As we move into 2012, you may find yourself thinking that your online marketing strategy is good enough as it is. After all, you have a Facebook page you post on once in a blue moon, a LinkedIn account everyone has forgotten about, a Twitter account you never use, and a blog the secretary updates every other month.
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Sales is not easy but it is simple. That particular insight took me about 15 years to figure out.
Figure out what the client's business goals are and show them how you can help them reach those goals. Do not sell a commodity product or generic service - sell them on the fact that you can help them reach their goals (these other things are tools and techniques that may help you help them achieve their goals but why sell them when you can sell something a whole lot better - you and your expertise).
Easy to say, tough to do.
My experience is that when you fall back on pitches, presentations, and product demos you have probably lost sight of the above goal and will have a very low conversion percentage to sales. Most likely in the 3-7% range of most salespeople.
Why is this so? You are thinking about you and not them, your products and services and not them, your expertise and not them, what you are comfortable with and not what they need.
I close a very high % of our prospect conversations - I lose them when I forget the above ideas and focus on me (my presentation, my needs, my bank account, my ego, and on and on).
Check everything you are doing to 'sell' a prospect and make sure that is for their benefit and not yours.
© Top Line Results | Orlando, FL
Image courtesy nfusedirect.com
Jeffrey Gitomer recently wrote “Death of a Salesman! How alive are you?” an article in response to James Ledbetter’s “Death of a Salesman” piece in Slate Magazine. You can read his full response here, but basically he posits that salesmen aren’t so much dying as they are evolving.
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My last post introduced the idea of the first, first impression. This is the idea that your prospects are forming an opinion of you and your company before ever calling or contacting you. The companies that make the first, first impression a good one stand a much higher chance of earning the business.
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© Top Line Results | Orlando, FL
We all know the old adage that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Now it is more critical than ever to make the first, first impression if you want to have any chance to control the buying process and be anything other than happy for the the random sales that fall you way.
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© Top Line Results | Orlando, FL
Do you know where your pages are? Sounds like a stupid question and one that should not have to be asked but...
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© Top Line Results | Orlando, FL
Inbound marketing for manufacturing can transform how many B2B companies reach new prospects and convert them to new customers. Inbound marketing is the process of getting found by your target customers, of being where they are looking for information, with the information they need, when they need it.
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© Top Line Results | Orlando, FL
The title of this post is a quote from my dad heard often in my childhood. His point was that the world favors a bias for action and that you are better off in the game than on the sidelines - and the only way to get in the game is to take action.
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© Top Line Results | Orlando, FL
It is easy to allow your attitude to lapse into self-fulfilling negativity when you are a salesperson - after all there is a lot of rejection, difficult people, unreasonable customers, and other potentially challenging situations that you have to deal with.
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© Top Line Results | Orlando, FL