Let’s get real.  Every sales person really wants to be an order taker.  Even the sales people who take great pride in being able to manipulate, pressure, or talk people into buying would rather be order takers… if for no other reason than the fact that it’s far more productive.  When you spend your time in front of people who aren’t ready to buy your sales are probably 1/10th of what they could be if you spent the bulk of your time in front of ready buyers.

If you’re the business owner you should want your sales people to be nothing more than order takers too, and here’s why.  If your sales people are order takers that means your marketing efforts are WORKING… that means your sales are up… that means your profits are up.  Plus it also means you don’t need a stable of big headed monster ego sales super stars.  You just need a group of likable… polite… regular Joe sales people.

The Housing Disaster Didn’t Just Happen

There was a time when mortgage loan officers could make a King’s ransom with almost no sales skills.  Yes, not all that many years ago the housing market was so hot clients were beating down the doors at the bank.  All the loan officers had to do was behave like nice polite people and write a ton of loans in a timely manner… and take home 6 figure incomes for doing so.  Well, that’s all changed now…

Car Sales the Ultimate Order Takers…

The car industry is another example of order takers.  Yet, the dealers and their sales people still blow it and here’s why.

It’s no secret… people aren’t nearly as free with their dollars as they once were.  Buying decisions that came easy just a few short years ago are now major decisions.  So people aren’t nearly as likely to run out and buy a new car just because the old one is 2-4 years old.

Plus most people when asked, “Do you want to buy a car?” would respond “No”.  Cars are simply a means to get from point A to point B.  Yet, that’s not why most people buy cars.  Most people buy cars because…

• they want to feel good about saving the planet
• that want to feel power and control
• they want to show off their wealth or give the appearance of wealth
• they want to live like the famous
• they want to own a piece of history
• they want something that says, “I’m steamy, hot, sexy”

You could add many other highly emotional reasons people buy cars.  The automobile industry knows this and that’s why most commercials feed into those emotional motivators.  The car manufacturers know that it’s your emotional motivators that get you into the dealership to buy a car.  Even though most of us absolutely HATE buying a car.

Sometimes dealers and car sales people will do anything to get people into the dealership… including offering free gifts just for showing up… because they think if they can get you into the dealership then they can talk you into buying a car… even though buying a car isn’t even on your radar of things you need to do.

Now, if you are on the front lines selling you understand there is a huge difference between trying to have a conversation with someone you need to “convince” they need to buy a car… and someone who…

• is already looking for a car
• already believes they have the money to buy a car
• has already decided they want to buy a car

… in other words, someone who is a highly qualified buyer.  Yet, the dealer who came up with the “get’em in the door scheme” often expects the sales people to sell cars as though every warm body whose feet touch the lot is a ready buyer… when that was never the case.  Plus, because of the way the dealer set the stage to get people at the dealership many sales were not realized from the people who were ready buyers.

Don’t Send the Wrong Message & Expect the Right Results

The dealer sent the message… “Stop in and get free stuff”.  So lots of people who want nothing more than free stuff show up.  So many, in fact, that the real buyers find it hard to get to a sales person.  Plus the sales person has to start from ground zero with each and every person.

All too often sales people blow the sale with ready buyers because rather than getting to the real reason the buyer is there… all they want to talk about is features.  Now if  you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you know talking about features is an INVITATION to get objections.  Talking about features without being specifically asked about a particular feature… or directly pointing out how a particular feature fulfills a desire the buyer has already stated… sets up an adversarial relationship from the get go.

For example, the ready buyer will let you know they are looking for a Mustang.  The typical sales person will easily uncover that the buyer wants a red convertible with a manual transmission.  However, what they almost never uncover is the reason each element of these criteria is a deal breaker for the buyer.  In the buyers mind it has to be…

• red because that’s what makes it hot
• it has to be a convertible because that’s what makes it sexy
• it has to be a manual because that’s what makes it steamy and an automatic says “pony car” no matter what size the engine

Because the sales person doesn’t understand any of these highly emotional motivators the wheels fall off the cart and the sale person quite often loses the sale because they get caught up in the minutia of the deal rather than what the buyer must hear to buy.

It doesn’t have to happen like that though…

The Right Message Leads to the Right Buyers

Rather than using a message that sets the sales people up for a sales “numbers game”… the dealer would have been better served setting the sales people up with ready buyers.   Sure the dealership would have gotten far less people on the lot.  But the dealership would have sold more cars… at greater profits.

The manufacturer already has commercials that speak to our Mustang buyer.  All the dealer needed to do was send out a message that picked up on that message.  Better yet, the dealer could make certain those ready buyers communicated what marketing message they were responding to so the sales person wasn’t left playing a guessing game.  And that’s so easy to do.  For example, the dealer or the individual sales person could send out post cards and encourage readers to bring those post cards to the dealership because when they do they get something they want… like something that compliments their Mustang purchase.

Anyone Can Get Steamy Hot Sexy Sales…

It’s just a matter of developing your communication… getting it in front of people… preparing your sales force to expect the people that communication speaks to.  No matter what product or service you are selling.

Coach Cheryl

P.S.  Are you getting the right message out there?  Do you need help developing that message and a plan for putting it in action…

A lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s don’t just fear marketing they think it takes a lot of work.  While marketing does take work… most of that work revolves around understanding what your best potential buyers need to hear to buy your stuff.

After you get that right it probably takes a whole lot less work than you realize.  Andrea Stenberg recently wrote about ways to re-purpose your blog posts.  Something serious bloggers do on a regular basis.  So it’s easy to forget how something that’s a habit for me is something you don’t even think about.

Although I’m reminded of this fact when working with my individual coaching clients all the time.  They are so relieved to see how you can get so much value from just one simple thing.

The concept is simple.  For everything you do figure out ways to re-purpose and recycle it in as many ways as you can think of so you get the maximum return for your efforts.  This is leveraging.

When identifying ways to leverage remember to respect the different ways people like to consume information.  Some prefer to read, others like to listen, and most enjoy seeing things.

Let’s take something you probably already do and see how that might work.  Let’s say you get the opportunity to speak at a local event.  Here’s what you could do to get the most value from that speaking engagement:

1. Record your live event then either sell the recording or use it as a gift for people who connect with you.
2. Create notes for a hand-out to give people at the live event and then either use those notes with your product for sale, or include them with your gift.
3. Have your speech transcribed from your audio recording then offer attendees the opportunity to get the transcription in exchange for connecting with you.
4. Turn your transcription into an ebook.  You can either sell your ebook or give it away.  When you combine your ebook with the audio, and notes the value increases.
5. Transform your ebook into a number of articles and submit those articles to local publications, as well as, online article directories.
6. Submit audio recordings of your articles to online podcast directories.  Remember to include an offer at the end that invites listeners to get free information and connect with you.
7. Create a video from your articles and audios, and submit your videos to online video directories.
8. Combine your audios, videos, notes, and ebook into a product to either sell or use as an offer to connect with you.
9. Share your free content with other business owners who sell to the same people you do so they can give it as a gift to their customers.

See how easy it is to do just one thing and leverage that work so it works over and over again for you?

The next step is automation.  If you limit yourself to one-on-one interactions you’ll work yourself to death and sell yourself short.  To prevent that simply set-up ways for people to connect with you 24/7/365.  A web page is an easy way to do that.

Then help them stay connected with you by offering your free gift in exchange for their name and email address.  This information is simply collected via a form that’s connected to an auto-responder.  There are so many good things to say about automation I’ll leave that for an entirely different post another day.

photo credit: TheTruthAbout…

Wow, who would have thought something as seemingly trivial as a font change could unleash a torrent of complaints.  But that’s exactly what happened to Swedish furniture maker IKEA.

Unlike most large companies with either indifferent or down right hostile customers IKEA has fans.  So many fans in fact, they have an online community with forums where users can talk about their furniture, products, stores, and share ideas.

According to IKEA they have the most frequently printed catalog in the world.  Previously IKEA used the font Futura in their catalog, BUT someone in the company decided to change the font to Verdana.

Now at the risk of setting off a fire storm I’d like to at least put in a good word for the poor person behind the decision.  Verdana is a preferred font choice for text that will be viewed on line because most viewers find it easier to read than many other fonts.

However, what was overlooked was how this seemingly itsy bitsy teensy weensy change would impact IKEA’s beloved fans.  They love the company so much and feel so much ownership they felt insulted when the company to decided to change their experience without asking them.  Uh-oh!

Now the rest of us would be jumping up and down doing the happy dance if we had such a fan club.  What we can learn from this example is the power of relationship marketing and why it’s so important to think relationships first sales second in our marketing efforts.

We want our clients to feel a part of our business too.  Even it that means they get mad at us for changing something seemingly insignificant in our business.  If we can generate that kind of emotion over a little change then we know we’ve done the best job we could do developing a relationship with our clients.

Kudos to IKEA I admire what you’ve been able to accomplishment.  I’ve no doubt you’ll get yourself out of this sticky wicket all the better for it.

For the rest of us I wonder what about our business creates a feeling of relationship with us… And more importantly what could we do to better create relationships?

Any examples that particularly stand out for you of a business doing a good job developing relationships with their clients and potential clients?

photo credit: MShades

Octomom (Nadya Suleman) is the mother of eight babies born through scientific intervention.  Just in case you’ve never heard of her.

I don’t intend to comment on Octomom.  There are plenty of other people voicing their opinions.  That’s not what you came to read about here.

Octomom is just another example of the reality TV invention.  Evidently at least a couple of television stations intend to air reality programs about Octomom.  The lesson for here is the reason for reality TV.  Television stations are producing and airing reality TV programs in droves.  Viewers can’t seem to get enough of them, and the more we watch the more reality TV we’ll get.

From the television stations viewpoint why not more and more reality TV?  Reality TV is very profitable.  The producers don’t have to pay big names to star in their programs.  I doubt there are any continuing syndication residuals for the participants when the show is rerun.  Plus if the viewers don’t like a participant they don’t hold it against the station or the advertisers.

Some big name actors and actresses have decided we care about what they think and have decided to share their opinions politically and otherwise.  Those views don’t necessarily sit well with everyone.  Sometimes their openly shared opinions polarize audiences who then hold those opinions against the station and it’s advertisers.  Ooops!

We get reality TV because, from a business standpoint, the business is giving us what we want and making a good profit doing it.

The interesting question is… why do we want that?

Here’s what reality TV gives viewers:

• The ability to vicariously experience what the participants experience
• The ability to observe how others behave and deal with circumstances we can relate to as fellow human beings
• The ability to feel like we are developing a relationship with complete strangers over time as we watch them in the most intimate settings
• The opportunity to engage with other viewers and sometimes… determining the outcome of the reality show
• The opportunity to act and feel part of the show and the community of fellow watchers

Even if you personally hate reality TV are you beginning to understand why it’s so attractive to the viewers, as well as the people who produce and air the shows?

These concepts are like business candy.  If you can create a similar environment in your business you have the opportunity to make giant leaps in growth rather than incremental growth.  There are lots of businesses who do a good job of this already, Disney and Zappos for example.

So…

• How can you help potential buyers have a no risk experience with your business?
• What about your business can your best potential buyers relate to?
• How can you develop a relationship with your potential buyers over time where they feel like they are getting real value from that relationship?
• How can you get your best potential buyers to engage in your business?
• What action could you ask your potential buyers to take?

This is tapping into the humanness of both your business and the people you want to work with.  It’s respecting who they are and what they want. It’s about developing a safe community where people with common interests and needs can come together and interact.

Feel free to share ways you’re doing this in your business.

photo credit: chalomadek

If you have plenty of people to sell to you may not think marketing is important.  You may think whatever you are doing now is working just fine and there’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken.

YET, if you are only closing 30% or less of your appointments you have marketing challenges that are causing a much higher cost per sale than it could be.

While some business owners, entrepreneurs, and soho’s would be floating on
cloud nine if they could close 30% of their appointments that’s a pretty low closing ratio for most successful businesses… and a very expensive closing ratio at that.

The average cost per sale for face-to-face sales is around $200.  But your cost per sale will be much lower than that if you can increase your sales closing ratio even a little bit.

The reason for lower sales ratios is likely to be ineffective marketing.  Your marketing efforts should:

1. Get the attention of the right potential buyers (prospects)
2. Help those potential buyers (prospects) to self-select
3. Get those potential buyers (prospects) to take action
4. Develop a relationship that transitions strangers to buyers
5. Increase your closing ratio above 30%

When you do a good job with your marketing your closing ratio can easily increase to +90% because you are only holding appointments with ready buyers.

Not only will effective marketing help you sell more… it will help you sell more at a lower cost.  Plus it makes it easier to gain repeat business and referrals.

So if you have plenty of people to talk to and a low closing ratio the first thing you may want to look at adapting is your marketing efforts.

photo credit: Brylan

I know you don’t want to hear this sales fact.  You don’t want to hear it because you don’t want to believe it.  You don’t want to believe it because if you believe it… a whole bunch of your excuses are taken away.

However, for those of you who are ready to hear it this is an important sales fact you can use to your advantage…

You Choose Your Buyers

 Yep, you choose and you get to choose who you sell your stuff to.  So if you’re tired of potential buyers who…

• shop based on price alone
• complain and whine
• blame you when they don’t get the results they should because they don’t use your stuff like you told them to

photo credit: Dushaun

Stop selling to the lowest common denominator.  Face it, if you want to work with a bunch of high maintenance complaining price shoppers go work at Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart is full of your kind of buyers 24/7/365.

I’m not trying to tick you off.  I just want you to realize you don’t have to deal with the frustration you may be dealing with now when you try to sell your stuff to the wrong people.

You don’t have to sell your stuff to people you don’t want to work with.  If you want buyers who…

• appreciate value
• respect you and what you help them get
• do what they need to do to get the value from your stuff

Go out and get those buyers.  There’s no reason to sell your stuff to people who make your life miserable when you can sell your stuff to people you truly enjoy and enjoy working with.  All you need to do to make that happen for you is…

• find out why those people buy your stuff and how they talk about it
• change your message to get their attention
• get your message in front of them

Now go out and get your ideal clients rather than simply settling for the quick sale.

Recently copywriter Michel Fortin stated, “long-term business comes down to three principal components:

1. Solve problems,
2. Sell solutions,
3. Serve customers.“

I couldn’t agree more.  One of the biggest challenges you face is understanding that if you want to succeed you have to help your best future clients understand the reason your business exists in terms of “what’s in it for me”.  Your best future clients must immediately “get” how what you offer helps them get what they want or avoid what they don’t want.

It’s a matter of communication.  If you succinctly and powerfully communicate a good reason a potential client should care — you win.  You earn their attention and the opportunity to get their interest.

Let’s compare a couple messages.

Message 1: Doctor Bob Backmaster on Z street specializes in the Zeichkrieg technique (okay, so I made that up… you get the idea).  Our friendly office cares about our patients.  Give us a call and let us take care of your chiropractic needs.

• What problem does this solve?

• Where’s the solution doctor Backmaster’s patients are already looking for?

• Couldn’t every chiropractor in the country say the same thing about their customer service?

Message 2:  “What Every Back Pain Sufferer Must know about the Pain-free Drug-free Options to Eliminate Chronic Back Pain Forever”, call 800-000-0000 and leave a message telling Doctor Bob where you’d like him to send your free report.

• The problem - chronic back pain
• The solution - pain-free drug-free options
• Serve customers - no risk way to get valuable information

Now be honest.  Message 1 didn’t do anything to make you want to do anything did it?  However, if you’ve suffered with chronic back pain you’re eager to call and get that free report.  You’re curious to see what it says.  You have the problem, you’re looking for solutions especially if you’ve already discovered surgery and pills didn’t fix the problem.  And you appreciate being able to get information without having to suffer a sales pitch you aren’t sure you want to hear.

Once you got the report, if you thought the information was valuable is it a huge stretch of the imagination to think you might call Doctor Bob, or that you would take Doctor Bob up on an offer to come in a talk about the best options for you if he sent you a follow-up letter?

So put your thinking caps on and think about how you could apply this concept to your business.

Make sure you’re solving problems your best potential clients are interested in solving.

Make sure your solution is communicated in an interesting way.

Respect your future buyers by giving them low risk ways to connect with you.

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“Time! The Key to Your Sales Success”

Tuesday May 12th 2009 1.00 PM EASTERN

Register here –>> TSE Webinar

Savvy entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals understand selling is all about the relationships you develop. The catch is most people are very bad at developing them. The harder they try to form a relationship the more the other person backs away.

photo credit: cliff1066

First, understand why someone you’re trying to be nice to treats you like a pest. Most people view sales people as pests rather than potentially valuable connections. Even when you’re just trying to start a conversation or do something nice with no strings attached, as soon as they hear you have anything to do with sales their guard goes up.

They get defensive. They suspect everything you do or say has an ulterior motive. They think you lie and can’t be trusted.

Now isn’t that nice when all you’re doing is trying to open a door and get to know someone?

You are part of the problem because you label yourself as a sales person when you could just as easily announce the results you help others get rather than a job title. So instead of saying I sell insurance or investments for ABC Agency you might say I’m the Director of the Worry-free Retirement Lifestyle. At least say something interesting related to the benefits and outcomes what you sell creates. Let yourself be fun while you communicate your message.

Another thing that gets you in trouble is you forget common sense. Before you say or do anything ask yourself, “How would I react if someone said or did this to me?”

Have you noticed how you see opportunities to vote, complete a poll, or in some other way voice your opinion everywhere?

Blogger Darren Rowse provides a nice example asking his readers a simple question with two choices.

There’s a simple reason for that. People love to voice their opinion they want to be heard. They want their vote to count for something and get treated as important.

There are two huge benefits of using a poll or allowing people to vote on something for you. First, it engages the other person in a non-threatening way. Second, you discover valuable insights into what’s important to them, what they’re most concerned about, what they care about, etc.

Once you know this information you know how to speak to the people you want to buy from you in their terms. If you talk about what you have to offer in terms of what they want, guess what? They listen.

All of a sudden they are very interested in finding out more. All of a sudden those barriers that went up come down. Now you actually have an opportunity to open a relationship and, if it makes sense for the other person, actually sell something.

I’d like to hear from you.  Make your voice heard.

Tell me what’s happening with you in 2009? Click Here to take survey

Check back to find out what others have to say and see how it compares to your situation.

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Raise Your Sales Batting Average & Knock ‘em Dead in the 9th Inning

Join Terri Dunevant & Colly Graham April 21 at 1:00 EDT for their webinar   Sign-up here to register at a discount

photo credit: albbyy Recently blogger Jeremy Shoemaker expressed his frustration with people asking him how to make a large sum of money almost immediately with almost nothing to invest to do it.

You know “tell me how to get rich quick”.

A lot of entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals don’t even realize they might own a small share of this mentality because of what they’re told. Here’s what I mean…

I get contacted by people all the time who want to know how to start a business from scratch with virtually no resources. Then when I tell them how to get the information they need the smart ones go get it, the majority do absolutely nothing, and a few get upset because what they really want is someone to do it for them for free. Good luck with that.

It’s no big secret if you lack resources the only way to succeed in sales is to trade sweat equity for the dollars you lack. And that’s exactly where the frustrating challenge lives. You see most of you are working hard.

You have no problem exchanging sweat equity for dollars it’s just that you’re investing your sweat equity in the wrong way on the wrong things. So no matter how hard you work you never achieve the sales success your hard work merits. After while this gets really old. Downright maddening in fact…

And when you discover why your hard work isn’t paying off like it should you’re going to get even madder. As long as you work based on the “sales is a numbers game” philosophy you are the one who’s going to break your back and get little from your efforts. Now I know you’ve had this concept shoved down your throat by sales managers and sales trainers for years.

Here’s a secret. Just because enough people say something is so doesn’t make it so. People loudly professed the world was flat too and that didn’t make the world flat either. In reality your sales aren’t lower than desired because of the way you are selling. Your sales are low because of the way you talk about what you’re selling.

No matter how hard you work. No matter how hard you try to work the numbers your sales will never be what they could be until you understand how to talk about what you’re selling. That means talking about what you offer in terms of what your best potential buyers are already looking for and already want to know more about. Once you cross through this barrier you could immediately increase your sales not by just a little but a lot.

Could you be working on the wrong things?

photo credit: scudsone

Join in Tuesday August 5 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time.

A one hour webinar that will help you beat the competition.  You may have gotten off to a good start.  Now it’s time to blow the competition out of the water.

Your success depends on your ability to keep your momentum going.  You don’t want the start and stop roller coaster you and others struggle with.  You want to build up steam like a freight train speeding down a mountain.

If you’ll set asidee one hour you’ll:

* Uncover the formula for success
* Discover how to change what you see
* Identify the underlying obstacles holding you back
* Get the scoop on a performance formula guaranteed to produce results
* Discover proven techniques to get results now

You’re a savvy business person who knows the success you enjoy today won’t get you where you want to go tomorrow.

Use this link to reserve your spot now…
How to Out Perform & Outlast the Competition

I encourage you to get registered now so you don’t get locked out.  Go now…

August 5 Webinar How to Out Perform & Outlast the Competition