Positioning Yourself to Sell More

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Dec 07 2009

Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in sales coaching, tags: increasing sales, sales coaching, selling

If you wanted to invite a friend to share a soft drink odds are you might say, “Hey, let’s go grab a Coke”.

If your nose were running you might ask, “Could you hand me a Kleenex”?

Even though you may prefer brands other than Coke and Kleenex most of us talk about a general group of products like soft drinks and facial tissues in terms of one specific product within that group.

Why?

You may wonder why we do that. The reason is because those particular manufacturers own that category in the minds of their target market. That’s called positioning.

Positioning = Major Moolah

This concept of positioning is defined by authors Al Ries and Jack Trout as “what you do to the mind of the prospect” as revealed in their book…

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 20th Anniversary Edition

Positioning is a very big deal, and it has a very big influence on the success you will or will not enjoy in your business. It’s not the size of your business that matters it’s the slice of the world your business owns for a particular group of people that matters.

Uncovering the position you want to own is challenging for most business owners. What you are looking for is a gap in the market place that solves a problem. Plus the people who have that problem must already be looking to buy a solution for that problem. Those two criteria are so important I want to restate them. Keys to finding your position:

An unsolved problem
People are already looking to invest money to solve this particular problem

Two of the reasons this is so important is because…

It isolates ready buyers
It makes you findable by other ready buyers

Obviously, that means you get clients right now plus potential clients seek you out on an on-going basis.

KISS

As Mary Kay Ash would say, “Keep it Simple Sweety”. You need to boil your position down into a single easily understood and repeatable sentence. Hint: kind of like what you read in the top right hand corner of the sidebar of this blog;-)

Your position must be based on a reality in your prospect’s mind. Meaning it matches their prior knowledge and experience. Most service professionals have had at least one negative experience with a sales person. They already know they don’t want to act like a sales person. Yet they need to get clients, or they can’t do what they get paid to do (experience match). So they are already looking for ways to get those clients without acting like a sales person. They already believe there must be a way to do that because other professionals like themselves get clients without acting like sales people (knowledge match).

There are lots of sales coaches. Most sales coaches work with sales managers and sales reps. Most sales coaches work with people who sell products. However, the Increase Sales Coach is the coach you think of when you sell a service and need to get more clients.

Start thinking about how you can adapt a similar thought process for your business following this example.

What problem exists that people with that problem can’t easily find a solution for?

How would people with that problem immediately know you were the person with that solution?

What do they know and already believe about that problem?

What has their experience been with that problem or the solution to that problem?

Before you proceed validate:

A perceived need to solve this problem among your potential clients
A perceived value in solving the problem
People are already searching for a solution to that problem

When I wrote “How to Get More New Clients in 9 Days” I carefully constructed a process to help you get clients now that also helps you develop your position in the process.

I strongly recommend you do some searching to validate you’re on the right track. Then work on the way you communicate your position. You don’t want big words. You don’t need to be creative or catchy. The key to developing your message about your position is…

It’s easily understood
It’s repeatable
It’s based on the language someone looking for that would already use

Never try to convince someone to your way of thinking. Instead adapt to their way of thinking in terms of their experience, knowledge, and beliefs.

Using your Strategic Sales Master Plan template from yesterday, complete the Unique Market Position section.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under sales coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.