Category: Sales & Marketing

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Sales & Marketing

Think Series When Planning Your Sales

It’s very exciting to win a job or sell a product. The sale signifies that the customer believes in you. It’s especially gratifying when the sale is associated with a new customer, because that broadens your client base. Making sales and having a broad base of customers is a good way to “keep the pipelines” filled with work and revenue, even in the face of marketplace perturbations.

One of the keys to keeping the pipelines filled and enjoying a prolonged “feast” is to think in terms of series when it comes to sales. Let me suggest that the most important job you have is to work towards the sales that are yet to be made, but are waiting there for you to simply “connect the dots.” In other words, always have a focus on upcoming opportunities, and create them with an eye towards serializing your efforts. Let me give you a couple of examples from my experience.

Writing and Selling a Book

An individual who wrote an Ebook was selling it on their website and had an aggressive sales campaign in the works. Part of the sales campaign caught my eye, and I ended up reviewing the book in anticipation of becoming involved in promoting and selling it. The book was in three distinct sections, each one addressed a relatively complex subject. The writing was satisfactory, there were lots of photos and graphics, and the price was right. But, there was much more information that could have been added to the first section of the book to make it comprehensive and worthwhile. It seemed clear to me that anyone who purchased the Ebook would be quite disappointed as the average reader would be looking for this missing information as a natural complement to what was already written.

From a series of sales perspective, the book could have been created in three standalone parts, thus allowing the author better focus when creating each section as a standalone book, and allowing customers to buy any one part in the series. Three books would have provided more opportunities to meet the needs of prospective customers, and a sale of any one of the books in the series could lead to follow-on sales in the series.

It’s possible that the book might sell hundreds of copies as-is, but each buyer will likely be sorely disappointed with the first section, and would never buy again from that author. My take on this is simply that the author was so fixated on making the first sale, that the potential for a series of sales wasn’t given adequate consideration. Updated editions, new Ebooks, seminars, training, paid subscriptions to a newsletter or website, and other related sales activities will never see the light of day because there likely won’t be any satisfied customers interested in anything else that might be offered in the series.

Professional Services

Years ago I hired a couple of competitor employees as part of my consulting team because I had an over-full pipeline of work. To facilitate “technology transfer” to my staff, and help ensure that projects got off to a good start, I made it a practice to always be with the project team when we started a job for a new customer. This also gave me an opportunity to get to know our customers and their needs through direct interactions.

While driving to our first meeting with a new customer, I went over some of the activities for the kick-off meeting, and mentioned three major activities that we needed to get involved in during our first few days on the job. My new employees were taken aback a bit and mentioned that some of the activities were out of scope. Indeed they were. After confirming our official scope of work, I reminded them  that we’re always looking for related work that we can propose as part of a series of tasks to help our client and keep our pipeline filled.

They looked at me a bit astonished, and remarked that we hadn’t even started the job, and yet I was already working on the next several scopes of work. I confirmed that they had assessed the situation correctly, and then inquired as to how they used to do it at their former company. It was just as I had suspected – they worked a job to completion and then went looking for more work. I suggested that the “feast or famine” rollercoaster of billable work at their previous employer was probably one of the reasons that company was their former employer.

Putting it All Together

Getting in the door with a new customer is difficult. Once you’re in place, it should be much easier to make additional sales simply because your talent is known, and you have greater insight as to what your customer might need. Make good use of that valuable information by planning your sales as a series of efforts that naturally follow or are otherwise related to one another.

When you think in terms of an entire series of sales related to a particular product or service, you’ll be better able to see the true value in your work. This will also help you decide how best to sequence your work, and create spin-off work that makes use of your previous efforts. All of this will help you identify more sales to keep filling the pipeline. When we think in terms of a series of sales, we’re making good use of our customer base, and we’re creating future sales based on proven performance and knowledge of what our customers might be interested in next.

About the Author:

Clair Schwan writes www.Sensible-Small-Business-Ideas.com to help encourage others to own and operate their own enterprise as a way of enhancing their success in the world of business. Regardless of how much you feel a part of your company as an employee, he knows that the only business you’ll really ever be part of is your own.

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Sales & Marketing

Your Buyer is Smarter than You

Too many salespeople view their buyers as anything but smart, especially those salespeople who deal with purchasing departments. In far too many sales communities, there exists an attitude that buyers and purchasing departments are nothing more than barriers that need to be broken down.

Well, yes there are barriers. Ironically, though, they are barriers that more often than not are there due to the very actions of the sales community. One simple thing salespeople need to keep in mind is the fact the professional buyer sees far more salespeople in the course of a week or month than most salespeople realize. Buyers have every reason to put up barriers, because the sales community in general can crank out some pretty pathetic salespeople.

How do I know this? Simple – buyers have told me (not just once, but often twice. And not just in one industry, but in several industries). As a consultant, I often have access to buyers in a way that most salespeople don’t. More importantly, the people I meet share with me insights they would never share with the sales community. The buying community is really quite smart. They do their job well. Stop and think for a moment about this question: If they didn’t do their job well, wouldn’t their company let them go, especially in today’s economy?

Buyers are smart . You should also know that they’ve seen every trick and every sales pitch known to mankind. I never cease to be amazed at how well many buyers can play back to me specific examples of sales techniques used by salespeople. What’s even better is that not only have they shared with me examples of what they’ve seen, but they also have shared how they have responded to these sales techniques.

I know it may be painful to hear, but you are not as smart as you think you are, and the new trendy sales approach you have learned probably isn’t as revolutionary as you believe it is. It more than likely isn’t going to equip you to blast through barriers the purchasing department has in place.

It’s for this very simple reason why I tell salespeople the number one thing you can do when dealing with professional buyers and purchasing departments is to be yourself and be positive. Your buyer will see right through you if you’re not being yourself. They’ll also see right through you if you’re putting on a front and not genuinely showing interest in their business and the concerns and needs they have.

If you’re not genuine, it will show. Sure, you might be able to pull off your trick for a one sales call or maybe even a couple, but your trick will be exposed. When it is, the consequences you’ll face will be severe. This is something to always keep in mind. Many times when a professional buyer decides to cut you off, they may not tell you right away – they may leave you hanging in the wind for days, weeks or even months. One reason they may choose to do this is to simply see how you’re going to respond or, more likely, to continue to gain information from you that they can then use to negotiate a better package with your competitor.

When a professional buyer does this, they’re doing their job. You may naively think they’re being stupid, because they’re not being more forthcoming with you. This is where the real stupidity starts to come out with the salesperson. Because the salesperson believes the buyer is not smart, they start to play bullying games back with the buyer. Such examples include trying to go around them or opening up other doors. The only thing this does if further alienate the salesperson from doing any business with the purchasing department, because the buyer with whom you first began working alerts the rest of the buying department about you and what you may potentially try to do.

All of this comes back to my original point: Buyers are smart and purchasing departments have a job to do and they do it well. They’ve seen the games that can be played and they know how to leverage such games to their advantage.

As a salesperson, you can thrive with buyers and purchasing departments if you follow these simple approaches: Be yourself, be professional, and be engaged in genuinely wanting to help the buyer and their company. If you can’t do these things, then you shouldn’t be selling. If you are not sure if you’re already doing these things, then I hate to tell you this, but you’re probably not.

Don’t walk around telling people you care about them and that you are so concerned about helping them. The salespeople who truly do care and are concerned let it come out in their actions day in and day out. Other people see it and do not need the salesperson to offer a verbal alert to it.

Do you think I’m way off base in these observations about the buying community? Don’t take my word for it. Ask your buyer. They will give you a straight answer – but only if you are being yourself, demonstrating trust, and genuinely caring for them and their business.

About the Author:

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability. For more information, to receive a free weekly email sales tip, or to read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com. You can also follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/thesaleshunter, on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/markhunter and on his Facebook Fan Page, www.facebook.com/TheSalesHunter.

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Sales & Marketing

7 Simple Secrets to Reducing Your Refunds

There are few things in life as deflating as refund requests can be.

You’ve spent weeks or months (or years in some cases) creating a product. You work so hard to market it and get into your ideal clients’ hands. And they buy! It’s so exciting when you make sales.

And then you get a request for a refund. Argh!

Luckily I have good news. There are things you can do to reduce your refund rate. And many of them won’t cost you a dime. I’m going to walk you through these 7 simple steps about simple tweaks you can make to your product to make it more valuable and easy follow-up strategies.

Let’s get started.

1. Put a Quick Start CD or report in the product. Information products can be overwhelming. You open up the product and you have all these CDs and DVDs transcripts and worksheets and you don’t know where to start. A Quick Start guide (either audio or written) can give people a place to begin and it can help them consume the material more easily.

If people are feeling overwhelmed, they may just decide they don’t have time to figure this out after all and pack it all up and return to you.

(And yes, you can still include this even if the product is all digital.)

2. Include a Welcome letter or extra gift (or both). Let’s go through the Welcome letter first. A Welcome letter should:

* Reassure them they made a good decision by purchasing your product

* Get them excited about digging in and using the product

Welcome letters can also give them additional information and resources, or it can double as your “Quick Start guide” and give them instructions on how they should get started. Either way, it should make them feel good about their investment. (This again can and should be included with digital products.)

Now let’s look at gifts. A gift can be small, just a little extra bonus. Maybe it’s a promotional item, such as a pen or a bookmark. Or it could be an extra bonus, maybe an additional unadvertised report. Whatever it is, it just adds to the value and helps make your ideal clients feel like you’re overdelivering on value.

3. Send them an extra, unadvertised bonus at a later time. With this one, instead of bundling the bonus in the product, save it and send it to them later. This accomplishes a couple of things — your ideal clients feel taken care of plus it gives you another opportunity to reach out and connect with them again. This is a good way to further build the relationship with your ideal clients so they don’t feel like they’re simply a “walking wallet.”

4. Call them to thank them for their purchase. Yes, you read that right. Pick up the phone and give them a quick welcome call.

This can be a very powerful strategy for a number of reasons. First off, almost no one does it in the Internet world so you’re really going to stand out. Second, it’s another way to overdeliver value to your customers. Third, it’s a way to connect with them so they know they’re more to you then simply a sale.

I can hear all of you saying “I don’t have time.” That’s fine, have someone on your team do it. It doesn’t have to be a long call, just a quick phone call to welcome them into your community and to see if they have any questions or need anything from you. That 5 minutes can go a long way to really communicating a high level of customer care.

5. Set up a welcome auto-responder series. I’m currently working with a client to create a very integrated 30-day follow up email campaign. You don’t have to do something that elaborate, but even 5 or 7 follow up emails to help your customers get started with your product can go a long way. These emails can:

* Reassure them they made a good decision by purchasing your product

* Give them some additional tips for using the product

* Tease them about what’s in the product, to get them excited about diving in and getting started (remember, people who actually go through your product are far less likely to return it)

* Ask them for a testimonial or encourage them to refer a friend

* Upsell them to the next level

6. Add in live calls with you. There was a time where you could sell an information product and get top dollar for it and not include any interaction with you. Those days are gone. If you want to sell an information product with no calls or support from you, the price needs to be lower and be prepared for higher returns. But if you add in a couple of training and/or Q&A and live coaching calls, then you can raise the price plus it will reduce your refund rate.

People want accountability (and having those calls does add a level of accountability because they’ll need to go through the program to keep up with the calls) and they also want to interact with you. The more you can give people what they want, they more likely they’ll become loyal customers and raving fans.

7. Follow up with snail mail. I’ve found mailing people a postcard or a newsletter is a great way to build and deepen the relationship with my customers. Again, you’re reaching out to them outside the online world, sending something physical and doing this after the sale. So it’s a great way to stay connected with your clients. Of all the tips I gave, this one is the most costly, but over the long run, it can really pay off in a big way.

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Sales & Marketing

Sales Coach Tips: Top 4 Sales Excuses That Stop You From Winning More Clients

Excuse #1: “I Don’t Have Enough Time To Prospect or Focus on Sales Related / Dollar Productive Activities.”

Solution: Create Time.

Sales professionals of all levels and business owners who achieve extraordinary levels of success have days just as hectic as everyone else, right? Yet somehow they make prospecting a part of their daily or weekly activities.
So how do they do it? They create the time. You can instantly create time if you begin to plan ahead and stay committed. This means planning your days and weeks. One of the best time-creating techniques is to schedule prospecting or selling time on your calendar and delete unimportant activities.

Schedule your most important tasks earlier in the day to ensure they get done. Ask yourself, “Where am I wasting time?” Make sure you remove those activities from your daily schedule right away. Set up a recurring event for prospecting and don’t miss it. To be successful with this, be sure to eliminate your distractions.

Excuse #2: “I Can’t Stay Committed.”

Solution: Find Compelling Reasons For Your Actions.

There is a significant difference between intentions and action. The difference is commitment.
Our commitment to our goals leads us to achievement, even during the toughest times. There is a direct relationship between motivation and commitment. If you are really committed to making a change now in your sales or business results, create a sense of urgency.

You need reasons that are so compelling and so intense you must follow through. So right now, ask yourself the following questions and come up with the three reasons why you must commit to your sales growth goals.

•    What will this cost me if I don’t make a change right now?
•    What has this cost me so far in sales results, income, and overall success?
•    If I do start prospecting effectively and on a regular basis, how will I feel about myself?
•    How will this impact my sales career, my business, my life?
•    What will I gain as a result of this new commitment?

Your answers to these questions will help you gain an immediate understanding of what you’re committed to and why!

Excuse #3: “I Don’t Feel Confident That I Will Succeed. This Is A Waste Of Time!”

Solution: Break down your sales and business goals into measurable steps.

Sometimes trying to accomplish sales goals seems so overwhelming, the immediate temptation is to give up before we even start. Ouch. That kills self-confidence. And it’s true; we can’t gain confidence until we take action. Yet, we don’t take action because we are afraid to fail. See the problem here?

Take, for example, the intimidating obstacle of facing your sales goals or business goals for the entire year. Now that’s paralyzing, isn’t it?

To gain confidence, you must break your goals down into measurable steps. For example, if want to win 12 new clients within 12 weeks, then you could set your goal for 1 new client per week. It just feels easier and more attainable this way.

You don’t have to focus on the entire goal; but instead take smaller, manageable steps. This gives you a tremendous sense of control and achievement.

By the time you are nearing the end of your first couple of weeks on your new prospecting or sales plan, despite the ups and downs in progress, you begin to feel more confident because you have experienced some results.

Suddenly, as the fear dissipates, you will discover new found confidence. And best of all, you will have achieved what you once thought was impossible—proceeding one step at a time.

Excuse #4: “I Don’t Know What To Say. I Don’t Know If I Am Delivering The Right Message or Value.”

Solution: Seek Support & Don’t Try To Do Everything On Your Own.

It is understandable to feel a little confused. You may feel overwhelmed and paralyzed. There are so many sales techniques recommended by so many “sales experts”.  So, whose advice can you trust?

Are you tired of trying to sort through all the information on the internet, sales books, business articles and tips? Well, you can stop right now and keep yourself from chasing every sales technique or theory.

So how do you find the answers?

When seeking support on these topics, make sure you are working with someone with a proven record of producing top sales results. But that is not enough. Just modeling the approaches of a highly successful sales person isn’t enough. You can start there, but you must learn your own style, strengths, and how to use them. If you can develop your own personal selling style, you will never come across as “salesey,” which is the last thing you want to do.

Start by looking towards those with great success in this field and then challenge yourself to develop your own sales style. Seek out a sales coach who helps their sales coaching clients develop their own authentic selling approach that takes into account what makes them unique, as they incorporate proven methods and techniques. This combination of proven expert methods in conjunction with a personal selling style produces dramatic results.

The bottom line: Seek someone who has achieved the “extraordinary” results you desire, learn the “winning” methods, and then integrate them into your own personal strengths to develop your own genuine selling style. By committing to turning these mistakes and excuses into powerful success strategies, you will begin to create extraordinary sales and business results! Don’t wait, make a commitment to yourself today!

About The Author:

Sales Coaching Expert, Jeremy Ulmer, has helped hundreds of sales professionals, sales leaders, and business owners just like you overcome sales challenges to increase productivity and win more clients faster.
For 100’s of unbeatable, sure-fire ways to increasing your sales results, subscribe for your free sales tips or request a free sales coaching consultation at: http://www.SalesCoachingHabits.com

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Sales & Marketing

3 Steps to Filling Your Pipeline with Eager Clients and Customers

If your primary source of business revenue is selling services, there is no worse feeling than having an empty pipeline (especially when you’re completing projects with your current clients).

So how do you keep a full pipeline with eager clients and customers? Let me share 3 steps to get you started:

Step 1 — Know who your ideal client is. If you don’t know who you’re trying to put into your pipeline it’s going to be pretty hard to get them in there.

But this is deeper than just taking on anyone who waves a check in front of your face. If you want to fill your pipeline with clients who are EAGER to do business with you, you want to attract your IDEAL clients.

So what is your ideal client? Your ideal clients are the ones who you love to work with. They’re the ones who are a perfect fit for what you offer. They are NOT “women between the ages of 20 and 50 who are married with 2 children and trying to start a home-based business.” That’s a target market and that’s different from ideal client. Ideal clients are about an attitude, a shared vision or goal. An ideal client description would look more like this: “mothers who have been stay-at-home mothers but their children are now starting school and they’re ready to start working. But they don’t want a job, they want something they can do at home and have flexible hours so they can still put their kids first.”

See the difference in the description?

Now, you might be someone whose pipeline is empty and you REALLY need the cash flow, so while an ideal client is nice, you’d be happy with anyone who waves a check in front of your face.

First off, I get it. I’ve been there myself. However, as I know you know, taking on those less-than-ideal-clients while might be necessary for financial reasons, usually turn into a bigger headache than what you signed up for. I know you sometimes have to do this, but wouldn’t it be better to NOT have to? Start now focusing on attracting your ideal clients into your pipeline. Will a non-ideal client slip in from time to time? Of course. And if you so choose, you can take the on as a client. But start it off right by building that solid foundation first.

Step 2 — go where your ideal clients are. Now that you know who they are, it’s time to hang out where they’re hanging out. Don’t know where they are? Then go back to step 1 and do more digging. If you really know your ideal clients, you’ll know where to find them. Then you can focus your lead generating activities in the places where they are.

Step 3 — nurture your leads. Once you have your leads in the door, now it’s time to build a relationship with them. The best way to do this is through a consistent follow-up system, such as an ezine and/or direct mail piece. If you have a weekly ezine or something that goes out regularly to your leads, you don’t have to worry about remembering to contact them.

It takes AT LEAST 7-13 touches to turn a prospect into a client. In this “new economy” this number is even higher (I’ve found you need to be a little more aggressive to get the same level of sales as you would have a few years ago.) So if you have an easy and automatic way to stay in touch with your prospects, you’ll find building that relationship with your prospects that much simpler.