Evaluating Your Assets
Are you looking to grow your business or practice? In this episode, Bill Caskey helps you identify and evaluate your assets and the things your company is good at and understand where your company’s room for growth is. Something that companies and people rarely do on their own is an assessment of their own assets. Bill talks about the importance of knowing the kind of assets available to companies to grade yourself on how well you are utilizing them. Tune in and understand your own assets, and leverage what you and your team are good at.
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Evaluating Your Assets
I’m glad you joined me. If you are reading this prior to December 10th 2020, make sure you join me at 4:00 PM Eastern in The 2X Academy. You can go to The2XAcademy.com. I’m going to be doing an entire 90-minute training workshop on goal setting and planning for 2021. We’ve done it a couple of times for clients. We’ve got the bugs worked out. It’s good. I think you’re going to leave inspired. If you want to take part in that, go to The 2X Academy. If you are reading this after December 10th 2020, make sure you join in 2021. We got twelve months of great content. Every month, I go live for 90 minutes talking about an episode or an issue that is pertinent for sales professionals and leaders alike this year in 2021.
When I go into a company and work, companies invite me in. I spend six months to a year with them, sometimes more. One of the things that we do is assemble a list of the assets that the company has. Usually, the assets are 10 to 12 things that the company and the people within the company are good at. The problem is I don’t see that use that much. Prior to me coming in and doing that, people don’t understand what kind of assets are available to them. I’m assuming that you’re reading this, wanting to grow your practice, business or territory in 2021, it’s important to take a little time and a good time of the year to do it and take an assessment of your assets. Ask yourself the question, “Am I using these assets to the utmost of my ability to leverage those assets into business, discussions and sales?”
People just don't understand what kind of assets are available to them. Share on XI’ve got five of them here for you. I want to go through these one at a time. I’d like for you to grade yourself on them. On a scale of 1 to 10 or A to F, grade yourself, how well are you taking advantage of these assets? Number one, your personal knowledge. You have a ton of knowledge about your business, the problems that people have and the prospects. You’ve got tons of knowledge about the solutions that you bring forth. You’ve got knowledge of the processes and the frameworks that you use to solve those problems. I find most companies don’t have a place where they list these assets and you should. As you’re an individual performer, you need to be thinking, “What are the assets I have when it comes to my knowledge? What do I know how to do?” What do you know how to do that you can put on display in some way, either through LinkedIn, video, podcasting or articles? That’s another episode we’re not going to get into, but it’s important. You first have to understand what is your personal knowledge.
The second thing is, “What’s the internal knowledge inside your company?” I work with a lot of companies that have technical expertise. Maybe the sales professional does not or the sales team doesn’t, but the company does. There are internal engineers, experts, smart dudes, smart guys and girls who can bring something to the table. After you do the personal knowledge, I want you to list the internal knowledge. “What do the people in your company know that you can use and leverage?” It could be something. I’ve got a client who has a lot of smart, technical and sophisticated people inside their company. They do an interview series once a month, where they interview one of these people. They talk about how this knowledge that is intrinsic inside the organization can be brought forth and help clients.
There was an article I read on digital transformation. What it said was, “Your customers are looking for knowledge. They’re looking for know-how. They’re looking for you to share your expertise so that they don’t have to look around other places. They can go right directly to you. If your only message is a sales message or a pitch message, they’ll pass you by. They’ll go find somebody else where they can get the know-how.” Number two, find out what your internal knowledge is and start using that and bringing that forth. It doesn’t have to be interviews. It could be just you sitting down and questioning one of your smart people, “What’s one of the features of our product that is underutilized? When people buy it, they don’t realize what they’re getting?” They’ll tell you. They’ll reel it off the top of their head. You’ll be able to use that knowledge in your standing with prospects and your lead generation.
Number three, your email list. You may not have an email list specifically for your clients. I would like for you to, but your company probably has Salesforce or a CRM of some kind. You can drag that email list of people who are in your territory or your jurisdiction out. Don’t forget about that. That is something that I find companies underutilize. We’re guilty of that. We’ve got probably 5,000 to 6,000 people on our email list. We don’t do enough with it. Every time we send out something, we get good things back. I’m not talking about a daily email unless that’s how you’re set up. I’m talking about taking a look at who you have on your list. What can you do each week? Let’s say, a weekly email where you share something of value. Your email list is one of those hidden gems and assets that allows you to keep connected with your prospects over the course of time. Do you have an email list? Rate yourself there. Rate yourself not just whether you have one or not, but how you use it. Do you develop it? Do you leverage them?
Evaluating Your Assets: Your customers are looking for knowledge and know-how and for you to share your expertise so that they don’t have to look around other places.
Number four, your unique talent. I have a client that he started working with about a month ago and there were five of them on the team. One of the first exercises I put them through was they’re going to be doing a lot more social media content. I said, “What is each of your unique talents?” We went around the room and they shared their unique talent what they thought it was. I went around again and had everybody else comment on Julie. She was one of the ladies, for example. Julie had her own impression of her unique talent, but everybody else had slightly different variations of that. Sometimes it’s hard for us to see what our talents are. It’s easier for those around us to see it. I’d like for you to maybe do a little poll inside your office. This may sound odd, “What do you see my talents to be? What do you see me do that feels like I can do it in my sleep or do it like I’m falling off a log, heading into the river?”
Your unique talent is important because the more you can be in that space of using it, we’ve heard people call it the zone of genius. There are all sorts of names for it. Determine what’s unique about you in the business world and then double down on that. If you’re going to be shooting LinkedIn videos or writing articles, write about what you know and what you’re good at. You become almost mindless and you love doing it. In this case, Julie is a project manager. One of the things she loves to do is break projects down so that they can get accomplished on time and on budget. That’s a unique skill. There are project managers a dime a dozen out there, but she has a very specific way she does it. It may be part of a certification she’s gone through. That doesn’t matter. I’m more interested in, “What do you love to do? What are you good at? What’s unique about you?” Figure out a way to get that knowledge out into the world.
Number five, interactions and relationships. If you’re in professional selling, on the phone, account developing, client success, whoever you are as you’re reading this, you have constant, continuous interaction with prospects, clients and strategic partners. Every one of those develops a unique skill. Every one of those is an asset. For example, let’s say you’re on the phone with a prospect. The prospect asked you a question that you’ve been asked maybe a couple of times before, but the way they asked it was interesting. You answered it in a certain way. The answer to that question becomes an asset. I want you to use that.
I’ve got one client who puts together a Facebook Live video every Friday afternoon. He goes through his week and says, “What were the questions that I was asked this week about my product, the trends in the industry, the problems and the pandemic?” Whatever you want to talk about, he captures those. In some weeks he says, “I have 3 or 4. In some weeks, I have ten. I never do ten. I only do 3 or 4 four, but I can save those for the next week.” Your interactions with prospects can be a treasure trove of assets for you. Once you know what kinds of questions people ask you and the answer to those questions, those are assets. The world might want to know that because for every prospect that asks you a question and you answer it, there might be 100 other prospects who have that very question, but they’ve never thought to ask it. How many times have you heard someone in a group asked a question and you were like, “I wish I’d have thought of that, I never thought about that, I don’t understand that, I’m glad you asked that?” That’s exactly what we’re doing here.
Write about what you're good at. Share on XI’ve said before on this show and others, “Make a list of the top 10 to 15 questions that your prospect has right at the outset of the sales process at the very top of the funnel questions. Go through and answer those. Do it in a Frequently Asked Questions piece, maybe document each one and put it on LinkedIn in the polls and article sections. Maybe you shoot a video on each one.” The point of all this is that you are building an asset base. Every interaction you have with a prospect or a client can work into that because of the conversations you had. Somebody asked you, “Bill, what do you think about the trends of training over the next couple of years?” “I never thought about that.” I have thought about that, but let’s say I hadn’t. As I think about it, I might think, “There are three trends.” You’ve got an article or something you can produce and publish.
Digital transformation and the buyer-seller dance are going to be different in 2021 and beyond. People don’t want you to take them to lunch, play golf or kibitz for two hours. They want to get right to the point, “What do you know that I need to know? How can you help me solve a problem? What does it look like? What does it cost?” The clearer you can make this in the market and using your assets to do that, the better off you’re going to be. I hope that helps you. Go to BillCaskey.com if you have other questions or want to get ahold of me. If you’re reading this prior to December 10th 2020, get your butt to The 2X Academy. It’s going to be an awesome 2021 goal setting and planning session. It’s $97 a month. It’s affordable and easy. Every month, I come to you with training. I hope that helps you. I will see you next time.
