of your business cards and letterhead).

Maybe you decide to get a few more Uber Comforts when you were comfortable using the Uber X earlier on.

It’s easier to fall into this trap when you fail to prioritise stockpiling cash for what is only needed. One of the main challenges is that most small business owners have their funds coming in and out from the same bank account.

“As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession” – Bo Bennett

This is likened to putting all your food on one plate—or restricting your available time to complete a given task. The single bank account is a recipe for never ending cashflow problems.

If this is the way you’re running your business, then forget about building it into a profitable establishment. It’s simply impossible to track your transactions and any in flow will be quickly spent.   

As a matter of fact, if you withdraw some cash (profit) and lock it away once it’s received, you will figure out how to run your business with what’s left. Trust me, you definitely will. (You probably began with nothing and managed to work out things). Surpluses often make us become less creative hence it’s better to whisk away some cash now, and start figuring out how to run the business with what’s left.

For any profitable business model, the magic number is always six.

To prepare your business more adequately for a crash, from now on, get into the habit of allocating revenue into different baskets that is, bank accounts, instead of putting all your eggs in one big basket.

Six may sound like an exaggeration but it helps you keep track as well as form healthy habits. Each account should have a separate purpose.

Business accounts: The magic six

Tip: Make it simple—check your account every week and transfer everything available in your income account into the other accounts.

Managing your business finances in this manner not only helps you avoid overspending, but also ensures that you have adequate cash for both the expected ad unexpected expenses—all these while remaining with enough money to make a difference in your realm.

Action stations: Open your accounts today.

If you don’t restrain yourself by apportioning money to the key areas of saving, donating and of course paying yourself, you will end up spending every dollar of your revenue.

This step should help you grow your business quickly though it’s not PROTECTING your business and you are at risk of ending up where you will be consistently chasing your tail or in a worse place.

Your challenge: Break Parkinson’s law—Keep in mind that nature only changes when it’s forced to. Your business behaves this way too. Taking the challenge to rise above your urge to spend every penny earned is a decision you’ll never regret.

2. Cost cutting

Proper allocation of your money is the initial step. You should also be able to significantly reduce the cash outflow if you have to prepare yourself well for a crash.

And, this doesn’t mean you should go for cheap things in the name of cutting costs. The last thing you should do is reduce costs to the point where your brand is affected negatively.

Spending less does not equal to doing less. Never throw your baby out with bathwater and cut costs to the point that you can’t operate your business.

What you ought to do is gain a thorough understanding of every single expense that pertains to running your business and find out which of these expenses can be minimised or eliminated altogether.

To achieve this, you will require a 3-step process:

• Identifying hotspots
• Prioritise the ones to cut
• Incentivise the cuts

Identifying Hotspots

To identify hotspot, look for the following three categories in your financials:

1. Recent increase in costs
2. Expenses that cost a lot more than any others
3. Costs that fluctuate

In case your operations are a one-man show, do this on your own or seek the help of a qualified accountant but based on the size of your organisation, you may have to allocate this task amongst the various teams or departments in your business to make the work easier.

Once this step is completed, choose the ones that belong to these three categories:

1. Mission-critical and highly valued
2. Highly valued but not mission-critical
3. Non-mission-critical and low-value

Any item that falls under category one shouldn’t be touched unless you find away to make it more cost effective without causing any negative impact on operations. The best example here would be the truck maintenance expense if you’re a logistics company.

Items that end up in the second category can be somehow manipulated to become cheaper. Consider the fridge in your break room. It’s not an item of much value to your business but if eliminated, people will not be happy. Maybe it would be prudent to replace the fancy water bottles for the more affordable home-brand variety.

As expected, anything that falls under the third category can be done away with. For example, mobile plans for those who rarely leave the office and don’t respond to work-related calls from home. It’s likely that you have more subscriptions on your online tools and websites than you really need. Be sure to review each item one by one.  

Prioritise Costs to Cut

Before choosing the items to cut costs on, you may have to consider prioritising them. Make this process easier for you and your team by allocating the expense items in each of the following categories:

1. Hi-return, low-complexity
   ‘Big Gains, Easy Wins’ – If cutting a non-mission-critical item will give you good gains and you can do this as easily as cancelling a subscription account that never gets used, make a move immediately.
2. Medium-return, low-complexity
   ‘Moderate Gains, Easy Wins’ – Get rid of the items that may not save your business thousands, but which are simple to cut out, like switching from premium to standard subscriptions or changing your stationery supplier.
3. High-return, high-complexity
   ‘Big Gains That Are Tricky to Implement’ – This may include creating a new strategy, for example setting up a sound-proof meeting room with a large screen so your team isn’t always jumping into Ubers to see clients.
4. Low-return, high-complexity
   ‘Small Gains That Are Tricky To Implement’ – Considered lowest priority, this includes the changes which take a while to implement but won’t impact your overall revenue by a significant amount.

Incentivise Expense Cuts

No one likes the idea of spending less, in most cases because they imagine they will be missing out on some important thing, so give your team reasons why they should consider cutting costs.

First and foremost, be honest. If the business cuts on expenses, everyone on the payroll gets to keep their job. This is basic truth often ignored or understated. Working for a well-established company is always a privilege and so it’s often easier than imagined to motivate your teams to take an active role in cutting costs without giving them incentives or cash bonuses.

The next step involves building the culture of saving money within your organisation. You may decide to achieve this by turning the whole idea into a fun game by encouraging weekly meetings where teams do their best to outsmart each other in terms of the amount saved. The winner should get some form of reward which should not be necessarily monetary.

The third and final step is transparency. Let your team have access to the company’s financials and budgets so they can be in the picture and understand the ultimate effect of every cost-cutting measure they’re implementing. They can also participate by tracking the scores and follow closely how the business is progressing as one way of staying motivated and identifying even bigger cost-cutting opportunities.

Carry out expense reviews regularly like four times each year so you may understand the money that’s flowing out that in essence, shouldn’t.

3. Assets And Automation

Having eliminated costs, the next step is to consider the fact that you’re paying your workers for their time and that time is expensive, especially here in Australia.

To make the most returns from every dollar spend, master the art of delegating and automation.

Your best and highest paid employees should be free to handle the highest-impact tasks that produce more revenue for your business.

When it comes to low-revenue tasks, delegate. Assign them to junior staff or trainees so you can focus your energies and attention on more important matters. 

What You Need To Know About Business Process Automation

Business Process Automation reduces noise from the business, helping you save more on resources. This isn’t the task of a business owner but the team members who should be able to invent and implement workflow automation that helps save time and money.

Seven things to automate:

• Customer service
• Lead generation
• Sales workflow
• Marketing and social media
• Meeting minutes
• Scheduling
• Accounts

What You Need To Know About Assets

Basically, the term asset refers to anything that produces new value when you and your team are away. Picture your business from a distance. Now hold that thought and picture it without people. The degree to which the business will still run is the level to which you have built what can be considered as an asset-driven business.

Investing in the right assets makes workflows move faster and can automatically generate quality inbound leads, cut the time spent on training a new team and ensure your business runs into the future as a well-lubricated machine.

Every asset purchased should deliver clear and measurable returns on investment while enhancing efficiency.  

Examples of assets

1. Online Tools and Software – Third-party apps will make working hours more productive.
2. Business Systems – Consistency is key and this can be streamlined by introducing systems.
3. Procedures and Processes – Developing internal procedure documents and videos will eliminate wasted time.
4. Automation Tools – Allow the latest technology to complete tasks for you and your team.

The Goal Of Workflow Automation And Assets 

In most cases as businesses grow, they become complex with more expenses, more layers and additional moving parts.

By constantly striving to cut or eliminate expenses, automate tasks or delegate easy tasks to junior staff or interns, you will be building a business that will not only thrive but will also be efficient. Profits increase while running costs reduce. There should be systems in place that will ensure that when you or your team is not there, the machines keep working.

Aim towards recession-proofing your business by operating lean and gaining maximum returns on every employee on your payroll.

When a recession hits, instead of getting bloated with more people who shouldn’t even be there while your accounts get drained by unnecessary expenses, your business will only become the best version of itself.

Carry out an exercise involving you and your key personal and jot down every repetitive, non-skilled tasks they perform every week and how long the tasks take to complete. How much more would the business make if this time was spent on revenue generating activities? This explains just why hiring virtual assistants who usually charge lower rates can ultimately propel your profits to higher levels.

4. Standing Out

One of the best ways for your business to achieve a competitive advantage in your market is for your brand to be recognised as the “go to” brand.

This objective of being more visible and trusted should never be ignored. Positioning yourself as an industry leader makes any other major activity in your business more efficient and cost-effective.

Imagine your brand being recognised in your market as the number one ‘go to’ brand and you the founder being acknowledged as a Notable Person of Influence in your industry. You and your business have been top in the media, and flooded with invitations to speak in large-scale conferences and events. What then happens to your cost per lead? How easy would it be to attract top talent to your company? Would your company be able to close on that major partnership faster? The answer is yes of course.

Unless you get recognised as one of the ‘go to’ brands in your market, you will struggle to thrive and everything will be costly.

Make a business that stands out

Businesses headed by founders who are renowned, trusted and liked are more resilient in a meltdown because people prefer them and consider them as the best.

5 things to consider:

Perfect Your Pitch

During good times, you might be tempted to become a little lazy around marketing and effective communication. Your business’ ‘pitch’ is the backbone of your customer value proposition. It should captivate and draw the attention and interest of the target audience faster and more powerfully. Take a moment to answer this question:

“Why should a person prefer to work with you over your competitors?”

Publish Thought Leadership

Publishing content is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience and start generating ‘inbound’ opportunities. Building credibility to ensure your message is heard by those with potential to help increase your business growth is important, however, the number one reason why most people fail to provide content consistently is lack of time.

Your objective should be to generate enough content such that if someone tried to ‘content gorge’ on your material, it would take them more than 7 hours and forcing them to visit at least 4 different platforms to succeed.

For instance, someone may decide to watch a 90-minute talk recording you shared on YouTube, and thereafter listen to a 2 hour podcast episode before spending another hour reading various articles you’ve published. Obviously this may not happen every time—but could happen over time with the magic number 7 hours across 4 different platforms. This should be your target and in case the market declines and opportunities dry up, you will enjoy a wider ‘net’ that will reward you with a steady flow of new business.

Build A Product Ecosystem 

Single products and or services don’t bring in money but product ecosystems do. Every business should be able to succeed in the following 4 types of products:

Every product layer in your ecosystem must deliver the following results:

• Capture ATTENTION and generate a LEAD.
• Build TRUST and generate a QUALIFIED LEAD.
• Solve a problem and generate REVENUE.
• Offer continuous support and generate RECURRING PROFIT.

If your product layer cannot fulfill these 4 types of outcomes, your business will fail to attain the level of efficiency it needs to achieve in order to thrive given that over reliance on human time is costly and may not achieve these expected outcomes.

Raise Your Profile

Nowadays, Google dictates who you become online and you are who Google says you are. Try and Google yourself and company right now and see what shows up in the search engine from a prospect’s perspective, a marketer or potential talent or key alliance partner.

Do you spell authority and credibility? Now try and google your competition. How are they performing? You will either have to seriously pull up your socks if you want to remain relevant over the next 3-5 years OR you will realise you have the opportunity to standout from the crowd. Either way, you must act fast.

Have a poor profile? Just add the word S.A.L.T.

There are 4 crucial areas you ought to master. Ask yourself if you are worth the S.A.L.T. in your specific market.

S = SOCIAL MEDIA

No arguments please, you’ve got to nail it on social media. We suggest you focus more on this step once you start rocking the next three steps.

A = AWARDS / ACCOLADES

We were ranked the 8^th fastest growing company in Australia (Award). We were named by Inc.com as “one of the leading business accelerators in the world” (Accolade). Create a list of awards or accolades that best fit your business.

L = LIVE APPEARANCES

Receiving invitations to speak, host, judge or sponsor at a well publicised industry event that touches your target market has real impact and enhances your credibility. Do you have a speaker kit? You can’t afford not to have it.

T = THIRD PARTY MEDIA

Finding yourself and your company in the media, on other renowned person’s blogs and podcasts—anything that involves someone else featuring you and your business and what you do.

Begin with ALT, then move back to S and you will be impressed with your results on social media.

WARNING: Just like salt, “personal branding” should be added in small quantities to an existing “main course” of any successful business. But on its own, it can turn bitter.

Partnerships

There’s nothing great that has ever been achieved through isolation. One of the most effective ways to improve existing opportunities despite the market conditions is by forming partnerships, joint ventures and alliances with interested high performers in the sector.

The 3 types of partnerships you should consider are:

PRODUCT Partnerships: These partnerships enable you to provide added value to your customers without you or your business having to build extra internal capacity. For instance, an accountant may create a partnership with a banker or a broker, delivering better outcomes for the client.

BRAND Partnerships: These partnerships help to align your brand with a company, brand or a reputable person that boasts more credibility in the industry more than you. For instance, if you host a webinar or talk show with a given famous celebrity, the association will enable the celeb to transfer some of their brand’s goodwill to your brand. The same is true for any partnership or association with a blue chip company.

DISTRIBUTION Partnerships: These partnerships enable your business to reach a wider audience. For instance, a sales and marketing company may choose to promote the services of a reputable web developer to their clientele and vice versa. If there’s no conflict of interest between the two partners, then this can translate into a very powerful way of driving new business at no extra cost to either party. One of the most effective tools for succeeding in any given market condition is by establishing a broad range of distribution partnerships.  

The secret is not starting at one or two. If you have already worked on each of the previous 4 steps, you should have a powerfully credible message, with different content and a well-tailored product ecosystem that will help you to establish more solid partnerships.

5: Help (Self & Others)

It’s important to create a “circle” of partners and suppliers who can hold your back during tough times. The main thing in this step however, is how YOU can dive deeper to help others during their hard times.

What products or services can you produce and deliver in order to help others survive the crash? If you can answer this question, then you will be able to position yourself in a manner that will enable you to receive cash inflows. You can also take advantage of the situation to keep the cash coming in and stamp your authority in your field.

Who does your business need?

Draw a list of external partners or providers who can support you through the downturn. These can include Accountants, banks/finance providers, Business Coaches, Suppliers with flexible terms, JV Partners specialising in lead generation and any other persons your business might need along the way.

How can you help others?

Create a list of ways you could help others faced with difficulties during a recession.

Market crashes provide great opportunities to those who are prepared. As early as now, you can begin marketing your products and or services either in readiness for or to cushion yourself against upcoming recession.

Hope has never been an effective strategy when handling an economic crisis nor will it help with your sales and marketing.  

If you have no confidence that your business can be able to weather a recession, it’s never too late to start and the good news is that you can start now. Take the first step by opening additional accounts (or delegating simpler tasks to junior staff to focus on more important matters).

Proper, Early Preparation Prevents the Probability of Poverty!

The additional bonus to recession-proof your business means you’ll immediately start to streamline your operations and reserve more of the revenue you’re generating.

When you’ve got a fat bank account during a recession, you gain the power to grow your business in substantial ways faster than when the market conditions are normal. Not only will you buy things cheaply, but you will also source top talent eyeing your company because it is stable and will offer steady income.

When recession hits, expect to see carnage. But, when the economic sun starts rising again, those that were resilient through the tough times will hit the ground running faster than before.  

The post 5 Ways To Recession-proof Your business appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

While these are unavoidable, you can always learn how to overcome them more smartly, and creatively turn a ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ to a straight ‘yes’. Here’s how to achieve this.

“No means not now.”

If you’re in sales, this is one of the top rules.

How To Overcome Objections

We’ll take a minute to cover specific objections though there is a more defined process for overcoming objections. Put it into practice in order to learn more about overcoming objections—regardless of what it takes.

Generally, this process involves four basic steps:

1. Listen and Identify

Even when your prospects spell out their objections, be sure to listen. Rather than jumping in to give an answer or justify your product or service—or worse still interrupting your prospect before they finish sharing all their concerns, give your prospect enough time to speak. This helps them feel like you’re genuinely concerned and interested in helping; this boosts your chances of closing the deal once you address the objection.

2. Understand and Empathise

People can be complicated sometimes. We don’t always say what we mean and even if we tried to, our words are often misinterpreted.

It’s therefore crucial to digest and be able to rephrase your prospect’s concerns and demonstrate that you truly understand their objection (or that you really don’t understand, hence giving them a chance to correct you).

For instance, you may say “Just to be sure that we are on the same page here, your concern is that our onboarding costs are very high, so it’ll likely take longer and cost too much—for you to get value of our product. Is that right?”

There could be other underlying objections your prospect hasn’t shared, or may just have alluded to. This might require you to ask open-ended questions just to unearth all the objections before you respond more effectively.

3. Isolate

It’s one thing to get an objection however as a professional sales consultant, you’re responsible for controlling the conversation. Isolating an objection is often skipped on the basis of hope that you can overcome this objection quickly to close the deal.

You should always isolate the objection directly after or as part of your empathetic response.

“I can certainly understand what you are saying. Now so that it’s clear in my mind, is this the only thing that’s stopping you today?”

This simple phrase will lock the objection in, and in most instances prevent the buyer from responding with another objection. Throwing in ‘today’ subtlety puts emphasis on closing the deal now.

4. Respond

Whether or not your prospects’ concerns sound serious to you, be sure to acknowledge that their concerns are valid. If they seem to think that you’re not taking their objections with the weight they deserve or just trying to lure them into an agreement, your chances of closing the deal are very slim.

If you feel you have the authority to handle the objection at hand, don’t shy away from doing it.  Otherwise, just explain that you may need to push it up the flagpole and schedule an appropriate time to revert to them.

5. Confirm and Overcome

Recap the objection and confirm with the prospect that if you would overcome the objection they would be willing to go ahead with the deal.

This next part is very crucial as there’s no need of taking your time to overcome an objection if it won’t get you closer to securing business. Keep in mind that some prospects will simply never buy no matter what you to—in which case it should never be considered as an objection but rather a brush off. If they have insufficient budget, aren’t a fully qualified prospect, have no authority to make the decision and have no signs of escalating your pitch to anyone higher in the chain of command, then you are probably wasting your time.

In summing up, these four steps could be narrowed down to the following:   

Prospect: “I honestly can’t take this any further because I fear caterpillars, and there’s one right there on your logo.”

• Listen and Identify and I – Employ active listening skills.
• Understand and Empathise – “So you mean you have a caterpillar phobia, and even mere pictures of caterpillars make you uncomfortable?”
• Isolate – “Is this the only thing that’s stopping you from signing today?”
• Respond – “I totally understand. Phobias can really have a serious effect on everyday life. I bet we could probably remove the logo from your instance of the tool. Would that help?”
• Confirm and Overcome – “Great, so if we can go ahead with this, I’ll speak with the tech team to see about removing that logo.”

Overcoming Specific Objections

After reviewing the basic process, here are the 5 most common sales objections you’re likely to face, and how you should handle them.

1. “Now isn’t a Good Time.”

Timing objection is so common for a couple of reasons. As a matter of fact, there are two underlying objections here: 1) Personally I have no time to handle this and 2) This is just not the right time to buy it.

Either way, you need to do further investigation to know how to handle this objection.

How to Handle It

If your prospect feels it’s not a good time to purchase, consider the following before going any further:

1. Ensure the prospect is qualified (avoid wasting your precious  time)
2. Don’t oversell just because you feel desperate

Check this article for more inspiration on how to respond to this objection. Try a few until you find those that best suit your style. The main goal is to cause the lead to come to own conclusion that now is the best time to proceed.

If the prospect seems too busy, consider #5 below.

2. “Too Expensive.”

This objection can be ambiguous and while your prospects could be truly lacking cash, it could also be a brush off or they may not really think your product or service is of much value equivalent to the cost.

How to Handle It

Again, you have to work smart to get the real reasons for the objection. Pause for a few seconds after the prospect objects the price, as this will prompt them to voluntarily provide more information. Give them time to talk after which you can ask a few questions to really get to the root of their objection.

Find out why the prospect thinks your product or service is expensive (probably in comparison with alternatives). In most cases you’ll realise their reason is a mere vague feeling and nothing concrete. Here, employing a few hard facts can help put their minds at ease.

If you think the prospect just requires a little reassurance, explain the pricing in relation to the ROI and how much it would cost the prospect if they failed to act. It’s more about demonstrating its value and less about proving that the product is worth its price.

3. “Competitor is Cheaper.”

This sales objection is commonplace and once in a while you won’t miss to meet a target who will try to shut you down by mentioning your competitors. Take this as a blessing in disguise since a true comparison with a worthy competitor will give you a chance to highlight overlooked opportunities and ride on them to bring out new ideas. It’s possible that the target is well informed and knows exactly what they need (since they have been researching more about your competitors or talking to them), relax, this will sure save you time.  

How to Handle It

Ask questions to find out how well they know the competitor or the offer received from them. While they may not be willing to switch to your product or service immediately, be sure to use it as a learning experience and if they happen to highlight problems that your product or service can solve, you’re in luck as you may just end up making the sale.

4. “It Doesn’t Have This Extra Feature.”

In this time and era, consumers are used to and expect personalised products. Sometimes that can happen and other times can’t. If it’s impossible, you can choose to go and make your prospect feel like your solution is actually personalised by giving them more time during your interactions and listening keenly.

How to Handle It

Sure thing, customise where you can and to the extent you’re able to. But also understand that if your prospect asks for something you can’t provide they may just not be a good fit after all.

5. “I Don’t Have Time to Talk to You Right Now.”

Despite sounding like a mere brush-off, this objection can sometimes be true as rarely do people have anything extra nowadays. If your target seems too busy, there’s simply no guaranteed solution, give yourself a pat in the back that at least your alternatives are quite straightforward.

How to Handle It

First, try to find out if truly it’s a lack of time or something else. By following the above general objection process, your interaction may sound like this:

“I’m sorry I really don’t have time to talk to you today.”

• Listen – Pay careful attention.
• Understand – “I perfectly understand. I’m swamped too, and this is definitely a crazy time of the year.”
• Respond – “I honestly don’t want to waste your time. I can tell you about the product in exactly three minutes. If you’re really interested, I’ll send you more information, and if not, we’ll leave it at that.”
• Confirm – “Awesome, so not more than three minutes of your precious time. How does that sound?”
  • If your prospect says yes – “Excellent, can I go ahead now?”
  • If they say no – “I’m looking at my calendar; how about today afternoon at 3 o’clock?”

If the answer is still a no, you may have to explore more deeply to understand what’s really going on. If you’re struggling to find your way around the objection, assume the target might truly be in need but that need isn’t huge. If this is the case, you may have to reassess the target’s journey to this point as you could have missed something that makes them feel the problem is less important.

Punching It All Together

There you have it—5 most common objections and opportunities to turn them into real sales. Ideally, if you practice and perfect the general objection technique, you’ll remain with a virtual skeleton key that will help you deal with any form of objection that may crop up along the way.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that objections are a natural part of any sales process and not necessarily a reflection of your skills as a salesperson. As a matter of fact, an objection serves as the training ground to perfect your technique. If you never face any, you may be missing out on priceless chances to become an excellent salesperson.

If you wish to horn your objection-overcoming abilities even further, this is how to take it to the next level:

1. Perfect your sales process from start to finish. Remember that objections don’t pop up in a vacuum, and if you break the other parts of the sales conversation, then the whole process will collapse (objection or not).
2. Practice makes perfect. Practice on the job, in front of the mirror as well as in your personal life. Your sales numbers will impress you.
3. Self-awareness is important. Any person can learn the sales and objection scripts, but employing them with flair requires a lot of empathy, patience and understanding. Be sure not to patronise your leads or recite responses like a robot.
4. Know when to call it quits. Of course, the data compels us to contact a lead multiple times in order to gain greater chances of getting through, but it reaches a point when more follow-up is unwise. So pay careful attention to the signals your prospect is or isn’t sending.

The post Overcoming The Top Five Sales Objections In 2020 appeared first on Darryn Van Hout.

Strategy implementation translates an organisation’s strategy into real action, with a main aim of achieving set targets.

However, this process involves two distinct dimensions; the human aspect of strategy implementation and the process of putting it into action. Even though more attention is given to the process of strategy implementation, the human aspects are often ignored.

This article will take you through the process of strategy implementation and explain more about the human part. So read on to the end to learn more.

How It Works

Basically, strategy implementation refers to is the process of executing plans and strategies with the sole aim of accomplishing an organisation’s long-term goals.

Strategy implementation is designed to turn strategies into given actions that lead to achievement of a company’s objectives.

It’s crucial to remember that any actions undertaken by a company depend not only on the system but also on the human aspect of the business. The support, capability and acceptance of staff affect or determine the ultimate success of any given strategy.

It’s therefore important to get assistance, the right motivation and hard work from employees at all levels. In the absence of this combination, strategy implementation will be impossible.

What Are The fundamentals?

There are several key factors that drive the strategy implementation process. By putting in place all the necessary requirements, implementing a strategy can be as easy as ABC…

Team

The human aspects of implementing a strategy directly involve the people in that organisation. These are the employees who work hard at the shared goal of implementing a particular company strategy. Hence, effective management of employees is an important factor to strategy implementation.

Of course by now you understand that to properly implement a strategy people are an important aspect of it. However, two criteria must be followed so as to get the best out of people.

1. Your workforce should include adequate number of people to support your goals.
2. The people in your teams should be skilled or capable enough to work towards achieving the goal you set for them.

While you can always hire more staff to fill gaps, you must ensure that the people being hired are well-equipped with relevant skills to propel your organisation forward.

This is one question that determines your interview process and the role played by your HR manager. While hiring people with the required experience is important, finding people to serve you in the longer term should also be a priority. Hire people who believe in your goals and are determined to help you achieve your long-term strategy.

Resources

Resources are one of the key pillars of strategy implementation. Without adequate, continuously available resources, all your efforts might not bear any fruit. Resource management is a vital part of strategy implementation.

There are two factors that help to ensure proper resource allocation:

1. Available resources for allocation.
2. The non-existent resources required for strategy implementation.

Since continuous resource is required for effective strategy implementation, you have to ensure the resources exist. In the meantime, be sure to properly allocate any available resources.

Organisational Structure

An organisational structure refers to the function, relationship, responsibility and communication of employees within a corporation. Any organisation having a clear-cut structure can easily achieve the company objectives than one with a muddled structure.

An organisation’s structure should be transparent, enabling any employee to communicate with the supervisor with ease and vice versa. Proper management, communication between employees and transparent inter-departmental relationships make for a great-achiever organisation.

Culture

This is another key factor in strategy implementation. A good company culture where employees feel comfortable enables work to be done faster. When a culture of responsibility is cultivated amongst employees, they take responsibility for their own actions hence promoting a sense of reward and accountability.

The company culture should also provide a lively and open atmosphere where everyone stays motivated to execute their tasks while doing their best to attain the shared goal.

Tools

In today’s modern age, strategy and digital systems are intertwined. You can utilise various tools to handle multiple tasks in your business. As we focus on the human aspects of strategy implementation, you should remember that support offered by a given tool is in terms of human benefits. You should clearly understand the need for a tool and the support it provides to your employees in ensuring the efficiency of the strategy implementation process.

There are numerous tools out there that have been rendered redundant and simply unnecessary. An ERP for instance, is a tool that can eliminate the need to rely significantly on software only. A comprehensive ERP is the most effective tool in reducing pressure among your employees while accelerating the process of strategy implementation.

Strategy Implementation Steps

It’s preferable that you draw a well-planned list of tasks to be done during the strategy implementation process. Having known the most important factors to be considered, let’s now see the steps involved in strategy implementation.

1. Analysis

After formulating the plan, the next step is to assign specific tasks to each and every employee of your company. But before you do that, be sure to analyse the plan again and see if there’s need to improve it or not.

The three main things to ensure at this stage include:

1. Finding out any loopholes in the plan and if all individual objectives are geared towards implementing the company’s strategy.
2. Ensuring you have adequate budget to support and drive your organisation towards achieving the objective.
3. Ensuring all employees have clear understanding of what is expected of them.

2. Finalisation

Here, you will be required to create a basis for the strategy implementation process. The following are a few things to consider in this step.

1. Draw a roadmap for procedures involving individual and department-specific task implementation.
2. Communicate with managers at all levels regarding department-specific tasks and responsibilities.
3. Assign the tasks to respective employees in each and every department.
4. Ensure all employees clearly understand the goals and what it will take to achieve them.

3. Management and Monitoring

Strategy implementation is one process that requires close monitoring. You should always ensure the process works effectively.

1. Create an employee performance tracking system. This also involves designing a proper metric to assess the performance of each employee. Closely monitor the performance of your employees and ensure everything is moving in accordance to the roadmap created.
2. Develop a reward-based performance management system for all your employees. This works well to motivate them and fast-track the process of achieving your strategies.
3. Ensure your employees have easy access to their supervisors whenever they face a challenge in understanding any bit of the process or need help getting a job completed.

4. Delivery

Once you have set everything in its proper place, you are ready to start the process of implementing your strategies. Below are the day-to-day tasks you should perform.

1. Keep supervising, motivating, and driving your employees towards achieving company objectives.
2. Continue to evaluate department-specific and employee-specific performance.
3. If need be, amend your plan as you move forward in order to get better results.

Why Most Businesses Fail To Launch

Despite following all the necessary steps in implementing strategies and ensuring all key factors are considered, many company strategies simply don’t get anywhere.

So, why do most organisations fail to successfully implement their strategies? Well, according to business insider, there are 12 main reasons why a strategy can fail. This are listed below.

• Overwhelming Strategic Plan & Unrealistic Goals – A complex strategic plan can reduce the chances of attaining your company goals. When unrealistic objectives are set, chances of success are slim.
• Lack of Leadership & Inadequate Monitoring – To get the best results out of employees, good leadership is paramount. Poor leadership or the lack of it from supervisors and managers can lead to failure of strategic plans. It’s therefore important for managers or leaders to clearly understand their roles, assign tasks appropriately to employees and monitor the performance of employees.
• Unclear Accountability – Employees should clearly understand their roles and responsibilities. Any work atmosphere without accountability only leads to strategy failure.
• Lack of Motivation – Of course, the task of motivating all employees to work hard towards achieving a specific goal is a no walk in the park. It’s the duty of managers and supervisors to ensure their employees are well-motivated and performing as expected.
• Lack of Communication – Lack of communication amongst employees, their supervisors and departments can spell disaster for a company. This highly contributes to the failure in strategy implementation.

Summary:

Having an effective strategy enhances your chances of ultimately achieving success in the long-run. However, it’s crucial to keep in mind that success cannot be achieved without working hard and smart to implement your strategy.

The strategy implementation process is a long and daunting one from a human point of view. In order to stay on course, in the longer term, there are several things you need to consider which are already covered in this article. If you wish to take some pressure off your teams and make your strategy implementation process easy and organized, you can consider trying an ERP.

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