Small Business Development Blog

Prospect Target List: Size Does Matter

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When building your suspect list, prospect targeting is everything. Go for quality over quantity, in this case smaller is better. Consider the following example:

Bob owns a PR firm (or a Legal firm, Accounting firm, or whatever B2B services company). He wishes to grow the firm and has highlighted he would like to increase revenue by about 400,000 pa, and he could do that with 12 new clients at £36,000 or $36,000 pa (are there any other currencies? … I await your hate mail). Looking at Bob’s current close rate of appointments to clients of 1 in 10 and the estimates from past direct marketing initiatives we could assume the following reverse calculations;

At first look we might think, ok it can’t possibly cost us 432,000 to acquire these new clients and we haven’t even considered the lifetime value of the clients to the firm. But we need to dig and uncover the true cost…

The obvious:

Marketing Expenses to the 12,000 list of suspects… our huge beloved list of potential prospects. It is easy to determine the cost of Direct Mail or Flyers or Telemarketing or a combination of all these things delivered to any list size, we just need to ask any number of service providers for a quote.

The not so obvious:

The massive point that is often missed is the person hours required to implement each escalation in the sales pipeline. Consider 120 opportunities to deal with…

This could mean for each 1 opportunity a person in the firm will need to do….

• 30mins of discovery phone calls
• 30mins of evaluation meeting preparation
• 30mins of travel to evaluation meeting
• 60mins of evaluation meeting
• 30mins of travel to back to office
• 60mins of proposal preparation
• 30mins of travel to proposal review meeting
• 60mins of proposal review meeting
• 30mins of travel to back to office

This equals = 6 hours, now if we assume you need to complete 120 within 10.5 months (12months – 4 weeks holiday leave + 2 weeks statutory holiday + 0 days sick leave) = approx 11.5 opportunities per month x 6 hours each = 69 hours. That is about 40% of the time in sales, or 2 full days a week selling. Now the firm needs to ask…

1. Who is going to do this? The MD or a sales person? Is this even possible?
2. What is the direct cost of this in salary package?

What about the 1,200 leads that were generated how do we filter this out to find the 120 qualified opportunities? Do we use rules and technology to decide for us or do we use an account manager to do this qualification over the phone? 1,200 at 15mins a call = 300 hours / 10.5 = 28 hrs a mth, almost a day a week when that person is at work? What does this cost?

The Point:

Better prospect targeting through detailed prospect profiling will yield much higher conversion rates. With better conversion rates you need a much smaller prospect list. A smaller prospect list not only gives you immense focus (because you will pretty much actually know who your clients are going to be because the list is so small), but it also massively reduces costs. Both direct marketing costs and internal staffing resource requirements. Consider Bob’s example in two different forms….

Scenario C: What if we, through a much deeper profiling process, uncovered the real key clients that Bob wanted were not the 36,000 pa clients (that was just an average of his top clients, a number he had used for years), the real perfect clients were 48,000 pa.

Conversion Rate Improvement

'But haven’t you just changed the conversion rate to fix the numbers'. Yes, well spotted. But I there is a reason.

Better targeting means rather that have messages and lead generation offers that are very generic and can only be communicated once due to the expense of such a large suspect list, you now have a far smaller list where you can communicate a message and an offer which is less generic and more relevant to that person… oh and you get to increase the frequency with which you communicate… it is better to send 10 relevant letters to 1000 people over the course of a year, than 1 generic message to 10,000 once.

You could communicate 5 times as much, for half the price, to people actually interested in your messages and offers. I mean, hello!!!

I’ve also assumed you will work out what it means to create valuable relevant messages and lead generation offers for the specific very tight profile. Make it relevant, high value, interesting and frequent and people will start putting their hand up, rather then you trying to raise their hand for them when they don’t want it.

Action Points

• Print this page.
• Get out the excel spreadsheet or piece of paper and calculate a couple of scenarios, see the massive difference conversion rate makes, set your ideal scenario.
• Profile the different personas of ideal clients for you and your company. Get super detailed, not just the normal; size, industry, title, location….. go far far beyond that, this is a topic for another article - prospect profiling.
  
  

Go for it!

How to Create a Winning Sales Proposal

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You won’t find a magic template that will make or break your sales success here, you see creating a winning sales proposal is not about the sales proposal itself, it’s more about the entire sale process and conversations that you’ve had along the way…. The sales proposal is nothing more than a summary of what you have talked about. Now, having said that… if you have a poor presentation of that summary information (i.e. you don’t reconfirm what you talked about in visual form), then you will significantly reduce your chances of success and your chances of closing the deal.

So, what should you have talked about during the sales process and therefore what should be in a winning sales proposal?

Winning Sales Proposal Checklist

• Our Understanding of...
  • Your Situation
  • Your Needs
  • Your Objectives
  • The Value (by comparing the Current Situation vs the Future Situation)
• Our Solution
  • The Approach
  • The Outcomes
  • The Specific Deliverables
  • The Timeframe
• The Tangible Impact of the Solution to You
• The Investment
• Acceptance
• Personal Bio
• Why work with US

If you think… gee James this is a lot of information, well yes I guess it is… but each piece is a vital part in the sales process and unless you have uncovered and talked about it with the prospect you can’t articulate a strong compelling proposal that truly helps the prospective client ... and gets you a "yes".

This checklist is fairly generic, and possibly skewed toward B2B service companies however, any business that requires a sales proposal (for whatever product, service or solution) would benefit from this approach as anything proposed is always fulfilling a need and taking a current state to a future state with the aid of some product or service that has the cost compared against the value it brings. Simple! But many proposals are simply 'we'll do this for that amount', no wonder the prospect is not jumping to buy.

Action Points

You are likely in one of 3 states;

1. you are looking at the checklist and don’t know what each bullet point means, if this is you then you need to read or reread some quality sales books, or
2. you’ve read the sales books and done the sales training courses in the past but don’t have all the above information at the time you go to prepare a sales proposal… if this is you, then you need to revisit what you’ve been taught because you’re not executing it in your sales process and conversations with the prospect, ask the right questions and you’ll get all the info you need, or
3. you have the information from your sales conversations but you just don’t summarise it all in the proposal, if this is you… easy… the above list is your new table of contents!

Go for it!

Proposal Guidelines - How To Turn Price Quotes into Winning Proposals

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Stop Quoting and Start Proposing Solutions or  Portraying Experiences    

I bet you or your staff get asked for ‘a quote' heaps, or  at the very least asked ‘what is the price?'. For lots of businesses written quotes are a normal part of the daily or weekly operations. WRONG, it is not an operations task, it's a SALES task! If you provide 10 verbal or written quotes a day, or week, or month, whatever timeframe ... you'll win a certain % of them. With some small adjustments you could change a 20% (1 in 5) conversion rate to a 25% (1 in 4) conversion rate... boosting revenue by 25%!

Most quotes I've seen don't SELL, they just TELL. They tell you the price and what product or service you get for that price. Wouldn't it be better if the standard 1 or 2 page quote document came alive and did the selling for you? Heck yes, find out how...

What Is Selling?

Here are some textbook definitions:

• Professionally helping people to buy
• Being a Problem Solver
• Being a Solution Provider

All in all, it's about.... HELPING someone... by either;

• 1. solving a problem (i.e. fix a leak in the roof) or by
• 2. getting what they want/need/desire (i.e. drive a Ferrari)

And ... to do that you've got to be great a communicator, both verbal and written. So, tell me why the heck do 99% of companies that provide a written quote only communicate the item being sold (i.e. 3 x widget) and not all the great reasons they should choose... you, your organisation, or what sets your products or services apart from the competition and the features and benefits of the "solution" and total "experience" this proposal offers as a complete package!

This document, the quote, is a HUGE HUGE opportunity to stand out, to STAND OUT and scream and shout .... "PICK ME!". It's such a huge opportunity because just about all your competition (99%) don't do it, they rely on the phone call, or the face-to-face meeting alone, then expect the potential customer to remember everything about them to make a decision at a later stage.

But what happens?

The potential customer ends up with 2 or 3 quotes which all look the same with the only obvious difference... you guessed it...THE PRICE. It's no wonder people become, or are perceived to be price focused... it's all we are given to tell the difference between companies.

So.... What if you changed your written quote document? What if you changed the way you thought about the purpose of a written quote? The quote is not merely a way of formalising the price of what the potential customer is after for their reference and benefit, it is a blank document in which you get permission, yes permission to do your best communication about why they should choose you. You know what?... if you can't be bothered to put in a little effort to stand-out and do some really effective communication then, well ... as a customer do I really want to buy from you. I'm going to buy from the person and business that communicates they understand my situation and they understand what I want and that communicates just how they are going to achieve that for me. WOW your potential customers, trust me it won't be too hard!

Turn 1 into 3 or turn 2 into 4

That's right I'm talking about pages. If you are doing a 1 pager at the moment make it 3 pages, if it's 2 make it 4... Ultimately it's not the length that's important, it's the context you layout, it's the content you communicate, and it's the design you display. Basically if you follow these 3 steps you just can't help but improve what you've got;

• 1)Context; put together a framework or sections for the document,
• 2)Content; fill those sections with powerful compelling words that communicate effectively that your company and your solution is the best choice for them,
• 3)Design; make it look cool, professional and valuable by adding a cover page and your modern company branding, plus use graphical representation or pictures/photos to support your case.

Getting Underway...

It's likely you'll start with a small amount of content, so to get running with an improved document quickly you can start with an option that has a limited context (framework), then just keep building until it becomes uninteresting and un-compelling to potential customers, then you've gone too far.

Step 1) Put together a framework by choosing sections to include in the document

Here are some basic options for the different section headings that should make up your proposal document;

Option 1:
Introduction or Outline or Situation or Overview
Outcomes
Our Approach & Solution
Investment 

Option 2:
Introduction or Outline or Situation or Overview
Outcomes
Our Approach
Our Solution
Investment 

Option 3:
Introduction or Outline or Situation or Overview
Outcomes
Our Approach
Our Solution
Investment
Case Studies/Testimonials

Option 4:
Introduction or Outline or Situation or Overview
Outcomes
Our Company
Our Approach
Our Solution
Investment
Case Studies/Testimonials

Option 5:
Introduction or Outline or Situation or Overview
Outcomes
Our Company
Our Approach
Our Solution
Investment
Case Studies/Testimonials
Other Services/Solutions

Step 2) Write your content

Once you have chosen a part 1, the context or framework of your document, next write your content or get a professional copywriter to help you. Here's an explanation for each of the section headers;

Introduction or Outline or Situation or Overview: Using the information you have received from talking with the potential customer, write 2 paragraphs describing the potential customer and explain the situation and why you are involved (this proves you understand them).

Outcomes: List 1-3 outcomes or results they want to see and what they'll get from using your company and the proposed solution.

Our Company: Describe your company using your 1 paragraph company positioning statement and convey your company Vision & Values.

Our Approach: Your approach could be what makes you different to your competition, it could be a unique process you operate by to ensure the customer gets the outcome they want. It could be a promise or guarantee you stick to.

Our Solution: This is what you propose to offer the potential customers, what you are going to do for them. List the features and explain the benefits of each of the features, it is important that the potential customer understands what the benefit of a feature is, even though it could be obvious to you, it may not be to the potential customer ... so explain it.

Investment: This is the amount in $ obviously. Not the cost, but the investment required to get what they want.

Case Studies/Testimonials: This proves that you have done it before, and people were happy.
Other Services/Solutions: If you get your overview of the situation wrong from your initial discussions with the potential customer it is likely you will lay out a solution that is also not right for them. By explaining other solutions and services you offer it shows you do what they want but it was a communication error. Also, there could be a chance for an add-on sale if you did get it right.

Step 3) Make it Cool through great Design

This is a finishing touch but it goes a long way, so when you are really... get a graphic designer to help.

This week's Action Points...

Simple, start the above process and improve your conversion rate through awesome communication!

Overcoming Objections - How Often Do You Lose Sales Because Of An Objection?

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Reach Agreement By Resolving Objections Before They Come Up

Everyone in business loses plenty of sales, even if it is unconsciously. I mean, let's think about an enquiry that just turned out to be ‘a tyre kicker', you know... come on we've all said it, and often it's true. However, just as often they are not. Perhaps when you've asked for the sale these perceived ‘tyre kickers' raise an objection like; "I can't afford that", or "It's just too much", or "Let me think about it", or "yes, but not now, call me back in 3 weeks", or "no time for that", or "not interested sorry".

Learn the only 3 reasons people raise an objection. Understand these then relate them to your business increasing your sales by reaching agreement more often ...

What Is An Objection?

If you've been living under a rock all your life you might not have heard this, but if you've braved the world and read or listened to anything related to the topic of sales it's likely you've heard that "objections are a good thing" or "objections are nothing more than an opportunity to clarify an issue, or concern, or doubt, or area of uncertainty, or to understand the prospect more". Blah, blah, blah, yes this is very true... and how you deal with an objection once it is raised is really important for sure, but I'm not going to talk about the techniques or processes for doing dealing with an objection in this article.

Why? Because the real answer to the question ‘what is an objection?' is ... A SURE SIGN THAT I STUFFED UP!!!! If I'm getting the same objection over and over, wouldn't it be best to understand why that is and work towards never getting that objection ever again! To do this we must understand the reason people give objections and why they come up. Then we can address the communication (verbal, visual, & written) and the process we offer a prospect information. Let's begin...

The 3 Reasons For Objections

By anticipating them in your discussions with prospects, you can answer objections before they come up. By doing this you will be seem knowledgeable, helpful, frank and truthful... giving the prospect a much more favourable experience. Objections that are raised are usually for one of the following reasons;

• 1) The prospect doesn't believe something.
• 2) The prospect doesn't understand something.
• 3) The prospect is attempting to hide something.

The prospect doesn't believe something.

If the prospect doesn't believe something then you have failed to back it up with proof or information. The idea here is to ensure you back up claims with specific evidence, this will confirm what has been said or written or presented.

The prospect doesn't understand something.

When a prospect doesn't understand something, this is largely due to explanations... either they never got one or the one they did get just wasn't good enough. The lack of understanding could be about anything; your product or service, how it works, why it is so cheap, why it is so expense, how to proceed from here, what happens if such and such happens, why it takes so long to get an answer to my questions, or why I can't get the product delivered today. Furthermore, the lack of understanding can relate to simply why you can't do what they want.

You won't be able to remove all these situations overnight, heck the possibilities for lack of understanding are huge, so the best method is constantly check to see that the prospect understands what you are talking about. Do this by asking things like "Does that make sense?", or "Did I make that point clearly? Avoid "do you understand?" it infers that they are stupid if they say they don't, so what happens?.... they'll say yes, even if they don't understand. Make it about you and your communication skills, so if they don't understand it's your fault and you'll explain it again or in a different way. PS. If they don't understand ... it is your fault, that's my whole point! Improve your communication so we remove or at least limit objections.

The prospect is attempting to hide something.

Well, good luck with this one. Objections are either real or fake. If they are fake, the prospect is hiding the real reason, often because of embarrassment or to avoid conflict. An example of two common scenarios that happen here are;

• a)The prospect puts forward a fake price objection "I can't afford that" or "that's too much", but the real reason is they don't believe this product or service is for them but it's just easier to say that they can't afford it and move on.

Again, if you get this common objection you have failed to deliver desire and need for your product or service. You've failed to prove to solves there problem in the best way.

• b)The prospect puts forward a fake value objection "I don't need this" or "I can get better elsewhere", but the real reason is the price is more that they can afford and they don't want to admit that.

Embarrassment based fake objections, are hard to stop coming up. They relate to relationship and it being ‘ok', no matter what the situation is. The prospect will need to feel you really are there to help them and that you have their best interests at heart and that you won't judge them or make them feel like an idiot by sharing the real reason.... And that they can trust you to be private if required.

This week's Action Points...

The key to answering objections before they come up is to become a better communicator. Directly after your next sales call, discussion, meeting, quote, proposal or presentation write down any objections that came up. Do this for a week, then come up with ways to answer all these during your verbal and/or written communications with prospects. Now Implement and continually fine tune then watch your converse rate and bottom line improve.

Lead Qualification - How Much Time & Effort Do You Invest In Identification?

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Get A Better Conversion Rate By Targeting Better Prospects

This may seem obvious, and you're right... it is, but in practice the execution of this methodology is rarely used to its potential. In fact, often the common notion that "Oh, I just don't have time to identify and target prospects, I'm too busy for that" can in itself be the cause of all the busyness.

If you could spend 4 hours this week to save yourself 4 hours per week for the rest of your life, would you do it? Learn the two key areas to address and how to proceed...

The Business Lifecycle Graphically Explained

If you're like me, and 40% of the population, you'll learn best by Visual Representation. Let's start with an overview of how marketing turns into cash. Here's a Generic Business Lifecycle;

Now, terminology will change from person to person, from company to company, from industry to industry, from business type to business type, and from country to country. The process may also miss a step or two, but all in all this is the generic process. Let's look at each step briefly;

Campaign: These are Marketing activities. i.e. an Advert in a magazine, this year's Yellow Pages Ad, a direct mail letter to your database, a PR campaign.

Lead: A lead is someone who has shown interest in your product, service or company. Perhaps they made an enquiry from your website or gave you a call... but normally they need to have found out about your company through a marketing campaign or a lead source, like a referral.

Opportunity: Once a lead has been qualified (meaning that we now know more about them through questions and we want to deal with them), they become a genuine opportunity to make a sale.

Quote/Proposal: In some businesses or for some products/services there is now a quote or proposal or tender required. For others they just go straight to an order, but for other businesses this quoting is a critical and often time wasting area of business. Some businesses also have this lengthen with a negotiation process to follow after a quote or proposal.

Order/Contract: This is when the deal is done, we get the go ahead to proceed, a purchase order is received, or a contract is signed.

Fulfilment: This is perhaps the biggest area for differences between businesses. This is because it is actually doing what it is your company does. Generically it can be broke down into four business types;

• Services Companies (Project Management i.e. scheduling, resource allocation, time billing, materials/parts/products/expenses)
• Wholesale/Distribution Companies (Pick/Pack/Shipping/Tracking, Inventory Management)
• Retail Companies (Inventory Management, Point of Sale (POS))
• Manufacturing Companies (Materials and supply chain management)

Invoice: Accurately pulling the different components together that make up the total invoice and aligning and communicating payment terms are want invoicing is about.

Accounting: This is the function of Accounts Receivable Management, doing everything in our power to make sure invoices are paid on-time and followed up on if overdue.

Support: Most businesses support their customers in some way, particularly on-going services companies, handling calls and questions and issues.

The Link From Business Lifecycle To Better Targeting

The first two areas in the business lifecycle, Campaign and Lead, represent the 2 key areas to address. Let's examine each;

• Campaigns: This is more of a marketing issue really, and I'll deal with it in more depth in an upcoming article, but it is worth recognising that if you target the wrong people then you will either end up with a lower response or a large response but in the wrong target market. If it is the later you get, you'll have heaps of enquiries which are a waste of time. Better targeting will solve this.

• Leads: With respect to the business area of Sales, and more specifically... improving conversion rates, then ‘Leads' is our key area to focus on regarding identification and targeting. It is your qualification process. If you do not invest a few minutes asking some simple questions and qualify the lead, to be satisfied enough to be able to say "yes, this person represents a genuine and likely opportunity to make a sale", then you run a huge risk of wasting lots of time going through your sales process of meetings or whatever with people that are just never going to or are highly unlikely to buy the products or services you are trying to sell!

Focus On Lead Qualification To Save Time & Improve Your Conversion Rate

All it takes is to sit down, by yourself, with your team, with your adviser and write a list of questions to ask people over the phone, so simple really. You can use this with in-bound enquiries or for out-bound strategies. What questions do you ask? Well, simply follow this process to uncover your businesses qualification questions....

• 1)Think about the problem you and your business solve for people or the need that your business fulfils. Write this down, along with any thoughts you have about this issue.

• 2)Now consider; who are your best customers, or who would you like to be dealing with? List some names and write their common attributes down in 4 areas;

• a.Demographics (tells us who an audience is),
• b. Psychographics (describe their attitudes and opinions),
• c. Behaviour (tells us what they are doing),
• d. Purchases (tells us what product or service they buy for how much)

• 3) Your list of attributes are in fact the common variables that describe your best customers or the customers you wish to deal with, this is your ideal target market. And you really only want to be spending time with this target market, so to do this your questions need to be designed with the objective of building a quick profile of your ‘lead' and see how that measures up against your ideal target market profile. You'll soon see if they are "qualified" and represent a good ‘opportunity' to make a sale, or if they are just not in your target market and you would be better referring them to another business or sending them some information via eMail and not proceeding to your sales process with them.

Example basic qualifying questions

Generic (Business-to-Business & Business-to-Consumer)

• What Suburb/City/Country are you in (geographical area)?
• What particular Product or Service are you interested in?
• What is it about that product or service that is of interest to you?
• What outcome are you looking to achieve?
• What's your biggest issue with......?
• Timeframe, so tell, how soon did you want to proceed/get underway/make a decision?

Business-to-Business

• Number of employees?
• Annual Revenue?
• Industry?
• Business Type?

This week's Action Points...

In the past I've made the mistake of not valuing this ‘qualification step' or slipping back to old habits and leaving qualification out, both mistakes were to my detriment. Get some of your time back by doing this, not necessary but incredibly beneficial, step in your business today.

Offers That Work - Do You Offer Anything Valuable?

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Give Your Prospects An Offer They Can't Refuse To Make The Sale

Yes, the words "make me an offer I can't refuse" maybe cliché, but there is a very good reason to take this hard wired human mentality to "get a deal", and flip it around for your benefit. What's the flip? You're a business owner with a product or service or solution and you want to sell more, right? You need to come up with an offer that will satisfy the challenge laid down by those words "make me an offer I can't refuse" to even the most cynical of your prospects.

Do this, and you'll be closing more deals and finding more opportunities to do business. Learn how to determine your offer...

Why Do People Buy?

To find out what we need to offer we first need to understand some basics, like why people buy. There are only two reasons why people buy:

• 1. To solve a problem
• 2. To make themselves feel good

Both you and I have heard and given a million reasons for making a decision to buy something, but when it boils down to it, all these reasons can be classified in one of the two areas. If I don't have a need or a problem I'm not going to buy, similarly if I don't want or need to make myself feel good, heck I'm not going to buy either. So, people make a decision by thinking about the problem/need or the product/service/solution in their mind and by asking themselves questions each time they see, hear or experience something related. The questions they ask; "does this solve my problem/need?", and "Will this make me feel good?"

Two key elements dominate this ‘thought & decision process', in a prospects mind. You've probably heard them mentioned before, Emotion & Logic. These are just empty words, unless we give them a very simple meaning;

What Is Logic About?

Simply put, logic is all about defence. A prospect must we be able to defend the purchase to preserve their self-image. To themselves, their family, their friends, and their colleagues. Logic is the PROOF that the purchase was the RIGHT decision to make, the WISE decision to make. Just think about yourself (or some friends) and think about one of the last purchases you or they made recently, let's say it was a $5,000 leather sofa. You'll find people will defend this purchase to their friends buy saying things like, "it cost a little more but the quality is much better so it will last longer" or "it was made in New Zealand not China and was actually half price so really we got great value for money".

So, your offer must allow people to defend their purchase. It's got to be credible and make sense! But proving that the purchase is logical alone will not be enough to make the sale, for that we need emotion.

Emotion is Number 1

Why? Well, it's a time thing. You see, without emotion I don't have to purchase today... it may be logical to buy, but maybe tomorrow or next week or next year. Emotion is about desire, a prospects desire to solve that problem now, a desire to feel good today. The bigger the desire the more people have to have your product/service/solution. You need to build desire!

"I'll Think About It"

If you get lots of prospects saying... "I'll think about", or "I'll call you", or "call me back in....", then you're probably talking too much logic and not enough emotion with customers. Talking emotion is about personalising it, logic is facts you can state to anyone. With emotion it becomes personal. News flash, the only way to make it personal is to ask questions. What is the personal benefit that someone will get out of a feature of your product or service. Here's how you can make sure you understand this;

• 1.Write a list of each of your products or services (or product groups).
• 2.Start with one product or service you want to sell more of, perhaps your conversion rate from prospect to sale is currently poor for this product/service. Write a list of all the reasons people buy that product.
• 3.Now classify each as Logic or Emotion.
• 4.If you don't have many emotional reasons listed, find more by thinking about personalisation, benefits and the feeling it brings, rather than facts.
• 5.Rewrite the list on a new page, with the logic list on the left of a page and the emotion list on the right.
• 6.Study this list and when talking with prospects remember to ask questions to find out their individual and personal emotional elements.
• 7.Repeat for each of your products or services.

Prospects Are Concerned

During the thought & decision process people have only three concerns;

• 1. Fear
• 2. Cost
• 3. Risk

If each of these concerns is outweighed in a person's mind then a purchase is made, if not, there is no purchase. So, you want to know what factors shift the balance to a green light are, right?

• 1. Fear is overshadowed by Support
• 2. Cost is overshadowed by Benefits
• 3. Risk is overshadowed by Assurance

Halleluiah, We Now Have Our Ingredients For A Strong Offer You Just Can't Refuse  

Yes, but ingredients don't make a recipe do they?! So, let's very quickly explain each ingredient then we can combine them.

Fear: "If this doesn't work, I'll look like an idiot" or "If I get this wrong, I'll lose money". Fear is the concern people have about losing something of value if they don't make the right decision, like their pride or cold hard cash. The prospect wants make a decision to buy but is understandably concerned about the possibility of it not working out for them. You need to learn to support them to make a decision. All you are doing communicating the benefits then supporting the decision with logic.

Cost: Arhh yes cost, business owners the world over often believe cost is everything to a prospect, "It's only about price James", I often hear. Let's clear this up. Cost is just that the prospects doesn't want to pay too much, and for some too little (i.e. = cheap and crappy). A prospect wants to get great value for money. They want a great deal. Focus on communicating the benefits for paying the price of your product/service. The more benefits you have and the more value each benefit brings, the more they will overshadow the cost. If you still get price objections, change your target market, or change (read IMPROVE the heck out of) your product and service. You see, if a prospect can't see the benefits, they just won't buy regardless of the cost.

Risk: People can be worriers. "If I change the way I've always done things, I will risk what I've accomplished so far", "If I buy a house now, I might lose money". Very similar to Fear, Risk is about removing the risk from a decision. It is again about communicating the benefits then backing it up this time with the assurance that yes this is a smart decision.

People don't want to be sold to. So, communicate with them instead.

Here's What You've Been Waiting For

An example "offer" to emulate! Offers can be simple, and should be sensitive to the concerns people have; fear, cost, and risk. Here is a list of offers I recently have received that caught my attention and with some ultimately my business;

• 1.The National Business Review (NBR) weekly newspaper sent me a letter offering 4 weeks free subscription. 1) No Fear, I can't lose anything, 2) No Cost, it's free, 3) No Risk, I can say no at end.
• 2.Webex, an online web meeting provider. I was looking at some different options, they offered a 14 day free trial. No Fear, No Cost, No Risk.
• 3.NZBusiness Magazine sent me 2 or 3 months free subscription organised through my BNI (Business Networking International) membership. No Fear, No Cost, No Risk.

In each of these situations they basically Offer;

• We'll set you up free of charge.
• You can use the service for a period of time free of charge.
• If you like it, you keep it.
• If you don't want it at the end of the time period, we'll drop the service free of charge.

Each of the three concern factors are removed. And if a prospect is talking to you and they are seriously investigating making a purchasing decision... this really is an offer too good to refuse!

This week's Action Points...

Get excited about this as it is pretty powerful stuff, run a brainstorming session with your team, get feedback from prospects. Whatever you choose, think about all the reasons, the elements, the concerns and the factors carefully. Then go ahead.... Make me an offer I can't refuse!

Sales Process Flow Chart - How To Turn Time Consuming Enquiries Into Opportunities

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And Turn Opportunities Into Sales...

I arrive at the office building, I walked inside the building, I walked up the stairs, I open the door, I walk in.... Boring isn't it! And yet this simple process of getting from outside the office to inside is something I do each and every time I come here. It happens in the same way, sure sometimes I might be carrying a briefcase or a folder or my laptop, I might even stop to chat to someone I bump into on the way, but basically it's the same process. Why? Because it is the most effective process to get the outcome I'm looking for.

I mean, I could mix it up a bit, do it slightly differently each time; behind the office there are also some stairs which lead to level 1, or maybe go through the window. But I don't, and why is that.... well that would be just a waste of time, that door could be locked at the back so it might not work at all or, I could get stuck trying the window option. If I'm going to the office I want to get to the desired result, working at my desk. Now tell me, why is it that when it comes to the area of sales (and if we think about my office example as the Sales Process for a moment), most business owners see fit to try and jump the flight of stairs and try to get straight to working at the desk (making the sale). Often they just end up hurting themselves on most of their attempts to get to working at the desk (turning a lead into a sale), which wastes time and resources, plus builds frustration?!?!

Are you building these 4 key elements into your sales process?

Sales' is a Process, it takes time for a lead or enquiry to become a prospect or an opportunity, and ultimately become a customer, client, or sale. Sure different businesses have vastly different ranges of time, from minutes to years. It is less about the time and more about the information that different types of people need to make a buying decision. It's also about proving that you understand their situation and have the right solution and have proven to have helped others like them in the past. Before making a buying decision, no matter how big or how small, some consciously others without even knowing it, some quickly some very slowly, everyone goes through the following 4 phases and questions:

TRUST -Do I trust this person/business/product/service?

NEED - Do I need this person/business/product/service?

HELP - Can this person/business/product/service help me?

HURRY - Ok I want it now!

If you and your business don't get a good grade from the prospect at NEED you want progress to HELP in their mind let alone HURRY where you maybe be thinking.

So what you're saying to me is that I need to provide answers to those questions then?

Not exactly, you see people will form answers to these questions whether you provide proactive answers or not, what you need to do is provide ‘better' answers that more actually reflect what you, your company, your products and your services are all about. When? Right up front, people will buy from people they are familiar with, so the more touches like a phone call, or a brochure in the mail you can do (without going OTT, over the top, of course) the better. Let's say your business did a lot of onsite quotes or proposals for people, often the first step will be enquiry phone call from the potential customer, most businesses will get a brief outline from the prospect about the potential job and ask a few questions and book a time to visit onsite, all up taking 5 mins on the phone. The next the prospect hears from them is at the onsite visit, a quote maybe given and possibly a brochure, the prospect will often say "thanks I'll get back to you" or "let me go over it with my wife or husband". And what happens, some come back some don't.

Reality Check... not all people that don't buy from you are tyre kickers!

Don't use tyre kickers as an excuse, most often prospects don't buy simply because they found another company that ‘better' answered all their questions in the 4 key elements above. Let's get ‘better' by improving your sales process... take charge of the first phone call, ask more questions and listen, this will help you come better prepared to the appointment and show the prospect that you have listened to them. Send the brochure before the appointment, post is best but email will be fast and cheap, call the day before the appointment to ensure they have read the brochure. Find the best process and do it the same each time.

Walking up the stairs to my office one step at a time is the sure fire most consistent way to always get to the top and get to my desired result. Taking each of the ten steps is not necessarily the fastest process, I could jump straight to step 5 missing out 2, 3, and 4.... but I could slip and fall in a heap, never getting to step 10 (the sale).

This weeks action points...

Get a white board or piece of paper and draw your current sales process as a flowchart, the idea here is once you have documented it, it is time to start improving it by providing all the information in the steps, before the decision point. Take charge of the process and make sure you tell the prospect the steps to buy... all this leads to that final step, decision time, is it a yes or no... not, let me think about it.

Sales Activity Report - The Simplest & Fastest Way To Improve Your Conversion Rate From Enquiry To Sale!

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At the end of watching your favourite sporting match, what is the one thing that is left in your mind; maybe for days, weeks, months, even years for some? Why, it's the result of course. If there is one thing you are likely to remember, it has got to be who won the game, right? Now...just picture this...Fast forward a little over 2 months from now, it's October the 21^st, early on a Sunday morning you and the rest of the nation are watching the All Blacks play France in the Rugby World Cup Final (actual teams may vary). The match is a cliff hanger, it's an electric 26 all with 3 minutes to go, in the final stages the All Blacks build momentum and move to within 10 metres of the French Try line, surely they must score! The pass is thrown wide, to an unmarked Jerry Collins only 5 metres from All Black glory, his eyes widen, his heart races...he drops the ball. The All Blacks lose from a drop goal by the French in injury time.

What is remembered most? The final last minute handling error by one of the Cups consistently best players and of course the result, a loss. But wise players and spectators alike know that the result cannot be solely blamed on the one final error, in fact go a step further and ask someone who had not seen the game why they lost and they just wouldn't have a clue without more information.

 In business, it is the same, just looking at the result, a win (a profit increase), a loss (a profit decrease), or the score 26 - 29 (profit amount vs budgeted or last year's amount [because you are really playing against yourself in business]), won't tell you how to massively improve. Sure getting stuck into your Yearly or Monthly Financials is vital to know how the score came about (Sales, COGS, Gross Profit, Expenses, Net Profit), and it gives you some great insight into what has happened and what could be done to improve. Just like knowing the score breakdown of Penalties, Tries, Conversions, and Drop Goals in a rugby match. But the real power to effect massive change is to know the other stats, like Possession, Territory, Lineouts, Scrums, Rucks, Mauls, Hitups, Linebreaks, Tackles, Turnovers, Errors, Penalties conceded.

Do you know what the Pre Key Performance Indicators are in your business?

This is by far the fastest, easiest and simplest way to increase your profits, just start recording and reporting (R&R) the number of occurrences on each of your activities (or steps) that lead towards getting a sale from an enquiry, on a daily, weekly and monthly bases. Doing this alone, and nothing else, will increase your results...why? Because now you're focusing on it, you know that you are recording you and your teams' activity in this area. You see, if you had to employ someone to be the sales manager in your business, how would you know if they were doing an good, bad or ok job. By using a Daily Sales Activity Report! Ok, so you could argue that increased sales or revenue is the ultimate score card, and yeah you are right, but if you're still reading this article it was likely that the headline drew you in, so you're looking to improve sales and if that is the case...by using the Daily Sales Activity Report we can assess what lead us to get that many sales and where the areas of opportunity lie so we can focus on them to improve.

So what sort of activities do you record?

This does depend on your business, do you prospect for business with phone calls? Do you get lots of phone calls requesting a quote? Do you tender? Is it repeat customers? Etc, etc . Simply flowchart the steps a customer goes through to purchase something off you (and / or) flowchart the steps you go through to find and make a sale to a prospect. Then open a excel spreadsheet (or create a hand written one if you like) write down the steps in the rows and in the next column have a tally box to record and in the next, a total box, simple! Example 1: # of Phone Enquiries, # of Onsite Quotes Booked, # of Onsite Quotes Attended, # of Proposals Sent, # of Call Backs, # of New Jobs Booked.

Start thinking of the Daily Sales Activity Report as a way you can really affect the bottom line profit in your company, because your conversion rate from Enquiry to Sale is probably not nearly as high as you might think, all enquiries/questions are opportunities. By recording and reporting on it you will consciously have it staring you in the face and if you are getting 10 enquiries a day, a week, an hour, you will want to ensure you do everything you can to maximise these opportunities, by improving your conversion rate to help people get what they need. If you had a conversion rate of 4 out of 10 (40%) and just increased it to 5 out of 10 by doing this simple strategy alone (R&R) you would increase your Gross Profit by 25%, without spending a cent on marketing or advertising. Have I got your attention now! Wouldn't the All Blacks be proud.

This week's action points...

Take out your Sales Process Flowchart from last week, because I know you did that right? Jump on the computer and into excel or word and create a Daily Sales Activity Report. Print out a week's worth, place on a clipboard and start recording. I realise "Creating" is the hard part, so better yet email me and I'll send you a template where 80% is done for you.

Sales Positioning Statement - Are You Communicating...

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...These 7 Vital Points To Your Prospects That Explain Your Uniqueness, Helping You Convert More Leads Into Customers?

You know, of all the tactics in the area of sales this has got to be my favorite. And why is anything a favorite, because it gets you the result you are looking for. I promise you this article is well worth a read!

I've been lucky enough to meet many people in business over the years and it's always an interesting experience. Whether it's a networking event, or as a potential customer myself or a bbq at a friend's house. The one question the conversation nearly always leads to, if not immediately, is ... "So, what do you do?" The standard reply, "I'm a plumber, a graphic designer, a computer technician, a sales rep/administrator for xyz company."  The genuinely interested or small talk only response is then normally... "So, what does that mean?" Now, the reply to this varies but, it generally goes a little like this... "We sell / we do ........"

Sometimes the explanation is a quick uninformative sentence, and other times it's a very long woefully painful extraction process or loose dribble. At this point, the person you are speaking with unconsciously and/or consciously is forming an impression of you and your company. Like it or not whether you are the owner, or to take this a level deeper, whether it is one of your employees explaining your company to a new friend at a bbq or a potential customer that makes an inquiry with your business, an impression is being formed. This impression forms what we will call a POSITION. Your company's POSITION is what other people think about your company; the good, bad and ugly. Are you high quality & value & price, or middle of the range, or low quality low price, or niche specific, product specific, or fun, or cool, or proven, or trusted, or new, traditional, etc, etc.

 People will form this POSITION of your company in their mind based on a number of things. What you look like, sound like, feel like, and then act like. Basically, it's how you communicate to people, and whether you are thinking about it or not, you are currently communicating in some way, shape or form that is forming that POSITION in their mind.

So wouldn't it be valuable to take some time to examine just how you are communicating to people?

You bet ya, it is! It's time to create your own POSITIONING STATEMENT. Hold fire there cowboy, this isn't a license to communicate your dream, or vision, or what you wish or want your company to be. If you go out and start telling people that you offer the best product on the market, for the lowest price, with the best after sales support available ... and you aren't all three of those things, then you and your company's integrity is zero, you never get a diligent customer or keep a fast moving customer, they'll walk and you would have eroded any trust that you may have had. So we need to highlight our uniqueness and why someone should use us and not someone else.

Ok, I've heard I need to develop my uniqueness before, but how James, where do I start?

I have been using this same method now for a few years now, and anyone can do it. The aim is to create a short, simple, concise, clear and constant paragraph, that when you or any of your team are asked about your company and what it does, everyone delivers the same message, your POSITIONING STATEMENT. What would that be worth to you and your company? Simply answer the following questions, then remove the questions and use grammar to fit the sentences together, it's magic...

Creating Your Positioning Statement

You can establish you positioning statement by answering the following 7 questions:

Who: Who are you?

What: What business are you in?

For whom: What people do you serve?

What need: What are the special needs of the people you serve?

Against whom: With whom are you competing?

What's different: What makes you different from those competitors?

So: What's the benefit? What unique benefit does a client derive from your service?

Example of how I did the mimosaPLANET Positioning Statement:

(Who) "mimosaPLANET

(What) are a business development firm

(For whom) for business owners

(What need) looking for greater profits and more free time.

(Against whom) Unlike other business advisers, coaches or consultants,

(What's different) mimosaPLANET provides packages that focus on strategic advisory and actual implementation assistance so clients get help tailored to their needs, not just run through a checklist,

(so) this means we deliver tangible outcomes and measurable results for maximum ROI."

"mimosaPLANET are a business development firm for business owners looking for greater profits and more free time. Unlike other business advisers, coaches or consultants, mimosaPLANET provides packages that focus on strategic advisory and actual development assistance so clients get help tailored to their needs, not just run through a checklist, this means we deliver specific outcomes and tangible results for maximum ROI."

This tactic is taken from ‘Selling the Invisible' by H Beckwith. This book is gold, I highly recommend it.

This week's action points...

Just think of the relief you will feel knowing your company is being represented consistently by your team in the best way. And take a second to think about yourself as a customer... wouldn't it be great to understand quickly and easily what a company does so you can see whether you will get value from it or not? In a study done in the US regarding who a Jury believed more in a court of law; an expert witness, like a doctor, from group a) more qualifications, or group b) better able to communicate their point, it was group b that was the highest. What does this evidence support? Simple, improve your companies communication. In the area of sales it's 90% verbal!

So this week, take 30mins to sit down and answer the questions. Then revisit each day for 30mins, until after 5 days you should have developed your first POSITIONING STATEMENT. Involve your team, as they will be the ones communicating it as well!

Sales Styles - Are You An Order Taker?

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How To Convert More Of Those Enquiries Into Sales...

Chances are if you are like most people when you think about sales people images of a sleazy car salesman will pop to mind, promising the earth and over selling the product (the car) and overselling other products like a finance, insurance, clear coat protection, etc.  Or perhaps a real estate agent will spring to mind, pushing their product, the listing, on to you without any real concern for you and your wants and needs. Now don't get me wrong, not all car sales people or real estate agents are like this, far from it, I know of many who are excellent, genuine and helpful. But it's the image than 99% of the population have in their minds of salespeople in general, people think; they're not to be trusted, they just want to make a sale for their own interests.

So how do you think this general feeling affects you and your team when you go to sell the products or services your business sells? Well... in talking with hundreds of business owners over the years, most don't want to be either of the two types of salespeople mentioned above, the Over Seller or the Product Pusher, and quiet rightly too, nobody wants a product rammed down their throat that the salesperson hasn't taken the time to really listen to see if you need or want it. In fact people often tell me, well James, I'm not a sales person, I'm a plumber, an Architect, etc.

Is this your default sales style?

Business owners and salespeople the world over default to the third and most frequent of the 4 types of salespeople, the Order Taker. The Order Taker, doesn't put what is often referred to by the Order Taker as ‘pressure' on people, in fact they often simply wait for the customer to place an order. While this makes the Order Taker more comfortable, it assumes that the customer knows what is best for them. Don't fall victim to the old saying that "the customer is always right", so we let them take control of the process. Now in customer service 101 we've all heard this saying and in part it's true, you do need to be polite, professional and deal with an issue in the best way to preserve a long term relationship.  But don't blanket this saying across to sales, because if the customer was right all the time they wouldn't need your product or service. Remember, you are the expert in your field and they have come to you with a problem and they want you to find a solution, be it a product or a service, you are solving their problem. 

Sales Secret - Sales is all about solving a problem, situation, challenge, issue, need or want.

So the 4^th type of sale person is the Problem Solver, and to be a great Problem Solver you must first understand the Problem or situation. I always laugh when I hear people say; "what's his name is a great salesperson, they've got the gift of the gab". Now it's true, people can talk others into buying stuff, their tool is influence, but all too often an influencer will become a Product Pusher because they miss one very important part of sales, you must shut up and listen!

This does two things, it builds rapport and trust as you are listening to someone tell their views, but more importantly it helps you understand what is really going on to make sure the person gets the right product or service. Have you ever thought you needed xyz product or service, purchased, then later you realised you needed abc product or service. Annoying isn't it. Who's fault is it?... the Salespersons of course!

Never assume the customer knows what is best for them, help them out, be proactive, they'll thank you for it. Great Problem Solvers do not use influence or the gift of the gab to make the sale. They use one simple but effective tool... Questions!

Write a list of questions, start general then get more specific. You are trying to fully understand what is going on, what the situation is. Test some of them out, this can start to form the basics of a script and this is how you can start to build a business that delivers the same sales process whether you are there doing it or not.