There’s a marketing struggle for survival going on amongst the traditional, generally hard sell marketers. They are finding it harder to grab people’s attention and offer something new and exciting. The latest hard sell ad is a television commercial in which a discount fashion store chain shows friends conducting an intervention to save another friend from over spending on the fashions she could get for less at Marshalls / TJ Maxx. This attitude shows disrespect for customers’ judgment.
You may feel that I am making a big deal out of nothing; it’s simply advertising and a humorous effort at that. In this case, I disagree. The Marshalls / TJ Maxx TV commercial shows an attitude that is prevalent in hard sell sales and marketing: I have the right to decide for you that you need to buy my product. Because I know better than you do, I can use guilt, pressure or other manipulations to control your [...]
There’s one question that has served me extremely well in over six years as a small business consultant. It’s the same question that heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers need to ask their customers and prospective customers. The most important question is, “Why?”
I’ve had salespeople and small business owners ask me about writing a script. I have used them successfully 18 years ago when it was a required part of the job. I didn’t like them then, and I really dislike them now. Other than to memorize an opening question to get you started so you can avoid being tongue-tied, scripts are designed to control the flow of questions so as to control the prospect. That’s a hard sell approach to sales because it only cares about one thing, getting the prospect’s money. After a short stint using scripts because a job required it, I returned to talking with prospects.
Heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing focus first on the customer’s needs and wants. While people may quickly tell you what they think they want, it’s very important to dig deeper to understand why. Look for their real motivation then help your customers buy what will do the best job you can for [...]
How would you like to launch a new restaurant and by the first weekend have a waiting line of patrons? That’s what Scott Slater did. Recently I had the pleasure of dining at a Slater’s 50/50 in Anaheim Hills. Not only did the food win Dorothy and me over, I was impressed with how successfully Scott Slater launched this business and how well it appears to be doing in only 90 days. So I wrote two additional articles for Examiner.com, an interview and an analysis of his marketing efforts, especially his social networking in “Anaheim restaurant Slater’s 50/50 uses social media to generate traffic and reviews.” In today’s article, I cover the first of the seven points from that analysis, the ideal customer profile. In subsequent articles, I’ll go into more detail on each of the remaining points.
While your small business may seem to have nothing in common with a restaurant, generally good marketing is good marketing regardless of the business or industry. The main differences revolve around knowing your best customers well enough – and knowing what they want and need that you can provide better than your competitors – so that you know where to find additional people like them and how to appeal to them. You can avoid using pressure, control or manipulation when you present what your ideal prospects want. By really understanding your ideal customer profile, you are able to design your product and you marketing to speak to their concerns, which is what Scott Slater has done so [...]
When you really believe in soft sell sales and marketing, it’s hard to admit that the soft sell approach is not for every customer. While most people I know love it when they find a salesperson they can come to know, like and trust, strange as it may seem, some customers actually want hard sell salespeople.
The choice is yours how you want to handle prospects who prefer hard sell salespeople. But remember, you will never sell everyone. This is part of being selective. I’ve written a lot about identifying your ideal customer profile because people like your best customers are most likely to want and need what you provide. Moreover, there is a price to pay for trying to accommodate a customer by becoming hard [...]
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 [...]
No matter how noble your efforts and how much you want to help people, each of us only has 24 hours in a day. For most business purposes, the time to work with prospects and customers tends to be significantly less. After too many hours, I lose enthusiasm and energy so eight to ten hours is my practical limit normally. I find too that as much as I love my work, I need downtime to refresh and recharge. Still there is time enough but no more, if I manage my time well, to reach the prospects and customers I need to.
The point here is that none of us has an unlimited supply of time. So how do we grow our businesses then? We do it by identifying our Ideal Customer Profile, narrow down the suspects to only those who are likely to benefit from your products and services. This approach is soft sell sales and [...]
A friend of mine asked me an important question today about an opt-in I’d sent him to Judith & Jim’s free teleseminar tonight – Tom Justin is a partner with them on this preview call for First Step Internet Marketing. My buddy gets so many emails, he was about to skip a potentially valuable program to avoid the hassle of lots of emails afterwords. As the idea of putting on a teleseminar is to build a mailing list of people interested in the speakers’ subject, yes, you will get at least one email after signing up to listen to what they have to say. In Internet marketing, we want to attract customers. Nevertheless, I understand the issue of a lot of emails so I’ve discovered three solutions to manage the issue. Using any one of these approaches or all three will allow you to feel freer to check out something that might be of value to you without concern about getting [...]
If your expressions about selling sound like a military commander planning for a battle, you probably learned from someone who taught traditional sales and marketing techniques. Their terms sound like a military engagement: overcome objections, take control of the prospect, and conduct a marketing campaign (which I still use to describe the multiple aspects of a coordinated program to find and sell to customers). Internet marketers have added a new one, squeeze pages. What a controlling sound for something as simple as inviting you to sign up for an ezine (electronic newsletter), usually in exchange for a gift. It’s no wonder business people call “old school” sales and marketing tactics hard sell.
People who believe, like I do, that selling is a spiritual service prefer farming analogies to war and fighting because, like farming, soft sell marketing sales and marketing nurture and cultivate relationships with perspective customers. Like farmers who care about their crops, soft sell marketers care about taking care of their customers.
So stop waging war with prospects. Start farming instead. Prepare the ground, plant your seeds, nurture and water them with helpful information, suggestions, and ideas. Weed out the misinformation. And prepare for a thanksgiving celebration of gratitude for an abundant [...]
When You Sell as a Service, You’ll Be Unhappy in a Hard Sell Company
Have you ever felt out of place? I have. I find it happens most often when I seem to share nothing in common with the group where I am. Despite having been in sales and marketing since 1979, I feel uncomfortable in a company or a conference where the sales style is hard sell. I have friends who excel at it. They like the game of jockeying for control. My orientation instead is a service one. I like affirming the client and working with him rather seizing control and dictating. It was really challenging working in a company where I was expected to take control of the client and to prescribe what he would do. One executive told me that I’m the doctor. It’s my job to tell clients what to do.
Had to Find a Way to Satisfy My Boss While Acting Consistent with My Values
I spent 40 months dreading talking to my office because I had to find a way to take their orders and attempt to carry them out using my style of working in partnership with the client. I believe that lasting change comes from buy-in, which comes from agreeing with the objective and contributing to the solution. That’s hard to do when you are ordering instead of proposing a course of action and discussing.
Judith and Jim Seek to Make a Space for Soft Sell Sales and Marketing People
There is now an association for people in sales and marketing who believe in selling and marketing as a service. It’s very reaffirming to have a support group who share your [...]
Selling is one of the most challenging professions imaginable. And yet for over 25 years I have loved every day of it, especially once I learned to become a “servant salesperson.” I found that I really loved selling — because I was providing a valuable service to my customers.
Before I could serve them, though, I had to understand what their problems were well enough to see how my products could help them. I also had to know my products well enough to tell when they could do what my prospect needed and when they couldn’t.
When customers believe that you really want to help them get what they want and feel they need, the sale becomes a cooperative process in which they trust you to help them [...]
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