How Do You Screw Up?

February 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Power Questions = Power Selling

Looking for a power question to make your customers stand up and pay attention to you? Ask them to list the top three mistakes people in their position make when making a similar purchase.

There are two possible outcomes to this question:

  1. They don’t know the answers and will defer to your expertise.
  2. They will think hard about the question and come up with the answers.

In scenario #1, you earn their trust by knowing the answers to questions they didn’t know they had. In scenario #2, they will give you insight into their doubts and you will be better prepared to preemptively address those misgivings. Either way, you will earn the buyer’s respect by being knowledgeable and not asking outdated questions like “what keeps you up at night?”

One Moore Thing: If you ask the same questions everybody else asks, you get the same answers everybody else gets… and the same results.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Service, Relationships, Sales

How To Earn Trust

February 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Trust is easy to build and even easier to lose

Do what you say you’re going to do.

One Moore Thing: Don’t overthink it. People try to play games and use different psychological tactics to “earn” trust when all they’re really doing is trying to trick somebody. Trust is built over time and earned by simply doing what you said you’d do.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Service, Feature Post, Motivation, Relationships, Sales

What The Beep?

February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Voicemail can work for you instead of against you

“You’ve reached the voicemail of John Connor, please leave a message after the beep.” Now what?

You hate voicemail. Get over it, because that is definitely not an exclusive club. But today’s reality is that you will probably get voicemail 80% of the time you call somebody. Many people hang up when they hit voicemail, but rockstars know that leaving a voicemail is an opportunity for free advertising… if done properly. The issue has become that most people don’t know how to leave a voicemail that will get somebody’s attention. Here are some tips:

  1. Make it brief: If you leave a 4-minute message, somebody may punch you in the face. Hell, if you leave a 4-minute message, you should punch yourself in the face. Make it less than 30 seconds and preferably around 20 seconds. If you can’t leave your message in 30 seconds, work at making it more direct. Trust me, brevity makes the message more concise and effective.
  2. Be a mirror: Prospects are more apt to listen to somebody that sounds like them. If their outgoing voicemail is slow and methodic, your message should sound similar. If it’s fast and upbeat, you should sound full of energy.
  3. Call to action: If you don’t ask them to do something, they won’t.

One Moore Thing: Looking for real-world calling scripts? Here are some that may help:

 

Filed Under: Attitude, Feature Post, Prospecting, Sales

New Beginnings

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Congratulations to my little brother, Brian, who was married yesterday. He and his new wife, Debbie, have given themselves a new beginning for a future filled with promise and love.

As a society, we celebrate the new beginnings that weddings, births, and graduations signify. But why is it that in personal relationships we are typically quick (sometimes too quick) to make changes, yet in business we drag out important decisions because we are afraid of the unknown? Because we don’t trust ourselves.

One Moore Thing: If you consider yourself successful at personal relationships, then use same decision-making criteria to flourish in business… your gut.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Service, Motivation, Relationships, Sales

Just Give

February 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

When you’re feeling your in a rut or experiencing a lull in performance, take a little time and give:

Give Time: Go to lunch with a customer. Talk about anything except business. You’ll learn new things, build a deeper connection, and be under no pressure.

Give Back: Take a day and volunteer at a homeless shelter or swinging a hammer for Habitat for Humanity. At the end of the day you’ll be dead tired, but thankful for what you have and refreshed to tackle a new day.

Give Ideas: Come up with three ideas that will help one of your customers increase their business. These ideas should have nothing to do with your offerings. You will be forced to look at things from a different view and your customers will start to view you as a trusted adviser.

Give It A Rest: Take a day off. Go see a daytime movie, enjoy a great lunch, and surprise your wife with dinner when she gets home. Don’t check your email or take phone calls all day.

Give Thanks: Take the day and drive to as many clients as you can. Show up without an appointment and tell them you just stopped by to thank them for their business. Have a brief conversation (don’t overstay your welcome) and tell them to have a fantastic day. They’ll always take your call after that.

Give Hugs: Show some love to people. Hug your husband, your kids, your friends, your assistant, or your customer. How can anybody feel bad after a good hug?

One Moore Thing: The more you give, the more you get back from the universe. It may not always be in the way you expect, but good always comes back to you.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Service, Feature Post, Motivation, Relationships, Sales, Training/Education

Shopping or Buying?

February 16, 2012 By 3 Comments

It’s more fun that it looks…

I love shopping. I know I may lose my Man-Card for that, but it’s true. It doesn’t matter of I’m buying Christmas gifts, clothes, electronics, or even groceries… I just like to shop.

One reason I like shopping is because I like “stuff”… who doesn’t? But the other reason is that I find it cathartic; the process of buying something is relaxing to me. I know what I’m looking for and when I find it, I’m typically ready to purchase. Rarely, if ever, do I buy the lowest price because for me it’s more about value and service. And because I value those things, I also don’t negotiate prices.  I want my seller to make money. I want them to be around next year. I want them to look forward to me walking in their door because I’m a friendly and profitable customer.

I don’t have to be sold, because I’m a buyer.

One Moore Thing: Are you trying to sell to people or talk to buyers?

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Service, Motivation, Prospecting, Relationships, Sales

Keep Your Shirt On

February 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Entertainer? Yes. Salesperson? No.

Giving people the shirt off your back is a selfless act if you’re doing a favor for somebody. But if you’re giving them the shirt off your back when selling something… you’re just losing your shirt.

A common complaint I hear from salespeople is their prices are too high. Instead of selling the value of their offering, they want to win business by offering the lowest price. They beg and plead with their boss to lower the price just this one time… and if they can win just this one sale, they are sure there will be more work from that customer in the future. There are two flaws in that argument:

  1. If the customer is only buying because of your price, once the next opportunity comes along and your prices go back to normal, you’ll lose the sale.
  2. You’re expecting your fulfillment team to work just as hard on this opportunity as they do on profitable opportunities. There is an opportunity cost associated with each decision and at a minimum, they will resent you for diminishing their worth… but more importantly, you’re costing your company money. Not only are they losing expected margins, but their resources (people, factory time, etc.) are tied up so they can’t work on profitable business.

Selling solely on price is for lazy salespeople. Low pricing doesn’t build loyalty, because the instant a competitor beats your price, you lose that customer. Stop giving them the shirt off your back and instead focus on the value you offer.

One Moore Thing: It costs 5–10 times as much to find a new customer as it does to retain an existing customer. Why not reward loyal customers with pricing incentives instead of giving it to a stranger?

Filed Under: Attitude, Feature Post, Motivation, Relationships, Sales

When The Cat’s Away…

February 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This guy should not stop you from getting your cheese

… the mice will play.

That’s the saying. For those of you who haven’t heard it before, it means when the person in charge (cat) is gone, the subordinates (mice) will be less careful. That’s fine if you’re one of those mice that sit around waiting for a piece of cheese to come to you on the end of a mousetrap. But if you were one of those mice you wouldn’t be in sales. When the cat (boss) is away, you should work just as hard as if she were there. Hell, you should work the same no matter where she is, because you don’t get any cheese unless you go hunt it down.

One Moore Thing: Decide what kind of mouse you are, then ignore whether or not the cat is away… just make it rain cheese.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Service, Sales

Steve Jobs Wasn’t A Great Manager

February 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sales skills help you excel at everything else in your life

Steve Jobs was not a great manager. He probably wasn’t even a good manager. Jobs was a modern-day slave driver that managed people by scaring them, insulting them, and demanding they put their work life ahead of everything else. He expected them to be him, and that was an impossible task.

So, if Steve Jobs wasn’t a great manager, how did he thrive in the hyper-competitive tech industry?

He was a great salesperson. So is Warren Buffet. So is Bill Clinton. And you can be, too, if you’re willing to put in the work.

One Moore Thing: To be great, people need to buy you before they ever look at your product.

Filed Under: Attitude, Feature Post, Prospecting, Relationships, Sales

Fill Everybody’s Inbox

February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You must fill your own inbox

Many people make their work fill their day instead of their day fill their work. It’s human nature; if people don’t have something to do, they will work slower, waste time, and become easily agitated. They will also be more prone to mistakes, less creative, and eventually become disgruntled enough to either leave or cause others to leave.

So rather than waiting for work, these employees should create their own work. They need to find things that will make a difference and begin working on those items, not mindless tasks meant to make chew up chunks of time. My first career was doing computer graphics and if I didn’t have work in my inbox, I would sit around all day figuring out new ways of doing things, or read trade journals, or take extra-long lunches. Before I could do something that affected the bottom line, I had to wait for somebody to give me work.

That’s how I got started in sales… I was bored with sitting around doing nothing and instead decided to go sell my services, then go back to the office and do the work I just sold. It gave me a tremendous amount of satisfaction to start a relationship, convince them to let me do their work, and then go do the work. My productivity went up about 400%. It was a great feeling, but required a much different mindset to leave the cave, find something to kill, and drag it back. But by doing this, I was able to give myself and the people around me something meaningful to do in our jobs.

It’s amazing to have that feeling of freedom, but it’s also scary for most people. Honestly, most of the population doesn’t have that instinct. If you’re in sales, you have the ability to fill your own inbox. If you don’t have anything to work on, you go find a new client. That process gives everybody else around you things to work on, because you just filled their inbox.

One Moore Thing: Creating work is hard work, and it’s not for everybody. If you find somebody that can create work, find ways to motivate them to continue creating work. They can be the lifeblood of your organization.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Service, Feature Post, Motivation, Sales
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