|
|
by Rick Baker
On Sep 21, 2010
Sales Tweet #47 Ernest Seller asked what it would take to get the order. His Client said, "First thing - do up your fly". The Thinking Behind the Sales Tweet Ernest Seller makes mistakes like that all the time. And, he always follows it up with mistake #2: He doesn’t take the little human faux pas in stride. He stumbles around and often he tries to change the topic by telling a joke. Some Clients must really like this because they invite co-workers in to meet Ernest...but that's another Sales Tweet topic.
by Rick Baker
On Sep 20, 2010
Sales Tweet #46 When you simply listen with an open mind...what are your Clients saying about your competition?
The Thinking Behind the Sales Tweet
The main point is - Listen. Don’t make comments about your competition. And 'overrule' yourself if you are tempted to ask leading questions. When your Client brings up your competition it means something. Your challenge is to determine what it means. You can prepare for this inevitable situation by planning the questions you will ask your Client after your Client raises the topic of your competition. When you design those questions, design them carefully. [Search the word "question" at the Activestor website for more about this topic...here's a link www.activestor.ca ]
by Rick Baker
On Sep 17, 2010
Sales Tweet #45 Some of Ernest Seller's Clients are avid readers. He wonders if that is of 'selling' significance. The Thinking Behind the Sales Tweet OK. Ernest wondered that then he let the thought slip away because, as usual, he was really busy. If he had spent a little more time thinking he may have concluded 'Yes, some of my Clients are avid readers. I can tell that by looking at the books on their desks, shelves, and in their bookcases'. 'The next time I look at those books I will have to remember to think about what types of books and what does that mean...as examples: What does it mean when my Client has her university textbooks on display? What does it mean when my Client has a set of football books or magazines on display?' But - none of those questions came to Ernest Seller's mind. He was too busy.
by Rick Baker
On Sep 16, 2010
When you speak to another person a number of things can happen:
- The message is heard, listened to, understood, remembered, and influences that person’s future action
- The message is heard, listened to, understood, remembered, and ignored
- The message is heard, listened to, understood, and forgotten
- The message is heard, not fully listened to, and not understood
- The message is heard but not listened to
- The message is not heard
I suppose there could be other things but the short list above captures most of things that can happen when you speak to another person [or a group of people].
Of course, you can perform tests to understand where your message ‘sits’ with the other person…but that’s a topic for another day.
When the message is important to you it makes sense to aim for the first result: your message is heard, listened to, understood, remembered, and influences future action by the person or people whom received your message.
How might you increase the likelihood your messages will receive #1 treatment?
According to brothers Chip and Dan Heath, the answer is: you need to make your messages more sticky.
Here is a summary of how the Heath brothers say you can go about making your ideas stick…
A Process for Making Your Ideas Stickier
- Identify the central message you need to communicate - find the core
- Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message, ie, what are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isn't it already happening naturally?
- Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience's guessing machines along the critical counterintuitive dimension. Then, once their guessing machines have failed, help them refine their machines. Common sense is the enemy of sticky messages. It's your job to help them understand uncommon sense.
I have given quite a bit of thought to item #1. Finding the core – finding the essence - is a common starting point taught by creative-thinking experts. But, again, that’s a topic for another day.
In business, Making Your Ideas Stickieris something that should be high on your list of priorities because success in communication impacts in all areas of business:
- Employee supervision, management, and relations
- Project team success
- Marketing & Sales
- R&D
- Every other aspect of business
More about Sticky Ideas and Messages in future thought posts…
by Rick Baker
On Sep 16, 2010
Sales Tweet #44 You make embarrassing, little 'human' mistakes: share a personal story with a buyer today.
The Thinking Behind the Sales Tweet
Obviously, judgment and discretion is required…and we shouldn’t overdo it. But, don’t be uncomfortable sharing some personal things with buyers. Most people like stories and many people like the personal touch. Be careful not to be too personal too quickly. And, pay attention to reactions. Does the Buyer 'clam up'...letting you know you better ease off? Does the Buyer reciprocate, sharing his or her stories with you?
by Rick Baker
On Sep 15, 2010
According to Huthwaite research, you can improve your sales performance or the performance of your sales team if you:
- Choose Behaviour: Identify specific actions you believe might tie in with sales success.
- Watch for that Behaviour during Sales Calls: how often does the behaviour happen? Keep track of the statistics.
- Divide Sales Calls into 2 groups: successes and failures. (Obviously, this is subjective, depending on how you define success.) Then, you will have two groups: one with the behaviour and sales success and the other with the behaviour and sales failure.
- Analyse Frequency Differences: if the successes outnumber the failures then the Behaviour likely is a factor of sales success.
In theory, that's a simple way to go about analysing and improving sales process.
In practice it isn't.
For example, Huthwaite uncovered some surprising things:
- Most of the closing techniques taught do not work.
- Closing techniques which work for small accounts will actually lose you business as the sale grows larger.
- Open and closed probing questions may work for small sales but they won't work for bigger sales.
- In major sales, objection-handling skills will contribute little to your sales effectiveness.
- The benefit-from-feature approach to selling can be very successful for small sales but it will fail entirely with larger sales.
At Spirited, we recommend a TARMARVALPRODA process, summarized as follows:
- Identify your company's Target Markets (typically 2 to 4 TARMARs)
- Identify the specific Value Propositions linked to your Target Markets (1 VALPRO for each TARMAR)
- Confirm your company's Unique Selling Proposition, also known as Differential Advantage (DA)...and sometimes called Distinct Advantage
- Set Marketing Programs for each of your Target Markets
- Set Sales Programs for each of your Target Markets (to maximize success these must be perfectly aligned with your Marketing Programs)
- Set roles for and assign your Sales people in a manner that ensures their individual skills align with the requirements of selling to the different Target Markets
- Set SMART sales goals for each sales person
- Establish clear sales process, using multi-media communication [writing, audio-visual, etc]
- Train your sales people regularly: help them understand how sales activity meshes with marketing activity and your company's goals. Repeat your sales training messages using different perspectives and communication media.
- Establish sales-performance reporting process (Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Vital Sign reporting)
- Do that sales-performance reporting in groups and one-on-one: as you do it celebrate lessons learned (whether they were learned through failure or success). Be specific. Don’t accept ambiguity.
- Ensure your sales department has a Can-Do Culture
|
|