Brand Autopsy Added To My Blog Roll
I just read Brand Autopsy for the first time and I am immediately hooked.
By the looks of it, I’ll be linking to posts there on a regular basis.
I have added it to my Blog Roll and subscribed to the RSS feeed.
I suggest you go and do the same.
You can thank me later.
Oh, tell John I sent you !
10 Tips To Explode Your Sales
Every one of us in the selling profession is constantly looking for some way to better their salesmanship. We’re always open to suggestions, probably more than other professions, because our sales determine our income.
Although these tips seem simple, they are a combination of values that, properly planned and properly applied, will give you an advantage over your competition.
These are usually not taught to the new salesman and are often over-looked by a veteran salesman. Many people do them naturally, while others need to be reminded. Properly applied, they’ll make you more successful. Without action, they’re just words on paper…or your monitor.
If you want to stand out from the crowd, if you want to rise above the noise, if you want to be thought of as extraordinary, here are 10 simple tips that will take you to the top.
#1 - Do The Usual Things In An Unusual Way.
Any salesman can deliver a quote or sample. Make sure you do it differently than your competition. If they mail it, you need to have it delivered by a courier. When you lose an order, do it with “style and a smile “. When I lose one, I ask for the next one in advance.
My customers know by now I’m going to do this and sometimes have one waiting for me. It might be smaller than the one I wanted, but it’s sure better than nothing. And losing with class is one sure way to grow your stock in their eyes.
You don’t have or want to be extreme or offensive, just memorable, in a good way. The quality of being different is a sought after trait of successful salesmen and will pay enormous dividends.
#2 - Constantly Think About Ways To Help Your Customer.
A successful salesman never sells on intrinsic value alone. He adds a personal touch that is unique to him. He makes his product into a service, with his ideas being the extra feature that only comes from him and his company. Find new avenues for them to explore. Send them business. Talk them up at trade shows. Show them ways to make more money and spend less.
#3 - Keep In Constant Contact With The Customer.
Constant contact is essence of salesmanship. If the only time you contact your customer is when you ask for an order, you may as well not contact them. You won’t be welcome there for long. I call my customers with tips, leads, technical findings and suggestions on a regular basis and do so without asking for or referring to an order. Often, this leads to an order that I never saw coming. Don’t be a pest, be a member of their team.
#4 - Have An Uncommon Spirit Of Service.
Willingness to go above and beyond was instilled into me in the US Army. My years as a salesman have reinforced that ten-fold. Going to another town, 120 miles away, at night, on my time, to pick up a box of parts we left on a dock and delivering them to a jobsite a 2AM won me more orders than I could have ever gotten any other way. Whatever it is that you have to do, in your industry, to make your services more valuable than your competition, you need to do it.
#5 - Have Consideration For Coworkers.
You’re only as good as your team is. They’ll determine how far you go. The customer will only listen and forgive you so many times. Blaming it on your truck drivers, the shipping department, billing or manufacturing will only buy you a few buckets of forgiveness. After that, it’s all on you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can treat them poorly and get away with it. They have long memories and nothing is secret for long.
#6 - Treat Your Customers Employees With Respect.
Never treat your customer’s employees with less respect than you do them. You never know when they’ll have the ear of the person with purchasing power. Whether it’s a truck driver who comes to your dock, the receptionist, the accounts payable department, it doesn’t matter, they deserve your respect. I always imagine they know my grandmother and that they’ll tell her if I’m not as nice as I should be. In the past, I’ve gotten orders from having been nice to a customer’s truck driver, who broke down in our parking lot, as he pulled away from the dock. I let him use my cellphone to call his boss and his wife. I went to my house and got him some sandwiches and a drink and brought them back to him and then waited there for the tow truck to come get him.
#7 - Never Be Satisfied With Your Accomplishments.
No salesman who’s looking toward the future is ever satisfied with what he did today. He knows he’s one week of being a slacker away from being so far behind that he’ll never get back to the top. There are more people out there that you didn’t sell today than there are those that you did. I don’t even like for my boss to show me my sales numbers from month to month. I’m afraid it will cause me to ease off. Set realistic, attainable goals and if you reach them, reset them a tad higher and forget you already exceeded them.
#8 - Have a Large Capacity For Friendship.
The ability to make friends - and keep them - is one of the greatest assets a salesman can have. The majority of business sales come from friendships. Invariably, he with the most friends is the man with the most business. The greater your capacity for making friends, the greater your capacity for making money. The two are inseparable. If you think of your customers as your friends, you’ll never try to deceive them or treat them unfairly. Many who purchase will wait for their favorite salesman to visit, even when they’re offered a better deal from one of those who treat their customers coldly and say, ” Hey, it’s just business ”
#9 - You Need A Keen Understanding Of Human Nature.
If you set out to study human nature, you’ll never have to worry about having learned it all. The field is ever changing, but always stays the same. The more contacts you make, the more you’ll learn. The more you learn, the more you earn. As you begin to understand your customer’s inner workings, you’ll see avenues for injecting your ideas and wooing him over to your way of thinking. You cannot treat all your customers the same way. If you do, you’ll only attain a miniscule portion of your potential. Every person you meet has their own way, it’s up to you to find their buttons, and it’s not up to them to change their ways to help you.
#10 - You Must Be A Tireless Worker.
It goes without saying that most of the better than average salesmen are hard workers. Nothing worthwhile is easily attained and sales are no exception. Properly directed effort is more valuable than education will ever be. Properly educated and directed effort is the stuff that makes dreams come true. If you will work smart and hard, in sales, the sky is the limit. Action, effort, hard work ….whatever you call it, is what it takes to succeed. Educated and directed effort will never, ever let you down.
Kentucky DOT Issues Flyswatters
So here I am heading down the Audubon Parkway today. It connects Owensboro, Ky and Henderson, KY. About 25 miles, give or take 3.
There’s a toll booth that extracts .50 cents for your driving pleasure. You can take ( State ) Highway 60, if you want a no charge 2 lane route. I chose toll and four lanes ’cause I was gonna go as fast as legally possible.
I use the cup holder in my console for change collection, for just such moments as this. When I get 50 pennies built up, I go the toll route to divest myself of them.
Today I dropped in all 50 pennies at once. What’s the big deal with that, you ask ?
Well, there’s a sign on top of the change collector that says something to the tune of , ” If you’re broke enough to use pennies, please deposit them one…at…a…time. ”
If you knew me very well, you’d know that sooner or later I’m gonna have to see why you have to deposit them one…at…a…time. I just will. Have to. No doubt.
Today was D-Day. That stands for Deposit Day. AllAtOnce ! At least 20 other times over the last 16 months, I’ve done it one…at…a…time. Or close to it.
What the heck happens, you wonder ? Does it speak to you ? Does it flash some lights and ring bells ? Does it spit ‘em back out ?
None of the above.
What happens is a large woman with a flyswatter comes out of her booth and pokes at the pile of pennies with a State of Kentucky issued flyswatter and gives you a stern look while pointing at the sign. Honest, a flyswatter and she uses the handle while holding it by the business end.
I’m assuming the stern look was because of the cold temperatures. Surely she wouldn’t give me that look, me the customer, me the only reason she has a job, me Mr. 50 Pennies himself, because I threw all 50 in at once.
I mean really, over the years since that toll booth was built, you’d figure that the state had collected enough to have the machine serviced so that customers can throw whatever they want, coin wise, in there and have it do it’s job. If not, maybe they better up the toll to .55 cents and when they get enough collected they can have the machine serviced or even put in a new one.
Why do you expect me, the customer to change ( get it ? ) the way I throw coins ? Shouldn’t I be able to just dump ‘em in and let it count ? The coin counters at the bank work like that. They don’t have to drop ‘em in one…at…a…time.
And c’mon, a flyswatter ? At least get those poor souls that collect our coins a real instrument of pokiness !
How about even having some business sponsor the pokers ?
Think about it. ” This episode of coin poking brought to you by All-State Insurance. You’re in Good Hands With All-State and Your Coins Are, Too ! ”
Or maybe the Casino Aztar gambling boat in Evansville (IN ), ” Got Poker ? We Do ! ”
There’s a myriad of ideas that we can throw out there to help the state change the way they do this pokey deed.
Next week, I’ll go that way again and I’ll take my camera with me and get you a picture of all this coin operated fun. Count on it ( get it ).
Sorry, that was bad. But not as bad as State issued flyswatters.
Another Post On Hiring Sales People
I just read a post on Selling Is Dead about hiring sales people.
It adds to the conversation I started with THIS POST.
Go by and read the post at Selling Is Dead and read my post again and you’ll be way ahead of the curve.
I’ll Be Back In A Day Or Two
Hard to think about blogging, sales and business right now.
I spent the day cleaning up what used to be my brother’s house. Tornado got the house but he and his wife are okay.
Gotta get back down there at daylight tomorrow to start cleaning up again.
I’ll be back on track in a day or three.
Thanks for all the good wishes.
Forgive My Lack Of Posts
Please bear with me for a day or so.
We’ve had 2 tornado’s go thru our town in the last week.
The one today went thru my boyhood home and I still have family there.
Haven’t been able to reach them by phone, so at daylight on Wednesday, when the curfew is lifted, I’ll drive down and try to find out if they are okay.
Pray for them, if that’s part of what you do.
Thanks for your patience.
Random Key Strike Added To My Blog Roll
Just wanted y’all to know that I just added a great blog to my Blog Roll.
Random Key Strike is full of random musings, mostly about music and business.
From the About page :
” Gary Smith is a writer, musician, and general manager of a small business. He’s married with two young children. He lives in the southeast, which is where he was born and raised. He loves it, but he’s never been sure it loves him back, as everything he’s interested in seems to be considered a counterculture activity in that region. “
I’ve only been sneakin’ around readin’ this blog for a short time, but it’s already moved close to the top of the more than 100 RSS feeds I read fairly regularly.
Go by and sample what’s there for a week or two and I’m bettin’ you’ll be subscribin’ to Gary’s RSS feed, too.
What I’ve Learned
I just got an email from Esquire, the magazine. I don’t subscribe and I don’t purchase it off the rack, so I’m not sure where they got my email address. Maybe from the guys who try to sell me all those ‘ego boosters’ every day.
They want me to send them back a ” What I’ve Learned ” email. Presumably so they can publish it with a few others that reply and maybe make an article out of it. Or a book.
Think of that. If 25,000 people respond and we’ve all given them permission, they just got a free book written for them. All they have to do is format and publish.
Heck, you know we’re all gonna buy a copy to see if we’re in there. 25,000 copies sold in the first week to all of us goobers that sent back the email. AND, we already know what we said !
I’ve thought about it and I may try to come up with a set of ” What I’ve Learned ” rules in the next couple of days, so I can get in there with the rest of y’all.
Help me out here and let me know what you’ve learned, life lesson wise. Maybe I can just steal yours and I won’t have to do any thinking of my own.
That would be simple. My kind of style.
Simple Way To Market Your Business
I was just reading thru the 100 or so feeds that I keep up with and came across this post by Troy White, over at Duct Tape Marketing’s Advertising Channel.
Troy give’s us some simple ( now you know why I”m jumping all over this ) reasons why we should use sales letters.
Here’s a snippet to tease you into clicking thru and reading the whole article :
” Sales letters can do the same work as a master sales person - but they can do their job with 1,000 or even 10,000 people a day - and for less than $1 a sales call ! “
Want a little more :
1. Eliminate the need for cold calls – the letters do the work for you
2. Get referrals from your existing clients and contacts
3. Covert your letter to a 2 or 3 column display ad – leverage existing marketing dollars
4. Create retail traffic with simple mailings
5. Create website traffic
Now click over and find out all 26 reasons you should use this simple method in marketing your business.
Facts Are Way Overrated
While reading a post at Seth Godin’s blog, I noticed these phrases in the body of the post :
“Facts don’t change people’s behavior.”
“Emotion changes people’s behavior.”
“Stories and irrational impulses are what change behavior. Not facts or bullet points.”
“If all we need is facts, then books alone would be sufficient.”
“When the Surgeon General announced that smoking was fatal, how many smokers quit right away?”
I don’t know about you. but to me that tells me that when I’m dealing with a customer, I’m wasting my time if I bother quoting facts and features as anything more than as throw-ins during the conversation.
What I really need to be doing is telling them a story that jerks their emotions towards my service or product.
Smoker’s don’t quit when they hear about cancer, UNLESS it’s THEIR cancer !
Once their emotions are activated, they take action.
This tells me that I need to activate my customer’s emotions to get them to take action.
How do I do this ? Not with facts and figures, according to Seth. I agree to the max !
Here’s some more good info from seth’s post :
” Conferences are designed to get average people to change their behavior. By “average”, I mean typical—the masses, the center of the bell curve. That’s a sensible objective. By definition, most people (in any given population) are in the middle of that bell curve. Change them and you’re golden. If this group would learn, take action and make things happen with just a memo, you wouldn’t need to have a conference. But we end up being flown on average planes to average hotels to sit in average conference rooms and hear average speakers doing presentations filled with bullet points. And it’s all beyond reproach.
But it doesn’t work. “
Notice here that he’s talking about the average person, which is basically the same person that you and I try to sell to everyday.
” It doesn’t work when you’re on a sales call either. Your facts and your service and your prices can be the best, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get the sale. And it breaks down at an annual review and it even happens in a one-on-one encounter with a policeman or a teacher or a clerk. “
Don’t even bother going in with a price cut…without a story to back it up. Or at least with the most powerful word in the English language…Because.
Because our manufacturing costs have dropped…we’re cutting our price.
Because we recently developed a new method…we’ve been able to lower our costs.
Don’t go in without a because.
” People are irrational and they usually make decisions that have nothing to do with facts. And yet we spend most of our time improving our facts and very little concerned with the rest. “
If you waste your time memorizing facts, rather than learning how to communicate with and guide your customer with your stories, you’ll be less successful than you could be.
If more sales managers would find ways to teach their salesmen how to be better communicators, they be selling more of their product.
If you’re a sales manager and you find a person who’s able to engage people and hold their attention….Hire ‘em ! You can teach them enough about your product to sell more than your best fact memorizer ever thought about.
” Here’s the challenge, then: figure out how to do the atypical. How to change the interactions that people have with each other. How to change what they talk about in the elevator. How to create an environment where people walk in ready to learn and change and challenge…”
You, the sales manager have to find ways to make your salesmen more interesting, more likable, more balanced, better able to think on their feet and take a customers comments and run with them.
You, as a salesman, have to find new and differnet ways to engage your customer’s interest. Price ain’t gonna always do it. Features ain’t always gonna do it.
Number’s tell…but stories sell !
” Sure, it won’t work on everyone. But that’s better than working on no one. “
Could this new and improved method be the secret you’ve looked for all your life. No, probably not.
But I guarantee it will improve your sales calls and make you a better salesman.
For 10 Tips To Explode Your Sales, click here.
Want to learn about how to hire a salesman, click here.
Need some more info tell help you understand about stories, click here.
