3 Tips for Advancing the Sale
Written by Tibor Shanto, Renbor Sales Solutions
[Contributing Author]
There are few people left in sales who would argue the importance of securing next steps at every stage and interaction of a sale. Depending on which church you were raised in you may call it an advance, a next step, a commitment, a mini-close, etc.
Although the ”next step” is a concept everyone buys into at a high level, when it comes to execution, it almost always gets watered down. Many get confused between “next step”, and “my plan”. For example, when I ask a rep for next steps with a specific buyer, I expect to hear:
“I have a conference call set up for our sales tech and their IT director tomorrow to discuss A, B, and C; based on the expected outcome we should be able to present a proposal when we meet next Friday with George, for a roll out in August.”
Unfortunately what I often hear is:
“I met with her last week, we went over their requirements. I called her yesterday, and if I don’t hear from her by end of day, I will call her first thing tomorrow.”
Not a step forward, good initiative to ensure follow-up, but not an action that will move things forward.
Here are three tips for advancing the sale and establishing a solid next step. If any one of these is missing or if you soften one in any way, you’re increasing your chances of stalling the deal… so be strong with all three!
- Mutual Agreement – Both parties must agree to what happens next. Make sure you get an explicit agreement from the buyer. If you are worried that the buyer won’t agree to the plan, it’s better to know now. You can either find an alternative course of action or move on to another potential buyer.
- Move Closer to Completing the Deal– Even when you both agree to do something, if it does not move the process forward, then it does not serve your purpose. It does not have to monumental, but it does need to move you closer to completing the deal. Doing for the sake of doing… or to foster a relationship is not a next step. It may help with rapport… which may lead to something down the road, but you need to focus on advancing the deal you are working now!
- Schedule a Specified Time – When you both agree to an action that will move the sales forward, it must include a completion date… a follow through date… a specific deliverable date. Not “sometime next week,” not “I’ll call you as soon as I am back from New York,” not “You know it’s both month end and quarter end, let’s talk next week and nail it down.” Instead, pull out your calendar and say, “Let’s schedule our conference call for Monday at 11:00 AM″
Straightforward and simple… and they ALL have to be present for a next step to be a REAL NEXT STEP that advances the sale!
Do Your Prospects Believe You Are Qualified?
Written by Tibor Shanto, Renbor Sales Solutions
[Contributing Author]
I was sitting with a client last week while he was reviewing resumes. He pushed one towards me and asked what I thought. It was well structured, clean polished, had all the right “buzz words”, in all the right places, it was a good-looking resume. But, there was something missing. I kept looking trying to figure out what it was. My client started smiling. I suddenly realized that the resume lacked former positions or jobs. He described his impressive skills, he outlined formal and trade education, stated his objectives clearly, but there was no history of who he had worked for.
Should we bring them in for an interview? Is this candidate legitimate? Why didn’t they include employment experience? There was no point of reference. Nothing to validate the glowing statements. My client was reluctant to dedicate time to the applicant.
What would you do?
Apply this story to your sales approach. There are many sales people who fail to present their qualifications to prospects. One of the things I promote in workshops is the use of third party references throughout the sales cycle, but most importantly at the beginning, when you are trying to establish credibility, leadership, and specific experience that would benefit the buyer.
Let’s say you have done successful work for transportation companies. Reference your work with those companies with the next transportation prospect.
Let’s be clear about the ground rules. You have to be ethical and respectful of your clients’ wishes. If a client asks you not to reference the work you did for them, don’t.
If a potential buyer asks what you did specifically for the competitor, don’t go beyond generalities. When asked I simply say, “We met, discussed their objectives, and put together a program that helped them achieve those objectives.”
Why would a potential buyer talk to you when you approach them with an “incomplete resume”? How are they supposed to know if you are qualified to help them? Do you really understand the challenges they face? What makes your service better than what they are doing now?
Buzzwords and marketing lingo do not mean you are qualified. When you call a potential buyer, reduce the talk time and noise by introducing what you have and whom you’ve worked with, just like you would on a resume.
If an executive will not interview a candidate who is missing specific work history (remember the executive is looking for a candidate), why would they give time to unsolicited callers that don’t communicate clear qualification or expertise?
Results-Driven Words (Part 2 of 10)
Written by Hal Alpiar
[Contributing Author]
Tip Your Email Scale
To Make a Sale Sail
Results-driven words in emails need to tip the sale scale in your favor. When you’re writing personally to a customer or prospect, keep the words short, simple, and to-the-point. Avoid flowery or wordy descriptions. Focus on benefits, not features. Use indented bullet points whenever possible (3 beats 4!).
Emphasize “You” instead of “We” and direct your message to the recipient’s needs, not how great you are. (Nobody cares!) Your message must be specific and realistic. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver!
Just because emails are shorter and quicker doesn’t excuse you from always building in pleasantries, for example. No, you don’t need to be so “Dear Mr. Deep Pockets:” formal when “Hi Deep –“ will do in most cases, but SOME salutation is usually called for and always appreciated.
No need to sign off with the formality of “Sincerely yours” or “Very truly yours” when “Kind regards” or “Best regards” or just “Regards” will suffice, but SOME sign off is always called for and usually appreciated..
A couple of major rules of thumb:
Don’t key in the recipient email addresses in the “To” and “Cc” and “Bcc” windows until you have slept on or walked away from what you’ve written, and then returned to re-read and re-consider and re-write your initial draft.
Career positions have toppled when un-edited un-thought-out emails have been accidentally or prematurely launched, or trigger-happy, over-eager fingers sent copies to inappropriate people.
When there’s time to leave your words overnight, do. When there’s not, take a walk around the block or even to the water cooler for a break in the action before inserting addresses and before clicking “Send.”
Exercise conservative thinking about spacing, type (font) treatments and special effects. This is NOT to suggest dampening of your enthusiasm, but –because they come out of the same cyberspace as annoying website flash and pop-ups—discretion in the form of quiet, factual, positive energy works best.
Minimize use of color, boldfacing, Italics, mixed fonts, font sizes, and unusual spacing. If you’re not selling circus products, don’t use “circus-style” presentations.
Be sure to close with a specific follow-up request or suggestion, a call-to-action vehicle that lets the recipient know you will be phoning back at a certain time, or that offers something of value for some action on her or his part. Include contact information in your signature block or sign-off, which is also a good place to include your company’s branding theme line.
Probably the most important and least thought-of way to approach any customer or prospect by email is to step back from it long enough to judge whether you would read it if it were addressed to you.
Would you even open it? The subject line is probably the single most important group of words you can write. It’s the “grabber.” It’s the headline that makes you want to read the ad, the title that makes you want to open the book, the set of words that triggers an emotional buying motive.
If you can legitimately use a referrer’s name in the subject line, “Doyle Slayton urged me to send this,” use it. If you need to use a reminder, “Follow-up to meeting you yesterday at Donuts4U,” use one. Keep thinking of having to rise above the spam tide.
Since ALL sales, by the way, are the result of an emotional buying motive, the subject line should probably take as long to compose as the whole rest of the email. Aim for 7 words or less. Tease. Provoke. Inform. Promise fun. Give news.
Educating while entertaining can work if you’re careful with supportive facts and avoid exaggerating. It should also go without saying, but here it is anyway: You increase your odds for success every time your ideas of entertainment land on the high moral side of the humor equation. It is NEVER okay to use off-color jokes, stories, cartoons, expressions, photos or illustrations.
Oh, and as a matter of courtesy (and added insurance to get your message opened), remember to steer clear of using an attachment unless the prospect or customer is expecting it and has agreed to it. Above all, keep the awareness on your front burner that emails (unlike shredded paper letters and memos) never go away . . .
TO TIP YOUR EMAIL SCALE
AND MAKE A SALE SAIL SAFE,
WRITE NOT JUST FOR PROSPERITY,
BE ALSO THINKING: “POSTERITY.”
Above the Line
Written by Jarek Mlodzinski, The Sales Journey
[Contributing Author]
Accountability… to some it’s a word synonymous with punishment… to others it’s a way of life rooted in integrity. The way you react to daily challenges can put you below the line in the victim cycle or above the line on the steps to personal accountability.
Last week I wrote about the six pitfalls of the “victim cycle” as described in the OZ Principle…
- Tell me what to do and I’ll do it
- Covering Your Tail
- Pointing Fingers
- Ignore/Deny
- Wait and See
- It’s Not My Job
Today we will cover how to get above the line and the steps to accountability.
See It – I often find myself in the victim cycle. Sometimes I ask for permission to go there so I can get some things off my chest, but I recognize the cycle, and I try to get back above the line quickly.
Do you recognize when you’re below the line?
Own It – Even when it’s not your fault, owning the situation and being responsible for future outcomes can be very empowering.
Solve It – The most powerful accountability exercise in the OZ Principle requires you to ask, “What else can I do to get out of the circumstances I’m in and achieve the results I desire?”
When I cannot solve it myself I ask others for advice!
Do It – Like the Nike commercial says, “Just Do It!” When you have the solution… take action!.
It isn’t about punishment, excuses, or reasons for not hitting goals. Accountability is a mindset of responsibility driven by actions that lead to desired results!
Results-Driven Words (Part 1 of 10)
Written by Hal Alpiar
[Contributing Author]
Some Tips for Sucking Sales
From Cyberspace
Results-driven words make a difference between being in sales and selling. “Breaking a leg” and “Bringing down the house” mean wholly different things when applied to a stage performer or a demolition team.
The secret to generating online sales and sales leads has less to do with fancy website graphics and fat advertising budgets than it does with the words you use, and the ways you deliver them.
As you no doubt have found out over time, but have perhaps forgotten or glossed over: the word or part of a word that’s most or least emphasized can make or break a sale.
Every business writer in the world will tell you that the secret to better business writing (actually, better any-kind of writing!) is to re-write, re-write, re-write, and re-write again. It’s not a practice exercise, like rehearsing a sales pitch. It’s an editing process, like perfecting a sales pitch.
The website road that leads to sales and sales leads, leads first to the capture of the least amount of the most impactful words. Think of it this way. Every sale and sales lead comes from the process of mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, and/or spiritually “buying in” to a story about benefits.
The story needs a beginning, a middle, and an ending . . . and it must of course also be persuasive. Oh, and unless you’re somewhere down in the dregs of a car dealership business, it’s also generally recommended that your message delivery not be shouted.
You need, importantly, to also separate sales from sales leads in your process, approach and focus. No more than one trade show booth can sell AND generate leads at the same time, no website or email can either.
Decide on your target and don’t mix them together. That’s like trying to shoot a flying vulture and a scurrying water rat with the same shot.
If your message is a banner, it should (like a billboard) aim to accomplish all the open/close/middle and persuasion stuff in 7 words or less. If it’s an email, it needs to do it in the subject line. If it’s a website, it must come across in a stand-alone manner on every landing page, in the site’s navigation, and even on the “About” and “Contact” pages.
You can use all the gimmicks in the world, from offering a free site download in exchange for email addresses, to highlighting special offers and even coupons in your ads, but that’s just the payoff. You need to get my prospect foot in your customer door.
If the words at the top of your home and landing pages, or the words in the subject line of your emails or the keywords you wrap your news release around, or the social media posts and comments you make don’t all reach out and grab me, and are not consistent with the pictures they paint, I’ll never even see your freebies, offers, or coupons . . . and you can be sure of not getting my email address!
Are there effective shortcuts? No. Does it help if a salesperson is a good writer to start with? Sure, but it’s not likely that qualification will ease the burden of time-intensity, or ensure the critical re-write skills. The bottom line: Be prepared to lock yourself away for a few days, sleep on what you draft, then re-draft it a few times to get the brainstorming and honing processes to be productive.
Don’t quit on it prematurely with a half-hearted, “Aw, that’s good enough” judgment because –with words, more than almost anything else besides personal appearance—there’s no such thing as a second first impression.