The HELL YEAH Decision-Making Model

by Todd Schnick on January 27, 2012

Apologize in advance for the adult language in today’s graphic, but as we close the week, I thought you needed to see this:

I first learned about HELL YEAH decision making from Derek Sivers, and was recently exposed to it again from Amber Rae, a recent guest on IntrepidTV.

Here is how it works:

When you are asked to do something, if your response isn’t “HELL YEAH!,” you should probably take a pass and find something more meaningful to do. Life is too damn short to waste it doing stuff that doesn’t get you excited and inspired.

“But Todd,” you might ask, “What if my boss suggests a bunch of tasks that I don’t feel “Hell Yeah” about?”

“Find more meaningful work,” is how I might respond.

Yeah, life is full of seemingly meaningless tasks. And you have to do two things:

One, stop doing meaningless tasks. This includes all things you won’t recall fondly whilst laying on your death bed.

[And me too. At this time, my life is too full of that kind of stuff. I am ACTIVELY weed whacking the lot of it.]

And two, find meaning in the things you are currently doing. There is oftentimes a lot of value in the work that you do, but your perspective and attitude label it as boring, pointless, and meaningless.

I am willing to bet that creativity is required for most of what you do. So be creative about it then. Find meaning. Do it better. Teach others. Learn from others.

But hey, at the end of the day, if you ain’t yelling HELL YEAH, move on. As you know, life is too damn short…

[Helpful tip: do something HELL YEAH this weekend. This is what you can blog about next week...]

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[join me here to do some HELL YEAH marketing!]

[pic from Amber Rae]

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11 Better Questions To Ask Than “What Do You Do?”

by Todd Schnick on January 26, 2012

I think one of the problems is that we all attempt to, or allow ourselves to be, defined by our work. We think we have to stay in miserable, unhappy jobs just because it is a status thing, or that we think this is what society expects.

I say bunk. No doubt, it is a lot harder (for me at least) to run my own business and have to eat what I kill. Sure, bills would be easier to pay with a regular paycheck, but I hated life like that. I love being on my own, responsible to myself, and flexible to do work that matters to me. It is a tough slog, but I love the battle.

But I think we are responsible for this predicament. What is the first thing we usually ask someone we meet for the first time?

“So…what do you do?”

Does asking this question subconsciously tell people that we expect an answer to be some formal, society-approved job? Maybe so.

So, here is what I propose. Instead of leading off with the standard “what do you do?” question, from now on, let’s start with these:

What do you love to do?

What are you reading?

What do you want to learn?

Tell me about your family?

What do you want to be known for?

What big, hairy challenge are you striving to achieve?

If you wrote the great American novel, what would it be about?

Would you rather be a writer, artist, or musician?

Where would you go if you could travel anywhere?

What would you do if you were president for a day?

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?

I don’t know about you, but I personally find the answers to these questions to be a lot more meaningful, and a lot more telling about a person than how they spend nine to five.

What do you think? What other questions would you want to ask?

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[join my merry band of intrepid raiders here]

[drawing by hugh macleod]

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Are You Positively Blowing Your One Life?

by Todd Schnick on January 25, 2012

If the above quote doesn’t get you fired up to do what matters, I doubt you will ever do anything that matters.

And it probably isn’t motivation you lack. If you fret about not getting important things done, you have the motivation. You just lack the will to make the necessary behavioral changes (h/t Ramit and BJ). And that’s the harder part…

1. Why aren’t you starting the business you really want to start?
2. Why aren’t you writing the novel you want to write?
3. Why aren’t you learning the piano you so desperately want to play?
4. Why aren’t you traveling more?
5. Why aren’t you eating better?
6. Why aren’t you learning more about wine?
7. Why aren’t you reading more great books?
8. Why aren’t you spending more time with friends and family?
9. Why aren’t you getting out of debt?
10. Why aren’t you losing weight?
11. Why aren’t you learning how to cook?
12. Why aren’t you saving more for that dream house you want?
13. Why aren’t you getting over your fear of public speaking?
14. Why aren’t you closing more sales with your dream prospects?
15. Why aren’t you training for that marathon you want to complete?
16. Why aren’t you going after what you really want?
17. Why aren’t you spending time with the person you truly love?
18. Why haven’t you left the job you so despise?
19. [fill in the blank with the one important thing on YOUR list]
20. Why haven’t you gotten started?

You got one life.

You already know what needs to be done.

You already know it won’t be easy.

And you already know it is worth it.

So…

Act accordingly. I hope you have the courage to do so.

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[to live a more intrepid life, join us here]

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In Sales, If You Ain’t Adapting, You Are Losing

by Todd Schnick on January 24, 2012

One of the things I sell is podcasting services — studio time, editing, post-production, strategic sales + marketing implementation of the show content, guest recruitment strategy, and being the show host if they need me. Not to mention broadcasting live from a client’s trade show booth…

Funny thing is, even though this is technically one “product,” each client looks at the service differently, implements it differently, and utilizes the content differently.

I didn’t sell them a one-size-fits-all service. I didn’t pitch them saying they had to do this my way. Each eventually bought because we crafted a package that made sense to them, and their needs.

I have dozens of prospects considering podcasting and content generation services from me, and all have a different notion in mind about how they will utilize my services and the content it generates. And unless you are selling very specific products that perform very specific functions, all selling is this way…

…if you sell successfully.

You have to adapt, or you will lose.

You have to seek to understand how your service, knowledge, and expertise best supports your prospect’s endeavor. If you don’t, you are demonstrating that you don’t really care, and are just trying to close the deal.

You have to be patient. Selling this way is harder, takes longer, requires patience, doesn’t fit well in a CRM system, and oftentimes frustrates your sales manager.

But in the end, the package you’ve adapted to best serve your new client ends up with better results, higher profit (for both parties), and longer-term loyalty from your customer.

Don’t be so hard-headed that things have to be done according to some spec sheet drafted up by an engineer who rarely sees the light of day. You are dealing with humans, who bring to the table specific sets of knowledge and experiences, and it is through this paradigm that they see opportunity in your service and/or product.

Your willingness to adapt demonstrates real commitment to making the business relationship work for both sides. This is what sells…

…not some damn spec sheet or a stubborn sales manager.

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[join us to learn more about intrepid sales...]

[drawing by hugh macleod]

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Focusing On Your Niche [Audio]

by Todd Schnick on January 23, 2012

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

If you are attempting to simplify your business, and make running your business less complicated, it would be an important first step to focus on a niche.

You can’t be everything to everybody. You can succeed in business by serving a very tight and specific segment of the market place.

That doesn’t mean you cannot service and help other customers (outside the niche), but it does mean you MUST focus on your niche with your marketing message and program.

A tighter niche also makes it easier for word of mouth…too broad a market makes it more difficult to make referrals.

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[photo from flickr]

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What’s The ONE THING You Want Your Website To Accomplish?

by Todd Schnick on January 22, 2012

It is all about conversions.

Assuming your website is the hub of your online business presence, when people come to our website, we want them to take some action.

So, what action do you want people to take? Could it be one of the following?

1. Signing-up for your e-newsletter.

2. Buying product direct from your site.

3. Downloading your e-book.

4. Buying your book(s).

5. Filling out a form to make an appointment.

6. Subscribing to your RSS feed.

7. Commenting on your blog.

8. Sharing content with others.

9. Purchasing from your various affiliate links.

10. Listening to your podcasts and/or watching your videos.

For me, at this time, I want people to subscribe to my mailing list (which you can find here, if you’re interested).

You see, I am in the slow process of generating a series of e-books that I will ultimately present and sell here, so for the time being, I am currently building a community and a list.

[I consult too, but those business opportunities come via word of mouth mostly. You can obviously contact me thru this site, but building my email list is the primary focus of this site.]

I suspect many of you have put up a website because…well, that’s what small business people do. If you have a website just to serve as an online brochure, you are missing a critical function of your site. You need your site to convert…

…convert people to take the action you want them to. To sign-up, buy, comment, share, etc…

So, you need to decide what is most important to you. And redesign your website so that people take the ONE action you want them to take. Strip away all the distractions that confuse people and make it harder for them to take the one key action.

Problem is, too many people try to do too much. Some try to do the complete list seen above. All on the home page, as a matter of sad fact.

So don’t do that. Remove stuff first, before you add more stuff. Make it simple for people to accomplish the ONE THING you want them to.

Set up your site to convert, and achieve what you need your website to do. And focus nonstop on making the improvements and adjustments to improve your conversion rate. You should test and retest until you convert at a rate acceptable to your business goals…

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[drawing by hugh macleod]

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Removing Digital Clutter Too

by Todd Schnick on January 21, 2012

You likely know that I am a minimalist. I have removed lots of physical clutter from my life. I have dislodged myself from personal obligations that distracted me from what was important personally, and for my clients. And I have simplified my life to focus on the truly important things.

But…

I have a new challenge…

Digital clutter.

Look, I don’t know if I will ever convince you to remove all of your digital clutter. But let me say this:

For me, removing digital clutter is as freeing and uplifting as removing physical clutter. Removing distractions, ANY distractions, are about eliminating the unnecessary to allow you to appreciate and focus on the necessary.

Allow me to give you some examples of some digital clutter I am slowing purging:

1. Emails in the inbox. I keep too many emails. Clutter that I will never read again. Digital notes that no longer have meaning, and distract me from the important messages that matter. My inbox is now such that zero is attainable each day. Stuff to save is neatly organized and archived, useless less important stuff is deleted. Right away.

2. Followers. Yeah, too many of you still battle “follower envy” where we measure our self-worth by the number of followers we have on Twitter, friends on Facebook, or connections on LinkedIn. But for most of you, a majority of your followers aren’t real, or really connected to you in a meaningful. So, remove the useless followers that get in the way of the people who matter…those who might be your true fans.

3. RSS subscriptions. I have subscribed to thousands of blogs over the last several years. Mainly to experiment and see if a new blog and website will prove to be helpful and meaningful to me. After a while, I have to discipline myself to delete the stuff that isn’t relevant, that I am not reading.

4. e-newsletters. Like you, I’ve subscribed to too many e-newsletters. I’ve made it a point to unsubscribe from those that aren’t providing real value to me. For me, there are only a few that I look forward to. If I don’t want to drop everything when an new email comes in, it probably isn’t worth subscribing to, IMHO.

5. Files in Google docs. After a while, there are a ton of google docs I’ve created for this project or that. Often, I need to review the archive, and remove the clutter that is no longer relevant. To be honest, my biggest reason to remove digital clutter in Google docs? To allow me to more easily find the docs that are more important…

6. iTunes songs. I have over 2,000 songs in iTunes. In the past twelve months, I’ve listened to 45 of them. And with me listing to Pandora most of the time…do I really need all these songs?

7. Books on Kindle. Yeah, I used to have a couple thousand books in grand bookcases. Now, I own only nine hardcover books. The ones that really matter to me. But, I now have a growing collection of digital books. And there are several I will never read again. I am deleting them. They distract me from the books that move me…

8. Audio reminder files on smart phone. I leave myself reminders on my smart phone voice memo tool all the time. Ideas for blog posts. People to call. Old friends to reach out to. Ideas for clients. After a while, they accumulate. If I let the list pile up, I suddenly have a ton of audio files that are less impactful.

9. Random stuff in Evernote. The beauty of Evernote is the ease with which I can save pics, ideas, websites, articles, audio files, etc. The downside? After a while you accumulate a lot of stuff. I have to make it a point to go thru that material and delete content that is no longer relevant. I also have to improve my tagging and organizing ability to better store the data.

10. Downloaded podcasts. I have 74 hours of podcasts to listen to. On one hand, endless streams of great content to learn from. On the other hand, it is almost too much, and I don’t what to listen to first.

11. eBooks. With all the blogs I read, I’ve downloaded dozens and dozens of ebooks to read. In fact, upon counting the files in my eBook folder, I have 47. I mean, wow. How am I ever going to read 47 books? With more to come, I am sure. Now, I am not sure which ones I really really wanted to read in the first place…

How much digital clutter is cluttering up your life? How much digital clutter is distracting you from your important work? Is it time to clear away some of your clutter?

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[for tips on how to simplify your business, join me here]

[drawing by hugh macleod]

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Is Too Much Business Clutter Weighing You Down?

by Todd Schnick on January 20, 2012

What are you?

No matter the size of your organization, you need to be slight and nimble. All businesses and organizations take on too much clutter.

This slows us down. This makes it harder to make quick strategic decisions. This makes it harder to pivot and evolve with the ever-changing marketplace.

Here are a few questions to ask of you and your organization:

1. Too much overhead?

2. Too many staff not pulling their weight?

3. Too many pieces of collateral that do more to confuse than educate?

4. Too much distracting clutter on your website?

5. Are 80% of your customers only buying 20% of your products? Probably time to remove inventory that ain’t selling.

6. Decision-making matrix involve far too many people?

7. Do you have too many meetings…that don’t really produce results?

8. Too many fake prospects in the CRM database?

9. Too many marketing campaigns confusing the marketplace?

10. Too many pricing discounts and incentives that are costing you profit?

11. Too many phony sales and marketing scripts that are confusing your sales people, and preventing them from being human?

12. Attending too many conferences and not really getting return?

13. Doing too much needless travel when teleconferencing would do?

14. Have too much office space costing you a lot in rent?

15. Too many lost business opportunities because you are too busy having to pay attention to all the stuff above?

If you answered yes to even a handful of these questions (especially number 15), it is probably time to simplify a few things with your organization…

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[drawing by hugh macleod]

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How Do You Fix The Chasm Between Marketing and Sales?

by Todd Schnick on January 18, 2012

This was originally published on The Customer Collective, who sponsors the SalesChaosTV Show.

The divide between marketing and sales has existed for as long as there has been business. But why does it have to be that way? In last week’s show, I talk about why there really shouldn’t be two separate and very distinct departments that are naturally set up to conflict with one another. This, in my view, is poor org chart management…

What do you think?

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[get more FREE intrepid marketing and sales advice here!]

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How To Construct Your Marketing Plan In 7 Simple Steps

by Todd Schnick on January 17, 2012

A real pleasure to speak to the East Cobb Business Association today! Today’s topic: The seven critical steps to constructing a marketing plan. I promised the group that I would make the outline available to those that wanted it.

Reminder, these steps are to be developed and considered in sequential order. Not randomly selected. ;-)

1. UNDERSTAND YOUR MARKET AND YOUR COMPETITION
Is there a market that wants what you sell? Is there enough opportunity to run a profitable business? What about the competition? Is there so much that it will be virtually impossible to get enough market share to run a profitable business? How has your competition positioned itself? Are they underserving a segment of the market that you can serve? If your competition is zigging, can you zag? And zag profitably?

2. UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMER
Who are they? Where are they? Why do they buy? What motivates them to buy? How do they buy? Where do they buy? How do they get their information (trade mags, search engines, industry blogs, social media)? Who makes the buying decisions (lady of the house, the father, the purchasing agent, CEO)?

3. PICK A NICHE
The world is big. Way big. You cannot be everything to everyone. Narrow your focus to a very select target audience that is easily identifiable and easy to contact. If you are a mechanic, specialize in repairing one specific type of automobile. Not every vehicle in Metro Atlanta. And don’t forget…you can fix any car that pulls into your garage. But your marketing message must be focused on your niche.

4. CREATE YOUR MESSAGE, YOUR STORY
How are you going to communicate to your niche audience? What is your story? What is the “why” of your business? What is your purpose? And remember, it isn’t about you. Or even your product. Your message is about how you serve THEM. It is about how YOU fulfill a want or solve a problem. Yeah, it is an elevator pitch, but your marketing message is so much more than that.

5. PICK YOUR MARKETING TACTICS
This is the fun part! This is HOW you deliver your message. The tactics. The medium you use to deliver your message to your niche audience. Direct mail? Cable advertising buys? Social media? Networking? Magazine advertisements? Newsletters? E-newsletters? Goodyear blimp? And be smart about this. Don’t use Twitter to reach an 89-year old grandmother. The goal is to find a medium that reaches the most possible amount of people in your targeted, niche audience, as inexpensively as possible. Harder to figure that out without steps one through four.

[and too many small business people start with Step 5, and market by throwing noodles against the wall, hoping something sticks]

6. SET SALES AND MARKETING GOALS
How many widgets do you have to sell, how many contracts signed, how many purchase orders completed to meet your profit goals? [profit is your goal, correct?] You have to know this. Too many small business people do not. And what is your close rate? If you need to sell 100 widgets to be profitable, and you close 10% of the people you pitch, you need to talk to 1,000 people to close enough business to be profitable. And when I say “talk” to people, I mean that you are engaging with a qualified prospect. The reason most small business owners aren’t making it, is that they are NOT talking to enough prospects in the first place. Yeah, it is kind of a numbers game.

7. SET YOUR MARKETING BUDGET
This process is actually simple. Your marketing spend should do one thing: enable you to get an audience with the right amount of qualified prospects. Using the example above, you should spend enough to get you talking to those 1,000 prospects. The problem is, most small business people start with this step and say they only have X to spend on marketing. This is the wrong approach. Because you are flying blind.

Thanks for your attention today, I hope this has been helpful in providing a framework to construct a simple marketing plan for your business. Feel free to email me with questions, or in the comments below.

[you can also join my weekly intrepid marketing tips email list here! i hope you'll join us!]

And here is a short video on this same idea from SalesChaosTV:

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