Don’t tell my wife, but after the family birthday dinner she so graciously organized for me in New York City, and during the Marc Cohn concert she had gotten us tickets to…
… my mind was wandering to marketing.
Sales
Which Two Numbers Can Increase Sales In 2011?
Mary called from Baltimore with a question about her web site. She wanted to know what was wrong with it. She had worked hard to put up a site to promote her business but she wasn’t generating enough revenue with it.
Mary had made the mistake that almost every small business owner makes; she was focused on the wrong numbers and it was keeping her from reaching her business goals.
How Getting Over Your Fear Of Cold Calling Will Get You More Sales
There’s one area of sales that everybody hates to do…Cold calling – the dreaded task of picking up the phone and calling someone they’ve never spoken to before. Why? ?Because they’re afraid of being rejected.
So What!
10 Sales Killers To Avoid In 2011
Any sales veteran can tell you a story about the one that got away. Veterans who are successful today learned valuable lessons from those situations and, hopefully, never repeated them. As challenging as the business of selling might be for some, losing sales is unbelievably easy. Learn from the mistakes of others so you won’t have many of the sad stories to tell.
Sales Killer #1 – Lack of professional appearance. If you want people to listen to you and heed your advice regarding your product or service, you have to come across both in appearance and demeanor as a professional expert. This includes grooming and the level of confidence you exude. People will buy from you based more on your conviction and enthusiasm for your product than they will your product knowledge.
Sales Killer #2 – Talking too much. When you’re talking, you’re telling. When you ask questions to get clients talking about their needs, you’re selling. You’re finding out what they want to own. Only then can you guide them to the right product or service.
Sales Killer #3 – Your vocabulary. Words create pictures in our minds. Certain words that are inherent to selling turn people off. For example, I caution people in business to avoid using the word “contract” when handling the details of a large sale. We all know that contracts are legally binding documents and require legal efforts to get out of them. If appropriate, call your contract an “agreement,” “form,” or “paperwork.” The mental image is less threatening. Think about other words you use and replace any negative word-picture images with gentler, more positive ones.
Sales Killer #4 – Not investing time in building rapport. Establishing good rapport builds trust. No one will want to make a purchase from someone they don’t like and trust. Don’t just jump right into a presentation on your product. Get to know your client a bit.
Sales Killer #5 – Lack of a qualification system. A certain percentage of the people you talk with will not be good candidates for your product or service. Your challenge is to figure this out as early in your communication with them as possible. Come up with at least 3 or 4 questions the answers to which will tell you if they’re qualified to own your offering.
Anyone who’s ever sold anything – whether toothbrushes, printers, or stocks – can tell you a story about “the one that got away”. You know that story – the sale you were this close to closing – the one that would’ve made your year -only to have your potential client interrupted by an all too familiar distraction.
If you’ve ever sold, you also know if you had changed just one thing – your story might have ended up a lot differently.
The Easy Way To Get Client Testimonials and Increase Sales
How convincingly easy it is to close large accounts when you take out that a big book of recent testimonials and show them how great you are. What? You don’t have a big book of recent testimonials?
If you had one, when people asked you about your services, you’d bring out the huge testimonial tome, and tell them to call any of the many who signed off on their statements of your firm being the best thing since sliced bread or indoor plumbing. When confronted with 100 testimonials, most people won’t call any.
In your normal course of conversation with clients it’s easy to get someone to mention something flattering about you. Someone said something nice about me once. I’ll never forget it. It was in June of 88. Wednesday. We were about three or four gin and tonics in and… OK, no matter about the rest of the story. Man, I was all over them for a written testimonial like a cheap suit. Here’s how you can do it, too.
Even if it’s a simple statement, “Hey, thanks a lot. Nice speaking with you.” Or, “Thanks, I appreciate it.” You can make a testimonial out of it.
“That was a nice thing to say!” you exclaim! Inferring that it was nice of him to say it was nice talking to you, or that he appreciated something you did. Of course, people probably have said much nicer things than these simplistic statements about you, haven’t they? Oh well, me neither.
“Would you mind if I use that as a testimonial?” you continue, big smile on your face and catching them completely off guard.
“OK,” they’ll say without thinking.
Now that they’ve committed, casually ask, “Come to think of it, can you say a few more nice words about my firm (or myself) that I can use – I’ll write them down? Got my pencil ready!” Then smile – it makes a difference. “Keep it clean, though.” you joke. It’s good to sound fresh, like you’ve never asked anyone to do this before, or this is the first time for that joke. Ha!
They’ll say a few words, you smile and nod (which will look good in person, or will look less good over the phone but will sound like you’re smiling) and write down the gist of what they said.
Continue promptly, “Thanks. Thanks so much. Here’s what I’ll do so it’ll be as easy for you. I’ve written down what you’ve said and I’ll send it to you. You can just initial it and send it back – I’ll enclose two copies one for your files, and an envelope to send the other copy back to me. Hey, thanks for doing this.” Insinuating it’s a done deal.
Now that you have a nice approximation of what they’ve said, feel free to admonish it ever so slightly. Use a deft touch… like a great editor whose work is so subtle the author will go back and read his words and never know it was touched by anyone else. Now that’s the mark of a really great editor. You, on the other hand, don’t need to be quite that good. Just go ahead and make your testimonial sound great.
Since it was oral, your client most likely won’t remember what he said exactly – so you can take some liberties here. This is especially true if you’re at a bar and have been for the past 6 hours, you know, like when I got my first testimonial. Or was it 8 hours. I forget. But that’s not important – what’s important is I got this huge tattoo that night and who exactly is Janette. If anyone knows, please call.
If you’re friendly with this client, you can mention how great his new testimonial would look on his own letterhead, but “it certainly isn’t necessary.” Never hurts to drop a hint. Then send the testimonial that he “sort-of said” to him in a printed form.
You can also feel free to send it over to him by fax. It’s fast. If you send the testimonial that he “sort-of said” in a letter. it will take a few days to get to your client and here’s the benefit to this: Over the course of the day or two it takes to draft this statement and send it to the client in a letter, there’s no way they’ll remember what they said, and certainly they won’t remember their exact wording. Plus – if you received this testimonial after a few drinks, you can probably feel free to take great liberties writing what you thought you remembered and what he thought you both said. Or something like that.
Writing a testimonial for a client, unlike soliciting a client’s written testimonial, where most clients prove way beyond a shadow of a doubt they don’t use spell check, you can spell every word correctly. Send them their statement in a letter and as long as it doesn’t look to far out of range I promise you they’ll sign off on it. You’ll have a great, well written and signed testimonial.
For best results, collect a whole set, and don’t be afraid to show it off to new prospects. Tell them you’d be so proud if you had their personal testimonial in there while pushing a pen and paper their way. That’s called “The assumed close.” And that’s another article.
With a half dozen or more great testimonials, you have instant credibility and closing the sale is that much easier. What? You don’t have at least a half dozen recent testimonials?
If you had them, when people asked you about your services, you’d point them to your testimonials, and tell them to call any of the many who signed off on their statements of your firm being the best thing since sliced bread or indoor plumbing. Read More »
How To Boost Sales In One Simple Step
Improve Sales by Taking Away Their Freedom
More choice is better… right?
Wrong.
That’s the conclusion of Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice.
Common sense says increased variety and more freedom of choice will make people happier. But studies show it does the exact opposite. It actually makes them unhappy.
Why Is This?
It’s because if they make a decision, they will continually contemplate all the other choices they “sacrificed.” They will wonder if they would have been happier had they made a different decision.
This paradox of choice not only affects happiness; it affects the bottom line as well.
The rule is simple. The more choices you give a buyer, the less likely it will be that he will actually make a decision to buy.
Choices overwhelm people. Too many choices offered at once lead to inaction.
In other words, if you give a person too many ways to say yes, you will make it easier for the person to say no. Making a decision is hard work. It’s emotionally taxing. The more choices and variables involved, the harder it becomes to decide.
Make Choosing Easy!
Instead of offering a bunch of choices, offer one choice only. The choice is to either buy or not buy. The prospect must then decide yes or no. That’s it!
In almost every case, you want to make the decision to purchase as easy and simple as possible.
Buy or not buy; call or not call; request more information or don’t.
What Joe Sugarman Says…
One time Joe Sugarman wrote a newspaper ad selling a watch. His client wanted to sell three styles in three different colors for a total of nine different watches. Joe wanted to only sell one watch: the men’s watch in black.
Joe and his client agreed to an A/B split-test. The results were surprising…
When both versions ran, the ad that featured only one men’s watch out-pulled the other version that featured nine models by a surprising 3 to 1 ratio. In short, for every watch we sold from the ad that featured the nine styles, we sold three in the other ad that showed just the one black watch. (Advertising Secrets of the Written Word, p. 162)
Even prior to this split-test, Joe had told his client, “…offering a customer too many choices [is] a dangerous thing to do.” (p. 161)
This only serves to illustrate the point I’m making. If you want to improve your sales, take away your buyer’s freedom by giving him fewer choices. Not only will he be happier, you’ll make more sales, more money, and more profit.
– Ryan
P.S. For more copywriting tips than you can shake a pen at, skip on over to Copywriting Code.
More choice is better… right? Wrong. That’s the conclusion of Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice.
Common sense says increased variety and more freedom of choice will make people happier. But studies show it does the exact opposite. It actually makes them unhappy.
Why Is This? Read More »
Which Discounts Generate Profits…
{!name},
When it came time to pay the bill for dinner I must admit, I felt a foolish.
There I was handing over a $10 discount coupon for a bill that was $190 but I had to admire the marketing savvy of the restaurant owner.
A few nights before, my wife had been conferring with our good friends Leslie and Will and Leslie offered to pick the restaurant and make the reservation.
Like us, Leslie is always interested in trying new places and she had a $10 coupon for Tendga, an Asian restaurant across town in Greenwich.
We knew we were taking our chances with a new restaurant but it turned out both the food and service were first rate. My only complaint was the techno music blaring from the bar.
Which brings me back to the math.
The restaurant owner spent money on a mailing to selected homes in Greenwich, CT offering $10 off. That’s right, just $10 off in a town where the average home sells for a million dollars.
The result was that he generated at least one sale of $200 and given that we’ll be back and I’m telling all my friends – just this one $10 coupon is likely to generate a couple thousand dollars in sales over the next couple of years.
Add in a few more new loyal customers the mailing generated and the simple $10 coupon more than paid for itself.
Now I know many people worry about giving discounts. After all it seems contradictory, if you want to increase your profits – giving away money doesn’t sound that smart.
And it’s true, cutting your prices dramatically isn’t the brightest move to make if you want to stay in business. That’s what General Motors did just before they filed for bankruptcy and got bailed out.
On the other hand, using discounts to generate leads, to get people in the door so you can create loyal customers who will buy from you over and over again is just plain good business. That’s what the owner of Tengda did and you should do it too.
Speaking of discounts. Want to save $10 on any MarketingForSuccess product?
Just enter “MFS-10” in the coupon code box before 12/20/10 to save yourself $10 on any order.
Go here to get started >>
(https://www.marketingforsuccess.com/store/)
Talk to you later,
Charlie
MarketingForSuccess
P.S. What’s the easiest way to get more people to your web site, or to your place of business?
Give them a reason – even one as simple as $10 discount coupon. Who knows – it could easily bring you in dozens or even hundreds of new customers and tens of thousands of new sales that you would have otherwise missed.
P.P.S. What’s the best discount strategy you’ve used to increase sales and profits?
Just go to the blog, and add your idea as a comment to this post and provide the link to your site, and get some free press for your business. Here’s the link to the blog post >>
When it came time to pay the bill for dinner I must admit, I felt a bit foolish.
There I was handing over a $10 discount coupon for a bill that was $190 but I had to admire the marketing savvy of the restaurant owner.
A few nights before, my wife had been conferring with our good friends Leslie and Will and Leslie offered to pick the restaurant and make the reservation. Read More »
How To Close More Sales Today
“I desperately need to close more sales before the end of the year and I’ve only got a few weeks left. What can I do? – Bill from Kansas City, KS
As year-end closes in I get this question more and more often. What’s the simple answer?
The Secret To Making More Sales
So I was driving to an appointment to sell some office furniture the other day and a cop pulls me over and says, “Have you been drinking because your eyes look a little red.”
Undaunted, I immediately shot back, “Have you been eating donuts because your eyes look a little glazed.” We can learn two things from this. 1. Never shoot back at a police officer. 2. Police officers have very little sense of humor.
Before my wife disgruntledly bailed me out 6 hours later I had a good chance to think about the office products business. And here is what I thought. Business is good. But enough regressing. Isn’t it great that Rosie and Donald are feuding? I really don’t like either of them, and to watch them make endless headlines by smearing each other’s noses in the dirt and trash talk is usually the highlight of my day.
I could never figure out why Rosie had a talk show and evidently neither could the American Public. She certainly couldn’t act, a fact verified by the one movie she was in. And as far as Donald – the man with an ego larger than his comb over – I’ve never enjoyed being around people who used daddy’s money to buy and bully their way into power, who absolutely know they’re God. I’m God.
Just kidding. I’m not God. I’m god. You know the other god, the small “g” god. One of the smaller gods the Greeks worshipped in ancient times. One of the gods you can’t really get in trouble for being. I’m already in enough trouble with the police.
Yeah, so where was I? Oh, yea… selling office products. I was selling office products while I was playing golf. Yes, I shoot in the mid 80’s. If it gets any colder than that, I don’t go out. And my drives are always in the 200 to 300 yard range. That’s 150 out, and 100 to 150 yards to either the right or the left.
But I sell a lot of office products on the course. Well, I don’t really sell office products at all. I’m glad if I know which end of the fax machine to put the paper in. And thank god – of your choosing, we don’t have thermal fax machines anymore. I mean, is it paper towels, TP, fax paper – I get so confused. More than once I’ve left the bathroom in pain. Luckily, it seems I don’t have to know anything about office products to get firms to buy from me.
You see, in sales – and this is true for any industry – people buy through relationships. And I have relationships with most of the women that buy from me. Wait a minute – that didn’t come out right. Especially if my wives find out.
But it’s true. Clients know they can count on me when they have a question, problem, or need something. They have my cell phone number and I always answer it. Product questions? I may not know the answer but that doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t find out for them in a hurry. My efficient staff makes it easy for me to be the slacker I appear to be. Our product specialists send detailed information to people that need product specs. And pricing is a blend of my feedback along with industry norms and competitors’ bids. And I’m there before, during and after the sale.
For whatever reason, people trust me. They know while I can be pretty funny, I’m always honest, 100% trustworthy and eager to please. It’s fun being funny and having relationships and having everyone around you always smiling and laughing – isn’t that the way you’d like to do business? So would your clients.
And that’s the way you sell a lot of office products. Just be yourself and develop relationships. When clients like you and trust you, they’ll buy from you.
Here’s the bottom line. Don’t get caught speeding and give lip to the cop: it costs $450 and the guys in the drunk tank all look like they’ve been on one too many episodes of cops. Yeesh… you’d think if someone had only one good tooth they’d take better care of it.
So I was driving to an appointment to sell some office furniture the other day and a cop pulls me over and says, “Have you been drinking because your eyes look a little red.”
Undaunted, I immediately shot back…
The ABC’s Of Writing Knockout Sales Copy
If you want to remember the key points of really effective sales copy, and see your customer responses soar.you should learn the ABC’s of Stunning Sales Copy.
A is for AIDA, which is what your whole sales letter should provoke: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Read More »
