Lis Calandrino

Wine is part of our lifestyle — why not celebrate it while networking? If you're considering a wine tasting party, try these ideas:

• Present wines from different countries. Have people present the histories of their favorite bottles. The more regions, the merrier — it'll be like a trip around world.
• Include all types: white and reds, desserts and old world.
• For added expertise, bring in a sommelier.
• For food, consider simple hors d'oeuvres, cheese, olives, grapes, apples or even pub food. There's a great list of more complicated hors d'oeuvres here.
• Have a raffle or a drawing where the winner gets a nice bottle of wine.
• Raise money for a favorite charity.
• Put car keys in a fishbowl — and provide transportation!

Happy holidays.

Workshops and Seminars

Lis is a frequent speaker at local and national conferences, workshops and seminars. She’s presented in front of groups ranging in number from five to several hundred, and always aims to help attendees get the most of the seminars.

Business Consulting & Consumer Research

With a background in customer service, Lis can help you find out what your business is doing right and what it can do better. She’s conducted focus groups with thousands of customers over the years to find out what they like or don’t like about a product or brand, and has overseen a number of objective, third-party customer surveys to find out exactly what the business’ clientele thinks about them. She’s found direct customer feedback to be the most valuable information a business owner can have.

Having founded and led her own businesses, Lis has the tools to help ascertain where your business is at in its growth, and what structural and strategic improvements can be made.

Online Marketing Consulting

Lis has immersed herself in the world of Internet Marketing since the rise of blogs and social networking sites, and has learned how to maximize their offerings for business success. With this expertise, she can help you leverage your existing marketing efforts with blogs, podcasts, video casts, e-mail marekting campaigns, social networking sites and more to help bring greater visibility to your brand.

I must admit, I don't get it. Companies seem quick to spend significant money on racks, products and private label programs, but when it comes to investing in training employees there seems to be a problem.

First, employees are the key to the fiscal health of any business. In fact, employees are the first customers of any business. If they don't get it, the second customer will never get it and your products will never get out the front or back  door.

Training is the backbone of your business. Good employees are an asset, bad employees are a liability, but great employees will grow your business into a profitable money-making machine.

How do you build great employees? Here are some tips:

• Determine what skills your employees need. Maybe they could improve in the area of customer service, or sales, or follow-through.
• Define a standard — what do your best employees do? This provides a benchmark.
• Plan how you're going to get that done. Maybe good customer service is calling the customer after the job.
• Track the behaviors to see if you're getting what you want.

The difference between what you want and what you get is the training  gap. Now you know what you need. Look for the right training program and send them out for training or have someone come in and customize a program for you.

The more specific the skills, the easier to track and train as well as chart improvement.

Tomorrow, making training important.

Blogging from Las Vegas, NV

Blogging from Fresno, CA

Since first hearing the song "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," I've been fascinated with the dancing raisins. I swore that one day I would go and interview the people with the raisins. As luck would have it, a trip to Fresno, CA and the raisin capital of the world was in store!

My friend Dave Silvas from Jamie’s Flooring in Fresno said his friend Roger Moles had a good-sized ranch and he thought Roger would talk to me. We jumped in the car and were off to visit Roger. His farm had miles and miles of grapes weighing on the vines, and Dave says they're just about ready to be picked. I’m amazed at how beautiful they were — golden in color. First thing about Roger was his enthusiasm for what he was doing, even though he was on crutches. I asked how it happened (thinking it was a farming accident) but Roger laughed and said it was a motorcycle accident. At least he has time to play!

Roger is the Foreman of Tri City Farms, which is owned by Roger’s family. I started thinking, why, in 2008, does anyone become a farmer? My grandfather was a fruit farmer — he worried about the trees "morning, noon and night" as mother used to say. Between the bugs, cost of fertilizer and getting the apples and cherries picked, it was a family affair.  I spent my summers on the farm and I too loved the trees, the smell of the apple blossoms and was in awe of the blossoms turning into apples. I wondered if farmers in 2008 felt the same way.

LC: Why does anyone go into this business?
Roger: A love of the earth, the land and of course the grapes. The beauty of the grapes, watching them grow and how beautiful they are on the vines. Things that can’t be controlled. As with any other business, to make money. This is work on a margin of 20-40% depending on the yield. There is also my love of the grapes; touching them. Our farm is 2800 acres yielding about 2-2 ½ tons of grapes per acres. Volume is about 8 million dollars. The big problem is we only get paid once a year! Of course there’s the flexibility of being your own boss although this is a 24 hour a day business. Worrying about people stealing your plants straight out of the field.

LC: How do you keep the trees healthy?
Roger: Trees are like raising a child, the key is to keep the child healthy. Good fertilizer, keep away the bugs and love the plants. We try to fertilize them every year and invest part of our profits back into the soil. This way when profits aren’t high we can skip a couple years.

LC: How important is the organic market?
Roger: We are seeing amazing growth in the organic market, particularly overseas. The green market includes organic almonds and olives. It seems to be growing overseas faster then in the states. It is more difficult to grow organic because of stricter regulations, no pesticides and natural fertilizer. If the bugs get us then we have less of a yield and less money.

LC: What is the secret to making money?
Roger: Part of it is being vertically integrated. Picking, packing, trucking and being big enough to take care of everything. Also you have to watch the bottom line, what is everything costing, keeping the costs in line. Fertilizer costs more these days and of course gas continues to go up so that delivery costs more.

Roger tells me he and his staff repair all equipment, including their trucks. They are building a packing plant so they don’t have to sell to packers — another middleman. This way they can also pack for others.  At this point they also haul for other ranchers.

As with many other businesses, the economy has a lot to do with how much money they make. Many products are sweetened with grape juice at another place for their products.

Also, it’s taking care of your employees — you have to depend on your pickers, a tough job with few benefits, but you teach them how to take their money and provide a good working environment so that they want to stay with you. These days the picking is done by machines.

Like a flooring business, the bottom line is key as is investing in the business. When times are good it’s important to invest in it. Invest in improvements in your buildings and your equipment as well as your employees. Take care of your products, look for new markets.

Now comes the best part: tasting the raisins. There's chocolate covered, candy covered and just plain raisins. Off I go, bags packed with raisins and a new appreciation for someone’s love of their business.

If you’re into raisins, how can you skip Sun Maid?  Sun Maid is a cooperative composed of 1500 growers. I know when I think of buying raisins I think of buying Sun Maid and the little girl on the label. What I find out from Sun Maid is that raisins go back to 2000 years ago in Greece and the Roman empire. They were brought to California in the 1800s where the industry flourished. The secret to “raising raisins,” again, is the “farmer’s footprint”: water, love, nutrients, the vines and fertilizer. I guess the secret to any business is paying attention. The Joaquin Valley is perfect for farming and boasts all kinds of fruits.

By the way, did you know it takes 4 ½ pounds of grapes to make 1 pound of raisins? After I saw what goes into raisin production I think I’’ll stop complaining about the price.  

According to Sun Maid, raisins contain antioxidants, fiber and also help lower your cholesterol. In addition to a wonderful video from Sun Maid, I was sent a Mind, Body, Spirit and fitness tape designed to get me in shape in 4 weeks so I can be “Bikini Ready.” Have you ever thought of pairing your business with a fitness club? Any association is possible.

Now, I’m off to the treadmill while I listen to my fitness tape from the Sun Maid people.

Sure, getting new customers and keeping the old ones is difficult, but this is no time to sit home and get depressed about it if you’re going to be in sales. Sales is all about having a plan and working your plan. Maybe this is the hard and not too exciting part, but things could be worse. It all depends on your attitude and what you want to happen in your life. And it all starts with a plan. With business up one week and down another, it’s time for you and your outside salespeople to get organized.

Make some promises to yourself and your customers. Be on time, look right and follow though. Keeping promises and being consistent makes the process work. Remember, you’re not the only one going through hard times — so is your customer. The more you understand this the better salesperson you will be. It doesn’t mean you back off because times are tough and your're afraid your customer's going to go out of business. You should be worrying about how they’re spending their money—are they buying the right products for their situation and are they buying their products from you?

Do you understand your customer’s business? As a salesperson you must understand your customer’s business and situation as well as you understand your own. This is called empathy. Having empathy is the most powerful skill you can have. It means "I understand; I really understand."

Know how much money you made last year and how much you need to earn next year. How many new accounts will you need to bring in to get this revenue? How much more do your existing accounts have to buy?

Know your closing rates; the real ones. How many customers do you actually close and how many customers will you have to call on to get that rate? How many brochures do you have to send out in order to get the appointments you need. How many emails must you send out or follow up?

Know your products cold. Spend time each day working on your products and understand what makes your products better, more useful and sweeter than your competitors. With customers having limited budgets they will have to spend their dough wisely.

Know your lines. Spend as much time or more on how you do what you do. Salespeople spend all kinds of time on what they sell but not how they do it. Hey, if the sale is worth $10,000 ask yourself if you’re putting in $10,000 worth of time.

Try not to get distracted by the gloom and doom or the fact your customers just want to talk. Sales people often want people to like them so they spend more time than necessary building rapport. Remind yourself to stay on schedule.

Stick to your plans. Prospecting for new accounts takes times and sometimes the pay off is slow. The biggest pay off comes from people who went to a competitor but then come back to you for another try. Maybe now they’ll tell you the new reason they left you.

Fluff isn’t going to work anymore. There just aren’t as many customers out there and there are probably twice as many competitors after your customers. Determine what is your added value and can you deliver it?

Stop making excuses. Sure times are tough but someone’s making money and it might as well be you. But it will only happen if you’re out there. So get out there! Improve you presentation skills, have your manager ride with you, watch you sell and give you feedback. You’ve heard that feedback is the breakfast of champions—if you want to get better maybe now's the time to start eating some!

Remember old cowboy wisdom: Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of the rain dance.

As businesspeople, we spend so much time hyping up the details of a product when in the end, women don’t really buy products — they buy the outcome.  They're thinking "this is where I'll put it," "this is how I'll use it," "this is what it will look like" and "this is how it will feel."  In other words, women buy the "look” of a completed interior.

It’s sort of like this: Send a man out for a pair of pants and what does he come back with? A pair of pants.

Send that same man out with a woman to buy that same pair of pants and he’s lucky if he comes back with his wallet. Hey, it’s the beauty of it – a woman wants her man to look great for her so she's going to get him the whole outfit: shoes, shirt, tie, cologne—the works. Why? Because that's just how we do it.

Salespeople tell me they don’t understand why women take so much time, why they can’t make up their minds and when they do, why they suddenly change their minds.

What’s there to get? Women buy differently than men, period. If you’re waiting on a man, he buys differently than a women. Younger customers have different needs than older customers. Is this any different? It's important to understand that if you want to sell to women you need to be more like a woman than a man. Yep, that’s it in a nutshell. Some tips for you:

• Don’t ask a women what she’s looking for. Why? Because what they’re looking for is in your showroom and may not yet be determined. Men know what they want, come for it and go home. Women use the showroom to determine what’s available and how to create “the look.” If you want to get her in your corner, have a great looking showroom and plenty of photos and magazines with “the looks.” Here's a great story from the owner of a flooring store in Florida. Tony tells me about the male customer who came in and said, "I need a floor for my bathroom." Since Tony is used to female customers, he says "let me come out and look at your bathroom." The customer reluctantly agrees and Tony heads out armed with samples, photos, paint swatches and the like. Tony starts in with his ideas for the bathroom, the customer’s eyes gloss over and never calls Tony again. Yep, as Tony says, "I forgot the customer just came in for a pair of pants!" You’ve probably read "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus". Also try "Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps: How We’re Different and What To Do About It," by Barbara and Allan Pease.
• Ask questions. "Have you seen what’s new?" "Let me show you what’s in." "What look are you trying to achieve in your house?" "Do you have any photos of the room?" Did you bring any fabrics or wallpaper samples with you?" "Do you have a digital photo of the room(s) that I can download?" "By the way, great earrings!"  Sure you can say it. Why not if they’re great? This sort of alludes to the fact that you have good taste. 
• Start with fashion, not price. Sure price is important to everyone, but if you don’t show fashion, how will the customer know she’s in the right store? Not all women want to be “trend setters” but no one wants to be “out of date.” Women know all about fashion. We’ve been breathing fashion since before we could read. That’s why there are literally hundreds of books on fashion for us and about three for men. I believe that Men’s Vogue is really written for women too. High fashion usually means higher prices. Be more frightened that you don’t have fasionable items rather than price items. Leave the price stuff to the box stores. Show your style and good taste; that’s what she wants from you.
• Give her space and let her lead you to what she wants. Your job is to provide the right questions to keep her focused on the decision-making process – not to tell her what she wants. She’ll tell you when she’s ready.

That’ll get you started.

According to a recent study conducted by Peter Lovatt, Phd., in Britain, the better a man can dance, the more likely he is to get a great mate. Women want men to be coordinated — more like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever than Napoleon Dynamite! The “shuffle” is out. Waving arms uncontrollably is also out.

I must admit that I am a closet "Dancing With the Stars" fan. There’s just something about music that increases my endorphins and makes me feel good. In 2002, I was in San Francisco watching the international dance finals. The clothing was beautiful and cost thousands of dollars. When I need a lift, I go into my closet and gaze at my dance shoes, which I bought at that event.

My dance intensity goes way back. Having majored in physical education, modern and jazz dancing was a major part of our curriculum. I don’t remember ever having a dance class in high school or grade school, but maybe I thought those things were about to change. Otherwise, where I would use these skills? If nothing else, it was fun and I remembered when we were told that our dance group was to join the Martha Graham dance group and that Martha herself would be there. Most of us complained about the extra dance workouts, never realizing how lucky we were to be part of the troupe. The dance group was founded in 1926 and is the oldest and most celebrated contemporary dance company in America. Martha herself danced until the late 60’s.

What’s in? Well, coordinated moves and good rhythm. What’s not to like about it? That’s why Dancing with the Stars is so popular—I notice my friends have to get home to watch the reality show so they can sway to the music.  In the early 90’s I went to Arthur Murray’s for some dance lessons. I must admit, this was some of the most fun that I have ever had. It just shows if you work hard enough at anything you can get good; maybe not great, but certainly good enough to get out on the dance floor.

Hey go out and have some fun; the world will still be here when you get back. Take some dancing lessons; every city has tons of dance schools and dance clubs. You don’t even need a partner to take lessons. I know a flooring store owner who has line dancing in her store on Thursday nights. Fun for all.

I think I’m going to head to the closet and blow the dust off those dance pumps. Interested?

Blogging from Albany, NY

Rather than remind you that times are tough, I’ll remind you that tough times also bring opportunities. You know, it’s the "is the glass half-full or half-empty?" thing. In order to get through this you have to pay attention to the market outside of your business.

Consider the history of the automobile industry. Somehow the US automobile industry never saw the trends coming. An odd-looking car built in Germany in the 40’s began to appear on European streets and eventually made its way to the US. It was an inexpensive, good riding car that was to become  the signature of the hippy generation. Before you knew it, a whole generation converted to foreign cars—the results of global competition. Next was the 70’s. There was a crisis in the availability of oil and a steep rise in the price of gasoline. What followed was the need for more fuel-efficient, smaller cars.

Unfortunately, Detroit left the small car market to foreign producers—most of them Japanese.

So what does this mean to you in the flooring industry?

• Be aware of the trends, if hard surface is selling, make sure your retail store says more than just "Carpet" in the title.

• Keep your employees up-to-date on product and consumer trends. The primary buyers are female. Know how this affects your business.

• Green is more than a color. If your not liking Al Gore is what keeps you from watching "An Inconvenient Truth"—get over it. Go rent the movie. In 1959 my mother said "No more aerosol hairspray — we’re messing with the ozone layer." I thought she was nuts, what was she reading? Turns out she was on the money. Find out about what green means in our industry and start doing something good for the planet. It’s not a fad. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Fourth Assessment Report says that evidence for global warming is unequivocal, that negative effects of warming have already been observed, and that emissions control programs must be implemented. A good book is "Go Green, Live Rich," by David Bach.

• Still think “the Web” has something to do with spider web? I  read a recent report that said LinkedIn, a social networking site designed to help professionals make business connections, had over 9 million users by February 2007.

• You keep saying you need a Web site. Well, get to it. In our industry, try John Simonson at john@webstreamdynamics.com; he has been doing this forever and knows the industry.

• Start reading industry blogs, one of the absolute best is written by Christine Whitmore, Director, In-Store Innovation for Solutia's Wear-Dated carpet fiber, at Flooring the Consumer.

• Follow industry news. There's lots of it on talkfloor.com.

• Go to the industry trade shows. The biggest one right now is Stone Expo, October 15-18 at Mandalay Bay Conference Center in Vegas.

• Take advantage of the Web sites offered by your suppliers; there are plenty of interactive sites that will help you sell to your consumer.

In Vegas this week? Hope you had a chance to join me at Stone Expo yesterday for my seminar, "Over Promise, Over Deliver: Building Your Competitive Advantage."

I'm told the selling season is underway. By December, customers will be decorating for the holidays and there'll be shoppers right up until Christmas Eve. And then it's over.

How will you maximize these 10 weeks? Especially with customers expecting a long winter and worrying about heating and electric bills? It doesn't matter. Long or short winter, you just need to get moving!

• Get on the phone. Stop procrastinating. Who have you been meaning to call?
• Get notes out to your existing customers. These are the "gold" customers. I was in a State Farm office last week and asked how business was. They said they'd recently sent a mailing to their 2,000 active customers and 200 of them had called the office. I asked what their note said and the rep, Susan, descibed it simply as "How are you? How's your life? We miss you." 50% of the 200 bought various products.
• What are you waiting for? Your customers already love you and want you to succeed. It's like calling old friends. Give them a call with a special holiday offer. How about a  gas card? Though prices are dropping, a gas card still wouldn't hurt! The bigger the purchase, the bigger the gas card.
• Turkeys for the holiday might work. Don't forget soy turkeys for your veggie customers.
• How about a bag of groceries from Whole Foods or your local co-op?  Something a little different.
• Network with everyone you know. Your dry cleaner, where you get your coffee, where you get your car fixed…
• A great game to play to think about new leads is to pretend you're in another business (for example, running a small hotel). How would you get business? Which ideas could cross over into your business? Someone mentioned having a Wii system in their hotel room and decided to put one in their store! Destination floor store!
• Are you working your personal hangouts?
• Who do you give business to? Who keeps asking for favors? Have they reciprocated?
• Who haven't you seen in a while?
• Buy locally – the little bakery, the convenience store, etc. Ask, how can we work together to do business?
• Working on a job, have you asked for more leads? Why not?
• Finishing a job? Ask if you can take photos, then ask "Who did your landscaping and your painting?" You should have a bunch of names. Go see them and tell them you saw their work and it was great and you would like to refer them. Now you have a good business connection. Don't forget to show them them photos of your work and ask if they can refer you too.
• Call up customers who are on the fence. Holidays are a great time to spruce up the house.
• Host parties featuring jewelry, Mary Kay, clothes, candles, or simply to exchange holiday recipes –anything fun to bring in women. Ask your female employees, they'll know what will work.

So what are you waiting for… start dialing!

How much time do you spend preparing? Thursday, October 2, we all watched as Joe Biden and Sarah Palin showed us their communication skills. During the week the news showed clips of Sarah Palin standing behind the podium (on the lawn at John McCain’s house) practicing her talking points. And why shouldn’t she practice? She could wind up with the second highest job in the country or perhaps even that of President.  It just got me thinking, my experience is that most salespeople put lots of time into learning about their products but not as much time into how they present their product and themselves. Maybe they think the outcome of their performance isn’t as big as, say, their preparation for a Vice Presidential debate. But in actuality it is that big. It’s their future.

To be a good salesman you have to know both your product and your audience.

I find that as a speaker and trainer, it’s easier to sell product knowledge classes than it is to sell presentation skills. What salesmen don’t always realize is customers buy “them” before they buy the product knowledge.  It’s a lot easier to listen to the message if you like the presenter. In fact, some studies say that the salesperson is 37% of the sale. 

Buying is all about emotion. If I like the salesperson or the presenter, the message sounds better to me. As important is the product is, the presenter is even more important. If we’re not connected to the presenter we tend to discount the message or product. Of course you need to know your “message”; the trick is to know what you’re selling and have the skills to deliver the message.

 Too much product makes you boring and too much smiling makes you “fluffy.” The key is to have a good balance.  So how do you put it all together?

• Do a trial run with your presentation, either in front of peers or a video camera. What do you look like? Are your mannerisms distracting? Are you smiling too much or smiling when you should be serious? Make a list of what’s important to your audience and critique the outcome with a colleague.
• Know your audience. Be personable and get them to like you. Don’t be sarcastic or project an air of “being above them.”  If they don’t like you, forget your product, it will be hard to get the sale.
• Project self-confidence. Remember, the audience wants you to do well. If you are uncomfortable and can’t deliver the message, the audience is going to take on your discomfort and pray you’ll get off the stage before it gets any worse.
• Remember your diction skills. It’s okay to use slang to make a point, not because you don’t know the “right” word.
• Build passion into your delivery. Speakers who are passionate are remembered. Even if we aren’t sure we agree with them, their emotional delivery will be etched in our memory.
• Believe in what you’re saying. Believing in what you say and who you are will come across in your delivery. Remember, the key to getting others to buy what you’re selling is to first believe it yourself.