The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes and Michael Gerber Flashcards
(355 cards)
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If it cost you $100 to get in front of a client 15 years ago, today it’s costing you $300.
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“You’re going to understand all the principles I share with you here today, as there’s nothing but logical information here. You’re going to agree with them. You’re going to know that I am right and that these principles will work in your business…. And then you will still not do them. ”.
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Mastery is a direct result of pigheaded discipline and determination.
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Becoming a master of karate was not about learning 4,000 moves but about doing just a handful of moves 4,000 times.
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Being great at sales, for example, requires you to be good at only seven things.
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In order to be the Ultimate Sales Machine, you actually have to be great at leading, managing, and marketing.
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The missing ingredient for this client and nearly all of the 1,000-plus clients I have worked with directly to improve their businesses is pigheaded discipline and determination.
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I later learned that no one should have more than six direct reports,.
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Most businesspeople don’t take the time to plan and take action because all of their time is consumed by reacting to the business they’ve already built. To build your business into the Ultimate Sales Machine, you need to be in a primarily proactive mode.
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Make the gains small but constant. If you are having the meeting every week and you are making small incremental gains each and every week, think of the profound transformation you’re going to have in 52 weeks. A year from now your company, division, or department can be massively improved.
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The Six Steps to Great Time Management.
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Step 1: Touch It Once.
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If you touch it, take action. That’s the first step to great time management. Don’t open that email or letter until you’re ready to deal with it.
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Email can be the death of good time management.
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Concentration is like a muscle and it strengthens as you concentrate more.
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Step 2: Make Lists Many people make lists as a way to keep organized. If you don’t keep a list, you are most likely a very reactive person. Lists help you stay focused on high priorities and highly productive matters. Keeping a list will double your productivity right away.
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The key to being productive is to stick to the six most important things you need to get done that day.
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When you want to feel productive, you go to your list and just pick something and do it. It feels good.
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Long lists also mean that you will never finish your list. There is a negative psychological impact to not finishing your list. But there is an enormous psychological boost to crossing off that sixth item on your list, especially when all six of them were the most important things you needed to do that day.
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So here’s the rule: list the six most important things you need to do and, by hook or by crook, get those six things completed each day.
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Step 3: Plan How Much Time You Will Allocate to Each Task.
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Do not think about when you will do each task yet. Just determine the amount of time you will realistically dedicate to each task. This is an important step to make sure that the six items on your list can actually be accomplished in a day. If one or more of the items on your list is too big to accomplish in one day, then write down how much time during that day you will dedicate to it. You will take care of bigger projects in manageable chunks of time.
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A good guide to go by is that your six most important things should take about six hours.
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It must be specific and have a time slot for absolutely every thing. This includes each of the six items on your list as well as time to check email and open mail. Remember, if you are following the first rule and only touching these items once, then you need to have a dedicated period of time each day when you can deal with them.
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If you have planned at least two half-hour slots of reactive time, then when you get off track, you’ve actually built in buffers so that you can get back to your schedule. But, most important, stick to that schedule no matter what.
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Step 5: Prioritize.
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By the end of the day, there is rarely time or energy to take on this chore. Put the most important task first. This simple step will give you a tremendous sense of control and accomplishment.
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Every salesperson should have at least 2. 5 hours a day of brand-new prospecting.
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Salespeople who are not managing a large list of current clients need to do at least four hours per day of pure cold calling.
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If you are a one-person army or a very small company and you, as the entrepreneur, are the main person responsible for growing the company, then you personally must spend at least 2. 5 hours per day growing your company.
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People REspect What You INspect If you want to get your people productive, you should examine how they’re prioritizing and planning their day every day.
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I even built an Internet program where employees log in and plan their day. The boss gets an automatic email alert each time an employee completes his or her day’s plan. (See “The Ultimate Time Management Tool” on www. Chettime. Com. ).
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Studies show that 80 percent of all filed or stored information is never referred to again. So why hold on to it?.
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There are six simple steps: Touch it once. Make daily lists of the six most important tasks to accomplish. Plan how long each task will take. Assign time slots for accomplishing each task. Focus on the difficult projects first. Ask yourself, “Will it hurt me to throw this away?”.
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According to an article in Harvard Business Review, only 10 percent of the population has what’s called “the learning mind-set. ” These are people who seek out and enjoy learning. The other 90 percent of the population will not look to improve their skills unless they have to as part of their job requirement.
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“tribal method of training,” where information is passed from person to person by word of mouth,.
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The grim reality is that without great training, the majority of salespeople will never call a prospect back who rejects them even once. Few salespeople will call back even twice after a prospect has said no.
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They quickly realized they had better respect what we were going to inspect.
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Each supervisor would give a similar answer for each question or problem. Each employee would give a similar answer for each question or problem. Client treatment is similar, no matter who the client deals with in our company or department.
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Without training, employee activity will be intermittent, inconsistent, moody—maybe even indifferent or rude—because you have not set standards. With proper training, every employee will know the ideal procedure for initial contact with a client, the questions they need to ask every single client no matter what, and the follow-up procedures that you absolutely insist upon.
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When your employees confront any situation, they’re in one of two categories. Either you’ve addressed it and trained them and they have the information they need to deal with it, or you haven’t addressed it or trained them and they’re going to be guessing. Which category would you rather your staff be in?.
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Let’s not have people making up what they’re going to do in a crisis or in any other situation in your company or department. Let’s have them know what to do in every situation because you address it weekly.
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Sun Tzu in The Art of War, one of the five essentials of victory is this: “He will win whose army is animated with the same spirit throughout all its rank. ”3 How are you going to animate your whole team with the same spirit? Three words: training, training, and training.
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What happens after training occurs if there is no follow-through? As you can see here, there is an immediate falloff of the newly learned skill. That’s where most companies and programs stop; hence, some minor skill remains,.
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Learning is not something most people do naturally. Since most of your staff will be reluctant to take time to train, you must make training fun, interesting, stimulating, and even an exciting experience. And above all, training must be mandatory. Put it on a schedule as a nonnegotiable commitment.
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There are a variety of training methods and tools you can use to suit your material.
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Lecture Format.
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Group Questions.
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Group Discussions.
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Demonstration Training.
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Role Playing.
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Hot Seats (Going Deeper).
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I put the salespeople in the hot seat and asked them questions on every single part of this process until I was sure they absolutely had it down and would do it right the next time.
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Case Studies as a Training Method.
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The Spot Quiz.
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Workshop Training.
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Developing a regular and consistent training program will enable you to effectively and systematically accomplish the following: Train new employees who can hit the ground running. Upgrade knowledge and skills of existing employees so that everything they do works better, smarter, faster. Provide continuous professional development so your staff becomes more and more effective. Solve any and all problems that come up in your organization. If you take the time to sharpen skills and improve knowledge in every possible area, your company will start to run better, smarter, and faster—like a finely tuned sales machine. The companies that conduct the best training will own the future, so train constantly, train with enthusiasm, and train as you entertain. Lastly, and this is not to be overlooked, train or feel the pain. With consistent training every week in every area of your company, you can put higher and higher standards into place and raise the bar of performance for your entire staff. If you really want to become the Ultimate Sales Machine, training is an absolute must at every level, no matter how large or how small you might be.
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The best way to build the Ultimate Sales Machine and to keep it running as smoothly as possible is to hold regular, highly productive, workshop-style meetings dedicated to improving every aspect of your business. In each of these meetings you will focus all of the relevant people on fixing just one small part of the business.
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“three Ps”—planning, procedures, and policies—is.
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This makes the difference between success and failure. A company that thinks like a small company remains small. A company, even a one-person army, that thinks and acts like a big company is going to grow faster, smarter, and better.
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A typical problem I see over and over again is that the CEO or department head believes that he has to think of all the solutions to every problem that arises in his company or department. If you have a good staff, they will fill you with ideas on not just the problems but how to fix them, even ones you didn’t know existed. Just ask them.
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“If you have a good staff, the only thing you need to bring to a meeting or workshop is your judgment. ”.
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If your organization consists of fewer than 30 people, you can have the entire staff in your first workshop. If you have more than 30 people, you may have department-specific workshops. If.
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After a few folks have shared duplicate ideas, say the following: “Okay, so we can get input from every one, if you have something that has already been stated, you don’t have to state it again. ” You will be amazed at how every one wants to tell you every thing they wrote down even after you say that you don’t want duplicate input.
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Imagine if you planned, tested, and established policies for every step of the sales process, from prospecting to cold calling to initiating interaction with customers to rapport building and right on through to every detail of follow-up.
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The most expensive thing you have to do today as a business is to acquire new customers. Once those customers are in the door, anything else you sell them increases profit margins dramatically. So every company should have add-on sales at the point of purchase.
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10 Steps to Implement Any New Policy.
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1. Get Everyone to Feel the Pain To create real change in any organization, you have to help every one, including yourself, to define, outline, and intensify the pain of not fixing the problem. When people start to think about their problems, they put themselves in the mood to learn, and that’s the mood you want them to be in to get profound results.
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The secret to creating change: you have to put people in pain.
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2. Hold a Workshop to Generate Solutions.
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3. Develop a “Conceptual Solution or Procedure”.
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We say each solution or procedure is “conceptual” until it is “proven” by you and your staff.
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4. Leader or Top Talent Personally Performs Procedure or Task.
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I always recommend testing new ideas with your top performers.
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5. Set a Deadline for Testing the Conceptual Procedure Set a deadline so you know that if you aren’t seeing results in a certain amount of time,.
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6. Document Step-by-Step Procedure or Process You want this to be a repeatable process, so spell it out.
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7. Have Show-and-Tell and Role Playing Take your documented steps and work with your staff to test and implement them. Show-and-tell and role playing offer the best methods of gaining experience before you put the process into the field.
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8. Have Another Workshop on How to Improve You’re deep into implementing this procedure. If there are any weak spots or areas to improve, your staff will know about them.
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People like to be asked their opinion. Then when they give it, they’ll have a greater buy-in when you actually take advantage of the ideas they suggest.
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9. Monitor the Procedure Directly.
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The highest level of learning is synthesis. That’s when you’ve learned something so well that it has become synthesized into the way you think, act, and react.
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10. Measure and Reward the Outcome You must mea sure your results intently. People respect what you inspect.
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You will find that people will work even harder for the recognition than they will for the money.
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A tactic is a method or technique used to achieve an immediate or short-term gain.
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A strategy is a carefully defined and detailed plan to achieve a long-term goal. In business, a strategy is the overall impact, the ultimate position you would like to achieve in the market.
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“How many strategic objectives can we accomplish with each tactic?”.
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There are three types of executives. A full 90 percent are what I call “tactical executives,” while 9 percent are what I’d call “strategic executives. ” And only 1 percent—the most effective executives—possess the rare combination of both tactical and strategic abilities.
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The top 1 percent. The executive who thinks both tactically and strategically can develop the big ideas and the big strategies and also use discipline and determination to see those brilliant strategies implemented at the tactical level.
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“education-based marketing,” creating an opportunity to educate prospects. This is a long-term, strategic approach to the sales process.
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People will even pay more if they perceive there is a greater value or a deeper reason for buying from one provider over another.
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I call this the science of setting the market’s buying criteria. Basically it means that every buyer can be taught how to be a better buyer of your type of product or ser vice.
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The first thing you need to think about and plan is who the ideal person would be in your audience.
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Right now, take a few minutes and write your stadium pitch title. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE TITLE OF TODAY’S TALK IS:.
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Twenty years of research has shown me that there’s always a very small percentage of folks “buying now. ” Three percent. I gave a lecture recently in front of 1,200 CEOs and said: “Let me prove this to you. How many people in the audience are in the market for a car right now?” About 30 people raised their hands. “How about tires?” A different 30 raised their hands. “How about furniture?” Thirty hands up. “How about home improvements?” Yet another 30 hands. “Office equipment?” You see my point. About 3 percent of potential buyers at any given time are buying now. Right now. That percentage drives all commerce. My research further concludes that 7 percent of the population is open to the idea of buying. This is the percentage who may be dissatisfied with their current item or provider and are not opposed to change, but who may not yet be “buying now. ” The remaining 90 percent fall into one of three equal categories. The top third are what I call “not thinking about it. ” They are not against it, not for it, but just “not thinking about it. ” So if you sell office equipment and you ran an ad, this 30 percent would not respond because they’re just not thinking about office equipment right now. The next third are what I call “think they’re not interested. ” So at first pass, they are not neutral like the first third. They would reply, “I don’t think I’m interested in office equipment. ” And then the final third are what I call “definitely not interested. ” These folks are happy with what they have or just simply know they don’t need it. They may have a 10-year-old copier, but if it’s not broken, why fix it?.
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This approach of offering some education of value to them gives you a significant opportunity to attract more buyers and build more credibility. I call this “education-based marketing,”.
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You will attract way more buyers if you are offering to teach them something of value to them than you will ever attract by simply trying to sell them your product or ser vice.
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Offering an education that helps the buyer is going to get more buyer interest. If the information is actually good and useful, it automatically repositions you in the mind of the buyer as much more of an expert than all your competitors. (You’re teaching them things about their own business that they might not know. ) If you think and plan strategically, you will find a way to weave that information in such a way that ultimately sells your ser vices far better than you could ever sell them by simply flat-out pitching your product. Examples will follow.
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No one felt sold. They felt educated. Why? Because when you sell, you break rapport, but when you educate, you build it.
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Sales is all about building rapport, not breaking it. When people feel they’re being “sold,” they automatically resist you. When people are being educated, they have no resistance—especially if the information is good.
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Let’s look at all the strategic objectives accomplished by education-based marketing: It made it a lot easier to get appointments. It enabled you to get in to see just about anyone—including the 90 percent who were not buying now. Since the information was so good, it established the salesperson as an expert rather than merely a salesperson. Since the information was so good, it gave credibility to the salesperson. When you begin any meeting with real data and hard facts, the sales material at the end of the meeting has a lot more credibility. Because we have control over the material covered, it artfully unseats every type of competitor we have. For newspapers, this would be the yellow pages, TV, radio, and so on. It created brand loyalty. If someone gives you something of value, you want to give back.
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The presentation says every thing the top management would want every prospect to hear and know. Most sales organizations leave 90 percent of the sales process up to the rep.
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What is your strategic position? Madison Avenue ad agencies and many others call it your USP (unique selling proposition).
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“What is special about us or what do we have or do better than our competitors?”.
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So learn the lesson yourself. Change—real change, dramatic improvement—in any company starts at the top and works its way down.
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The market’s buying criteria shift in favor of the expert every single time.
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If you come from the place of truly wanting to serve your buyer, then being a market expert—not just a product expert—means being more knowledgeable than any of your competitors.
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The one who gives the market the most and best information will always slaughter the one who just wants to sell products or ser vices.
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Market data is way more motivational than product data. Most people think that a shoe is a shoe (product data), but when you learn that your feet connect to every organ in your body, that’s market data.
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You need to take the time to collect market data and build your core story or your stadium pitch.
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There’s always that smoking gun that positions you above everyone else.
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To get the most powerful market data and to uncover the smoking gun, the trick is to look at things over time. That’s where you’ll find the big breakthroughs.
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“What would make us more respected?” Do a workshop on it. Then ask them, “What would position us as an expert in the eye of our buyer?” and so on.
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One of the most strategic things you can do is to find market data that makes your product or ser vice more important.
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A core story or an education-based marketing approach opens doors faster and more easily and allows you to build more rapport and close more sales.
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The average bad hire costs a company $60,000, yet most hiring decisions are made from an hour-long interview—if.
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When I was top producer every where I worked, I thought the only reason I was top producer was because companies didn’t usually hire people like me who were difficult to manage. You know the type: eager to please, always looking for more to do, always wanting more responsibility, always wanting to know more than you think they need to know. I was like that—a pain—but they’re worth every penny if you properly channel their energy.
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List three initiatives that you would love to hire someone to execute in which the reward could be great if the person did an excellent job for you. Next to each initiative write down what it could mean to your business and your bottom line—estimate its monetary value. Now list what you could afford to pay such people if they really performed.
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It’s amazing how so many companies put the average income a salesperson can make in their ads. That’s how you get average salespeople. Put the highest possible number that a top person can make in your ads.
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What Makes a Superstar? The type of people I’m talking about are those you can put in a bad situation with poor tools, no training, and bad resources and still, within a few months, they begin to outperform your best people or build your company in ways you never dreamed possible. Hiring someone like this is not about luck. It’s about understanding the personality characteristics that fit the job for which you are hiring and having the tools to identify the candidates that possess those characteristics.
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Dominance is a personality trait that has to do with the strength of your ego.
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Strong ego is crucial in sales because it means you will have the drive and personal ambition to close as many sales as possible and the armor to not take repeated and even harsh rejections personally.
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Influence has to do with how you interact in social situations and how well and how much you communicate. High-influence people love people.
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Steadiness is all about how patient, persistent, and thoughtful you are. High-steadiness people are deliberate in their actions and decisions.
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Compliance has to do with how you relate to structure and organization. High-compliance people always plan ahead.
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The recipe for a superstar is not just a high level of one trait. It is a combination of different intensities of each trait.
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Top producers exhibit high influence. They are empathetic and have a psychological need to bond with others, to find something likable about every person. This is a wonderful trait to find in a salesperson. They just keep going at the client every which way, trying to find more and more ways to serve and please that client.
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If your candidate’s personality combines high influence with high dominance, you’ve found your sales superstar.
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About half of the salespeople I’ve worked with over the years gave up after a single rejection.
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I’ve found that it takes about 8. 4 rejections to get a meeting. And what makes the difference between people who will face that rejection one time and quit or 40 times and never quit is determined purely by the strength of their ego.
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I now build in procedures that require salespeople to try again and again and again.
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Www. Chetholmes. Com you’ll find a blue button that says, TEST STAFF AND NEW-HIRES W/AMAZING RESULTS.
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Be on the lookout for those superstars every where you go. If you’re looking for them, you will find them in the oddest places and they themselves might not know they have the stuff of greatness.
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So disregard age or background. All you really need to be concerned about are those superstar qualities, and personality profiling can help you identify them.
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Here’s how to spot flaws in salespeople before you even interview them. The first thing you do to anyone who applies for a job in your company is to reject them, telling them why you don’t think they can do the job.
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The egos of the top producers will not let you tell them they can’t do the job.
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Legal notice: You have to get their permission to ask questions about their childhood and you need to explain how these questions are related to the job. The candidate must understand and agree that personality profile is more important than background. Otherwise, the interview can get you into trouble. Legally you cannot ask any question that isn’t relevant to the job.
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If you find a person who has not had what I call blindly encouraging parents, then you are likely to find a person who does not have the self-esteem to withstand the rejection that comes in a sales position.
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Naturally some people develop self-esteem in spite of not having encouraging parents, but in my experience that is the exception, not the rule.
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To determine your candidate’s background, ask the following questions: What events or influences from your childhood shaped who you are today? What are some of the biggest challenges in your life? They need not be work-related. What was the toughest sale you ever made? (Make sure you ask for all the details and step-by-step specifics of this experience. ) Now you want to look for areas of accomplishment to gauge just how much of an overachiever your candidate really is. Use these prompts and questions: Tell me about a time in your life when the odds were stacked against you but you overcame them and succeeded. Tell me three or four things of which you are most proud. Have you ever practiced and reached a high level in any area beyond just getting by in life?.
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To test empathy and the candidate’s ability to bond with others, ask these questions: How would your best friend describe you? Of every one you know, who has the most faith in you? Why? What are your best memories? People with weak empathy skills will give one-sentence answers to such questions. They are just not great at “sharing,” and it will be obvious. Bonders will talk your ear off. They need approval as part of their profile, and they will win you over with tales of their past.
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Ask candidates to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 in these areas: Ambition Confidence Ability to face rejection Establishing rapport Qualifying skills Ability to create desire in your prospects Closing skills Time management Presentation skills Strategic thinking Market knowledge Self-improvement Getting around gatekeepers.
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My philosophy is that the sales environment should be structured where the strong survive and thrive and the weak go do something else. This is a race and you need champions. Put the people who aren’t sales superstars in customer ser vice.
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Next you want to find out how candidates mea sure themselves against the best of the best. Ask them who is the best salesperson they have ever met. If a candidate names himself as the best, offer him the job. Most likely your instincts will tell you to do the opposite.
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Go through their résumé with them. Ask them the following questions: Why did you leave your last three positions? Were you unhappy? Why? Tell me about a disappointment or disagreement you’ve had with a boss and what happened. Name two weak points of previous bosses. Name two instances when a supervisor criticized you.
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Keep in mind that if you react negatively to anything candidates say, they’ll clam up or adapt what they are saying to what they think you want to hear. On the other hand, if you react positively, candidates are likely to expand on their comments. So be like an open book in this phase of the interview.
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Be tactful, but don’t be soft. You’ve be amazed at how many people crumble. Here you thought you had the perfect candidate. But when you tell them you don’t think they have the stuff, suddenly they agree and thank you for your time. Let that person go. Superstars never crumble. They have tremendous faith in themselves, and nothing can convince them they can’t do any job.
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The last aspect of hiring top talent is to create a performance-based relationship with little or no base pay.
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The third year and thereafter, new business is still 30 percent but ongoing business drops down to 10 percent. The new business is where the bucks are, so reps have a powerful incentive to get new business all the time.
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As long as you’re willing to pay, even just on performance, you might be shocked to learn that there’s someone perfect who will build your company for you as long as you share the wealth as she does so.
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Top producers share a number of traits that easily translate into restlessness in most companies. They are original, intelligent, and sure of themselves. They are generally frustrated in most organizations and usually end up starting their own companies.
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The key to keeping superstars is to never say no to them. Instead, redirect their energy or give them a few hurdles to jump in order to get what they want.
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The more you challenge superstars, the more you encourage them to overachieve. But don’t forget to compliment them when they meet and exceed your challenge.
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SALES SUPERSTAR WANTED $50K TO $300K Don’t even call unless you are the best and can prove it. Earn $50K if you’re average, $150K if you’re good, and $300K plus if you’re great. This is in the [type of industry here], but we hire star performers, not backgrounds. Young or old—if you have the stuff, we’ll know. Will train someone who has every thing we want. Small base, but huge performance rewards to get you to $300K and beyond each year. Must be awesome at opening doors and getting appointments from a cold start. Must be highly self-motivated, a terrific presenter and communicator, and a barracuda closer. Come and build your own empire within our fine, progressive company. We have a superb reputation and need real stars to bring in the best accounts. Email résumé to:.
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If you want to have the Ultimate Sales Machine, you need to have the ultimate salespeople.
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There’s always a smaller number of “best buyers” than there are all buyers. That means that marketing to them is cheaper than marketing to all buyers. A direct mail effort to 100 “best buyers” is obviously less expensive to market than a direct-mail effort to an entire audience of 10,000 “all buyers. ” But it’s how you market and sell to them that determines whether or not you will ever get them.
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We were just marketing and selling better than any of our competitors.
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Best buyers buy more, buy faster, and buy more often than other buyers. These are your ideal clients. No matter what else you are doing, you should have additional effort to capture them. I call this strategy the Dream 100 effort. It is your program for targeting your 100 (or whatever number is appropriate) dream clients constantly and relentlessly until they buy your product or ser vice.
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The goal of the Dream 100 is to take your ideal buyers from “I’ve never heard of this company” to “What is this company I keep hearing about?” to “I think I’ve heard of that company” to “Yes, I’ve heard of that company” to “Yes, I do business with that company. ”.
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The fastest way to grow any company is to focus a special and dedicated effort on your dream clients.
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While you’re doing every thing else, have a special effort dedicated to just the dream clients. We.
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Www. Zapdata. Com.
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The first thing we did was send out a Rubik’s Cube to those 508 companies. In the accompanying note we said: “Puzzled about how to double or triple employee productivity? We guarantee to find you 12 ways to reduce costs or increase productivity or we’ll give you a $5,000 gift for your trouble. ”.
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We sent the dream companies a little gift with a clever tie-in every other week for the entire five months.
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If you continue to market to someone with great vigor, they will absolutely get to know who you are. If they tell you no again and again and you keep marketing and selling to them, here is what will happen: they will go from not knowing who you are to knowing exactly who you are to maybe even being annoyed that you won’t go away to starting to respect you because no one has ever marketed to them with such force to even feeling obligated to give you some business. Yes, obligated. If someone keeps coming after you again and again and again, even if you are not interested in that person, you start to feel like you want to give something back.
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The point is that massive and diligent follow-up can penetrate just about any company if you are determined.
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One of the lessons for you is to build that list, organize your approach, and never say die. No matter what you sell, there are dream prospects out there. If you’re committed and stay in their face, you’ll be surprised how easy it is.
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If you are selling business-to-consumer, you need to learn the best-neighborhood strategy.
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If you sell to consumers, target the best neighborhoods with great consistency. And remember that you should be willing to do more to attract them than you’d do for every day buyers.
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If you own a restaurant, do your waiters treat your customers like they are worth $25,000 in business or like they are just worth the $25 meal they’re buying that night?.
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How are you going to treat your best buyers when they buy from you? What can you do that is special that you wouldn’t do for all buyers?.
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Write down three things you can do for your best clients to keep them feeling special.
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The Dream 100 strategy has doubled the sales of many clients and it can work for you. You just have to have the pigheaded discipline and determination to build a great Dream 100 program and stick to it like white on rice.
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Seven Musts of Marketing. Every company that wants to be number one in its industry or profession must deploy them: Advertising Direct mail Corporate literature: brochures and promotional pieces Public relations Personal contact: salespeople and customer ser vice Market education: trade shows, speaking engagements, and education-based marketing (as described in Chapter Four) Internet: Web sites, email efforts, and affiliate marketing.
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In small companies, you may not be able to afford to do them all, so you have to pick and choose which weapons will get you the most impact for the least money.
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Stacked marketing. It involves coordinating all of your marketing weapons rather than having varying and even conflicting messages from each separate weapon. With stacked marketing, you develop a consistent message, look, theme, and slogan that carries throughout all of your marketing efforts.
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Your core story or stadium pitch will provide you with data that will make all of your marketing weapons work harder.
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There are four rules for creating high-response-generating advertising: Rule 1. It Must Be Distinctive The first important thing about your ad is whether or not it attracts attention. The best response-generating ads catch the eye and hold it. There must be something in the ad that is distinctive and really stands out.
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Rule 2. Capture Attention with a Screaming Headline Back to print. The most effective ads have a headline that follows this important rule: “Tell me what you want to tell me in 3. 2 seconds. ” The headline should give a benefit and focus on the prospect by using “you” or “your” instead of focusing on yourself by using the word “we. ” It should communicate its message immediately and make you want to read on for more information.
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I often refer to ads as “long-range bombing” because they soften the market before you send in the troops.
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Rule 3. After Your Headline Hooks Them, Your Body Copy Has to Keep Them Reading.
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The body copy must focus on your prospect, not on you. The biggest mistake most advertisers make is focusing on themselves.
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Each sentence should unfold the “story” you want to tell and make the prospect want to read on. Like the headline, the body copy should be benefit-oriented. Don’t tell me what it is. Tell me why it is valuable.
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Rule 4. Include a Call to Action A reason to act now is always great:.
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On the radio, since you only have 60 seconds, you should try to give one main message. And most of the time, I’ve found this to be very true. In fact, if you talk at a conversational pace, a radio spot should have between 187 and 200 words.
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Here’s a radio spot that we ran recently that got good response: Hi, I’m Chet Holmes. If you own a business, I’d like to help you double your sales in 12 months flat. We’ve doubled the sales of more companies than anyone else. We teach 12 concepts that will double sales in 12 months. Here’s just one of them: If you sell to consumers, there’s a way to market to only the best neighborhoods, reduce your marketing costs, and increase the quality of your buyers dramatically. Or, if you sell to businesses, it’s even easier to double sales. I doubled the sales of a company three years in a row for a well-known billionaire by focusing on only 167 dream clients. While you’re doing everything else, you need a concentrated effort to get your dream clients. No matter how big they are or how small you are, you can get dream clients if you hit them every two weeks without fail. Call us and we’ll send you to a free Web site where you can learn three of the 12 concepts for free. 212–555–1234. To double the sales of your company, call 212–555–1234. Again, that’s 212–555–1234.
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Tell a story that intrigues the imagination and you stand a better chance of people actually watching your commercial.
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A successful direct mail campaign absolutely depends on how regular and consistent your mailings are.
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First, use color as much as possible—either on the envelope itself or in the lettering on the outside of the envelope.
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Second, put messages on the envelope. You’ve got to get the prospect to open the envelope. So a message on the outside—which should follow the above rules for writing a great ad headline—is a good way to go. Make it benefit oriented and focused on the prospect.
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Third, think about the way you sort your own mail. Which item are you going to open first: something that looks like a greeting card or the bill from the phone company?.
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Every magazine will let you send direct mail to their subscribers.
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Most brochures are a waste of money. They are totally focused on you instead of the buyer. I call them ego pieces.
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The reports offer excellent information, and at the end of the report there is a subtle plug for the ser vice we want to sell.
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Write down 5 to 10 major sales points for why a prospect would want to buy your product over another, or why you would want prospects to go deeper and/or do more than they might initially do. Then create a series of one-page promotional pieces that take on each case. Again, make sure each piece focuses on them, not you, and tells them why, not how. Use color. Use graphics if you can for each promotional piece. But if that’s not practical, you can make a great promo piece with a large headline.
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FOUR WAYS TO DOUBLE YOUR BUSINESS IN JUST 12 MONTHS Join me on a mass teleconference with celebrity business growth expert Chet Holmes to learn how to double your sales in 12 months flat. Yes, this man actually teaches four different concepts that will double your sales—EACH can double your sales in 12 months flat. This will be a rocket ship ride of an experience, and all in about 70 minutes flat, no travel required—attend right over the telephone. The Speaker: Chet Holmes is the only trainer in the world to have personally sold his ser vices to more than 60 of the Fortune 500. His client list includes Estée Lauder, Warner Bros. , American Express, and Citibank. He has 65 training products selling in 23 countries. Success magazine reports, “Chet Holmes breaks sales records wherever he goes. ” To see a two-minute intro on Chet, go to www. Chetholmes. Com. Here is a sneak preview of our teleseminar THIS coming Tuesday: Chet teaches how to focus like a laser beam on what he calls “best buyers,” reduce marketing cost, and dramatically increasing the size of your sale. How would you like to get all your best possible buyers into one room, all at once, and get to present to them all at once? Learn the magic of a concept Chet teaches called “the stadium pitch. ” Superstar growth strategy: Chet teaches how anyone, no matter how small, can hire an army of commissioned salespeople to radically grow a business. Zero to $100 million: Chet teaches the traits and skills YOU need to grow your company to $100 million. Even if it’s not your goal to go to $100 million, you’ll learn things that will change every thing. Most businesses get stuck at a certain level. Chet’s material gets you unstuck and growing like a weed. So join me and celebrity business growth expert Chet Holmes on Tuesday, October 10, promptly at 11 AM (Easter n Standard Time) and get the ride of your life in just over an hour. Only 1,000 can attend. The last time he did one of these, there were more than 1,000 people who could not get on the teleconference, so you’d better register now to hold your spot: [Web site link here].
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According to Guerrilla Marketing, 70 percent of what is published as news is actually “placed news,” or news that comes directly from press releases and PR initiatives.
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Every press release you send should be followed by a phone call. That’s how you build relationships. Here’s what you say: “Did you receive our press release about the amazing amount of pollutants in the home? We were wondering if there was anything we could do to help with that story. ” Often at that point, you’ll be asked to resend your press release. Or you’ll be brushed off, but the following month, when you call about the five million dust mites in every one’s living room, the editor will start to remember: you’re the guy who knows about indoor air pollution. If a story comes up along those lines, guess who they are going to call first? Also, editors are just like anyone else. They respect someone who continues to call them with story ideas on a regular basis.
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PR newswire (www. Prnewswire. Com) is an amazing tool if you’re writing press releases. It goes to every single media source on the planet for hundreds, not thousands, of dollars. I used it twice and ended up in The Wall Street Journal both times. The staff helps you write the press release because they know what will be picked up. Another secret to writing an effective press release is to mention a Fortune 500 company in your copy.
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Done properly, a trade show can take you from obscurity to the top of the market in a single event.
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There are only three rules to having a great trade show, but there are 100 ways to capitalize on those rules. In order of importance, here are the rules: Get noticed. Drive traffic. Capture leads.
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You can get an attractive model or two (a man and a woman is a good idea) for about $300 per day per model—a small price to pay to drive traffic.
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We became famous for our parties. Every booth in the entire place would buzz about our parties, and our clients would seek out my sales staff to get those coveted invitations.
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Next, you want to print drink coupons that your sales staff (and models) hand out. This makes your sales staff very popular. Everyone gets two coupons with the invite, but when they want more, they have to come to you. This also enables you to control the bill and make sure that strangers aren’t telling the bartender:.
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I usually negotiate a flat fee—say, $6 per drink.
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The most effective themes tie into what you sell. That’s more entertaining and ensures that your message won’t be lost amid all of those tropical drinks or fortune revelations.
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Another great idea is putting on an awards ceremony. With one of the companies I ran, we put on a ceremony called the “Lammies” for the Legal Advertising and Marketing Awards. We had as many categories as we could think of so we could honor as many of the guests as possible.
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What kind of mass teleconference can you offer your clients that they would happily attend?.
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Capture leads. Build a relationship. Interact as much as possible. Offer a webinar (Web seminar). Convert traffic to sales.
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Building a healthy database is the concept of the “shy yes” page taught by Alex Mandossian.
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The soft yes site that offers only one choice for how to proceed is an effective tool for driving leads.
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So your Web site should look very much like your brochure and direct mail pieces, using the same graphics, headlines, and market data from your core story.
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So information-based marketing accelerates your reach and increases word-of-mouth advertising.
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Every product or ser vice can create a community—even bottled water or shaving cream.
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The key for all of these marketing weapons is that they work together. Have a meeting once per month in which you look at each of your Seven Musts of Marketing and see how you can make them all work together more effectively.
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Here is the list of the Seven Musts at a glance: Advertising Direct mail Corporate literature: brochures, promotional pieces Public relations Personal contact: salespeople, customer ser vice reps Market education: trade shows, speaking engagements, Chet-style marketing efforts as described in Chapter Six Internet: your Web sites, email efforts, and affiliate marketing.
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We human beings remember 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, but 50 percent of what we both see and hear. 7.
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Eighty-five percent of the information taken into the brain enters through the eyes. The largest part of the brain is set aside just to deal with information taken in visually.
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There are numerous studies on the impact of using color over black and white in your communication. Color attracts the eye and helps set the mood of your presentation, and each color has a different effect on the viewer. While red is the color that draws the eye the most, it may not be the color you want to use for every thing. Red denotes passion, but it is also the color for danger,.
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Blue says tried and true, but it also means cool and refreshing.
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Orange says value.
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Choosing Wow facts can also set up the buying criteria for your product or ser vice and turn every one who hears your presentation into a minisalesperson for you.
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The first thing to do with any presentation is provide an overview of your industry over time.
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When you do the research, it will give you all kinds of ideas you’d never think of for positioning the importance of your product or ser vice.
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Well-told stories increase recall by another 26 percent over making a point without a story to illustrate it.
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Continually presell the rest of the presentation throughout the presentation. Keep alluding to information yet to come.
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There are three modes of communication operating simultaneously as you present: your words, the tone of your voice, and your body language.
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So if you’re presenting one-on-one, simply say: “You know what? I think I can show you this better if we sit side by side. ”.
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Eight Common Mistakes Presenters Make Mistake 1: Thanking Prospects for Their Time or Apologizing for Taking It.
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This shows that you consider their time more valuable than yours. It also suggests to them that listening to you is far less important than other things they could be doing.
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Mistake 2: Presenting with Your Hands in Your Pockets.
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Mistake 3: Presenting from a Sitting Position.
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Mistake 4: Being Led Around by Your Nose If the prospect asks a question in the middle of your presentation, a common mistake is to interrupt what you are saying and answer it right then and there.
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If the prospect takes control of the meeting, you will not make the sale. Don’t let him lead.
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Mistake 5: Letting the Materials Upstage You or Guide You.
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Mistake 6: Keeping It Totally Serious Humor increases interest and retention.
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Mistake 7: Failing to Practice the Presentation Each and Every Time Before You Give It The more you know the material, the more persuasive, powerful, and effective you can be.
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Mistake 8: Having No Idea What Comes Next in the Presentation You need to presell every panel if you can.
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You will get in to see far more prospects if you offer education than you will if you just try to sell your product.
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Never call it that to a prospect. A “presentation” sounds like a sales pitch. We call ours an “orientation. ” An even better term for some people is “an executive briefing. ”.
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When you’ve identified someone who is a dream prospect or you find a dream neighborhood of your best buyers, you need an organized, consistent, and relentless program to win them over as clients for life—no matter how many times they tell you they’re not interested.
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Most executives and salespeople are trained to try for a month or two and go away after receiving rejections from nearly 100 percent of their dream prospects.
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By being pigheaded, persistent, and determined, and by continually finding more clever and aggressive ways to get in front of these dream buyers, you actually earn their respect in the long haul.
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Our letter was compelling, as it resulted in a 7 percent response rate. Most direct mail is lucky if it receives a 1 percent response rate.
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I role-played with the sales team every single week for an hour on a mass teleconference. I strongly urge every company to have a sales skills teleconference once per week. If your staff works in single location, you can meet live rather than use the phone.
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Were now selling a free educational program (that ultimately sold the OEM product much more effectively).
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This kind of diligent and consistent marketing effort wins over just about every one if you stick with it long enough.
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The point is that you stand out in the crowd with great marketing.
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Here are six simple steps to help you get your dream clients: Choose your Dream 100. Choose the gifts. Create your Dream 100 letters. Create your Dream 100 calendar. Conduct Dream 100 follow-up phone calls. Present the executive briefing.
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I’ve found that one of the best ways to get noticed by your Dream 100 is to send them small gifts every two weeks.
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The gifts should be useful, things that they will want to keep or play with—or take home to a child.
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Even if prospects do not take you up on the offers, the effort still dramatically raises your visibility and solidifies your brand.
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Magnifying glass, 100 for $60 Calculator, 120 for $200 Miniature tool kit, 120 for $120 Paddleball, 120 for $50 Glider, 1,000 for $70 Rubik’s Cube, 120 for $40 Metal whistle, 120 for $100 Plastic dinosaur, 100 for $26.
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A letter should accompany every gift you send. The letter should be short so the prospects will read it. It should tie into the gift in some clever way. You need to offer something to which they can easily say yes. The letter must include a call to action so they know exactly what you want them to do next.
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The letter itself is probably not going to make the sale, but the follow-up phone calls will get you what you want.
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Here’s a letter that could accompany a stopwatch: Dear [personalized], Every second that you do not get our free executive briefing, The Five Most Critical Insights in [blank industry] Today, you are losing money. This is a free [your industry] community ser vice sponsored by our firm as a way to give something back to the market. This executive briefing contains more than $3 million in research; it’s boiled down to a bullet-style, fast-paced outstanding education on how to increase business in this scary period of rising competition and [fill in other pain point here]. Call for your free executive briefing today. The clock is ticking and you’re losing money.
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But it is only with constant and intense follow-up that prospects will be won over after they have said no.
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You’d be surprised how the word can spread and how one good deed like this can bring you other buyers at other times.
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Step 4: Create Your Dream 100 Calendar What are you going to do to market to your Dream 100 each and every month without fail? Actually, it should be at least every month. It’s even better if you send them something every two weeks.
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Note that the salesperson said that a “speaker” would come in and present to you. Again, being a strategist means that you maximize everything including the words you use. The right title for your salespeople can be very strategic. As stated, no one likes to be sold to, so develop non-sales-sounding titles that position the rep better in the prospect’s mind.
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The biggest tip is that your voice has to sound like you’re important. The dead giveaway that you are selling something is when you try to be charming to the assistant. Do not ask her, “How are you today?” That’s the biggest giveaway that you are a salesperson.
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Who calls CEOs of the largest companies in the world? Very important people. So if your voice has that tone of authority and you tell the assistant what to do—not ask them—you are very likely to get right through. The other secret to getting that top executive on the telephone is to send the gatekeeper back as many times as you can, each time giving very little information. Let me show you the difference. Here’s a weak salesperson: YOU: Hi. How are you today? ASSISTANT: Good. YOU: Is Mr. Smith in? ASSISTANT: Who’s calling? YOU: This is Bill Johnston. ASSISTANT: May I ask what this call is in reference to? YOU: I’m calling to talk about my product. ASSISTANT: I see. Let me take a message. First question: Who was leading this conversation? The assistant. As long as the assistant is leading, you lose. You must lead the conversation at all times. Let me stress one key thing: never lie. Never give false information. That doesn’t mean you tell the whole truth. You just don’t lie. Ever. Observe the subtleties here as I show you how to send the gatekeeper back so many times that the CEO finally gets fed up and tells her to put the call through. In fact, have a contest. Let’s see how many times you can send that gatekeeper back to that CEO. YOU: Hi. This is Bill Johnston. I’m calling for Carl. Is he in? [Notice that the assistant can’t ask my name, I’ve given it. Important people give their names. And I didn’t ask, “How are you today?”] ASSISTANT: Can I ask what this call is in reference to? YOU: Just tell him it’s Bill Johnston. [The assistant goes to Carl and tells him it’s Bill Johnston. The boss says, “What’s it about?” The assistant says: “He didn’t say. It sounded like he knew you. ” The boss tells the assistant to get more information. ] ASSISTANT: I’m sorry. Can you tell me what this is in reference to? YOU: Did you tell him it’s Bill Johnston? ASSISTANT: Yes. He didn’t seem to know you. YOU: Hmm. Just tell him I’m from XYZ Company. That might jog his memory. Remember to keep a tone of authority. That keeps assistants off-guard. They don’t know if they have any power over you yet. The minute you start sounding like a salesperson, you give them that power and they will wield it well. You must keep them off-balance. The assistant now goes to the boss again, expecting that he might know you. You didn’t say he would. You said that the name of your company might jog his memory. Ideally, you will have sent a letter in advance with very little information. Even if it gets thrown out, it still gives you the liberty to act like he might remember you, your company name, or the purpose of your call. The boss says he doesn’t know the name and sends the assistant back to you once again. ASSISTANT: I’m sorry, Mr. Johnston, but the company name didn’t ring any bells. Can you please tell me what this is in reference to? YOU: Who am I speaking to? [You take control of the conversation. ] ASSISTANT: This is his assistant. YOU: Are you his regular assistant? ASSISTANT… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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Step 6: Present the Executive Briefing This step has been thoroughly covered in Chapter Four on strategy and Chapter Eight on effective presentations, but here’s a review of the key points to remember about building your core story: Use market data, not product data. Set the buying criteria in your favor. Find the “smoking gun,” the one thing that undeniably positions you over every one else. Make sure you hit their pain… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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The biggest mistake I see salespeople make is pitching themselves too early in… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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An education-based Dream 100 strategy has worked again and again to help many companies penetrate impenetrable accounts or to attract those best buyers in the best neighborhoods. The biggest weakness I notice when I see companies utilize this strategy is that either they are too inconsistent or they give up too quickly. Remember that getting the best buyers is a process—not a single event. It’s a campaign to stay in their face forever.
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Most companies leave far too much of the sales process up to individual salespeople. Yet, to create the Ultimate Sales Machine you must work as a team, utilizing every one’s brainpower to drill down, perfect, and procedurize each aspect of the sales process.
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This chapter outlines the seven steps that every salesperson should go through in influencing a buying decision.
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To achieve synthesis in your sales team, begin by having them commit the seven steps to memory, then set procedures, and polish each skill area until your people are masters of each.
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Sales Step 1: Establish Rapport.
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If you are friends with your clients, it is very hard for another salesperson to take them away from you. That needs to be part of your sales process.
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The more you create a sense of community and friendship with your clients, the stronger the grip you will have on your market.
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I don’t care what kind of business you’re in, you need to make “client rapport” part of the process.
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You will find that you close a much higher percentage of sales if you have good, solid rapport with your prospects. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary, rapport is “an emotional bond or friendly relationship between people based on mutual liking, trust, and a sense that they understand and share each other’s concerns. ” So how do you achieve this mutual liking, trust, and sense that you share their concerns?.
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Selling breaks rapport (no one wants to feel like you’re selling them), while educating builds it.
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So one of the best ways for establishing rapport is for your sales staff to be more knowledgeable than any other sales staff they could possibly run into.
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Providing information that helps your client succeed helps you build trust and respect. Your clients and prospects will be happy to hear from you. Even better, they’ll start to call you to get your input on decisions they’re making for their business.
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Ask great questions. Establish rapport-building questions that your sales team will ask every prospect. Teach your salespeople to use those questions to make a connection, to find common interests. Also, “get personal. ” As fast as you can, get into the person’s world.
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Have a sense of humor. Have fun together. My stockbroker calls me with the “joke of the week” and they’re actually funny.
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Commiserate. Misery loves company. If the client wants to complain about anything from business to personal life, be a good supportive ear. You’ll escalate the bonding process. Be empathetic and care about them. Be more interested in them than anyone else has ever been. There’s a saying, “If you want to be interesting, be interested. If you want to be fascinating, be fascinated. ” Find the common ground. I had a terrible time bonding with one client until we discovered that we both liked the same band.
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Mirror. If you match your body language and tonality to what your prospects are doing and sounding like, they’ll make the subconscious connection that you are like them.
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The bottom line is that rapport can make you bulletproof, increase referrals, boost your closing ratio, and help you become more and more sought out by your clients.
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Sales Step 2: Qualify the Buyer (Find the Need) Qualifying buyers means finding out what they are looking for in your product or ser vice and what factors will influence them to buy. In this step you need to learn every thing you can about their existing buying criteria, but the key to developing your Ultimate Sales Machine is to reset that buying criteria so that your product or ser vice becomes the most logical choice. To reset a customer’s buying criteria in favor of your product or ser vice, you must begin by gaining a complete understanding of his or her current buying criteria. Develop the six to 10 questions that you would like to know about every prospect.
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Think of every question your salesperson should ask in order to thoroughly understand the client’s needs.
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On their own, most companies just don’t go this deep. Yet if you study their best producers, you’ll find variations on all these rapport-developing techniques. Your job is to set up systems, procedures, and training that create a machine where every salesperson gets deep with your prospects.
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The best method of selling I’ve ever seen is when you can guide your prospects through a series of questions and they sell themselves on your product or ser vice.
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Present your core story/executive briefing. This orientation should be targeted to the buyer, not to your product or ser vice.
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Sales Step 4: Create Desire Now it is time to make your client want your product or ser vice and want it right now. There are a lot of things you can do to increase this desire. As I’ve mentioned, two powerful techniques are: Lead them through a series of questions in which you intensify their need from their perspective. Present killer data that truly motivates your buyer to take action now. Be clear on this important point: Your buyers will be a lot more motivated if their current situation becomes unacceptable. To create desire, you must motivate your buyers using a combination of problems and solutions, even if you are the one pointing out the problems that they haven’t really considered.
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People will act faster to solve a problem than they will to gain an unrealized benefit. People naturally move away from problems and discomfort to solutions. Once you have shown them the problems, paint the picture of their wonderful future with your products or ser vice and you will create desire. Just be sure you are painting a picture of their future and not just your products. Remember that features tell, benefits sell. Don’t tell them what it is, but rather why they need it.
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“What are some pain points that would motivate your prospects to buy?”.
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Your prospect doesn’t care that your product is faster or more energy efficient. Tell them why that matters to them. How will it make their lives or jobs better?.
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Sales Step 5: Overcome Objections What are the most common reasons that you lose a sale? And how many different ways have you developed to eliminate barriers to buying? The toughest objections are the ones you don’t know.
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A talented salesperson establishes need and finds out the objections early in the sales process.
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The best close of all is when the buyers make their own decision to buy because it’s the most logical conclusion they can draw from the information you’ve given them.
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An objection is an opportunity to close, you will always be happy to hear one.
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You should agree that the objection is valid. Always agree with an objection. The clients will drop their guard.
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You might say, “Well, that’s certainly a good reason not to invest in this today. [meaningful pause] But let me ask you a question: Is money the only thing standing between you and the purchase of this product?” At this point, if there are more objections, they will surface. If not, the client will say, “No, if I could afford it, I’d buy it. ” This is called isolating the objection. It’s standard sales stuff that is taught in every major sales training program, and yet every day I see salespeople make the mistake of not isolating the objection.
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Sales Step 6: Close the Sale Although the goal is to set up such logical buying criteria that the prospect and the salesperson walk to the close together, it should also be stated that most people need help in making decisions.
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You may need to help prospects make the decision. It’s okay to make them feel a little pressure. If you believe that what you have is good for them, close already!.
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Another tried-and-true sales method is to assume the sale, saying things like, “Do you want that today?” or “Where do we ship that?”.
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Inside, this salesperson was afraid to make the sale, do the close, or apply any pressure whatsoever, because the fear of rejection was making her weak. That’s why most salespeople don’t close well: weak ego strength and fear of rejection.
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That’s weak salespeople who don’t know their job. Your job is to take those folks out of their misery.
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Your job, Chet, is to help people make that decision to buy. That is the greatest weakness in folks—they’re not good at making decisions. If you truly believe that your prospect should benefit from your product or ser vice, it’s your moral obligation to help them make a decision and get on with their lives.
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A money-back guarantee is a great way to take away objections, but the idea of offering a bonus that they can keep soups it up quite a bit.
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Write down eight things you can do to close more sales. What can you add that would encourage people to buy right now? How can you use risk reversal? What gifts could you give away with purchases that would motivate your buyers to buy? What product or ser vice can you get for free that would be of great value to your prospect?.
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Do workshops with your staff on overcoming objections and closing techniques. There is nothing that increases sales skills like role playing.
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Sales Step 7: Follow Up The process after the sale is so important that the entire next chapter is devoted to it.
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It costs six times more to get a new client than to sell something additional to a current client. If you want to build the Ultimate Sales Machine, you need to have highly procedurized follow-up and follow-through.
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In the best restaurants, the owner or manager will go table to table introducing him-or herself and seeing that every thing is excellent.
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Enthusiasm is contagious. When you are with a prospect, your enthusiasm rubs off. The second you leave, the prospect begins to cool off. But your job is to keep the prospect hot on two things: you and the sale. They need to stay hot on you, not just on what you’re selling. If you made a good impression, you have to “keep those cards and letters coming. ”.
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The real success formula for selling: Trust and respect = Influence = Potential for control = More market share at every mutually beneficial opportunity.
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You are a major part of why they buy, which means that you must reiterate your connection in your follow-up correspondence (examples coming up). But you also want them to stay hot on your product or service. If you used the techniques you’ve learned in this book and presented the clients with a ton of useful information from your core story, they stand a better chance of remembering why they bought your product.
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The more you remind them, the less chance they will ever forget… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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Successful companies know every aspect of a client’s criteria for making a purchase. The deeper your understanding of your clients, the better the opportunity to help them and the more market share you will acquire. Your goal is to become such a bright spot in your clients’ day that they actually look forward to your calls, letters, and emails. Keep things exciting and interesting. You must become part of your clients’ lives… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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“education-based marketing” is an excellent method of staying in touch. No matter what you sell, you can find valuable information that… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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The most prominent graphic on the Web site would be an offer that would capture data to begin a relationship with every fan coming to the site. One of my goals would be to collect millions of fan emails. This would hedge my investment, giving me an opportunity to promote my movies in advance and build an even stronger brand with moviegoers. The home page should give ethical bribes to fans to get their email: “Enter your email address and win a chance to have dinner with a star. ” Surely, you could create dozens of… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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Set Yourself Up for Great Follow-up Rule: Your follow-up is only as good as your first six steps and you should be considering your follow-up during every step of the sales process. Here are the goals and questions that should guide you throughout each step of the process: Create rapport. What professional goals did you note during the meeting? How can you help prospects achieve those goals? What personal tidbit, common interest, or funny story can you refer to later to remind them of your bond? Qualify and establish need. Do you understand prospects’ needs and objectives? What are their most pressing problems and how can you help solve them? Build value. What do they consider valuable? What benefits or addons would appeal to them and build the value around your product or ser vice? Create desire. What are their hot buttons that can increase their desire? What is the pain point that you can use to remind them of why they bought and why they will want to keep buying from you? Remember that people naturally gravitate away from… Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.
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When all you do is talk about the product or ser vice you’re selling, what is the only thing you can focus on in your follow-up? There’s not much else to say in your letter but “Thank you for the meeting and, by the way, did I tell you our product is great?” There’s no opportunity for quality follow-up because you didn’t find out anything about me or my problems or my buying criteria. The follow-up letter becomes no more interesting to the client than a direct mail piece from a total stranger.
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10 Steps to Great Follow-up Follow-up Step 1: Send the First Follow-up Letter If you sell business-to-business, get a letter off to your client within an hour or two of your meeting.
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Here’s a good letter structure: Start with something personal that you remember from the meeting. Example: “That was a great story you told about your daughter. In our next meeting, I have a similar story to tell you. ” Include a compliment. Example: “You certainly seem to have a great grasp on how to make your company succeed. They are lucky to have you. ” Push their hot buttons and stay focused on the benefits your product or ser vice offers to them. Example: “With the challenge you face, it seems clear that six of our machines are exactly what you need. You will reduce costs, speed up productivity, and, most important, relieve a lot of stress for quite a few people. I’m checking on how fast we can move on this one. ” Use a personal close. Example: “Once again, it was great meeting you. I have a few ideas about some other productivity issues that I know you will like. ”.
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Focus on them and the benefits your product or ser vice would have for them. Third, there is nothing in here to endear you to this client. Get personal. Great follow-up letters have more than a little personal touch.
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You’ll find that top producers are eager to share.
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Follow-up Step 2: Make the First Follow-up Call The follow-up call should come right after the letter. It should offer something of value, something that doesn’t necessarily have to benefit your company directly. You’re trying to bond with your client, so this follow-up call does not have to be selling them anything. This is absolutely critical if you sell business-to-business. You may call and say: “Hey, Jim. I thought more about your challenges, and I think I may have a great idea for you. ”.
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If you’re business-to-business and you had a good meeting, you should now be working your way into your client’s staff as someone bringing enough value that they let you into their world. This is how I became top producer at every company. I became such a valued contributor it was like I was on my clients’ staffs. I helped them find talent, design more effective ads, do better at trade shows, hook up with other companies that can help them, and so on. They’d say, “Let’s call Chet and get his input on this one. ”.
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Follow-up Step 3: Share Something Amusing or of Personal Interest As you learned in Chapter Ten, you are establishing rapport throughout the sales process so you can use similar approaches. As mentioned in that section, send an amusing cartoon or article that you know will be of interest to them. Even if it does nothing else but make them smile and laugh, it’s building that bond and keeping that top-of-mind status. So send something of interest to them every month. Don’t sell; just schmooze.
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Follow-up Step 4: Throw a Party, Share a Meal, and Bond Like Crazy If you’re business-to-business or business-to-consumer, throwing parties is one of the best ways to bond.
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Follow-up Step 5: Send Another Fax/Email/Letter/Card If you get top-of-mind awareness, you need to never let it go. With un-ceasing follow-up you’ll never lose a client to a competitor. If you’ve just had a meal with your client or she’s attended a party or event you’ve sponsored, follow up immediately with another letter. Here’s an example: Dear Gail: You make a great lunch guest. I wish all my clients had your sense of humor. I was intrigued by your thoughts on direct mail, so I’ve asked for some further research. I’ll let you know when it comes in. Meanwhile, stay away from those anchovies. Regards, Kevin.
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Follow-up Step 6: Plan Something Fun That Can Include the Family If you’re business-to-business and your clients are big enough to warrant it, you can invite your clients to join you in fun activities such as boating, tennis, hot air ballooning, or scuba diving. I have done all of these and more. The more memorable the experience, the cooler it can be, the more likely the client will not only go, but will talk about it to others. You’re becoming part of their lives.
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Follow-up Step 7: Offer Something to Help Their Business.
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Follow-up Step 8: Send Another Fax/Email/Letter/Card Your client needs to hear from you often so that you become permanently bonded. Keep sending follow-up notes and jokes. If you become best friends with your clients, it will be natural to keep doing these things.
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Follow-up Step 9: Offer More Help to Succeed.
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This breeds remarkable customer loyalty so that customers will feel like they are engaging in a personal betrayal if they buy from a competitor. Loyalty gives you unequaled control over market share and the inside track on every thing your customer is thinking. Since it’s so expensive to gain new clients today, what can you do to establish an unbreakable bond?.
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Follow-up Step 10: The Ultimate Follow-Up; Invite Them to Your Home or Be Invited to Theirs When you have them in your home or they have you in theirs, you know you have done fantastic follow-up. Here are some revealing quotes from top producers on the importance of this step: “Every important client I have has dined in my home. ” “Half the people at my wedding were my clients. ” “From their dreams to their hobbies, to their children’s hobbies, I know every thing about my top clients. ”.
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Bonding is every thing. Your ultimate goal is that all of your biggest clients also become your best friends. Become involved in their lives and in the success of their businesses. Make it your personal mission to help them succeed. The bottom line is that you need to do follow-up or you will be mediocre. With a fantastic, structured follow-up, you will propel yourself so far above your competitors that they won’t be able to touch you or your clients.
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Mastering anything is not about doing 4,000 new things, but doing 12 things 4,000 times.
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Reticular activating system (RAS),.
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I have even applied this information to how I raise my children. When either of them says anything like “I can’t” or “I’m no good at that,” I say, “What’s that called?” They moan, “Failure reinforcement. ” One day when my son was learning tennis, he said, “I just can’t get the hang of that serve. ” Then he looked at me and caught himself. “But I’m getting better every day. ”.
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Another example is when you buy a new car. You never noticed that car before and suddenly you start to see it every where. Now that this specific car has become of interest to you, your RAS will pick it out of thousands of cars you see every day.
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A very efficient machine, the RAS zeros in on any area of interest. This is whatever is occupying your thoughts: your car, your hobbies, your goals, your success, your limitations, your failures, and so on. If you are constantly thinking about failure, problems, and concerns, your RAS will continually hone in on and bring you more of what you’re most interested in. Whether it’s failure or success, your RAS will direct the full force of your brain to sort through the clutter and carefully select and guide you to the reality that is consistent with your thoughts.
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Every one focused on solving the problems instead of focusing on the problems.
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Right before you go to bed and right when you wake up, you are at your most receptive. That’s the best time to really focus your RAS on all the positive things you want in your life.
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It’s important to keep your brain working in the present. Tell yourself, “It’s a great day today,” rather than “I will have a great day today. ” Or “Success comes to me easily” rather than “Success will come to me easily. ” This is called autosuggestion. Phrase your goals and desires as if they already exist because then your brain will work on fulfilling them faster for you. If you say you will be a billionaire, the brain says: “Oh, okay. I will do it. That means I don’t have to do it right now. ” Instead say, “I am a billionaire. ” Then your brain says: “Oh, wow, I have to make that happen. ”.
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Thomas Edison, who invented the lightbulb, the movie camera, and dozens of other ingenious things, said, “Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious. ” You can actually pose something to your subconscious as you go to sleep and wake up with the solution in mind. Napoleon Hill wrote that you should “demand” that your subconscious give you the solutions or answers that you desire.
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One way to put your subconscious mind to work for you is to create a recording of your own voice that you listen to every night before you go to bed, feeding proactive affirmations into your subconscious.
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Here are a few great affirmations for anyone: I attract success. Success comes to me easily. Abundance and prosperity flow to me from every direction. It’s easy to be successful. I only think positive thoughts. I’m in perfect health.
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One of my favorites for salespeople is “I love to cold-call in the morning. ”.
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Goals focus your attention and enforce your brain to attract what you want. Most people spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning a life. But setting goals in every aspect of your life and business puts your RAS to work (on purpose) at attracting great things.
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To get the most out of goal setting, make sure you set incremental goals as well as long-term goals. Your incremental goals should be things that are challenging but that you know you can achieve. This way you make it easier on yourself to stay focused on your success. If you make outrageous goals and never achieve them, then you reinforce your own failure.
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Goal-Writing Workshop Write down the following: Five lifetime goals Five annual goals Desired annual income for the next five years Three things you will do each month to improve your life Three things you will do each month to improve your company or department Three things you will do each month to improve your performance Post each of these lists in an appropriate location so that you will see them every day. State them as if they already exist: “I make five sales every day. ” “My business grows by X percent every year. ” Answer these questions to create more goals and focus your attention on creating success: What three obtainable things do you want from your business/job? Write them as if you already have them. What three things will you do with your staff every month to make them more effective? What three things will you do to make yourself happier and healthier? How often and when will you do them?.
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People respect what you inspect.
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For every single call he made there should have been a follow-up action. So, for example, we designed a fax to send when someone hung up on him. Remember that breaking through the clutter, even to get hung up on, now gives you a tiny filament of contact.
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Remember that the hardest part of sales is getting their attention in the first place, so once you have it, you need to follow up so well they don’t have a chance to forget you. Make sure you include follow-up in your tracking efforts.
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Henry Ford used a similar tactic, but he didn’t even need to create a reward for the increase in productivity. As Napoleon Hill mentioned in Think and Grow Rich, Ford went onto the factory floor with a can of paint and put a large number 6 in the middle of the floor. When the night workers asked what it meant, he told them that it was the number of cars the day crew built. The next morning he came in and learned the night crew had built seven cars. He then painted a 7 over the 6 that had been there. When the day crew asked about it, he told them that that was how many cars the night crew had built. Just by playing the day crew off the night crew, he was able to substantially increase productivity for his factory.
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If you’re not measuring effectiveness, your organization’s productivity is lower than it could be and your goals are further away than they need to be.
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Ultimate strategic position (USP).
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Step 1: What is your best possible strategic position? In our case, we established our position as part of a market that was superworthy for them to go after. Step 2: Next we established our position at the top of that market so they knew that of all the choices they could make to penetrate this market, advertising in our magazine was the most potent. Step 3: We put all this into an “educational orientation” and made that our first offer to every advertiser. Step 4: We mounted a Dream 100 effort, where we started hitting the biggest possible advertisers so hard, so frequently, and with so many approaches and offers that they got to know exactly who we were in a very short period of time. Step 5: I rehearsed the sales staff on that presentation again and again and again. Still, there were those who didn’t get the strategy: “Wait. Why would I do all this when all I really want to do is sell advertising?” I took these more tactical executives by the hand, brought them to client meetings, and showed them the awesome power of using market data as a motivator. They caught on pretty quickly at that point. Step 6: I worked through the time management procedures daily, constantly demanding to-do lists from the staff. Step 7: I trained the staff on the “Seven Steps to Every Sale” in great detail. I gave spot quizzes, did workshops on every step, and hot-seated the reps on specific accounts and their activities related to the seven steps. Step 8: I worked the heck out of the follow-up procedures, putting into place more and more opportunities for bonding and building valuable relationships. Step 9: We worked the trade shows like champions, always being the life of every party and throwing the best parties. Eventually, we started our own trade show for all the advertisers in the industry to come and learn how to market better to attorneys. We designed an award ceremony that celebrated the top executives in the industry and brought them all to a black-tie affair in which we controlled every inch of the experience. Step 10: We offered many other additional ser vices that gave us unbreakable bonds with our clients. We had a free placement service to help marketing executives get jobs with other advertisers. We gave the entire market the industrywide calendar that every company used for its trade show planning. We designed ads for all our advertisers. Step 11: We set goals for every area of performance. Step 12: We measured and tracked every activity and had regular contests and rewards for our top performers.
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We’re just marketing and selling way better than all our competitors. ” And the best part is this: None of it was that hard. The key ingredient, my friends, is pigheaded discipline and determination. If you want to have the Ultimate Sales Machine, you merely focus consistently on the 12 skill areas in the 12 chapters of this book. Here’s my promise to you: if you make this book your sales, marketing, and management bible and study it again and again, you’ll never need to know anything else to rule your market. That and pigheaded determination.
The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes and Michael Gerber
