Tucking Away Emotion to Build Your Invincible Brand

Until you address the emotion in a volatile situation with compassion and respect, you will not diffuse a situation and may do more damage raising the intensity to a blistering crescendo. This is the continuing conversation that started a couple of weeks ago with Melissa Agnes. In this episode, we deep dive into one aspect of our response to a crisis, confrontation, and conflict as our brands and key people are bombarded with heavy emotion.

Some of what is covered is how to get ahead of high emotional relatability when you can never overcome emotion with pure logic.

1. Validate the emotion.
2. Relate to them on that basis.
3. Proof and logic to support your position and facts.

The tips Melissa gives us will help us protect our brands, but also have more success diffusing situations in our everyday lives. You will want to take notes here.

If you missed the first episode with Melissa, Crisis Readiness Equals Freedom, you can listen here >

About Susan's guest:

Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, Melissa Agnes is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today's leading organizations faced with the greatest risks.

In Crisis Ready, Melissa Agnes draws from her remarkable experience in helping global brands, government organizations, and world leaders prevent and overcome a range of real-world, high-impact crises. She uses this experience to provide your organization with a clear roadmap to implementing a crisis ready culture–and thus building an INVINCIBLE brand.

Order Crisis Ready on Amazon 

Crisis Ready is not about crisis management.

Management is what happens after the negative event has occurred. Readiness is what is done to build an INVINCIBLE brand, where negative situations don’t occur—and even if they do, they’re instantly overcome in a way that leads to increased organizational trust, credibility, and goodwill.

No matter the size, type, or industry of your business, Crisis Ready will provide your team with the insight into how to be perfectly prepared for anything life throws at you. Organizations that are crisis ready are more than just resilient. They’re invincible. Crisis Ready is your roadmap to business invincibility.

Crisis Readiness Equals Freedom - 3 Steps

When I think of peace of mind in business, it comes from being prepared for the expected, as well as the unexpected. It's not all sparkle ponies, unicorns and laughter. Bad stuff happens.

What we do to respond in those moments as leaders and team members can change the course of a company and set into motion a chain reaction of positive outcomes or a Coyote/Roadrunner death spiral into dust.
A bit dramatic I know, but I wanted you to have a visual as I introduce you to an expert in crisis readiness, Melissa Agnes.

You don't have to put this off. You and your company can immediately take steps to build your crisis readiness. You may have more in place than you think you do. Learn from Melissa Agnes who is the author of Crisis Readiness on Amazon. 

About Susan's guest:

Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, Melissa Agnes is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today's leading organizations faced with the greatest risks.

In Crisis Ready, Melissa Agnes draws from her remarkable experience in helping global brands, government organizations, and world leaders prevent and overcome a range of real-world, high-impact crises. She uses this experience to provide your organization with a clear roadmap to implementing a crisis ready culture–and thus building an INVINCIBLE brand.

Order Crisis Ready on Amazon 

Crisis Ready is not about crisis management.

Management is what happens after the negative event has occurred. Readiness is what is done to build an INVINCIBLE brand, where negative situations don’t occur—and even if they do, they’re instantly overcome in a way that leads to increased organizational trust, credibility, and goodwill.

No matter the size, type, or industry of your business, Crisis Ready will provide your team with the insight into how to be perfectly prepared for anything life throws at you. Organizations that are crisis ready are more than just resilient. They’re invincible. Crisis Ready is your roadmap to business invincibility.

Generate Revenue From All of Your Passions

Susan's guest is Richard Moore. Not only is he a successful architect, but he's a graphic artist and product designer. Richard talks about the unexpected lessons learned when he started mass producing products. With over 100 SKUs, he's been able to successfully refine the process. The first step, hiring someone specifically to manage the production process. They met through a Kickstarter program several years ago launching their Chimeras through Walrus Toys.

When Susan asked Richard how he balances his love of being an architect with product development, he tells her that it's not always balanced and that people need to get over insisting everything is always balanced, including the balance between partners in an endeavor. Just keep doing what you love.

A quote he used to explain how fortunate he is was taken from architectural school, "Graphic artists always want to be product designers. Product Designers always want to be architects, and architects always want to be graphic artists." He and his partner are able to be all three. Listen to this 24-minute episode about what that looks like, his advice, tips and insights. There will also be a new Kickstarter soon to launch four new toys completely separate from the successful and popular, Chimeras line. He would give us NO hints, you'll just have to get on his mailing list to find out. You don't want to miss the Kickstarter opportunity!

Now, I need to go to find my next gifts on ilovehandles.com - they are always inventing SOMETHING I want.

Learn more about Walrus Toys, ILoveHandles and Zero One Ten.

Get out of your way and create a successful business.

My guest today is Corinne McCormack for part two of the interview we did a couple of weeks ago about how to build a multimillion-dollar business. Yes, you can, and she has some final tips, advice, and strategies for you in this episode you don't want to miss. Here we go.

I'm here with Corinne McCormack, and we have had some great interviews recently and there were a couple of topics though that I wanted to cover with her. Corinne, are you open, let's tackle those last two topics that we didn't get to do in our earlier shows. In your book, From Living Room to Boardroom: How I Launched and Sold a Multimillion-Dollar Business, you tell your whole journey. What I noticed in it is you were very upfront and open to talking about how you were able to borrow against your home to finance the start of your business. You're in New York. You had some equity, you were good. But what do you recommend for people with less than that type of option? Is that a deal-breaker if they can't get that initial funding?

Read the rest of this entry »

Corinne McCormack - How to launch a multi-million dollar business.

This is the first part of an interview with author, entrepreneur, inventor, speaker - Corinne McCormack.

My guest today is author, consultant, seasoned executive, and entrepreneur, Corinne McCormack. We are here today to talk about her new book, From Living Room to Boardroom: How I Launched and Sold a Multi-million Dollar Business. I have it and I love this book. Before I wanted to interview her I said, "Hey, I need your book so that I can read through, get a few chapters under my belt." I couldn't put it down Corinne, I loved it. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Typos on your site can cost you money - tips to fix it.

Karen and Susan cover where the typos are and how it can affect your credibility and make it more difficult for your sales team to build confidence with prospects. Listen to the full episode to get examples, details and an action list.

Susan's List of task reminders to keep it current.

Karen's secret tool to help you find the typos fast.

Check your own site for links to internal PDF files, videos on a YouTube channel, too - those change over time, especially since people are converting personal channels to business channels.

Remember to use your Google Analytics or Search Console to:

1. Find the top pages for a YEAR that you need to start with checking, and go through the entire list. 

2. In search console, check errors from crawls. Find out what's broken and what site or page is leading them there.

Need help? Contact Susan Finch. Sometimes you just need help getting started.

Online Reviews - why you need them, where to find them and how to respond.

This lively visit with real estate agent, Kristina Smallhorn applies to all businesses who need and receive reviews. The video version linked in the bottom will have some how to tips, too. 

Business reviews are not just for B2C and brick and mortar. ALL businesses need reviews in the right places where their potential clients go when considering them as as solution. This, along with what their colleagues and friends recommend play the biggest role in decision making before they even contact you.

My guest is Your Real Estate Whisperer, none-other than Kristin Smallhorn, a successful real estate agent in Louisiana. Her engaging YouTube channel is how I knew she was a great guest for this topic. But videos are what you EDIT and produce. Reviews - we do not control what people post. We can hope, we can ask for them when we have a successful transaction, but ultimately, we cannot control what others say about us - this gives reviews more credibility.

Why do you think some businesses don't pursue reviews?
Well, you may be surprised.
Businesses don’t want to end up in one of these situations:

receiving zero business reviews
receiving zero recent online business reviews
receiving negative online business reviews
or, the business simply has a chaotic presence of online reviews across multiple business review websites

OK, listeners, put on your big kid pants. Reputation provides interaction.
AND business reviews provide valuable feedback for businesses.
Business reviews and social posts help shape a company's online reputation.
AND, if you don't like what's being said, well, it may be time to do it better. Your problems are bigger than what people are posting. That's just the result of the issue.

Ask yourselves these questions:
How your are reviews?
Are you are sure you know where they all are?
What about when you get a bad review?
How do you respond and how quickly?
Were you able to turn any around to either remove them or update them to something positive?
Have you converted any bad reviews into clients or advocates? PIE IN THE SKY hopes!

We cover a couple of stories in this episode you may be able to relate to or find entertaining.

What you do to get reviews and testimonials from clients?
How do those play into your conversion rate?
How do you share reviews with your target farm, audience without constantly blaring the "LOOK AT ME! I'm GREAT!" horn.

Time for your do to list, listeners.
Where to look for your existing reviews?
You can do a quick look on the three major venues in order of weight:
Yelp!
Look on your Facebook business page.
Your Google My Business page - the right hand box.
You can also do a search on Yext! without signing up - you'll get links to all of your current profiles and can see what others see.

Now, if you are niche - you need to also receive and review your listings on those sites:

For Real estate professionals: Zillow, Realtor.com
For attorneys: Avvo, Lawyers.com
For Medical professionals: Healthgrades, RealSelf, ZocDoc
For restaurants: Zomato, TripAdvisor
For service providers (contractors, roofers, cleaners, etc.): AngiesList, HomeAdvisor, NextDoor if it's popular in your area.

Of course you want to get reviews concentrated on the most important online review sites.

That's why we recommend you focus on no more than five review sites total.

Listen to this replay and catch the video on Susan Finch's site here >

Which comes first - the why or the how in the first presentation?

Susan welcomes back author and impact training expert, Amy Franko, as a follow up to the book launch episode for The Modern Seller. Update on her book, wildly successful launch propelled her into the number one position for Kindle downloads in the category of Sales Techniques. We've continued to follow her tips, posts, appearances and the topic of The Why and the How came up. Her blog post titled, "What Distinguishes a Standout Seller?" led to this interview. There is not one answer, but Amy helps you determine the questions to have ready in order to guide the meeting, the presentation and ultimately - THE SALE.

Be sure to sign up for her newsletters, guides and more. Definitely worth adding to your weekly research list for those AHA moments.

AmyFranko.com - you will find her book, The Modern Seller there as well.

When your voice drives the sale away before it started.

Take a breath. Really, take a deep breath before you pick up the phone. While you're at it raise your arms, lower your shoulders, sit up straight, smile then make that call, walk into the meeting, take the stage. Speech patterns and bad habits can tune your audience out, even an audience of one, before you get further than your introduction. This will cost you revenue and waste everyone's time.

Take tips from voice and dialect coach, Susan E. Finch. This show should have been a video - it was so much fun and packed with applicable tips to keep you from being annoying. The biggest culprits?  Women! Women 17 - 35 and this voice fry issue where they sound like they are swallowing their words. Next, the gutteral hiccup - that punch that only belongs in the Cockney community in London.

How about the fillers: Like, ya know, sooooo, and.... um, uhhhhh? Time to break yourself of those habits. They scream insecurity and require your listener/audience to strain to get to the point you are attempting to make.

When we need to hire someone, we go through the interview process, background checks, checking to see if their past is linked to a bunch of workman's comp cases with former employers.... but once we decide to hire them, do we assume they are articulate? Do they know how to present ideas to their new team? Clients? Speak on behalf of the company? Why don't we teach our staff how to think on their feet and respond articulately? Surely there are Toastmaster's chapters near you. Give them bonus points for going through it or pay for it for them. You'll be glad you did. You'll give them confidence. AND if they really have bad habits, consider a speech coach, like Susan E. Finch. These professionals can quickly identify and help them work through bad habits. May not hurt you, either. 

Susan suggested the movie, "In a world" from 2013. GREAT examples you can remember. It's about the voiceover industry.

Challenge:

RECORD yourself to see how you sound. Use video if possible. Introduce yourself to you. Would you buy from you? Would you want to slug you? Would you TRUST you?

Really listen and ask an HONEST colleague to do the same and give feedback. Do it for your department. You'll all benefit from this improvement.

About our guest, Susan E. Finch.

Susan Finch is a voice and speech coach who is passionate about supporting people in becoming clear and connected communicators. As her background is in theater she is able to bring vitality and fun to her clients.

Specialties include:
- accent reduction
- vocal production (finding power, ease, volume and range)
- clarity of articulation
- ease in communication (eliminating fear of public speaking)

She coaches people how to communicate with confidence and excellence.

When to outsource sales training to jump start growth.

Hey CMOs, CEOs how do you have your SDRs embrace an external group of SDRs to train your existing team on how to secure that first meeting and take it to conversion? 

Our guest is Whitney Marshall, Co-Founder of Qualified Meetings. Their goal is to operate as an extension of your sales team – our only goal is to convert highly qualified opportunities that meet both of our standards. 

Why wouldn't you invest in a proven process and full-service program that will predictably grow your pipeline, while simultaneously providing data intelligence, resulting in an improved go-to-market strategy based on real data and conversations? Or do you think hand your reps a call list, sitting them in the corner telling them to dial their little hearts out and close deals is enough training?

About our guest, Whitney Marshall – Sr. Director, Client Engagement & Co-founder

As a skilled professional, Whitney has extensive, in-depth experience specializing in Sales Development from a Client Engagement perspective. As the “foundation builder” for some of the most successful Sales Development programs in the IT industry, Whitney has developed and refined processes that ultimately lead the Sales Development program to be repeatable, scalable and continually functional through any employee changes with the utmost visibility and accountability.

“Working with companies who struggle to put intelligent process and standardization around outbound prospecting has provided me with a wealth of knowledge of this ever-growing commonality in organizations today. As industry sales approaches evolve with new methods and best practices, a program that can maintain integrity, revenue contribution and expansion through these changes has proven to be a critical component lacking in a growing number of businesses. With qualifiedMEETINGS, we are able to customize, implement and manage a process that is repeatable and scalable, all while providing intelligent analytics and the highest qualifiedMEETINGS for our customers’ pipelines”.

Whitney began her Client Engagement career with ForeScout Technologies where she co-developed, implemented and managed a program that streamlined onboarding, lead transfer, opportunity creation and analytics which was the foundation for exponential growth in new logo acquisition. Recently coming from CollabNet where she introduced and implemented the program management process for Sales Development, Whitney is bringing this highly sought after expertise to qualifiedMEETINGS. Her knowledge expands to companies that want to grow their pipelines year over year with a program that has proven results.