Ep. 284 – A consistent cash flow is a necessity in a business! But how do you achieve it? Athena Captain explains the importance of understanding your target audience, having a prospecting plan, a follow-up plan, and building a referral network.
Athena Captain is a coach, speaker, and author who coaches business owners, entrepreneurs, and high- level sales professionals how to fill their sales pipelines with referrals. In this episode, she describes her journey and why during an economic recession is the time to reinvest in your business.
Listen in to learn how to build a referral network by nurturing referral partners in a way that benefits your business. You will also learn the importance of understanding your target market and having a follow-up plan and a prospecting plan.
Key Takeaways:
- How to get your mindset right and believe that you can achieve no matter the state of the economy.
- The importance of understanding your target market, having a follow-up plan, and a prospecting plan
- How to build a referral network that works for the benefit of your business
- How to understand your vital priorities and set boundaries so you can say yes to the right things.
- How to step into your authenticity and nurturing skills to mentor other women
- How to utilize social media as a prospecting and marketing tool and not make it your foundation.
"If we understand our priorities and our vital functions, then those are the things we say yes to, and then we allow ourselves to say no to other things without shame or guilt.” - Athena Captain
In this episode, you will learn:
Athena on her personal and career background and how she found success in entrepreneurship [01:36]
How to shift your mindset and build a successful business regardless of the state of the economy [05:19]
Basic steps to build relationships and improve behaviors for consistent cashflow in your business [07:44]
The importance of asking your target audience what they want to see from you [11:33]
Why now is the time to reinvest back into your business and not fire your sales team [15:54]
Understanding a referral partner and the right steps to building a referral network [20:05]
The importance of setting boundaries to prioritize the right things in your work and life [24:34]
How Athena lists and accomplishes her priorities and whys and still shows compassion to herself [27:25]
She describes what a prospecting plan is and the activities to do to build a successful one [29:42]
The three components of a sales pipeline and the benefits of having one in your business [32:20]
How to show up authentically and tap into our natural given skills to advance as women [36:08]
Why it’s time to get off social media as the only tool for prospecting and marketing [41:47]
How to shift your mindset, go back to your fundamentals, and own your database [45:35]
Why you should focus on prioritizing your vital functions without overdoing the to-do list [46:11]
CAREER
In 2012, Tim Turner decided to transform Turner and Son Homes’ business design from a production builder to a custom home builder. Little did Athena Captain know that as Partner and Director of Sales this would require her to create an entirely new sales and marketing program for the company.
The new prospecting system that Captain created resulted in a multimillion-dollar, referral-based business within five years. Captain's prospecting system has been proven to be so effective that she launched Athena Captain Coaching, where she teaches her system to help others build their own referral-based businesses.
This is proof that sometimes are greatest accomplishments are born in our largest challenges,” Captain said. Today, Captain is a Co-Founder of Savannah Station Equine Therapy Program in honor of her daughter Savannah and is a board member of the Oklahoma Family Network. Listen as she shares her keys to success in sales.
HER STORY
I come from an extremely, shall we say, humble background. Without going into the gory details, just know that, like many of you, I had no reason to believe I would ever amount to anything - there was nobody in my early life who set any kind of positive example.
One day, a day I will never forget, my grandmother plucked me out of my dismal surroundings and gave me a brief glimpse of a different world - a world where people cared about each other, built each other up, and expected great things from themselves and others. Unfortunately, she had to take me back home, but I had seen the bright lights. That hope, that knowledge that there was some brighter future out there, that sense that there were others out there who grew to be great achievers, grew inside me.
Because that one woman took the time to give me a new, hopeful perspective, I knew I could break out and become one of those people if only I worked hard on myself to grow into my God-given potential.
I became that nerdy high-school kid who carried a briefcase. Nobody on that school bus believed, when the bus stopped to pick me up or drop me off in “that” neighborhood, that I could possibly ever amount to anything. I figured out that it was entirely up to me, with God’s will and help, to prove them wrong.
As I worked my way up through retail sales, then into sales management, then into sales and marketing positions along the corporate ladder, I finally began to feel more “accomplished”, although I always had that nagging thought that somehow I wasn’t really good enough. Somehow, someone was ultimately going to discover my secret - that I really don’t know what I’m doing, that all my results were really just luck, that I’m making this up as I go.
In 2011, I embarked on the biggest challenge of my career - VP of Sales and Marketing for Turner & Son Homes. The challenge was that there was no structure in place. It was up to me to create that sales and marketing structure in a business that was in the midst of a radical transition. There was a point when I truly doubted my ability to succeed, when I truly wondered if I had finally met the challenge that I wouldn’t be able to overcome. That’s when I realized my true weakness, the weakness that would be my undoing, but only if I allowed it: My ego. Yep, all my former “successes” were really leading me to this point. Would I succeed, or would I find out that my inner voices had been right, and I was really just a pretender…
I finally awoke to my real purpose in life: help others, particularly in the field of sales, find their inner greatness, and silence, once and for all, those inner voices of fear and doubt that have persisted since childhood. We all have that inner greatness, despite what anyone has told us. I love to help sales people find, and hear, that inner voice that speaks the truth.
RESOURCES
She's on 3 YouTube Channels! Please Subscribe to Them All!
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Donna Miller is the founder and CEO of Purse Power, Let's Share the Journey. Purse Power promotes women-led, women-owned businesses by providing a Google extension that allows everyone who visits your website to locate nearby businesses.
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