Months ago I first heard Judith & Jim, founders of the Soft Sell Marketers Association, talk about using the term “prospector” instead of “prospect.” Although I wrote last summer about heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers needing to pay attention to terminology, such as using “broadcast” instead of “blast,” I still resisted changing this phrase I’ve used for decades. Then, the other day I was listening to a Soft Sell Marketers Association teleseminar I’d downloaded. It was a session late last year called “Keywords with Rick Hubbard.”
Rick pointed out that “prospector” gave him one word to explain a concept he’d struggled to describe for years. Suddenly, a light came on for me too! This is a heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing approach: attract people who already want to buy the help you offer means far less effort than trying to create demand in people who don’t need it yet. [...]
One of the strongest tools I’ve had in sales is enthusiasm. Enthusiasm sells more than any other skill that I’ve seen. The point is, as the salesperson, “If you don’t care, who else will?”
This doesn’t require you to be really outgoing and dynamic in expression. If it’s a natural part of your personality to be energetically expressive, then that’s how you authentically show your enthusiasm. But if you have a more restrained personality, don’t try to act expressively enthusiastic. People will recognize it as fake, which will undermine your credibility. Just be yourself. Show your belief and excitement about your products and services as you would normally and naturally. Subdued enthusiasm is still enthusiasm. When you speak with conviction and confidence, you will be believable. [...]
Selling is one of the toughest jobs I know, especially for heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers. Selling can also be one of the one most exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling jobs I know, especially for heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers. For me, it depended on what I was selling and how much I believed in the value my products and services delivered to my customers. When I was excited about the benefits of my products and services, I could be passionate and really enthusiastic about sharing with my potential buyers. But for me to have passion in my sales, I had to believe what I sold would improve their lives. And passion was important to seeing me through the rejections and the dull and unpleasant activities required in sales.
Among the most rewarding sales calls were those when I took the time to find out what the clients felt their problems were and what they were looking for before I started selling. When I knew what they wanted, it was easy to share, explain and demonstrate how my solutions would help them achieve their dreams or solve their problems. In other words, I would feel passionate about what I was doing. To find the same passion for your sales career, ask yourself the five questions in this [...]
The other day as I was preparing for my meeting with a client, I was looking at the testimonials on their website and realized for the first time, the irony of giving testimonials. I used to think that asking for testimonials was one-sided. In other words, if I asked you for testimonial of the work I’ve done, then you didn’t really get anything out of it other than the satisfaction of showing your appreciation for work well done. I didn’t realize that the giver of the testimonial actually benefits too.
The first benefit you get from giving me a testimonial is that you get free publicity wherever I use it. Provided I attract a lot of readers to my blog or do a lot of mailings, you stand to gain a lot of recognition. Interestingly, while working with clients on ways to fine tune their marketing and sales activities today, I realized a second, more significant benefit about giving testimonials: when you give a testimonial, you have an opportunity to indirectly state what you believe. The mere fact you are giving a testimonial points back at the values you hold as important. [...]
Charles Green got me thinking the other day about the right way and the wrong way to ask for testimonials. He was actually talking about how to do customer service surveys but his point applies to asking for testimonials as well. In Trust-Based Selling, Green wrote, “It’s manipulative to ask customers point blank if you have given them excellent service; it is embarrassing, self-serving, and highly self-oriented.” (p. 201)
The reason I’m writing about this is because it relates also to requesting referrals and testimonials. So how does a heart-based, soft sell salesperson get testimonials? I think it’s a bit of a tightrope walk to do it right without losing the trust you worked so hard to develop. The key to heart-based, soft sell sales lies in which has priority, my prospects’ challenges and desires or my profit. Assuming I have earned their trust and delivered what they need, I have found customers very willing to give me a [...]
Strange as it sounds, soft sell sales and marketing are, in some ways, tougher to do than hard sell because they require the self-discipline to focus on the concerns of others, and they require caring enough about others to delay your gratification of “closing” the sale. You must wait to describe how wonderful your products and services are until the customers are satisfied that you know and understand what their problems and/or desires are. When you have earned their trust by listening and by asking meaningful questions showing you want to understand better, they will be open and receptive to your advice. This is natural because now they feel you care about them, not just their wallets. Then, when they are ready, you can help your customers buy. [...]
This past Sunday, I read the draft of my ebook, Building Trust through Questions, to my writers’ group. Despite the variety of their work experience, several members stressed that in my efforts to emphasize the importance of questions, I shouldn’t forget that the salesperson needs to know his product and the company needs good customer service. Don’t forget the facts.
They are right, of course. Successful salespeople grab all the product training they can get. They ask questions to really understand how the products and services work and why they are important to your customers. They don’t forget the facts. Soft sell sales isn’t just about the customer’s situation, which you must understand before doing any selling. It’s also about helping him or her to solve a problem or fulfill a desire. That means you need to know first about your products and services and secondly about the benefits they deliver so that you can, in fact, be a trusted [...]
I’m a big believer in walking the talk. Yesterday, however, I asked my client how I did. What he told me was eye opening, and my ego would have preferred to not have gotten the answer. Despite the soft sell sales training I do in which I stress using questions to understand before selling, I almost allowed my passion blind me to what my client wanted.
Actually, we’d had a great session. We were talking about sales and marketing activities he can take to grow their business in these tough times in one of the hardest hit industries in America: apparel. I was teaching him about the soft sell sales approach to selling: get to know the customer’s concerns and interests, her issues.
We also chatted about how difficult it is to get to the buyers these days. And that’s where my own passion overrode my listening skills. [...]
Have you ever made a sale you didn’t feel good about where you got your sale just because you could, not because your customer would get the help they needed? I remember one employer in particular where that was true. I didn’t last long there – despite being on the fast track for rewards and promotion. I didn’t feel right about selling their product when I stopped believing it delivered what we claimed it did. Today I met a client who once quit sales for the same type of reason.
He excelled at it for awhile. He was aggressive, and he was good at it but found he hated himself for what he was doing. One day he knew he could get the sale, but his prospect had no need for the product. In danger of losing his self respect, he quit sales. Today, he’s a small manufacturer. He sells entirely differently. He talks to people and asks them what they need and what problems they are having. He listens. And he sincerely cares. His present approach to sales is soft sell sales.
It’s that relationship with our prospects that takes soft sell sales and marketing beyond just the money. Truly contributing to another’s life and helping make their road easier add to our self-respect. These kinds of sales we feel good about. Moreover, the customer feels good about them. This is what it means to “help customers [...]
My experience yesterday reinforced the need for First Step Internet Marketing. I had the pleasure working with a manufacturer who understood a lot about the Internet but lacked a few key understandings about the marketing aspects of it. But their site so far isn’t producing sales leads for them. One of the reasons is that it lacked meaningful headlines on each page aimed at the problems or desires of their prospects. There was nothing to engage the average visitor actually looking for a solution they can provide to read further. I recommended they take the First Step Internet Marketing course (http://tinyurl.com/cvlev6) because Judith Sherven & Jim Sniechowski with Tom Justin do the best job I’ve seen of taking you “from your first step to your first dollar” in a logical, building block approach to Internet marketing. [...]
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Our meeting on Thursday, April 23rd, was an uplifting experience, and you gave us hope that we can implement the marketing techniques discussed. We were especially pleased with the simple, yet effective ideas you gave us for improving our website and broadening our marketing capabilities.
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How You Gain from Giving Testimonials
The other day as I was preparing for my meeting with a client, I was looking at the testimonials on their website and realized for the first time, the irony of giving testimonials. I used to think that asking for testimonials was one-sided. In other words, if I asked you for testimonial of the work I’ve done, then you didn’t really get anything out of it other than the satisfaction of showing your appreciation for work well done. I didn’t realize that the giver of the testimonial actually benefits too.
The first benefit you get from giving me a testimonial is that you get free publicity wherever I use it. Provided I attract a lot of readers to my blog or do a lot of mailings, you stand to gain a lot of recognition. Interestingly, while working with clients on ways to fine tune their marketing and sales activities today, I realized a second, more significant benefit about giving testimonials: when you give a testimonial, you have an opportunity to indirectly state what you believe. The mere fact you are giving a testimonial points back at the values you hold as important. [...]