BusinessCast Round-Up

Well, Robert and I have done over 20 shows since our last BusinessCast Podcast round-up. These shows are always popular because they give all entrepreneurs — i.e. new subscribers and loyal listeners alike — a quick and easy way of hearing what business-critical issues we’ve covered over the last handful of months. So, in BusinessCast Podcast #89 – Greatest Hits Vol. 3 we highlight some of the most essential topics and key learnings from BusinessCast episodes as far back as episode #67.

Specifically, in Greatest Hits Vol. 3 we highlights shows AND key BusinessCast blogposts where we provided practical tools and advice to help entrepreneurs address key issues such as:

• Building Profile for Your Business
• Developing Sales Incentives That Increase Revenues
• Tackling Crisis Communication
• Establishing a Strong Foundation in Mobile Marketing
• Speaking Confidently in Public
• Securing Financing
• Emerging Stronger When Good Employees Leave
• Finding the Right Business Partner
• Increasing Cash Flow
• Dealing Effectively with Cross-Generational Values
• Overcoming Sales Objections

In so doing, we also recount some of our most memorable guests, including:

• Catherine Swift (Canadian Federation of Independent Business)
• Michael Younder, Senior Product Marketer (Research in Motion)
• Paul Chato, President of YourWebDepartment and member of the Canadian comedy troupe the Frantics
• Bruce Hunter, Fortune 500 heavyweight and insightful author

And, we do it all in under 20 minutes!

As always you can listen to each of the shows we touch upon in Greatest Hits Vol. 3 by clicking on the BusinessCast Podcast Archives.

Finally, a quick thank you to all BusinessCast Podcast fans who voted for us in the 2008 national blog and podcast competition. The BusinessCast Podcast Canada’s was voted as Canada’s 2nd most favourite podcast!

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes

Bringing Out the Passion

Robert and I are always talking about passion — particularly when it comes to passion that entrepreneurs have for their businesses. Over the last few months, we’ve interviewed business entrepreneurs who truly exude passion in everything they do. In fact, they eat, sleep and breath their business.  In BusinessCast Podcast #88 – A Business Passion Play, we sat down with Paul Chato — President of Your Web Department and member of the hilarious Canadian comedy troup the Frantics — who is passionate about his business because he sees it as a tool to re-connect entrepreneurs with passion about their business! Paul provided some keen and entertaining insights as well as a handful of very unique ways for tapping into and extracting passion about business. This podcast will make you laugh and think! Enjoy!

After speaking with Paul, we asked ourselves, “How is that people lose passion for their business?” After all, why have a business unless it energizes and inspires you! So, we spoke to a number of BusinessCast Podcast listeners and fans and came up with a shortlist of reasons. Here are the top seven reasons why entrenpreneurs lose passion for their business:

• Frustration with the time, effort and expense required to have customers understand the benefits of products/services
• Keeping pace with rapid fluctuations in product/service development and marketing costs
• The inability to consistently anticipate costs and revenues accurately
• Losing touch with customers’ demands
• Experiencing turnover of key staff
• Spending considerable time and expense recruiting and hiring staff
• Feeling the burden of needing to control every aspect of work

But, hope is not lost if your passion is waning. We address many of these issues head on other episodes of the BusinessCast Podcast.

Finally, read 12 one-and-a-half page stories of how entrepreneurs with passion solved today’s most common business challenges .

BTW, if you want to see Paul in action, here are a couple of classic Frantics skits from YouTube –

• The Magician (that’s Paul); and
• A Piece of Pie.

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes

Piercing the Business Fog for Entrepreneurs

Wow!! Have you ever wanted to learn key insights from the senior level of the most respected and successful brands in the World? Well here’s you chance!

This week on the BusinessCast Podcast we have an exceptional guest — Bruce Hunter — a seasoned business leader and manager. In fact, Bruce has been a senior executive at several Fortune 500 companies and completed strategic deals for these companies valued at billions of dollars!  On BusinessCast episode #87 – Coming in from the Fog, Bruce shares some valuable lessons from his new book that are applicable to all businesses — regardless of size, geographic location, age, industry or vision!

After listening to the show, check out Bruce’s book, Fog Lights, Piercing the Fog of Everyday Business which is available at:

• Books for Business
• Amazon

You can also read a sample about *pricing* from the book at Bruce’s own website. Enjoy!

Finally, it turns out that several of the themes that Bruce highlights in this show, we’ve covered in detail during previous BusinessCast Podcasts. For those of you who want to dig a bit deeper, here are a few episodes well worth re-visiting:

• How to Make Sure Your Business Plan Actually Is Something You Use
• How to Make Sure Your Brand is Relevant to Current and New Customers
• How to Develop A Powerful And Effective “30 Second Pitch”
• Maintaining Focus in Your Business

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes

Overrule Any Sales Objections

Sales Objections. They’re part of any sales process. And, how you deal with them can make the difference between you having a banner sales year or falling into a sales slump.

That’s why, Robert and I sat down with Nicole Jansen — a Toronto representative from Sales Partners Worldwide. In BusinessCast episode #86 – Winning the Sales Fight — Nicole gave us some tips that anyone can use when confronted with the most common sales objections.

But, because dealing with sales objections effectively is such an important topic, Robert and I put our heads together, did some research and summarize here some of the most fundamental principles you should use prior to, during and after a sales conversation when confronting objections:

1) Keep in-mind there is no “silver bullet” response to any real customer/prospect objection. Addressing real customer objections takes time, patience and commitment to understanding their priorities.

2) Anticipate objections. That means, prepare for ALL of the major objections and the subtle nuances that come with them. Role play with colleagues, friends and relatives. Don’t try to develop an ‘out of the box’ script. Rather, rehearse tackling each objection from several different angles.

3) The more you learn about the prospect/customer before your sales discussion, the more success you are likely to have dealing with objections. This also shows respect for your customer/prospect and helps to demonstrate that you care about helping them succeed.

4) Recognize that regardless of how well you probe, there are simply some objections that you cannot overcome during a particular conversation. That’s okay. Not everyone is going to be a customer in the short-term.

5) How you deal with sales objections sends a very strong message to your customer/prospect. As a result, always be respectful, enthusiastic, courteous, professional and honest.

6) Don’t take any sales objection personally. Objections are not a reflection of you or your product/service.

7) Apply what you learn through the discussion about the objections in subsequent discussions. That means, make sure that you always leave the door open to carry on the discussion at an other time. That means promise some kind of follow-up deliverable and meet that deadline.

Finally, while there are literally thousands of “how to deal with sales objections” resources available, here are a couple of the most practical:

• Sales objection resource #1
• Sales objection resource #2

Remember: Subscribe to the BusinessCast Podcast at iTunes