Growing Your Business

I think that it is fair to say that everyone in our industry WANTS to grow their business. Maybe there is a small percentage, a very small percentage of people who say "I'm good" or "I don't need any more orders" but I do not know any of these people.

The iron in the statement "I WANT to grow my business" is that not many of the people who say this are willing to put in the work necessary to GROW their business.

I equate this to going into your backyard every day in the spring and looking to see how your garden is growing. You become frustrated because day after day all you see is dirt with no signs of growth.

Then you realize:

• You did not actually plant any seeds

AND

• You never watered anything.

Thinking of it this way, should you really be surprised that nothing is growing!

But I still hear people say "but I REALLY WANT to grow my business!"

So let's start with a plan.

1. What do want to grow? Perhaps it is your existing accounts. How about generating new customers in a particular niche market like construction or real estate? That might be it. Maybe it not about the company type but rather the size of the company. Are you tired of dealing with mom and pop businesses? On the other side of the coin you might be fed up dealing with the biggest customers, those fortune 500 type companies that put you through the ringer every day? We all know these types that seem to appreciate nothing that we do for them as if it is our obligation and privilege to be of service to them. This is like planting seeds.You need to decide what you want to grow!
2. How big a garden do you want to grow? Gardens take time and effort and resources in order to grow. This is why it is so very important for you to decide how many seeds you want to plant. How big will your garden be? How much can you handle? It makes no sense to prepare a lot the size of a football field only to find out that you can not actually do the work necessary yo care for it properly.
3. OK now we know what we want to grow. We know the size of the garden. But do we know what it takes to tend the garden? Our plan must include the details on how best to take care of the garden to assure that we get the desired results. We want to have a successful crop if we are going through the trouble of step 1 and step 2. This might seem like common sense however we have all planted flowers and watered them once per week only to see them die in a very short time. The, in the process of throwing the dead plants out we find the little instruction card that reads "For best results, water once daily". Now you tell me....

So as we enter a new year, 2013 we see many challenges and responsibilities that we are faced with but we also see opportunities! Let's not repeat the errors of the past. Let's learn from our mistakes! Let's not be here one year from now saying what happened? How come my business did NOT grow? We now know the reasons! Finding ourselves in this place would be insane and many of you have already heard or been told the definition of insanity.

"Insanity is defined as doing the same things over and over again but expecting different results. It NEVER works!"

We all need to change our game plan!

To learn more about planning or GROWING your business read more

Keep your eyes and ears open to the future!

The New Year is upon us! While I am extremely excited about the prospects for 2013 I am a little worried about how fast 2012 went by. Is it just me or are the pages of the calendar turning faster?

Let me set those concerns aside and thank each and every one of you for your role in making Vernon one of the Best Places to Work in the promotional products industry. Five years in a row we have been recognized and I think it goes without saying that we have earned this ranking every single year. 

It all starts with the account executive in the field working hard to get that next order from their customer or prospect. We know that it is getting harder and harder every year to get orders that used to be gimmies. There are no gimmies any more in this business! I hear this loud and clear all the time from our account executives.

I used to say “work smarter, not harder” in the past. I have now revised this to say “work smarter and harder” when talking about ways to get ahead or ways to steal that order away from the competition.

How about the impact of new technologies on our industry and our way of doing business and our way of life in general. Wow! Where do we begin?

Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter and You Tube and Pinterest and Instagram and .....OK you get the point! When does one have time to actually sell something? It should be pointed out that there is an attitude or a prevailing line of thought that if you are not staying up with these things that you will be left out to lunch with no orders coming your way. Is this true?

I don’t believe this to be the case! During some recent meetings in the home office with our Business Development Advisor Group we had some spirited discussions about the latest technology trends and what they mean to us. One account executive became frustrated with the direction of the conversation and he remarked that he did not realize that he was doing everything wrong. The reality is (and I told him this) was that he was doing nothing wrong. 

His buyers were 100 % comfortable dealing with him without utilizing all the latest bells and whistles in the technology world. A case could be made that if he tried to force them to follow him on Facebook or Twitter that he might actually turn them off and be less likely to get the business. 

The bottom line in my opinion is that you need to be in sync with the buyers that you are calling on. Do you communicate with them the way they want to be communicated with? Do you meet their needs? Do you listen to them? This is what really matters! 

As we close out the 2012 calendar year and look ahead to lucky 2013 I ask that you be keenly aware of how your buyers want to work with you. If you are not sure ask them. If they mention a method of communication that you are not up to speed with then you need to go out and learn it or say good bye. We need to be aware of our buyer’s needs and we need to be flexible enough and adaptable to meet them. The account executives that can do this on a regular basis are the ones that will be in a position to reap the business. We can no longer be one dimensional in our selling approach! 

So the moral of the story here is “keep an open mind” and “listen”. We will never stop learning if we can agree to do these two simple things.

Have you made your New Year’s Pledge yet? I just made mine....

1.       I will keep an open mind!

2.       I will listen!

Don’t delay, make your pledge today!

To check out The Vernon Company