I had forgotten that people may interpret soft sell sales as an effort to succeed simply on the power of one’s great personality. Jim Sniechowski in his recent blog post, Soft Sell Marketing Misconceptions – A Dime a Dozen, mentioned misconceptions about soft sell. Among these is the flaw in thinking that soft sell sales is about personality. This false image produces the erroneous idea that soft sell salespeople are limited to sales to prospects who already know they wanted to buy that product or service.
I can appreciate how someone might think that soft sell means personality. Unfortunately, regardless of your approach, whether traditional, hard sell or the rising in popularity heart-centered, soft sell one, sales success takes proactive work. True heart-centered, soft sell sales success has little or nothing to do with having a likable personality. [...]
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 [...]
This week I had an insight into the concept of perceived value that came out of visiting with my brother, Jim. We were in Madison, Wisconsin for a family function. As we live across the country from each other, we rarely get together. I was wearing one of my Disneyland hats and commented that it really is “the happiest place on earth.” He disagreed. He felt ripped off when he took his family to Disney World. He wanted to buy his daughters some refreshing treat until he found out that this item, which he could normally buy for $.75 would cost him $5.00 at Disney World.
I understood how he felt as he’s right. When you’re in a Disney park, if you want it, you pay the price they want to charge. Then it dawned on me. This is the brother who plays golf all the time. And he’s complaining about prices at Disney World for something he’s only going to pay for once, yet he gladly pays his golf fees?
Like my brother Jim’s and my discussions on the relative merits of Disney’s markup on treats versus the cost of the golf course fees, our prospects and customers have views that may differ from ours as to what’s a value-added service or product. If they don’t care about it, regardless of how much you spent on it, it wasn’t [...]
I was listening to one of the Soft Sell Marketers Association downloads from June in which Judith & Jim mentioned how they gave a relationship teleseminar on “The Promise of Conflict” because conflict is a part of life. It dawned on me that conflict is a natural part of sales though it is something that most of us soft sell salespeople would rather avoid. If you interact with people eventually there will be conflict. If you do sales calls, I can promise that you will eventually experience conflict.
The question frankly is how will you handle the conflict? The way to successfully handle the conflict is to ask questions so as to discover what the real issue is and to grasp the other person’s viewpoint. Listen to understand. Soft Sell Sales and Marketing are about the connection with other people where they come to know like and trust you. You can’t always avoid conflict but you can manage it by managing the way you respond. By treating your prospects and customers with respect when you find a difference of opinion, you will strengthen their feelings of trust toward you. This will lead to sales that are fun, fulfilling, and mutually [...]
Yesterday my fellow writers at the Burbank Barnes and Noble Writers’ Group provided an invaluable service for me: they critiqued my article, “Easier Sales – 9 Steps to Finding Prospects Who Want What You Provide.” The good news is that they all agreed it was technically good writing. The better news is that they suggested what I need to do to make the article stronger – and actually interesting instead of a dry and academic list of bullet points.
Thus I benefited from participation in a mastermind group. Such a group goes beyond the beneficial service of proofreading to pointing out what needs to be done to strengthen your work. It requires people who have the technical competence to actually contribute to your understanding and help you look at things from a different angle. For sales and marketing purposes, sales call role playing serves a similar [...]
I’m really excited about the changes I see in the business world. More and more businesses are realizing that the key to long term relationships is to act from a core belief that customers matter, not just their wallets. They seek to make an emotional connection with their customers, to give them a memorable experience.
Renee Miller and Bill Williams of The Miller Group put on a free webinar yesterday for the Los Angeles Region of the California SBDC. In their excellent presentation, “Connective Marketing: A Culture of Intimacy,” they presented both figures and stories to reinforce their message: marketing is changing radically. Whereas fads come and go quickly, this change will spread and become stronger because people want to make connections. They want the approach soft sell salespeople and marketers use, a way of doing business that respects prospects and involves them in developing solutions to fit them. For the soft sell salesperson, sales are fun, fulfilling and mutually [...]
In my meeting this afternoon with my client, we got into a discussion about experiences we’ve had with small business owners who waste time on quotes they won’t win. To most salespeople, any live request for a quote is exciting. Eventually, experience teaches us to pass on doing some.
This article presents seven situations where smart salespeople, whether soft sell salespeople or hard sell, win by walking [...]
For some 30 years of my career in sales and marketing, we’ve used a rule of thumb that it takes seven impressions for the average person to buy — assuming he or she actually has a need for what you are selling. And as rules of thumb go, it’s a good one — if you understand what it means. Otherwise, it’s a lie to the extent that it can be very misleading. It’s a lie of omission.
So the hidden lie about seven impressions in advertising is a lie of omission. Being a rule of thumb, the novice would expect that seven ads or seven emails should start to produce sales. In reality, it’s more involved. [...]
There’s a fine line that soft sell salespeople and soft sell marketers tread with words. At least 25 years ago, I read a book by one of the leading sales trainers in America. He was a hard sell sales professional with manipulative closing techniques. Despite my feeling really icky about such manipulation, he had a chapter that I liked about choosing more powerfully attractive words.
Make the effort to choose more powerfully attractive words in your soft sell marketing copy and in your soft sell sales meetings with prospects and customers. You will find that gradually your attitude starts to shift. You will be more open, more interested in your prospects because your terms tell your subconscious that is how you view your business. The rewards for soft sell sales and marketing go beyond mere commissions and profits to person-to-person connections. This elevates your business to a level that is 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 [...]
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