davidpoulos.com

Tag: sales

  • Show Up, Suit Up, Follow-Up – Don’t Forget That Last One!

    Show Up, Suit Up, Follow-Up – Don’t Forget That Last One!

    Usually I focus on marketing strategy, tactics and practices in this forum, but I wanted to touch on a more sales and management-oriented topic that has been rearing its ugly head recently – Poor sales personnel practices.

    If you’re in sales as a profession, there’s a few simple adages that pave the road to success.

    1) Know your market, know your customer, solve their problems, don’t create them

    2) Under-promise and Over-Deliver

    3) It’s more effective and less expensive to keep your existing customers than to find new ones

    4) Always make that last call of the day, no matter how tired or late you are

    5) Show Up, Suit Up, Follow-up

    If you can keep those things in mind as you go about your daily interaction with customers and prospects, you probably won’t go too far wrong.

    Where most less-experienced folks tend to drop the ball is on numbers 2 and 5. Most new folks are so eager to make the sale, they will tell prospects virtually anything to close them, and then when it comes time for the order to arrive or be fulfilled, the customer is left disappointed or worse, feels cheated. At extreme levels this amounts to bait-and-switch, which is a prosecutable offense. You may get a few orders this way, but there won’t be any referrals or recommendations, and the gravy train will grind to a halt fairly quickly, especially in the age of Internet postings, blogs and rating sites for every business imaginable. Word will get out even more quickly and nobody will touch you after that – bad idea.

    Number 5 is sometimes a function of time management, sometimes of lack of training, sometimes lack of personal responsibility. The Show up and Suit up portions, most have down, although I’ve spoken with many business leaders in the last few months who say they can’t hire staff that can manage to do even that on a consistent basis. It’s the follow-up that eludes most people, and the one’s that discover this little secret are going to move to the top of the heap rather quicker than his or her competitors. Just because someone was not in a position to buy when you left them last, (some more hardcore folks would say you failed to effectively close them the first time) doesn’t mean that they never will have a need for what you’re offering. Your odds of them calling you when the time comes has much more to do with top of mind awareness and initial impressions than of product quality or benefits.

    Effective follow-up must be gauged carefully and is different for each prospect. The tone, medium, frequency and content of your follow-up is critical to maintaining that tenuous connection and reinforcing that initial, hopefully good, impression. The more personal and more specific you can make that follow-up, regardless of the medium, whether by phone, card, letter, e-mail, or visit. General, automated, non-specific stuff will not have the impact or make the connection you need to encourage that prospect to pick up the phone when the time comes. Sometimes there’s no substitute for a hand-written note – it takes about 5 minutes of your time and you’d be amazed that impact it has on the recipient. sometimes a mix of media is appropriate, depending on the volume you need it to cover every week or the type of sale. The only constant you can count on is that if you don’t do it, your sale with go to the guy who does. Sometimes it’s trial and error, but you have to use common sense, especially having to do with timing and frequency. You really don’t want to overdo it – an e-mail every other day is likely overkill . . .

    Consistency, reliability and accountability are the keys to good sales practice, and the follow-up should be part of that – if the customer feels you’ll be there before the sale, think how much they’ll appreciate you being there after the sale.

    If you found this valuable and want more like it, sign up to receive more every week in your inbox – free! Also, be sure and pick up your copy of  “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

     

  • Engagement Means Understanding

    Engagement Means Understanding

    We’ve been working with several B2B clients recently on outreach programs to help them find and engage new customers, and one of the tactics we’ve had success with is the use of dimensional mail. The main reason is that while overall mail volume is down in the last two years, the amount of mail reaching top executives is up slightly, as gatekeepers have been removed through attrition or layoffs as company’s pare staff, and we were finding that we needed to break through the clutter in the C-suite to get noticed and to actually engage these busy executives with our message.

    While the list is still king, the package is gaining in importance. We’re not talking about a simple A-B test between red and blue carrier envelopes, we mean a full blown package – a box of some type – that contains illustrative media, video, audio, print collateral or other physical, three dimensional object that requires time and thought to understand. It takes a few moments to open, to pick through the parts, to see the story unfold as you peel away layers and get to the meat, the point, the main message. Once you get there, it’s got to make sense to the recipient, to be relevant, to be personal in a way that says “hey, these people know my business and are here to help me run it better!”

    Personalization plays a large part in these packages. Good use of personalization has been shown to boost response significantly, and the combination of personalization and 3D engagement means your target spends a good deal of time with your message, enough to thoughtfully consider your offer and put it in the “investigate further” pile. Now, it’s time for the follow-up!

    The dimensional package is a great way to bait the hook, it’s intriguing, interesting and gets people thinking about your message. It may not be enough to close the sale by itself, few DM packages are when there’s a service or high-ticket item in the mix. But by pushing personalized, strategically-timed follow-up messages through different media, your product is now what we call “Self-vetted” – it appears to come from a variety of directions, and sources, so that it appears to be very safe, legitimate and reasonable. Since top executives are generally a conservative bunch, financially and emotionally, this plays on their natural caution and lowers their defenses, usually enough to make them receptive to a phone call, which is the knock-out punch of the campaign.

    So far this scheme is working for clients, and we have several variations in the works, tweaking timing, packaging, levels of personalization and frequency. The key to effective execution of these campaigns is the homework you do on the list of recipients – each of these packages represents a significant investment by direct mail standards, and you want to keep your waste level low and your responsive recipients ratio as high as possible. Better to send out 5 and have 2 hit with real sales, than to send out 20 and have that same 2 hit.

    A good list, an intriguing, personalized package, heavy follow-up and a persuasive phone call may seem like a lot to go through to reach a handful of individuals – but if they’re the right individuals and the sale is worth thousands or tens of thousands or more, the discipline and forethought is certainly worth it.

    Did you find this interesting and valuable? You can have more like this delivered right to your inbox – FREE! Just subscribe to this blog above. Also, don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” 

     

  • The Battle Between Sales and Marketing Rages On . . .

    The Battle Between Sales and Marketing Rages On . . .

    There are many areas of ongoing controversy in the world – Alien v. Predator, King Kong v. Godzilla, Greece v. Turkey, Israel v. (Pick one) and Sales v. Marketing.

    I’m not going to come down on a side for most of the above, but the Sales v. Marketing one intrigues me, because the two combatants should be best friends. They share a common goal, they have separate methods and approaches, they both want more customers. They do compete for financial resources in some companies, so that may set off some minor turf scuffles, but I think each is misunderstood by the other, and it’s a case of walking a mile in the other guy’s shoes.

    Add to this the fact that management executives in many companies confuse the role of each in their organization, in fact use the terms interchangeably. This kind of thinking simply adds to the controversy, and pits one against the other.

    The functions are different, they have different ways of measuring success, have different individual goals on a small scale, and use resources differently. In some firms, the sales function is placed underneath a VP of Marketing, correctly or incorrectly depending upon the structure of the company, it’s size and the product or service being sold. My guess is that if that VP had to actually go out and sell to a lead list, they would not fare very well. That doesn’t make them an inappropriate manager for that function, but it does weaken the case for non-peer review. On the other hand, if the leading salesman were asked to assess the company’s current brand health, determine their most likely next move in entering a new niche vertical, or have to craft an outreach marketing strategy, they would likely come up with something that might have some value, but not the whole ball of wax.

    The reason is that they are different skill sets, not interchangeable and with different focus points. The salesman focuses on customers one at a time, creates and environment where they can use their powers of verbal or written persuasion to tell people what they want to hear about the product in a way that motivates them to make a purchase, big or small, right then and there.

    The marketer is in the mass communication business. They set up a virtual environment in the mind of a predetermined prospect type without ever having met them, make a case in a variety of ways for that product or service being the best choice among many, and motivate through written or spoken word (radio or TV) to create an impression that drives huge numbers of prospects to understand that product or service in a certain way, and helps them decide to make a purchase at some point.

    Success is determined for the sales person by dollars driven in, or clients gained, or products moved. Success for the marketer is about more product moved over time, a rise in brand awareness, the number of conference attendees at a tradeshow, and a host of other metrics determined by the goal of the exercise.

    But these two can each do their job better in the presence of the other! They should be buddies! But they’re often at odds within the organization. They each think the others’ job is less important, likely because they’ve not done the others’ work for any length of time. But by working together, they can each improve.

    Sales, you need to understand that the marketer’s mindset is more focused on hitting the most common denominator the most often, because it’s easy for prospects to ignore their messages – delete them, throw them out, hang up, you name it, it’s a one-way conversation. Marketing, you need to hold onto the understanding that if the prospect hangs up on or ignores pleas for a meeting, Sales takes it personally, because each one counts for a lot! They invest a lot of emotion and time into each approach, planning, investigating, researching, so they “know” the prospect much better – therefore when things to get accepted right away, it’s a bigger loss.

    A little understanding goes a long way. If Marketing took the challenges Sales faces to heart when creating one-sheets or promotions, they’d be simple, answer the most often asked questions, and be nearly weightless so the briefcase-carrying arm doesn’t drag on the ground at the end of the day. If Sales realized how much time it takes to say things in just the right way, how hard it is to determine what the most often asked questions are, and how long it takes to “just redo it”, they’d make their wishes known early and often, and get better tools to work with in return for their efforts.

    We can’t fix Greece v. Turkey, or even know whether it’s Godzilla or King Kong that wins the battle for Tokyo, we do know that when Sales and Marketing work together things go much more smoothly and there more money all around.

    First time reading this blog? Subscribe above and this kind of information will arrive in your inbox weekly – FREE! If you’d like to read more like this, pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” 

     

  • Converting Prospects to Members (or Customers)

    Converting Prospects to Members (or Customers)

    One of the biggest challenges non-profits and other small to mid-size businesses face is converting leads to sales, or for non-profits, a common challenge is to convert prospects to members. There are many different ways to approach this issue but they usually have a few things in common.

    If you have a good list of well-qualified prospects, compiled recently, with a high-deliverability quotient, and fresh information, you’re already halfway there. If not, but wish to start compiling one, there are several good ways to do that, including referrals from current members, industry indexes and directories, publication lists, and prospecting campaigns at tradeshows.

    If you have e-mail addresses, this might be the least expensive place to start. If not, you’re left with mail or phone campaigns to reach out to prospective members. If you have a really solid profile of your members, based on research, and can categorize them accurately into industry segments, title profiles and other segmentation to make your communications more specific. One factor to consider when making your selection is based on that profile, how do your current members like to be communicated with? Are they tech savvy, do they stay at their desks all day and have constant access to e-mail or social media? Do they only read e-mail at home? Do they get their mail at the office or did they give you a home address? The method deserves almost as much consideration as the message, in these highly overloaded, busy times. It’s to easy to delete, discard or filter out messages delivered in inconvenient ways.

    Once you’ve decided on the best medium, now you have to craft a message that resonates with this group or groups. Your research profile will be of great use here, as it tells you what they are likely to be concerned about, what issues hit home for them, what keeps them up at night. Once you’ve discovered that key issue, now you can formulate a message to deliver that shows how their membership will take care of that pesky problem, solve that challenge, meet that need and make joining a solid investment. Solve a problem, and you’ll get them to join up just for that – show them the unique value of your organization in solving that problem, they’ll stay members for years.

    Now you just have to mate the message with the right medium at the right time and deliver it cleanly, accurately and in timely fashion. But before you hit that “send” button or pull the trigger on the mail drop, make sure your customer response, receipt, fulfillment and registration infrastructure is in place, and ready to accept the new influx of calls/e-mails/hits/members – there’s nothing more frustrating than receiving inquiries or orders and not being able to activate them or monetize them – it’s a woeful tale of opportunity lost. It’s not overly optimistic to expect good response to your offer after taking the time to craft it so thoroughly and specifically. The better your homework and more thorough your preparation, the more likely you are to generate significant response and you have to have the structure in place to accept them.

    Find your best list, do your homework, know your prospect, find out what they need, show how your organization can solve their problems and make life easier, get them the message in a form they’re receptive to, and make sure you can accommodate all the requests quickly and efficiently. If you can pull those elements together, your chances of success soar, and so will your organization!

    If you found this article valuable, you can have more like it delivered right to your inbox, free every week. Subscribe to this blog above. Don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”