I recently encountered a vendor who could not understand one of the basic concepts in sales and marketing: people love a bargain and are inclined to buy more if there is a special. I’m sure you are familiar with this idea as many successful marketers create package prices to encourage buyers to purchase more. One of the easiest ways to increase sales is to offer bundled packages. The trick is to get the pricing right so that you both entice customers to buy more now and still make a [...]
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. [...]
Have you ever noticed how most people want to avoid conflict? Most salespeople are no different. That is why it’s hard to appreciate that objections are gifts. After all, objections tend to come across as either rejections or as pending conflicts.
This is why traditional sales trainers teach you to prepare a list of all the objections and strong counters to each one. Then, when someone raises one of the objections, you can quickly and smoothly defeat it. The irony of that approach is that each victory you have over your prospect’s objections sprouts another objection.
The key to accepting objections as gifts is to take a heart-centered, soft sell approach: step outside our own person feelings to ask, “Why did this customer bring up this objection in the first place?” Change your viewpoint of sales calls and sales presentations from seeing them as battle where you either win or lose to exercises in developing friendships. [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
While I was reading Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture that my son and his family gave me for my birthday, I came to the 12th chapter, “The Park Is Open Until 8 p.m.” I didn’t pay close attention to the title until I got into the chapter where Randy said (on p. 62), “Ask Disney World workers: ‘What time does the park close?’ They’re supposed to answer: ‘ The park is open until 8 p.m.”
Wow! Such a little change yet it has such a different feeling. The emphasis is on the positive viewpoint, “open.” This immediately reminded me of numerous terms used in sales and marketing that put a negative approach. Soft sell salespeople and soft sell marketers look to treat prospects and customers with respect. We can change many of our standard terms in sales and marketing so as to give our subconscious the right [...]
Recently, while I was making tunafish salad, I had an experience that reminded me why prospects distrust sales and marketing statements. I decided to mix and match types of tuna from Bumblebee. I grabbed a Chunk Light Tuna and a Solid Tuna. What I got was flakes of tuna and chunks of tuna respectively. Not what I expected by the labels.
It’s no wonder that most Americans don’t trust marketers. Label something properly and customers buy because no matter how often we’ve been lied to we want to trust the words. This hard sell approach of “Get-the-sale-however-you-can” works until the words have been abused and misused so long that they lose their power. As soft sell marketers and soft sell salespeople, we have our work cut out for us. We have to win our customers’ trust. Yet we are up against our prospects’ cynical suspicions that we only care about getting their money out of their wallets and into ours.
Despite our national trait of skepticism towards marketing hype, you can help customers trust you by showing you genuinely care about aiding them. Trust comes from using relevant questions then listening — and responding — to their answers. Help customers buy when doing so either solves their problem or gets them their desired result. You’ll find that soft sell sales are more exciting and fulfilling than merely earning a commission because you have that emotional and spiritual connection as a [...]
This concept crystallizes for me the hard sell position when taken to an extreme. Do what it takes to get the sale because “All’s fair in love and war”; and sales, to the hard sell marketer, is war. There are winners and losers. The good ones make sure they are the winners most of the time. On the other end of the spectrum, soft sell salespeople and soft sell marketers work to achieve a win-win.
It’s time that the business world recognizes loving your customer means developing a long term relationship based on trust and mutual benefit. Business relationships are, frankly, relationships..
If you want enduring relationships in business, or in your personal life, move away from the “All’s fair” viewpoint. And leave behind the images that sales or love are warfare. Sales become spiritual service when you make that connection with your customers. Building and maintaining a relationship of trust is so much more satisfying and fulfilling on many levels, more rewarding than just a quick commission from a sale slammed home. Help customers [...]
Congratulations, Judith & Jim, on an incredibly successful email campaign to get The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back (Morgan James Publishing) to hit #59 on Amazon overall (which means that only 58 books sold better than it.) You truly demonstrated the impact a well orchestrated campaign can have if you have the involvement of lots of friends and people who care about your work — and if you give those supporters the tools and the reminders to make it easy to share news.
But all of the good marketing efforts will fall flat if they are wasted on people who have no interest in what you are offering. The fact that The Heart of Marketing http://TheHeartofMarketing.com soared to the top in so many categories is reassuring because I long believed the way to sell and market was the soft sell approach. Still for years I felt insecure about my decision. After all, the top trainers in sales and marketing when I was starting out pushed the value of hard sell techniques. But when I used those techniques, I did not feel good about myself. I want to help customers buy. [...]
|
Invitation to Opt-in for Free Ecourse
Testimonial for Bonus “9 Steps to Finding Prospects” “These 9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide are exactly what I need at this point in the startup & growth of my business. Keep them coming.
“I now see that the Sales Consultant website I suggested you look at was slanted too much toward "what he can do", even though he claims to be a Sales guru. Last time I looked at it there was "too much to read" as well.”
Dave (last name withheld at client’s request)
Business Coach & Consultant
Testimonial – CMTC Senior Consultant I have thanked you many times for the quality of reports that you provide to my clients. I truly feel you are adding value to the SMA - Program but more to my own job as a Consultant and point of contact to our clients. I really hope you will never lose your inspiration in performing outstandingly on providing the best quality you can offer to others.
Paula Bahamón
Sr. Consultant
CMTC - Los Angeles Region
Grid Controls Testimonial Dear John:
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.
Sincerely,
Gary Richards,
President
|
Recent Comments