October 2020 Morning Meeting Highlights
Good day members. Thank you to all who attended our meeting. We had a wonderful morning meeting and a great speaker. Here are the October 2020 morning meeting highlights.
The meeting was well attended. It seems that more and more merchants are getting back into the swing of things.
We opened the meeting with Dr. Jennifer Laird welcoming everyone, the pledge and offering coffee and snacks (provided by the FMA for our guests).
This was followed by a membership report from Nanci Spears. She said our membership was still going strong and that she would be working with new members to make sure they were signed up correctly and with renewing members that may need help with managing their accounts online. She said that ultimately if you put your credit card into your account online, it will automatically renew for you to ensure you stay current.
Then Jeff Weller put out the request for a host for our next evening social. It will be held on November 5th. So, if anyone wants to host, please contact us to reserve the date for your business.
Finally, Chase Barfield introduced our speaker. His name is Keith Miller, with SOL Sales Solutions. He is a Sales Success Advisor. Keith gave a presentation on how to create a plan ahead sales strategy, post COVID. The presentation was about the things that businesses can do to assess the situation and build for future sales success.
Keith asked the crowd if Covid-19 affected their sales in a positive, negative or neutral (no affect) way. The results within the meeting was in a positive way. Everyone in the room had growth in sales during Covid-19. Keith did say that they conducted a national survey and the results were split on the positive and negative sides; basically no or very few neutral responses.
During Covid-19 closures and restrictions, a sales person could not travel and getting the attention of customers became even more difficult. So, businesses had to get creative.
In that same survey, businesses were asked if they had a plan ahead sales strategy or sales plan. About 1/2 of them had one. The others had no clue.
Keith continued by discussing “Going Social.” This meant that you need to ask the question “What does the data say about your market? How is the environment affecting your customers?” He stated that more customers are staying home and are doing a lot more market research. So you have to “Go Social” so that you are in front of them when they do their research.
Then Keith discussed “Taking A Selfie” which meant to look inside your company. Examine how you are doing things. What works? What doesn’t? What needs to change? What do you need to do more of? It is basically a self assessment, something many small businesses do not do.
Keith concluded with the 3 R’s: Realign, Remove and React.
Realign: Where are the opportunities? Who is ideal or most profitable? What is the sales cycle? Realign with the current market environment.
Remove: Take away the idea that things don’t change. Remove any ineffective business or thought processes.
React: I can help my customers by _____. Fill in the blank and do it.
The presentation was much more in-depth than the summary here. But, needless to say, it was a wealth of information. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Keith Miller yourself and he can help you with your post Covid-19 plan ahead sales strategy.
Conclusion
That concluded the October Morning Meeting. It was a very informative meeting. We look forward to seeing you all at the November Evening Social and our next morning meeting.
If you are not a member and wish to join to gain the benefits of membership, feel free to visit our membership page to sign up.
FMA – Uniting The Businesses of Freeport
