This past week, I watched a video of our youngest granddaughter that Ian posted on Facebook. He captured her as she made her first efforts to stand. What a treat! She was so proud of herself and excited as she wobbled trying to learn balance. She had a good grip on the pole she’d used to pull herself up. She’d let go with only one hand just pleased as could be. Naturally, daddy heaped praise on her too.
I often think about the parallel in sales and marketing to infants learning to stand, walk and talk. It fascinates me that infants are risk takers. Survival demands it. When we learn to stand and then to walk, we spend more time falling than we do standing or walking. Yet somewhere along the line we forget that all life’s activity takes failure to succeed at new skills. This is true especially true in sales and marketing. The more complex something is, the more failure we’ll have to deal with. Good sales ability involves numerous skills, each of which we must master. [...]
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 love it when someone can help me appreciate my profession in a new way. The fascinating part of it is that after over 30 years in sales and marketing, it took a couple psychologists to give me a major insight into how to make my marketing activities more effective. I found their tweak to the definition of marketing in The Heart of Marketing by Judith Sherven & Jim Sniechowski, known as Judith & Jim.
This significant change is so subtle yet simple. I was always taught that marketing is about making yourself known in the marketplace. To quote them, “The essence of selling is converting your prospective customer into an actual customer. And the essence of marketing is — preparing your prospective customer to buy.” [...]
When I’m consulting with clients on soft sell sales and marketing, I come alive. I absolutely love training people on how to improve their sales and marketing effectiveness. I really think that a career in sales is fun, fulfilling, and mutually rewarding when you help customers buy.
At the same time, it is work, lots of work. Nor is it a get-rich-quick scheme. A career in soft sell sales offers a lifestyle of hard work rewarding success with much more than money. [...]
Stop wasting your time, effort, and money trying to sell to the whole world. It takes discipline to train yourself to narrow your efforts to your best effect. I too have to discipline myself: soft sell sales and soft sell marketing appeal mostly to small business owners and people who care about developing long term relationships. Yet we find it tempting to be available to anyone and everyone who might want to buy our products. We don’t want to miss out on any sale. The whole world is our oyster. Not so.
The people who thrive are those who identify their niche and tightly focus on what they do that appeals to that specific group. That’s why I strongly encourage everyone in soft sell sales and soft sell marketing to determine your ideal customer profile. Prospects who match that have the greatest likelihood of wanting and feeling they need your products and services because such problems are common to people and companies like your best customers. Help customers buy because it works for them. You’ll find your sales more fun and the results 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 [...]
Have you ever noticed how little things in life can mean so much? That’s the way it is with compliments. How you give a compliment tells whether you’re sincere or just trying to make points. For some people, it seems they’ve read a book that says if you want to be a good manager [...]
1/09/09 – I figure this blog post might irritate some salespeople because for them, selling is a competitive game, a win-lose game. In their business world, the Golden Rule is “He who has the gold rules.” They love the challenge of controlling the prospect and winning regardless of the actions it takes to get the order. While I have had small business clients who were every bit as controlling and manipulating as the best old school trained salesperson, most small business owners I’ve dealt with aren’t like that.
In the majority of these companies, the founders built their companies on the main Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” They give their word that they will do something, and they deliver. They love what they do. They genuinely want to help their customers.
This soft sell approach is the reason these companies are as successful as they are. Their attitude of service and providing what the customer wants wins them [...]
Curious about Knowing More? Sales & Marketing Resources
There are so many books and courses available today that figuring out which are good is daunting. I personally rely on people whose advice I’ve learned to trust to help me avoid wasting money and to point me towards wise investments. This page enables me to list books, [...]
When I started out in sales, I found that getting motivated to do the things necessary for success was often a challenge. If you’ve been in business-to-business sales long, you know that you have to do a lot of things that most sales people don’t like, such as prospecting, follow up, paperwork, and problem resolution. There’s a lot of unpleasant grunt work in the job of selling. How do you find the motivation to put in the time for the rewards of making the sale?
For me, one of the rewards was the thrill of working with the prospects and customers, the actual person-to-person contact and interaction. Naturally, the biggest reward was getting it right so that the customer chose to buy. But between the initial contact and the opportunity to share my excitement about how I could help, there were a lot of dull tasks to perform. Stay motivated was my challenge.
I found that passion was the key to motivation — loving what I was doing makes all the difference in the world. Every job in this world has its less than pleasant aspects. Have you ever heard of a parent who really loved changing baby diapers? It goes with the job of being a parent. But the love and joys of parenthood keep you going.
For me, being in sales is like that so long as I have a product that I’m passionate about. Because I love helping people, I must believe that what I’m selling will benefit my [...]
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