Even The Biggest Name in the Business Won’t Reveal This Hidden Secret…
Everyone knows Tony Robbins as a great motivational speaker…but of course we’re professionals, and don’t need any of this motivational mumbo jumbo… Okay, let’s put that aside.
Tony’s not just known for his motivational advice. He also gets paid very well for his business acumen and methodologies. In particular, his is well known for his RPM or Rapid Planning Method. You can listen to his lecture here…
Anyway…you may ask, what the heck does this have to do with XpoCentral, a virtual trade show or presenting webinars and meetings?
Well, I promise, I’ll get to that in a minute. First I’d like to give you a little sense of what Tony’s getting at with his RPM.
Tony also refers to this program as his Results-oriented/Purpose-driven/Massive Action Plan, because it’s the results that count! And when you begin with that in mind, it changes how you might get there.
Let’s look at an example…in the case of a software reseller, you might have a goal of increasing your customer base by 5% over the next twelve months. In order to do that there are all sorts of tasks that need to be accomplished. To name a few…
- Marketing
- Sales
- Demos
- Proposals
- Investing in New Skills
- Staff Training
To drill down further you’ll have to decide on specific:
- Products & Services to market
- Sales Targets
- Features & Functionality to demonstrate
- Core competencies to train your staff on
- Metrics to measure, etc.
Accomplishing the goal of increasing your customer base also depends on current market conditions. If the economy is booming, the phone might be ringing off the hook. So, you may not have to spend as much time marketing. But, there will still be lots of sales activities and training.
If things are slow, you would certainly have to build up our marketing efforts, rethink sales targets and staff readiness to meet new challenges.
In any case, your to-do-list and the ones for your staff, under different conditions, may vary wildly. And in every case, they are long and never-ending. Especially in those tough times, when you have to cut back on staff. Then, you end up doing the work of two or more people.
Here’s where we have to remember to focus on Tony’s RPM. We can’t get bogged down in minutia, the tasks that get in the way of the Results! … Like responding to all the emails and pop-up notifications that can be so distracting.
What Tony suggests is that you “Chunk”. That is to list all the tasks you need to focus on to get to the end results. Then he says you should put these task into buckets. All the ones in related categories should be chunked together. This way you can focus on the ones that really matter in those groups. As you attack them, you may be able to get to your end result without even having to complete all of the items on your list. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Well, what Tony doesn’t tell you is how to effectively “chunk” items off your to-do-list. He leaves that up to you. That’s where XpoCentral comes in…We have the formula to remove key, repetitive tasks from your to-do-list FOREVER!
Adding our strategy to Tony’s Results Planning Methodology fills the missing link. We can help you save countless hours, reduce your sales cycle and lower your operating cost! And it’s easy to prove…
Just look at some key areas of your operation:
- 1. Product Demos
- How many product demos do you do during the year? Obviously it depends on the economic environment and the number of product you support. In any case, they are integral to growing your business.
- Let’s say, for example, you currently have 500 clients and your goal is to increase this base by 5%. If your close rate on new opportunities is 30%, then you would need to do around 85 demos to attain your goal (assuming you don’t lose any clients during the year). If the average demo takes 2 hours (that’s probably low give the amount of prep and possibly travel time, not to mention if you have multiple staff members participating) and your average billing rate is $150 per hour, then the cost for this is at least $25,000 or $1,000 per new client.
- Even if you use your loaded labor cost, instead of your lost opportunity cost, it will cost you at least $8,500 or about $350 per new client…a hefty price.
- 2. Staff Training
- Training staff and keeping them up-to-date on new skills, software features and functionality or policies and procedures is costly. Again, depending on the number of applications you support and the complexity of each, the training costs can vary wildly.
- Conservatively, you can spend between 40 and 80 hours per year training an employee. Assuming the low end and the same rates as above, that’s $6,000 in lost opportunity cost or $2,000 in loaded labor, per employee.
- If you use in-house staff as trainers, the costs may be double. No wonder why we all complain about staff turnover.
- We can do this exercise for any number of activities to save money on the revenue producing or cost control sides of the ledger.
- Our task lists tend to focus on the activities we have to do and not on the results we want…“Oh, I have to do a demo for a new prospect. I’d better make sure to cover these basic features and functions, so they understand how easy this application is to learn.” Or,
- “We need to have Jenifer trained on those new features, so she can setup and implement them for Client B.”…
- In an initial demo you will most likely show basic features, functionality and an overview of the application. Usually it’s not until the second meeting that you’d get into the specifics, to meet a prospects needs. And we may end up having 1,2,3 or more meetings and demonstrations to close a deal….it seems like the sales cycle just keeps getting longer and longer. Especially in a tough economy, people just don’t want to part with their hard earned cash!
- Most demos though require a review of the basics. Every application has fundamental features that you will review up front. Just the same, your staff needs to have the skills to implement and fulfill the requirements according to your Company’s best practices.
- Well, what if you used Tony Robbins’s RPM and took a direct route to the end results. Use technology to improve your process. Simply incorporate a few new methodologies, use some popular resources, and you can absolutely save countless hours, reduce your sales cycle and lower your operating cost!
- In other words, let XpoCentral help you memorialize basic repetitive tasks. Record these events and feature them in your trade show booth, so prospects and clients can review them anytime.
- With a slight change in your approach and with the end results in mind, you can maximize your valuable resources and get right to the heart of what your clients and prospects are looking for…
Focus on the results and get the mundane off your list.
