Why it is so important to listen to your customers when designing your sales process. http://bit.ly/zio2Mk

Do you talk yourself out of the sale or are you not listening to what you client or prospect is saying to you?

Have you thought about the following question? How many times have you talked your client or prospect out of a sale?  When other people talk too much, we notice immediately. When we talk too much, everyone else notices.  Have you ever left a meeting with a client or prospect and thought about why they didn’t buy your product or service? Maybe it’s because you talked too much!

Long discussions can enhance business relationships; however most clients and prospects prefer salespeople who are to the point. These are some of the key factors that keep sales people from listening more than they speak:

Anxiety: – People who are anxious use an avalanche of words to avoid dealing with potential conflict (such as a prospect saying no). Instead of balancing talking with listening, they believe that their wall of words will protect them from what they imagine as a threat. They often refuse to give up control of the conversation, adding a trail of words that echo the ones they’ve already expressed.

Lack of preparation: – The less clear we are on any given subject, the more words we need to talk about the subject.

Stress: – When we are tired, we tend to ramble, and our ability to concentrate begins to decrease. Our brain responds to mental fatigue by producing more words and less meaning.

Lack of a road map: – Do you have a road map for your sales calls? If not, write down the answers to three questions: What is my call objective? What information do I need to get? What information do I plan to give? Encourage yourself to talk less and listen more.

Failure to budget for time: – Some people get so involved in conversations that they lose track of time. Budget a specific amount of time for each call and stick to it. If you meet with long-winded people, remind them five minutes before you plan to leave by saying, “We have another five minutes; what else do we need to cover?”

Lack of humility: – Some people think that everything they say is important. When they talk, they experience a rush of good feelings, and they often fall in love with their own words. They may use catchphrases and complex language to impress clients and prospects. Don’t be a “talkaholic.” Stop lecturing. Turn your liability into an asset. Learn from others. Being expressive is fantastic; however, good relationships require us to be receptive to others.

Ineffective thinking: – While some people continue to move from problem to problem, others quickly get to the core of a customer’s problem, solve it, and close the sale. How? They use two types of thought patterns that can cure “wordaholism”: convergent thinking and divergent thinking. While convergent thinking leads to a focal point in the middle of a circle, divergent thinking radiates away from the centre in every direction. Divergent thinking opens people’s minds; it leads to new ideas, thoughts, and possibilities. As a result, the conversation goes on and on. Convergent thinking leads to conclusions

When was the last time you made your clients feel valued and loved?

In our business development and sales activity, we often focus our efforts on acquiring new clients. We can spend a great deal of time acquiring new clients which can be to the detriment of existing high quality relationships.  So once you have a client on board, how do you get them to stay as a client and also how do you get them to buy more from you?

We all recognise that getting more work from existing clients can be the most profitable source of new business. They already know us and trust us – and we’ve (hopefully) done good work for them. So it should be a much easier sell to get them to buy more from us – provided they need the other products or services we’re offering.

In most businesses, the marketing effort seems to be focused on much lower return activities. Such activities may include running an advertising campaign, trying to cold call new prospects, or networking to meet new people.  It just seems kind of sexier to focus on brand new clients than it does to build our relationships with our existing and previous ones.  It’s almost as if we want to pursue the shiny new toy because the old toy we have had for a couple of years isn’t as appealing. After all we do live in a throw away society, where the pace of change has quickened considerably.  For example, no sooner had Apple launched the Ipad, than Apple was planning the launch of Ipad 2.  Many people who purchased the original Ipad only a few months ago have ditched the Ipad to purchase a shiny new Ipad 2.  Surely we don’t treat our clients like this!! Or do we? It’s about time we made our clients feel loved and valued.  Remember that if something is no longer shiny, such as a car or a pair of shoes, there are ways to make such items shiny again. It simply requires effort and hard work.

Often when try to polish an existing relationship; we often go about it completely the wrong way.  We make assumptions about how we should market to these individuals and businesses.  We rely on social media, e-mail campaigns, and e-newsletters.  Or maybe we equate marketing with meetings and “schmoozing”. We invite the client out to lunch, to an event or spend time with them just chatting.  Isn’t that what marketing is all about? After all why should we measure how we spend our marketing budget, surely our clients want to be invited to events and have lunch with us? Those are the things our marketing budget is geared up for – events and lunches.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with these activities. Sometimes they’re just the right thing. But more often than not there’s something much more effective you can do with your time and money.  Have you ever thought about putting yourself in the client’s shoes and thinking about it from their perspective instead?

What’s more valuable to you, what demonstrates the commitment of a professional business more, and what proves their capabilities more: a lunch where you catch up socially without any agenda or your business massively over delivering on the work you are doing for the client?   If you ask your clients, 99% of the time, clients will go for the latter.

So instead of spending our marketing time and money schmoozing our current clients – we should spend it over delivering to clients.

Instead of spending time with clients at a social or business event, or in “marketing meetings” – spend it on the project you’re working with them on and do an even better job than you would have done otherwise.

Instead of buying an advert or putting on a marketing event – spend the money to arrange a value-added session with your client’s management team where you show them 5 new ways of implementing the results of your work and getting a better ROI.  In short, spend your time and money in any way you can think of so that the client not only thinks you did a great job for them (which should be the baseline) but that they think you’ve done the best job of any supplier they’ve hired.

Don’t think marketing – think value for your client.

Clearly, it is not possible to do this for every client. You need to focus on the high priority ones who have the potential to give you lots of new business, or strong referrals to other potential clients.  However, if you consistently over deliver in what you promised, then it’s the strongest way of getting them to buy more and to recommend you with enthusiasm.

Do you have to be a great sales person to make your business a success?

I am often asked if there is such a thing as a “natural born sales person”. In my opinion, almost no one is a natural salesperson.  It hasn’t stopped me and it shouldn’t stop you being successful. The steps to being a successful sales person can be learned.  We often look at people who are good at selling and assume that we could never be like that and then feel overwhelmed.

You need to remember that when we come across people who are good at selling, we are seeing the finished article. These are individuals who have invested in themselves and have years of experience and training. It is important to remember that these individuals all started somewhere and didn’t start off that way.

I do agree that there are certain skills like listening, empathising, making friends and being sociable that some people seem to be naturally good at or pick up at an early age. But those are perfectly learnable skills for everyone.  The more structured skills that are required for improving your selling techniques can be learned as well.

You certainly don’t need to have perfected your skills to still have success with them. Most people see significant improvements in their success rate winning clients just by learning and following a simple, structured sales process.

There are some things which will also underpin your success in business and enhance your sales process.  It is all about having a strategy which will increase the number of opportunities which go into your sales funnel.  So when considering your sales strategy think about the following:-

• Don’t just rely on word of mouth – we often think that if we do really great work, that people will hear about me.  The reality is that they won’t. Sadly good news doesn’t travel fast, but bad news does.  When researchers TARP (pioneers in the field of customer satisfaction) www.tarp.com looked at word of mouth, they discovered that if you have a bad experience with a business then on average you will tell 12 people and those 12 people will tell 6 others. No doubt, you will have heard similar statistics before.  A much less reported finding is that TARP also found that if you have a good experience with a business then on average you’ll tell just a couple of friends. And those friends won’t remember much, and won’t tell anyone else at all.

The inherent problem with relying on word of mouth is that as most people practice it, it’s a passive strategy. You become reliant on the goodwill of others to generate leads for you. It is possible to turn into a proactive strategy.

You could take the attitude that if you want more clients that you just rely on getting more recommendations.  I agree that word of mouth is important, but it isn’t the only strategy that you should employ and if it is, then you will not ultimately grow your business.  You have to be proactive.

• You might adopt the strategy that “I just need to get my name out there”.

The truth with that strategy is that it won’t have a significant impact on increasing your sales pipeline. Having your name out there more, having more people know about you, just means you’re adding more noise to the constant barrage of promotional messages we are now all facing every day.  Unless you have a message that resonates with potential clients and that sets you apart from the myriad of others clamouring for attention then getting your name out there is pointless.

• Maybe you believe that you can’t find the time for marketing or that you don’t have the budget.

 

The reality is that if you don’t have a marketing strategy which is aligned to a sales strategy then your business won’t grow. Not having the time for marketing sounds ludicrous when you say it – but I hear it or something similar again and again. You don’t find the time for marketing – you make the time.

As a business owner you should be spending between at least 20% of your time on marketing and business development. If you can’t find that time, then you’ve either got your priorities wrong. More usually, the problem is that people avoid marketing because they don’t feel competent or comfortable with it.

If you want to be successful you’ve got to get over this, and you’ve got to get over yourself. You’ve got to knuckle down, book the time, and get your marketing and business development done.

Also, not having a budget for marketing is not good. You need to create a budget for your marketing and stick to it.

It is all about having a plan and sticking to it.  Marketing can create the leads which go into the sales funnel which can then be converted into clients.  Remember that sales skills can be learned!

Are you really using social media to help you with your sales and business development activity?

Today, in any line of business, differentiation is one of the biggest challenges that we all face. With the ever growing influence of social media, this challenge is going to become even more difficult. The traditional method of differentiation has been through product, price and service. So let’s assume that you have pricing which is on a par with your competitors, you have high quality products and have excellent service, what is left to differentiate your business from the competition.  How can you use the new tools to assist with your business development and sales strategy?

The old method of differentiation didn’t really “connect” you with people. The old methods of differentiation have nothing to do with developing, growing, and strengthening relationships. Social media has everything to do with relationships. This might seem quite obvious and even though they are quite obvious, we don’t consciously utilize them to differentiate as much as we should.  In the age of social media, the lines are blurring between business and personal. To win hearts and minds and build your trusted network, you should begin thinking about how to differentiate yourself from the competition using new techniques and focusing on different things. Let’s consider how you can do things differently.

In the modern era, it is all about the client/customer now. Clients are in charge and they have more power than ever before due to the social networks, blogs, and forums that now exist as platforms for them to voice their thoughts and opinions. The focus is centered on the relationship, and how you can best take care of and serve clients, prospects, and advocates above and beyond anything you’ve ever done before.

With millions of people connecting, sharing, conversing, commenting, recommending and reviewing online, your clients and connections have the power to expand your influence in a positive OR negative way, like never before.

If a client, prospect or strategic partner really likes you and believes in you, the signals they share about you on social platforms have the potential to reach hundreds if not thousands. If you upset a client, or don’t take care of them with good service, that signal can also be sent and have a ripple effect. If you want to stand out in the age of social media and build your business, you must communicate frequently, engage, empower, promote, and provide outstanding service to the most important people in your trusted network.  These are some questions you should be asking are:-

• How can you best serve your clients and prospects?
• How can you be a resource to your clients and prospects?
• What can you do to make their lives better?
• How can you become valuable and irreplaceable to your clients?
• How can you go above and beyond the average?

The next thing to focus on is your personal side, but ask yourself are you truly making use of it in your business settings. As I said before, social networking is blurring the lines between business and personal. If you want people to know, like, and trust you before they ever meet you, you must find a way to show your personal side. Social networking and blogging can provide you with a tremendous platform for showcasing both the personal AND business side of YOU! If you use these platforms to solely distribute mundane data, irrelevant market updates, and boring commentary, you will not be providing any way for existing and potential clients to really connect with you.

People love stories and we love to learn about who people are and what drives them. If you build your digital identity through sharing your personal story, and let your business connections in on your personal life while allowing your personality to shine through, you will build trust and differentiate yourself from other businesses.

Finally, what do you really care about and what are you passionate about?  What has happened in your life that has had a profound impact on you as a human being? What magazines and books do you love to read? How do you spend your leisure time?

Online communities and connections are built around common interests and passions. With the transparency that social media offers, you have a tremendous opportunity to learn about what you might have in common with both clients and prospects while they can also learn what you are passionate about. Are you a triathlete? Do you love photography? Are you an avid cyclist?  Do you love to travel the world? Are you fluent in a foreign language? Do you volunteer or raise money for charity? All of these are examples of hobbies, interests, and passions.

If you share what you are passionate about and make these things known throughout the social networks you are involved with can help separate you from the competition. Don’t be afraid to be passionate. People with passion are like magnets!

To succeed in building relationships in a connected world, you have to be willing to put the focus on new ways of communicating. The fact that you can deliver a great product or service is a given. Clients have come to expect that you’ve got a solid product, your price is fair, and the service will be there. Now you have to take a risk now, and be willing to be vulnerable in the age of social media if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition. You’ve got to focus on what clients and prospects care about, and find ways to connect with them on a personal level around common interests. If you only use social media as a platform to pump out product and service related content, you will not have success. Share your story, show your personal side and use these techniques as part of your business development and sales strategy.

Are you really using LinkedIn successfully for your business development?

Many of my professional contacts and also clients tell me that they are using LinkedIn as one of their key business development tools. In reality how much success are these businesses actually obtaining by using LinkedIn?

LinkedIn can be an amazing tool for any business if used in the right way. However, if used badly, it can be a complete liability and have a real impact on your business development activity. Let me give you an example, have you been invited by one of your contacts to a forthcoming event on the other side of the world. The person who does this clearly hasn’t though out their strategy.

It is important to consider some of the mistakes that people make!  There are too many people on LinkedIn who simply go through their contacts and sending them either invitations to inappropriate events or inappropriate marketing messages. If you are going to used LinkedIn for marketing and business development, then make sure that you use it in a targeted and personalised way.

What about your profile?  Many profiles are empty, incomplete or just dull. I agree that it does take time to complete your profile. If you take the time to look at the vast majority of profiles on LinkedIn, you will see that the vast majority are very sparse with only a few sections of their CV reproduced. It is also very telling how much care and attention people pay to their LinkedIn profile. Some people don’t even update their status that often.

How would feel if I told you that your LinkedIn profile is likely to be the first place where anyone researching you would find you… would you take a bit more care and attention over your profile?

It is important to remember that your LinkedIn profile is not your online CV – yes, it will contain elements of your CV, but it is YOUR shop window onto the world. This is where you can showcase your credibility and expertise.  You can showcase your expertise by adding in your blog to your profile. How about uploading white papers and copies of presentations?

Some people seem to only use LinkedIn as an online address book. I don’t disagree that LinkedIn is a fantastic online address book, but if that’s all you use it for, you are missing a trick. You can use LinkedIn to:

•              stay in touch with people

•              showcase your credibility

•              generate leads

•              built a supportive community around you

The final mistake that people make (and I have done this myself!) is sending every tweet to their LinkedIn account. LinkedIn is not twitter and twitter is not LinkedIn. This means that there are different audiences accessing these social networking sites with different purposes and different expectations. On the one hand, there is an expectation that LinkedIn is purely professional – but actually, anything goes on Twitter. However, this is probably the main point, most people will tend to have conversations on twitter and respond to other’s tweets. Unfortunately if you post all your tweets to your LinkedIn profile, people on LinkedIn will only see one half of the conversation – and probably miss the all important status update which announced a great new client win… You’ve just lost an opportunity to share valuable meaning credibility building content.

I hope these tips help with some of your business development activity.

How many “black holes” do you have in your business development and sales process?

To generate more sales, there are some simple things that you need to do:-

• You need to ensure that you are meeting with “high-value” potential prospects
• You need to develop mutually beneficial long-term relationships with these individuals.
• You need to turn those relationships into genuine opportunities to win business.
• You need to convert those opportunities into sales.

The old style of selling is disappearing. The focus is on relationship selling and developing a more consultative style.  These days it is essential that you develop a relationship with a potential client before they buy from you. This applies whether you are trying to sell widgets or services which can be perceived as intangible, such as professional services.

The key to selling is to ensure that you establish a high level of trust with your prospect and that they believe that the product or service that they are buying will add value to their business. It is impossible to build trust overnight.

Often we will have initial contact with a prospect a long time before they perceive the need for your product or service being strong enough or urgent enough for the prospect to be ready to buy.

 For anyone with responsibility for business development it is essential that you focus your time on building high quality business relationships with quality potential clients over time so that when the need does become urgent, they’re top of mind with the potential client. And it’s critical that you are able to grow the potential client’s perception of your capabilities and build trust so the prospective client feels confident enough to buy when the time arises.

Unfortunately, the relationship building activities of most sales people and people in business are ad-hoc at best, and non-existent at worst.  I admit that sometimes it can be tough. The immediate pressure to service existing clients or the need to close “hot” opportunities can easily take precedence over important long term relationship building activities.  However, if you stop building those relationships – the pipeline of work will soon dry up.

Often the mistake that we make is not prioritising our business relationships.  This is really a case where the 80:20 rule applies. Very few people have the time to undertake effective relationship building activities with their whole contact database.  It is inevitable that a small number of current and potential clients will form the majority of future revenues. It is essential that you focus your time on building in-depth relationship building activities on the critical few.

Your “hot” list (which should always be visible to you) should always include your very best current clients who could both buy more from you in the future, and refer you on to others. After that it’s very much dependent on your circumstances and strategy. You could focus on very high potential clients -  real “gems” who, if you won any of them as clients, could set you up for a long time to come. Alternatively, you could focus on more realistic targets, potential clients who you already have a developing  relationship with or you could easily reach through someone you know.

It is essential that you don’t overlook developing business relationships with quality potential referrers. This is even if they are unlikely to become clients themselves. In business, it is easy to overlook strategic partners and other potential referrers of business.  It is essential to get the balance right though with regards to the different types of potential clients and strategic partners.  You need concentrate on those realistic targets which will provide you with “bread and butter” revenue and will fill the pipeline more quickly. When you have taken care of the cash-flow and are able to cover the fixed costs of the business, you can allow yourself the luxury of nurturing larger prospects which will generate larger future paydays.

Finally, make sure that all your clients and prospects on your list, meet a stringent set of criteria. These criteria will depend on your business, but could include factors like their business size, sector, geography – and intangible factors like their values, their image, and whether you just enjoy working with them.

Hope this helps with filling those “black holes” in your business development process.

Have we forgotten the importance of building long term business relationships?

Social media site such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have provided us all with great tools to leverage both existing business relationships and also new business relationships.  The interference and “noise” created by social media can also have a negative impact on building relationships as more and more people aim for quick or instant results. Social media platforms are merely enablers to support our off-line networking activity. Social media platforms are only form of communication and shouldn’t be used as an excuse not to use other forms of communication.

It is essential to have effective strategies in respect of developing meaningful business relationships.  Such strategies are about what you can do for other people, rather than what you can do for other people. Yet some many people when they are networking both off-line and on-line forget this important point.  Also, never forget about your existing relationships that you may have devoted a great deal of time to cultivating. It is all too easy to let existing business relationships wither and die in the pursuit of new ones.

Here are a few tips to help you with your relationship building

1. Recognize People for their Value

People want to be recognized for their intrinsic value as human beings – not as social connections. Recognize people for their value and individuality first and foremost. By building successful individual relationships with people, you can later leverage those relationships to form valuable business connections. But don’t make the connections about business from the beginning – make those connections genuinely about the connections, and about recognizing people for their individual value.

2. Don’t Ignore The People Not On Your “Target List”
One popular strategy that networkers use is to develop a list of targets – people they want to meet or spend time with at events or online. People who aren’t on that list may get ignored. This is a big mistake, and one of the primary differences between networking and relationship-building. When you target people, you miss out on other people who may have unexpected things to offer.

3. Give People Your Full Attention And Be Authentic
Don’t keep one eye open for the ‘important’ people when you’re building relationships. Make sure that you give everyone you meet your full attention. It is all about being authentic. People can tell whether you are being authentic or not. You never know whether the person you are talking to has another valuable connection that they can provide you with.

4. Look At What YOU Can Do FOR People
When people are networking, they tend to evaluate someone and think “What can this person do for me?” Don’t ask what people can do for you. Ask what you can do for people. Look at ways you can provide value in other people’s lives. Offer valuable information, or helpful advice. Help them make connections that will serve them in business or their personal lives.

Relationship-building requires a great investment of your time, but you will make more valuable connections from it. Take the time to get to know the people you meet, and don’t dismiss people as being ‘unimportant’ because you’re too busy looking for ‘more important’ people. Every connection you make is valuable on a human level. It’s those real, true connections that will help you grow your business in the long-term!

Is procrastination getting in the way of your business development activity?

There are many reasons why we put off making those important phone calls to prospects and clients. It could be due to lack of planning, preparation or simply not knowing what we are going to say to the client or prospect.  A lot of the time, it is down to one word “procrastination”.

So why do we procrastinate and how can we stop procrastinating?  What things are preventing you from moving forward?

I have to confess that I can be a master procrastinator. There I said it. Now I’m betting that you may be challenged by it too, so I’m going to share some strategies for beating the demon of procrastination.

Firstly, it’s all about self-discipline. You must take responsibility for your actions. The fact that you are not picking up the phone or seeing enough prospects or clients is down to yourself and no-one else. Is there an underlying reason why you are not making those calls?

Secondly, you must make a list of all the people that you need to call every day. It’s simple you need to make sure that you make sufficient calls every day to your prospects and clients. Only then will you generate meetings with clients and prospects. You don’t need a sophisticated CRM system (although it does help!) to help you monitor your activity.  A simple calendar and to-do list will suffice.

Next, remember that later is not a day of the week. It is all about doing it now and taking action. Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? If you wait until tomorrow, you may find that the competition has already called your client or prospect.

You should make sure that you block out focused time for your business development activity each day and make sure that your time is focused. Don’t let distractions (for example responding to messages on Linked, Facebook and Twitter!!)  You must make those important calls first, and don’t put off those difficult ones either.

One of the biggest reasons we procrastinate is that we just don’t love some of the things we have to do. So give yourself a bit of added incentive and create a system of rewards.  Perfectionism is another reason why we procrastinate. Are you putting off that phone call to a prospect until your product or service is fully developed? Remember that without prospects and clients, you don’t have a business. Don’t put something off until you can do it perfectly. STOP! It isn’t going to happen.

Finally, remember two things, later is not a day of the week and just do it!!

Effective ways to keep your sales and marketing effort on track during the last quarter of 2011

It is essential at this time of year that you don’t forget to focus your marketing activities on keeping your pipeline filled.  To help you reach you’re the revenue targets for your business, I have listed below some marketing techniques which will help you focus on revenue-generating activities in your business.

1. Identify Your Best Customers. Do you know who are your most valuable and profitable customers? How much do they spend with you annually? Do they fit a niche? While it’s imperative that you understand your products and services, it’s even more significant to understand what value your business brings to your customers so you can continue fulfilling their needs. Business issues can change quickly; you need to keep upto date with the challenges facing your clients.  Make sure to thank your customers; no one owes you business.

2. Talk With Your Clients. If your three most important clients were sitting in a room with you, what questions would you ask them?  Even with best clients, make sure that you hold a quarterly face-to-face meeting to ask for feedback or just to catch up. You must stay on top of their needs and understand any new factors that influence their decision-making processes. Make sure you are asking your clients “what keeps them awake at night?” and “what their biggest challenges are?”  The more you understand about their business and its challenges the more you will be able to match up your offering to your client’s needs.

3. Align Your Marketing Efforts With Your Sales Goals. Sales and marketing have to work together in your business. Even if you are the only salesperson in your business and you also handle the marketing efforts, you must plan your marketing activity based on the amount sales leads you need to generate in order to close the required amount of sales per month. You must establish a sales process and then proactively work your marketing efforts so that they generate the desired results.

4 Never Take Your Eye Off the Competition. Discover what benefits your competitors provide to their current customers. Use their websites to gain insights. Compare your branding, value proposition and pricing.  Based on your assessment, develop at least three strategies that you will use to position yourself effectively against them.

5. Create Win-Win Relationships. “Give to get” is a motto that works well in business. A strong strategic partnership offers many benefits, including reducing risk, sharing costs and improving routes to market. How can you develop a partnership that can contribute to your bottom line? Always go into a relationship understanding your partner’s “must have” list. It’s always best when you can find a partner who is not a direct competitor.

By using these techniques, you will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing strategy and keep yourself motivated to stay on top of your sales processes.

Do you have any marketing tactics that have worked to ignite sales in your business?