The other lumberjack was just as competitive http://coach-factory-outlet.weebly.com/, but his objective was slightly different - he was determined to outperform his partner. So, every few minutes his axe grew silent as he took a few moments to sharpen it.
At the end of the day, which one do you think had worked the hardest? Which had the most to show for his efforts?
One of Steven Covey even Habits of Highly Successful People?he calls Sharpening the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal. The housing market, our product - life itself - is constantly changing. For us to keep up we need regular and consistent renewal. That might mean learning something new, trying something else entirely, or just taking time to reenergize.
The reality is that change is hard. Few of us want to change. We want the market to change; we want our prospects to change and overcome their fears and start coming back into our models and home centers. We want mortgage lenders to vary their policies and loosen up on their borrowing requirements.
We all would just love for the world to change to conform to our wants and needs. But this rarely happens. So http://christianlouboutinoutleto.weebly.com, stepping out of your comfortable daily habits for a minute, what else could you learn or change that might bring you closer to your market - to selling and delivering more homes or lots or product?
Something Totally New
Have you started a company blog yet? How about a Facebook page for your business? Do you have a list of local blogs that you follow and where you regularly leave comments? How will this help you sell more?
They are the places where buyers are looking for specifics of your products, services and - even about you. Your company blog is a way for you to connect with potential buyers and tell them about yourself and your company in a non-commercial way. Here to demonstrate what your brand represents, tell stories about your business http://dooneyandbourkeoutlet.weebly.com, the people you serve and share interesting points as to why and how a business can move their plans forward.
Your blog must not be an ad, but more of a journal of interesting information your customers can use to plan and make decisions. In fact http://fakeoakley-sunglasses.weebly.com/, if you would like really make your blog irresistible to your buyers, write about them. Better yet, get your current customers involved in currently talking about their experiences, or have someone on your team interview them and write their story for them.
Then, any time you have a new blog post, promote it through the social media outlets - Twitter, Facebook, etc. The point of all of this is to attract new customers to your blog, and then on to your main website. Your audience will grow in two ways: From people searching the social networks for the topics your writing about and from people who pass on your social posts to others.
Something Else Entirely
Most of us who have established businesses view marketing as a way to find buyers for our product. I recommend another approach: Find the buyers, find out what they want, and then make sure you have the product to fill their need.
Once we take our own product and bias out of the mix and examine the market objectively, we begin to find opportunities that we would almost certainly otherwise miss ? those that come from a completely different perspective than our own.
For instance, we all are likely to create and sell what we like. We each have our particular favorites with regards to technology. And, likely, when the market was good you were able to sell all you needed of what you liked to create. We no more have that luxury; we've got to come to market with precisely what buyers want http://fossilhandbags.weebly.com, need, expect and are willing to pay for?or face the consequences.
Finding the right product mix comes from researching the market ? reexamining the marketplace to find out what trends are developing, what buyers are asking for, what is selling now and who is doing the buying. Are your products up to date, and compelling to a new generation of buyers? If so, are those the products youe promoting? Or, are you relying on our ld standards?because that what you like and think everyone should buy?
Change is hard, and different is not always better, but ultimately everything becomes dated. Keeping aligned with your buyer preferences will likely mean keeping well ahead of your competitors.
Recharge.
In The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey writes, his is the singe most powerful investment we can ever make in life - investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to manage life and to contribute. We are the instruments of our own performance, and to show good results, we need to recognize benefit of spending some time regularly to sharpen the saw
Jack Welch, when he was CEO of General Electric, used to advocate working on your business instead of working in your small business. Often when we stop, take a break, get our bearings and sharpen our thinking, we come back with renewed energy and a clear head that lets us see things we might have missed before.
This, too, is hard to do. Such as, we teach a coaching program for small business owners. The #1 objection we get to from potential participants is not the price, it that they are oo busy trying to make a living?to take two hours a week to learn how to better use their time and energy. They won make time to sharpen their saw.
How may you recharge? Change your daily routine, habits and environment for one day; take your staff on a planning retreat, somewhere out of the office. Take half a day just to discuss openly where you would like your business to be in 12 months from now, what steps are needed to meet your current challenges, and what the reward will be if you take new initiatives.
Learn. Change. Grow.
Remember back a short while ago when business was moving too fast for us to stop and work on making it better? Now, at the other extreme, we still have a tendency to think wee so busy planning to get it restarted that we still don take time to make it better. But if not now, when?
The more you learn, the more willing you are to change, the more you can expect to grow.
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