Visitor, your OCTOBER FocalPoint Newsletter is here.

The country’s economy is mired in the longest slump since the 1980’s and Canadian businesses are wondering how to weather the storm.  For the owners who understand the advantages a downturn in the economy brings, it is the best time in the history of the world to get aggressive and experience rapid growth.

These powerful insights will help you grow when all others see only doom and try to get by:

Invest in Marketing

People still need your goods and services, it is up to you to make sure you are the one who has the image of being the best solution and let the world know. They can’t buy from you if they don’t know you exist. Stand out as THE company with the best products with the highest value for money spent.

Paradoxically, buyers often have more money in a down economy than good as they have conserved cash. Work with your marketing and sales teams to develop the best strategies for getting clients and prospects to buy now.

Grab Available Talent

An economic slump of this magnitude is likely to have affected even the best companies’ top teams and that means there are many highly talented people looking for a job.  This is the time to re-evaluate your staff and restructure as well as fill open positions with top talent you couldn’t attract when times were good.

It’s True, You Can Grow Fast

Our team worked with one of our large national clients, Superior Propane, in this stagnant and declining economy and we know it is true, you can grow. The changes we facilitated have helped the company achieve a 180-degree turnaround in their culture, and grow by 3 percent annually -- in a marketplace that is declining by 1 percent per year per year.

Be Strategic About Spending

Review where you’re allocating your marketing spend and how you can really make that investment work for you. Get an expert help to assist you to identify how you could better spend your marketing dollars and increase sales and profit.

Discover more ways you can take advantage of the downturn and read how other companies are turning this downturn into a big upturn for their business in the full article.

In the courtroom, allegations need to be backed up by sworn testimony and evidence. As sales professionals, we also must provide testimony and evidence. We need to validate the claims we make about the benefits we say our products and services provide.

Getting that kind of proof means we need to be fanatical about getting good testimonials. Asking for testimonials is quite easy. I almost always get a resounding, “Yes!” However, actually getting the testimonials requires persistence without becoming a pest.

Here are some of the tools, tactics, and times that I have found work to increase the number of testimonials that I collect:

• LinkedIn endorsements and recommendations.
• Edification videos, such as videos from a client attending a workshop. I have posted these on YouTube and LinkedIn.
• Social media through live video posts on Facebook and Periscope
• Anytime I speak to a group I capture a video of the speech or have an evaluation form to capture comments. I make sure they sign a release so comments can later be used in marketing.
• When holding a coaching or training event.
• During my coaching sessions.

Final tip: Have your smart phone ready to capture testimonials.

-        By Coach Phil Gilkes

Take Charge

Take control of your environment. Don’t let yourself be bombarded with the sensational stories and celebrity gossip that fill today’s TV news, radio programs and social media feeds.  Be sure that what you see and listen to is consistent with the goals you want to achieve.

Listen Your Way to Success

Listen to educational audio programs in your car. The average person spends between 500 and 1,000 hours per year driving in the car. You can become an expert in your field by simply listening to educational audio programs as you drive from place to place.

Take Courses in Your Field

Attend seminars given by experts in your field. Take additional courses and learn everything you possibly can. Learn from the experts. Read their books and articles and listen to people with proven track records in the area in which you want to be successful.

Get Around the Right People

Associate only with positive, success-oriented people. Get away from the go-nowhere, negative types.  If you have a negative boss, seriously consider changing jobs. Associating on a regular basis with negative people is enough in itself to condemn you to a life of underachievement, frustration and failure. Associate only with positive people. Get around winners!

Visualize Your Goals

The last thing before you fall sleep and the first thing in the morning, think about and visualize your goals as realities. See your goal vividly as though it already existed. Your subconscious mind is only activated by affirmations and pictures that are received in the present tense. Visualize everything including the type of relationships, home, car, career, health, and lifestyle that you really want. See yourself living the life that you want to live.

Action Exercises

Here are 2 things you can do immediately to keep your mind and emotions focused on your goals and financial success:

1. Listen to audio programs in your car. Feed your mind with a stream of high-quality, educational, motivational material that moves you toward your goal.
2. Resolve to associate with positive people. Get around winners and get away from negative people who criticize, condemn and complain. This will change your life.

-        By Brian Tracy

Sponsorships, partnerships, and TV or radio advertising are often overlooked as good marketing techniques. If you have the budget, they can be a cost-effective ways of acquiring customers.

Partnerships create mutually beneficial relationships with other businesses. These might include:

• Having products or services that complement each other's businesses,
• Promoting and recommending the other business to your existing customers,
• Using each other's distribution and marketing channels, and/or
• Providing background services to another business.

Sponsorships improve the visibility of your business. You could start by:

• Providing free services to a charitable organization or non-profit,
• Devoting the time of you and your employees to a good cause,
• Donating money, food, and other resources to a good cause, and/or
• Supporting a local sports team or community organization.

If you want to try local radio advertising, below are some things to bear in mind.

• Consider using an advertising agency.
• Understand payments and fees.
• Stand out from your competitors.
• Measure your advertising effectiveness.

All the advice for radio ads applies to TV, plus the guidance below.

• Use a reputable advertising and marketing agency.
• High production values are essential.
• TV advertising fees are higher, be sure to get a good ROI.

The Law of Terms says: The terms of payment can be more important than the price in a negotiation.

Many products are sold more on the payment terms than on the price. For example, people buy the most expensive car they can afford in terms of monthly payments.

The first corollary of the Law of Terms says: “You can agree to almost any price if you can decide the terms.”

If price is the sticking point, focus on the terms and see if you can negotiate terms that make it possible for the price to be acceptable.

The second corollary of the Law of Terms says: “Never accept the first offer, no matter how good it sounds.”

Even if the first offer is everything you could ask for, don’t accept it. Act a little disappointed. Ask for time to think it over. You can usually get an even better deal if you are patient.

The third corollary of this law says: “Never reject an offer out of hand, no matter how unacceptable it sounds when you first hear it.”

A bad offer can be turned into a good deal for you if you can dictate the terms of payment.

-        from "THE 100 ABSOLUTELY UNBREAKABLE LAWS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS" – Brian Tracy

Video marketing is an effective form of content marketing. It’s suited to a wide range of purposes, especially in industries that rely a lot on visual appeal. Here are five powerful types of video content:

1. Product Demonstrations. By incorporating animations, motion graphics, screen captures, and presenter voiceovers, product demonstrations are particularly suited for video.
2.  Animations. Animations are like moving infographics. They’re ideal for delivering a technical message through motion graphics, statistical representations, and 3D animations.
3. Virtual Tours. Virtual tours teleport viewers into the heart of the action so they can better relate to your product or service.
4. Video Logs. A video blog (vlog) is a series of short videos posted consistently, typically once or more per week. By spending five minutes in front of a web camera, you can present yourself as a human being rather than a “brand ambassador.”
5. Interviews. Consumers favor companies they view as “authorities.” Interviews easily accomplish this.

Finally, at the very least you should be using video as a medium for demonstrating your products or services and helping existing customers to get more out of them.