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Are you scared of selling?

183:803306268 (Davina Bamber) — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 17:38:24 GMT

Let's get over those sales fears...

I love sales but I know that not everyone does. What I see as exciting, others are afraid of.

�� Showing others what you're selling

☹ Worrying about other people's opinions of it

�� Setting your price

☹ Am I charging too much?

�� Following up on leads

☹ Being too pushy

�� Getting the sale

☹ What do I do now?

So are you actually scared of selling? Or are you scared of what it means?

Get over these hurdles and you can be excited about sales too.

So, let’s break each one down.

You’re worried about other people’s opinions.

This is often a mindset barrier. You’re worried what your family or friends might say. Are they your ideal client? Are they buying from you? The only opinion you need to be concerned about are your customers – they are the only ones whose opinion will affect your sales. If you’ve done your market research correctly your product should be meeting the needs of your customer so they are going to love it! And as for the opinions of everyone else, it doesn’t matter.

Am I charging too much?

You get paid in proportion to the value you bring. Look at the value that your service and product will give and price accordingly. If you’re worried that people will think it’s too expensive then you haven’t sold the value. Many people think that the reason they haven’t sold something is because it’s too expensive but it’s not, it’s that you haven’t sold your customer the value.

I’m being too pushy.

Follow up is key. People very rarely buy on the first contact, not even the second. If you view a follow up as being a service rather than being pushy this will help. You are being helpful to your customer, reminding them that they showed an interest in your product and finding out if they need any more information or if they are ready to buy.

What do I do now?

You’ve got the sale, congratulations! But now you’re not sure what to do. Send an invoice? How to collect payment? Postage? Feedback? There is a lot to think about but if you plan your process from start to finish before that sale has come in then it will run smoothly and you will feel confident.

So don't be scared of sales, overcome these hurdles and you will grow to enjoy it!

What Does Having Happy Customers Mean to Your Business?

183:803306268 (Davina Bamber) — Sun, 31 May 2020 19:12:05 GMT

What is your preferred method of marketing for your business?

Social media? Direct mailing? Exhibitions? Print advertising? There are numerous ways and ideas to market your company. But an independent validation of your business is the strongest form of marketing there is, and it's free!

Just think about it, how do you decide what company to spend your money with? Let's take as an example new blinds for your house. You might go online to do some research, you may read a specialist home magazine or you might go into a store to see what's on offer. You've done your research and are weighing up which company to use but you still aren't quite sure. You then talk about it with one of your friends and they tell you about the amazing service they received and how pleased they are with the product from a particular company. What's the likelihood of you going with that recommendation? Unless you don't like your friend, pretty high I guess.

Taking it to the next level, with a product only purchase, I guess most of us have shopped on Amazon. And I would also presume that when making a purchase you look at the reviews first. How many times have you bought a product that has had mainly poor reviews? Very rarely. If ever. And even the few brave soles that do... how many ended up returning said product within a week whilst muttering to themselves something along the lines of next time listening to 'Sandra M from Cambridge' about the legitimacy of an £18 Gucci handbag...

Get your customers to be your marketers by making sure they are happy. Just think about the companies that you know use referral schemes - Sky and Bulb are just a couple that spring to mind. I myself am a very happy customer of both of these companies and have often recommended them. On the other hand, if I were an unhappy customer, not only would I not recommend them but I would also be informing people why I was unhappy. 48% of customers who had a negative experience told 10 or more others.

So how do you ensure your customers are happy? I could write a whole book on that but in a concise list some of the most common ways are:-

• Listen to your customers needs

• Solve their problems with the product or service you provide

• Keep your promises to your customers

• Treat them as individuals

• Make it easy for customers to complain

Make it easy for customers to complain? Why would you want to encourage complaints? When you are frustrated with a company and haven't received the level of service you expected you don't want to be further antagonised by not knowing how or where to complain to. Remember, things do occasionally go wrong, and the majority of the time that's OK. It is how your business reacts to things going wrong that will determine your final customer satisfaction rating.

Ongoing surveys are a consistent and reliable way to gain valuable feedback. Looking further into those surveys, how frustrating is it when you receive a text or email asking for feedback and you are asked to just leave a score between 1 and 10? You've received poor service and you want to tell them why. A quantitative response just isn't enough for the company either - they need to know more detail of a low score in order for them to rectify the chances of a bad referral and also to ensure it doesn't happen again. It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience. It's so important to be able to resolve that negative experience.

Let's take a look at happy customers now. A nice example is Richer Sounds who are selling products freely available online. In January 2019 they were voted the top high street shop in the UK for customer satisfaction by Which members. They have fought off strong competition from online, John Lewis and Curry's. Their customers are happy and their business is going from strength to strength. The founder of Richer Sounds, Julian Richer, is worth £160 million according to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2019. I wonder what percentage of this he puts down to having happy customers?

In summary, making sure your customers are happy should never be underestimated. If they are happy, great! Find out what is making them happy and continue to improve this. And if they are unhappy, resolve the situation as soon as possible and learn from the situation. Your customers are the reason your business continues and happy customers will push your company to thrive and keep reaching new levels. The secret to driving revenue in your business is right in front of you - it's your customers.

So, if you feel I've got this article wrong, please feel free to complain to me at davina@womanwhocan.com and I'll get back to you within 24hrs (I just need to return a handbag for a friend first).

The Importance of Doing What You Say You're Going to Do

183:803306268 (Davina Bamber) — Thu, 21 May 2020 20:35:43 GMT

It sounds simple doesn't it? If you say you're going to do something then do it.

But I'm sure you can all fairly quickly recall a situation when this didn't happen. And how did you feel? Disappointed? Angry? Let down? Annoyed? Inconvenienced? All of these and more I'm betting. And nobody really wants to make someone feel like that or feel like it themselves.

Before setting up my business, in my eighteen years of employment I spent the majority of it in customer facing roles. As a young sixteen year old I quickly realised that the customer was king! Fast forward to my ten years at Volkswagen and my world revolved around the customer - "an excellent customer experience every time with nothing left to chance". It was something that sometimes proved to be a challenge but always proved to be rewarding.

It's fairly obvious the impact on your customer's happiness if you don't deliver on what you've said you're going to. But have you taken this further and thought about the impact this will have on your workplace culture and employee happiness?

Let's look at workplace culture first. Workplace culture is the character and personality of your organisation and part of this is made up by the behaviours and attitudes of the people in it. So if you promise on something and fail to deliver, your culture is one of "maybe they will and maybe they won't" right? Do you want a workplace culture that is known for "sometimes delivering"? Do you want it to become the norm that you sometimes underachieve? I doubt it.

And what about your employees? If your business has a lackadaisical approach to promises how do you think that will impact your employees? I'm very fortunate that in my career I have worked with professional companies who kept their word and made me feel valued as an employee. However, very early in my career I worked for a large high street company who consistently went back on their word, changed the goalposts and promised the earth but delivered little. How did this make me feel? It made me question my worth in the company, I distrusted what I was told and when I was given targets I had little motivation to push for them as I knew the goalposts would be moved once I achieved the target. And what was the consequence of this? I left the company, and three years later the company ceased trading.

Now we've looked at workplace culture and employee happiness, let's think about what impact these two aspects have on your customer's satisfaction. How often have you been to a company where it's obvious the staff are not happy and will occasionally be transparent enough to hint towards that fact? This can have a direct impact on your bottom line because if your staff aren't engaged then in return your customers won't buy in to your brand and will probably go elsewhere. How many times has an energised employee persuaded you to part with your money when you probably could have got it cheaper elsewhere but you bought from them because of the outstanding customer service? This is what many customers subconsciously buy into and will be more likely to return again whilst also recommending your company to their friends.

So what happens if you fail to do what you say? How does this impact your customers, your workplace culture and your employees?

• Distrust is built and reliability is questioned. Do you trust people who don't keep their word? If someone lets you down can you rely on them?

• Respect is quickly lost. If someone gives you their word and it doesn't mean anything to them, respect decreases. Only say yes when you mean yes.

• One bad experience and you're likely to lose a customer for life.

And how do you feel if you're the one to let someone down? For me, my word is something that I don't take lightly. It's a matter of integrity and I would not feel good about myself if I did not keep my word. If I were to let someone down I would be letting myself down.

So how do I always do what I say I'm going to do?

• Manage expectations realistically. It is pointless to promise on an unachievable request. A customer may be disappointed to hear that their need is not attainable at that time but they will be even more disappointed if you promise and then fail to deliver.

• Be realistic about what you can accomplish. There is only so much that can be done in a day! Do not over promise on time scales, you will get more respect by being honest about your schedule.

• If you have committed to something and find, due to reasons beyond your control, that you can't fulfil your original promise, the key is immediate communication. All of the best companies out there have problems and things that go wrong, it's how they handle those problems that keep the staff engaged and keep the customers coming back.

• Sometimes it's ok to say no. Do not take on too much if it's going to impact on all of your projects. And say no if it's work outside of your comfort zone. Rather than just a no though, try and suggest an alternative to show that you are still willing to take your time to help.

So don't let people down, do what you say you're going to do. And if you don't have the time or resource to do what you said you were going to do, well, you now know a Woman Who Can!

The Harder you Work, the Luckier you Get

183:803306268 (Davina Bamber) — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 13:32:51 GMT

“You’re so lucky.” I can feel the annoyance inside me as I hear those words uttered to me once again.

Yes, I am lucky – I have two healthy children and I’m pretty healthy myself. That’s what I consider luck to be. But that’s not what people refer to when they call me lucky.

“You’re so lucky” – your children are so well behaved, you and your husband have a great relationship, you get to work for yourself and take a day off whenever you want, you have exciting holidays, you’re so confident and happy. Am I painting the picture well enough here? People look at my life and think I’m “lucky” and it takes all of my inner strength to contain myself. You see, other than being able to have children and being healthy, I don’t believe in luck. So my reply when I hear “you’re so lucky”? “The harder you work, the luckier you get”. This is often received with a confused look before the realisation of what I’m saying dawns.

None of what I have achieved is luck, it’s all been part of a process, sacrifice, hard work and risk taking. Whilst everybody sees me always at the school gates, coming back from a nice holiday or having a weekday lunch out, what they haven’t seen are the worries that you’re not going to hit the next deadline, the nights spent working on your next business strategy to grow your business, the time spent studying to grow your knowledge, the anxiety of putting yourself into situations outside of your comfort zone in order to grow, the strictness in the earlier life of my children to help mould them into the pretty good behaviour they display now!

You too can also create your own “lucky” life. And not just the “luckiness” of physical things like a nice house and nice holidays, but your mental wellness too of a leading a happy and fulfilled life. Whilst everyone else is rueing their unluckiness you can go out there and get it! You create whatever life you want to lead. I did.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Business!

183:803306268 (Davina Bamber) — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 16:57:22 GMT

I love everything to do with business but there's nothing quite as exciting as a new business.

The vision, the purpose, the possibilities...oh my goodness, the excitement of it all! But no one tells you also about the sleepless nights, the hours spent researching, the self doubt...oh my goodness, the stress of it all!

Relaunching my own business has brought all of the above. You decide on the new name and sit back with pride. But then you need a new business card, which then needs a new website, which then needs a new logo. Can you see where I'm going with this? Launching a new business needs so much thought and action and one thing can't be done without another and the list soon becomes endless.

It's so tempting to want to tell everyone about your business as soon as your idea is born. But what I have learnt is that it is best to have patience. Don't launch your business until everything is ready, if not you are introducing everyone to half a business that is nearly ready. In order for me to quench my need to tell everyone I instead posted content to create anticipation around my relaunch. I did worry that I was building up the anticipation too much and that it would be a let down but I decided to roll with it!

I had a couple of challenges along the way, namely changing my social media platform names from one name to another. Facebook do not like drastic name changes on a business page and when I put in my request to change my page to my new name it was declined! Cue one sleepless night thinking of ways to get around this - I definitely didn't want to create a new page and lose all of my reviews and likes. But I'm the Woman Who Can right! And the sense of achievement I felt when I successfully managed to change the name to what I wanted was immense - I'd beaten a Facebook robot!

I have been fortunate to work with numerous new and emerging businesses and each one has had it's challenges. When obstacles have come along, I have found it best to view these not as roadblocks but as opportunities to learn and develop. You think something can't be done? There is always a way! It might take time and patience, and the road might be a winding one instead of a straight path, but once you have overcome the obstacles the feeling of satisfaction will overcome your frustrations.

If you're ready to launch your new business, let me help you along the way. Whether you need a guiding hand, or a great big shove in the right direction, the support is there for you when you have a Woman Who Can by your side.