Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Sales' Seven Dirty Words

1. Package: Fed Ex and UPS have consumer stores and they sell packages there. Go apply if you're passionate about selling packages.

2. Added Value (counts as one word): If the Buyer asks for it, you say, "Mr. Jones, every idea we come up with has only one purpose, to further your interests because it has value. Do you mean you want a gift? Okay, let's exchange birthdates, and gifts on those occasions.

Here's what you sound like when you introduce "added value": "You say that's not enough? You say you want more? Okay."(Clap your hands together). "Tell you what I'm gonna do..."

3. I'll be honest with you: "Phew, and here I thought you were going to try and sell me something no matter how you had to get me to do it." This expression costs you any shot at credibility.

4. Special: As in "I have a special for you today." I believe that's effective at Border's. (Unless of course their plan is to get me in the store with a 40% coupon for one book and hope that I will buy others at full price). I won't. I just wait for a day or two until there's another 40% off deal. They've trained me to buy cheap, as you will be training your buyers with periodic "specials."

5. Cost: Cars cost, tangerines cost, pedicures cost, etc. Marketing dollars are investments. Train yourself and your customers to think that way

6. Me/I: Think and say "you."

7. Sign here: That's a really personal and threatening directive. "Make sense?" with the offered contract is not.

Remember always that a truly customer focused, well prepared, honest, creative and supportive selling/partner becomes the representative of choice and that perception supercedes all product and pricing differences with competitors. Is a great customer focused idea at an investment of $100 less appealing than a self-serving dumb one that costs $50?

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

He Means What He Says!

Who means what he says? Ted Leonsis, Bob Pittman, Jerry Della Femina, and other performers extraordinaire. These gentlemen in particular are very different people, but two things they share in common are remarkable success and reputations for absolute credibility. If they say they will do something, they do it. If they say they believe something, they believe it. They always tell the truth, as they see it. Doesn't meant that they are always right, just that they will never purposely mislead.

Imagine you being able to say to a prospective client, "if you take my advice, you will be making an important investment in the growth of your company and I will be there every step of the way with you to ensure that what I've promised gets implemented and that the results will mirror what I've suggested they would." Now imagine that the great majority of people you say that to believes your every word because they have been told, or heard, that your word can be taken to the bank.

That is the professional life that Leonsis, Pittman and Della Femina are living, and deserve to be living. Yes, all three are very smart and all three work hard. So do many, many less successful people. None of these three inherited their fathers' business or wealth (not that there's anything wrong with that :). Their careers were forged by their own hard work, intelligence, daring and honesty.

Can you think of a more valuable currency than a reputation for honesty?

How, in addition to a silent vow, do you win that reputation? One sentence and one task at a time. Before you make that initial phone call in which you ask for an appointment because you "think you can help," you will have researched the prospect's business, and found a fit for the product or service you represent. In the first meeting, you demonstrate the knowledge gained through that research and how it implicitly supports the original purpose of the call, "you think you can help." It turns out that wasn't just a line, you had done some work and, right or wrong, came to believe that you had something to offer. It was an honest communication, and that will have been noticed.

As you and your new prospect together probe his strengths, weaknesses, competition, resources, options, opportunities and how your offering may minimize the weaknesses, enhance the strengths and outmaneuver his competition, you continue to express your honest interpretations of your discoveries and challenge viewpoints with which you don't agree. Always you convey the best and most honest of your thinking. It won't take very long for your new account to express, at least to himself, "where have you been all my life?"

You'll have joined the ranks of the great sellers!


Good Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
COMMUNICATE HONESTLY AND FEARLESSLY
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Are You A Good Sales Clerk or a Great Seller?

Thirty-three across, in a syndicated crossword puzzle I struggled with yesterday had "sales person" (5 letters) as the clue. The answer, which took me way too long to answer was "C-L-E-R-K." Hey, there's nothing wrong with being a clerk, or post man or neurosurgeon. But after more than a few decades in and around sales, clerk just wouldn't come to mind if somebody asked, "and what do you do for a living, Bob?"

After all, what does a clerk do? He tells you what products he has for sale. He'll be able to answer most questions about their features and benefits. He knows the prices; for just one and the discounts, if any, for bulk. He probably can even tell you why his stuff is better than the other brands he doesn't carry, and he'll be happy to process your order (take your cash and give you the merchandise). Hmmm. OK, I get it. The difference between a sales "clerk" and a real seller has more meaning to remarkable sellers than to most of those on the other side of the transaction. If you accept that proposition, and you'd like the view of your skills and productivity to be more profound, you have the mindset to make it happen.

Great sellers do much more than present their products for sale. They first insist upon learning all that the prospective customer knows, and doesn't know about what works and doesn't in his business plan. He joins his new "partner" in canvassing the marketplace and how the product or service they represent fits the consumer (or "business customer" ) needs. They examine the competition and the respective brand positions. They review what's worked in the past and what fell short. And then, after that work, all orchestrated by the seller (the Great Seller) they plan and execute the strategy and plan.

The answer to a crossword clue of "Great Seller" just couldn't be clerk.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork