Spark Your Sales - By Mark Mandell

Copyright 2008 by The Spark Organization, LLC

SPARK YOUR SALES BY MARK MANDELL, DC, MBA www.TheVitalityDepot.com www.SparkYourCompany.com

Register for a Spark Your Sales Workshop at www.Sparkinar.com Phone - 866-940-3656

Dr. Mark Mandell is an international motivational and business development speaker. He was the Medical Staff Chairman for the 1994 World Cup Opening Ceremonies At Age 23. Dr. Mandell was also a Chicago Bulls NBA cheerleader. He has been an Industry Consultant to Fortune 100 and small businesses His clients Increased sales in the 4th quarter of 2008 by 36% To 260%.

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This book is dedicated to my family and friends who have encouraged and cheered for me throughout many years. I have been blessed in having so many wonderful people in my life. To some people, the currency of success may be riches, but mine has always been love. The love of a dear friend, some lifelong and great mentors and others new companions, in which the feeling of connectedness is always strong. The love of a relative – from my always loving grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, brothers, sister and parents, all of whom I wish I could see more often. But there is no greater, deeper and truer love than that of a loving spouse and adoring children. To my wife Jessica and my incredible twins, Hannah and Joshua, you are the most wonderful treasure in my life. Thank you for being an extraordinary part of my life and reminding me about what really matters in success.

Spark Your Sales

CONTENTS Introduction 1. The Lifeblood of the Company 2. Start Sales With A Spark 3. When Are You Selling? 4. Spark Sales in Your Store 5. Spark Your Sales in The Customer’s Office 6. Spark Your Sales Over the Phone 7.

Spark Your Sales Over the Internet

8. Spark Your Sales at Trade Shows 9. Spark Your Sales Through Distributors 10. The Long-Term Sale 11. Winning Sales Contests 12. Sparking It All Together

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INTRODUCTION The purpose of this book is to guide you on the path from ordinary to EXTRAORDINARY.

Every day we are faced with

opportunities to do better, but all too often we fail to see and take hold of what lies right in front of us. It’s like standing knee deep in the water of success, but not knowing that we can take a drink. By transitioning yourself from acting ordinary to being extraordinary, you are elevating each touch point with a customer and will be en route to success. Transformation is never easy. The first few steps are always uncomfortable. Keep moving forward though, because the uneasy feeling is actually a good sign. It shows that you are growing and improving. And soon enough, the changes begin to feel normal. This is when you have reached your next level of success. When my son Joshua was five years old, I was tucking him into the bed the night before his first ever soccer practice. He didn’t seem comfortable, so I asked him what was wrong. “Dad,” he asked. “Is it normal for little kids to be nervous about soccer?” “Sure,” I smiled. “You have never played soccer before with a team, so you don’t know what to expect. You are stepping into something new and unfamiliar. So, of course, it’s going to feel strange and you can feel nervous. It’s okay.”

Spark Your Sales

“Thanks Dad.” “And you know what else, Josh?” “What?” “Every other little kid who is signed up for soccer that is going to bed right now is probably a little nervous too. You’re not the only one.” “Really?” “Yes, Josh. And tomorrow you have an opportunity to do something extraordinary. Even if you’re nervous, you can do this.” “What is it, Dad?” “Well, tomorrow, there’s going to be a lot of little kids out there who are nervous.

You can do something great by

recognizing if a kid is nervous tomorrow, going over to them and being their friend. Do you think you want to do that?” “I think so.” “OK. Sleep tight. I love you.” “I love you, too.” The next day, Joshua woke up, dressed himself and got his soccer ball. I found him standing on my side of the bed waiting for me to wake up at five AM. “I’m ready Daddy.” “Josh, it’s still a little early. Why don’t you go back to sleep?” 5

“I can’t sleep. I’m ready to go to soccer practice. I don’t think I’m nervous anymore.” I got myself up. We had some breakfast and played some games. Finally, after what seemed like days to Joshua, we headed out to the soccer fields. We were the first ones there. So, Joshua and I ran out to the field and started kicking the ball back and forth.

Little by little the other kids were arriving with their

parents. Most of the kids ran onto the field and started kicking, running and chasing their balls. One boy got out of his car and held onto his father’s leg, screaming. His father was a big guy, but he could not get the boy off his leg and could not get him to stop screaming. Actually it was more like wailing. You could hear it clear across the field. His boy did not want to play soccer. “Dad,” Joshua said. “Look. I think that boy is nervous about soccer. I think I’ll go be his friend and help him.” Astonished, I watched as my little five year old son picked up his soccer ball and ran to the sidelines. He approached the little boy and said, “Hi, I’m Joshua. What’s your name?” The little boy was caught off guard by Joshua approaching him and stopped crying. The silence was noticeable and all the parents turned to see what made him stop. The big father looked down at his son and Joshua. “I’m Carson,” the little boy sniffled.

Spark Your Sales

“Hi Carson!” said Joshua. “Want to play some soccer with me?” “S-s-sure.” Joshua now bent down to pick up Carson’s ball in his other arm, in quite an amazing balancing act. The two of them ran off into the field, dropped the balls and started kicking them. The parents along the sideline looked at me incredulously. I smiled and felt like Father of the Year! My son loves playing sports, but he may or may not become a superstar athlete. He may or may not play college or professional sports.

He may or may not become a sports

champion. But no matter what he achieves, I may never be as proud of him as I was on that first day of soccer. Five year old Joshua made the move from ordinary to extraordinary and impacted all the adults who witnessed him that day. Like Joshua, each of us should strive to overcome our fears and BE EXTRAORDINARY!

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1 SALES ARE THE LIFEBLOOD Sales are the lifeblood of a company. Sales are the fire. Sales are how a company earns money and has an operating business.

No matter what

business you are in, you need

Spark selling is

to have incoming revenue in order to stay in business, and

helping a customer to discover their true

that

incoming

generated

by

revenue the

is

sales

department. In turn, with the money from the incoming

needs and then

revenue,

working with the

purchases

the

company inventory,

manufactures an order, pays

customer to make sure those needs are properly met.

its suppliers and provides a service or product to its customers. The revenue from sales provides money to hire employees, pay wages and build facilities.

business process starts and runs with SELLING.

Spark Your Sales

The entire

Despite some bad connotations with snake oil salesmen, selling is actually an honorable profession and often the most lucrative within a company.

In most companies, the top

performing sales professionals are the most highly compensated because of the value that they provide.

To a Spark Sales

Professional, selling is not about trickery or misleading statements to induce a customer to buy something they don’t need. Spark selling is helping a customer to discover their true needs and then working with the customer to make sure those needs are properly met. The negative version of selling is “scamming,” in which the scammer is trying to outwit the buyer into making a purchase that they don’t need or want. Professional involve

selling

helping

may that

True success in sales

customer to think beyond

requires a passion

the initial product or service to see the bigger picture, but

for the work.

selling should always be conducted

with

the

customer’s best interest at heart. A Spark Sales Professional learns what a potential customer needs or wants and shows them how his or her product or service fills that void. A professional insurance salesman will 9

educate you about financial risk you may have from injury, catastrophe or death and then will provide you with a policy to protect you from it. A professional retail clothing sales clerk will show you the latest fashions and help you to select wardrobe items that fit you and highlight your best features. A professional industrial parts sales representative will demonstrate how the latest technology has created better, safer or more cost effective parts for you to include in your product. A professional consultant will talk with you about the problems in your organization and provide you with answers and a plan to correct them. In each case, selling is about adding value. Just like any profession, if you love the work that you are doing, then it shows in the results. My grandfather Dr. Emanuel Mandell was a chiropractor in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s in New Jersey. He graduated from chiropractic college, and was licensed in Vermont and Florida. Although chiropractic was legal and licensed in most states, New Jersey was not one of them. New Jersey, though, was my grandfather’s home and he wanted to help his community in Linden. During his career, my grandfather was arrested 13 times for providing chiropractic care under the charge of practicing medicine without a license in New Jersey, even though there was no way for him to get licensed. Like many chiropractors of his day, my grandfather had an incredible passion for his work and his ability to help patients. He

Spark Your Sales

spoke with the police chief about chiropractic and the police chief became a patient. Each time the police chief had to serve the arrest warrant, he and my grandfather would pick up the chiropractic table, carry it out to the chief’s car and hang a sign on the front door of the office for patients to go see Dr. Mandell at the City Jail. All this so my grandfather could continue to help his patients. Did it work? You bet it did! My father remembers as a young boy bringing dinner to the jail and having to walk past dozens of patients lined up on the steps waiting to sign with the deputy and walk into a jail cell to be adjusted by my grandfather. A few years later, when Governor Hughes of New Jersey signed chiropractic into law, my grandfather, who was president of the New Jersey Chiropractic Society at the time, was standing right behind him, smiling from ear to ear. I keep a photograph of that signing hanging in my office. Do you have that level of passion for your job, for your company and for your product or service that you believe it’s important enough to go to jail for the right to sell it? If they outlawed your product, would you continue to sell it just because it’s the morally right thing to do, and you believe in its vital importance? And if you indeed feel that passionately about your product that you would be arrested and continue to sell it in the 11

face of the law, would your customers also feel that same level of passion and visit you in jail so they could buy from you? That’s the power of passion. If you have this energy for your job, then

Every touch point,

your

customers

will

too.

There are some businesses

every contact,

that at first glance don’t seem

every phone call

to require selling.

Take a

plumber for example, who

and every interaction with a customer can lead

comes to your house to unclog a sink. Is he selling when he shows up at your door? Well, the plumber’s marketing and

to a sale.

advertising made you aware of how to reach him. But when he answered the phone and

arrived at your house, he was actually selling his services based on a timely response to your call and maintaining a professional manner. If he answered the phone rudely, you may have moved on to the next plumber in the phone book. If he showed up at your house late, did shoddy work and left your place a mess, you would not have called him again. His “selling” was conducted by how he provided his service. He was selling his services for your next project.

Spark Your Sales

Therein lies the real truth about selling. It is not done only by the sales team and customer service department. Selling should occur throughout the entire company by EVERYONE in the company. Every touch point, every contact, every phone call and every interaction with a customer can lead TO a sale or lead AWAY from a sale. Therefore, every touch point, every contact, every phone call and every interaction with a customer should be viewed as a business

opportunity,

because no matter who

The difference between

you are in the company accounting,

order taking and order

billing,

assembly,

purchasing,

information

technology,

making is the additional value that you are

marketing, data analyst,

providing.

human resources, designer or maintenance, when you

are communicating with a customer, you are either leading them to a sale or leading them away from a sale. So, like it or not, no matter who you are within a company, you are selling. Now, an obvious question to ask is how does a maintenance facility person sell when no customer ever comes to the facility?

That person never speaks with or even sees a 13

customer. Selling involves the reputation of the company. The maintenance person is supporting the selling operations team and their environment. The maintenance person also is creating the professional reputation of the company by maintaining the facility to impress customers, partners, suppliers and employees. Decisions to conduct business with a company will involve the image that company portrays. A clean, orderly facility provides a very different image from a filthy, messy one, and will certainly attract more business. So, if you ask me if I think vacuuming a floor can impact sales, I say yes. Everyone in a company can have an impact on sales – whether those sales, be they for today or tomorrow or the tomorrow after that. There is also a distinct difference between order TAKING and order MAKING. If a customer calls in with an order, and a customer service representative simply takes the order and enters it into the computer, then that is order taking. It is a personalized way to check out and pay for an order. But if that same customer service representative asks the right questions of the customer, educates the customer about the products and services offered by the company, and connects the customer with the right items to meet his or her needs, then that customer service representative is MAKING an order. The difference between order taking and order making is the additional value that you are providing. Order takers

Spark Your Sales

are just simply order takers. Order makers are salespeople. Which ones do you want talking with your customers? I often hear from people that Marketing drives sales. I especially hear this from people who work in marketing departments. I do agree with the comment. In a perfect world, the

marketing

researches,

team

designs,

tests,

develops,

launches,

advertises

Spark Salespeople are the revenue warriors who battle

and, of course, markets the products.

for sales every day for the

But the

sake of the company.

marketing team is all about DEVELOPING the

right products in the right packaging at the right price and COMMUNICATING all of this to the right audience at the right time. Marketing should let the world know who your company is and make the phone ring. Marketing is absolutely an essential part of the selling process that is occurring throughout the company. Spark Sales Professionals, however, close the deal. They are working on the front lines of the company, getting the signed agreement and ringing up the cash register. EVERYONE in the company should be involved with selling, but salespeople are

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the revenue warriors who battle for sales every day for the sake of the company. In this view, the Spark Sales Professionals are the protectors of the lifeblood of the company. When a company is growing, there’s money for pay increases, bonuses, raises, perks, benefits and other investments. There are more budgeted funds to hire staffing, pursue new projects and purchase equipment. Growing a company’s sales offers greater opportunities for everyone. So, let’s figure out how to spark more selling, so we can all benefit!

Spark Your Sales

2 START SALES WITH A SPARK The single biggest key to sparking your sales to success is JUST START DOING IT NOW. So many people get stuck by the fear of rejection that they procrastinate about starting and deny themselves the opportunity to actually sell. They can think of every negative reason why an idea won’t sell and literally talk themselves into a state of fear. The result is that they just don’t get started. So, if you want to succeed at selling, just get started.

SPARK 1: SHOWING UP I learned the first spark of selling, SHOWING UP, in my first sales job. I was selling home heating oil contracts door to door to new home buyers, and practically anyone else who would talk with me. Home heating oil is a fairly commoditized product, and my employer, Dawn Fuel, was in a competitive market with about a dozen other companies. We spruced up the offer by including a furnace cleaning and 50 free gallons for their first year (home oil tanks came in 250, 500 and 1000 gallon sizes). I worked this job two and a half months each year from early June to late August, during my summer break from college, and in those two 17

and a half months, I could outsell the other sales representatives who worked the whole year! Bill, the owner of Dawn Fuel, wanted to know my secret. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I didn’t have a secret. Bill had me talk with the team about my sales pitch, how I overcame objections and even the clothes I wore, but my suggestions didn’t seem to help. It wasn’t until years later that I finally figured out the special difference. The key to my success

Stupidity has no boundaries.

was SHOWING UP. It wasn’t that the other sales reps didn’t go to work and go door to door. They did. But I had daytime college classes, so I could only go door to door Monday through Friday from 5pm till dark and on the weekends from 9-5. It sounds obvious now, but I SHOWED UP at my prospects’ homes when they were home. The other sales reps worked from 9-5 on Monday through Friday, when most people weren’t home! Sure they were working a 40-hour week, but what good is it to show up and try to sell if your prospect isn’t even there? I have seen this same problem at enough companies to know that SHOWING UP is a problem. I worked with a company on the west coast of the United States that started answering their phones at 9am Pacific time, although they deal with clients across

Spark Your Sales

the United States. That means that clients in New York and the rest of the east coast have to wait until noon to call them because of the time difference. How many of those sales are going to their competitors? Their competition has a three hour head start on them EVERY DAY. So what does SHOWING UP mean? It means being there when and where your customers are. You are probably saying to yourself, “How stupid can those people be – trying to sell to people at the wrong times?” And you are right. Stupidity outwits the best laid intelligent plans every time.

When stupidity goes up against intelligence,

somehow, stupidity always finds a way to win. Don’t believe me yet? Think about the best and most comprehensive plan that you have ever put together in your life. Did any simple, stupid, little thing happen that upset that plan? Someone decided to pull the electric plug from the lights, someone forgot to bring plates to the company picnic, someone brought the wrong tool, someone gave you the measurements in centimeters but failed to tell you they weren’t inches, and so on. There are a million ways that stupidity can worm its way into any plan – and it always does. So remember that as simple as it may sound, the first key spark to successful sales is SHOWING UP.

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SPARK 2: KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING The second key spark is almost as simple – KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

I am not a fan of trial by fire. Throwing a

person into a situation without any training sets him or her up for failure, and I am a believer in setting people up for success. That means you need to know your product, your offer, your customer, your company, your market and your competition. At the very least, you need to know a bit more than what your customer knows. At the very most, you should be the leading expert on what you sell.

Your

company should provide

To be successful in

for this training.

If they

don’t, then ask for it. If

sales, you need to know your stuff and know what you are

they still don’t, then make the investment to learn it yourself. Product

trying to achieve.

training

usually occurs at the start of your job and then often gets overlooked as time

goes on until a new product is introduced. Over time, everyone develops their own way of talking about the product and falls into a rut. Sales representatives can even start to believe some of their own stretched truths about the product or service once they

Spark Your Sales

repeat it dozens of times. Salespeople can pick up some rumors from customers about the value of their products and mistakenly start to incorporate them into sales presentations. Periodically stopping to do a product facts check can be very helpful in making sure that everything

is

communicated

Knowing your

accurately. A simple exercise for a Spark Sales Professional to do is to write down all the facts and talking

customer is critical.

points they use to talk about their product or service and have it reviewed by a manager.

It’s

amazing how some assumed and oft repeated product facts actually are falsehoods. Special sales offers change over time, especially offers made by sales representatives to customers. These offers can comprise as much as 100% of any company’s business. New offers communicated to sales representatives should be done in writing all of the time. Customers have a knack for finding the loopholes in any special deals and taking advantage of them.

And sales

representatives who are incentivized by commissions and bonuses are encouraged to garner sales and make customers happy. To ensure that special offers are communicated and sold properly, there should be a check and balance system within the company 21

so that someone other than the sales representative can review the orders. This review does not have to occur at the point of sale, but it should occur within 24 hours. Although most of deals the sales representatives make are kosher, mistakes can and do occur, more often guided by overzealousness for a sale than intentional outwitting of the system. Knowing your customer is critical. If you have the chance to prepare prior to a customer meeting, reviewing information on them can put you a step ahead of any competitor. Visiting the customer’s website is key, but also Googling them or asking other people about them can be extraordinarily insightful. If you don’t have the luxury of researching a customer, use the conversation during the sale to learn more about them. Are they environmentally conscious and focus on “green” products? Is there a particular charity which they support? Is their company in the midst of a major new initiative or project like an acquisition? How can you best serve that customer and provide them with the maximum value? Simply, by knowing what makes them “tick.” Equally as critical is knowing your company, inside and out. This goes far beyond knowing the company history and its public relations statements. REALLY know your company by learning how business gets done and who does it. Learn how to fast track an order. Learn how to customize a special order. Learn how to get a new policy approved. Learn who the go-to people

Spark Your Sales

are. In essence, learn how to work within the channels of your business and behind-the-scenes. This expertise makes you an extraordinarily valuable resource to your customers. Understanding your market and your competition better than your customers is the last component to knowing what you are doing. Read trade journals and industry reports. Talk to other suppliers and manufacturers. Join industry trade groups, and follow their newsletters. Not only will this help you to spot trends, but you increase your value as a Sale Professional by being able to communicate this market information to your customers. Selling clothes? Read the fashion magazines. Selling medicines? Read the medical journals. Selling software? Read the technology blogs. Know your best sources for information and stay on top of them. No matter what you are selling, a Spark Sales Professional should be an industry expert.

SPARK 3: KNOWING YOUR GOALS The third spark is KNOWING YOUR GOALS. If you have goals, you understand what you are trying to achieve. I once worked for a company that was absolutely ecstatic when they sold two to three units of their product in a month. I remember my first trade show for them because my seminar partner and I sold six units in one weekend for them and the company was astounded. 23

So we did it again at the next trade show, and then repeated it over and over and have now laid those records in the dust as we continued to figure out how to grow the sales. How did we do this? We made this the primary product sale at trade shows.

We laser focused the sales goals, the

commissions and the sales representatives’ attention solely on this product. It was all management talked about for months, so it soon became all the sales

Having a defined goal to

representatives

talked about.

As we

reached higher level of

achieve is an incredible psychological motivator for Spark Sales

sales success, we then worked to figure out how to get to the next level.

Along

Professionals to do just a little bit more.

with

marketing improvements

and a

focused company-wide effort,

we

ultimately

able

were to

achieve monthly sales over 100 times the original levels! The funny thing about knowing your goals is that you often figure out how to hit them.

When you think about

something long and hard enough, the brain somehow figures out

Spark Your Sales

how to get there. True Spark Sales Professionals somehow figure out how to hit their prescribed goals, no matter how aggressive they may seem. Make a few extra phone calls each day. Approach more walk-in customers. Learn how to cross-sell a special product better. Whatever it takes. Knowing your goals means that you write them down, look at them and read them aloud each day until you believe in your ability to achieve them.

SPARK 4: HAVE THE RIGHT POSITIVE ATTITUDE The fourth key spark to success in selling is HAVE THE RIGHT POSITIVE ATTITUDE. You need to be properly motivated yourself in order to properly motivate your customer into buying. Attitude is absolutely everything and is absolutely contagious. Did you ever meet a person who had such incredibly negative energy that by walking into a room, he literally sucked the smiles off of everyone’s face and brought a feeling of awkwardness? If you never met such a person, then go look in the mirror because you might actually be him! To be a truly great Spark Sale Professional, you need to be the exact opposite of that person. You need to be positive energy. You need to be able to instantly generate smiles and a feeling of comfort and approachability when you enter a room or answer the phone. 25

Take a look at yourself in the mirror, and see if you would want to do business with yourself. Do you match up with the people in your industry? If you are selling fitness products, are you in healthy shape? If you are selling fashion clothing, do you dress and look fashionable? If you are selling medical drugs, do you look intelligent, like you master the science surrounding the drug and the disease? Having the right attitude is partly about

You need people to

looking like you belong, but it’s also about feeling

want to talk with you. You need people to want to like you. You

like you belong.

When

you feel that you belong in your

job,

CONFIDENT.

you

are

You walk,

need people to want to

speak and carry yourself

do business with you.

with confidence. It gives you a bit of a swagger. You are more believable and

more

inspirational

with confidence. And you sell a lot more. Here is the difference. When you have confidence in yourself, in your product and in your company, you start off a sales call knowing that you can help the prospect. They can sense that

Spark Your Sales

from you and will connect in that belief in yourself, your product and your company. This is very different from starting off a sales call feeling like a total loser who is expecting not to get the sale. Don’t feel like a loser. Feel like a winner. Believe that you can accomplish the sale. Whether you approach the customer in your store, in their office, at a tradeshow or over the phone, believe in yourself first. Most of the time I have that belief in myself when I am selling, but there are also times that I need to reset my attitude. There are tons of books on this subject (visit us online

Don’t feel like a loser.

at

Feel like a winner.

www.SparkYourCompa ny.com

for

some

suggestions), so try to build a library for when you need them. I have several bookshelves of motivational books that I peruse on a weekly basis to stay optimistic. But I will tell you what else I do when my confidence level drops. I use a repetitive mantra – “You can do this Mark, Mark you can do this.” I say this over and over in my head, and if no one is around, then I repeat it out loud over and over. Usually after a few repetitions, I can feel my confidence coming back up and believe that I can actually do this task. I

27

imagine my confidence meter like a gas gauge going from near empty and getting back to full. I also use a lot of visioning techniques to strengthen the right attitude. When I made cold calls to sell insurance, I would start my day by visioning a stack of signed insurance policies next to me.

Care for your

Today, before I begin each

sales call, I spend a few moments to

customers,

focus my mind and envision walking

or your

out with a signed agreement.

I

picture in my mind shaking the

competitors

customer’s hand to seal the deal

will.

and hearing “Yes.” “You can do this Mark. Mark, you can do this,” repeats in my head. I AM READY NOW!

SPARK 5: MAINTAIN CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS The fifth key spark to success in selling is MAINTAIN CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS. Too often, salespeople focus on getting the next new customer and neglect their current customer base. Take care of your customers, and your customers will take care of you. Customer attrition will happen naturally, but Spark Sales Professionals will slow that attrition and develop ways to serve them better. Quality issues and problems certainly affect

Spark Your Sales

customers, but the feeling that you don’t care about them will push customers away faster than anything else. Two-thirds of customers who leave a company cite a feeling of indifference from the company as their reason for leaving. They felt like a number, or that the company didn’t care about them. The best way to take care of your customers is to give them more than what they expect and exceed their satisfaction levels. Here’s why. A

All it takes is INCREDIBLE customer

customer who is “satisfied” gets what she wants but doesn’t talk about it. An

care.

engaged customer gets what she wants PLUS more. She will talk about that experience to many others – as many as ten other potential customers! Don’t we all want our customers talking and bragging about us? What better way to generate more new customers. Word of mouth advertising is the strongest buying influence and is absolutely free. All it takes is INCREDIBLE customer care! What’s the best way to maintain relationships with your customers? Communicate with them regularly. Communication is a two-way street.

Sending monthly emails, newsletters and

postcards is a good step, but it’s communication in only one 29

direction. You need to hear feedback from the customer. Sure, the customers wants to know what is going in your business, but even more importantly, they want you to know what’s going on in their business and how you can help them. So provide a forum to make this happen.

Visit or call your

customers on a weekly to quarterly basis, listen to them and respond to

Your Time is Worth

any questions from them. Even GE, the titan of companies, has a program in

which

they

will

place

Money

their

employees in their major customers’ facilities to do just that – listen and respond! When my staff consults with companies, one of the first things we coach the CEO to do is to meet with the top customers and make sure that the company is meeting their needs and then some. So as a Spark Sales Professional, you want to absolutely make sure that you are maintaining those relationships. You also need to communicate correctly. One of the most annoying things from a customer’s perspective is the pesky salesperson coming around once a month “to see how things are going.” Know what? Things are going just fine. See you next month, buddy. Too many sales representatives fail to respect their customers’ time. If you are going to stop by to see a customer,

Spark Your Sales

make sure you have a message of value for that customer each and every time. Make the customer look forward to seeing you because of what you provide them. Bring by a list with the monthly special offers, drop off a new sample, deliver a special order, offer to speak with their sales representatives, share some industry data or have some specific survey questions to ask them. Whatever you do, make sure that in exchange for taking up the customer’s time, you are providing something of value. The value of this time should be an advantage to you as well.

Your time is worth money, so you need to maximize

opportunities for yourself when you make a sales call. Is there a second sale opportunity? Can you help the customer to sell more units? Is it possible to get a referral from the customer? The basic point of all selling is to remember to maximize the value of your time. In a perfect sales world, every customer you speak with would buy the maximum amount from you. In a realistic world, even major league baseball players are celebrated for getting on base three out of ten times at bat. Working smarter and utilizing the Five Key Sparks to Successful Selling will get you one step closer to achieving the perfect sales world. When can you get started on that journey? Right now.

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3 WHEN ARE YOU SELLING? When I travel to lecture for companies and conventions, after the speech, I am often approached by folks from the audience who will say, “This is nice and interesting Mark, but I’m not a salesperson.” “Do you have a job?” “Yes.” “How’d you get it?” “I saw an ad, interviewed for it and got hired.” “Did you sell yourself during the interview or did you send someone else to do your interview for you? Isn’t that how you got the job?” “I hadn’t thought about it like that.” We are always selling, whether we think about it or not. When we are dating, we “sell” ourselves to the guy or girl we think is attractive or interesting. We “sell” our advice to our children by convincing them that we know something. We “sell” our stories at parties by participating in conversations and interjecting humor, items of interest or familiar names. When I venture out into the world, I try to “sell” smiles. I want people to have enjoyed the few minutes of time that we

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interacted, and I see that currency of success in their faces when they walk away with a smile. When I walk into the health club each morning, I am greeted by the same woman. Most days, she is in a good mood, but like anyone else, she has her days and can be overwhelmed. She can tell me about her husband’s health problems, some large bill or the furnace that broke in her house. On those days I will respond, “Wow, sounds like you have some issues.

This is when it’s

important to remember

It doesn’t matter

the blessings and great things we DO have in our

what you are selling,

life.” She will pause for a

but the more that you

second while she starts

are “open for

reframing her thinking and

business,” the more

then she smiles. Ka-Ching! The smile cash register

you will sell.

rings up another sale! Anybody who has worked with me will say

that I am always working. I am always talking with people about ways that we can help you and help your business. Why? Because I am passionate about what I do. I eat, breathe and live my business. I simply love my work. 33

When you love your work, it becomes your essence. When you love your work, it becomes your identity. When you love your work, it is no longer “work.” How you identify yourself in relation to your job will often predict your success at it. Too many people are not happy in their jobs. How can you be passionate about your work and sell that excitement about it to others when you are not happy in your job? The truth is that you can’t. If your job doesn’t excite and energize you, then find a way to change your perception of that job, or find a new job. The 9 to 5 mentality maintains that you are only working for eight hours a day and after that, you are free to do something else. But if you are engaged with your work, then you are thinking and talking about it all day long because you are inspired about it. You are finding connections to customers, coming up with new sales concept and growing yourself. Now I am a big believer in work-life balance, so I don’t think being “on” 24 hours a day is the right way to have a successful career. With my business travel, I do have to make sacrifices regarding family time. But if you spend time with me, you’ll know quickly that I talk about my family a lot. In fact, my wife and my children are probably my most favorite subject to talk about. Why? Because I love having them in my thoughts and sharing the happiness and inspiration they have given me.

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Carrying around your work identity should not become intrusive into your family life, but you do need to carry it with you beyond the Monday through Friday 9 to 5 work week. Think of how many people you meet after hours and on the weekends. How many of those people know what you do? Do you know what kind of work these people do? This type of interaction is about networking. Off-hours networking to grow your business is a fantastic sales booster. People are connected to each other in amazing ways. How many times have you inadvertently met someone who turns out to know exactly the person you were trying to reach in a big company – and they were willing to make that introduction? If it hasn’t happened for you, then you are missing the off-hours networking opportunities.

35

Your social network has far-reaching opportunities. Often, the people closest to you can be some of your biggest promoters. Encourage your friends and family to talk about your services in a way that’s comfortable for them. It’s easier for them to sell you if you have a standard profession – like a chiropractor, landscaper or car dealer. It’s a bit harder for them to promote your services if you are highly specialized or in a technical field. Either way, they can best help you “We grow companies! We find the leaks in the sales and marketing programs

to

network

by

clear

and

having

a

simple

description of

your business. This is your 30-

and fix them. Our goal is to

second elevator pitch.

make your current sales

This

and marketing programs

introduce yourself when

less ‘leaky’ and get

someone asks what you

better results.”

do. You need to make it

is

how

you

so easy to remember, to say and to understand, that anyone can do it. Then, you need to say it A LOT. Break it down to its elemental simplicity. The fewer words you use, the better it probably is.

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After years of trying to explain the business development work that I do, involving sales and marketing strategies, sales organizations, systems development, sales team motivation, bonus programs, call center management and coaching, I managed to boil it down to this, when asked what we do. “We grow companies! We find the leaks in the sales and marketing programs and fix them. Our goal is to make your current sales and marketing programs less ‘leaky’ and get better results.” That’s simple enough for anyone to say, “Hey, I know someone who can help. He grows companies. He helps a sales team to get better results. He’s unbelievable! You should talk.” Why is this so important? Because each of us meets an amazing number of people each week – on the lines of the soccer field, in the grocery store, at church and at parties. And the first question people ask after our name is often, “So what is it that you do?” I have seen too many people blow this opportunity to pitch themselves and their companies with this free minute of advertising because they were not prepared. They either take 10 minutes to explain what they do or they shrug it off like they are too good to talk shop after hours. I have also seen some amazing responses in which people can tell you exactly what they do, who their company is and what kind of customer they are targeting, all in a smooth manner. 37

“I sell stylish wallets and belts made from the softest leather in the world mostly to small mom and pop retail shops.” (I was instantly intrigued about wanting to see those wallets and belts.) “I handle worry-free investing for folks wanting to retire with at least a million in assets.” “I chiropractor

am

a

whole

body

who

works

with

nutrition, exercises and stress relief techniques

to

advance

your

wellness.”

Whether you are in sales or not, you should

If you get a sales lead from the conversation, then you can hand

still promote

it off to someone in the sales

your company

department.

The opening of the

sale can be done by anyone, but the closing of the deal or order can usually be best done by a Spark Sales Professional.

when you introduce yourself.

Getting the

message out there about the company and product is the important thing. The simplicity of this is in the re-framing of how you introduce yourself: “I run the IT network for the best all-natural vitamin company.”

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“I do accounting for a stylish but very affordable clothing store.” “I am in purchasing for the coolest sports equipment store in the country.” Why talk about your company outside of work? Simply because you never know who is listening. The opportunities for new business are far more abundant than you think. Keeping it a secret doesn’t help anyone. Share the message in a concise, easily worded way, and you will see the power of word of mouth promotion. Just get started talking with the right words.

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4 SPARK SALES IN YOUR STORE The great thing about selling in your store is that the customer is already there and has expressed some level of interest in wanting to buy from you. Your store can be a retail store in a mall, a freestanding store, a restaurant, a warehouse, a kiosk, a flea market booth or a sandwich truck – the key concept here is that the customer has approached you in your environment to look and possibly buy something. Now what? Your goal now is to find out what the customer is looking for and to provide them with what they need. Most customers are looking for a solution to their problem. They may think that they have the solution in their mind, however they often do not recognize that other solutions exist. Your job as a Spark Sales Professional is to help the customer solve their problem, not just be a companion in their search for their one answer. For example, a woman walks into a store asking you for a size 8 black dress. If you didn’t have a size 8 black dress, most salespeople would say, “I’m sorry, but we are out of them right now.” A Spark Sales Professional would find out what the size 8 black dress is for, and might offer a size 8 red dress that better matches the woman’s complexion and which the store has in stock.

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A Spark Sales Professional would make sure that size 8 was actually the right size and suggest trying on a size 6 and 10, which the store has in stock. A real Spark Sales Professional would also sell the entire package of dress, stockings, bra, shoes, handbag, watch and throw in some custom alterations at no extra charge. As I said, the goal of a Spark Sales Professional is solving the real problem – which in this case was what to wear to a special party that weekend. To best understand the sales process in a store

Start viewing

environment, it’s important to know the anatomy of a

the world in a

sale.

customer’s

This helps to let you

know where you are in the sales process and what steps

perspective.

can be taken to keep the sale moving forward.

THE APPROACH The sale all starts with the APPROACH to the customer. What, when and how do you approach the customer? The most common line I hear used in stores is, “Can I help you?” And the most common response to that uninspired line is “No, I’m just 41

looking.” We all know that this approach does not work, so let’s stop using it.

Let’s commit to NEVER saying that greeting

question again to a customer and replacing it with a much higher value greeting. Start by viewing the world from a customer’s perspective. She just walked into your store.

Through the window, she

probably saw one or two items that caught her attention, and now she has entered your world. This is not her territory, this is yours. When you walk into someone else’s territory, our social norms are such that you are a bit tentative until you are welcomed and invited to “make yourself at home.” When you go over a friend’s house, you don’t waltz into the house like it’s your home, you don’t sit down until invited and you don’t grab food until offered to do so. The same kind of welcome works in a store. “Welcome to Beth’s Boutique! I am Susie. Are you familiar with our place? I would love to show you the layout and help you to find the exact right thing you are looking for.” Oftentimes a customer is already in a store and looking at some merchandise by the time a sales person can get to them. This happens frequently, in larger stores and in smaller booths. The approach to a customer who is already actively engaged in looking at merchandise should be modified somewhat. This is more akin to approaching someone at a party or club, in which you want to engage them in conversation without scaring them off.

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“That’s a great pair of running shoes you are looking at. I bought them myself and felt a real difference while running.” “You’ve got a good eye for jewelry. That’s one of my favorite designs.” “The fragrance from those plants is wonderful, isn’t it?” It’s a much kinder, gentler approach that helps a sales professional to be accepted by the customer. This customer approach technique is a conversation starter instead of a flippant line. Who’s going to say “No, I’m just looking” when approached in this manner?

ENGAGEMENT This kind of sales approach ENGAGEMENT, the

second

step

in

helps the

to

facilitate

sales

process.

Engagement is where the salesperson becomes actively involved with the customer’s search. Even with the right approach, the engagement has to occur properly in order to facilitate the sale. “Are you looking for something for everyday use or for a special occasion?” “Is this going to be for you or a gift for someone else?” “We’ve got some great pants that came in today that would go really well with the shirt that you are holding. Would you like me to show them to you?” 43

To be honest, the last line is not one that I came up with, but one that was said to me. I was shopping at a men’s clothing store in Oak Brook, Illinois. I walked into the store to just buy a shirt and was flipping through the rack, holding one shirt in my hand, when a saleswoman approached me with that line. “Sure,” I replied. “Here, let me carry that shirt for you,” she said. I gave her the shirt, and she lead me to the pants rack, asked my size and pulled out two pairs of pants, one brown and one blue. “Why don’t you try on these, and see if you like them?” En route to the fitting room, we also harvested another two shirts that went well with the pants, and a belt too. Hook, line and sinker. I was sold. Why? Because I was engaged in the absolutely right way. I was getting fashion advice on how to update my wardrobe – which was really the whole purpose to my wanting to buy a new shirt. How are you engaging your customers with a message of value? How is your customer engagement taking the experience to a whole new level of service?

Are you providing friendly

leadership and guidance within the store? Are you working from the customer’s perspective? Engage the customer like a Spark Sales Professional, and see how the selling becomes transformed into a buying experience.

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OPENING THE SALE OPENING THE SALE is the part of sales process in which the sales person introduces the merchandise, equipment, service or material for sale. The key here is to avoid yes or no type questions and instead offer choices to select: “Which color would you like to see in your size?” “Would you prefer to test drive the model T2 car or the model S3 car?” “Are you interested in the preferred package service or

Focus on their true

the economy package service? The preferred package service is the most popular.”

needs.

When asked a choice question, the customer is lead to respond under the assumption of moving forward with a

purchase decision. The more that the Spark Sales Professional can be the leader in the interaction, the more likely the sale will come to fruition. People often want to buy things but will hesitate, procrastinate and sometimes give up, because they are afraid of making the wrong decision. By using questions to provide the customer with leadership and guidance for the decision-making 45

process, a Spark Sales Professional can help the customer to reach his or her sales decision sooner. I have seen many sales representatives make conversation with customers but fail to open the sale by never asking. The customer is in your store to buy something. You are a salesperson, not a professional conversationalist. You need to find out what they want to buy so you can help them. How you ask them though, is key to the success of the sale. Using guided questions will help the customer to focus on their true needs, and ultimately will help you to earn the sale. Recall the last example of choice questions – “Are you interested in the preferred package service or the economy package service? The preferred package service is the most popular.” It includes an important component, the special tag, “The preferred package service is the most popular.” When it comes time to make a selection, people like to know their decisions are positively validated. If most of the other customers selected a particular item or package, then it must be a great value! Simply letting a customer know that “this is the most popular” or that “most of our customers pick this one” can help a customer to feel more confident about their decision. They like the endorsement that other people made the same choice as they did. In addition to the customer recommendation, another popular endorsement can be similarly as powerful. This is the

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“celebrity” endorsement. A celebrity can be someone famous like a superstar athlete or a movie star, someone respected like a local doctor or community leader, or someone personal, like a good friend.

When you have the opportunity to leverage such an

endorsement, use it to help with the sale.

PRODUCT DEMONSTRATION The PRODUCT DEMONSTRATION should follow the opening of the sale. The product demonstration can consist of the customer test driving the vehicle, trying on the merchandise, practicing using the equipment, tasting a flavor, watching a video about the service or any other means of touching, feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling or experiencing the product or service which you are selling. This can be a technical demonstration such as one for a medical or industrial product, or it can be a simple customer-led process like trying on a pair of shoes. The premise for a successful demo, however, is still the same. The Spark Sales Professional needs to understand what problem the customer is looking to solve and make sure that the demonstration addresses that particular issue.

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If a woman is trying on that little black dress for a night out on the town, be sure that she has dress shoes and a handbag to get the total feel of the

Engage the customer in a dialogue.

evening. The problem she is looking to solve is what to wear to feel special. If a doctor is asking about a new medicine, then the Spark Sales Professional should be sure to have all of the research and product comparison information on hand to explain the benefits for patients. The problem the doctor is looking to solve is how to treat some patients who are not responding well to the currently prescribed medication. If a manufacturer is looking to include some new equipment in the production line, the Spark Sales Professional can show a video that explains how the product fits in with the current line, provide a sample product made with the equipment to demonstrate quality, include a floor plan of the facility to show the layout options and offer a return-on-investment spreadsheet to help the manufacturer assess the value of the equipment. The problem the manufacturer is looking to solve is how to manufacture his product more cost efficiently. The key to the demonstration is to answer the questions of the customer, not just to showcase what you have to offer. The more questions that a Spark Sales Professional can answer during

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the demonstration, the greater the likelihood of the sale and the faster the purchasing decision can be made. In addition, to answer these questions, the Spark Sales Professional has to engage the customer in a dialogue. The demonstration cannot be a monologue, which it is all too often. The smartest demonstrations have the Spark Sales Professional play the role of a guide and the customer the role of a user. In this process, the Spark Sales Professional can guide the customer with simple directions and engage the customer with questions. The best possible outcome for a demonstration is to have the customer realize the features and benefits himself and tell the Spark Sales Professional. Unbelievable as it sounds, this is an incredible selling process. Using the self-directed demonstration, the most pertinent components are elicited and discussed, and the customer ends up essentially selling himself. Hearing something in your own words is much more powerful and believable then hearing it in someone else’s words. During a demonstration, customers will be thinking about the product and getting a feel for whether they want it or not. They also want to make sure that they have gathered all of the required information. Most of the time, they also want to make sure that they are paying a competitive price. Sometimes they 49

just want to see if there’s anything better out there. If you are prepared for these kinds of questions and know how to handle them during the demonstration, then you can remove objections even before they come up. I experienced this sales process in action and loved it! I was shopping at Best Buy for a new GPS Garmin device. The price seemed reasonable, and I wanted to get one, but I also like to comparison shop. When the Spark Sales Professional asked me if he could ring up my order, I told him that I just wanted to check the prices online. So he offered to do it right there for me on his computer, saving me from driving home and back to the store again. We looked up the device at two competitors and saw the same price, but one of them included a travel package at a better price – which he immediately matched for me. I had no other issues, so I bought it on the spot and felt GREAT about the experience! Who wouldn’t? Imagine how powerful this service could be for your business - providing the right information to your customers to help speed up the sales decision process and prevent leakage of sales opportunities. Some leading car insurance companies have ended sales leaks by doing this with their online and phone rate quotes with great success. Leakage is when a customer intends to purchase from you but, due to a delay or possibly some poor follow up, the customer

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ends up purchasing from a competitor. Closing the sale during the first demonstration helps to plug sales leaks and increase overall sales. The power of the demonstration and having all of the related information cannot be understated. Improvements to the demonstration alone can add several percentage points of growth to a company and have an immediate impact.

OVERCOMING THE OBJECTIONS OVERCOMING THE OBJECTIONS is the next stage sparking your sales following the demonstration. Most customers will have only one or two objections. Rarely, they will have three. If you are getting more than three objections, your demonstration probably needs to be refined because it is failing to provide the basic necessary information. The best way to initiate the objection component is to simply ask the customer.

Know your most common

“So, what do you like about this new car?” “How do you feel about putting this new equipment into your production line?” “How do you like the fit of this 51

objections in advance and be prepared…

suit?” The key to handling the objection component is to know your most common objections in advance and be prepared to respond to each one. This way, when you confirm the objection with a validation question, you can comfortably answer it and move forward. Validating an objection is an important but often overlooked step by novice sales representatives. Customers will throw out an excuse rather than the truth because it’s easier and less confrontational.

For example, a

customer could say that he needs to check with his wife before buying the table. To validate the objection, you would ask, “So if your wife says yes, then you’ll buy the table?” If he says yes, then you know that you need to work out how he’ll show his wife the table. If he says no, of course you will have to validate the new objection as well. “So if the price is what you were looking to pay, then you would to purchase this table today?” When he answers yes, then you know that you can bypass the talking to his wife objection because the real issue is the price. Now you can come up with financing or some other value offer to meet his pricing needs. Because objection validation is such an important step, practice it out loud so it rolls smoothly off your tongue.

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The most common objections can be compiled into a most frequently asked list for easy training. The objections across all industries are usually the following: •

The price is too much.

•

I need to talk with my partner/spouse/manager.

•

I’m not ready to buy this.

•

I want to think about it.

What you need to recognize when you hear these common objections is that you have not solved the customer’s problem within a reasonable level of confidence. So, you need to correct that. An ordinary salesperson will hear one of these objections and accept it at face value. An extraordinary Spark Sales Professional will dig deeper to uncover the true objection. “The Price Is Too Much.” This objection is fairly common when a customer has an expectation of the value, but the product is priced at a different level. This product may or may not be right for the customer, and it’s the job of a Spark Sales Professional to find that out.

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Sometimes people view prices as the entire purchase price and sometimes they consider the monthly payment. This is often true for mortgages, car payments, equipment leases and other large ticket purchases. Many customers will be more interested in how they can afford the monthly payment than the purchase price. Finding the right leasing package can sometimes be as important to closing the sale as the product itself. Another consideration is that the product package itself may be more than what the customer is willing to pay because it includes more options

Factor in the value added to help each customer make the

than what he needs. Does the customer really need the super premium deluxe package with all the trimmings or will the

right decision.

basic economy package do just fine? I will often take a small car when

renting cars for business travel because I don’t feel the need to pay the extra money for a status rental car. Matching the customer’s needs to the right package option can address the pricing issue. Customers will also feel the price is too much if they don’t understand the total value proposition of the product or service. Paying extra money for premium industrial equipment that can

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manufacture more widgets faster can generate a significant cost savings down the road.

Selecting the higher grade energy

efficient washer and dryer saves on electricity bills and the environment. Purchasing the better made business suit means that you can get more years of wear. In these cases, the additional cost of the purchase is related to the longer term view of an investment in future savings. Pay more now and save even more later. It is the Spark Sales Professional’s role to factor in the value added to help a customer make the right decision. After you validate the pricing objection, you can respond with some smarter questions. Notice that your responses should be in question form rather than statements or arguments. Your job is to guide the customer, not win an argument about their need to make a purchase: “Are you more concerned with the monthly payment or the total purchase price?” “Which features of this package are necessary for you? We can design one that meets your specific needs better.” “Is it more important for you to save a little money now or a lot of money later on?”

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Remember that your goal is to help your customer to make the right decision. Ask the right questions, listen to the customer’s response and then meet their request.

“I Need To Talk With My Partner/Spouse/Manager.” This can be a fun objection if you know how to handle it, because so often it is used to hide the real issue. If you truly want to find out who’s in charge, then ask if the husband came home one day towing a brand new boat or a motorcycle he just bought, if that boat or motorcycle would have to go back to the store the next day. There are times when you are not speaking with the decisionmaker of the household or office, but that is no reason to give up on the sale at the moment. Leverage this objection to confirm all of the information that you provided the customer to make sure that he got it correct. Then turn on your salesmanship. “Can I ask how you will present this offer to your partner/spouse/manager?” “What do YOU like most about this product or offer that you are going to highlight?”

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What the Spark Sales Professional is doing when responding to this objection is getting the customer to admit what they like about the deal and why they are afraid to move forward with the purchase.

The customer will outline his or her

interpretation of the value of the product or service. The Spark Sales Professional has to listen carefully, find the sticking point and work through it. This can be done by reiterating the positive aspects of the deal and then

… sell the idea of

nudging the customer with a

what you need

guided

suggestion

such

as,

“Sounds like you really do like this deal. Why don’t we just go ahead

to the people in charge.

and write this order up? The best way to show this to your partner/spouse is to take it home and try it. We have a seven day return policy, so there is no risk.” Great, you say, but your company does not offer a return policy. That’s probably because you haven’t sold the idea yet to your company. That’s right. Remember how it’s every person’s job within the company to sell? Well, it’s also the job of the Spark Sales Professional to provide feedback to the sales, marketing and executive teams on how to create better sales programs.

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If you don’t have all the sales tools that you need, you need to sell the idea of what you need to the people in charge. And if you really think you need something, then don’t take no for an answer. Sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission – as long as you are within the boundaries of applicable laws and regulations. If the company just wants sales clones and won’t listen to you, then find a company where the value you bring is appreciated and rewarded. Life is too short to keep banging your head on the wall.

“I’m Not Ready To Buy This.” This is a vague objection that often indicates that the customer’s concerns have not been fully answered. Many times, it is used as a polite way for the customer to say that he is not convinced about buying what you are offering. Now there are cases when a customer is just preshopping, and the statement is true. I have looked at Harley Davidson motorcycles with my daughter just to make my dream more vivid of owning one, without having any intention of making a purchase on that specific day. But most of the time when you hear this as the first objection, you should dig a little deeper. The Spark Sales Professional will again respond with the right questions to draw out the important information:

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“What milestones or signs will let you know that it’s the right time

The final decision to

to purchase this?” (Get

buy almost always comes from the heart,

response

from

customer, then

ask:)

“Why do you feel they

not from the head.

are the right signs?” “If

the

price

were free, why would you take this today?” “In a perfect world, what would you change about this product or offer to make it the absolute, must-have, no-questionsasked, I’ll-take-it-now deal?” Now, armed with the underlying issue, the Spark Sales Professional can work with the customer to create the right offer. Did the product, service or offer have to be tailored to meet the customer’s specific needs? Was the price an issue? Was the customer looking for something different? Get the information, and you will be in a better position to help the customer.

“I Want To Think About It.” I love hearing this from customers. We all know that a customer is not going to go home, set aside 30 minutes of uninterrupted time and sit and THINK 59

ABOUT the product or offer. It’s not the way people buy. People buy mostly from emotions, not from cognitions. The final decision to buy almost always comes from the heart, not from the head. Your job as a Spark Sales Professional is to bring the conversation back to the heart by using words of feelings, emotions and senses rather than comparison-based thought. “Sure, I can understand that. What do you like about the offer?” “How does the offer look to you?” “How does the deal sound to you?” “How do you feel about what we’ve talked about?” What do you like, how does the offer look and sound, how do you feel about it? LIKE, LOOK, SOUND and FEEL are based on emotion and the five senses. The Spark Sales Professional is asking the customer to return to her heart in talking about the product, service or offer. People are often more confident talking about how they FEEL about something than how they THINK about it. The killer phrase to avoid is, “What do you THINK about it?” This question can make the customer close down rather than open up and put you back a few steps in the sales process instead of forward. Focusing on feeling is not about getting the customer to make a decision without careful consideration of the facts involved. This is about leading the customer to make a decision,

Spark Your Sales

and decisions are often based on a feeling. It is important for the sales professional to help the customer to get in better touch with that feeling to make a decision.

ASK FOR THE SALE After validating and clearing the objections, the next step in the sales process is to ASK FOR THE SALE. I have seen so many great sales presentations fall flat because the sale person makes the pitch and, instead of asking for the sale, waits for the customer to jump out of their seat to say, “I gotta have that!” This just does not happen. A Spark Sales Professional asks for the sale EACH AND EVERY TIME. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. So at the very least, ASK! One way to ask for the sale is called the Assumed Sale Approach, in which instead of asking for the decision on the sale, the Spark Sales Professional assumes the customer has made the decision, but hasn’t stated it yet. This approach requires that the Spark Sales Professional recognizes the buying signals and can act on them. Some examples of the Assumed Sale Approach are: “Will that be check or charge?” “Which model did you want me to order for you?” “How soon should I have this shipped to your office?”

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If the customer responds with a new objection, the Spark Sales Professional must work to handle this objection and then ask for the sale a second time. This is selling. This is salesmanship. This is not order taking. This is order making. And this is the real reason that Spark Sales Professionals are paid a lot of money. Because the really great Spark Sales Professionals EARN IT.

CLOSING THE SALE Finally, the last stage of sparking your sales is CLOSING THE SALE. This occurs after the sale is written up or processed. Closing the sale is actually far more important than most salespeople imagine, because it sets the tone for future business. Closing the sale includes congratulating the customer for their decision, connecting personally with the customer and asking for referrals. Why CONGRATULATING instead of thanking? Because thanking someone means that they have done something for you. Congratulating someone means that they have done something for themselves. This whole process can be boiled down to something short and sweet such as: “Congratulations! You made a wise choice. I’d like to give you my card. If I can be of future help to you or to anyone you know who is looking for products like this, I would love the opportunity.”

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Close the sale with class and professionalism, and set the stage for your next sale. This chapter outlines how Spark Sales Professionals handle themselves. They know the steps of the sales process and can identify where they are in the midst of a sale. They know where they are going with the conversation and how to address customer questions and issues. They know how to facilitate the sale by asking the right questions and how to guide the customer to make the right decision faster. Spark Sales Professionals know how to sell. Are you a Spark Sales Professional?

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5 SPARK YOUR SALES IN THE CUSTOMER’S OFFICE The field sales representative position is a position of independence. Many people enjoy the freedom that it offers. Freedom from daily office politics. Freedom from being chained to a desk. Freedom to be out on the road, meeting and talking with customers.

Of course there is a

price for this freedom, that of self-

Increase your face

motivation and the ability to accept rejection. In exchange, successful field

sales

positions

can

time.

be

extraordinarily high earning jobs.

PLAN IN ADVANCE Making your time productive in the field is necessity. Each day, you should plan to visit as many customers and prospects as possible. Increase your face time, and reduce your windshield time. Lay out the highest priority visits first. These are the pre-set appointments that you made ahead of time.

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If you set an

appointment, do everything to keep that appointment ON TIME. Being on time does not mean waltzing in at exactly the appointed time. The rule is if you are five minutes early to the appointment, you are ten minutes late. Get there 15 minutes ahead of time. This shows your professionalism and that you are serious. It also allows your customer to spend a few minutes clearing up anything that may need their attention so they can better focus on the conversation with you. Working around pre-set appointments, the Spark Sales Professional plans the route for the remainder of the day. Look for clusters of customers who are within close driving distance and those who are easily reached along the driving routes.

For

customers in remote areas, it’s often easier to visit them as special days and then try to fill in the blanks of time. In really remote areas, it often pays to drive there the night before, stay in a hotel, and visit the client in the morning. This way you did not have to eat up normal working hours by driving. Successful field sales relies on how productive you can be, which is all about maximizing the face time you have with customers in a given week.

65

There is bit of both art and science in route planning. I used to plan my heating oil sales route on a big folded map and index my potential customers by quadrants. Today there are electronic mapping tools that can help plan optimal routes, but these are not foolproof. Traffic patterns will greatly affect your driving times. The key is to avoid heavy traffic areas at high volume times. This may mean leaving your home earlier in the morning or trying to squeeze in last hour visits at five or six in the …stopping in to see a

afternoon. This may mean

very loyal customer can

learning side streets in your

be a great emotional

territories.

boost to help you regain

mean avoiding certain areas

confidence and

at certain times of the day.

enthusiasm.

This may also

The more detailed logs you can

keep

about

traffic

patterns, the more effective you will be. Another big item to contend with in regards to route planning is your customers’ office hours. Most retail and industrial businesses have normal business hours, but businesses such as doctors’ offices often have irregular hours. Making notes of their office hours and planning your route with that in mind will boost

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your productivity to new levels. On a similar note, learning which customers go out for lunch and which ones eat in the office can help you to plan your lunchtime visits better. Again, keep detailed logs about this information. Finally, for your own peace of mind, it is a good idea to mix up the day’s route with a mix of warm and cold leads. Although it’s nice to visit your friendly customers, the need to build your customer base requires that you attempt cold calls on a regular basis. For balance, if you’re having a tough day with cold prospects, stopping in to see a very loyal customer can be a great emotional boost to help you regain confidence and enthusiasm. Once you actually visit a customer, much of the sales process formula in the field follows the same pattern as when selling in your own store. The significant difference is that the customer has not shown an initial interest by coming to you. Instead, the field sales representative is wandering into the customer’s store or home, and the interest level is completely unknown. The first order of business here is to stir up interest, whether in an initial cold call or a follow-up monthly visit. Ask yourself, “How can I make this visit interesting?”

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THE COLD CALL When the Spark Sales Professional makes the initial cold call to a customer, she has to introduce herself, ask to meet with a specific person and provide the reason for her visit. More often than not, this is explained to the receptionist in an office setting. Many times, the first person who greets you is not the one that you want to hear your sales pitch. You may have to stir up interest from someone who may not know anything about you, your company, or what you are selling. The first thing that has to be interesting is YOU. Are you being someone that people will be interested in talking with? It is customary and polite to introduce yourself, explain who you represent and provide a business card.

What

distinguishes the successful Spark Sales Professional is how she engages that person at the front desk or front door. There are tons of strategies, from acting empowered to being jovial, but the most successful ones match up with the sales professional’s personality. You want your approach to be natural and fit your personality. You also want to get to the point. And you want to strive to be extraordinary in your approach. The

receptionist

or

“gatekeeper”

needs

enough

information to pitch you to the person you really need to speak with, yet shouldn’t be overloaded with information that he or she might forget. The key points of Name, Company, Product or

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Service you are selling and a Brief Phrase explaining the value of your visit are how you should arm the gatekeeper. “Hi there! I’m Michael with Office Systems. I’d like to speak with the office manager today. I don’t know if she’s busy, but I have something very interesting to share with her about new cost

Change occurs

saving technology. If you could help me to have a few minutes

when there is

to speak with her, it could turn

extra value that

into a big savings opportunity

exceeds the risk.

for your company.” Despite all the rumors

of the difficulty in getting past the gatekeeper, most businesses understand the potential value of the information that a field sales representative can offer and are willing to meet with you. They just may not do it on the same terms. The sales representative wants to be invited back into the office area to make the sales pitch but often has to earn his way there by explaining his product or service while standing in the reception area. Again, the sales professional has to stimulate interest in the product or service when the company representative comes to the reception area to meet him.

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“Hi there! I’m Michael with Office Systems. If I could save you $1,000 a month on your printing expenses, how interested would you be? I’d like to see your current photocopier and provide you with an information sheet so you can see the savings potential. It takes about five minutes of time and is truly worth it!” Make a strong value proposition. In exchange for a few minutes of their time, what will you provide them?

Also,

remember that most people are resistant to change, even if it’s for the better. People are comfortable with the status quo even if they know that it’s not the best. Change occurs when there is extra value that exceeds the risk. How much value is there in your proposition and how much more value can you include? When I talk about this with some salespeople, sometimes I am told that they were not given these kinds of tools from their companies. Really? So, the company didn’t give you absolutely everything you need to close every possible sale? Welcome to the real world! This is not an obstacle, it is an opportunity. Instead of whining, use your brain and MAKE YOUR OWN VALUE TOOL. I had a great sales professional who created her own spreadsheet template to input the number of patients a doctor saw in a week and a few other data points to calculate the profitability of using the equipment she was selling. When I asked her why her sales were going so well, she showed it to me and

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offered to share it with the rest of her sales team. It was fantastic and the team loved it! She was a hero!

FIND THE DECISION MAKER Once you have communicated the value in a winning format to the company, the decision will come down to the following issues: Are you talking to the real decision maker? Is there money in the budget? When do they want your product or service? A true decision maker can often approve most purchases on the spot.

To increase your

efficiency and closing ratio, try to

Ask to speak

deliver your sales message to the decision maker. You won’t have

with the CEO or President of the company.

to rely on someone else to make the sales pitch or arrange a meeting for you with the decision maker. In these circumstances, you

are

dependent

on

the

salesmanship of someone else. Sometimes this cannot be avoided. With proper planning and preparation though, a Spark Sales Professional can get an 71

appointment or at least the name of the true decision maker and focus on getting the initial presentation with that person. If you do your homework on the front end before a sale, then you won’t have to wait on the back end after you start the sale in process. The best way to reach the decision maker early on is to start at the top of the food chain. Ask to speak with the CEO or President of the company. Even if your purchase is a smaller ticket item, they will refer you downward to the right person to speak with. And a referral coming down from the CEO asking the decision maker to meet with you is the strongest sales endorsement you can have. What’s your alternative? Start at the bottom or at the middle and then try to work your way up to a decision maker? When you think of it from this perspective, it sure seems a lot harder this way and a lot less likely to result in the sale. If you are thinking that your product or service is not important enough to merit time in front of a CEO, then you need to work on motivating yourself until you can correct that thought process. The problem is the fear and insecurity in your own mind. I know CEO’s of large companies that concern themselves with fine details of running a business from the cost of the lawn mowing service to office chairs to catering. If you are offering the value of cost efficiency or revenue growth, and any viable product or service should provide one of those values or both, then start with the CEO.

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THE TRIAL DEMO The most powerful sales closer for any decision maker is the TRIAL DEMO. This is where the customer gets to use the product or service for a short trial period of a few days or weeks. This is powerful because when the product or service is great, it sells itself. And when the product or service is lousy, it unsells itself. Either way, if the decision maker cannot make up his or her mind, try using the trial demo. A trial allows you to change the status quo without the customer even realizing it. The next decision to overcome is whether there is money in the budget for your product or service. Not having money is often a polite excuse used by managers to turn a salesperson down, but I am talking about determining if the customer actually has the money to pay you. Whether you are selling to a company or a consumer, this question has to be cleared before the sale occurs. No money, no sale. You can’t deposit a signed agreement in the bank and use it to buy groceries. You have to get paid for it to count. If at all possible, try to get paid for the product or service before you ship it or provide it.

It’s a lot harder to collect

afterwards. This means that you cannot be bashful about asking

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for money. Many people are. Successful people are not. When it’s time to ask for payment, you need to be clear. The order of preference is usually cash, credit card or certified check, then commercial financing or personal check and finally the 30-day net terms. Since there are so many ways to pay, a simple but effective tool is to ask, “How would you like to pay for this?” Since you likely prefer credit cards or cash, an even better way would be to ask, “Will that be cash or credit card?” A budget is a funny thing. When people really want something, they somehow find a way to pay for it. If you are selling $50,000 of advertising to a company, and they respond that they don’t have the money in the budget to pay for it, that’s a different question then saying they can’t afford it. Sure they don’t have the money IN THE BUDGET if they didn’t budget for it. If they had budgeted for it, then they would ALSO have the EXTRA REVENUE generated from advertising in the budget, which would more than help pay for it. The lack of the money is not the issue. It’s the lack of belief that advertising will generate a real return, which means you did not build the value proposition in a way that the customer believes you. So go back to the value proposition and make it more believable.

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BUY TODAY The final question is deciding when the customer actually wants the product or service.

It’s an

easy excuse to say

Never postpone a sale tomorrow that you

that they want it,

can make today.

but not right now. Although that may be a valid excuse, it is often another way of saying that they want to think about it. They want to consider other options. They want to check your competition. They want to validate your value proposition. So, how does the Spark Sales Professional prepare for and respond to that? There are often many drivers to entice the customer to buy today rather than tomorrow. Is the product or service being offered to a limited number of customers in the area? Could the customer be effectively shut out if they delay? Will there be a price increase later on? What will a delay cost the customer in terms of savings or lost additional revenue? I love talking about how with every day that goes by, every hotel room that wasn’t sold that night is money that the hotels will never be able to make.

It’s a one-time deadline.

Similarly, additional sales or cost savings in any business that did 75

not occur during a business day are awfully hard to make up in following days.

Never postpone a sale tomorrow that you can

make today.

MAINTAINING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS Once you have developed a prospect into a customer, the relationship has just begun. In some cases, this is obvious because your product or service may be a recurring purchase or a replaceable, disposable item. In cases of a one-time purchase, the long term customer relationship is less obvious. However, even a customer who makes a one-time purchase of a high-priced item should be romanced. Here are four reasons why if you have a relationship established, then work to keep it alive: 1. An excited, loyal customer will refer other customers when prompted. 2. In a few years, they may need to replace the model they purchased, and you want them to call you and not your competition. 3. You may introduce a new product line, or you may change jobs and want the customer to purchase from your new company. 4. The power of goodwill and a strong brand name are invaluable to growing a business. Take great care of your customers, and your customers will take great care of you.

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The first step in maintaining relationships with customers is to be

If everything is

sure to have a message of

going smoothly,

value on EACH VISIT. A

then stop in to see if

customer

they have any ideas

forward to your visits and

should

look

be excited to see you. In

on how your

order for that to happen, you can bring an actual

company could

gift every time you show

improve.

up, or you can bring a gift in terms of information. Make it easier and cheaper on yourself, and give the gift of information. Let them know about special offers, news about your industry, new products and other interesting and worthwhile information. As long as it is valuable, then communicate it. You also want to keep in constant communication with your customers.

If your company does not provide an e-

newsletter, then make one yourself.

Send out monthly

communications with VALUABLE information such as specials, industry updates and pearls of wisdom. 77

Periodically, write a

personal note to each customer. You can even include a special article of interest if you know they enjoy a special hobby. It can be something as simple as a photocopied article with a sticky note attached saying, “I saw this gardening article and thought of you. Hope your garden is thriving this summer! If you have extra zucchini, let me know!” Continue to go the extra mile. If the equipment you sold had an issue, be sure to stop by and offer a loaner during the down time. If there was a shipping problem or billing concern, be sure to stop by and talk about it face to face. If everything is going smoothly, then stop in to see if they have any ideas on how your company could improve. Giving a customer the opportunity to help your business is a great relationship builder. Your goal of each visit is to strive to make a magical moment. Not sure what a magical moment is? Ever been to Disney World? Disney trains their staff to seek to provide magical moments to their customers. Ask a street sweeper for directions and instead of pointing you the way, he will stop what he is doing and walk you to exactly where you want to go.

The entire

workforce of Disney is there to provide you and your family a magical vacation, one memory at a time. In fact, they don’t even call you a customer, they call you a GUEST. So, as a Spark Sales Professional, ask yourself how you can provide magical moments

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to your customers. With this kind of mindset and approach, just like Walt Disney, you can make your own dreams come true.

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6 SPARK YOUR SALES OVER THE PHONE Phone sales are one of the most under-leveraged sales tools by most companies. Lots of companies try to use phone sales, but they do not do them well. They miss tons of sales opportunities, ranging from failure to up-sell and cross sell, failure to offer better service to the customer and failure to ask for and get referrals. These easy additional sales can be generated from the incoming calls your company already is getting. Companies have hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of calls coming in each day, each with the prior intent of a … outlining the call helps

purchase. With a bit of sales leadership

to understand how the

on the phone, these calls can be

call starts, progresses

converted

and finishes and provides

to

sales

just

by

understanding how the company can better serve the customers’ needs.

the sales representative with a guide map for success.

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Many companies THINK their customer service representatives are doing a good job, but after closer

inspection, they often realize how much sales leakage occurs by lack of training of the representatives, lack of motivation, lack of offers and lack of compliance. Are you sure that YOUR customer service is as good as you want it to be? Try calling in as a customer. There is often a huge discrepancy between what MANAGEMENT WANTS DONE on the phones and what the REPRESENTATIVES ACTUALLY DO. If the company corrected the training, the motivation and the offers, then the compliance would improve and the sales increase. Easier said than done, but when implemented properly, you can grow sales practically overnight. I know, because I consistently see the sales growth in the companies that we work with by using this approach. The other phone sales opportunity that exists for most companies is making outbound sales calls. These calls can be made to cold prospects, warm prospect lists, active customers or inactive customers. Outbound calls are a cost effective means to generate additional business, but only when the calls are executed properly.

Not everyone has the fortitude to make outbound

phone sales. For those who do it well, however, it can offer incredible earning opportunities. The first step in both inbound and outbound phone sales is to map out the structure of the call. At first, this may seem like a 81

daunting task, but outlining the call helps to understand how the call starts, progresses and finishes and provides the sales representative with a guide map for success.

If the sales

representative knows the direction of the call and has some talking paths to help him reach the destination, then he is much more likely to make the sale. The value of training cannot be underestimated here.

ANSWERING THE PHONE Improving an inbound call starts with improving the way the call is answered. Ordinary companies answer the phone in ordinary ways. “Thank you for calling ABC Company. My name is Helen. How can I help you today?” Extraordinary

companies

answer

the

phone

in

extraordinary ways. They seek to provide value on the call and set the tone to do so from the onset of the call.

The callers’

expectations are raised from the first moment. •

“Good morning! Welcome to ABC Company. I’m Helen, your phone guide today. How can I be of extraordinary assistance to you?”

•

“Good morning! Welcome to ABC Company. I’m Helen. How can I put a smile on your face today?”

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•

“We’re having a great day here at ABC Company, and we would love to share that with you today. I’m Helen. What can I do to make your day fantastic?” When scripts like these are delivered with energy,

enthusiasm and the right intentions, they are powerful. However, when they are delivered with a lack of engagement, they can actually be a negative. Poor delivery of a great script is just as bad as having nothing great to say. Any time you utilize a sales script, the team has to be thoroughly TRAINED AND TESTED, When scripts like

not just on the words but also how those words should come out. For a

these are delivered

sales team, this is best achieved with

with energy,

group demonstrations, then

enthusiasm and the

progressing to one-on-one role playing, call coaching and call

right intentions, they

recording. If you are trying to improve

are powerful.

your own phone sales, then you want to practice this every chance you get – in the shower, in the car, in your office

- any time that you can talk out loud. Saying it in your head is not as powerful for your memory as saying it out loud. Hearing your own voice (or seeing yourself on video) helps you 83

to break your own bad habits and learn stronger selling techniques. You cannot imagine how much room for improvement you actually have until you hear (or see) yourself. Listening to yourself is so powerful, that I actually caution sales trainers to wait to do call recordings until after the sales representatives have already started the sales team on a path to improvement with trainings, demos and role plays. If salespeople hear themselves too early on, they can get discouraged and lose self-esteem. The purpose of the call recordings is to improve their success, not break down their self-worth, so you want to be able to catch them doing some things right when reviewing the call. Waiting until after the training has started, helps the phone sales representative to do a few things right on the call and also to see for themselves how the call naturally progresses and where they get stuck.

WHO’S THE CUSTOMER? The next step on an inbound call is to find out why the customer is calling and who they are. The caller may want to order something, return an item, complain about a problem, ask a billing or shipping question or request help. The phone sales person also wants to find out who the customer is because frequent and high-

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ticket item customers may get additional leeway or special offers that are not offered to occasional customers. Although airlines generally are not the best example of great customer service, they do succeed in this one area because of their frequent flier programs that stratify customers. With a frequent flier program, any airline representative can immediately assess the value of a customer and has guidelines on what extras can be offered. Imagine if a program like this could be used in your company.

More than

likely, one is being used already – either formally

Treating the customer

or informally.

appropriately for their

If there

experience level creates

isn’t a formal program, then

the

better rapport.

phone

representatives and the managers are using their own customer valuation formulas, which may or may not be a profitable or accurate determination of the customer’s true value. It helps if everyone within the company is using the same proven formula and feels empowered to act on it. If you don’t already have a formal customer valuation system in place, then get started on creating one.

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Understanding who is calling helps the Spark Sales Professional to put the customer’s reason for calling into perspective. Customers will usually state their reason for calling as soon as they get a chance to talk, particularly if they are upset. Understanding the customer’s experience with the company helps the Spark Sales Professional figure out how to respond. A new customer may require additional explanations about the offering. An experienced customer may be asking for more detailed information.

Treating the customer appropriately for their

experience level creates better rapport. Once the issue is stated by the customer, the phone sales professional should repeat what the customer said to make sure they got it right and then proceed to ask questions to get additional details. The purpose of the additional questions is to make sure the customer’s primary issue is handled completely. There may be several layers to the issue that the customer might not have considered. Also, the additional information that the customer provides can help the Spark Sales Professional discover more value opportunities to offer.

The more you know about the

customer and his issues, the better you will be able to service them. For example, if a customer is calling up to order a new mattress, a typical sales representative will ask about the mattress

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type, size, box spring and removal of the old mattress. The Spark Sales Professional however, will also find out the problem with the old mattress and if a new type of mattress can offer them better support. He will determine if the new mattress will be a different size than the old one and if they will need new sheets, a new mattress protector and possibly new pillows! He will ask how old the other mattresses are in the house, and if they need to be replaced too. If not now, then when will they consider replacing them? These are all questions to open the opportunities of providing additional value to the customer. When done properly and professionally by a well trained Spark Sales Professional, the company can better meet the true needs of a customer. That’s the difference between being an order taker and an ORDER MAKER.

SEEK CLOSURE FIRST No matter how anxious you are to get the sale, solving the customer’s issue should be completed before moving to the selling stage. The customer needs to feel that they got closure on their issue before taking the next step. Closure on the issue may be discovering that the customer needs to purchase upgraded equipment, new components or try something different altogether. So first, solve their problem and then move forward. 87

For example, a company we were working with was trying to get activity reports from the phone system they had purchased, but the reports they wanted didn’t come with the system. The phone software company said our client could either purchase upgraded software or pay someone to program the current version. Either way was an expensive proposition for something that our client had thought came with the version they purchased. Our client of course had a third idea: return the phone system, get a refund and buy one from a different company. Of course the phone software company didn’t give him that option. Eventually, our client got a manager on the phone who changed the tone of the call. She asked how valuable the reports were to our client and how they would help improve the metrics and management of the call center. The manager explained that the additional investment was only a fraction of the value that our client would get in return. That reframed the whole picture, and our client agreed to purchase the upgrade. The value proposition made sense. Looking for the up-sell or cross-sell starts with really understanding what the customer is looking for and then providing it. Making standardized offers that do not specifically relate to the customer are bland promotions. What if I were buying work boots from a catalog company, and the sales representative told me that they are running a special on window

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draperies?

It’s a

weak offer that fails to match the offer

Don’t ask once. The second or third time may

with the customer. Compare

be the charm.

that with a more specific offer. “I see that you purchased the blue oriental vase. Most customers get the matching candy dish as a complementary accent piece. The designer Jacques Verde intended for them to be used in the same room as a conversation piece. Would you like for me to ship that together for you?” By getting specific with the recommendation, by leveraging a recommendation by the masses (“most customers”), by personalizing it with the designer’s name, by using a futuring technique (getting the customer to think about her friends seeing it in her house) and by using the assumed sale, this cross-sale approach is far more likely to result in a closed sale. This is why scripting and training can be so valuable. If you want to improve your own scripts, go online to www.SparkYourCompany.com, and select the online workbooks to improve your call center. Extraordinary offers go even one step further. I picked this up from a fabulous waiter in an awesome restaurant. He came 89

by to ask for our dessert order, and my wife and I said, “No thanks.” Whereas most waiters acknowledge that answer and just bring the bill, this one came back with a great retort, “The chocolate cake is to die for. Are you sure I can’t interest you in one order and two spoons?” My wife and I looked at each other and smiled, but I was just too full. So I said, “We’d really like to, but we’re just too full.” The waiter came back with a third request that sealed the deal. “No problem. I can put the cake into a to-go box for you to enjoy later tonight.” Now I really smiled. He had pulled our real objection for the dessert from us - we were too full. Then he solved the problem by offering that we could eat it later. SOLD! We took the cake home, and I learned a valuable sales lesson. Don’t ask once. The second or third time may be the charm.

ASK FOR REFERRALS This multiple request is also valuable when asking for referrals following the close of the sale. I know that you are either asking for referrals on every sale – or that you are going to start doing so immediately. Why pass up an opportunity to grow your business on every call? extraordinary way.

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Ask for referrals – and do it in an

“Is there somebody special that you would like for me to send a catalog to?” “Do you have some friends that you think I should call to let them know about our service?” Then, help the customer to provide you with those referrals by asking a second time. “Who’s the first person that comes to mind that you think I should call?” “Which friend or relative would be most interested in this information?” Why is this so powerful? It’s just harder to say “No” twice in a row. Don’t take the first “No” as the final answer. By asking nicely enough, you can often work right through it and help the customer to get what they really want but were afraid of saying “Yes” to. Eventually, you will have to wrap up the conversation and close the call. The issue has been resolved. The order has been taken. The cross-sell has occurred. The payment has been made. The referral has been received. So, what’s left? Thanking the customer for their business and encouraging them to call back soon. Want to get the customer to call back real soon? Offer them a special discount if they call back within 10 days. 91

“Congratulations on your order today.

We do appreciate your

business. What I’d like to do is to put a note on your account that if you call us back within the next 10 days, that you will be eligible for a special $10 coupon. Would you like me to do that for you?” Want to see increases in repeat business? Try including that kind of offer on your inbound calls.

THE OUTBOUND CALL The outbound call will be a more aggressive approach but utilize many of the same techniques. The priority differences between making outbound calls and taking inbound calls is that the sales representative will need to get past the gatekeeper to speak with the decision maker, who then needs to be initiated into the concept of the sale. There are a number of techniques to get through the gatekeeper or receptionist. Creating a sense of urgency usually helps, as long as the urgency is not a faked emergency. and can be done in several ways: “Hi there. I’m Adam, your representative at Sun Systems. I’m trying to reach Mr. Kaplan regarding an important deadline. Is he available?” “Good morning! I’m calling for 24 Security. I sent some important information to Mrs. Laden. I don’t know how urgent these materials were but they were express mailed to her, so I wanted to be

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absolutely sure to follow up that she got what she needed. Would you be able to get her on the phone?” Another technique is the Two Call Close. The first call is made to set an appointment for the next call. This is best used to reach customers whose work day may be tightly scheduled, such as doctors and senior executives. “Sure. I understand that Mr. Richardson is busy. Are you the person in charge of his schedule?” (If yes, then) “Great! What’s the earliest time we can arrange a 10-minute call?” (If no, then) “Who would be the person I should talk with about scheduling a 10-minute call?” “Oh, Mrs. Barnett is busy? What’s the best time for me to catch her when I call back later today?”

OFFER THE VALUE PROPOSITION Once the sales person has finally reached the intended targeted customer and gotten them on the phone, the value proposition has to come out strong, clearly and quickly. In this case, it’s best to ask some leading questions that allow you to build the case for your services. Once the need is established, then you become the obvious answer to solving that need, and Voila! You have a new customer!

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There are some sales philosophies that encourage the sales representative to first make small talk to build rapport and ease into the sales conversation.

In reality, the small talk

schmoozing is more helpful in making the sales representative feel comfortable then the customer. The customer knows that you are there to offer something and try to sell it. They just want to determine how much value they can get before they decide. So, rather than start with small talk, a Spark Sales Professional can get the conversation going in the right direction by using value propositions to build interest instead of discussing a mutual interest in playing tennis. In outbound calls, the value propositions are questions that get the customer to understand the value of what you are offering. When worded correctly, they should get your customer to realize their need for your product or service without you having to spell it out for them. If you are selling life insurance, then the value proposition is, “How concerned are you with your family’s well being after you die?” If you are selling air purifiers, then the value proposition is, “How worried are you about the allergens, mold and bacteria in the air in your home?” If you are selling a generic, low cost product, then the value proposition is¸”How much money do you want to save when you buy ______?”

The value proposition communicates the

primary benefit of your product and gets the customer to state the

Spark Your Sales

value that they place on that specific benefit.

If you want to sell more, then

What a

instead of talking about what

great way to start a sales conversation!

YOU want to talk about, talk

When you get to

about the product or service in

speak with the targeted

ways that the CUSTOMER wants

decision

maker,

the

to hear about.

conversation can flow like this: “Hi Bill. I provide strategic financial investing services to hundreds of people just like you. How important is it to you to grow your investments while minimizing your risk of losing your money? (get answer) On a 1 to 10 scale, how satisfied are you with your current investment strategy? (get answer) What do you want to see from your investments that you are not getting? (get answer) Sounds like you are looking for some improvements, Bill. I’m sure glad that we were able to get in touch with each other.” With an approach like this, the sales professional is able to find out exactly what the prospect is looking for and then tailor the presentation of the services to meet those exact needs. Here’s a second example:

95

“Hello, Susan. I was told that you run the greatest bakery in the region. We provide commercial

Remember the maxim,

baking

equipment to companies

“KISS,” keep it short

like yours that are ready

and simple.

to grow. I know you are running

a

great

business, but what do you think are some of the things that restrict your manufacturing capacity from growing? (get answer) If you had convection oven equipment that lowered your production costs by 15% through faster and more even cooking, what kind of advantage would that give your business?” Notice the use of the silver-tongued compliment, “you run the greatest bakery in the region.” Compliments, a great foot-inthe-door sales technique when used properly and honestly, can get the customer’s attention and prepare them to hear your message. Be sure that the compliment is honest. A glaringly false compliment can burn you. Once you have used the value proposition to gain the customer’s interest, your demo or explanation of your product or service needs to show exactly how you provide that specific value. There may be many things that your product or service offers, but if you asked the value proposition correctly, then you can focus

Spark Your Sales

your sales pitch on that issue primarily.

This is especially

important when selling over the phone, and the customer’s attention span is shorter. Too often, sales representatives want to show all the features and benefits during a demonstration or explanation. If you want to sell more, then instead of talking about what YOU want to talk about, talk about the product or service in ways that the CUSTOMER wants to hear about.

You will be

amazed at how much less information you have to cover and how much more you will be selling. Remember the maxim, “KISS,” keep it short and simple. An even more advanced technique is to ask the customer some leading questions to get them to talk about how your product or service fulfills the value proposition. It solidifies the value proposition in their minds because they are actually saying it to themselves. And people believe what they tell themselves. This is based on the Socratic method of teaching, popularized by the Greek philosopher and teacher, Socrates, who would instruct his pupils by asking them clever questions and letting them discover the answers on their own. “By using the advertising plan we just laid out for you, how do you see this driving new customers to your business?” “Based on the educational curriculum we described, how do you think your child will advance in his math learning?” 97

The right questions will help guide the customer to “discover” the answer themselves. You want to ask short-answer questions that stimulate the customer’s thoughts and directly relate the positive attributes of your product or service. As the customer starts verbally walking himself through the sale, in addition to the benefits of your product or service, you will also hear the customer describe the issues that are creating hesitancy in their minds. These issues are the objections that are holding back the customer from saying “yes” to the sale. Helping a customer through the objections, puts you on the final path to the sale.

OVERCOMING DELAY OBJECTIONS Even if a customer believes in the value proposition, many times they are hesitant to buy something over the phone from a cold call. Far too many sales are lost at this moment. So when a customer tells you that they want to think about, the salesmanship has to kick into play to help the customer to convince himself to buy now. Why is this so important? Because it is hard to get a customer back on the phone a second time, and if a sales representative does, he has to start the sales pitch over again from the beginning to pump the customer back up to wanting the sale.

Spark Your Sales

Only this time, they’ve already heard the pitch once, so it requires a new approach and new set of sales tools to be successful. Any type of objection that is in the family of “I want to think about it,” “I need to talk it over with my partner,” or “Let me run the numbers to see if it makes sense,” are all common delays indicating that they have not decided yet. Your job as a Spark Sales Professional is to bring the customer back to the mindset of buying today whenever that is possible. Buying today should be a collection of payment, but the next best thing to get is a confirmed order in writing. Often this is a compromise between a customer wanting to hold off on paying for a purchase and a salesperson getting the customer to agree to the deal. A percentage of these unpaid orders will cancel, but it is better to have a signed agreement than just the mere prospect of calling them back. So, how does the Spark Sales Professional achieve this kind of sale? By taking control of the conversation again. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to purchase this? (Get answer) Why do you like it so much? (Get answer) Sounds like you are ready to do this today.” “How soon would you like to have this? (Get answer) Why is that important? (Get answer) Looks like we need to get that order placed for you today to help you meet that deadline. I can express ship it out to you if you’d like it even sooner.” 99

This may sound like pressured selling, but the purpose of this is to speed up the decision-making process. Instead of waiting to buy something next week, next month or next year, this technique is to clearly convey the value proposition so it makes sense to do it immediately. Convey the benefits of your product and service so clearly that the customer feels that they must have it right away. That is selling.

Spark Your Sales

7 SPARK YOUR SALES OVER THE INTERNET Two of the world’s largest retail stores are now Amazon.com and eBay. Tens of thousands of other websites offer product sales.

And more and more communication between

buyers and sellers occurs via email. Selling through the Internet is a fact of life. Communicating a sales pitch via the digital word is significantly harder than the spoken word. Inflections and tones are easily lost. Humor can be easily misinterpreted. Responses can be delayed minutes, days or weeks and are much harder to control. As a Spark Sales Professional, whenever possible, you should pick up the phone and call a customer rather than emailing them. The value of the time it takes to call a customer is more than outweighed by the increase in sales as a result. Nevertheless, when you are selling through the Internet or are communicating via the Web, similar selling principles as selling over the phone should be adopted.

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The information in this chapter is not about the latest technologies that are available on the Web, nor the latest emarketing fads. If you want to learn about these things, then go online. With the turbo-fast changing pace of the Internet, if I put information about Web technology into this book, it would be outdated by the time we sent it to be published. What this chapter does give you is information on how a Spark Sales Professional should use the World Wide Web as a sales tool. The level of competition on the Internet is fierce. With a simple Web search, comparison shopping can be accomplished at the touch of a few keys. Your competitors can be found as easily or sometimes even easier than you can. Reviews can also be found on your company, your product and you, personally. Want to know what they’ll find out?

Type

your

company, your product and your name into a search engine, and see

… people don’t just buy a product, they buy from the company or person selling that product.

what links come up. It pays to know what the customer knows about you first. Perception is everything. Just like with brick and mortar stores, web retailers or etailers focus their marketing efforts on their products in the stores.

Spark Your Sales

While this is important, people don’t just buy a product, they buy from the company or person selling that product. Ask yourself, if you could buy gourmet popcorn on the Internet and get a tin of flavored popcorn for $35 from a store, or pay $40 for a similar tin from a fundraising charity that supports educating orphans, which one would you purchase? See, it’s not about price, is it? As much as we all think that price is the final deciding factor, it really is not.

MAKE THE CUSTOMER WANT TO BUY FROM YOU If you are selling over the Internet, you want the customer to want to buy from you. The basics for accomplishing this are having a simple store to navigate, a secure website, easy to complete order forms, customer-friendly return policies and high rankings in the search engines. Smarter selling goes beyond that. Building the relationship with the customer via the Web is just as important as over the phone or in a store. Does the customer get a chance to know you through your website, or is it an anonymous experience?

Don’t hide behind the facade.

Computer shoppers are people too. They like to know who they are buying from. How personalized is your website? Are you keeping your customers informed about future buying opportunities and 103

specials via email or the phone? I signed up online with a local day spa for a massage. Now, each day I get notices of special last minute discount appointments. I love it! Other companies also send me daily or weekly discount notices. I unsubscribe to the ones that don’t offer me any value, and keep the ones that do. Your customers will do the same. Are you instant messaging (IM) with your clients to help them to make a purchase?

Getting the one little question

answered via IM is a lot faster than having to search through the site or wait for an email response. When I bought my last laptop online, the IM representative was terrific in helping me to select the right features I needed. She was certainly a lot more engaging than my having to search magazine articles that explained the differences to me in non-technical language. So, don’t just hide behind your computer on the Internet – get out there and talk to your customers!

STILL MAKE YOUR PHONE CALLS Are you following up your Web prospects and customers with phone calls? Nearly everyone follows up purchases with emails to the customer, but phone calls are a whole other matter. When I purchased an online software service, I got a phone call a few hours later from a customer representative who offered to walk me through a personal tutorial on how to use it. Plus he gave

Spark Your Sales

me his direct extension to call if I ever had questions. Talk about service! I never expected that from a web-based company. Most web-based companies hide their phone numbers so you can only contact them via email or IM. Have you tried to find a phone number on the websites of some of the Internet giants? Good luck!

Want to impress your e-customers with a little

extraordinary service? Call them on the phone. It’s that simple.

BUY NOW Another important factor of success in Internet sales is creating the sense of urgency. Why should they buy now? The reason for this importance is that many customers use the Internet to browse shop or to research a purchase before going to a bricks and mortar store. Having a sense of urgency to buy NOW can convert some window shoppers to merchandise buyers. How can this be achieved? •

Have a note that the price listed is a special deal only good for today.

•

For limited quantity items, have a counter that counts down the number of items available.

•

Use auction sites that have a timed expiration for the offer.

105

The same strategy should be used for communicating an offer or sale via email. This email The Internet is just

can

be

a

another powerful

broadcasted email

communication tool in the

or one in which you

salesman’s toolkit.

are negotiating a deal

with

customer.

the As

mentioned before, given the

choice

between one-to-one

email or

phone

communications with a customer, always chose the phone. But when email is the only choice, you want to incentivize the customer to buy now by explaining the limited quantities or expiration of a timed offer. “Delay your decision and it might not be available.” “Buy now and save money.” Or better yet, use your email to find out the best time to call them, and discuss the sale over the phone. The Internet is an incredibly powerful sales tool that is all too often utilized merely as a digital brochure for most companies. A true Spark Sales Professional will harness the power that the Web has to offer with the same extraordinary manner that he is using face-to-face and telephone salesmanship. The Internet is just another powerful communication tool in the salesman’s

Spark Your Sales

toolkit. And the Sale Professional will leverage use of ALL his tools.

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8 SPARK YOUR SALES AT TRADE SHOWS Trade shows are probably the most expensive lead generating system a company has. Even getting a small 6x8 booth space for a two-day show can cost a company nearly $5000 for traveling expenses, shipping the materials, renting the booth space, apportioned booth design cost, promotional materials, payroll costs for show and travel time and planning time required to organize the event. Bigger booths can costs in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars! All for a few hours of exhibition time to the convention attendees. Because of the high costs involved, it is absolutely imperative that a trade show sales team is well trained to get the most out of the experience. This is not the time to sit in a chair in your booth and wait for customers to pull you up to talk with them. This is the time to gather all the potential prospects you can find, do your absolute best to try to close them at the show and provide for a foolproof means of follow-up immediately after the show.

Spark Your Sales

PLAN NOW The planning for a major trade show should start several months in advance. New products and services are often launched at major events. Booths and signage may need to be redesigned, materials re-printed and samples ordered. Allow for enough time to get this completed, shipped to the office for inspection and then sent to the trade show in accordance with their delivery protocols. As soon as you decide to attend a trade show, start putting all of these events on a calendar, and track them so each task gets done on time. The trade show will go on whether or not you have your booth and materials there, and most events do not offer refunds. Each trade show is a one-time event that does not have make-ups or do-overs.

PRE-EVENT MAILERS Pre-event mailers also need to be designed and mailed. For most shows, a company wants the fliers to hit their targeted customers a few days before the customers leave to travel to the show. If this is a local trade show, drawing from customers within driving distance, then plan for the materials to be delivered 2-3 days before the opening. If this is a national or international trade show, a company needs to allow for possible travel time prior to 109

the event, and the mailers should be delivered 1-2 weeks before the opening day. The goal of the pre-

First day discounts are a

event mailer is to get the customer to visit the booth by generating

excitement

great strategy to boost sales at trade shows, but

or

making a very special offer.

combining them with

Some shows will have smaller

special Day 1 bonuses to

attendance on the first day, so anything that can be done to

incentivize the sales team to

entice the customer to visit the

close sales make it

booth on the first day will be an

unstoppable.

effective traffic booster.

To

make the mailer even more effective in drawing attendance, follow up the mailer with a direct call to your customers and prospects to set appointment times with a company representative at the booth. Some of the power offers that can be used in a pre-mailer are: •

“Visit us at 11am for a grand unveiling of our newest technology and receive a free gift!”

•

“Bring this coupon to our booth for a Double Discount on Day 1!”

•

“Free golf shirts to the first 50 booth visitors!”

Spark Your Sales

First day discounts are a great strategy to boost sales at trade shows, but combining them with special Day 1 bonuses to incentivize the sales team to close sales make it unstoppable. Lots of trade show attendees will tell you that they’ll “be back” to buy, but many of them fail to show up. As always, do everything to close the sale on the spot, but if not, then set an appointment for the Be-Back-er to return to talk with you and get their cellphone number to call them. If they are even five minutes late for the appointment, call them right away.

THE PRE-EVENT MEETING Usually just prior to the start of a major trade show, the sales management will want to meet with the team to announce the targeted goals and any related special bonuses to the sales team. The bigger the reward and the more tangible they can make it, the more excited the sales team will be. Keeping a team enthusiastic throughout a long trade show, where they are standing for hours on a hard floor talking to sales prospects, is very important.

Sales contests can help

maintain the energy and excitement. See Chapter 12, on Sparking Your Sales Using Sales Contests, for specific information on this area, or go online at www.SparkYourCompany.com and review those workbooks. 111

The pre-event meeting is also a good time to review the logistics of the event, the types of attendee badges, practice with all the equipment in the booth, and review the sale techniques with the sales team. Even if they have all heard the sales training before, it is always a good thing to remind them of powerful sales techniques. Seasoned sales representatives tend to stick with only a few sales tools and over time will forget the lesser used ones. Reviewing everything, even the basics, keeps them sharp. If you don’t believe me, then just attend any professional golf school. The first thing they ask you in golf class is to show them how you grip the club. Yes, that’s right. You can be playing golf for twenty years and the first thing they ask is the most basic step of all – gripping the club. Why? Because the basics of golf are the foundation of everything, and they need to be polished in order to truly grow. Just like with sales.

CUSTOMER STOPPERS The

most

important

selling step at a trade show is

… make sure to

actually getting people to stop at

ask questions

the booth. Every passerby is a

that are real

potential customer.

If a Spark

Sales Professional is not talking to a customer in the booth, then

Spark Your Sales

customer stoppers!

he is approaching customers to stop and talk with him. Some companies hire models and use giveaways to get people to stop at their booths. This works, but a Spark Sales Professional can go one step better than that. Every person walking by the booth should be personally and directly invited into the booth with a stop-dead-in-your-tracks question. This is not the “Have you tried product X?” or “Want to make more money?” kind of question. The magical stop-dead-inyour-tracks question should be far more engaging than that. And it should never be a yes or no question that is easy to answer and keep walking. This needs to be a real question that makes the customer think and slow down to respond to you. Once they slow down, you’ve got the chance to reel them into your booth. Better yet, asking the question in a bit of a slower rate of speech practically forces the person slow down to hear you. Saying it too fast only encourages them to keep their fast pace of walking by the booth. And by slipping into the aisle as you ask them, you can also use your body as a stop sign. So make sure to ask questions that are real customer stoppers! •

“What’s the single biggest reason you haven’t invested with Eagle Financial yet?”

•

“When was the last time you slipped your feet in Axiom Shoes?” 113

•

“How many new customers did you NOT get last month?” The customer-stopping question is actually a one-two

combination. The stop-dead-in-your-tracks question only earns you the privilege to speak with that person. The second part is what gets the sales conversation going. The sales professional needs to hear the customer’s response, and then respond with: •

“That’s exactly why we are here to help folks like you.”

•

“Can you imagine how the next few moments might impact the rest of your life?” Now, some people, no matter what you say to them as

they walk by, will just say, “No, not interested.” If you truly want to be an extraordinary sales professional and be an order maker instead of an order taker, then you need to engage some of these folks as well.

Are you ready for one of the most powerful

questions to stop a person dead-in-their-tracks even when they tell you: •

“I’m

happy

with

my

current

company/supplier/provider (your competitor).” •

“I need to be somewhere for a meeting.”

•

“I’m good. Thank you.”

•

“I’m not interested.”

Here’s the power question in its three forms: “What would the ideal ____________ partner look like to you?”

Spark Your Sales

“What would the ideal ____________ experience look like to you?” “What would the ideal ____________ (product) look like to you?” This question needs to be tailored for your specific company’s industry, service and product.

And it works for

everything. •

“What would the ideal printing partner look like to you?”

•

“What would the ideal water filtration partner look like to you?”

•

“What would the ideal dining experience look like to you?”

•

“What would the ideal hair cut experience look like to you?”

•

“What would the ideal running shoe look like to you?”

•

“What would the ideal car look like to you?”

This question catches people. It catches them and makes them stop and think and answer and then talk with you. It catches everything you need to know about what they are looking for from a company like yours. It catches the value concept far more than price. And it catches their interest because you’ve just asked them 115

to talk about WHAT THEY REALLY WANT. Most people have a vague idea about the products and services they want, but as they talk about it, they think more about what really is important to them. Using the words “partner” and “experience” also elevates the concept of your company and service. The words help to focus the customer on both the tangible aspects and the intangible elements that can differentiate a company, even in the most competitive of environments. By talking about these important aspects, the customer is priming themselves to be sold.

THE DEMONSTRATION Now that you have gotten the customer’s attention and you have heard what is most important to them regarding their needs and wants, you are in a really great position to explain what you can do for them. This is the demonstration or explanation portion of the sale. Armed with understanding the aspects important to that customer, you have the extraordinary opportunity to tailor the demonstration or explanation to just those few important points. You can tell them exactly what they are looking for and what they need to hear to become a customer. How much easier can it get?

Spark Your Sales

If you have the product right there, then show the product. If you have the opportunity Don’t be afraid of

to

use

videos or pictures, then

marking up a

use those too. Video is the

beautiful handout.

most

powerful

because if the customer

They are not

sees it AND hears it, works of art.

then the information is more memorable and impactful.

Depending

on what the customer told you they wanted, use a variety of visuals to show the customer the actual product. Visuals can include a specification sheet, a photo or video of the service or product, or anything to mentally imprint into their brains. The Spark Sales Professional can go one step further and make it personal for that customer.

Using a pen, the sales

professional will circle, underline or add specific information onto any printed handout. Don’t be afraid of marking up a beautiful handout. They are not works of art. They are works of marketing and are designed solely to garner new business. Writing on them only increases the value because you are increasing the likelihood of the literature to actually generate a sale. 117

ENGAGING MULTIPLE CUSTOMERS A fairly common situation is that while you are talking with one customer, a few more come up to your booth to see what’s going on. This can happen often when there are scheduled lectures during the trade show and the attendees visit the exhibit hall during the break times. A bird in the hand is certainly worth more than two in the bush, and there are some ways to keep the customer you already are working on and also to engage the other folks as well. First, consider how far along you are with your current sales presentation. If you are about to close the sale and write the order, then you want to focus on getting that sale. However, at any point before you asked that customer for the sale, you can invite the other customers to hear your pitch and demo. Be sure to ask the current customer first if they would mind letting other people listen while you spoke. When inviting other customers to join your sales conversation currently in progress within the booth, you will need to switch from the role of sales representative to sales presenter. As soon as you are talking with more than one customer, you are now managing a crowd. This means that you have to keep everyone in the group engaged in your sales presentation and talk with them as a group, not as a bunch of eavesdroppers listening to a private conversation. You want to

Spark Your Sales

face the whole group as you speak with them. You also want to hold your product demo high enough that everyone can see it. When you ask a question of a small crowd, the same as you would for doing a one-to-one sales pitch, you want to make sure that everyone in the group answers that question. Be careful of being drawn into arguments or negativity. If someone throws out a challenging comment about your company or product, it is better to say, “Let’s talk about that later,” and continue with your sales presentation. Use as many people in the group as possible for the demonstration.

One way is to ask for participants or select

volunteers to keep them involved. Instead of having one person operate the controls, have several people do one or two small steps. If it’s a really quick demonstration, then have the group line up and take turns one by one. If you are using handouts, make sure everyone has a copy. Be sure to walk around the group and mark up everyone’s sheet if you are making notes on the handouts.

119

It’s also easy for Something as quick

someone to fall out of the group and walk away. They

as a smile or a friendly

will listen to you for a few

comment goes to show

minutes from the back of the the customer that he

group and then leave. To make sure that you are able

has not been forgotten,

to contact them later on,

and he is a person, not

either ask them to provide a

just a “sale.”

business card or have a clipboard with a sign-in form for them to provide their name and contact information. Even if you have to repeat yourself a dozen times for people to sign-in during a single presentation or assign that task to a customer in the group, you need to make sure that you are capturing that information. The sales process when selling to a group is similar to that of selling to one person.

You will follow the steps for the

approach/open, engagement, demo, objection handling, asking for the sale and the close, but once you have started at a given step with the group, you will keep moving forward from that step instead of going back and starting from the beginning. The most fun part comes when you ask for the sale, and close a whole group together. Some of the best lines that I have heard are:

Spark Your Sales

•

“Raise your hand if you want to be the first one to get this.”

•

“Take out your credit cards, and hold them up if you are ready to buy.”

•

“I have just enough for each of you. Here’s the form to complete. We can go over the form together.”

Once you get a few hands raised, use some crowd psychology to get the folks who are on the fence to say yes. This is where the second ask is powerful. Leverage the peer pressure inherent to crowds, and use an extra bonus offer or a little humor. •

“Looks like we got a lot of folks interested. If we can get a few more hands in the air, then I can include free shipping in the offer.”

•

“If you don’t have a credit card in the air, then find someone who does and put your order on theirs!”

Just like selling over the phone or in an office, closing a sale at a trade show does not end the relationship with a customer but rather gets it started. Most people will wander the aisles of a trade show several times, so a customer is likely to walk past you several times after buying from you. Be sure to acknowledge the customer every time they walk past your booth. Something as quick as a smile or a friendly comment goes to show the customer that he has not been forgotten, and he is a person, not just a 121

“sale.” A true Spark Sales Professional will go one step further with a customer who made a purchase and ask that customer about other people they know at this show that they can bring over to the booth. At professional trade shows and local or regional exhibition shows, many of the folks know each other. Just by asking for referrals on a consistent basis, you can easily garner a few more sales that might never have fallen your way. Every little bit makes the difference.

GETTING THOSE EXTRA SALES Another way to win a few extra sales is to make sure

A sale is a sale, and each one counts!

that you are at your booth 30 minutes before the exhibit area opens and that you stay another

15-30 minutes after it closes. Why? There are always a few early birds and some late stragglers who you can speak with at those times. Some people just like to be the first in line or the last to leave, so you want to be able to cater to them. They often will buy on the spot, just because you were there to take care of them, and your competitors had already left. Additionally, you can use that time to sell your wares to some of the other vendors who may be interested in your product or service. I have even worked for some companies where we sold to the hotel and convention hall staff at

Spark Your Sales

those times because those folks had come in for set-up or takedown. A sale is a sale, and each one counts! The same goes for taking down your booth and packing up. Even though other exhibitors may be putting things away, a Spark Sales Professional will wait until the very end of the event in order to look ready to sell at all times. I would much rather keep my exhibit up through the very end of the show and make one or two more sales than start packing things away too soon just to leave a half hour earlier. The time saved by leaving early can easily be sales lost.

SLOW SHOWS What happens if you are stuck working a dead show with limited attendance? What do you do if only a few attendees are walking through the exhibit hall? You take matters into your own hands. Most trade shows are pretty strict on selling in the public spaces such as walkways and eating areas, but if your company paid thousands of dollars for the booth, and you are only getting a trickle of traffic, go speak with the folks in charge of the event and ask what they can do to help you. Don’t wait until the end of the show, because by then it’s too late. Instead, keep your cool, and try to salvage the show. Offer suggestions such as moving your booth to a more heavily trafficked area, arranging five minutes to 123

address the group from the main stage or getting permission to place flyers on the chairs in the main lecture hall. Most event hosts will seek to accommodate their exhibitors if approached in a reasonable manner.

WHEN YOU GET HOME Immediately following the show, it is imperative that the leads you obtained are given the highest priority. Starting first thing the next business day, the leads should be followedSelling at trade shows

up. Although it is easier to

requires planning,

email people, it is more

salesmanship and

effective to call them. There are some people who say

diligent follow-up.

that following a trade show, the attendees may need some catch up time of their

own so you should try to reach them after a full work day. In my experience, however, you want to be the first to reach them when they are back in the office. Why give your competitor a head start? At 9:00am on the day following the event (or earlier if you account for time zone differences), the Spark Sales Professional will be calling all the folks that he spoke with over the weekend. This includes the prospect list, referrals and also anyone he sold.

Spark Your Sales

Make it the highest priority to reach these customers within the first 24 hours. The sales results will speak for themselves. Selling at trade shows requires planning, salesmanship and diligent follow-up. No matter the attendance or size of the show, do your best from start to finish and MAKE the show into a success!

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9 SPARK YOUR SALES THROUGH DISTRIBUTORS The pros and cons of selling through distributors versus an internal sales force is an inevitable discussion for any growing company.

An internal sales force usually is comprised of

employees or contracted hires who exclusively sell for the company, whereas distributors often are companies or individuals who represent several different manufacturers. Distributors usually are a more cost effective means to launch a project because of the lower upfront costs, though they can be more expensive in the long run because of the higher commission rates they will earn.

Distributors often (but not

always) can leverage their existing customer base and their networks to get your product more exposure in a faster time frame. Distributors also may have the advantage of leveraging several salespeople on their team within a territory and also may conduct some of their own marketing programs such as catalogs, newsletters, telemarketing and a website.

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On the other hand, when working with a distributor, a company is literally buying their time and attention with the margin and total potential opportunity that can be earned. The distributor can either be exclusive to that product or offer multiple lines of products. Also, a company has less control over a distributor than an employee. Enforcing company policies on an employee whose entire income is paid by the company is easier than doing so on a distributor whose income from the company is only a portion of his total. And, in case of termination, either the company or the distributor or both may retain the right to contact the customers, depending on the details of the distributor agreement. In any distributor agreement, the distributor discerns how best to focus their time, effort and attention to maximize the profit based on the motivating factors from the company. There are four primary motivators for a distributor to sell your product: Compensation,

Training,

Service/Communication

operative Marketing.

127

and

Co-

COMPENSATION Compensation is usually negotiated in the beginning of the

…the more money a distributor can earn

relationship, hopefully in a written agreement. Although it may be

by selling your

difficult to put it all down on

product, the more

paper, the written agreement

sales attention and

helps to spell things out for both

effort he or she will

sides so that there is less chance of a misunderstanding.

Since

put into it.

distributors are not employees but independent contractors, they are not paid a salary or benefits. Therefore the compensation that they earn on sales is often a bit higher to accommodate for their increased income risk and their need to pay their own benefits. An independent distributor should earn a higher percentage commission on a sale than an employed sales representative who gets a base salary and benefits. In some cases, a distributor may work on pure commission, and in other cases, there may be some minimum guaranteed commission for a period of time. This “commission” may be either a paid commission or a discount that the distributor uses to purchase your product to then resell at a higher rate.

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Simply put, the more money a distributor can earn by selling your product, the more sales attention and effort he or she will put into it. Although the commission or discount is a big factor, it is not the only one. The ease of making a sale is also a large factor. If your company has strong positive brand recognition, it is a lot easier to sell to customers than a no-name brand. Another factor is the frequency of repurchases. If a product is a recurring purchase like a disposable item, the value of building a base of frequently repurchasing customers will help increase the distributor’s earnings on your product.

The commission or

discount should be set accordingly. I have seen the commission and discount rates as low as the single digits and above 50%, but most frequently they will be in the range of 15-35%. Once the commission, discount and any other payment factors are set in the agreement, there are still some ways to energize a distributor network. Using periodic bonuses on unit sales is a great way to get your distributors to focus their effort on certain product lines. For example, if you were to run a $100 bonus on a certain model that you overstocked, you can certainly inject a level of enthusiasm and attention to that particular model. Like any bonus program, you want to run it only for a short period of time so people can focus on that achievement, and then you want 129

to end the bonus so it does not become a standard that everyone just expects. A bonus should be special. When it becomes a standard payout program, it loses its luster and effectiveness.

TRAINING When you bring a distributor on board, just like when you bring an employed sales representative on board, you have to train them about your company and product. Depending on Demonstrations

the distributor’s experience,

and role playing

you also may have to train

can be powerful

them about your industry, the markets

tools for these trainings.

you

salesmanship. have

a

are

in

and

Even if you world-class

experienced distributor, it still helps to review the basics. You never know what the distributor knows or doesn’t know. And everyone can benefit from a refresher. Plus, in many cases, the distributor can contribute additional information that may benefit others participating in the training session. Training does not end after the initial session, even for distributors. New products are launched. Existing products are upgraded. These features and benefits need to be communicated

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to the distributors. Weekly sales trainings or conference calls can communicate these changes as well as help sales representatives learn new techniques and strategies. Demonstrations and role playing can be powerful tools for these trainings. Experienced Spark Sales Professionals also should be encouraged to share their successes as examples of Best Practices. Best Practices are those sales tools that work!

If they work for one Spark Sales

Professional, then they should be shared so everyone else on the team can learn and use them too. Always encourage sharing of Best Practices at sales trainings, especially when training distributors, because they are exposed to sales trainings for other companies and can build on their experience from working with other products. Remote trainings of distributors can be done on a steady basis, but on-site visits, including working with the distributors as they speak with customers at trade shows, riding along with their sales reps to offices or working alongside them in their stores, should occur several times a year. To really help a distributor increase sales and contribute to growth, traveling to visit them on their turf is an absolute must. You never know what a distributor really knows about your product or salesmanship until you see them interacting with a customer. Plus, you will be able to spot

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some new Best Practices that the distributor may not have even realized they were doing. A few years ago, I traveled halfway around the world to work with one of our distributors at the time. I watched him conduct a training seminar for his customers and learned a whole new way to train customers that we had never considered. We brought that concept back to our own seminars with great success. Distributors can sometimes teach a manufacturer as much as the manufacturer can teach them.

SERVICE/COMMUNICATION Just like you take great care of a customer, you also have to take great care of your distributors, with the same level of service and attention. Higher levels of service may be warranted because that one distributor can directly affect the business that you are doing with hundreds or thousands of customers! The customers that you have through the distributor may be considered both the distributor’s and your customers, but the distributor has direct communication with them and therefore has the advantage of likely keeping them.

Spark Your Sales

So,

it

pays

enormously to have a

Start talking with other

GREAT

relationship

with your distributor.

people, and you will

This

relationship

see entirely new

includes making sure

concepts germinate

that the distributors’ accounts

and come to fruition.

exceedingly serviced.

are well Make sure

that their shipments and payments to them are accurate and on time. Make sure that their orders are processed quickly and on time.

Make sure that your entire company shows them the

attention they deserve by doing things right for them the first time.

There are few things more frustrating in a distributor

relationship than a supplier who continually messes up shipments, payments and orders. Taking steps to make the relationship operationally error-proof is an important first step. Next, you want to build solid communications with the distributors. Schedule regular conversations to find out how you can help them and to make sure they are doing what was agreed upon. The purpose of scheduling the calls instead of making impromptu phone calls back and forth is to make sure that you 133

have set aside time and attention to address any issues that they may have for you. It also gives you a definite time to update the distributor on any particular sales and marketing programs that are being launched or are in the pipeline to be launched. You know that you will be speaking every Tuesday at 11am, so you will be more prepared for the call. You also have the opportunity to collectively brainstorm new ways to increase the distributor’s sales. This is one of the great benefits of working with distributors over standard sales representatives. Oftentimes, a large distributor has extensive and broad experience with a network of contacts in the same industry. That experience can be leveraged to develop new ideas. If you have read Napoleon Hills’ book “Think and Grow Rich,” then you understand the concept of a Master Mind Group. This is a group of smart people that you get together with for the purpose of discussing how to grow your business. The phone call with your distributors is very much akin to the Master Mind Group, although on a smaller level. Start talking with other people, and you will see entirely new concepts germinate and come to fruition. The ideas start flowing, and you have people to discuss them with to develop the idea into a workable plan. By having scheduled calls, you will

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begin to hold yourself and others accountable. Little by little, you will see your business grow through this process.

CO-OPERATIVE MARKETING Co-operative marketing consists of any shared expenses between the company and the distributor that are related to sales and marketing opportunities. Sometimes this may be a formal budgeted amount, and other times it is an informal decision on a particular project. I have seen companies use this money to help fund the hiring of new sales representatives, direct mail projects, advertising, telemarketing, trade shows, point of purchase materials, flyers and more. The benefit of co-operative marketing is that the company and the distributor pay their apportioned share of the costs. The company gets the benefit of leveraging the distributors brand identity and customer base. The distributor gets the benefit of reduced risk by cost-sharing. If you are not offering this opportunity to your distributors, you are missing out on untapped sales. Offering co-operative marketing is one thing. Working it out is another. I am sure you are familiar with how hard it is to get a single marketing piece completed within your own company and how many folks have to approve it before its distribution. With co135

operative marketing, you also need to send the piece to a whole separate company (your distributor) for them to review, edit and approve.

In business, what you pay attention to is

That means a few extra steps of going back and forth so both your

what grows.

company and the distributor are satisfied with the marketing material produced.

It pays to have the

marketing people from both companies talk in the development stage so everyone feels their ideas were included and later editorial changes are not quite as drastic. The more that can be shared from the onset, the more cooperative both parties will be. Another important component of co-operative marketing is keeping track of all the billable costs that relate to the cooperative project. Most times, the internal labor costs are covered by the individual parties. The company would not normally bill the distributor for the graphic design work if the work was completed in-house. However, all external charges should be recorded, and at some fixed point in the project, the expenses need to be tallied and apportioned appropriately. In the excitement of launching a co-operative marketing project, the expense component is often overlooked, so be sure to lay out clear guidelines from the onset. Finally, find some way to track the results of co-operative marketing on a project by project basis. Both the company and

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the distributor want to know if their money is being well spent. Use media codes or special order tracking systems to provide the data to see if the project worked or not. The advantage of co-operative marketing is the company and the distributor can concentrate efforts on a particular product, market or area for growth. In business, what you pay attention to is what grows. That is why both parties are willing to commit money, time and resources for the project. Identifying these kinds of opportunities and then putting in the funds to support them will help direct growth in the intended directions. Managing distributors has slightly different nuances than managing employed sales representatives, but in the end, the motivation is centered around the same basic concepts of money, leadership and communication. And the results are a big leap in sales!

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10 SPARK WITH THE LONG-TERM SALE A lot of the selling suggestions in this book so far have focused on increasing the velocity of the sale of products and services that could be sold quickly. Many salespeople think that customers need days, weeks or months to decide to buy, when in fact, if the salesperson found out the customer’s TRUE NEEDS and was able to unquestionably satisfy those needs, the customer would be more than willing to buy today. The reality is that many customers are not really sure of their needs, and the salesperson does not take the time to pull that information from the customer, so many buying decisions are delayed. This chapter is NOT for those situations. This chapter is about working with true long-term buying situations. An example of a long-term buying situation is where an airline company calls up an airplane manufacturer about possibly placing an order for 25 airplanes. Specifications and designs of the planes would have to be clearly delineated and reviewed. Airport gates need to be considered. Pilot training needs to be planned out. Maintenance

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of the planes needs to be arranged. Passenger loads and fuel costs need to be calculated. Budgets need to be prepared. Financing needs to be arranged. And federal regulations may have to be referenced. So many aspects of the purchase have to be considered and so many people have to be involved in the calculations, that a single phone call is highly unlikely to result in an instant sale. Although some aspects of this sales cycle may be streamlined, this is a classic example of a long-term sale. Other examples include real estate, furniture, large capital equipment and corporate software purchases. Another type of long-term sale to consider is the customer who makes frequent purchases from you. This occurs in companies with disposable goods, general suppliers with a broad product offering or even retailers with multiple product lines such as a grocery or department store. This is a long-term relationship sale in which the “sale” to the customer is actually a series of smaller sales. The customer has to be engaged and provided value at each individual sale in order to remain a customer, so many of the facets of the one-time long-term sale apply.

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THE NEED FOR COMMUNICATION The long-term sale requires a flow of information back and forth between the buyer and seller. Often, a long-term sale is a significant expense or investment, so accurate communication is paramount. An example would be the sale of a product subcomponent such as a memory chip to a computer manufacturer, in which the memory chip has to be properly fit and connected with the computer’s other components and software. The computer manufacturer will not commit to buying the memory chip until the memory chip manufacturer sends samples, and the computer company can test them within the computer and other parts. The success of the memory chip sale depends on the successful matching of the memory chip to exactly what the computer manufacturer is looking for. In the past, language barriers between nations often limited the accuracy of specifications, so companies dealt more easily with component manufacturers in their own countries. Fortunately, international trade has matured over the past few decades with a common language of English, but differences such as standard measurement units and misinterpretation of specifications can still create some unforeseen problems.

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BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS The success of the long-term sale also involves strong relationship building. If the buyer or seller does not like the personality of the other, then conversations likely will be strained and the sale may not happen. Some salespeople just try too hard to be liked, to the point where it is irritating. Others may just be abrasive. This is a very hard pill to swallow, but to really succeed in sales, a Spark Sales Professional needs to be able to honestly assess himself and understand how other people perceive him. The PERCEPTION by the buyer is the reality of the situation. It is what and how the buyer perceives about the sales representative that defines the nature of the relationship. This ability of reality testing is challenging for many sales representatives, but it is a skill that can be learned through practice and coaching. For high ticket item purchases, sales representatives often leverage golf games, fishing outings, special lunches or dinners, attendance at sports games, fancy trips and unique gifts to build relationships. Certainly the shared experiences work to build relationships. The customer enjoys being treated like a VIP, and the sales representative has the time to talk with the customer away from the office and can get his undivided attention.

141

The truth of the matter, however, is that a customer will not really choose to buy your goods based on the quality of the seats that you bought for the NBA Playoff games. Nor will they choose to use your company based on the nice gift or trip you provided. They will choose your company when you make them FEEL SPECIAL. The sales tool of high priced entertainment is one way to make a customer feel special, but as a stand alone tool without also delivering the customer special attention, such gifts can just be a wasted expense. Also,

many

of

the

entertainment

that

sales

representatives choose for their customers are things more that people would do with friends. The psychology behind doing them with customers is that if the customer would normally do those things with a friend, and if he is now doing them with you, then the customer will probably begin to look at you like a friend. However, this is not always the case. The challenge for the Spark Sales Professional is to figure out how to make the customer truly feel special without being invasive. Dropping off a birthday cake is a great way to celebrate a customer’s birthday yet also a lot less personally intrusive than taking the customer out to dinner for their birthday. The customer will likely have plans with family or friends and want to make her birthday a personal affair rather than a business meeting.

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Another concern with high ticket entertainment for clients is that over the course of the evening or outing, although you may be building relationships by way of the activity, it can be hard to actually talk about business uninterrupted. Even during a five hour golf game, the appropriate time to talk business may only be 20 total minutes! In many industries, high ticket entertainment is the de facto standard of doing business. So how can a Spark Sales Professional compete without it? By being honest and direct. “Mr. Shubert, my company can meet the specifications for the materials that you are wanting in the time frames that you need. Your current supplier is charging $425 a pallet. Would you rather that I match the price and take you out for a golf outing, nice dinner and a New York Knicks game or would you want me to beat that price by $15 a pallet and take you out for a simple lunch to celebrate that you just saved your company $7,000 a year?” In the end, a true valued relationship with the customer is based more on proven service over time than on high priced entertainment. If you won over a customer based on price or glitzy entertainment, you can be beat by a new rival with better pricing or better entertainment. However, if you can exhibit and commit to an extraordinary level of servicing the customer on the points that they consider to be important, you are truly protected 143

from being outsold by the competition, simply because you have already “out-serviced” them and won the customer’s loyalty. A Spark Sales Professional earns loyalty from a customer by remembering the details of the relationship. Want to impress someone? Don’t just send a pre-printed holiday card. Send a birthday card, an anniversary card and a valentines’ day card. Want to really impress them? Include a copy of a news article or a write-up that is aligned with their interests. If you know they love to fly fish, then send them an article about the greatest fly fishing vacation trips when you see that in a travel magazine. Want to win them over for life? Handwrite all your cards and notes. In this day and age, the handwritten note connotes a level of personal touch that a typed letter just cannot duplicate. Loyalty also is earned by more than just the one person you are meeting within the company. If you are doing serious long-term business with a company, make sure to learn the names of all the people in that company. Take the time to treat them like people and not as doormats to the decision-maker. They will talk about you when you leave, and you want them to be saying only good things about you. Think the office receptionist doesn’t have any influence? Think again. Some decision-makers ask them specifically how a sales representative treated them, because it can indicate how that same sales representative will treat a customer.

Spark Your Sales

Above

all, you

must show

sincerity. I knew a supplier once who was so good at keeping track of information about me that it came off as too slick.

Treat your long-term customers like

We hadn’t yet developed a strong level of connection, yet he was referring to my

you would want

wife and kids by their first names, even

to be treated

though he had never met them. I must have dropped their names in our first

yourself.

conversation, and he kept good notes. Good for him for keeping the notes, but when he asked me how they were doing by name on the second visit, I actually felt that he had invaded some personal territory. So as powerful as knowing all this information, it is even more powerful to know when to properly use that information to keep the customer within his or her comfort zone. Finally, a strong relationship builder in long-term sales relationships is simply to show and express gratitude to the customer. After all, you are grateful for his business. That’s how you are paying the bills.

All too often though, sales

representatives don’t take the time to say thank you for that business. Every time I come to pick up my clothes, my dry cleaner tells me that they appreciate my business. And I love to hear it 145

every single time. It makes me feel that they truly want my business – which, in turn, makes me want to give them more of my business. A statement of appreciation and gratitude really has to come from the heart. The statement can be said, but it needs to be felt by the sales professional when it is actually said to the customer. Talk about a relationship builder – that’s a powerful connection between sales professional and customer on all the right levels. Treat your long-term customers like you would want to be treated yourself. Provide them with the information necessary to make the right decisions and the highest level of customer service to keep them wanting to continue doing business with you. Businesses spend a lot of marketing dollars trying to reach new customers. Spark Sales Professionals need to spend a lot of time on trying to keep the ones that they already have.

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11 SPARK YOUR SALES WINNING SALES CONTESTS I absolutely love sales contests! I love running them as a sales manager, and I love winning them as a sales representative. Any sales representative does too. Why? First, it’s extra money, and what sales person doesn’t like that? Second, it’s a contest and sales

professionals

like

competition

and

strive

to

win

competitions. Third, effective sales contests will increase sales on the right products. They can inject enthusiasm into a slow day or create a wave of excitement over weeks. Sales contests simply wake up a sales force to take notice and focus on a particular product line. And when the sales team starts talking about something more, the customers start buying it more. So let’s examine how a company creates and runs winning sales contests and how the Spark Sales Professionals should try to win them. In order to engage a team immediately to get started, sales contests are best run for short periods of time. If a contest 147

has a deadline that is too far out, such as a few months from now, sales representatives do not feel the urgency to get started. By the time they feel the urgency, the excitement from the initial launch of the contest has worn off. Different sales contests are appropriate for different selling environments. To get a team focused on closing sales at a trade show, multiple sales contests can be run: one for the first day only and separate ones that last for the whole event. This way everyone comes out of the gate strong and stays engaged. To wake up a call center, sales contests can be run on the spot. For example, if a call center director sees sales are slow in a particular product line, she can announce an immediate double commission rate for all sales in that particular line, good for the remainder of the day. Amazingly enough, the call center staff will start talking about that product line more and start increasing those sales.

STEPS OF THE SALES CONTEST The first step in launching a sales contest is to DECIDE WHICH PRODUCTS OR SERVICES YOU WANT TO FOCUS ON. There are two primary factors in picking the best item. The first is that you probably want to focus your team’s attention on selling a product with the highest profit margin. The second is that you want to select a service or product line that has significant potential for increased sales but is underperforming. Be careful

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about choosing something that is already on the fast growth track because then you might be paying bonuses on sales that you already had. You want your team to have to work smarter or harder to generate the additional sales and earn the bonus. The next step is DESIGNING THE RIGHT MOTIVATING COMPENSATION STRUCTURE, which will depend on your team. Close knit sales teams may prefer group rewards in which everyone gets a piece of the reward if the team hits a certain goal. Competitive sales teams may prefer individual rewards based directly on individual effort. Highly competitive sales teams may even want a winnertake-all reward in which only the top performer earns the reward. The caution with winner-take-all rewards is that as soon as lesser performing sales representatives realize that they are not on pace to win, they are no longer incentivized by the contest because they view it as impossible to win, so why bother trying. The reward itself also has to GRAB THE ATTENTION OF THE SALES TEAM in order to generate excitement and results. Some examples of sales contest rewards are: •

extra commission

•

super bonus, like a major cash payout

•

extra time off (paid early dismissal, half-days or vacation days) 149

•

company products

•

company logo items such as shirts, hats, mugs and bags

•

reward pins

•

gift cards

•

professional massages

•

car wash or car servicing

•

special trips

When using a monetary award, try to create a tiered, retro-active awards program.

Tiered payouts mean that the

payout increases as the sales increase in that period. For example, selling up to 5 units, the bonus payout is $5/unit. Selling 6-10 units, the bonus payout is $6/unit. Selling 11-15 units, the bonus payout is $7/unit. Retro-active

payouts

mean

that

once

the

sales

representative hits the new tier for the contest, then all the payouts for that month are increased to the new level. In this example, the combined retro-active rule with the tiered structure would mean that if the sales representative sold 12 units in the month, then the bonus payout on all 12 would be $7. Remember, if the contest was not retro-active, then the sales representative would have earned $5 for the first 5 units, $6 for units 6-10 and $7 for the 11th and 12th unit. The goal of the sales contest is to motivate and incentivize the sales team. When a

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sales representative is having a hot month, you want to encourage them even further, and not help them to feel safe enough to sit back and rest on their laurels.

The tiered, retro-active

compensation structure certainly achieves that by significantly increasing the value of their efforts as they increase their sales. When designing a non-monetary award, it also pays to know your people so you can create one that will be significant to them. If your team values family time, then time off may be a better reward than cash. Better yet, personalizing an award can be an incredibly powerful stimulus. To energize a field sales team, I once created a dream vacation bonus, in which they got to pick their own personal dream vacation. The contest was to set a record number of units sold in a month, so the first five people who hit that record would get bonus money for their dream trip. The incentive to sell today was designed as a sliding reward scale, so the first person who broke the record got $5,000 towards the dream trip, but the second person only got $4,000, the third person got $3,000, the fourth got $2,000 and the fifth got $1,000. In order to keep the contest alive in each of the field representative’s minds, they were required to tell us what their dream trip was in detail, AND they had to keep a photo of their dream trip with them in their cars. Well, every sales representative drove around with a photo of their dream trip, and as the first few 151

winners hit the bigger payouts and the remaining awards got smaller, the intensity and focus of the rest of the representatives on winning the contest increased. There is a huge psychological motivator for the award to be personal and tangible, and asking the sales representatives to look at their personal dream each and every day kept them engaged in the contest. The result was the largest unit increase in sales within 60 days! Launching a sales contest, no matter how big or small, should occur with GREAT FANFARE. This is a special opportunity and the company should treat it as such. Contests should best be announced face-to-face in a group setting so the swell of excitement from the entire team can be felt. Rules for the contests should be put in writing. This is what most people would call the “fine print,” but it is necessary. No one can envision every possible scenario that can arise with a contest, so exceptions always arise.

The most common two

exceptions are how to handle returns and addressing when multiple representatives were involved in a single sale.

The

purpose of the rules is to clearly state the expectations, the rewards and the eligibility, so in case of exceptions, the company has some set of guidelines for reference. Although the launching of a sales contest can be a mini pep rally, the cheerleading does not end with the launch. In fact, the CHEERLEADING FOR THE SALES CONTEST NEEDS TO

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CONTINUE ALMOST DAILY to keep the team engaged throughout the contest. Successful milestones should be noted, announced and even celebrated in some way. If you have your first winner, you want to confirm the numbers, announce that right away and encourage the rest of the team that it’s possible for them to earn the payout too! Another way to keep the team motivated throughout the contest is to post the individual and team numbers. Public posting of the sales is a powerful motivator. No one likes to be on the bottom, and Spark Sales Professionals especially like to be on the top. What’s interesting is that some of the bottom folks may not realize that their performance is sub-standard, so by seeing how they rank compared with their peers, they can see the reality of the situation. Keep the chart updated at least on a daily basis, if not more frequently. The team needs to see that when they sell more, the results are updated. It shows them that the company is really interested in the contest. If the chart remains out of date for several days, it quickly can result in a lack of interest in the contest by the sales team. For sales teams that are dispersed across a geographical area, use a digital chart or spreadsheet, and email it out to the team each day. The key point in charting the results is to keep people thinking

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about how to get to the top of the chart and stay off of the bottom. Using sales contests as a way to focus the efforts of the sales team is a proven sales management tool. The differentiating factor of extraordinary sales managers is the ability to use the contest to step up the motivation level and maintain it throughout the contest. Keeping the whole team engaged is just as important as designing the right contest and award.

Like many great

business ideas, the key to success lies not in the idea but rather in the execution of the idea.

HOW TO WIN So, as a Spark Sales Professional, if you are presented with a sales contest, how should you go about planning how to win it? First, make sure that you CLEARLY UNDERSTAND THE RULES OF THE CONTEST and which products, units or services or eligible. A Spark Sales Professional will want to focus on those particular items because the company has indicated that they are the most important by virtue of the sales contest itself. Ask questions to clarify any point that you might be unclear on. Whenever possible, try to get the answers to those questions in writing.

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Second, FIND OUT WHAT INCENTIVES YOU CAN OFFER to your customers. Are there any special inducements such as free shipping, bulk discount pricing or add-ons that you can offer for the specified product? You want to know all of your sales tools to motivate customers who may be on the fence about purchasing. Orders only count if they occur within the timeframe of the contest. Again, be sure to try to get the incentives in writing from the company so that everyone is clear on the offers that you can make. Third, LOOK AT YOUR SALES PIPELINE and figure out which prospects are the low hanging fruit. Who can be easily closed within the contest time period?

Review any recent

customers and see if any of them might be interested in the specified products for the sales contest. Making a second sale to an existing customer is often easier than making the first sale. You have already established a relationship and trust with them. They already believe in your company and at least one product. You just have to educate them about the other products that you offer. Fourth, EXAMINE YOUR WORKDAY to find out how you might be able to reach more customers and increase your own sales. •

How can you increase the number of calls that you make by 10% each day to reach more customers? 155

Can you come in

• The goal is to

early and do any administrative

help the sales

work before 9am?

team and

more productive during the day to

individual sales

have

representative

customers?

become the

more

that they can be.

exposure

to

Do you pre-judge

• customers,

absolute best

How can you be

•

or

do

you

give

everyone the opportunity to buy from you? •

If lunchtime is a

good time to reach customers, can you eat your lunch early or late so you can be available during lunchtime? •

Can you prepare your calling lists or sale route the night before to give you extra work time?

•

Can you notify any frequent customers about special offers and personally invite them to buy?

•

Can you ask for referrals from your customers each and every time?

A sales contest essentially gives a Spark Sales Professional the reminder to re-energize his workday.

Taking some time

periodically to assess how you are doing, and digging deep to ask yourself how you can do better, is the true purpose of running a

Spark Your Sales

sales contest. Those who win the sales contests are those Spark Sales Professionals who commit to personal growth and are open to new ideas. A sales representative who is doing the same old thing will get the same results. Sales contests give Spark Sales Professionals the incentive to try new things or try to do the same things more efficiently or better.

Spark Sales Professionals who respond to these

opportunities will consistently outperform and out-earn the rest of the team. Look at sales contests as the opportunity to improve and advance yourself. Use the contest award and deadline as selfmotivating factors to try harder. That’s why the contests are utilized. The goal is to help the sales team and individual sales representatives become the absolute best that they can be. We can all use reminders to take our game up to the next level, and contests are a great way to do that.

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12 SPARKING IT ALL TOGETHER There are a number of sales growth opportunities that were laid out in this book at both the company and individual level. At first glance, it can seem exciting yet overwhelming. Start one step at a time, and focus intensely on that one project first. It’s always good to have some early wins when starting out on some new projects. Look for smaller sales projects that can achieve a quick result. One of the quickest things you can do from scratch to grow sales is to start training your sales team better. The salespeople are speaking with customers each and every day, whether they are phone representatives, field representatives, store clerks or distributors. With training, the very next customer that they speak with can be an opportunity for growth. That means results can occur NOW! Internet marketing certainly has a quick return timeframe as well, but if you have not been using the Internet properly for marketing purposes, it can take some time to develop what you need and to achieve sufficient exposure. However, once you have a web marketing program in place, it is another great way to create sales growth opportunities. Responses to email and web

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search campaigns can be evaluated in a matter of hours and days. Companies with established web marketing programs should be leveraging them consistently for sales growth opportunities. Given the two choices of quick sales returns with either sales training or web marketing, I have seen sales training generate greater impact. It equips your front line salespeople with the selling tools to up-sell, cross-sell and close sales more effectively, all with the overarching goal of finding ways to help customers better. When your salespeople can perform their jobs better, they develop more self-respect and confidence, they will feel better about themselves, they will earn more money and they will be more excited.

A company’s investment of time and

resources to help develop the sales team lets them know that you want them to succeed. Proper sales training for your company is nothing short of inspirational! Sales training also has spillover benefits for every other sales and marketing program that you run. Once you have trained your salespeople to close better, then any marketing or sales program you run from then on will be even more effective. Your sales team will be able to achieve higher closing rates for all the new leads and new customers walking in the door.

The

investment in sales training increases the value of all customers and leads generated by any new programs! 159

Sales training can best be done by professionals, but most sales managers can at least get the ball rolling. Pulling the sales team together into a meeting or onto a teleconference and having each one of them review their best sale of the week helps to get the brainstorming started to share the Best Practices.

Even

meeting daily for a five minute pep talk can help your sales team by getting them energized for each day. Another option is getting each sales person their own copy of a sales book and going through a chapter or two each week. Challenge them to apply those concepts in their work for the week, and then report back at the following meeting. As the training develops and the sales growth momentum starts to build, you can start to look to other types of sales development programs. If you are selling through inbound calls, test an outbound calling team. If you are doing outbound phone sales, experiment with a field sales force. If you are doing retail sales from a shop, try a few trade shows or create an online store. Try something totally new! To really grow sales, you need to stretch yourself to do something different. Single digit sales growth comes from improving your current programs. Double digit sales growth is achieved when you launch entire new programs or products. Think and act big, and you will earn big! When building a new program, many companies try to test it by adding the project onto the plate of a successful but

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overworked manager.

This can set a program up for failure

because the manager has neither the time nor the specific expertise to tackle the job. Instead, set the program up for success by hiring the right talent, either a consultant, independent contractor or an employee. You can try to build something brand new yourself, but you will pay the price through mistakes, delays and missed opportunities. It’s far wiser to invest the same money into getting experience and guidance from someone who has “been there and done that,” rather than blow the same amount or even more in errors that could have been avoided. Going for growth requires taking some risks. Some new projects will succeed and many will fail. Some failures will be caught early and some will be realized after major investments. Being able to tolerate the failures and move beyond them is vital. In fact, celebrate the failures! Yes, celebrate them. Celebrating the failures will show everyone in the company that taking calculated risks for growth is a good thing. This requires more than just a fluff celebration. Allowing failures and supporting risktasking within a company often requires a cultural overhaul that ultimately will lead to growth. New ideas will bubble up from every corner of the company. Management does not have a monopoly on the good ideas.

The more people who can

contribute, the better off the company will be. 161

Nearly everyone wants revenue growth, but growth brings its own set of problems. As more orders start flowing through the company’s pipelines, little problems that go overlooked when the systems are at half capacity suddenly become bigger problems. To succeed with the growth, some things are non-negotiable. Product or service quality must remain the same or improve. Customer service levels must remain the same or improve. Delivery times must remain the same or improve. Inventory levels need to be managed better. Staffing levels need to improve so overtime does not become an added cost and eat into margins. All these components are important so a company grows but does not implode from the growth. The key is to create profitable growth and not growth at any cost. Profitable growth requires the coordination of scalable systems across all departments within a company. If sales grow by 20%, it does not mean that staffing needs to grow by 20% as well. It means that the various departments and teams need to consider how they can absorb the additional business by spotting the inefficiencies of their systems and correcting them. The sales growth should be accompanied with efficiency gains so the costs increase at a slower rate than the revenue increase. This is one of the most challenging parts of running a company but also the most important for long-term growth.

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In the beginning of this book, we talked about how everyone within a company is involved in selling. This also means that everyone within a company should be involved in planning for growth.

The time to start looking for efficiencies and

improvements to increase capacity levels should start at the same time that growth initiatives are begun. Just as the sales team is being trained and the marketing programs are getting launched, the inventory and manufacturing levels should ramp up in concert. This comprehensive coordination is the hallmark of true successful company growth. Master this coordinated effort and you will truly have Sparked Your Sales!

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