Sales Laundry

Archive for September, 2009

Sales Literature.  Do we really want to read and internalize two pages of multi-colored marketing surrounded by stock photos of people that do not work there?  Nope.  Not me.  Not your customer.  Not you.

(I bet you did not get past the first two paragraphs of your own sales literature before you started scanning the page.)

That is why I am a huge proponent of sales literature that is concise and written in terms of what the customer gets out of the experience.  Recently I found an example I thought was worth sharing.

While not exactly an apples for apples comparison, look at how each of these two companies try to sell you on their shipping service.  Which one communicates their message the quickest?  Which one helps you, the customer, understand the value you are going to get out of the service?

More importantly, which one do you think is more effective and which more closely represents the sales literature you are handing out?

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Example 1

Have You Ever Lost a Canadian Customer?

If you every had a customer on the phone asking how much would it be to get the product delivered to Canada – you should find the situation very familiar.

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Example 2

BigShipper delivers seamless cross-border solutions to the U.S.

Why choose BigShipper International Ground service to the U.S.?
BigShipper makes cross-border shipping easy. BigShipper International Ground is a cost-effective, door-to-door service from Canada to the U.S. that includes:

Day-Definite Delivery

We deliver within 2 to 7 business days, based on the distance to the destination, for packages up to 150 lbs. (68 kg) each, with a maximum length of 108 inches (274.32 cm) and a length plus girth of 165 inches(419.1 cm).*

BigShipper Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service
To help facilitate your shipping, the brokerage-inclusive service is pre-selected on all BigShipper Ship Manager™ electronic shipping solutions. If the brokerage-inclusive service is accepted on our electronic shipping solutions, then BigShipper Ground will arrange for the customs clearance of your shipment. A Clearance Entry Fee may be charged, and will be reflected on your transportation invoice.**

Select Your Own Broker
If you already have your own broker, simply select “Broker Select” on our BigShipper Ship Manager electronic shipping solutions and enter your broker information, and it will be printed on your electronic Commercial Invoice. Additionally, our electronic shipping solutions will support a customizable database for storing broker information, enabling you to save time when shipping to the same recipient.

Shipment-Status Tracking
You have access to around-the-clock shipment-status updates.

Flexible Billing Solutions
If you accept the BigShipper International Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service, you will have the option to bill duties, taxes and ancillary fees to the sender, recipient or a third party.† You will know the responsible party for each shipment beforehand.

Single Point of Contact for Resolution of Customs Delays
If you accept the BigShipper International Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service, BigShipper customer service representatives will be your single point of contact for customs-clearance inquiries and will work directly with trade experts to help answer your inquiries quickly.

Money-Back Guarantee
If you accept the brokerage-inclusive service for your shipment, it will be supported by a money-back guarantee.*

BigShipper Electronic Shipping Solutions
Our electronic shipping solutions make shipping via BigShipper International Ground easy.
Please note that BigShipper International Ground brokerage options are also supported by BigShipper Ship Manager Server and BigShipper Web Services.

*Some restrictions apply. See Terms and Conditions for details.

** When BigShipper Ground arranges for customs clearance services, a Clearance Entry Fee may be charged to cover processes required to check the Commercial Invoice submitted with the shipment, to complete entry preparation procedures required by either U.S. Customs & Border Protection or the Canada Border Services Agency, including calculation of applicable duties and taxes for each type of commodity included in the shipment, and/or other customs clearance processes and activities. Clearance Entry Fees must be paid by the party paying the related transportation charges. Additional charges may apply. If you do not designate a specific broker on the BigShipper Electronic Shipping Solution and on the Commercial Invoice, BigShipper Ground will arrange for customs clearance and all applicable charges will be reflected on your transportation invoice.

†Clearance Entry Fees must be paid by the party paying the related transportation charges.

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If you find reading your sales literature a painful exercise, so will your prospective customer.  Why did your last 10 customers buy from you?  Call them and ask.  My guess is the four or five sentences you get from them would make for a more compelling read than what you are handing out today.

If you have great sales literature, send it to me.  I always like reading the good stuff.  If it is awful, let’s fix it.

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q:  What is the interrelationship between a sales process and the sales person’s natural style?

A:  A “Sales Process” should simply be a sales tool designed to get the greatest number of potential prospects successfully converted from “leads” to “landed” in the most efficient manner possible.

A “Sales Process” becomes overbearing at the precise point that it stops being a roadmap defining the most likely path for sales success and becomes an overriding dogma that must be adhered to regardless of customer, personality, situation or circumstance. When adherence to the process becomes so important/rigid that the sales process itself becomes an impediment to the sales of the very product the process was built to serve, it is time for a change.

Conversely, a “Sales Process” becomes ineffective at the precise point that it stops being a roadmap defining the best path to sales success and becomes an exercise in “style independence” with so loosely a defined process that the process again becomes an impediment to product sales. The rigidity of the sales process needs to be tuned to the product being sold.

Very knowledgeable customers making repeat purchases of commodity items could benefit by a very clear and rigid (to the point of being automatic, even) process. The floor of the NYSE being one example. Products being sold to customers with varying depths of knowledge or with wide ranging customer specific variations and infrequent purchase patterns require a more broadly defined “guiding hand” type of sales process, where listening, asking situation specific questions and conversation become more important than blindly following a rote process.

A well defined sales process should be malleable enough to bend to the needs of the product being sold and potentially the personalities selling it, as the product moves through its life cycle, anything else adds unnecessary friction.

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q:  I work with a web design company that is not running at full capacity at the moment, so they are looking at getting a sales person. We have tried various methods to find salespeople, from outside sales professionals to inside tele-salesmen. Mainly it is lead generation, just getting the lead, not the actual closing that we need, but so far we have yet to find anyone who can actually do a decent job.

A:  You might look at this from a different angle.

If you would, ask a few questions of your firm first.  (Stay with me, there is method to my madness)

1. Why should a customer buy web services from us vs. every other web services provider?

2. Do we have a product, unique point of view, or skill set that really seperates us from the competition?

3. Have we identified who our primary customer base is?

4. Have we determined an effective way to consistently generate leads?

5. Have we developed any products to entice our existing customers to spend more with us?

6. Do we have any reference letters, videos, etc. compiled to help a sales rep land new accounts on the backs of our success stories vs his word as a sales man?

7. What sorts of marketing efforts do we have in place to help drive our sales message?

There are other good questions, but that should put you on the correct path.

It will always be difficult to find exceptional sales people because exceptional sales people are rarely out looking for a job too long.  Their existing employers either keep them happy or competitors tired of losing to them snap them up when given the chance.

If you have some clear and decisive answers to these questions, you can stop looking for a “sales genius” that can overcome other potential internal shortages and be successful with the more plentiful “young to pretty good” sales person that can execute given some direction.

In short, the more you refine and perfect your sales process, the wider and deeper the pool of candidates become that can execute your process successfully.

Spending more time searching for and refining the perfect sales process for your business may ultimately prove more rewarding than the search for the ultimate commission sales representative.

Hope that helps.

In twelve minutes, John Nese, owner of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, is going to make you want a bottle of soda pop.  John is also going to teach you something that will change the way you look at soda pop from this day forward, and make you want to buy that bottle of soda from him.

A business focused on a niche makes for focused sales people.  Focused sales people become niche experts and niche experts, in many cases, sell circles around sales generalists without really trying that hard.

I like the way John said it better.

Ready for that soda pop?  Head on over to the Soda Pop Stop and say hello to John for me.

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q:  How do I convince a prospective customer to switch from using a competitors product to using mine?  He likes my product but is content with the product he is using.

A:  There has to be a compelling reason to get them to switch.  If there is no compelling reason, you are probably better off spending your time on better prospects.

With that said, here are a few strategies to try and help you find that differentiator.

Strategy 1: The laziest solution is to cut your price to the point you still make money but have undercut the incumbent significantly enough to convince his customers to move.  This, of course, will eventually be followed up by someone else undercutting you.

Strategy 2: Analyze the prospective customer’s product, learn it, and look for significant feature/function/benefit advantages your product provides to justify the change.

Strategy 3: Analyze the competitors business looking for weaknesses that you can exploit to facilitate a change.  Better yet, just be better than your competition at every turn.  Better still, look past your competitor and give your customers more than what than they want, give them what they dream of and let them do your selling for you.

Strategy 4: Help the prospective customer so they can help you.  Per Keith Ferrazzi’s book, Never Eat Alone, you could try a strategy of helping the prospective customers solve some of their personal/business problems, if you can identify them, with contacts from your network of people.  Providing legitimate answers to their problems without looking for direct compensation might give the prospective customer just the compelling reason they need to switch.

Strategy 5: Look for a way to change how the game is played, like what Amazon did to Barnes & Noble/Borders; Netflix is doing to Blockbuster, what Napster/iTunes did to CD sales for the record labels, etc.  A good book on this topic would be Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

Strategy 6: Tie your product to something bigger that makes switching to you a more compelling proposition.  Kellogg’s cereals tied Mini-Wheats to bigger issue of improving education of our children; Microsoft has tied themselves to Jack Welch of GE fame and a video interaction series to help teach businesses executives, or what Lance Armstrong did by tying his story, celebrity, athletic ability, and even the color yellow from the famous Tour De France winners jersey to his foundation and cancer research with a simple yellow Live Strong bracelet that became the “cool” thing to have and cause to support.

Strategy 7: Bundle your product with a product or service that is compelling to your prospective customer that your competitor can’t offer.

Strategy 8: Be attentive to your prospective customer and take care of them and keep an eye out for an opportunity to sweep in when your competitor ignores their customer or makes a major misstep.

Strategy 9: While not a full strategy, per se, find the leaders or first movers in the industry of the prospective customers you want to reach and focus your efforts on winning one or all of them.  Getting the respected thought leaders of any group using your product will make future sales easier as their followers will be more easily convinced.

Where do you find these thought leaders?

Here is a hint:  They are often the people quoted in the Business Journal, the newspaper or the trade magazines on the hot industry topics of the day.

Good luck.  It can be a very daunting task to get a happy customer to change from a vendor/product that is a known quantity to a vendor/product that is an unknown quantity, even if it is a significantly better product.  However if they are willing to take that jump with you, then they were probably not that happy to begin with.