More exporters head offshore to manufacture...

Naturally we hate to see jobs leave New Zealand in the form of manufacturing as seen in the Herald this morning. However stopping this is a bit like trying to get Aucklanders out of cars and onto public transport or convincing the labour party that taxing high income earners does not motivate them to earn more, work harder and spend their live in this wonderful country.
There is no silver bullet to keeping smart people in New Zealand. However if it's a great place to live and bring up families then they will stay. The definition of 'great' is the key. For me 'great' includes safe, friendly, clean, easy to do business, great health and education and a future that will be cool for my kids. For me we are safe, friendly and relatively clean. However we are not an easy country to be in business. Our taxes are high, the paper work is out of control and local governments have their spending out of control. With regard to health, plane loads of people flying to Aussie for health care says it all. With regard to education, I am scared. My kids are just starting school, they love it. I however have a feeling that we are squashing all out kids down a single education platform/funnel. Lets stop the underfunding of the higher income areas and give it to the poor areas. What are we trying to do, create a country of average people!

Pick up the phone rather than email...

Cullen's comment in the house about John Key being rich reminds me of the way emails can be used for the "brain explosion" quick replies. If you want things to be done faster and with the right meaning then pick up the phone. It's so much faster than the 6 emails currently used to make meeting times.

The trick to getting things done is getting things done!

The Nike saying "just do it" is such a good byline to use a mantra. Want to get lots done then do lots. If you need to make lots of phone calls, then pick up the phone. It's not a trick. Just get on with things one at a time. Do not hesitate just do! Good luck and have fun.

Selling and sales staff... what I have learnt

Working with my business partner Travis over the 6 months we have attempted to distill the sales process down the a "system" or "operations manual". I was stimulated to do this after reading the E-myth Revisted that talked about systems being a key for growth. If you want to employ more people and have them do "things" in line with the company's values then you need systems for them to follow. Hence I have coined the phrase for me: "System will set me free". In sales what we have discovered is that you need to make 20 calls a day of which 2 are to new prospects, ie the other 18 are follow up calls and calls to existing clients. We also believe that you should make as many of these calls in the morning when your energy is higher and use the afternoons for sending material and having appointments. This was reconfirmed when I was interviewing a potential new team member who had been int he business for some 35-40 years and she, without prompting, talked about the 20 calls a day rule she had learnt back in London. Great coincidence!

You are out of mind when you are our of sight

If you are in sales you will realise that as soon as you have either left the office of your client or off the phone you are more than likely gone from their mind within 10 seconds, actually probably 2 seconds. Why 2 seconds. They will be on to the next meeting or next phone call. If it's neither of these then it will be checking their emails and stressing about how many unanswered emails are in their inbox. Clients and potential clients expect the sales person to keep in touch. You will get more sales talking to more people - so obvious but done by so few. My photocopier just broke down, where are those copier sales people that were ringing me every week, that I forgot about after they got off the phone and after I binned their brochures! Please ring me.

It's worth looking at the stats....

An interesting stat that has reached a new high is the number of return visitors to New Zealand. For the first time just over 50% (50.08%) of all international arrival into the country have been here before. This means there is an opportunity to build brand loyalty. This might also mean that these people want to experience things that are a little different to any previous trips. It might also mean they are a little more confident with their travel plans and are more likely to travel as an independent traveller. I think operators need to promote more in New Zealand that offshore.

Less is more.....

Last night a spent a few hours looking at ads and finding leads for my sales team. One of the the things that hit me more and more as I looked through publications was that in many cases the best ads had less information in them. This lead me down the cliche of "less is more". This saying holds some truth in lots of areas. For advertisers I suggest doing better ads in less mediums and shorter clearer messages. There is too much clutter in many of the ads. My mind was going into melt down with the overlaod of content in some of the ads.