Saleswise Blog

7 Steps to LinkedIn Sales Success

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:07:00 GMT

Launched in 2003 and with 80 million registered users in 200 countries, LinkedIn is the foremost business oriented social networking site. In Australia, LinkedIn already has close to 1 million users and continues to grow at double-digit rates. A majority of these users are mid-to-senior level managers, professionals and business owners, making LinkedIn an invaluable sales tool for the new millennium.

Here are seven things you must do to succeed in business development using LinkedIn:

1. Ensure your profile is sales-ready
Most new users list only their current employer in their profile. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. Fill out your profile like it is an executive bio and include past companies, education, affiliations and activities. This will help you build your network by enabling people from all your current and past affiliations to find you easily.

There is a critical difference between a profile written for a job-search (a majority of profiles read like this) and one written for sales. A good job-search profile emphasises that you are a choice employee and lists your responsibilities and achievements. A good sales profile emphasises that you are a trusted, subject matter expert for your company and the product or service you represent. It should contain information on your target customers, how you help them and what results you have delivered for them.

Take a look at my profile to see the difference between the description for my current role with Salescraft and prior role with FedEx Kinko’s http://au.linkedin.com/in/pritamsarkar

2. Keep building your network
By inviting people to connect with you, you grow your first, second and third level contacts exponentially. Your first level connections see all your public activity - new connections, recommendations, status updates, groups joined and questions answered. This is a great way to constantly get noticed and build top-of-mind-recall with them. When people search using LinkedIn’s functionality, you get listed ahead of those who are outside their networks.

There is a simple rule of thumb for invitations: invite people you know, might know, have known, those known by someone you know or people with whom you share a common affiliation. Do not invite people you don’t know, as most often, people will decline an invitation from a total stranger.

There are a few ways to accelerate the growth of your network:
i. LinkedIn provides the facility to search your Web-based personal email account (hotmail.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com, aol.com) and tell you which of your contacts are LinkedIn users.
ii. Always look at all the connections of your connections. Once you find someone you know, invite them directly. If it is someone you are keen to know, ask your first level connection for an introduction.
iii. Join groups and invite people of interest to connect after you have built your presence through active participation in the group.
Inviting new contacts needs to be a prioritised, regular activity.

3. Ask for recommendations
The top two questions prospects usually ask are:
i. What’s in it for me? (What problem can you solve for me?)
ii. Why should I trust you? (What makes you competent and reliable?)

Recommendations are a great way to communicate both. If you have ever received or given a recommendation on LinkedIn, you know that the system ensures that it is genuinely written. Make it a priority to build the number of recommendations you receive. Every time you exceed a client’s expectations, ask for an endorsement. It is reasonable to ask for an endorsement as well as mention what aspect (trust and value) you would like them to touch upon. By and large most people are happy to oblige. It is also important to recommend those who have provided an exceptional service or value to you.

Finally, when contacting new people within LinkedIn, invite them to read your recommendations so that they can read what other people experienced while working with you. You can also include your public profile in your email signature and invite people to view it, read your references and connect with you.

4. Research people and companies using the ‘Advanced Search’ feature
You will need a premium account to get the most from this feature, but the expense is worth it. This powerful search utility enables you search by city, company, industry or any other keyword. The results of your search criteria give you a list of people’s names and a link to their public profiles. You can read and research people’s profiles and plan your next steps to engage the contact electronically, by phone or even snail mail.

You can save your search criteria and categorise and bookmark people of interest. Being able to keep notes in the ‘Profile Organiser’ make this a powerful and up-to-date CRM system as well.

5. Follow Companies to see their employees and their movement
LinkedIn allows Companies to create their own profile and provide information about themselves. People can link to these pages in their work profiles, therefore a number of Company pages have an extensive list of employees linked to them.

For example, Microsoft (http://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft) has almost 95,000 employees on LinkedIn and almost 200,000 people following it. If you wanted to get in touch with someone at Microsoft, LinkedIn would be a great place to start.

In a company’s ‘Overview’ tab, you can see their Employees, New Hires and those (from the company) that are in your network. You can also see ‘All activity’ which lists the movement of people associated with that company’s LinkedIn profile page.

This is a great way for Account Managers to increase their relationships within their major accounts.

6. Expand your network and influence through ‘Groups’
LinkedIn allows you to join a maximum of 50 groups and you should use the full capacity available to you. Groups attract people with common interests. Search for groups within your target markets and join them. Another way to find groups of interest is to look at a target contact’s groups at the bottom of their public profile and join the relevant ones.

Participate in these groups by showing interest in other people’s needs and problems. Not only does this build relationships, it also helps demonstrate expertise. Though no one grudges you your commercial interests, people are always attracted to those who are willing to give rather than get. You can ask questions, initiate discussions and share useful articles and resources that will be of interest to your groups.

7. Establish your credibility through ‘Answers’
LinkedIn provides a section called ‘Answers’ for people to ask questions and get input from their network. This is a great way to showcase your knowledge and establish expertise. It is important to give valuable information through this channel rather than just use it for self-promotion as, needless to say, this is not looked upon favourably by the information seeker. That said I believe that givers gain, so expect something to come back your way!

In summary, how we interact and associate has been irrevocably changed through social media like LinkedIn and Facebook. Therefore, for the contemporary sales professional, it is critical to learn how to navigate the vast amount of publicly available information to gain a critical advantage in the business development process. It’s time to evolve or face extinction by the end of this decade!

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the link below to leave a comment. We would love to hear from you!

10 meetings to generate leads this Season

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 06:13:00 GMT

The Christmas and New Year Season is just around the corner. For most businesses, things slow down and people prepare to take time off and travel, perhaps do some home renovation or just relax. People have more time on their hands.

Now is the PERFECT time to meet people who are otherwise too busy through the year. Here are 10 types of lead generating meetings you can have before the Christmas break:

   1.   Meet with customers to review the year gone by and the opportunities ahead
   2.   Meet with people who were clients at a previous company, but moved on to new companies
   3.   Meet with key influencers in your target companies who can refer you to key decision makers
   4.   Meet with past colleagues who can make that all important introduction in the future or share valuable information
   5.   Meet with sales people from other vendors, who sell into your target market(s) so as to trade information
   6.   Meet with LinkedIn connections who might be able to offer valuable information or introductions
   7.   Meet with people with whom you exchanged business cards at a networking function, seminar or trade show earlier this year
   8.   Meet with clients who have become inactive over the last six to twelve months
   9.   Meet with people who are new in your client organisation and could be potential customers
   10.    Meet with replacements for previous key contacts in companies, before they form strong alliances with competitors.

Pick up that phone and book those appointments. Speed up when others slow down this Christmas and get ready to enjoy big results on the other side of your well deserved break!

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the Comments link below to share it. We would love to hear from you!

10 tips to race your team to victory

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 01:06:00 GMT

So You Think it’s hard to win in business? Think again. Fortunately it’s not nearly as dependant on chance as picking a winning Americain. Take charge of your success with these 10 tips that are sure to help you race your team to victory!

In February 2005, I took on a new Sales management role with the challenging task of turning around a non-performing business. The average sales performance over the last 12 months was only 75% of target. By 2006, my team of 12 sales people was consistently achieving an average 110% of target!

The following principles, learnt through experience, over a number of years of success and failures, will help any business leader improve their team’s performance.

1. Two ears and one mouth, use them proportionately  

For the first six weeks, I spent most of my time with my direct reports, peers and my boss, asking questions, listening and then asking even more questions so I could understand the problem(s) really well.

2. Rules before Relationships = Rebellion 

Coffees, lunches, drinks and joint sales calls were a great way to get to know people better and build individual relationships.

3. Evolution or Revolution?

Choose and clearly communicate I made the decision that we were going to work on small, systematic, degree changes. I shared the plan with the team individually and as a group.

4. Inspect what you expect 

I set up a system of weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews, focusing on tasks ranging from tactical activities to strategic outcomes as the periods got longer. The existing Customer Relationship Management system was invaluable in helping me review activity and sales so I could appropriately praise team member progress and redirect unacceptable attitudes.

5. Drive vehicles with full tanks 

Soon, those who were ‘in-it-to-win-it’ became evident more through their actions, less so through their words. I invested more of my energies on mentoring those who were motivated to succeed. I discovered that Darren (name changed) wanted to take his girl-friend on a holiday to Bali. I helped him break down his sales target to a daily activity rate and focus on achieving it daily. His dream became reality!

6. Confrontation is healthy 

The ‘others’ were given direct feedback in a respectful manner. It was very clear that there would be an escalation of known consequences, meaning one verbal discussion, then a written warning and a performance-improvement-plan which culminated in termination if performance did not change after repeated opportunities.

7. Always upgrade with replacements 

Intentionally, we worked with external help to replace with people who fit the team and the role a lot better. This included increasing salary ranges, improving incentive packages and working harder to attract and keep talent in the team.

8. Train them to fish 

We built a culture of constant learning by introducing annual professional training as well as a 30-minute training component at every weekly sales meeting. This reiterated the core concepts taught at those events. Finally, these were recapitulated after each joint sales call to maximise real-time performance.

9. Share the good news 

People were encouraged to share wins and peer recognition spontaneously, as it happened, as against the worn-out company ‘newsletter’. This empowered people to recognise others as good stuff happened and share wins in a timely manner. All of this contributed to a constant sense of a successful team.

10. Share and live the vision 

Leaving this to posters in the board room or sections on corporate websites can be a tragic mistake! Our team’s vision was to be the best across the 10 operating locations of our Company, across the world, so as to make a tangible difference to the organisation’s people and customers. We used every opportunity to talk about and reiterate the vision through events and activities - both big and small. Vision is usually ‘caught’ by people from their leaders, not ‘taught’.

Our community of readers (who are leaders) and I, would love to hear any principles you have used to make your team win. Please click the Comments link below to share.

Encourage your sales people to greater success

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:39:00 GMT

Leadership guru John Maxwell divides the world into two – those who lift you and those who lean on you. If you were in an elevator with the first half, they take you to the ‘top floor’, while with the others its always ‘basement’!

So, which of the two are you?

There is no doubt that what we think affects how we feel, and what we feel affects how we act. So to improve the actions of those around you, make them think better of themselves, so that they feel better about themselves and therefore act better than they usually do.

Where do you begin? Encouragement. And lots of it.

Take the word apart and you have “En-courage-ment”. As the World English Directory defines it, it is the act of inspiring someone with the courage or confidence to do something.

So, look around you and ask yourself, “What do my sales staff need more courage for?” Perhaps, it is to reach higher targets, handle more rejection, fight greater competition, stay committed when sales cycles get longer, client loyalties seem questionable….

Now, make the commitment to encourage one person at least once a day. From sharing others' successes in a positive light to noticing the little things that people do well, there is so much that can be used to create a culture of encouragement.

Of the few hundred sales people that I have worked with or employed over the last 15 years, across four continents, not one complained about having too much encouragement or quit a job because of an encouraging culture in the team. In fact, many said that it was the courage to believe that they could do it, that enabled them to go ahead and do what it took to make them successful.

Encouragement builds courage in people. Courageous people achieve great things. Start encouraging people around you today!

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the Comments link below to share it. We would love to hear from you!

Selling after the first sale - Step 3 of 3

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:56:00 GMT

Making the first sale to a customer is just the beginning of your business relationship with them. This three-step series shows you how to use this ‘platform’ to grow sales (after that first sale) with medium and large sized companies. Here is step 3 of 3.

Step 3 - Approach internal prospects through relationships and referrals

Once you have assessed the Incremental Revenue Opportunity (IRO), map this against the existing tiers of customer spend. Focus a good part of your time on those accounts which have the highest potential for increase (H1 to H3 in the table below), regardless of the size of current spend. This approach also helps you avoid ‘over-servicing’ large customers from who you already enjoy maximum ‘share-of-wallet’.

In 2008, James began a new role (as an Account Executive) on the team which reported, through his Manager, to me. In his portfolio of medium and large corporates, one of the inactive clients was Australian Consolidated Press in Sydney CBD. Within the first six weeks, he secured an opportunity to meet with the Brand Manager of one of the publications. At that meeting, he built good rapport as well as developed a clear value proposition for his target buyers. He was invited back in a fortnight to present to a team of 14 Brand Managers. That led to the developing of new relationships with individual decision makers in business units and getting a clear understanding of their needs. Within six months, this account went from being inactive to being a highly active relationship.

In a world that is increasingly aware of the power of social media and networking, it is imperative to maximise leverage from our existing relationships. They enable us to establish trust quickly and build new relationships to develop new opportunities.

Here’s to your continued success!

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the Comments link below to share it. We would love to hear from you!

Selling after the first sale - Step 2 of 3

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:23:00 GMT

Making the first sale to a customer is just the beginning of your business relationship with them. This three-step series shows you how to use this ‘platform’ to grow sales (after that first sale) with medium and large sized companies. In Step 1 we spoke about how to better understand the ways your customer buys. Here is step 2 of 3.

Step 2 - Assess Incremental Revenue Opportunities

Assessing the Incremental Revenue Opportunities (IRO) in your existing relationships is a critical, on-going process and must be prioritised. If you map how much revenue you are currently generating in a 12-month period, for an individual product or service offering against each target business unit, you will see opportunities for incremental revenue.

In 2006, I met with the Manager for Automobile Associations in NSW for a major account. Our sales from this account had been on the decline and we were looking at ways to turn the tide within this relationship. We soon built a strong relationship and when we asked, we were told about other areas in the Company that might have a need but where we were not the supplier of choice. Our sponsor agreed, at our request, to hold a lunch-and-learn session about our product range, in their board room. He also sent out invitations by email out to the relevant people.

On the day, we had 26 people from various departments in the Company, visit the lunch-and-learn session, meet with the key members of our Account Management team and discuss their needs. A number of them said, “We didn’t know that you could do that!” Within three months from that event, as a result of good opportunity management, relationship building and follow up, we grew the account revenues by 40%.

While the method of engagement to assess IRO will vary, the process of gaining this knowledge is key to future growth of your business relationship.

In Step 3 of this series, we will look at how to approach internal prospects through relationships and referrals.

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the Comments link below and share it. We would love to hear from you!

Selling after the first sale- Step 1 of 3

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:48:00 GMT

Step 1 - Understand how your customer buys
In mid-2006 after a few months of ‘pursuit’, I met with the Category Procurement Manager of a large state-based government organisation. Their total number of employees was 17,000. I wanted to understand their buying process better and assess opportunities for growing our share of business from this customer. The Procurement Manager explained that relevant employees did not need multiple quotations for orders valued less than $30,000! Furthermore, the products we sold were not going to be on their priority list for at least the next few years. He said that we were welcome to go ahead and contact the relevant people and sell directly to them. So we did!

I dedicated one sales person to call all 45 of our contacts within the organisation on a cyclical basis to generate repeat business as well as create referrals. Within one year, we grew sales from that organisation by 200%.

There are factors that contribute to the way your customers buy. Understanding these better means you will be able to sell more! The four main ones are:

Buying units
Think of a business as a mosaic made up of many interrelated parts, each with its individual needs. Explore as much as you can about specific positions, departments or business units within your customer’s company.

Buying frequency
Each buying unit can have different needs through the year or if you have longer sales cycles, over a few years. Find out how often they need your products and services.

Buying policy
Some organisations have clearly defined buying policies whereas others don’t. Subtly ask whether people actually follow the process. Selling to people within companies that have a centralised process, differs greatly from selling to those where individuals are empowered to make decisions for themselves or their business unit. If there are agreements in place, ensure that you know when they are due for renewal and who will be responsible for them.

Competitive forces
Unless you are selling a new invention, it is likely that your customer also buys products or services you sell, from your competitors. Find out who they are, how they got there and how satisfied your customer is with them. As you understand each of these factors, you will have more clarity about the next logical step(s) to take with the company.

In Step 2 of this series, we will look at how to identify ‘Incremental revenue opportunities’ within buying units.

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the Comments link below and share it. We would love to hear from you!

How to Build Sales Momentum - Part 3

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:11:00 GMT

In January 2000, I took on a new sales territory from a colleague who’d just had a great 1999 in it. This meant that the year ahead was going to be a tough one for me as most opportunities had already been converted into sales. Nonetheless, I began by making 50% more face-to-face appointments than my past year and focussing on getting in front of people rather than talking on the phone. I also had a great manager who helped me stay on track week-in and week-out.

The result? In the first three months I finished at 110% of my target. Better still, for the rest of the year I was at anywhere between 135-150% of my target. I won sales awards, was sent on overseas sales trips and earned a lot of commission!

My biggest victory was the fact that I had professionally transformed from an average sales contributor to a consistent sales performer. A lot of it had to do with the constant support I received.

Professional athletes know that they need another person to help them stay on track with the effort and training to achieve their goals. They lean heavily on their coaches. Why shouldn’t sales people who want to be professional super-stars, do the same?

A senior sales person or manager, who is willing to give you honest, constructive feedback for improvement is a valuable ally. Ask them to help you to get to your goals and embrace the accountability that comes with the territory.

To summarise this series on how to build sales momentum, you need to:

Step 1: Increase your sales activity across the four areas of target databases, leads, prospects and customers.

Step 2: Increase your sales impact with each activity, in every customer engagement, to improve your results.

Step 3: Increase your accountability with a manager or mentor to stay on track with your efforts to achieve your goals.

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the Comments link below and share it. We would love to hear from you!

How to Build Sales Momentum - Part 2

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:12:00 GMT

In Part 1, we established that you need to increase your sales activity across the four areas of target databases, leads, prospects and customers.

The next step is to increase your sales impact across these sales activities and measure which ones or combinations work best for you.

Here are some examples of sales activities:

Preparing a database from old business cards, directories, eye-balling notes for subsequent follow up
Sending out direct mail for subsequent phone follow up
Writing and sending ‘Thank you’ notes to make a personal connection with leads you lost or need to call back in the future
Sending out ‘stay-in-touch’ emails to reach a large database of inactive customers
Making post-sale phone calls to gauge satisfaction and generate repeat sales or referrals
Making a product delivery to the customer yourself, to get more information about other potential targets and contacts
Meeting with other sales people who cover the same area or industry, to generate cross referrals
‘Eye-balling’ a building list of tenants, street or industrial area to identify your target customers
Attending events and functions to build relationships with people in target social and business networks
Inviting leads to a specially hosted event for a subject of their interest

Though the activities listed above were all termed ‘sales activities’, not all sales activities are equal because not all of them have the same impact.  According to a ten-year study at Yale University, communication is:

7% in the words
38% in the tone of voice
55% in body language

Therefore, activities which involve greater interpersonal communication have greater impact. Based on this study, you could reason that emails have 7% impact, whereas telephone calls and face-to-face meetings have 45% and 100% communication impact, respectively.

My advice is to increase your impact to improve your results. This does mean getting better with your email, phone and face-to-face skills, but more importantly, it involves increasing the mix of sales activity towards high impact communication modes. So, if you gravitate to email, try increasing your phone activity. If you gravitate to the phone, try increasing your face-to-face activity. Meeting people face-to-face has the highest sales impact as well as success rate.

Finally, measuring your results in terms of positive outcome from each activity, will help you determine the best mix of activities to get your pipeline full and moving quickly.

In Part 3 of this three-part series, we will look at the one last thing you will need to help you keep this momentum. For now, remember you’ve got to increase your sales impact to improve your sales results.

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the link below and share it. We would love to hear from you!

How to Build Sales Momentum - Part 1

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:05:00 GMT

Like many sales people or business owners, you too might feel like you can’t control your sales results. Agreed. But there is no denying that you have 100% control over your sales activity.

If you want to build sales momentum, you need to start by increasing your sales activity. Here are four essential areas to focus on:

Target database: This list must include those companies or consumer groups from whom you are going to be generating leads. It is important to spend time identifying these groups. They may be specific industries, local companies, inactive customers... the list could go on. Buy or build these lists and ensure they are easily accessible.

Leads: These are companies or consumers who have an interest in your product or service but have not yet been qualified as genuine prospects. It is essential to track this data and critical to nurture those who did not convert in to prospects at the first interaction. Take a look at these good practices to nurture leads.

Prospects: These are the companies or consumers who meet your M.A.N qualification criteria:

They must have the Money to afford your product or service.
You must be talking to people who have the Authority to make a decision or at least have a strong influence on it.
They must acknowledge the Need for your product or service.

Customers: They are a great source of new business. You must actively seek opportunities for new buyers, new products, repeat or renewals and referrals.

In Part 2, we will look at the types of sales activities that will help you build this momentum. For now, remember you’ve got to give more sales activity to get more sales results.

Here's to your success!

Have an opinion, question or story? Please click the link below and share it. We would love to hear from you!

4 ways to defeat negativity and build morale

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:58:00 GMT

On Sunday afternoon, my wife asked if I would cut down the diseased grapefruit tree in our backyard. I used my much loved Wolfgarten tree pruning knife, made of German steel, to do the job. As I was sawing back and forth, I thought of how the knife’s small, sharp teeth were so quickly and easily cutting through the thick trunk the tree had probably developed over the last five to seven years. In fifteen minutes the job was done!

Negative words act very much like the teeth of that saw. No matter how positive and upbeat a team’s culture may be, negativity unchecked can quickly cut through the strong fabric of a team’s morale.

As a Business Owner or Manager, here are four things you can do with your sales people and support staff, to reduce the damaging effect of negativity,

Reduce your tolerance for negativity in your work place
You approve what you accept, of yourself and others. Set the standard that if people have a problem, they must address it only to those who can provide them with a solution.
Assess the words you are speaking in public
Are they full of hope or hopeless? It is essential not to allow your pressures to shape the words you speak to people. If you allow your fears and challenges to dominate your speech, they will undermine the very things you are trying to achieve through your people - growth and success.
Confront people who are generally negative
As hard it may seem, it is essential to have a frank and honest chat with staff who are generally negative. Unchecked, these people will spread their attitude, which will result in increased employee dissatisfaction and eventually poor performance and greater turnover. As a Business Owner or Manager , you need to do this for your business and for others who might not have the courage to do so.
Make people take responsibility for the problem
People complain when they feel they are not in control. Ask them ‘What are you doing about it?’ For example, if sales are poor, ask how much effort your sales people are putting into generating leads and closing prospects? On a positive note, as you can consciously reduce negativity, you can also increase and build morale. When you do, people begin to believe that change and improvement is possible. They become more engaged, work harder towards goals, enjoy the satisfaction of things coming to fruition and stay longer. Win-win!

So, start by reducing and removing those sharp teeth (negativity), which can so easily destroy your team’s culture and motivation. The results will speak for themselves.

Have an opinion, question or story? Click the link below to share it! We would love to hear from you.

10 ways to nurture leads

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:55:00 GMT

Would you walk across the room and ask a complete stranger to marry you? Not likely. Surely, you would invest in building and nurturing a relationship before you popped the BIG question.

This principle is no different when applied to the process of winning new customers. Sales and Marketing Gurus cite that it can take up to 9–12 positive impressions to get a buying decision from a customer!

In any lead generation exercise, you will face one of three scenarios after making contact – Yes, No or Not now. We love the ‘Yes’, hate the ‘No’ and are usually unsure of what to do with the ‘Not now’. You can significantly improve your sales results if you determine to nurture the ‘Not now’ responses.

So, what should you do with ‘Not now’? I suggest that you gain permission to communicate with them in the future. This enables you to build the relationship and continue to create positive impressions.

Here are 10 things you can do to nurture leads:

Send them useful information (not about your products)
Send them samples of your products
Share testimonials from your customers
Show results of your work with other clients (after getting permission from those clients)
Make them offers to trial your service
Provide leads for their business
Introduce them to people who may be able to help them
Invite them to tradeshows, tours, demonstrations and events
Include them in contests and promotions
Give them something FREE!

Lead generation must be an on-going, nurturing process to generate sustainable and incremental sales results. So, if you don’t get a ‘Yes’ immediately, don’t be disheartened, be prepared to nurture the ‘Not now’s’.

Have an opinion, question or story? Click the link below to share it! We would love to hear from you.

Silly Season? Think again!

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:43:00 GMT

You might recall my definition of the three things that characterise today’s customers – they are short of Time, Attention and Trust. If your potential customers don’t have time, they won’t pay attention to your attempts to engage them and unless they buy something from you, you will not have the opportunity to build trust and a strong relationship.

So, if December and January are the ‘slow months’, they actually present you with a great opportunity! Your customers and target prospects have more time! It is the best time to meet, reflect on the year gone by and talk with them about their plans for the year ahead.

In addition to them having time, you have a reason to meet. This is when most people welcome ‘tokens’ of appreciation from those they have done business with in the past year – cards, gift hampers, luncheons....

Do you see what I see?

Here is my sales formula for the Silly Season:

Customer has time + You have a reason to meet = Strategic opportunity to discover their unmet needs

If you can discover the unmet needs or gaps that your customers and target prospects face within their current state, you could become the bridge to help them cross over to their desired state. Or simply put, if you can find and solve their problems, you win the relationship.

So, get ready to step up your sales activity during December and January! Begin preparing lists of active and inactive customers, lost customers and target prospects. Contact them and start booking out meetings so that you can start the new calendar year with a strong pipeline of prospects and opportunities. That’s why the season is not silly, its strategic!

Have an opinion, question or story? Click the link below to share it! We would love to hear from you.

Welcome to Saleswise

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:38:00 GMT

Are you trying to achieve your dreams and goals by growing sales?

Saleswise is a shot of sales advice and inspiration for you. It is designed to give you resources and ideas as well as give you the opportunity to share your experience and interact with others on the same journey.

It is facilitated by Pritam Sarkar – Christian, Husband, Father, Founder of Salescraft, Sales Growth Architect, Trainer, Encourager and Child Sponsor.

What's in it for me?

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:36:00 GMT

The general consensus in cyberspace seems to be that the average consumer is exposed to over 3000 advertising messages a day. This includes outdoor media, logos on products, printed material, radio, television, Internet, SMS, email and of course, the telephone. Everyone is trying to build a brand, position themselves or selling something.

No one can retain all that information.

As a result of this advertisement saturation, people have developed ‘selective attention’. This means that they will pay attention to only those things that they need, want or desire.

So, how do you get through the clutter to your prospect? You must answer the question “What’s in it for me?” (W.I.I.F.M). Show them how you will fulfill a need, want or desire.

Do your current sales and marketing messages answer this W.I.I.F.M question? Is it clear on your website? Take a look at: http://www.thewebshowroom.com.au . Note the central banner which starts with ‘We will build you...”. Is W.I.I.F.M clear on your sales collateral, your appointment setting script, your proposals, your presentations and responses to customers about what you do?

Here are three steps to help you answer the W.I.I.F.M question:

Determine the valuable outcomes your products deliver to customers
Develop a simple message to clearly spell it out to
Distribute this through every marketing channel you use

This is a move away from traditional product or service focussed selling, which most of us are guilty of and a move towards consultative, need-focussed selling.

If your customer understands how you can fulfill their need, want or desire, you will have their attention. This will enable you to secure appointments, discover needs and present a compelling solution. You will, as a result, improve your chance of winning the sale, every time! So, stop telling customers about your products and start selling the solutions they want!

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