Published April 25, 2022 | Ghost-Writing with Gusto!
Do you need a book? Let me help you! Here is an interview I did with Valerie Sokolovsky.
Published January 5, 2012 | Don’t you sometimes think of salespeople persuading you to buy something by talking you into it? Yet, truly professional salespeople are more likely to let you talk more than they do. That way they can find out what you need and how they can provide for those needs. So when you think about selling your product or service, think about the questions you need to ask in order to determine how you can help a customer or prospect. If you’re in financial services you probably need to know the prospect or customer’s long-term and short-term financial goals. Your job as seller or solution provider is to help the buyer understand how you can help them. You can do this by asking questions that help the customer see the benefits of working with you or using your products and services, now and in the future. For example, a financial institution might have a way of helping customers expand their small businesses. The banker could ask the customer how he plans to handle expansion of the business when the need arises.
One of the seven habits described in Stephen Covey’s, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, is: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Isn’t that the model for providing the right solution to your customer or prospect? If you ask questions to get customers talking, you will discover what their needs are, or understand them. Then you can help customers understand how your product or service will benefit them.
So often, salespeople start presenting a solution to a customer before they really have all the information they need. Asking questions of prospects and customers should go beyond fact finding to what keeps the customer awake at night; what threats or opportunities does the customer have; what challenges does the customer see in the future?
So once you understand a customer’s needs, should you give him or her a litany of features of your product? Will the customer immediately sign on the dotted line by hearing about all the bells and whistles? Some might, some might fall asleep. Gathering information from customers helps describe what you have to offer in terms of how it will specifically benefit customers or solve their problems. For example, if a customer is buying a car, she might have mentioned taking children to sports practice. You could show her the cargo compartment, pointing out that there is plenty of room for all the sports equipment she has to carry around. Once the customer has agreed to the benefits that you presented, gaining commitment to move forward with a purchase is natural. It doesn’t require a fancy script or twisting the customer’s arm; merely asking the customer to do something that will help her achieve goals, be more successful or experience more happiness or peace of mind.
Listening the customer into buying ensures that you focus on the customer and his or her needs, rather than focusing on your own sales goals. When customers feel you have listened to them, they feel important. This serves to keep customers for life, because they know you are genuinely concerned about helping them solve a problem or achieve a goal.
Published December 7, 2011 | If you’re a salesperson and you hate making cold calls. . . read on. The most successful salespeople are those who make contact with new potential customers and clients daily. No matter how you look at it, selling is a numbers game. Some have even calculated how much they make every time they punch in a new phone number. One man calculated how many calls he made in a year compared to how much he sold, to figure out the value of each marketing phone call. So, how do salespeople keep an ample supply of people to call? Each time they make a sale, or the prospect becomes a customer, they add another person to their prospect list. Some salespeople do make 20-50 calls a day from telephone lists, prospect services or the phone book, and eventually, they will find customers and clients. One of the most valuable ways to find new prospects is to ask for referrals from people who are your customers, or people who know and trust you as competent and reliable. Solid, redhot referrals are a key to your sales success. Redhot referrals:
· Give you a connection to someone you don’t know,
· Establish your credibility, so you have a better opportunity for success, and
· Target people who need or want your product or service.
Some hate to ask for referrals for fear that it might offend a friend, colleague or existing client. Others don’t ask for referrals because the likelihood of the friend or colleague knowing a potential customer is slim. Yet, the referral is the best way to make a new contact with someone you don’t know. Rather than getting in line as the next telemarketer on the phone, or clamoring to find a stranger who will take an appointment with you, why not talk to someone who you have a connection with? If someone calls you and says, “Jerry Stone (who is your best friend), suggested that I call you,” wouldn’t you be more likely to talk to the person than if the caller mispronounces your name? Calling referred prospects will ensure that you waste less time, build your confidence and ultimately serve the needs of more people with your products and services.
To make sure that referrals are credible, ask the person who gives you the referral how they know the person. If you find that one of the referrals is someone that the customer just met at the gas station, you can ask if there might be a replacement that the customer knows a little better. Always ask permission to use the referral-supplier’s name. If they don’t give you permission, then ask if they know of someone else. This process of qualifying the referrals will keep you from making too many dead-end calls. Once a customer or client is satisfied with your service, simply ask, “Since this service has helped you so much, can you think of two and not more than three people who might also benefit from it?” Usually people can think of a few. Once you have the names, then find out how the customer knows the person. That way you can qualify whether the referral is solid or not.
Targeting the right sources for referrals will ultimately save you lots of time and effort. Once you have a target market for your product or service defined, figure out who can put you in touch with that market. For example, one of my target markets for sales presentations is the banking industry. To build the business, I asked my banker clients for referrals to banking organizations that hire speakers. Rather than getting the response of “don’t call us, we’ll call you,” people actually called me back, since I was referred by a trusted source. Another thing to consider in order to receive targeted referrals, is who you know who has contacts in the right industries, with the people in the organization that you wish to speak with. If you do Executive Coaching, the janitor at a fast food restaurant is probably not a good person to ask for a referral. Granted, my example is extreme, but it makes the point. Many times it’s a matter of just thinking before acting, rather than just asking for referrals from anyone.
If you feel uncomfortable asking for referrals, write a script and practice it. If you role play the script with a colleague, you can get comfortable with the process and the words that work best for you. Make contacting new people less stressful by using those redhot referrals.
And….Happy Sales to you…..’til we meet again!
Published November 3, 2011 | What if your ideas about marketing your business just need a slight change or upgrade to take your business to a TOTALLY different level of success?!
I have always said that to keep your business going steadily, you have to be marketing it daily. The minute you stop, your pipeline of business is in danger! I’m not suggesting throwing out what you are doing to market your business, or starting an entirely new marketing campaign every year, but what if a small addition to your sales activities or slight change could make a monumental difference?!
What if the solution to better marketing is simplification? We hear time and time again that those who are the most successful are the most focused, and looking at other options!
I remember watching the Rose Bowl several years ago when the Texas Longhorns, in the last few MINUTES of the game claimed a National Championship Victory. I had frankly given up when Vince Young, the Longhorn Quarterback, dropped back to pass, and obviously couldn’t find his receiver. Vince looked at the field in a different way! He saw an opening and took it into the end zone for a touchdown.
Vince Young’s brilliance came from looking at things differently and finding an opportunity….
What if you take a different look at your business today, to find that opportunity that will take your business to the next level of success!
