Back to the Basics
By Jeremy Allen
During the 90's, companies raced to implement new technologies with hopes that their organizations would communicate better, share data faster, and sell more of their products, services and ideas at increasing speeds and profits.
Sales and marketing professionals (SMPs) benefited from this new economy and new technology. We were given faster computers, running powerful new contact management programs. We were able to access information and 'surf the web' at speeds faster than ever before. We began wielding portable cell phones with national coverage areas, carrying our entire database of contacts inside them, hooked to our ears via tiny little headsets, giving us the opportunity to answer email, surf the web and type in a customer's order; all while remaining hands-free enough to enjoy a steaming hot latte'. Times were good and many new sales and marketing "superstars" were born overnight.
Looking back, it's clear that almost everyone was buying almost everything. Sales and marketing professionals, companies and customers were all experiencing tremendous prosperity. It was truly a glorious and prosperous decade where everything was in plentiful abundance.
Even before the life-changing attacks of September 11th 2001, one could look at almost any information source, be it print, television, radio or the Internet, and easily read and hear about the "dot.bomb" fallout that so many companies and customers were beginning to experience. Almost overnight it seems like the economy began to change.
With this changing economy, orders for products began to slow and corporate inventories were on the rise. This placed many SMPs in a new environment; especially the under-30 generation. Most under-30 SMPs have never experienced anything other than prosperous times.
They began asking, "Where did all of the sales go," and "where are all of the customers?"
In times like these, where everyone is all of a sudden not buying everything, it makes sense to take a look at the philosophies and activities of veteran sales and marketing giants. What have they done when times like these have hit in the past? They got back to the basics. Five basics to get back to:
1) Sales is a System.
James A. Ray writes, "The golf club itself can't make someone a pro. Yet a pro can take a cheap driver and make a better shot than an amateur can using the best and biggest club golf has to offer." I believe James Ray hit a hole-in-one with that statement.
Sales is a system. Having all of the latest tools and technology will not replace fundamentally classic sales training. Just like a musician or professional sports player must practice the fundamentals before they can earn a living as a star, SMPs must learn, understand and master the art and strategies of sales in order to graduate to the major leagues.
There are many classroom and self-study sales systems available, from Sandler to Dale Carnegie, and Zig Ziglar to Brian Tracy, to name a few. If you have never studied a sales system, start now. If you are a graduate of a sales system, go back and review, refresh and re-energize.
2) Strong Relationships.
Sales is, has been and always will be a transaction between a buyer and a seller. With every sale comes an opportunity to develop a customer for life. In a recent Sales and Marketing Excellence (SME) article, sales and marketing giant Brian Tracy wrote, "relationship selling is the core of all modern selling strategies."
In many cases, the quality of your relationship with your customer is the key factor that will enable you to edge out others who have similar products, services and pricing.
The classic work, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, despite it's hokey title, is one of the single most effective works on how to build and maintain quality relationships. Develop and maintain your position as an expert in building relationships, and your sales results will follow.
3) Attitude is everything.
Over the summer, Dr. Ivan Misner, a good friend and Entrepreneur Magazine's 'networking guru' wrote an article in SuccessNet Online titled, "I Refuse to Participate in a Recession." This can-do, over-the-top winning attitude and style is the hallmark of all great SMPs.
In sales, there will be plenty of 'no' answers and as history has shown, there will even be a few recessions. Don't let a bad economy be your excuse for failure. Having a winning and confident attitude is 'key' to making it in the major leagues of sales and marketing. If you need more inspiration to get your winning attitude going strong, the audio book version of Zig Ziglar's "Over the Top" will light your fire.
4) The "Fortune is in the Follow-up."
"One mark of a true sales professional is that they always deliver what they promise" writes Mark Sanborn. Whenever I work with a group of SMPs, one topic that always comes up is effective and not-so effective follow-up. It seems that in sales, a lack of follow-up runs rampant.
Our integrity and character show through strong when it comes to follow-up. Either we do what we say or we don't. If you have taken the time to develop strong relationships with your customers, follow-through on the promises, commitments and deadlines you have offered them.
Remember, customers buy from SMPs whom they like, know and trust. Delivering on what you promise builds trust, keeps customers and is one of the smartest selling fundamentals you can and should master.
5) Be a good student.
This is my personal favorite and I've saved it for last. As the legendary speaker, motivator and business philosopher Jim Rohn teaches, 'develop the habits of becoming a good student.' Read the books, listen to tapes and attend the seminars. Subscribe to the journals, join the organizations and go to work on yourself. Do whatever it takes to become better.
Every chance you get, try to learn something new to help you become a more professional salesperson and a better, more rounded human being. Our economy has changed. Some are calling this the "new, new economy." Whatever it's called, the fundamentals of selling and marketing are as important now as ever before. Go to work on yourself and "get back to the basics."
ACTION: Get back to the basics
Jeremy Allen is the executive director for the Youth Excellence Foundation and is a contributing author of the New York Times bestseller, Masters of Networking. http://www.youthexcellence.org
HUDDLE TIME
Powerful Incentives—Starting Today!
By Andrew L. Botieri
We knew it was coming; the analysts and the pundits have been giving us economic warnings for the past 17 months, telling us the bull was going to turn into a bear. However consumers/customers had the last say and they continued to spend their discretionary dollars. Then, consumer/business confidence began to wane. The economy started to slow down and with it came a slow down in sales/revenues/profits and a slow down in employee/customer motivation. In addition, the events of September 11th have not helped either. This means, as a leader it is your responsibility to keep your teams and customers motivated while they ride these waves of uncertainty.
So how will you keep your team motivated? And what about your customers? The first thing you need to do is look at your incentive programs for your sales/service people. Incentive programs for these team members will help them focus on certain areas of your business; mainly increasing revenue and profits. Then, you will need to look at your customer incentive programs for the people who purchase your products/services by creating "point" or "reward" incentives to reinforce the buying behaviors of your customers.
Let's breakdown these two incentive programs:
With your sales/service team, you need to first make sure that everyone is "getting back to the basics" of selling and servicing your products/services. I know you've heard this before and yet you know that we all get complacent from time to time and when we do, we lose our competitive edge. I have always found that by reiterating the basics, your teams will get re-focused on the principles that got them where they are today. So pull out your training materials and get busy.
The second key to look at is how will you motivate your sales/service teams and dangle the proverbial "carrot" in front of them for the next 6-12 months while the economy begins to make a strong come back. The carrot is "sales incentives". I have been running national sales organizations for fifteen years and I can attest to the fact when new monies are waved in front of the eyes of sales/service people—they get juiced and they are ready to sell, sell, sell or service, service, service.
By implementing incentives you not only motivate your top-level team members, but more importantly you motivate your mid-level team members who are larger in numbers than those at the top. A small improvement from all your mid-level performers adds up. Money is a motivator (but not the sole motivator), but as I always say "cash is king". If cash money is not freely available, try using incentive trips or prizes like a DVD player or even lottery tickets. The key is to re-energize and re-focus your sales/service teams and add a little fuel to their tanks. I promise, carefully selected incentives will help you to meet your budgeted revenue numbers.
The next area you need to focus on is your customers because they also need a little incentive to invest either additional dollars or to get back to their former levels of investing with you. This means you need to change their buying behaviors and habits. Please know, you are not asking your customers to spend more money with you, you are asking them to re-direct their current budgeted dollars with you and away from your competitors. Always remember, your customers do not spend their money with you, they invest in you. So it is your job to share with them ways to achieve this.
I have recently coached some sales/service organizations on ideas/programs they can implement for their customer/client incentive programs. One idea is to grant "reward points" for each client who invests x-number of dollars on either a quarterly, semi, or annual basis with you. These "points" can then be redeemed for upgrades or new business promotions. A second idea is offer a business retreat to your top clients that allows you to "schmooze" and to provide free seminars on industry topics to help them better run their business. Remember your job is to find solutions for your customers' problems.
Tip: There are many companies in business today who specialize in employee/customer incentive programs. Remember to include everyone in your organization in these incentive programs to create "team" based incentives so everyone can take part. For your customers, conduct a "brainstorming" meeting with your team members to decide what types of "point" or reward systems you will implement and how you will track them. There are many creative and fun programs to put into place so have fun as you re-energize your company's destiny.
Andrew L. Botieri is the founder of Total Peak PerformanceTM, a business coaching and sales training company. Andrew has 46,000 hours of coaching and training sales/customer service companies around the country. Andrew is the former Vice President of Sales & Operations for SpringStreet.com, a division of Homestore.com, a publicly traded Internet company and was the former "Turnaround Specialist" and National Sales Trainer for HPC Publications, a division of Primedia. Andrew conducts sales/leadership/motivational seminars for sales/service companies and is a nationally published author. Andrew can be reached at 508-747-9883, by E-mail andrew@totalpeakperformance.com or visit his website at http://www.totalpeakperformance.com
HUDDLE TIME
Getting Specific—the Top "Winning Without Intimidation" Sales Tip
By Bob Burg
I'm often asked how to handle a situation in which you you feel your prospect is obviously bothered by what you're saying but won't—or refuses to—admit it. In other words, "Bob, if you can sense that your prospect is just not 'buying in' to what you're saying but they're not telling you such, is there a way to overcome this and learn their true objection?"
This is a common challenge for several reasons. One, your prospect might not want to offend you by telling you they don't believe you. Two, your prospect may be too embarrassed to admit not understanding what you are telling them. And, three, he or she may be the type who doesn't want to let on what they are thinking.
The most effective way I've found to handle this is to interrupt yourself in mid-sentence and simply ask, "Mr./Ms. prospect, may I ask you something? I'm getting the feeling—
and this might just be me (remember the "I Message")—I'm feeling as though there is something in my presentation that possibly I'm not communicating correctly, and with which you are uncomfortable? Would you mind sharing with me what that is?"
You have (very kindly and tactfully) asked a very direct and specific question. You're not asking "if" there is a problem, but "what" the problem is. This is generally much more
effective than asking "if" there's something wrong, or "if" there's a point with which they don't feel comfortable. To that type of question, they'll probably answer, "No, keep going." In that case, you'll lose out on helping them own your terrific product or service because of the hidden objection you never receive. Instead, politely ask for the specific, while utilizing the "I Message" and you'll find yourself WINNING WITHOUT INTIMIDATION.
Bob Burg is author of several books (and contributing author to Masters of Networking), as well as one of the hottest FREE weekly eZines on the Internet. Subscribe to "Winning Without Intimidation" and learn how to take any "people challenge" and have everyone turn out a winner. For a sample visit: http://www.burg.com/newsletter.html. Bob is a friend and supporter of BNI.
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