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Quick Idea # 119

The Community Can Help You Sell

The community can be a powerful force for increasing sales. It’s big, it’s diverse, it’s a product and service consuming machine. Making community its own category of influence is important because it allows you to call attention to all the people who do not already fit neatly into one of your other groups. Community captures people who are not currently your suppliers, employees or customers. In fact, they haven’t even made it to your prospect list.

Interacting with the community in a meaningful way can have tremendous impact on your sales. Granted, some of this depends on what you sell. If you sell some specialized industrial products your opportunity will not be as high as it would if you sell karate lessons. That guy you serve on the school board with could be married to your next major client.

Help your company to be a good corporate community citizen. And, at the same time, be prepared to inform people in the community about your business. Don’t be afraid to ask them for their help.

Quick Idea # 88

Consultants Live Their Work

Call them thought leaders. Call them advocates. Call them crazy!

But call them you will, when you need the products and services they offer because they instill a confidence that comes from absolute knowing.

It’s not that they are obsessed with their work (although some probably are). It’s that their work is often an extension of who they are. Most consultants have found a way to make a living using the gifts and talents they were born with. Incorporating these gifts with their acquired skills and knowledge make them uniquely qualified.

An independent consultant may have a gift for planning and organization. Combine the gift with specific industry knowledge and access to prospects and they become very good at making sales. Access to prospects often comes from active involvement in the community as consultants also tend to share their gifts in service clubs, church, neighborhood associations, school, etc.

Identify the gifts and talents that create the foundation for what you do, then share what you can!

Quick Idea # 81

Convenience Stores Give You Gas

Did you know that convenience stores make very little profit on their gas? I know we like to beat them up because of the price swings, but they make very little money on their gas regardless of what price you pay. So you could say—in a way—that they give you gas. The convenient store profit model is based on getting customers into the store.

One chain in our town offers a free candy bar with every fill-up. Now I know what you’re thinking. How can a $.89 candy bar inspire me to spend $70 to fill up my SUV? Fact is, their prices are as good/bad as any station and it’s…well…a nice gesture.

But wait there’s more…Do you think they bring it out and say thank you Mr. Customer for buying our expensive gas? No of course not. They want/need you to come in to the store to collect your free candy and hopefully buy an ice cold slushie or cup of coffee, which (the fountain), by the way is likely to be one of the largest profit centers in the store.

Quick Idea # 75

Talk Easily About the Money: Pricing

People like doing business with confident and well informed individuals. One way you demonstrate confidence and increase sales is by not avoiding money talk. The three places many sales people get tripped up in money talk are premature pricing questions, recognizing add-on work, and details on getting paid.

How to manage premature pricing questions:
Tip 1: Tell your prospect in advance when you’ll provide a price. “Today, I’m gathering information about your situation… my next step will be to bring you a price quote.”

Tip 2: Proactively discuss key variables that impact pricing structure. Several should be embedded in your discovery process anyway. “One of the elements that impact our project is your timeline. Tell me about your expectations around timing?”

Tip 3: Plan in advance what you’ll say if they ask what you charge. “My price is typically a project price. I’ll outline what the work looks like and run it by you. Once we agree on the work, I’ll be able to price it for you. Are you working from some pre-set budget numbers you’re concerned about fitting the project into?”

If you’re being transparent in your money talk and the prospect still seems anxious about pricing try asking them specifically what’s on their mind. It’s best to know.

Quick Idea # 71

Information Overload Meets Relevant Intelligence

Information overload is a topic getting a lot of attention. Your customers and prospects are feeling the crunch of trying to keep up with their daily work and demands of staying informed. The Internet is making it easier to get information, but it isn’t necessarily providing useful insights to make their lives easier…today.  This is a special opportunity for you to provide value-added service.

Would a more informed customer and prospect pool help you increase sales? Challenge yourself to name at least three types of information, that if your prospects knew—really knew—they would be more willing to making a buying decision for your service. Then go about establishing creative ways to share this information. Using third party references will help your cause the most. Become known a good resource.

A company that sells behavioral testing for job screening has trouble convincing companies to spend $225 per candidate on their instrument. They are constantly frustrated because they don’t have enough sales. But, a major reason they don’t close deals is that prospects don’t understand the total cost of employee turnover. This situation is an ideal one to connect cause and solution.

Quick Idea # 64

Tap into the Momentum Present in the Universe

There’s a lot going on out there in the universe—and an abundance of resources being applied to moving ideas along. People are hosting events, celebrating accomplishments, and creating strategic alliances to accomplish the greater good. This momentum is an awesome force of nature and you need to tap into whatever you can to help make more sales.

Momentum, by definition is the speed or force of forward movement and everyone in sales wants more of that. Well, at least everyone who is reading a book about making sales. For every kind of product or service there is a range of marketing strategies that can be used to tap into this universal momentum.

A statewide CPA society wanted to ratchet up the level of interaction they were having with their members and prospects in their community. They found it hard to get accountants out of the office for conferences and routine association meetings. So they organized a wide selection of certified educational sessions timed to match the state’s periodic requirements for continuing education units (CEUs). Build-it-and-they- will-come does work when external forces help propel them.

Supercharging your own sales improvement plans by tapping into the momentum present in the universe!

Quick Idea # 8

Understand the Lifetime Value of Your Customers

In order to make the sales you desire, be prepared to make the necessary investment. If there was a store that sold customers—good customers—how much would you be willing to spend?  Consider this example.

A local ladies department store may want to attract more of the professional women from their community. They know that these professional women spend an average of $150 on each visit to their store. Their cost of goods sold is about 50% so their gross profit is $75 on each sale. On average, these professional women visit the store 4 times per year, so now we can say that this particular shopper is worth $300 in gross profits, per year to the store. If a client remains a regular for 3 years the client now has a lifetime value of $900. The average lifetime value of this type of customer can increase exponentially if you factor in the benefits of her referring other shoppers like herself.

So how much can the department store afford to spend to acquire one of these highly desirable regular customers? How much advertising, direct mail and/or sales perks should they invest? How many customers do they need to meet their annual sales goals?

Quick Idea # 2

Marketing 101—Lots of ways to Influence Sales

In order to make more sales it’s a good idea to look at the wide range of methods you have available to influence customers and prospects. Often we loose sight of the fact that direct sales activities represent only one of many essential elements of an overall marketing mix—one tool in the business development tool box. For some the term “sales” has become passe, even unseemly. The term “marketing” has been substituted in polite conversation in order to protect sensitivities. But just substituting the word marketing in place of sales has not changed the reality of the situation. Sales must be made if your organization is going to continue to stay in business.

The point is this: many things influence the prospect along the business development continuum so it pays to understand the other elements in the marketing mix and how they might work together to help you to make a sale.

Some of the elements that make up a typical marketing mix are advertising, public relations, web sites, social media, pricing strategies, cross promotions, trade shows, special events, direct sales and publishing and speaking.

Quick Idea # 1

Business Development IS the Bottom Line

If a sale is an individual transaction, then the organization’s overall sales function should embody a broader perspective that can be referred to as business development. It’s all about developing new business for your organization. Business development principles should be known and carried out in every nook and cranny of the organization, and by just about everyone in the organization.

It all works in a cycle. When your organization develops new products or services, the goal is to attract and retain specific customers. When you service customer accounts with honesty, accuracy and integrity, it closes the loop on this cycle of business development by making sure that customers have no reason to leave you and every reason to stick around and provide valuable referrals. Finally, every strategic plan has at its core, goals to acquire and retain customers. So, literally everything done in the organization has a clear and practical tie to business development -- sales.

Documenting a complete business development continuum for your organization will help everyone recognize their existing inter-dependence and therefore, their contributions to increasing sales.

Quick Idea # 13

Get more customers –the Good Kind!

As a sales person for your company, you make a big investment in developing new business, so why not target more of the customers you want?

It’s a lot easier to acquire more good customers when you know what you’re looking for. Retailers with point of sale technology and customer loyalty programs lead the pack in customer intelligence. Small professional services firms know their customers like the back of their hand.

Look for the natural sorters in your own client profiles. Consider their buying patterns—and all attributes that are important to you.  Don’t be worried about what you don’t know—focus on what you do know about your customers and highlight the elements that will help you reach out to prospects that mirror your favorite customers. Build this knowledge into your next promotional outreach.