Juan Israel Ortiz

Direct Response Copywriter

Archives for February 2014

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The Two Most Overrated Words in Business

In my mind, there are no two more overrated words in business than innovation and creativity. Have you noticed how those words get thrown around these days?

“Well, we’re trying our best to bring new, innovative ways to please our customers?”

“We’re giving our staff room for creativity to do whatever they want to do.”

Yet, most of the time, all those efforts people put on trying to be innovative and creative in their business strategies end up producing… nothing.

Creativity and Innovation Are the Two Most Overrated Business Words

I don’t think innovation and creativity should be the focus of most businesses. Mainly, because most people do not know how to be innovative or creative. If they only knew it only takes adding a slice of (their own) personality into their work, then they wouldn’t worry so much about trying to be innovative or creative.

And most of the time (for the record) all of these attempts of being groundbreaking and original end up being a bust. Because then you have to re-educate people into doing things “your way”. And most people aren’t that subjective to change. But that’s a topic for later on.

I, as an entrepreneur, focus most of my attention on how obsessive I am about my business. And you see, obsession gets a bad rap – constantly being related to that stalker who kidnaps the hot girl on soap operas. But in reality, most obsessed people are the most successful.

Going back to idealists like Martin Luther King, to today’s athletes like LeBron James and Ronda Rousey.

These guys live, breathe, eat, and sleep what they do. And they don’t settle with being second best. They obsessed with being the best. And as a result, deliver a product to their customer that leaves them satisfied, because they have been witness to something special.

So, if I could give you a piece of advice today, it would be to stop trying to be innovative or creative. And evaluate how obsessed you are about your profession. If you want nothing less than to be number one, innovation and creativity will eventually show up.

Meanwhile, your obsession will create an audience that will care enough about you to want to see you innovate and be creative about your business.

Agree? Disagree?

Leave a comment below to let me know what’s on your mind. And, if you feel this is a topic worth discussing – take a moment to share it with your coworkers, friends, and family.

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Are You Treating All Your Prospects as the Same? You Could Be Making a Huge Mistake! And Here’s Why…

Hello, reader! Welcome to my blog. In this post, you will learn how to create a sales plan for each prospect.

As always, I urge you to read the full post and take a moment afterward to leave your thoughts in the Comments section below.

So, now you have a newly qualified prospect interested in what you have to offer. You’ve never met this person before, so how are you going to approach the situation?

You may approach the new prospect as you have everyone else in the past. Not realizing that this new person might see things differently than everyone else. Therefore, your new prospect might need extra attention, or not as much from your offer as your prior would-be customers.

And thus, you lose the sale because they either a) overwhelmed the prospect with your offer, or b) you didn’t offer enough. Either way, it’s a loss for you, and perhaps a victory for someone else.

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Separating the Strong from the Shallow

Take two average business people with little-to-no selling skills, and the same amount of knowledge about the product, clients, and industry. Put them on locations where they frequent about the same amount of prospects. And let them sell XYZ for about a week.

On the first day, they both end selling next to nothing. They’re both disappointed when they return to the office and get the pep talk from the boss before heading home.

Employee Number One pretty much brushes everything off, thinking it was just a bad day. With the mindset of “luck not being on his side today”, he goes home and forgets completely about work. Because tomorrow luck will be on his side, and sales will go through the roof.

Employee Number Two takes a different approach and asks his superior for some tips on how to improve his selling skills – as he thinks his poor skill set is the reason behind the lackluster performance.

After getting the tips from the supervisor, he goes home and practices for an hour or so on his selling, before dedicating time to his family. Now he feels he’s better prepared to face the task at hand.

As the week rolls along, Employee Number One gets the same results all the way through, except for one day, where he made pretty good on his sales. And he constantly blamed his poor performance on bad luck and circumstances surrounding the location he was in.

Meanwhile, Employee Number Two kept asking for tips and acquiring more on how to be a better salesman. Thanks to this approach, Number Two was getting better and better at approaching his prospects. And as a result, he was able to constantly increase his sales volume.

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