BestOfSales Blog

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Develop a Marketing System to Collect Testimonials

by Wendy Maynard

Offer proof to your prospects. It's not enough to say that you solve problems - you have to show that your customers are getting results from your business. Testimonials are one of the most powerful and cost effective selling tools you can implement in your arsenal of marketing. Why? Because you are offering evidence to your prospects from their peers attesting that your services/products actually work.

Providing testimonials from current and prior customers that demonstrate their actual problem and the specific results from your company enhances your credibility. Testimonials offer proof that you are the real deal. People receive a lot of information and they are often skeptical. But, they will be much more inclined to buy from you if you show examples of their peers who have achieved positive results. These third-party endorsements work to sell for you - even when you are not around.

If you are offering a new product or just starting your business, you can contact business associates and friends to offer them a free session or product sample to try. If you have been in business for a while but haven't collected testimonials, make a list of all of your customers who you know have had a GREAT experience with your services or products. Even if you already have a number of testimonials, don't stop collecting new ones. You can replace mediocre praise with the incredible ones. You can also keep your testimonials up to date and current.

Here are some ideas and opportunities to obtain new testimonials:

1. Write down the praise: Whenever one of your customers gives you a compliment in person or via e-mail, thank him or her and then ask if you can use their comment as a testimonial. Make sure he or she understands that you will be using it in your marketing materials. If someone sends you a testimonial that requires editing, go ahead and edit it, but be sure to send it back to ask if the changes are okay - explain the editing was for brevity, clarity, grammar, etc.

2. Create a website link: Another easy method to help you collect testimonials is to include a link on your website that lets people click on it to give their feedback. "Click here to let me know what you think." Put this link next to testimonials you've already placed on your site to provide other examples.

3. Offer an incentive: Periodically you can have a "testimonial drive." Send out an e-mail and offer an incentive for your customers to provide a testimonial. Depending on what type of business you run, it could be a coupon, discount, free services, and so on.

4. Make it part of your sales cycle. As you wrap up an interaction with a customer, ask them for a testimonial. BEFORE you complete your work with a customer, ask him or her to provide a testimonial with tangible and specific results from working with you or from your products. If you wait until your work is complete, you may have a more difficult time getting a testimonial since your customer can move into an "out of sight, out of mind" place. For example, if you are a financial planner, you could ask them toward the end of your sessions together. If you run a Garden Center, have cards by the register and a drop box.

5. Ask your "star performers" for testimonials. Almost every business collects raving fans. These are the individuals who buy every book you sell, the customer who you see in your store three times each week, or that individual who gets an incredible result from using your offerings. Make a point of asking these individuals to give a testimonial. If they have just had a BIG result, be sure to ask them right afterwards.

6. Follow-up after a purchase: Use an autoresponder like www.mavenmerchant.com to automatically follow up with a customer who has purchased something from you to ask them how they are doing. Ask them to provide a testimonial.

Here are some specific ways you can use testimonials to enhance your marketing materials:

** Use testimonials in a sales letter or on a postcard that you send out to acquire new prospects.

** Incorporate testimonials into your advertisements.

** Place testimonials and success stories on your website and in your ezine.

** When you are talking to a prospect, use success stories of other clients to help show the prospect how your other clients have excelled.

** During a seminar, presentation, or teleseminar, use testimonials and success stories to illustrate points and inspire people to take action.

Wendy Maynard publishes MAVEN MARKETING, a weekly marketing ezine for business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. If you're ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and have more fun, subscribe at http://www.gomarketingmaven.com/ezine_3.html

Business Success Is All About Sales

by Bob Urichuck

Do you want to Up Your Bottom Line?

The world market is heating up. Competitors are appearing out of nowhere and expectations are high, especially from the top. In today's market both the business owner and seasoned professional salesperson have to be producing at their absolute best to stay up with the industry leaders.

Business people must also be sales professionals who today have to be pro-active, highly energetic, entrepreneurial, self-driven and really concerned about efficiency and the bottom line. He or she needs to be honest, sensitive, a master problem solver and above all, a personal marketing genius with a win/win philosophy. Only having all these qualities can the business people have the slight edge to win in today's fast growing economy.

The profession of being a salesperson is no different than any other profession. All business professionals go through years of training and continuous learning. The main difference of the sales profession though, and one that you must learn to deal with, is the changing times and how no one likes the same old traditional approaches.

Traditional sales training has taught us many sales techniques and how to handle objections, but not how to stay in control of the buying process or creating and maintaining long term relationships. In order for salespeople to be successful, they must maintain control over the sales process, while the customer believes they are in control.

To do that, they must have a step-by-step sales results system to follow. This is the main reason behind why salespeople succeed. Buyer's have a system and that is why they have been in control, and salespeople are being rejected.

All business professionals benefit from a sales system or sales process because it is vital to always be focussed and goal-orientated in order to achieve bottom line results. Most businesses are customer focussed and service driven and usually, no matter what your profession, you have something to sell whether it be a product, a service or an idea. Everyone needs sales if they want to survive. Without sales, there's no business to talk about.

The Bottom Line! Sales people need to follow a proven Sales Results System, or sales process. Businesses today cannot succeed without sales. Without sales there are no transactions. Without transactions there is no revenue. Without revenue, there is no business, no jobs, no bottom line. Sales is the bottom line!

Bob Urichuck is an International Speaker, Trainer and Best-Selling Author. Learn personally from Bob in the areas of Sales, Motivation, Leadership and Team Skills. Bob presents a series of great ideas and strategies with combination of facts, humor, and practical concept in a high-energy and self-discovery process that you can apply right away to achieve results. Subscribe to Bob's Free Newsletter, worth $297, visit http://www.BobU.com Now!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Make More Sales

by Omar Martin

There are so many people out there nowadays claiming to be sales guru's. It seems like every where I look I see some self proclaimed "sales master" telling me I can become a millionaire if I just read his "free" report! These guys crack me up. The sad part about it is that they're still around because people fall for their cunning sales pages and buy their products. What actually qualifies you to be a sales "expert" worthy of selling your secrets to someone anyway?

Have you ever done hard core, 100% commission, door to door sales in 115 degree weather (or -20 degrees for that matter) wearing a 3 piece suit? Have you ever built a power house team of cold contacting sales experts from scratch, selling pizza coupons door to door none the less? Let me guess.. "NO!" . . . to that one as well.

I would love to do an experiment one day and take one of these "sales gurus" let him pick the time, place and product, then put me on one side of the street and him on the other and lets see what happens. No need to wait for the results, I'll can tell you right now what will happen, I will BLOW them away! That is a fact. I'm not trying to be cocky or arrogant here I 'm simply stressing a point. I 'm an accomplished professional, hard core sales expert and I 'm available to prove it any day of the week.

I believe what sets me apart from the rest of these clowns is my attitude. I am always in sales mode, I am relentless in my pursuit of buyers. That is the key. I don't just find the closest human being with a pulse and try to cram my product down their throat whether they need it or not. Instead, I bust my hump and move from person to person until I identify my buyer.

Here's the best part... when I do find a buyer, I've struck gold! This is because I'm not just going to sell him one item. I'm going to sell him (or her) everything I can! Thats the difference between me and them. I smarten up, I open the market up! I don't try to turn a "NO" into a "YES" because that will only turn around to bite me in the ass later. Instead, I quickly identify buying and non-buying signs to determine whether or not this prospect is worthy of my sales pitch.

Here's 3 simple things you can do to increase your sales regardless of what you sell or where you sell, Internet, face to face, telemarketing, whatever... It doesn't matter. This stuff works everywhere and if you're not doing it your just missing the boat!

#1 Always be in a hurry. This is called "Urgency" I've got no time to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you Mr. Prospect. I've got BUYERS to get to. So lets get this deal closed and we can both get on with our busy day.

#2 Be prepared for EVERY objection. A sale without an objection is like a bowl of cereal without the milk. Expect several objections during every presentation. Thats whats supposed to happen!!! Edify the prospect, give them your pre-rehearsed rebuttal and CLOSE the deal!

#3 Take Control! No one is going to stop you in your tracks and say "Are you a salesman?? Here's my money I'll take everything you've got!" You have to get over the fear of rejection and TELL them it's time to pay for their product. Train your customer to say yes to you throughout your pitch with close ended questions. This way they wont hesitate to reach for their wallets when you tell them it's time to pay.

Omar Martin is a sales expert dedicated to training and developing high performance sales leaders in every industry. He is an internet marketer and sales page designer whose sales experience, skill level and coaching ability has benefited thousands of sales professionals across the USA. He posts free sales advice and products on: http://www.omar-martin.com

His latest product is: http://www.HighPerformanceSalesSecrets.com

10 Simple Ways to Follow Up with Prospects

by Katrina Sawa

In any business it's important to develop simple follow up systems to keep on top of your prospects', customer's and referral sources' minds. If you don't do your follow up; you are wasting valuable marketing dollars and time you've already spent on gathering new leads.

I do a lot of networking at chamber events, women's organizations and biz expos and I generally collect about 25-50 business cards from new contacts on a good week. I pay an assistant to enter them all into my computer database for me so I can easily mail merge them when I want to send out a mailer. I also enter them into my email database because I usually ask them in person if they want to receive my free marketing tips and they always say yes. I follow up right away by email and for the hot prospects I send a postcard in the mail or a note too. Then they will continue to receive my emails every other week plus usually, if I've met them out networking, I see them out again very soon. Follow up can be done in many ways now: email, fax, phone, mail or in person right? So, what do you do after you meet a potential client or even a potential referral source? Do you pile up those business cards on your desk until they get so old you have to just throw them away since they wouldn't be of any use anymore? Or do you follow up and how?

Follow my 10 simple steps below and you will for sure build better relationships with those you meet as well as have more top of mind awareness with them. Here are 10 Simple Follow Up Procedures you can implement in your business TODAY! (for service, product or retail):

1. Take immediate action:

Always call or email within 24 hours of meeting someone telling them it was nice to meet them, asking about their business and offering a little more info about yours and what you could do for them or their referrals.

2. Take more than one action:

In addition to doing #1, also slip something in the mail to them ' an introduction letter and a brochure, a thank you note (handwritten of course) or a flyer about your special promotion.

3. Use email wisely:

Add them to your email database (if appropriate and IF you are heeding correct spam laws in your correspondence) and make sure they get an email notice within 2 weeks.

4. Keep your ears and eyes out for others:

Drop in the mail or attach by email a document or article you found that you'd been discussing or something you recently read that would be of interest or pertinent to them.

5. Keep your database up to date:

Enter them into your database (in the computer) so when you send out your next mailer they will be on the list to receive it. If you don't have a database, you should get one (ACT, Goldmine, Outlook) or start an Excel spreadsheet for starters. You can outsource this task.

6. Send more than one mailing:

Send out another piece of mail or email within 2 weeks of when you sent the first one; this can be more casual, a postcard, flyer or another follow up letter asking for referrals in case they don't think they can use your services right now.

7. Call again:

Call, not necessarily to make the sale, but to further build that relationship, have coffee, meet for lunch, drop something off for them, etc. but another in-person meeting would be good in case they forget what you look like.

8. Make a creative impression:

If you're really trying to get their business and you're not getting anywhere, drop by a promotional product (s) with your card and brochure again or send it in the mail. Make sure your promotional product stands out from your competition and is unique or memorable.

9. Systematize your follow up:

Make sure you sort your database by Hot, Warm and Cold leads and then also by either where you met them (i.e.; Your City's Chamber of Commerce, professional or service organization, etc.) or some other system (like referral source vs. prospect) so that when you mail to them regularly you can mail to small groups at a time with a unique message. Mail to your database quarterly and email them monthly at minimum.

10. Plan year-round promotions:

Send out holiday cards not only for December, but maybe for Easter, the 4th of July or which ever holidays you feel like and then possibly their birthdays too. There are companies who send out cards for you, online sources you can use easily and there are websites that remind you when someone's birthday is to make this easy. Ask me for info on these companies by sending me an email to katrina@ksawamarketing.com!

These tips are for any type of business, retail, service or product. I am always curious as to how a store is going to follow up with me. I shop there, I write a check, and they have my address and phone number ' yet 9 out of 10 times ' absolutely NO follow up marketing! Only do the larger stores put me on their mailing list and send me mailers and/or emails (like Linens & Things, Cost Plus and Fashion Bug); these retailers know just when I come in because I normally always get another coupon in the mail right after to come back again. The one that does follow up with me understands that repeat business is 5-10 times easier to get than new business.

So, not only do you need to follow up after new people you meet to GET their business or referrals and build those relationships, but you also have to cultivate those relationships over time so they keep you on top of their minds in case something comes up where they need your products or services or someone they know does.

(c) Copyright 2008 K.Sawa Marketing Katrina Sawa is an Award-Winning Relationship Marketing Coach who's helped hundreds of small business owners take dramatic steps in their businesses to get them to the next level in business, revenues and life. She offers one-on-one coaching, group coaching and do-it-yourself marketing planning products. Go online now to get started with her Free Report and Free Audio at http://www.jumpstartyourmarketing.com

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

How to Overcome Sales Objections

In sales, objections are great! Yes that's right,
objections are at the heart of an adrenaline surge for any
professional sales person. You see when someone raises an
objection to you, what it really means is that potential
customer is possibly interested in what you have to off but
you haven't addressed all their questions yet!

If this happens welcome it with open arms! It is a signal
that you need to go back and find out exactly what they
want, get their questions answered and get the order
signed. They are already listening to you.

If you need to clarify what has been covered so far ask
them,'You told me that. (state what they have told you so
far).. Is that right?' If you get a no find out the correct
answer, if yes, move on as it was not an objection but a
smoke screen to delay placing the order.

Remember price is never the issue, cost or their budget may
be, but showing value is vital to getting a sale. If you
can show your prospect how your product or service will add
value, solve a problem or make their life better in ways
they expressed as potential issues for them to you, you can
get the order.

Another area key to closing the sale is that you have built
the right rapport, simply put, if someone doesn't know,
like and trust you, you will never get the order from them
no matter how much value you show them!

A key area when fact finding is to establish your clients
budget and show them the value of your product and services
with the benefits and uniqueness to them. No point wasting
your time or theirs if they have a budget of say $100 and
your product is $1000. If that is the case move on and find
a new customer.

Possible phrases that crop up as objections. I want to
think it over, I want to check with more suppliers ,Your
price is too high, I have to speak with my partner, I'm
happy with my current supplier ,We've spent our annual
budget, Get back to me in 6 months

Remember most of these phrases are delay tactics, they give
the buyer more thinking time, or they are just excuses in
the main! They usually arise when either you haven't
qualified the prospect sufficiently, you haven't
established enough rapport so they like and trust what you
are telling them is credible. Maybe you haven't established
a need from them yet or worse still your presentation is
weak and needs attention, your belief in what you're
promoting may not be convincing enough.

For future reference, identify all possible objections
write them down and have an answer ready to address them.
Ask yourself, what might people say to get out of
committing to your offering?

A final point- there is power in the word No - No is good,
no sometimes means no not now, every no is closer to the
next yes, don't take no's personally this is business, It
usually takes around 7 no's before sale is made. Each no
moves you closer to the sale.

Would you like more options to improve your sales
conversion rate? Jacqui Tillyard offers a range of coaching
solutions to help you achieve business success. Is it time
you realised what potential you might have? Visit
http://www.jacquitillyard.co.uk Discover FREE simple steps
to fast forward your business. Jacqui Tillyard-NLP Rapid
Result Expert, Realising Your True Potential Today.
http://www.jacquitillyard.co.uk jacqui@jacquitillyard.co.uk

Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Savvy Customer

Copyright 2008 Curtis Bingham

AFTER $14 MILLION dollars and four years, our customers don't want to buy what we have? What a depressing statement from a VP of Sales. How many times can you afford to have a new product fail in the marketplace? How many customers can you afford to lose because you don't meet their needs?

Shortest time to market no longer cuts it, nor does lowest cost. And excellent customer service is now expected. As the old rules for achieving competitive advantage fade away, what can you do to secure customers and vanquish competitors?

The only true, sustainable competitive advantage is an intimate understanding of customer needs. You can develop such "clear customer insight" in many ways and use it to win profits and the loyalty of "savvy" customers.

Learn About Your Customers

Often, we attempt to understand our customers by employing approximations of customer needs and wants, such as third-party market research, anecdotal evidence from sales or service organizations, competitive activities, website tracking, and, worse, our own opinions. We need to go directly to the source, gathering real, direct customer insight that's accurate, current, and meaningful, and upon which we can bet our businesses.

Not every customer has something to offer. The 80/20 rule applies here: select the most valuable 20 percent of your customers according to an accepted metric such as strategic fit, gross revenue, gross margin, cost to support, or frequency of purchase, and cultivate long-term, two-way relationships with them. Ask them to share with you their candid opinions. Go visit them and observe the use of your product or service in actual environments.

While customers are critical to learn from, prospects may be even more valuable. In many cases, customers keep doing what they've always done, and are poor predictors of new technologies or other marketplace shifts. But prospects are not already infatuated with you or your current products, and will communicate more realistic views of the changing marketplace. So listen to prospects as well as customers.

Information to Gather

What information needs to be gathered to obtain clear customer insight?

*Working environment* Ask, "What is the environment that our customers are working in?" "Who is using the product vs. who is the buyer?" Understanding the environment may provide clues as to how your products are used and how their use could be improved, there by increasing the value to customers. You need to know how customers are or would be using your product or service.

Ideally, you should go directly to your customer site and watch the product or service being used. In this way, you can gather information that may not be evident as someone describes their environment and can't be uncovered using surveys or other impersonal means.

*New opportunities* The greatest value in gathering firsthand customer insight may be the ability to uncover new opportunities, either for new applications of existing products or for new products. During direct customer interviews, you can uncover latent needs that customers may not even know they have. Frequently, your company will be uniquely capable of addressing these needs.

Acting on the Results

Without this step, nothing else even matters. Here are a few ideas:

1. Draw a poster-sized picture of your stereotypical customer and post it in the most prominent spot you can. Give this stereotypical customer a name. Record on the picture all of the details about the customer that you know, including the environment they are in, their worries and concerns, and their most painful needs.

2. Laminate smaller versions of the poster and hand them out at meetings. Before making decisions, ask yourselves if your customers (by name) will even care about the decision you are making. If they do, will your decision alleviate their pain?

3. Examine your current products and services for problems you are causing your customers. Are you destroying your relationships despite yourself? Make a list of everything that you can do to improve. Rank each improvement according to the value to the customer and the difficulty to implement. Select the most critical and the easiest to implement and fix it this week.

4. Explore new areas you can profitably address. What areas of significant pain (or latent needs) did you uncover? How can you provide added services or products to address these needs? Flesh these out and review them with customers and prospects.

5. Have customers rank your forthcoming new features or product and service offerings. Describe the changes to existing or new products and services you are considering based on your newfound insight. Have your customers and prospects rank your changes. You might have them spread $100 over each change to signify both order of importance and relative value, or rank them from 1 to 10 to signify order of importance. Determine how much they might pay by either asking for a figure or using comparative methods.

6. Create an implementation plan that balances real customer insight with business reality. Create a resource allocation plan that heavily weights the customer value and more lightly weighs the strategic fit of the change with the corporate direction, as well as the difficulty/cost of implementation.

7. Execute. Armed with real customer insight, you are prepared to keep your most valuable customers as your gre a test allies in thwarting competitors.

The only sustainable competitive advantage is clear customer insight. By leveraging your customer knowledge, you can make strategic and tactical business decisions that your customers and prospects will appreciate. Even better, they will pay for them, increasing your revenue, profits and overall success.

Curtis N. Bingham, President of The Predictive Consulting Group, helps organizations dramatically increase customer acquisition, retention, & profitability. For more information about his new Customer Experience Audit, Customer Strategy, or Chief Customer Officers, visit his website at http://www.predictiveconsulting.com or his blog at http://www.curtisbingham.com .

Friday, April 25, 2008

3 Secrets To Help You Make More Sales

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me "How can I make more sales?" Well, lets just say, I would have a heck of a lot of nickels! The fact is the answer is different for everyone. I would have to look at your product and analyze your entire process to tell you exactly where the problem is. Lucky for you, there are 3 basic secrets I can share with you to increase your sales right off the bat.

These methods will work regardless of what you are selling or how you are selling it. That's what makes it so beautiful! You see it doesn't matter if your prospect is hearing, watching or reading your sales pitch; these tactics will work for you if you apply them consistently.

#1 Build Impulse:

Impulse is your prospects "willingness to buy." You must understand that your customers impulse is at ZERO when they first come across your product. It is YOUR job to raise that impulse to the point of purchase through a series of well delivered messages. This is called a "presentation" or if you're old school (like me) it's called a "Sales Pitch."

Your pitch has to be well thought out in order to raise impulse effectively. You must anticipate those points in the pitch where the prospects impulse level will drop. Use the products hot spots to raise the impulse back up and always close at the very peak of their impulse level for best results.

#2 Leverage The Law of Averages

The number one way to double your sales is to double the amount of people you expose to your product. Every product and every salesperson will have an inherent law of average. This law represents the relationship between the customers that refused to buy and those that actually bought. For example a 1:10 law of average means that you must get 9 no's before you arrive at one sale.

Remember this is an AVERAGE. It's not to be taken literally. I may sell the first 2 customers I talk to and then get 18 "No's" in a row. At the end of the day you average out your yeses and nos to get your LOA. Now, lets say you wanted to make 20 sales today, if you spoke to 100 people today and only made 10 sales then how can you make 20 sales tomorrow? You got it! Talk to 200 people.

#3 Up-Selling

I think this one of the most common areas where marketers and sales people drop the ball. They invest all this time and money into finding prospects then when they develop a buyer they just stop selling. Hello??? You have a buyer here. Buyers BUY. So keep selling! Suggest other products that might benefit the customer or perhaps a volume discount a second item. Whatever the case may be, you have to sell more or at least generate another lead from this sale. Ask them what friend or family member could benefit from an item like this of their own.

All you have to do is ask? Whats the worst that can happen, they might say "No, I'll just take one." Big deal! Let me ask you a question... when you go to McDonald's and order a value mealdont they ask you if you'd like to "super size it"? Does anyone ever say "No never mind, I just wont eat anything at all now because you asked me to buy more." Of course not! So what are you afraid of? Sell. Sell. Sell!