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

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

Speed Is The New Killer App

February 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Speed equals sales

Today’s prospects are handling hundreds of emails, dozens of phone calls, and several meeting each day. They don’t have time to do an in-depth analysis on every single item they’re working on. That’s the downside.

The upside is they are so incredibly busy that if you can answer questions, return calls, and schedule resources faster than your competitor, you can save them time… and time is more valuable than money in today’s economy. So it stands to reason that if you can save your prospects time, you will win more business.

To capitalize on that advantage, you need a killer app. What is a killer app? Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:

In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, gaming console, software, or an operating system. A killer app can substantially increase sales of the platform on which it runs.

This has nothing to do with software. Although the iPhone has a killer app (Siri), so does Zappo’s (customer service), and Walmart (low prices). In today’s hectic sales world, your killer app should be speed.

Imagine if you needed a plumber or a moving company. You call on Monday and customer service schedules an appointment for Thursday. The salesperson meets with you for an hour and then moves through the rest of their daily appointments. On Friday, the salesperson goes through their process to get pricing, and after engaging their resources, they email pricing the following Tuesday. You’ll probably receive a follow-up call a week after the email seeing if “everything looked good” on the quote.

What started as a pressing issue to you was just relegated to mediocrity by the salesperson. Instead of having the same sense of urgency as you, they went about their business at their own speed. You needed immediacy and instead had to wait 1–2 weeks to get an answer.

Now you know how your prospect feels.

One Moore Thing: Every business is different, but in most instances, speed can be a competitive advantage that can increase your win rate by 10–20%. You just need to determine the best way to streamline your sales and customer service processes to ensure you are faster than your competitor.

Filed Under: Customer Service, Feature Post, Motivation, Prospecting, Sales, Technology

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

What’s Your Number, Part 2

January 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Are quality prospects the right focus for you?

Yesterday, I gave five great reasons why you should focus on quantity rather than quality of prospects. Today, I’m going to give you five equally great reasons why you should focus on the quality of your prospects.

Quality

  1. Focusing on quality prospects will increase your chances of winning a sale because you’ve already identified that they may have a need for your services before you approach them.
  2. Having fewer prospects or clients allows you to have a deeper understanding of their needs and what drives their decisions.
  3. If you focus on clients within a certain industry or demographic, you have the opportunity to become an expert in their sector, which will attract more quality prospects.
  4. Clients logically know that you have more than one client, but they like to feel as if they’re the only one you focus on. By having fewer, more profitable customers you can give them extra attention and respond quicker when needed.
  5. When your pipeline is filled with quality prospects, you are better able to build strong personal relationships with them… and relationships drive sales.

One Moore Thing: You can’t simultaneously focus on the quality and quantity of prospects. It’s like building muscle and losing weight at the same time. While you may have a little success, you’ll never excel at either.

Did you miss Part 1 of this post highlighting why concentrating on the quantity of prospects may be a better fit for your business? You can find it here.

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

What’s Your Number?

January 23, 2012 By 1 Comment

Sometimes quantity wins

It’s an age-old conundrum: should I try to sell to everybody or only to a few targeted clients? There are valid arguments for both approaches, but it’s not an either/or decision… both are legitimate strategies depending on the circumstances. Here are five reasons to focus on the quantity of prospects in your sales funnel.

Quantity

  1. If you’re just starting out in sales, talk to anybody who will listen. This will help you improve your skills, hone your message and find your target audience. For example, if everybody you talk to in small energy companies has no interest in your widget, you can ignore those prospects and focus on more profitable ones.
  2. The upside of targeting several clients is that if one doesn’t say yes, you’ve got hundreds of others to sell to.
  3. If you’re selling a low-revenue/low-commission product, it doesn’t make financial sense to spend an inordinate amount of time on a single prospect.
  4. If your product is a commodity that can be purchased almost anywhere then targeting clients one-on-one is a waste of time. In this case, it’s more about marketing and customer service to drive repeat sales.
  5. Quantitative selling can be tracked more easily, which is why more companies focus on this approach. For example, if you talk to ten prospects, you will create four proposals, and one sale. In transactional sales, this creates a sense of order and predictability.

So, now you want to know when it’s better to focus on the quality of prospects instead of the quantity? Stay tuned for tomorrow.

One Moore Thing: Every product or service requires a different approach. There is no “one-size-fits-all” methodology for sales. Take some time to scrutinize what you really provide (everybody overrates the importance of their own offering) and sell accordingly.

 

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

You Need Fresh Coffee

January 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Bad coffee stinks

I’ve done this, you’ve done this, we’ve all done this. We keep prospective business in our funnel well beyond the time they should have closed. If we’re honest with ourselves (and why should we be dishonest with ourselves?), there is no way we should keep relying on that business to close. It’s a fact that the further beyond the original forecasted closing date a project extends, the less likely it is to ever close.

So why would we keep it in our funnel?

  1. It makes our funnel look larger.
  2. It looks like we’re engaged with more projects or clients.
  3. It makes us look busy enough that we trick ourselves (or our bosses) into believing that we are working harder than we really are.
One Moore Thing: Old prospects are like old coffee. They go bad and start to stink up everything around them. Go find some new business and dump the old coffee.
Filed Under: Feature Post, Prospecting, Sales

Show Me The Money

January 16, 2012 By 4 Comments

You can’t get it without asking for it

The typical sales presentation starts with 45+ minutes of technical features and benefits, many of which are probably missing the needs of the client. After you’ve put the prospect to sleep, then you sneak the price into the end of the presentation. Why do salespeople do this? Are you hoping the audience won’t notice? Are you embarrassed about the price?

Start your next sales presentation by showing the price. That forces the rest of the conversation to support the price using value and will ensure that price isn’t an objection at the end of the discussion. You never know, maybe your price is well below what they expected. I’ve had that happen and by discussing price first, I didn’t talk them out of buying… and the meeting went from hello to agreement in less than 15 minutes.

One Moore Thing: People have more money than time. Starting out with your price will respect that time and the questions they ask will immediately start justifying the investment.

Filed Under: Feature Post, Motivation, Prospecting, Sales, Training/Education

How To Have Naked Meetings

January 13, 2012 By 4 Comments

For successful naked meetings, pants are NOT optional

Your customer calls, telling you they have a problem that you may be able to help with, and they want you to come discuss it. What do you bring? If you’re like most people (especially salespeople), you create a Powerpoint, and pack your briefcase with brochures, product samples, technical documents, and white papers. You arrive at the meeting and the customer takes three minutes to explain their problem while you chew on the inside of your cheek, chomping at the bit to show them everything you’ve brought and how smart that makes you. The next 55 minutes are spent with you barely pausing long enough to catch your breath, while your customer politely nods in between stealing glances at the clock.

You leave the meeting feeling that it went great. You have a potential new project and the customer knows everything you can do. The client is unsatisfied, feeling that you don’t understand the cause of the problem… because you don’t!

Instead of “showing up and throwing up” on your prospect, why not show up with only a pen and paper? I call this a “naked meeting” because you’re not hiding behind the crutch of a prop. It forces you to have a real conversation with the client, and real conversations lead to real insights as to what your customer’s real problem is. That leads to real solutions which further real relationships.

One Moore Thing: Having naked meetings takes courage and confidence. Without props, you can’t BS your way through a meeting. If you don’t know what you’re talking about and don’t have your prospect’s best interests in mind, they’ll see right through you.

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

Sell Like Tim Tebow

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Tebow is different. And different is good.

Tim Tebow is different than other quarterbacks in the NFL. He’s not as fast as Michael Vick. He’s not a pure passer like Tom Brady. He’s not a physical freak like Cam Newton. Tebow is just plain different. Instead of a flashy touchdown dance he bows on one knee to show his faith. In press conferences, he always gives credit to his team and coaches rather than talking about himself. He has a long throwing motion that, according to experts, means he won’t ever be a consistent quarterback at the pro level.

But, because he’s different, people talk about him… he’s not just another quarterback. In overtime of last week’s playoff game over my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, Tebow threw a pass to Demaryius Thomas to win the game. No big deal, this happens every week, right? What makes this unique is that Twitter reported there were 9,420 sport tweets per second after that play. Tebow’s “different” status created more buzz than the royal wedding, the Bin Laden raid, or the death of Steve Jobs.

Let’s face it… your prospect has seen hundreds of salespeople… why are you any different? Instead of trying to blend into a crowd, analyze what makes you unique and then accentuate those traits to set yourself apart from your competition.

One Moore Thing: Be different like Tebow and create buzz like Tebow. Buzz will get you in front of customers.

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