Tag Archive for 'selling'

It’s the Age of the Customer - get over it!

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on February 16, 2011
in Problem solving and Sales - Sales Management
. 0 Comments

Markets were born when humans chose to acquire what they needed by trading with each other rather than producing it themselves or taking from someone else by force. The moment of proto-market conception was when the first seller offered to trade with the first customer, and that offer was accepted.

For millennia, this marketplace dance was as beautifully simple as it was exquisitely effective, having at its nucleus three primary elements:

1. The product, controlled by the seller
2. Information about the product, also controlled by the seller
3. The buying decision, controlled by the customer

From that first transaction, when shells were the reserve currency, to about 1995AD, the marketplace dance was performed zillions of times with little variation. I’ve termed this period “The Age of the Seller,” because the Seller controlled two of the three elements.

Then something happened that had not occurred for 10,000 years: A new age – I call it The Age of the Customer™.

This new Age was born as micro-computers and associated innovations converged with high-speed Internet and associated applications. As this convergence shifts marketplace paradigms, it conveys the balance of power from the seller to the customer.

The millennia-old marketplace dance is still beautifully simple. But when the dancers come together in the Age of the Customer, a new leader emerges, because control of the three major relationship elements has changed:

1. Products and services are still controlled by the Seller.
2. Information – including customer experiences – is now easily and abundantly available to the Customer without being controlled, filtered or distributed by the Seller.
3. The buying decision is still controlled by the Customer.

The Age of the Seller is succumbing to the new Age as customers resist the restrictions of the former Age and embrace the empowerment of the new. During this transition period, Sellers are operating in parallel universes, but not for long.

Your small business is now operating in a new age where customers rule. They like this new-found empowerment, and increasingly expect sellers to connect with them on Age of the Customer terms. Sellers that transition to the new Age with their customers will be successful. Hidebound sellers, nostalgic for when they had control, will become irrelevant and perish.

It’s the Age of the Customer – your world has changed.

Recently on The Small Business Advocate Show I talked more about the Age of the Customer and how you can avoid becoming irrelevant. Take a few minutes to click on the links below and listen. As always, leave your comments on what is working for you in the 21st century marketplace.

It’s the Age of the Customer - get over it!

Avoiding irrelevance in the Age of the Customer

When “No” turns into the quantum leap for small business

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on October 31, 2010
in Sales - Sales Management
. 0 Comments

What do you do when you work hard to get a prospect’s business and they say “no?”  When this happens, as it inevitably will - many times in your career - the first thing to do is to NOT take it personally.  Remember, this is not a rejection, it’s just business. And just because they’ve said no today, doesn’t mean they won’t say yes to you in the future.

But for the no to turn into a yes, you first have to show some class. This means you swallow hard, smile, thank them for considering you, ask them if there is anything you can do to help them make the conversion to the “other guys” - I’m serious! - and tell them you will keep working to get their business in the future.  And then continue to check back with them.

If you use this strategy whenever you don’t get the business, you’ll be amazed how many “No”turns into “Yes.” It might be as soon as that very day or it might be in five years, but more people than you think will respond favorably to your demonstration of class and professionalism.

Recently, I talked about this with long-time Brain Trust member, Jeff Zbar, on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show.  There are actually two short segments to listen to that cover this topic completely, including the Holy Grail of persevering in sales, the “quantum leap.”

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to listen and learn. And, as always, be sure to leave your thoughts, comments and experiences.

Click on one of links below to listen or download:

When a prospect doesn’t become a customer

How to accomplish the quantum leap

Building and loading your small business sales pipeline

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on January 18, 2010
in Leadership and Sales - Sales Management
. 0 Comments

There are many maxims in professional selling, but perhaps the most important holds that selling is a numbers game. This is a generally accepted truth because of two realities:

 

1.  There are hundreds, nay thousands, of things that can go bump in the night and cause a fully qualified prospect to not complete a transaction, at least not on your preferred timeframe.

 

2.  Regardless of all of the bumps on the path to a signed contract, it’s still your job to produce enough sales revenue to stay in business. 

 

Enter the sales pipeline.

 

A pipeline is a planning concept that helps managers and salespeople forecast sales for any given period: week, month, quarter or year.  Think of your sales pipeline as overhead plumbing with faucets positioned at those calendar intervals, as your business model requires. From these faucets you draw the mother’s milk of any business – sales revenue.

 

Pipeline faucets have special screens that only allow a sale to pass through. So into the pipeline you load only those prospects of which you have asked enough questions to determine that, in a reasonable amount of time, what they want and your ability to deliver will combine to produce a faucet-conforming sale. Until then, a prospect is either on track to become a sale or a forecasting mistake to be removed.

 

As you record a prospect’s entry into the pipeline you must include what you know about their stage of decision-making, plus what you have to do to move them to customer status. Identifying what’s left to be done with each prospect – demo, trial, proposal, final close, etc. – will help you forecast which faucet – this week, next month, etc. – you can expect a sale to pour out of.

 

At this point, let’s refer to The Bard. In Act I, Scene III, of Hamlet, arguably Shakespeare’s most important work, Pelonius famously says, “This above all, to thine own self be true.” If you aren’t completely honest about a prospect’s progress to customerhood, you’re only setting yourself up for an unacceptable flow of sales as you turn on future faucets.

 

How much and how often you draw revenue from your sales pipeline depends on the twin standards of sales success: quantity and quality. You must load the pipeline with enough prospects on Monday (quantity) to have enough qualified prospects to close on Wednesday (quality) so that after all those “bumps” happen you can still draw the sales you need from your pipeline on Friday (success). 

 

Finally, I’ll leave you with Blasingame’s Law of the Sales Pipeline:  “Quantity, quality and to thine own self be true.”

Recently, on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, Skip Miller and I talk about the pipeline development process. Skip is President and founder of M3 Learning, and author of a number of books on sales and sales management. He is also a long-time member of my Brain Trust. Take a few minutes to listen my visit with Skip and leave your comments on how you’re building and loading your sales pipeline. Listen Live! Download, Too!

Referrals: The Holy Grail of small business success

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on July 21, 2009
in Customer Care and Sales - Sales Management
. 0 Comments

Referrals are the Holy Grail of small business for obtaining high-quality prospects. When you receive a referral it’s not money in the bank, but almost, because this person who has been referred to you has already been pre-qualified in two ways. They wouldn’t contact you unless: 1) Someone who knows you told them you are worthy of their time and money; and 2) They need whatever you sell.

So a referral is as close to being ready-to-buy as you will get from someone you just met.

But consistent referrals don’t just happen out of the blue. First you have to do something worthy of being referred. Then someone has to remember whatever exemplary thing you did, and be impressed by it so much that they remember to tell someone else. And this last thing is where many referral opportunities break down.

So what’s the answer? Two words: Training and intuitive That’s right: If you want someone to refer you to a prospect, you will likely have to teach them how to do that in such a way that it doesn’t seem like homework. Here’s an example of how I successfully used an intuitive training practice once upon a time.

When I was a full-time small business consultant, my tag line was “I’m a vice president you can rent.” Catchy, huh? Well, that’s the second part of why clients who valued my services gave me so many referrals. Not only did I do a good job for them, but my tag line made it easy for them to explain how their friends could benefit from an association with me, and intuitive enough for their friend to quickly understand why they should call me.

There are many other referral tips and best practices you should learn, and I talked about some of them on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, with Brain Trust member, John Jantsch. John is one of the world’s small business marketing (and referral) experts and author of Duct Tape Marketing. Take a few minutes to listen to this conversation from a couple of grizzled referral practitioners. And, as always, be sure to leave your thoughts.

Slay the evil call-reluctance monster and make more sales

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on May 27, 2009
in Sales - Sales Management
. 2 Comments

You’re sitting outside of a prospect’s office in your car. You know you should go in and try to make a sale, but something is holding you back. So why haven’t you gone in yet? Well, there are lots of reasons – here are four of the classic ones:

1. Haven’t you heard? There’s a recession going on.
2. Everyone’s tightening their belts; they’re not going to buy anything from me.
3. I heard they just laid off some people last month. They’re probably just holding on.
4. The last prospect I called on didn’t buy anything, so this one will be just like that one.

Actually, these aren’t reasons, they’re excuses. No, that’s not quite right either – they’re lies you tell yourself. Even though all of the information in these four may be technically correct, it has nothing to do with the experience you will have with the prospect you’re looking at through the windshield of your car. So why do we tell ourselves these lies and, worse, believe them enough that we fail to make the call? The answer is call-reluctance.

Call-reluctance is a negative and destructive state-of-mind virtually every salesperson gets into either from time-to-time or constantly. In more than 40 years of selling, the simplest explanation for the call-reluctance emotion I have found is that you presume too much. For example:

1. You presume that if you go in, they will reject you. Actually, they might reject your offer, but not you. Everyone knows an offer doesn’t have any feelings, so separate yourself from your offer, and at least go make a new friend.

2. You presume that they will kick you out of the office. In truth, they might tell you they don’t have time to talk right now, but in that event, the worst that could happen would be that you find yourself outside of the prospect’s office. Since that’s exactly where you are right now, you will be no worse off. What part of “I can’t lose” is difficult for you?

3. You presume that they don’t need what you have to sell. Here’s a flash: That decision is above your pay-grade. Who do you think you are, answering for them? Get over yourself, and allow the prospect to speak for themselves. You might be right, but until you know for sure, you’re just betting against yourself, which doesn’t sound like a very intelligent career strategy, does it?

The slayer of sales is not a recession. The killer of commissions is not budget cuts. The most potent prospecting poison is not 10% unemployment. The greatest impediment to the success of most salespeople can be found in the wisdom of that great philosopher, Pogo the Possum, who so famously said, “We have seen the enemy, and he is us.”

Can you overcome your call reluctance and prove Pogo wrong? Remember, somebody is buying something from someone somewhere - right now! It might as well be you.

Recently, on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked with sales expert and Brain Trust member, Mike Stewart. Mike is one of the world’s gurus on eliminating call-reluctance and even offers a free assessment on his website that helps you identify how you stack up against the 12 kinds of call-reluctance. Check it out at this link. And take a few minutes to listen to what Mike and I had to say about call reluctance. And, as always, be sure to leave your thoughts.

Rethinking your small business sales strategy

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on March 11, 2009
in Customer Care and Sales - Sales Management
. 0 Comments

Here’s a question that has been asked – and answered – a million times: Is selling a science or an art?

The correct answer, in my multi-decades of experience, is it’s both. Clearly, there are classic selling skills and fundamentals that can be taught, learned and repeated time and again that apply in virtually every selling situation. But there are also certain people who have a talent for artfully applying these fundamentals.

But how does a small business reconcile all of this with the fact that there are so many tasks that are required to make a sale, from beginning to end, in addition to actually closing the deal? Here’s a short list of those tasks that would apply to many selling situations:

1. Find the prospect
2. Qualify the prospect
3. Make initial contact
4. Determine needs and discover wants
5. Offer and perform a demonstration
6. Prepare and deliver a proposal
7. Close the sale
8. Delivery preparation
9. Successful delivery
10. User training
11. Customer care
12. Additional sales

So which of these steps are science and which are art? In your small business, how many of these tasks do you have your highly trained closers doing? In many businesses, the answer is: All of them. But is that the best use of their art and science? And if not, is this multi-tasking structure for your sales staff ultimately diminishing the performance of your company?

Recently, I talked with sales organizational expert, Justin Roff-Marsh, president of Ballistix, about an alternative way for a business to organize its sales strategy. I think you will be intrigued by his ideas, so take a few minutes to listen and let me know what you think.