Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Is Your Inefficiency Costing You Business?

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Is your inYes, it is.

Last week I signed up for a webinar for a training I needed to complete. The signup form was a Google Form which is okay, but there was no confirmation email or a link for the webinar. So, I figured they’d just send an email to confirm the day before with the login details.

Then the evening before I get a link that says I have signed up for the webinar but I actually just signed up to sign up for the webinar. “Please click here and sign up AGAIN.”

Dude. This is not awesome. Even better? There was only a start time on the webinar originally. And it’s not an hour it’s 90 minutes (WHHHYYYYY???) and I have a client call at the 1 hour mark so I missed the last half hour of the webinar.

And then of COURSE the webinar starts late (Side rant: when you are late for an event or webinar do you expect that everyone will wait for you? I sure don’t, if I’m late I’ll just jump in and catch up – so WHY OH WHY do people do this?!?!)

If you are running a webinar or ANYTHING you need people to sign up for in advance – do yourself a favor and don’t annoy them before you start. Here’s what I recommend:

  • Include the start AND end time of your event.
  • START ON TIME. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I budgeted the 30/60/90 minutes for your event and we were all told when it starts. I arrived on time and it’s not my fault that someone else had a call go long. They knew they were late and expect to catch up – your lack of planning doesn’t constitute an emergency on my end.
  • END on time – yes you can stick around for questions but be respectful of people’s time and what you PROMISED them.
  • Don’t be redundant. There was ZERO reason for me to have to register twice for the webinar. And my guess is that about 50% of the people who first registered will not re-register or attend the webinar. You’re losing people when you do this.

We all know I thrive on efficiency and streamlined processes so this rant shouldn’t come as a surprise. This was just a good reminder to me to ensure that I have the most efficient processes in place in my business so that I’m not wasting clients (or prospects) time with redundancies.

What redundancies in your business do you need to review?

How to Play Nice: Your CRM & Your Newsletter List

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I’ve been talking a lot about how to maximize your CRM lately. If you’re still panicked about not having one, jump on it, I promise you it’ll make your life more sane. After my latest newsletter went out, a colleague of mine called to ask a question about how my CRM integrates with MailChimp.

Her question was if I ask permission before adding people in my CRM to my newsletter list. Which is a GREAT question! The short answer is no, but the longer answer is…

I only add people to my CRM who are a potential client. Not that I want them to hire me even though they’ve given me no indication they’re interested in me, but we’ve had a real live conversation about them hiring me. People who make it into my CRM are people who are in my sales pipeline. They’re interested, we’re talking, I’ve probably sent them a proposal or some recommendations about what it would look like to work with me. I call this implied consent.

I treat my newsletter as an additional touch point. If 80% of sales happen between the 5th and 12th (12!) touch point, then my newsletter is one of those touch points (well, it’s hopefully years worth of touch points!).

This is why I think newsletters are such a great way to connect with your network when you’re NOT selling them something. My newsletter is full of helpful information that gets you to say “she’s the right person for me” or “she’s nuts so glad I didn’t hire her – UNSUBSCRIBE.” Your newsletter should be thought of as a part of your sales pipeline. It’s not a pushy part of sales process but one more way you can add value to your potential client and remind them that you are alive and in business and ready for them to hire you when they’re ready.

My friend then asked how often people unsubscribe and if I get complaints. A great question, and again the answer is NO. People have occasionally unsubscribed in time, which is OK, I’m not the right fit for them. No one has ever responded and been mad they were added to my list if we’ve been having conversations about working together.

As you look at your list and your connections, I will always make sure that you are adding in your current clients, past clients (unless it ended badly) and your prospects. Make sure that the people who SHOULD be hearing from you are hearing from you!

March Pop Culture Round Up

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March Pop Culture Round UpMarch Madness is back and I am miraculously in first place in my family bracket. For the moment (come ON Villanova!) I’m not a sports fan but for 3 weeks every March I am a HUGE college basketball fan. My friend Jen talks all the time about the importance of sports, and I agree that it’s great for networking and as a conversation starter. How’s your bracket doing? Besides March Madness I’m doing my best to stay up on my pop culture, here’s  a few of my recent favorites…

Reading

I finished Red Clocks and I LOVED it. I talked about it last month too but man was it fantastic…

I was super sad to hear that Kelly Thompson’s Hawkeye comic series was coming to a close. I finished it up last week when we had some sunshine and it did not disappoint. It was funny and snarky and action packed and I now think I’ll read every comic Kelly Thompson writes. You should check her out too!

A few months back I read about Misfit City a comic from the writer of 10 Things I Hate About You and Legally Blonde. Yup. I was delighted that the comic takes place in a fictional version of Astoria, Oregon and has some great pop culture and snark to it. Plus a dog! I can’t wait to see where volume 2 goes…

Listening

I downloaded Chris Stapleton’s From a Room: Volume 2 a few months ago (I think when he was on SNL) and realized I hadn’t downloaded Volume 1. I fixed that a few weeks ago and Chris Stapleton is back on heavy rotation around here.

As for podcasts, the usual political pod suspects are still there. The Late Night with Seth Meyers podcast live from SXSW with Amber Ruffin & Jenny Hagel interviewed by Joy Reid was FABULOUS and worth a listen. Also, if you missed the Bill Hader interview and loved his Stefan sketch on SNL, make sure to listen!

I’m also enjoying The Daily Show: Ears Edition as another political podcast spot with some great interviews. He had the Parkland students on right before the March for our Lives and it was great…

Watching

I started watching the Wild Wild Country documentary with my brother and sister in law when I was in Spokane this past weekend. It’s really fantastic. Fun fact – I went to high school in Bend and was involved with Young Life which is the organization that now owns the camp that was the Rajneesh Purim. I helped to clean up the camp and get it ready for kids when I was in high school so know the property pretty well. It is CRAZY to see it back in the early 80’s when it was Rajneesh Purim. It’s also a fantastic story about local politics, my other favorite hobby these days.

I saw Black Panther again with my husband who said it’s his favorite super hero movie now. I’d agree. I still haven’t seen A Wrinkle in Time (don’t worry, I’m more disappointed in myself than you are in me) but have tickets to see Ready Player One this weekend. I can’t WAIT!

I am LOVING this season of Jane the Virgin and while I don’t usually love a cancer scare story, they’ve handled it well I think. Brooklyn 99 has returned and it’s SO DANG GOOD. And I continue to love this season of UnREAL…

My very favorite show The Americans returns this week and I am so happy it’s back and so sad it’s the final season. But as I tweeted a week ago, I can’t WAIT for the reboot to see what the Jennings are up to in 2014…

I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of my copy of A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo thanks to Last Week Tonight’s fantastic story earlier this month.