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Seven Deadly Sales Mistakes That Cost Business Owners Big Money - And What To Do About Them
1. LOOKING for a "quick fix" to close more sales sales aren't closed, they're opened. Solution: You must learn how to open the sale; build rapport with your prospective customer and develop an understanding of their business or of their lifestyle first. Only when you have some understanding of where they're coming from can you even hope to advocate a solution that they will be interested in. For years sales trainers have been talking about "closing the sale" and employers still advertise for salespeople who can "answer objections and close the sale". Every week recruitment adverts appear in newspapers seeking salespeople who are "strong closers" to sell products with high consumer demand. OK, so if the product is in high demand, why do you need to be a heavy closer to sell it? If you are using "closing" techniques that come from a manual with a copyright notice more than 15 years ago, you are out of touch! Your buyer is not going to appreciate you using any manipulative tactics to get them to buy. Would you like your accountant to be using 15-year old tax laws to do your tax return? 2. DECEPTIVE PROSPECTING TACTICS don't sound like a bad network marketer. Solution: before you call a potential new buyer, consider what their reaction to your call might be. People are busy today so calling to ask if you can drop by for a chat or to talk about a mystery is pointless. Why should someone give up their time unless they believe you can do something for them? What are you going to say that will cause them to stop their current train of thought, stop what they're doing and open their diary to enter a meeting with you. You will need to spend some time planning what to say. What you have to do is identify the key product benefits that will apply to this buyer before you call and then use those benefits in your conversation in order to gain the appointment. 3. NOT CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING PROSPECTS don't bother selling to folk who don't need what you sell. Solution: develop a buyer profile; know who is likely to want what you sell and what their buying process is. Identify the key person or people and look to provide answers to their wants and needs. If you can't reach the key person, whoever you can reach has to become your ally or advocate. Talk in their terms! 4. FOCUSING ON THE PRODUCT NOT THE CUSTOMER what they're buying is the sizzle not the sausage. Solution: learn to talk about benefits and what that benefit will do to ease their pain or solve their problem; how it will make or save them money. To do this you must be able to relate how each aspect of everything you sell benefits the customer. If people quickly grasp the idea and benefits of your business, it's considered to be infectious. Do people nod knowingly as you describe your company's products or services, or do they look puzzled and quickly excuse themselves? If it's the latter, you are not selling benefits. 5. TALKING, NOT LISTENING how can you listen when you are talking? Solution: You must learn to ask questions use open, closed and "tell me about ?" to gather information and look for pain! Otherwise you are trying to "convince" who wants to be convinced? Guaranteed to get claw-backs. Essentially you are getting into a struggle with the customer and this is a struggle you'll never win. 6. IGNORING THE CUSTOMER ONCE THE SALE IS MADE forgetting service, and back-end business opportunities. (Back-end business is the business you generate from a client after you've made the first sale to them.) Solution: you must understand the lifetime value of a customer. Take two simple examples: The men's hair salon (OK Barber's Shop) I go to once a month. Over 15 years, that's a total of 180 haircuts; so over ten years I've spent over $2,500. My Optometrist. My wife and I both wear glasses and over the same ten year period we've averaged one pair of glasses each per year. I guess we've spent over $5,000 with our Optometrist in that time. Plus my mother and my sister shop there. My point? They've created close to $8,000 in business from my family alone, not to mention the dozens of referrals we've generated for them. What value is your customer worth in revenue and referrals over five or ten years? 7. IGNORING TESTIMONIALS AND REFERRALS. In other words, always using cold prospecting techniques to find new clients. Solution: develop "warm" enquiries and leads. New business can come from a variety of sources: Cold calls Advertising including Direct Mail and the Internet Loose reference groups like the school P&F, family, friends Tight reference groups such as referral clubs and business associations. Develop a referral strategy for your business. Try a "customer loyalty" scheme such as get one free after paying for five. Offer customers entry into prize draws for referring new customers. I know of a hairdresser who buys you dinner at the Hilton for introducing 5 clients. I know I said seven mistakes but let me make just one more observation? I frequently see businesses spend huge sums of money on marketing brochures, adverts, direct mail etc because their belief is that if they increase their enquiry rate, they will make more sales. That only works if their salespeople are capable of converting those enquiries into business. Before you spend money on marketing in the attempt to gain more sales, consider how many sales opportunities you'll miss if your staff can't convert the extra leads you generate into business. Wouldn't you be better to invest in some quality training to make sure you significantly improve your conversion rate? After all, a missed sales is a sale for your competitor? © James Yuille, Brisbane, Australia, 2004. About the author: James Yuille is a sales and marketing consultant and trainer with over 32 years experience. He is based in Brisbane, Australia. His free weekly sales and marketing newsletter provides topical information for business owners and salespeople. Find out more at http://www.jamesyuille.com
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Careers and Employment The Spirit Of Change A Highly Conscious Approach To Business Management. For more on this topic please link to Innerwealth Web Site Not Enough Fresh Sales Leads? Marketing is the New Sales Your sales are down and leads are rare. The phone's not ringing. Let's blame marketing! Book of Lists Marketing for Pressure Washing Companies The American Business Journals produces a Book of Lists each year in their many markets, it is wise for pressure washing companies to use this book of lists to find new clientele. The book of lists, lists the top companies in size in all industry sectors. Since pressure washing companies clean almost anything, it behooves them to use the book to selectively target the top companies to do business with. Offer Package Deals To Increase Profits And Sales An effective way to increase your profits and sales is to bundle many products or services together into one package. This gives people more reasons to buy your products and services. People also have come to believe package deals are a better value. You want all the products or services to be closely related. For example: if you are selling a computer you could add in software, hardware, computer furniture, etc. How Your 60-Second Elevator Script Can Transform Your Staff, Your Sales, & Your Business When attending a Chamber of Commerce breakfast networking get-together, I'm always perplexed by the lack of thought and preparation many business owners display when giving a 60-second overview of their business. These people have spent enormous amounts of time, money, and energy on their businesses. Yet, when asked to give a quick synopsis, they fumble for the right words, they ramble, they go off on a tangent, the information is disjointed, or the words are boring and seemingly unimportant. How You Can Raise Your Business Earnings By 50% With An Age-Old Magic Truth Imagine increasing your business earnings by 30, 40, or 50%. And this just by putting into use a fundamental truth of life. Many great men of history have used this truth in turning around their fortunes. Stop Drowning: Nine Strategies For Managing Your Priorities I just got off the phone with Susan. She is a well-meaning, big-hearted, caring, effective and creative sales manager. Susan is also exhausted. Pointless Targets I recall a heated discussion with a sales director some time ago where I proposed that the long-term effect of setting activity targets for salespeople would eventually lead to failure. He vehemently made the point that he had systematically imposed activity targets on his sales force and that the result had been to treble average income per salesperson within 18 months. The Effective Executive What does it mean to be an "effective executive"? Well very simply it means achieving the goals you set out to achieve in an efficient, creative and effortless manner. Some of the benefits that ensue from this self efficacy are: feelings of self confidence, self esteem, self worth, a sense of personal empowerment, feeling invigorated and passionate about everything you choose to do, a sense of resilience, more energy, personal emotional and physical health and for some a great sense of purpose. Are Your Sales Meetings Boring? Many sales meetings are boring and a waste of salespeople's time, say the majority of salespeople I interview. A review of what's going on in the market is good to know, but to be effective, sales meetings need to be a lot more than that venues for quick market updates. The Sales Carpenter I remember moving my family to Argentina as Vice President of Sales for Latin America. I was in charge of managing five regional offices, Argentina of course being one of them. Make Time, Not Excuses There are four primary activities that successful salespeople engage in on an ongoing basis. These are Prospecting (45% of time), Presenting (20%), Product Knowledge/Malleability (20%), and Professional and Personal Development (15%) Snuff Out the Competition Without Leaving a Mark! Does the competition drive you crazy? Are they relentless about taking your clients away? Are customer loyalties becoming a thing of the past? Producing Premium Performance One of the major issues that arises in managing a small or medium size business is in the area of employee performance. Many business owners are frustrated with the poor performance of their team or some individuals within their team. No matter how hard they try, they don't seem to be able to create a sustainable improvement in performance. The tendency is to blame the employees for poor performance. However, more often than not, the problem stems from not establishing an effective performance management framework. The Nine Warning Signs that You Need a Sales Video Corporate videos are an important sales tool that can often be overlooked in marketing budgets. Profitable Relationships: Is It Amateur Hour or King of the Hill? "We're in the relationship business...airplanes are what we use to provide a service." remarked Colleen Barrett, President and COO Southwest Airlines remarked, Leadership Lessons for Sales Managers Leadership, like class, is hard to define, but easy to spot. Speed-up Your Sales Cycle This week's article is my response to a question by David Cohen of Bridge-Soft. The Boss from Hell: Quick to Criticize, Slow to Praise So you have a boss who dumps all over you the moment things go wrong, but never seems to notice when things go right. Ouch. Seven Deadly Sales Mistakes That Cost Business Owners Big Money - And What To Do About Them 1. LOOKING for a "quick fix" to close more sales sales aren't closed, they're opened.
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