Selling the Dr. Seuss Way

Selling the Dr. Seuss Way

by: Kelley Robertson

ขI am Sam. Sam I am. Do you like green eggs and ham? Would you like them here or there? Would you like them in a box, would you like them with a fox?ข

I think most people have read this Dr. Seuss tale either as kids or to their children. What is interesting is the relevance this story has to selling. First of all, Sam is selling a product and although his prospect is not initially interested, Sam doesn’t let that deter him from asking. Secondly, Sam consistently offers the prospect a choice when trying to close the sale. Thirdly, he refuses to give up. No matter how many times his prospect says ‘no’ Sam keeps offering alternatives. In fact, he offers fourteen options before he finally closes the sale.

Now, I am not suggesting that you pester your customers or prospects but I do believe most people give up too early in the sales process. We hear a few ขno’sข and decide to turn our attention elsewhere. It is your responsibility as a sales professional to ask the customer to make a decision you cannot expect a customer to do the work for you. If you have been effective in learning about their specific needs and current situation and presented the appropriate solution to your prospect then you have earned the right to ask them for their money. Here are a few ideas that will help you reach this point: Avoid launching into a lengthy discussion of what you can do for your client until you thoroughly understand what business challenges they face and the problems, concerns or issues they need resolved. Use open questioning to gather this information and avoid making assumptions or jumping to conclusions too quickly. Instead, listen carefully to what they say and clarify anything that is not clear. Ask them to elaborate by using prompters such as ขuhhuh,ข ขtell me more,ข and ขwhat else?ข

When it comes time to present your product or service, try not to limit the prospect to one option. Provide a choice of solutions that meet their specific concerns. Explain the benefits of each option, and when necessary, also discuss the drawbacks of each alternative. However, do not present so many options that the decision becomes overwhelming or difficult. Be prepared to tell your prospect which option best suits their needs if they ask.

Speak in terms they can understand, avoiding the use of terminology they may not recognize. A case in point; as I developed my web site, I found myself talking to people who were extremely knowledgeable but they used terminology that sounded like a foreign language to me. I found myself getting frustrated, and in some cases feeling a bit dumb, because I had to keep asking them what they meant. Be very cautious how much jargon you use in your presentations and make sure your customer understands what you are saying.

Recognize that objections are a natural component of the sales process. It’s common for a customer express several objections before she makes the decision to commit to the purchase. Don’t take these objections personally and do not assume that it means the other person is not interested. Understand that your prospect will likely have specific concerns about making a decision particularly if they have never done business with you. Clarify their objections to uncover the true hesitation – do not hesitate to probe deeper to explore the real issues preventing them from making a decision. In most cases, your prospect will give you the information you need providing you keep your approach nonconfrontational and neutral. Learn to handle objections in a nonargumentative manner. When you uncover their true objection keep your response brief and to the point. Talking too much will seem that you are trying to justify your product or price. Plus, you can sometimes talk yourself out a sale if you aren’t careful.

Ask for the sale. In many cases, your prospect expects you to ask for the sale. And as long as you do not pressure or try to coerce them into making a decision, they won’t be offended by your request. Develop the confidence to ask for the sale in a variety of ways and begin asking every qualified person for their commitment. Recognize that many people want to be given permission to make a decision and look to the salesperson for that permission.

Lastly, take a lesson from Sam and learn the importance of polite persistence. The most successful sales people ask for the sale seven or eight times and don’t give up at the first sign of resistance. Research has shown that these individuals consistently earn more than their coworkers and peers.

About The Author

Kelley Robertson, President of the Robertson Training Group, works with businesses to help them increase their sales and motivate their employees. Receive a FREE copy of ข100 Ways to Increase Your Salesข by subscribing to his 59Second Tip, a free weekly ezine at www.KelleyRobertson.com. He is also the author of ขStop, Ask & Listen – How to welcome your customers and increase your sales.ข For information on his programs, contact him at 9056337750 or at [email protected].

This article was posted on October 24, 2003

by Kelley Robertson

The Building Blocks to Effective Marketing

The Building Blocks to Effective Marketing

by: Julie Chance

The Building Blocks to Successful Marketing

It’s More than Sales and Advertising

By Julie Chance

Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a one person shop, to be successful, you must have a marketing strategy and you must implement it consistently. However, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune and you don’t have to be a creative genius.

The key is developing a marketing strategy that forms a solid foundation for your promotional efforts. Implementing promotional activities such as advertising, direct mail or even networking and onetoone sales efforts without a marketing strategy is like buying curtains for a house you are building before you have an architectural plan. How would you even know how many curtains to buy or what size they needed to be?

You can develop a strong marketing foundation by:

Defining your product or service: How is your product or service packaged? What is it that your customers are really buying? You may be selling webbased software tools but your clients are buying increased productivity, improved efficiency and cost savings. And if you offer several products or services which ones are the most viable to promote?

Identifying your target market: Everyone or anybody might be potential clients for your product. However, you probably don’t have the time or money to market to Everyone or Anybody. Who is your ideal customer? Who does it make sense for you to spend your time and money promoting your service to? You might define your ideal customer in terms of income, age, geographic area, number of employees, revenues, industry, etc. For example a massage therapist might decide her target market is women with household incomes of $75,000 or more who live in the Uptown area.

Knowing your competition: Even if there are no direct competitors for your service, there is always competition of some kind. Something besides your product is competing for the potential client’s money. What is it and why should the potential customer spend his or her money with you instead? What is your competitive advantage or unique selling proposition?

Finding a niche: Is there a market segment that is not currently being served or is not being served well? A niche strategy allows you to focus your marketing efforts and dominate your market, even if you are a small player.

Developing awareness: It is difficult for a potential client to buy your product or service if they don’t even know or remember it exists. Generally a potential customer will have to be exposed to your product 5 to 15 times before they are likely to think of your product when the need arises. Needs often arise unexpectedly. You must stay in front of your clients consistently if they are going to remember your product when that need arises.

Building credibility: Not only must clients be aware of your product or service, they also must have a positive disposition toward it. Potential customers must trust that you will deliver what you say you will. Often, especially with large or risky purchases, you need to give them the opportunity to ขsampleข, ขtouchข, or ขtasteข the product in some way. For example, a trainer might gain credibility and allow potential customers to ขsampleข their product by offering free, hour long presentations on topics related to their area of specialty.

Being Consistent: Be consistent in every way and in everything you do. This includes the look of your collateral materials, the message you deliver, the level of customer service, and the quality of the product. Being consistent is more important than having the ขbestข product. This in part is the reason for the success of chains. Whether you’re going to Little Rock, Arkansas or New York City, if you reserve a room at a Courtyard Marriott you know exactly what you’re going to get.

Maintaining Focus: Focus allows for more effective utilization of the scarce resources of time and money. Your promotional budget will bring you greater return if you use it to promote a single product to a narrowly defined target market and if you promote that same product to that same target market over a continuous period of time.

Before you ever consider developing a brochure, running an ad, implementing a direct mail campaign, joining an organization for networking or even conducting a sales call, begin by mapping a path to success through the development of a consistent, focused marketing strategy.

About The Author

Julie Chance is President of StrategiesbyDesign, StrategiesbyDESIGN, a Dallas based firm that helps small and medium sized businesses Map A Path to Success by providing consulting, training and skills based coaching in the area of marketing strategy development. For more information go to www.strategiesbydesign.com or call 9727019311.

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 28, 2003

by Julie Chance

What Your Website REALLY Says About You And Why It

What Your Website REALLY Says About You And Why It Matters

by: Peter Simmons

Everything you say and do says something about you. This has never been more true than in a text based environment like the Internet. You only have one chance to put across what you want to say. Use it wisely.

Getting a website right does take work and commitment. If you want it to succeed you must spend time to get it right and present the right impression to your potential customers.

During any conversation you can pick up extra clues from tone of voice, the choice of words used, the way it is said, pauses, etc. They provide emotion and meaning over and above the actual words being spoken. The same is true of text and other website content. There are extra clues of emotion and meaning and what you choose to write and how you say it can say a lot about you, your organisation and your priorities. These priorities are often clearly visible to every potential customer that visits your site and can therefore reveal a great deal about you.

It can reveal:

your business priorities,

how your organisation is structured and run,

whether you focus on your customers,

how you deal with things,

if you are easy to deal with,

your attitudes,

whether you pay attention to detail

if you are trustworthy

and more…

So, what is your website really saying about you? Are you sending out a positive and useful กmessageก to your potential customers or practically posting a great big sign that says something far less desirable?

How do you know? There are some key things to look for on your website or any other website. Bear in mind also that there could be a combination of one or more of these together:

Weak text/sales copy text that lacks direction and order. If you decide to buy our products, fine. If you dont buy our products, fine. Big sign would read: กWe’re not really serious about this new web thingก

Text heavily focused on you/your products The message is clear. You are only interested in yourself and therefore your site is too. Big sign would read: กWe are great. Customer? Who?ก

No/wrong website focus website either not focused on the customers needs or focused on the wrong things. The potential customer doesnt receive a positive and clear message about who you are, how you do business, etc. Big sign would read: กWe either dont know or dont care about what our customers wantก. See also กNot easy to useก

Poor layout poorly organised webpage/website. No clear sense of order. Lack of clear prioritising and decision making, probably a reflection of the organisation. กWe cant identify and meet objectivesก See also กNot easy to useก

Not easy to use difficult to use website and website functions. Often these technical functions have the most sophisticated software known to man to do a particular function like buying a train ticket. Unfortunately they didnt consider how real people actually want to use the website or website functions. Big sign would read: กOops! We were so busy enjoying doing the great software bit we love, we forgot the userก

Too much text we absolutely love to tell you how great we are/our product is. Weกll try and bore you into buying our products with loads of text. Big sign would read: กJust buy our product you fool, we know bestก

กBrochurewareก existing brochure has been moved online. Token website. Does little for anyone. Looks great doesnt it?… (Not really a question, more a statement). We thought we should get a website because everyone else has one. Big sign would read: กLOOK weกve got a website too!ก

Too much animation/other extra stuff that doesnt serve any real purpose apart from distraction. We absolutely love flashing things/gadgets/buttons/scrolls/colours/fonts… the more the better. More an experiment than a business. Big sign would read: กOur web designer is great isnt he/she? or i should have been a programmerก

Difficult to contact anyone the online equivalent to an electric fence. Typically employed by big corporations. Theyve gone to great lengths to make sure its very, very difficult to actually email anyone within the organisation. Big sign would read: กWe are far too big and rich to speak to ‘the little peopleก who actually buy and use our products. Go away!ก

Did you recognise any of these from your virtual travels on the Internet? They are all present to some degree in businesses of all sizes and industries. Does your site have any of them? If so, the message you are sending out to your potential customers is unlikely to help you succeed online. More likely it will have a harmful affect and direct influence on your image and reputation, customer visits and repeat visits, sales and repeat sales, company results, customer goodwill and contact, etc.

Make your site the best it can be. Work at it. Ask for constructive feedback. Make a commitment to getting your website to say the right things about you. It will still be paying you back long after youve done it.

Good luck!

About The Author

Need to get your business online? contact me now to find out how you can do it for less mailto:[email protected] You can see more of my articles to help you get results online at www.dynamiq.co.uk/ezine.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 28, 2002

by Peter Simmons

Humanize the Sales Process

Humanize the Sales Process

by: Amy Fox

Q & A

Amy Fox, Accelerated Business Results

ขHumanize the Sales Experienceข

Q. Sometimes when I’m presenting to clients, I sense that the customer tunes out. Is there a better way to communicate with a customer or engage them?

A. Salespeople get caught up in the hype of their own product and lose touch with their client’s reality sometimes. You may be an expert in your field, but you have to assume the client is not. Most clients do not speak techese, so you have to couch the conversation in language that is familiar.

Q. In high tech sales situations, what are some ways of obtaining better results on sales calls?

A. Start by shifting the focus from you to your client. Instead of presenting information to a client on your first sales call, try asking the client what expectations they have for the meeting. You can build a list of desired results from their answer. Try using questions that put the client in the driver’s seat. For example, ขWhat would you like to learn more about?ข or ขHow can I help resolve these issues?ข

Q. Are clients actually put off by technical language?

A. It depends, because there are instances when it is appropriate. If you’re speaking to a technical person who expects you to inform them about these aspects, go ahead. In many cases, the decision maker is not technical, so speaking in terms the client does not understand wastes their time. Even worse, they feel uncomfortable. Do you know anyone who would buy under these circumstances? There is no easier way to lose a sale then alienating a client.

Q. What’s the best way to speak about a technical product to a nontechnical person?

A. Refrain from using acronyms and technical jargon. Some common words that are not generally understood are IPSEC, T1s, WIFI, Routers. Concentrate on the problem they need to fix or the result they want to achieve. If the client needs a technical description, they’ll ask for it. Otherwise, avoid using these words.

Q. What are some other key ways I can improve the sales experience for my clients?

A. You need to humanize the sales experience. Once you learn to communicate in ways that relate to and reach they client, you regain your most distinguishing feature – yourself. Shorten your presentations by focusing on the capabilities and solutions you can provide in the client’s unique business environment. Learn to listen closely, catch key phrases, and hone in on their needs, not your own sales agenda. Incorporate business terms that are meaningful to the client in your dialogue.

Q. Do you think the first meeting with a prospective client should be a factfinding interview?

A. That is one way of thinking about it. Keep in mind clients don’t consider your products and services just for the heck of it. They either have a problem they need to fix or a result that must be achieved. The salesperson’s job is to use questions to uncover their business challenges and concerns. The goal in the first meeting is to set the foundation to build a relationship.

Q. When I’m presenting my high tech solution, how do I position it to come across persuasively so that the customer wants to purchase it?

A. Don’t simply explain what your product does and how it works. Present the value it brings to their business. For example, most salespeople would sell a highspeed internet connection that claims to be x times faster, rather than selling a solution that allows the client to process orders at a higher rate resulting in increased revenues. Demonstrate the benefits by linking back to how it will solve problems and achieve results.

About The Author

Amy Fox has designed and delivered sales training for Fortune 500 telecommunications and technology firms for companies such as Global Crossing Telecommunications, Cincinnati Bell, and Trivantis. Ms. Fox has taught M.B. A. courses at Xavier University on creating a coaching culture. Amy Fox founded Accelerated Business Results in 2003.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 12, 2003

by Amy Fox

Rules of Thumb for Marketing to Your Past Customer

Rules of Thumb for Marketing to Your Past Customers

by: Joy Gendusa

Keeping in touch can dramatically increase business, when done properly.

It’s a fact that your customers are your best leads. This means that the most likely people to purchase your products and/or services are the ones who have paid for them before. It’s also a fact that it costs far less money to keep a customer than it does to go out and get a new one. These are the two reasons that using direct mail to keep in touch with your customer database is a must. There are a few principles to follow when marketing to contacts in your company database that can maximize your bottom line.

Rule #1 Collect all of their information. It sounds like a nobrainer but you would be surprised. The more information that you have on your customers, the more likely it is that you will be able to get in touch with them to let them know about specials or to remind them it’s time for their next service. Also, don’t neglect to ask for your customersก email addresses, most everyone has one and most will give it up pretty easily.

Rule #2 – Don’t treat your customers like prospects. Make sure when you collect the information in your database you differentiate between people who have placed an order in the past and people who have not. Customers want to feel like you are paying attention to them and when they have placed a few orders with you and are still getting your ก10% for First Time Buyersก postcards they tend to feel unappreciated. Bottom line, if they don’t qualify for an offer you are sending out, don’t send it to them.

Rule #3 – Don’t let your designs get stagnant. When you are mailing to databases of people that you have never spoken to before, it is OK to send them the same postcard multiple times. It helps to increase recognition and will eventually increase your response rate. Dealing with customers and prospects that you have already spoken to (meaning they already know most or all of the details of your business) you need to mix things up a bit. Your mailings should be attention getting and informative. If you have started offering a new service recently, a piece designed to let your database know about it would be a smart move. The main point is to keep your company in the front of their mind and to keep them reading your promotion.

Being great at what you do is not always enough to keep the customers that you have earned. With all of the competition out there today you need to be constantly reminding your customers that you are the best at what you do. Direct mail is the best way to give them that reminder.

Always remember to keep mailings that you send to your database informative, attractive and most of all current. Personalize everything that you can and make sure that what you are sending to a past client actually pertains to them or their company. Anything less and your customer may start to drift, and the only people that are going to be happy when that happens are your competitors.

About The Author

Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998; her only assets a computer and a phone. In 2004 the company did close to $9 million in sales and employs over 60 persons. She attributes her explosive growth to her ability to choose incredible staff and her innate marketing savvy. Now she’s sharing her marketing secrets to others. For more free marketing advice, visit her website at www.postcardmania.com

This article was posted on February 11

by Joy Gendusa