Reading my friend Bob Poole’s book, Listen First – Sell Later, he reminded me about the value of getting to know your customers’ industries. This is important to all salespeople and marketers, not just to soft sell sales and marketing people. To really help yourself get established in your sales and marketing efforts, study up on your ideal customers’ market or industry. Once you choose where you want to initially focus, start reading up as much as you can about it. There are several approaches to successful research. Likewise, there are at least three purposes to your doing this research and getting involved in a low key way. [...]
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 [...]
You’re wasting energy trying to get past the gatekeeper. For as long as I have been in sales and marketing, I’ve heard sales trainers teach techniques to get past the gatekeeper. Frankly, that’s a waste of energy and bound to tick someone off. Anyone who leans towards soft sell sales and marketing should instinctively appreciate this fact.
Believing that you must get past the gatekeeper is a sales myth. If you change your attitude and approach, the gatekeeper can actually be your ally. Business owners and executives would be overwhelmed if everyone wanting a slice of their time got it. So I prefer to think of the gatekeeper as a screen.
Soft sell sales and marketing are about building relationships and making connections with prospects. They are about creating trust. So, forget the sales myth about needing to get past the gatekeeper. Invest a little time building your relationship with that person first. When they recognize the value of what I have to offer, they point me to the right person and help me get in. Selling becomes fun, fulfilling and mutually rewarding this [...]
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. [...]
When I first experienced sales training, the trainers sometimes gave me the feeling that questions were a form of cattle prod designed to guide prospects down the chute to the slaughter house. For any soft sell salesperson, that is an unacceptable approach.
In soft sell sales and marketing, the role is that of a trusted advisor or consultant. We use questions to understand, not to control. It takes practice to use open-ended questions smoothly and comfortably. One tip is to develop an attitude of really wanting to know what your customer’s challenges are. You will more naturally move into a discussion, which helps to build trust. You help customers buy because you genuinely want to help. The result is more than a sale, it’s a connection, a relationship, that makes selling fun, fulfilling, and mutually [...]
One of my favorite American Humorists is Will Rogers. Although he died in a plane crash in 1935, he is long remembered for his famous line, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Actually, the full line was “I never met a man I didn’t like once I got to know him.” It’s the getting to know him that makes all the difference in the world, especially in sales situations.
For me, caring becomes immensely easier when I understand something about what my prospect is dealing with. It makes them human, not numbers, people with problems I can relate to. This is why I stress the importance of defining your ideal customer. Why did they buy from you. What were the problems they needed a solution for that you provided?
Success in soft sell marketing and soft sell sales requires developing relationships. Crucial to doing this is building trust that you sincerely care about their needs. This happens naturally when you show you care by understanding their challenges and problems then showing up to work with them on developing a solution that’s best for them. Caring can’t be faked for long in a complex [...]
This past Tuesday, DeBorah Beatty taught a lesson that applies to all sales people and sales managers: how to handle our memories of the sales call gone badly. The negative emotion we record with the experience can undermine our self-confidence in the next sales call that reminds us of the one we want to forget.
I participated in her preview call for “Creating a Passionate Life Full of Joy.” As a taste for her new five week course, DeBorah had us pick a negative memory and write down a brief, factual descripton of what happened. Next to it, we wrote down how we felt about the experience.
When I volunteered, I described a sales call fourteen years ago with my boss. We were calling on our largest customer in Reynosa, Mexico, a Fortune 100 company. My boss presented his plans for manufacturing in Mexico. He carefully stated the savings but spun it so the customer would read it to be greater than this move would really deliver. Without thinking I blurted out an objection. I was so embarrassed for violating the “rules” of business etiquette which says that you don’t embarrass you boss publicly. I felt so terrible I just wanted to run away. For all these years, I have felt shame for speaking up. DeBorah taught us a little exercise to reframe that event. She helped me see the positive lesson so that I now feel good about my role in that meeting. This technique anyone can use to get the positive value out of a “bad” sales [...]
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Skip Manipulating by Customer Service Report Card
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 [...]