The Salesby5 Blog

 Yesterday was about: seeing. Real matters more than ever before. People have no tolerance for fake.

Today is about how to take see, feel and touch and make it work for you to sell more with less effort by 5pm today.

You have your touch, the feel of your company, and what the customers see down, and you are ready to use this to make a cold call or warm lead work.

FACTS:  The #1 preferred mode of communication by businesses today is email. 67% prefer email versus 29% phone. How do you work this? Ask for a phone meeting via email at a specific time on a specific day with a specific time frame that is short, like 5 minutes. You will be the initiator of the call. By the way, in person meeting are at 10% of preferred communication! Please do not attempt a face-to-face if you want to stand out and sell more with less effort.  Unless you are invited, there is not time to fit you in, unless you stand out and have true benefit. We recommend you do not even ask, instead, intrigue and then be asked! By the way, these numbers will get even more dramatic in the next 5 years and email will come down as will all the others, what will go up?  That is a future blog that is a few weeks off.

Now, when you get your meeting on the phone, get to the point fast.  Use the following approach:
1. We recommend starting with appreciation for the call and a sincere approach that is real,for example “how is your day?” If you can add anything that denotes your life or real personality, it is good to do so.  This is great for warm leads and not for cold. For cold go to 2.

2. Let them know what benefit you offer, that you could solve a problem they might have or have in the future that is different from possible other vendors. Do not mention other vendors, instead focus on extreme clarity of your top two benefits. No more, as you need to focus on a few things. If you have 30, that is not believable today. Focus on one or two.

3. Ending your call quickly or offering to, you need to make sure you the other party sees the benefit, make sure you talk for 2 minutes of the 5 minutes or less and allow plenty of time for questions by them, not you!

4. Ask how they would like you to follow up with them and their preferred means of communication.  This is a forgotten element for most sales people, yet shows respect and eases the new relationship.

5. Follow up with an added benefit; surprise is awesome, find anything from a coupon for their kids to attend a concert for lesser money or news that will benefit them that may not have seen prior!  Introduce them to a vendor that can save them thousands of dollars! Need one? Call Kevin Kemp at (210) 630-2200.  He will save them thousands on their cell phone bills and is a hero of SalesBy5.

Summary: Focus your efforts on real.  Get passionate about what you offer to someone and speak less than you are spoken to by inspiring questions.

 Yesterday was all about your “Touch.” What do you leave people with regarding your pitch, your benefit and the reason to believe in you?  Today we will teach you the “See,” as in, what do your potential customers see in you, your company, and your brand?

I will illustrate with two stories, both real.

1.  Two partners of a creative firm walk into a client’s office. One wearing an expensive suit with a tie, the other wearing a t-shirt (with a stain) and a colored jacket with jeans. The client remarks how well the t-shirt and stain guy looks. Why?  One is living what he thinks is what the customer expects or respects, the other, natural. I was the guy in the suit, but that was 1993 and it stopped quickly. I realized people respect real. If I was a banker, I would dress the part.

2.  A client walks into your office door and is greeted by well dressed (no t-shirts with stains, but no suits either) people, all of which may have been caught in a laugh or joke while entering. It is real, no “act this way when he arrives” is announced by the management. The guest is greeted and asked for their beverage of choice, a special one is noted such as Diet Dr. Pepper or tea. It is then known to order their special drink without them knowing in the future.

Either way, what does the client see? Both situations are real and they are 15 years apart. Story 1 is a suit that is not the right brand for the product or service. Story 2 is SalesBy5 today.

Summary: Today, real matters more than ever before. People have no tolerance for fake. Make sure you are selling real. Real value, real benefit, real reason to believe and most of all, you really believe in what you are doing. Passion makes selling fun!

Yesterday was about making sure you do not un-sell when called or researched. It was about “feel.”

Today is about your “touch.” What are you leaving people with that they can recall?  We have said on our Barf Bag that what used to be a 30 second elevator pitch, is now 10 seconds. You have 10 seconds to intrigue me and make me want to ask questions. If I do not ask a question, you lose. If I ask 1 question, we are even. If I ask 2 or more questions, you are starting to win.

1.  Don’t give me your business card, make me want it!

2.  Make me want to work with you because I feel like I will not have success or will have less without you. Your “touch” is about saying more with less words and giving me absolute clarity.

3.  Find a 5th grader or close to 10 years old and tell them your 10 second pitch. If they get it, you get it, if they do not, you do not get the sale!

4.  Get this “touch” into everyone’s hands in your company. One person showing up and throwing up on your potential customers is one un-seller!

Recently working with a company of 60 people, we found they ended up touching over thousands of people per week in e-mails, personal visits, or phone calls. Everyone having the same touch is not redundant, it is clarity.

How is your company’s touch?

1.  What is it like to try to do business with you? Are you making it hard or easy? Are you inviting or un-inviting? It does not matter who you are in your organization- the CEO or the call center rookie. Call your business or have a friend call, while you are on speaker phone.  Have them ask for you.  Have them ask what the company does.

2.  Do you feel welcome, wanted, invited and/or appreciated?

3.  If you bought the product or service and called back for help, do you feel they would help you?

4.  Connect to the service department. Do you get a human?  Schedule a service call to your home address and see how long it takes to make the appointment or get service.

5.  Connect to the customer service department. See if you get a human and then describe your problem. What happens?

6.  If you left a message, how fast does your call get returned and how appreciated do you feel?

Recently, I started calling the service department of auto dealerships and other higher priced items, to shop in advance and see what happens when a sales person promises me a benefit. I want to know if it is true. This is my reason to believe they can deliver. I called three car dealerships when I experienced a problem with their largest competitor and acted like it was their car. They were ready to take care of me in moments. My dealership was not, as it was governed by rules that were perfectly suited for 1971 communist Russia. Many companies will promise you a rose garden, but today, it is easier than ever to smell them before you buy them.

Check out Seth Godin’s riff about voice mail.

  photo by lawgeek - flickr

 When I sold the least, I didn’t think big. A common phrase around our office is “think bigger!”

If you could have an event that gets real estate brokers to see a development and you serve food, beer and wine, that is salt and pepper. How about a broker event, on undeveloped land, that has large back hoes that brokers can use to tear down a house? What if you added prizes, like an LCD TV and a Nintendo Wii? Then, you top it off by serving premium alcohol, beef tenderloin and complete it with an incredible band? This event happened and pictures are coming. Did it sell space in the new 500,000 square foot development?  We’ll see soon enough.

When you believe you are thinking big, go for more!

Photo by inalaf

You have likely been on the sending or receiving end of an email that de-motivated you or ruined someone’s day.  We call them e-bombs.  Here’s a way to avoid having such a negative effect.  When you receive an e-bomb, you’ll notice one consistency - the tone in which you read it.  Your emphasis on words and pronunciation goes negative, even if the person sending you the email NEVER speaks that way.

 Next time you are writing an email that you feel could be the least bit negative, do yourself a favor and read it back to yourself in a snippy, ugly tone.  Of course, if you’re writing a flowery and 100% complimentary email, it isn’t an issue.  If, on the other hand, you are providing a suggestion, it might sound condescending.  The point is not to censor yourself, but merely to pay attention to how you word your emails so you share information with the proper tone.

Do you see great traits in others that they don’t recognize in themselves?  Please take time now to catch people doing something right.  Do this for at least three people, then tell us how contagious it was. 

Think about this – you wouldn’t let your friends/family/employees not eat.  How long has it been since you fed someone with a genuine compliment? It feels incredible. It can be simple, but make it real, such as, “Awesome hair cut!” or “You look great.”  or “Thank you for your input, you are an incredible asset to our team.”

Say it, write it, blog it, twitter or e-mail it, but please do it!

 High Five shot courtesy of horizontal.integration - Flickr

We are getting ready for something big! Huge, in fact!

It will be a blog that will last at least 10 days, that is 100% about those of you who need/want to dramatically increase sales!  Maybe you’ve needed to ask about culture, strategic planning, strengths, sales or marketing.

Many of you give us great feedback about the blog. So for all of you too shy to share, here is your invitation.  Email us (blogATsalesby5.com - replace the AT with @) your biggest hurdle, problem, or goal, where you need help. Tell us if it is public or private.  We will answer your questions either on the blog or privately.  Drop us a line, we are ready for a challenge!

Photo courtesy of Wok - Flickr

What a great time to be in business!  Here’s a way to get sales by 5 with a “new to you” tool at a great price.

Pick up a mobile broadband card from your favorite carrier - Sprint, Verizon or AT&T.  With one of these cards, you can get on the internet anywhere you can get cell phone service.  Recently, our router went down at the office.  Erik was able to continue working thanks to his Sprint Mobile Broadband card. Just like your BlackBerry or your laptop, you don’t know you need a mobile broadband card until you own one.

If you would like a Sprint Mobile Broadband card at a $10/mo discount, drop us a line and we’ll give you the login for www.sprint.com/sero

We go to numerous tradeshows and conferences annually. We sometimes forget what it’s all about before we get there, because we get excited about the speakers and the new things to see.  Then we remember, it’s about the relationships.  Let me be more clear -  IT’S ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIPS.  It’s not about the schwag, new gadgets, ideas, products, services - that’s salt and pepper.  The people you connect with and whom you provide value to is the most important thing.  Take the time to invest in the most important thing when you go, the people.  Everything else will take care of itself.

My new friends from Viigo and I.  Viigo is an excellent (free!) mobile application that lets you read our blog and other sites on your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device.  Download it now!

Check out more pictures from WES.