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. [...]
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Although many Internet marketers recommend making your blog the hub of your Internet marketing, I know of no brick and mortar companies that would go that far. Nevertheless, maintaining a blog is one of the most powerful tools you can use to promote your business. After all, a static website merely gives you an address. Now you need to attract visitors. Probably the most popular dream of most businesses with websites is to find themselves on the first page of the generic search for their most important keywords because it costs them nothing. Using your blog as the hub of your Internet marketing improves your search engine rankings because of your frequent updates. And thanks to plugins and apps, one post on your blog can get sent out automatically to Twitter and Facebook as well as other sites. So you improve your search engine positioning at the same time you strengthen your [...] This article is about famous marketing lines often called taglines or slogans. This week I finished the 6th lesson that’s part of my opt-in bonus, an ecourse, 9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide. This lesson, “How to Stand Out in a Cast of Thousands,” describes how to Identify Your Unique Selling Proposition. Writing that article inspired this blog post. Here are some of my favorite taglines for you to match up in a little quiz. To keep it interesting, I researched a few movie taglines too. These slogans become brief statements of the company’s or movie’s unique selling proposition. Notice that some describe very minor differences between the company whose slogan it is and its competitors. The key point is that they are establishing their position in the minds of the public. Not all of these statements are taglines. Some will be identifiers I think you’ll recognize because the company’s branding is so [...] This weekend a friend described an ethical situation at work. In Mike’s (not his real name) case, his employer is actually breaking the law. It requires courage to act in such an environment. Unfortunately, most ethical situations, in my experience, manage to skirt the law thereby making the judgment call even harder. This is particularly true in sales and marketing where people who are driven solely by the numbers, i.e. money, care only about getting the contract signed. The methods used to get the signature are unimportant to these types of business people. Actually, salespeople who want to use heart-centered, soft sell sales techniques will be coming from a place of integrity and from an attitude that their relationships with their customers or clients are more important than the immediate sales. So, how do you know what the right thing to do is in any given sales situation? While philosophers have all sorts of answers to that question; my preference is to go back to the Golden Rule: do onto others as you would have them do unto you. Or you could take Richard Bach’s advice in Illusions: do unto others as they would have you do unto them. The point is, go with your gut or, better yet, go with your [...] It’s easy to forget when goal setting to come from “being here now.” It took Judith & Jim’s Soft Sell Marketers Association weekly training call last Wednesday on “Features and Benefits AND Coming From” to help me take my understanding a step further. I’ve used the law of attraction and visualization to achieve hundreds of goals in my lifetime, probably thousands if we include the minor ones that I don’t think about consciously yet set in motion. That works for negative images too which is why being conscious of our thoughts is so important. Judith & Jim were right that coming from the awareness of having achieved the goal is vastly different from moving toward it. My shift in awareness came when I realized that I often see myself “there” as opposed to looking out of my eyes surrounded by what I want to achieve. Do you too, when you think of a goal, a dream, see it “out there”? Try this yourself. Put yourself in the consciousness of the goal attained. What does achieving your goal look like, feel like, sound like? [...] Bill Gates, Sr. in his memoir, Showing Up for Life, said that “in certain traditionally Zulu parts of South Africa, when two people greet each other the first one uses words that mean ‘I see you.’” (p. 155) He goes on to say “That greeting is a powerful statement about how much being recognized and encouraged by others in our lives has to do with the kind of people we become. It also drives home the role community plays in all our lives.” (p. 156) I was reminded of Gate’s statement when I listened to Judith & Jim last night on their second free preview call for their upcoming Bridging Heart & Marketing III http://tinyurl.com/ktmklb virtual conference. They talked about how the soft sell marketer sees the prospect as a person in the relationship first and as a customer second. Hard sell marketers instead focus first on making the sale. More and more customers want to be seen as people [...] About twenty years ago, I attended a sales training class that has ever since stood out as the classic example of hard sell. This former vacuum cleaner salesman taught us how he sold 90% of the homes in this small town in Nevada or Arizona. He told us to just develop a series of questions that everybody would answer yes to. Each yes was like a degree on a thermometer. Eventually you had so many yeses that the temperature reached a point where — that’s right — where they couldn’t say no. Degree by degree he built his closing momentum. I left that training really disappointed that I’d wasted my money. Talk about manipulation. Long before I heard Judith & Jim talk about soft sell marketing and their Soft Sell Marketers Association, I was a soft sell salesperson and soft sell marketer. The irony is that when you use the soft sell approach and ask questions to better understand your prospects’ situation, you don’t need to memorize checklists of questions or drill yourself on clever, irresistible closes. You gain freedom to be yourself, to actually have fun relating with your prospects as people. Soft sell sales and marketing build relationships and make connections. [...] Two weekends ago I was fascinated when I was visiting my son to see how he disciplined his daughter. His approach was an incredible demonstration of the power of WIIFM. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re in sales & marketing or management or just trying to convince your child to change her behavior, the key question is “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) So when you want people to seriously consider what you are proposing to them, speak to them in terms of their interests and concerns. In sales and marketing jargon, talk or write about the benefits. Go beyond the idea of benefits being that people buy drills to make holes. I propose that as a soft sell salesperson or soft sell marketer you can go a step further in discovering their motivation. Why are they mounting or building something that requires a drill? While the potential reasons are numerous, discovering the specific reasons shows you care about them. You can then focus your presentation on the benefits your products and services provide that mean something to them. You can help customers buy. Moreover, you will find it leads to relationships that make sales fun, fulfilling and mutually [...] |
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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 [...]