Aaron Hoos

It’s the time of year when we are knee-deep in planning what we want to do for the rest of the year. Stop smoking, lose weight, start eating more cookies, whatever.

Planning is good but by the end of January, there’s a good chance that most of those plans fall apart under the pressure of reality (which is why a lot of year-round gym membership-holders avoid the gym in January to let all the enthusiastic people join and then leave).

Plans don’t always work because their main ingredients are hope and luck. If you want to eliminate hope and luck, try developing a kick-ass plan.

HOW TO CREATE A KICK-ASS PLAN

1. A kick-ass plan starts with a goal and the steps to achieve that goal but if you stop there, you’ve only done what a lot of people do. You’ll do okay (better than if you just create a goal and no steps) but I’m about to show you a way to take your goal-setting up a notch!
2. Next, you need to plus your goal. (Add something to your goal to make it really special — to increase its value and importance). Adjust your steps as necessary.
3. For each step in your plan, identify your capabilities and requirements. Then determine what strengths you have to succeed and what weaknesses you have that could hold you back. Mitigate those weaknesses through investments in automation… or see if there is someone in your network who can help you. (Try tweeting out to your network that you need help in some specific thing and watch what happens. What a great way to see just how much value your network places in you.)
4. Determine how to start strong. For some of you (especially this time of year), this won’t be a problem. But for some, there might be issues of procrastination or feelings of overwhelmedness that need to be conquered first. Figure out if anything is going to hold you back from starting and then figure out how to jam down on the accelerator very early in the project.
5. Starting is good but what you really want to is attain critical mass quickly. This gives your project some life of its own because you see success. Figure out how you define critical mass for your particular project and how you can get there as soon as possible.
6. Next, look for opportunities to maintain momentum. Project inertia ensures that you keep plugging away regardless of the peaks and valleys that you might experience along the way. (Confession: This is another area I’m working on. It’s easy for me to slow down or even stop when the middle-of-the-project doldrums hit). I need to build little motivations into my projects to keep me going. Sometimes it’s as simple as taking a break or rewarding myself with a trip to Starbucks if I get complete a certain number of steps.
7. Determine your finishing alternatives. We all want to achieve a project well but often that “winning finish” isn’t well defined. We need to define it clearly.
8. A winning finish is idea… but it doesn’t always happen. We also need to consider some potential contingencies. You don’t need to go overboard here (or else you’ll end up over-planning and you’ll never get to your project) but you can do a simple A-B-C-D contingency planning: (A) is the ideal finish. (B) is a moderate finish in which some of the winning finish characteristics are present and some are not. (C) is a finish but not something you would define as a win. (D) is if the project doesn’t finish. You’re not grading the project, you’re anticipating what could happen to cause these four potential scenarios and deciding what you can do to make sure an idea finish is the most likely outcome. (For more thoughts on contingency planning, read about a time when I accidentally stabbed myself).
9. If you’re already busy, you’ll need to also do this: Figure out what you’re willing to give up to make it happen. (Note: this is a HUGE area of struggle for me and something I’ve been trying to work on in my own business. I love to do a lot but I’ve started to realize in the past year or two that if I adopt something new, I need to give up something else).
10. Figure out what habits need to change in order to succeed. Do you need to be more diligent so you can blog every day? Do you need to stop procrastinating? Do you need to screw up your courage to make more sales calls? Maybe you need to get desperate!
11. Lastly, become an action figure and blaze forward by doing what needs to be done!. (More on that in this blog post: The entrepreneur’s silver bullet).

If you’ve got this far in my blog, you’re probably thinking to yourself: “Isn’t this insanely time consuming? Is Aaron crazy?”

The answer is yes… to both questions (although there’s nothing I can do about the second question so I’ll just address the first question).

This IS time consuming. But it works. It turns your luck-and-hope plans into real, actionable, achievable kick-ass plans.

Besides, you’ll spend far more time working part-way through your plan and fizzling out than you will if you put in some time in advance to go through these steps. An investment of time at the beginning to develop a kick-ass plan will help your project be more successful, and will help you to achieve it faster and with fewer challenges.

Congratulations for reaching the end of the year!

It’s the end of December. Time to fill out your Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up.

Are you ready for next year?!?

Wondering what the heck a Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up is? Read the first Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up blog post that kicked it all off!

It’s the end of November. Time to fill out your Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up. (Can you believe there’s only one month left of the year?)

Wondering what the heck a Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up is? Read the first Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up blog post that kicked it all off!

It’s the end of October. Time to fill out your Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up. (Are you looking forward to the end of the year? There are only two months left — push for the next level of success in these last two months!)

Wondering what the heck a Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up is? Read the first Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up blog post that kicked it all off!

Clients have a lot of choice when it comes to selecting a real estate or financial professional to meet their needs. And just because we serve a client once doesn’t mean they’ll come back to us when they need a similar service in the future. Client loyalty is scarce.

One important way to create client loyalty is to build a relationship with them. The deeper the relationship, the more likely they’ll be to come back to you for future services. But building relationships isn’t easy – you probably have lots of clients and it’s hard to keep them all straight.

Here’s a tool that can help. It’s a simple list of questions to help you get to know your clients better. Don’t hand over this list to your clients to fill it out and don’t pepper them with all of the questions at once. In fact, not all of these questions can even be answered by the client! Answer as many questions about each client as you can. Then identify a couple of questions that you want to discover the next time you talk to them. Sometimes you can ask the question directly; other times you’ll have to communicate with your client and use clues to discover the real answer.

Use this list as a guide to understand your client better and as a foundation to build a relationship with them.

HERE’S HOW TO USE THE ANSWERS

• Use the answers to build rapport: “Your daughter is in piano? So is my daughter. I’ll watch for you at the next recital!”
• Use the answers to prompt future sales: For example, a child’s birthday might be good reminders to sell insurance or an adult’s birthday might be a good time to revisit their retirement fund.
• Use the answers to start future conversations: “Hey, how did your son’s little league tournament go last weekend?”
• Use the answers to look for referral opportunities: “If anyone in your business networking group happens to be looking for key man insurance, let them know that I specialize in insurance for small businesses.”
• Use the answers to help you understand your clientele and shape your business accordingly: If many of your clients are young families, the products you offer might shift over time as your clients’ children age.
• Use these answers to help you understand how to market your business: Once you have these question lists started for your clients, you can fill out the questions in the blog post 55 questions to answer when defining your sales funnel’s target market. (In fact, you’ll notice that some of the questions below are closely connected to the target market questions).

61 QUESTIONS TO ASK

1. What is your client’s age?




2. What is your client’s gender?




3. What is the your client’s ethnic heritage?




4. What language does your client speak as their primary language?




5. Where does your client live?




6. Who else lives at that address?




7. What does your client do for a living?




8. What is your client’s approximate income range?




9. What are your client’s hobbies?




10. What teams, leagues, groups, and associations does your client belong to?




11. What kind of music does your client like to listen to?




12. What kind of car does your client drive?




13. What sports does your client follow?




14. What kind of education does your client have?




15. What are the things that your client aspires to do? (i.e. Climb the corporate ladder? Give their children the best opportunities?)




16. What kind of house does your client aspire to live in?




17. What kind of car does your client aspire to drive?




18. If your client seems themself in a “lifestage”, what would that lifestage be?




19. What would your client say is the next lifestage that they should move toward?




20. How can you help them get to that next lifestage?




21. What does your client consider to be important to them?




22. How does your client define happiness and success?




23. What kind of personality would describe your client?




24. What motivates your client?




25. What fears does your client have?




26. What are the problems that your client wants solved in their lives?




27. What are the challenges that your client faces in their day-to-day lives? (Unlike the above question, this question forces you to consider other challenges — even ones that your client wouldn’t define as a problem to be solved).




28. What value does your client place on family? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




29. What value does your client place on friends? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




30. What value does your client place on their work? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




31. What value does your client place on recognition and status? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




32. What value does your client place on happiness? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




33. What value does your client place on fear of loss? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




34. What value does your client place on money? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




35. What value does your client place on time? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




36. What value does your client place on leisure time and activities? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




37. What value does your client place on peace of mind? (i.e. more important or less important than other factors in their life).




38. Who influences your client?




39. Who does your client influence?




40. Where does your client like to spend their time?




41. What are the most important purchases to your client?




42. If your client had an extra $100, what would they spend it on? What if they had an extra $1000? What if they won $1 million dollars?




43. If your client had a week where they had no work-related commitments, what would they do? Where would they go? Who would they go with?




44. What are the top 10 tasks that fill the to-do lists of your client?




45. How does your client define the problem that you solve or the need that you fulfill? (i.e., What words to they use? What “symptoms” trigger a search for a solution? Check out this blog post, which gives a closer look at the Audience stage.)




46. What does your client consider to be risky? (Time, effort, money, and reputation are the big ones)




47. Who will your client have to face if they buy your product or service and it doesn’t meet their needs?




48. What other alternatives does your client have to solve their problem or fulfill their need? (Be sure to include competitors’ products and services as well as alternate offerings that aren’t direct competitors but still solve the problem. And don’t forget: Do nothing is also an alternative!)




49. What reasons would your client give for not purchasing your product or service?




50. How familiar is your client with the solution you’re offering? (i.e., is it entirely new and requires a lot of explaining or is it a very familiar solution?)




51. How is your client changing? (i.e., what answers to this list of questions will be different next year or in the next decade, and why?)




52. Does your client have a spouse? What is his/her name and age?




53. What is your client’s spouse’s hobbies?




54. Does your client have any children? How many? What are their names and ages?




55. What activities do your client’s children take part in?




56. What products/services has your client bought from you in the past?




57. What products/services has your client bought from your competitors in the past?




58. What products/services is your client most likely to buy next from you?




59. What would your client say is the most important reason that he/she uses your services?




60. What would it take to get your client to switch service providers and get the same service you offer but from someone else?




61. What would it take to lock your client in to working exclusively with you for the rest of their lives?