If you’re new to sales or even a veteran, it’s likely that you’re unaware of the desperate hold buyers have on you.
That’s right, while you’re working hard to understand and satisfy their needs, buyers are up to some sneaky shenanigans.
However, I’m going to offer some steps that will reverse the advantage and put the advantage back in your hands.
First, let’s compare your agenda with the typical buyer’s. You’ll see that the goals are counterproductive. The buyer wants what you have . . . for free.
Buyers lie. They don’t lie because they are bad people, but to defend themselves. They know that salespeople are trained with all the right moves to take advantage of them if they aren’t cautious.
Buyers want to know what you know. They want to gather as much free information as possible.
Buyers mislead you. “I need to think it over” or “I’ll get back to you” are common phrases to dismiss you. You provided the information and consulting, completely unpaid, which buyers use to price shop your competitors, or go back to their existing vendors to get them to lower their prices.
Buyers hide. After they have what they want, they won’t answer their phones, return messages or respond to emails. At that point, it’s over.
From the moment, average salespeople enter buyers’ offices, their sales systems play into buyers’ strategies. Here’s the typical sales process.
1. Salespeople probe for buyers’ needs. It’s only after they understand buyers’ predicaments that they can devise suitable solutions.
2. Salespeople present. Once they have a plan, they provide their buyers with an overview, often in depth.
3. Salespeople try to close. That’s the objective. Good closers are considered good salespeople.
4. Salespeople follow up. This is the agonizing, tedious process of getting the buyers’ to make a decision.
While salespeople are trying to close, buyers are misleading them. While we are trying to follow up, buyers are hiding. This is an outdated system.
Let’s look at a better way of handling this situation. People buy for one of three reasons: pain, fear or pleasure. Unless you are selling exotic cars, or big-screen TVs, my guess is that most people aren’t buying your product or service for pleasure. So, as salespeople you MUST find the pain or fear. Get your buyers emotionally involved. Don’t say, “If you do XYZ you could make this much money.” Instead, go from the perspective, “If you don’t do XYZ, how much are you losing?” Great salespeople look for pain or fear, not needs. Everyone has needs, but people who buy have pain or fear.
In addition to discovering what’s hurting or scaring them, it is critical to get money issues (budget) out on the table, to discover the decision-making process (Is the prospect a think-it-over-type? Does a business partner or spouse need to be involved?).
Salespeople who follow this strategy will have more control of sales calls and more deals that close.
Try it. Examine your own sales process and let us know how it goes.
A lot of people have been asking me lately whether they could better reach their target markets better with email or direct mail. Certainly, email is growing taking some market share from direct mail. So, many businesses have concluded that direct mail is on its way out. I don’t see it that way.
There are pluses and minuses to both strategies, but more important there are big opportunities at stake if you guess wrong.
Email marketing is seeing major growth for some good reasons. For businesses, it’s cheaper, quicker to create, and an excellent platform for testing and measuring. Customers can respond to offers instantly and share with their friends.
As good as this sounds, cataclysmic spam and fear of viruses is keeping spam filter cranked up and prospects too inundated and untrusting to make much of an effort to read the messages.
Direct mail retains advantages as well. In a letter, postcard or brochure, you have space to make your case in as much detail as necessary and a canvas to make it much more creative than email where you must make your points fast and short.
Elaine Fogel, president and chief marketing officer for Solutions Marketing and Consulting, shared this stunning statistic in an article on MarketingProfs.com: offline communications drive 67 percent of online searches – and 39 percent of those searches result in a sale. [My apologies if you have trouble accessing the article because you're not a MarketingProfs.com member. I'll try to find her sources and provide them in a future blog.]
What’s more, according to Fogel, 71 percent of consumers prefer receiving product offers in the mail and 59 percent of businesspeople trust print to email.
Nonetheless, despite such incredible success, the big knock on direct mail remains its cost.
So, what does this all mean for your direct-marketing strategies? You may be seeing where I’m headed. The future the direct mail industry isn’t email marketing eliminating direct mail. Smart marketing strategists will blend the two for a double-barrel approach. They’ll be using both direct mail and email – and other innovative tactics like quick-response codes – to get customers buying online.
How have you been handling direct- mail and -email programs in your marketing campaigns? Let us know your thoughts and experiences.
If you’d like to share your know-how, consider becoming a guest blogger. If you’re interested, contact either of us.
In Part 1, I discussed the failure of “plain English” and precise English in getting your message across. So, if precise scientific language loses out to meaningless French and corncob logic, it seems like determining the right language for an audience really requires thinking outside of the box.
Well, maybe some low-hanging fruit will save us from re-inventing the wheel. I’m speaking, of course, of the wealth of existing expressions and catchphrases that make up a big part of the business vernacular.
Colorful, witty, meaningful turns of phrases are the bread and butter of business titans and journalistic luminaries. These clever, smart expressions that can be used in myriad of situations.
We’re all aware of pundits’ aversion to clichés. Yet, they aren’t above dropping a phrase from Shakespeare. Therefore, it seems a snobbish not to borrow from Clint Eastwood or Yogi Berra when it helps make a point. Plus, these passages come easily, regardless of writing skill. Few of us have time to re-imagine new analogies and metaphors for every sales letter, email promotion or leave-with piece.
If you can work the Bard into your work, do it. Beyond that, no matter how often you feel the urge to shrewdly work “Go ahead, make my day!” into your blogs or boost spirits with “It ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings” – DON’T! This is where the rules you were taught are right.
Clichés are bad-writing commodities and classify your writing and, worse, your ideas as such. Be known for your originality, not someone else’s. Win a sale with sincere thoughts, not banalities. Maybe you can’t write like Ernest Hemingway, but you can achieve success with your own ideas told in your own words than you can with clichés that virtually guaranteed to go in one ear and out the other.
So, where does that leave us regarding how we communicate? It boils down to having your signature on your ideas. You don’t have to be eloquent. Your words will stand out and carry weight because they’re yours.
Try it today. Take your last e-newsletter, press release or direct mail postcard, and edit it for these guidelines. You’ll find yourself much more interesting, persuasive and, yes, eloquent.
As always, we encourage guest bloggers. If you’d like to share your expertise, contact either of us.
I’m sitting in a waterfront Starbucks writing this blog. I didn’t understand a single word my order taker said when she told the barista what I wanted, not even the size. And, since I’m Starbuckese challenged, I’m not sure the order I grabbed really doesn’t belong to the agitated dockworker at the pick-up counter.
At one time or another, a professor or seminar instructor has told us to communicate so ninth-graders, our grandmothers or everyone else can grasp our thoughts. Otherwise, confounded prospects will refuse to buy or will plunk down top dollar for swamp land as long as every aspect of the fraud is explained the simplest terms. It suggests that Starbucks would be even more wildly popular if it translated its caffeinated banter into plain English.
I’ve never bought into that theory. I know a tax consultant and a psychologist with more business than they can handle for exactly because people can’t and don’t want to understand their offerings. OK, the logic’s a bit skewed, but it raises the question: is dumbing down your brochure, newsletter or direct-mail postcard all that’s required for good communication, or are there other things in play.
Writing to the lowest denominator lowest common denominator makes no more sense than replacing caviar with tapioca to broaden appeal for something crunchy to complement the champagne. While everyone will “understand” the tapioca language, it lacks emotion, logic and interest that would entice someone to buy your products over your competitors’. So, while plain English is a good foundation for messages, don’t be afraid to top it with some tasty Beluga.
So, if plain English is lacking, how about making it scientifically precise? I’ve discussed technical language with countless engineers. We’re communicating with our technical peers and high-tech professionals who use the same terminology, acronyms and product specifications. So, shouldn’t we speak in their language to make our case?
That’s a good argument. After all, every industry has its own language. It makes sense to pitch your products and services in the native tongue, and it shows you’re one of them.
Nonetheless, whenever I’ve tried to write an article, video script or product brief in tech speak, it comes out boring, emotionless and not the least compelling.
Think about the language that drives you to action. French, even though I don’t understand a word, has a poetic lilt that makes anything I’m offered sound good. At the other end of the language spectrum, comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s backcountry jargon entices me so much that I’m convinced I’d love noodling.
In Part 2, I’ll show you a treasure trove of ready-made quips that will make your day. Meanwhile, look over the most recent promotional work you wrote. Is it persuasive? Is it Jeff Foxworthy? Is it you? Send us your rewriting questions. If we can’t help, we’ll see if others in the community can.
As always, we encourage guest bloggers. If you’d like to share your expertise, contact either of us.
If you’re a business owner you undoubtedly support the idea that that businesses should operate in an environmentally responsible manner. Yet, we also know that there’s more that we could do if we weren’t also responsible for making a profit, going green wasn’t so expensive and . . . Wait a minute, I’m in compliance! I’ve already done a lot. Why should I do more?
I hear you and understand. There are some very good reasons for making your business even greener. Here are four benefits that make taking a few extra steps good business sense.
1. There’s profit in being green. There’s almost always long-term cost savings and possibly tax benefits for investing in environmental improvements, such as solar heating, energy-efficient equipment and lighting, and water-reduction devices. Pile on easy stuff you may not be doing yet – reusable drinking glasses and flatware, refillable ink cartridges, motion-controlled lights, office equipment programed to turn off when not in use, etc. – and you’ll likely score big savings. Plus, a study conducted last year by Cohn & Wolfe found that more than 60 percent of consumers prefer to buy from environmentally responsible companies and are willing to pay more for the privilege of doing so.
2. Eco-friendly policies often make a more productive environment for employees. Employees feel good about an employer who’s concerned about the environment. Telecommuting, in particular, has proved popular among workers and boost productivity as well. (No, they won’t be goofing off at home.) You’re also likely to attract better talent. According to a MonsterTRAK survey, 92 percent of young job seekers prefer eco-responsible firms.
3. Being green is good PR. You want to avoid greenwashing, of course, but you shouldn’t let your environmental responsibility go unnoticed. Start by certifying your company with an appropriate standards organization, such as the B Corporation and Green America’s Certified Business program. Then wear the badge proudly on your website and collateral. You’ll be sending the right message to customers and employees, and they’ll help spread the word.
4. You’ll feel great because it’s the right thing to do. Make other like-minded eco-friendly feel great too by doing business with them. Jay Cohen Gilbert, co-founder B Lab, lays out a compelling case for what corporations can accomplish when they pursue sustainable values. You’ll feel motivated just listening to his “dull” TED talk.
If you’re already well along the green path, thank you. Take the rest of the afternoon off . . . and please switch off the light on your way out.
Promoting your green contributions without coming off as greenwashing can be tricky. Anyone have some good examples or advice on how it should be done?
Have a position on environmental responsibility? Let us know. We’re always looking for guest commentators with opinions?
I’ve heard it almost daily since Day 1 of the downturn. Chief marketing executives at successful companies, experts at top marketing firms and business pundits have echoed the same caution: Don’t stop marketing.
Especially in economically challenging times we must keep teeth in our marketing programs to keep our businesses thriving during the downturn and ready to pounce on opportunities when the economy recovers.
According to Peter Faden of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Knowledge@Wharton, “As companies slash advertising in a downturn, they leave empty space in consumers’ minds for aggressive marketers to make strong inroads.”
Ourbrands are what the free marketplace perceive them to be, not what you and I think they should be. Without reinforcement, they fade. If we’re to keep our brands healthy and growing, we had better be very good at marketing our products and services.
We must keep communicating with customers as much or more than our competitors. None of us can afford to let them dominate the conversation. Relevant and timely communications make our brands to stand out above the noise.
Remaining top of mind is more important than most people think.I assure you that a good percentage of business you gain or lose is simply due to having or not having your message in front of prospects at the right moment.
The number one reason businesses lose customers is perceived indifference.Cutting back on marketing creates the perception that we’re in trouble and makes it easier for customers to be wooed by the competition.
Human beings want to be associated with winners, and people want to do business with companies that are perceived as stable, progressive and successful.
The solution is keeping our businesses at the top of our customers’ and prospects’ minds. Let’s keep our edge. Let’s keep marketing.
Have a position on an issue? Want to be a guest commentator? Let us know.
Direct mail will continue its resurgence of recent years driven its innate ability to slice and dice a market into almost “personal” target segments. In yesterday’s introduction to this series, “Incredibly Successful Trend #1,” I showed you how such bull’s-eye segmentation can create efficient, high potential strategies, a virtual personal letter to high-potential prospects versus an e-mail blast to the world’s population.
According to a 2010 InfoPrint/CMO Council survey, 91 percent of consumers were unsubscribing to email pitches. Why the desertion? Examining the contents of consumers’ daily dose of 200 billion emails, the same study found that 97 percent qualified as spam. So, lack of relevance seems one likely conclusion.
With not too big of a deductive leap, one also could reason that rather than being wooed, roughly 9 out of 10 recipients are actually annoyed.
One of you will undoubtedly argue that the 9 percent are the target market. They opened the emails, right? So, the tactic met its objective. If the 91 percent are annoyed, who cares?
Since this is an open forum, I’ll forego my opinions for the moment and open this question for comments from all of you. What do you think?
Is direct mail received any better? After all, it earned the title “junk mail?”
Yes. A study Experian Information Services conducted for the insurance industry found that 43 percent of 18 to 30-year-old recipients preferred getting information with a stamp on it while less than half that number liked email best. (Somewhat surprising, even to me, 15 to 24-year-olds came in second in their preference for printed over digital mail.)
You can clearly see the trend in a study conducted by the Direct Marketing Association. The DMA predicts that investments in direct-mail tactics will reach $2.2 billion this year in a comeback from $1.7 billion in 2007.
Of course, I’m not proposing that you scrap your entire promotional mix, even email, in favor of direct mail. A balanced approach is always best. Analyze it for yourself. Let us know what you find out.
If you can grab a moment, gives us your views on the question I begged above that asks if we should care about annoying 9 out of 10 email recipients if we connect with that one interested prospect?
What other topics are of interest? Let us know and we’ll try hard to cover them, or get an expert to do it. We’re also eager to share this space with guest bloggers if you have something of interest to the group.
