sales tips & articles

Are you someone we would want to do business with?

In sales we know that more often than not, people buy people. We buy off people that we like, we trust and that we think are credible and experts in their field. So to make the job of selling and winning new business easier, what you wear and how you conduct yourself goes a long way.

Have you ever thought about the impression you want to leave on people? What would you like people to think of you? Would you like to be seen as

• as an expert in your field
• as approachable and trustworthy
• as though you make a lot of money
• as creative
• as to reflect professionalism, integrity and confidence?

What we wear each and every day goes a long way in helping to create the right impression and getting people to buy from you, however, so many people get it wrong, don’t care or simply have no idea. Some of these people have tried to sell to me and have succeeded in creating a great impression over the phone only to leave bitterly disappointed once I’ve seen their appearance.

For me, how you look tells me a lot about how you conduct yourself and your business and whether I want to do business with you.

To give us an idea on what we can do to create a great impression, I’ve asked Stylist, Jeff Lack from To be Well Suited for some quick tips on how to dress and look the part.

Tips for your corporate profile - compete or stand out and get ahead of the rest

What do you look like when you walk out the door? How do you feel?

Are you buzzing with enthusiasm and confidence for the day ahead?

Does your appearance accurately represent your business?

We know the numbers on trying to change a first impression (i.e. it’s hard), so put some thought and energy into your appearance and reap the rewards. Ask yourself, what first impression are you giving today?

Here are some quick tips to help you get started:

• Clean, pressed garments and clean well maintained footwear are a must. If you are seen as untidy and unkempt this can leave the impression that you are untidy and unkempt in your business dealings.
• Go for modest well-fitting apparel with colours that are coordinated, suit you and suit the industry that you work in or are selling to. 
• Casual Friday - don’t look at casual Friday as an opportunity to slothe or wear what should only be worn on weekends around the house. Take on the attitude of ‘fashion Friday’ and do a great smart casual ensemble that you could go straight from work to a nice restaurant.
• When you’re going from the Job site to a Meeting. change your work boots to smart boots that you can slip on easily. Keep a knit and/or jacket handy to throw on and instantly smarten up your look.
• If you have multiple appointments to a range of different clients, gauge which clients expect that level of professional image and plan accordingly. Keep a jacket, tie or scarf and spare shoes in the car so you can easily change between appointments.
• Don’t go overboard on the perfume and after shave. When you apply don’t keep applying it until you can smell it; everyone else is getting twice what you can smell.
• Watch the body odour and the bad breath, it’s a deal killer. Have a spare deodorant in your car or in your desk for emergencies and to freshen up during the day. If you suffer from bad breath or you smoke, brush your teeth regularly throughout the day. 
• If your colleagues or your clients are a bit smelly, have greens in their teeth, threads hanging off or have toilet paper on their shoes, tell them! You would rather know, so let them know; they will squirm more than you will, trust me.

When you are looking good and feeling great you will exude confidence, positivity and success. Your colleagues and your clients will sense this, draw from it and will want to do business with you.

Wouldn’t you prefer to do business with someone like that?

Being aware of and managing the amount in your sales pipeline each week, fortnight or month can have the single biggest impact to achieving your sales consistently from month to month and quarter to quarter.

It is an important forecasting tool that all businesses should use even if they don’t have salespeople, as it clearly shows how many sales to expect and when to expect them.

If your not sure what a Sales Pipeline or Funnel is; it is simply a list of all the prospective customers that have indicated some interest in buying your product or service. They will all be at different stages of the sale depending on their interest level and buying cycle and some will drop eventually drop out.



Information such as total sale value, probability of sale and expected close date should also be included to complete the picture.

The term “funnel” is used because you need to continually fill the top with new opportunities to ensure you have an even and consistent flow of closed sales coming out the bottom. The stages can differ from business to business (i.e. can be simpler with fewer stages), depending on how you sell to customers and what the buying cycle is.

It is important to make sure the funnel is always being topped up with new opportunities, that prospects are moving through the stages and sales are being closed. When you need to close some sales quick, it is easy to identify who is the closest to making a decision (thus easiest to close) by looking through prospects in the negotiation or solution evaluation stage.

The sales funnel is a great tool to help you determine if you have enough prospects and to reduce the impact of lost or delayed sales on meeting targets. It’s all in the numbers and that’s why sales is called a ‘numbers game’. To work out how much you need, follow my example:

1. Start with your monthly sales target, lets say it is $25,000.
2. Work out what the average sales value is, even if it is a rough estimate.
3. Determine your sales conversion i.e. of all the first meetings you had or enquiries received how many of those where you successful in ‘converting’ from prospect to customer. e.g. If you received 20 enquiries and made 5 sales, you have a 1 in 4 sales conversion rate. 
4. So you will need ‘4 times’ the amount of your monthly target in your funnel at any time. If we go back to the example, you will need $100,000 worth of quotes or opportunities.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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Typically a cold call is the process of approaching prospective customers (called prospects) typically by phone but it can also be done face-to-face (via door knocking). The term 'cold call' is used because the person you are contacting has not asked you to call, is not expecting it and is not known to you.

Cold calling can be a legitimate and successful way of generating new business, if it is done correctly and professionally. This article refers to 'business to business' cold calling to generate an appointment rather than make a sale over the phone.

1. Use a friendly, conversational approach rather than a cold, direct approach.
2. Don’t try and sell on the phone; you can’t. You can, however, get a meeting or permission to send information.
3. Talk about how you can help that business or how you have helped other business. Don’t try and sell to them.
4. Name other clients that you are working with who are in a similar industry or who are a similar size to the company you are calling.
5. Set a goal for each phone call. Would you like contact information, a meeting or permission to send information.
6. Write down all the possible objections that you are likely to encounter and have an answer ready for them.
7. Target a particular Industry at a time so the script can be adapted and modified to their current situation, challenges or problems they may be experiencing.
8. Always treat Assistants, Personal Assistants and Executive Assistants with respect; they have the power to get you in or keep you out.
9. If you get through to the right contact and they sound busy or harassed ask them “is now a good time to talk?” should I call you at a later time?
10. Make your calls from 9.30am to about 11.30am and then start again around 2pm and go through till 4pm.
11. Set yourself a call target rather than a time target, it makes it easier to achieve.
12. Don’t leave messages; it is rare that anyone would call you back.
13. Ask or appeal for help rather than just going straight into a spiel.
14. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a person asking you to send information means they are interested...they are simply trying to get you off the phone!
15. If you send information by email make sure you follow it up the next day to confirm the person received it. This gives you the chance to ask them if they have any questions and gauge their interest in meeting.
16. Try and do your calls in a block of time, one after the other, after the other. After you have finished 10 calls, for example, then send out information or do follow up. This saves you reliving the ‘fear’ or the ‘pain’ of picking up the phone. After about 3 or 4 calls you will have established a habit and you will be much more confident.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

Stand out from the crowd when you cold call with our Do-It-Yourself Guide to Cold Calling.Click here for more information.


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Questioning or probing as it is also known, is most of the most important skills you can learn when dealing with customers and one of the most powerful. The ability to ask questions that uncover important information about a customer’s needs, current supply and willingness to change is a strong characteristic of a ‘consultative’ sales approach.

Most importantly, when you ask great questions it can help you to win new business much quicker and with fewer objections. When we help prospects to think about the needs of their business and to really think about current or potential problems or challenges they may face, they start to see us differently and understand the value we can add to them or their business.

There are 2 common types of questions you can ask: ‘open’ questions and ‘closed’ questions:

1. Open questions usually result in longer answers and are aimed at getting your prospects to think about the answer.

For example: “What plans does the organisation have to achieve...”

2. Closed questions can be answered with a yes, no or one word and are used to qualify the response to an open question.

For example: Do you have any plans at the moment?

The challenge in questioning is to ask more open than closed questions as it is easy to fall into ‘interrogation mode’ by asking lots of closed questions rather than a few strategic open questions.

Over the years I have met many people who are looking for help to close sales quicker and/or easier and the first thing I ask them is “what happened in the first appointment”, “what needs of the prospect are you meeting” and “why would this prospect want to buy your product or services?”

When we discuss their questions they are usually very surprised to find out that they are asking the same stock-standard questions that most people ask and they typically aren’t that interesting either. Imagine how repetitive and un-interesting it is for your prospects to be asked the same questions over and over again?

Ask yourself, “are you asking questions that all your competitors are asking or are you making your prospects think?”

Here is a quick test you can take to see if you are asking the same questions as your competitors or whether you are making them think. In your next appointment:

1. Does the prospect start to give you a summary of the information you need before you have the chance to ask any questions?
2. When you do ask a question, does the prospect answer it relatively quickly or do they take a moment to think about their answer?
3. How often do you hear your prospects say “that‘s a great question, I hadn’t thought about that?”

As I said, asking great questions isn’t easy but once you start you will really notice the difference in your appointments. Spend 5-10 minutes before your next appointment thinking about the questions you will ask and write them down so you don’t forget them in the meeting!

Here are some to get you started:

1. How will these issues impact the organisation in the future?
2. How do they impact you?
3. What do you look for in a potential supplier (or partner)?
4. What do you like about your current supplier?
5. What do you like about them?
6. Is there anything that you don’t like?
7. What would make you change suppliers?
8. How would you like to see it working (perfect world)?
9. What is your decision making process?

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This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

Do you get frustrated constantly searching for prospects and contact information? The traditional methods of building a list of people that you can market and sell to such as purchasing databases, driving around business parks and noting the tenants of buildings that you walk past are great, and they do work, however, they are costly and time consuming. If your looking for something quick and effective that you can do from the safety of your desk, try these:

1. LinkedIn

If you do an advanced search on LinkedIn you can search for contacts in a particular industry, location, position or a mix of all three (e.g. All Sales Managers in Sydney). It will give you their name and tell you if anyone in your network is connected with them, so you can ask your contact for an introduction.

2. Google Earth & Google Maps

Google Earth and Google Maps are great tools to find concentrated areas of business and to avoid having to drive around or randomly call through the yellow pages. If, for example, you have a client in Building A and you would like to find out who else is in that building that you can sell to (always smart to sell to their neighbours, it’s known as sandwich selling) or that location, a quick search on Google Earth or Google Maps will give you a list of the businesses in the building, the street and the suburb. Google Earth will also let you pan around the area and see other buildings and other streets.

3. Industry Association Websites

I have used these for years and it has been a great way for me to target an industry sector and get new appointments. Quite a lot of the Association websites will list their members by location or profession. A quick search will give you a list of their name, address and phone number.

4. Franchise Directories

Selling to franchises can be a very successful and very lucrative way to increase sales and help you to consistently meet your sales targets. This is where volume sales come in and when you have a critical mass of franchisees as customers, they tend to do the selling for you and promote your business through word of mouth and referrals.

5. Your Website

This one is mentioned a lot these days but I’m still amazed as to how many people don’t utilize their website to generate new enquiries or build their contact lists. Offering free tips, e-books or access to free resources and tips is a great way to build a marketing and prospect database. I send out information every 2-3 weeks on sales techniques, sales tips and free resources just like this blog article! It has been a great way of accessing people I would never normally come across as well as building my profile.

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This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.




 

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Is it just me or is 2009 going to be the biggest and best year yet?

Despite what is being reporting in the media and what we are seeing overseas, many of the people that I’ve spoken to recently are extremely motivated and confident that 2009 is going to be their best year yet (including me).

So if 2009 is going to be your best year yet, now is the perfect time to sit down and work out what you want to achieve and what you need to do to make this happen.

I believe that the businesses that adapt and change and invest in the development of their people will continue to succeed in 2009. There will be ‘pockets’ of opportunity in the marketplace that you may not have dealt with or thought about before so, get some outside help and develop a strategy to know where these are and how to find them.

Additionally, in some sectors there will be reduced demand, less opportunity to sell and increased competition so it is extremely important to ensure that you and your team have a consistent prospecting and lead generation strategy in place.

Salespeople also need to adapt and change. If you are working in sales and have targets to meet, have you thought about how you are going to achieve them? Do you have the right attitude, the right skills and the right approach to be successful? Business plans aren’t just for business owners, they are extremely useful tools for salespeople as well; they are a roadmap to success. It can be as simple as a one page plan that outlines your goals, your daily or weekly plan for prospecting and business development.

So don’t just sit back and see what the year will bring use the tips below, take action and be in control.

1. Be a leader. Don’t get caught up in the negativity or gloom and doom, instead, be inspirational and motivate your team to success. Remember 2009 is going to be your best year yet.
2. Take time out and get some ‘headspace’ to work on your sales strategy. Will you need to change your target market, the type of clients you work with, marketing activities or the way you sell to win new business?
3. Take this opportunity to make changes so you can readily adapt and respond to changing market conditions.
4. Identify skills gaps or weaknesses in you and your team and provide the necessary training, coaching or mentoring. People are the key to success and with fewer opportunities to make sales and increased competition, ensure your team is equipped with the right attitude, the right knowledge and the right skills.
5. Look after your customers because if your not, your competitors soon will be. Pick up the phone or arrange meetings with your clients to discuss their plans for this year and what they will be doing to ensure success.
6. Communicate with your team. Hold regular staff or sales meetings to discuss changes in the marketplace and brainstorm ways to overcome them.
7. Increase accountability. Review staff performance both weekly and monthly to ensure everyone is focused, on the right track and most importantly is building the sales funnel.
8. Be seen and heard. Increase sales and marketing activities so the market can find you and get out and network, network and network.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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It’s difficult to ignore the news of the financial crisis that is occurring around the world and the fear and uncertainty that it is creating. Here in Australia many companies have been tightening their budgets and reducing their spending over recent months and it looks like it’s going to continue. So what does this mean for those of us running businesses or working in sales?

To me it means choices. You can:

1. do exactly what you have been doing in the past and hope that it works
2. admit defeat and tell yourself there is nothing you can do, or
3. sharpen your sales skills and see it as an opportunity not a threat

Opportunities, at a time like this? Yes because situations and events create opportunities.

It’s times like this that many businesses are open to discussing other options and some may even need to evaluate current supplier relationships. It’s a great time to get back in touch with old prospects, find new prospects and to spend time with customers to ensure they are indeed satisfied and happy with your product and service.

No matter how bad the economy may or may not be, people and businesses still have problems that need to be solved and they will still need help to solve them. Sales may slow but they aren’t going to stop.

Here are some ideas on how you can increase your sales and maintain your client base:

1. Maintain or increase your marketing, it’s important to remain visible.
2. Re-focus your sales team and talk about the opportunities.
3. Re-contact prospects that have been called over the past 12 months.
4. Pick up the phone and talk to your customers.
5. Work on your selling skills, particularly your questioning. Make sure your asking the right questions e.g. “Why do you think that?”, “What impact will that have”.
6. Dig deeper and uncover the real need or buying reason. “We need to improve productivity by 5%” is not the real need. Asking “why” will start to uncover the real reason.
7. Improve your listening skills and be an active listener. If you receive a response that is vague or you’re not sure what it means, ask questions.
8. Focus even more on the needs of your customers and your prospects.
9. Stay positive, it will rub off on everyone around you.

Remember, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going and the rest will just complain”.

Which one will you choose?


This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

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It’s all about planning and preparation

It’s amazing how many sales people and business owners I talk to who under-estimate the value and importance of planning and preparing for a first appointment.

In the early days of my sales career making this change had the single biggest impact to my sales success. Besides, there is nothing worse than leaving an appointment without having the information you require simply because you forgot to ask the question.

The objective of the first sales meeting is to build rapport with the buyer and understand not only their needs but the priority of these needs.

Planning your appointments and taking a strategic approach helps to:

• Reduce the chance of surprises in the appointment
• Create a more professional impression
• Increase the likelihood of achieving objectives, and
• Reduces stress

Take a couple of minutes prior to every appointment and think about:

What value are you offering your prospect by having this meeting? What’s in it for them?

What would you like to achieve in this meeting (keeping in mind it is often difficult to close the sale in the first meeting)

What situations or events are occurring in their business or industry that could create an opportunity for you?

What ‘high-level’ questions will you need to ask to uncover their needs, current problems or areas they would like to improve? For example

“What has prevented you from addressing the problem before and what has changed now?”
“What would be the consequences of not dealing with the problem at this time?”

Are there likely to be any objections or reasons that the prospect may not be interested in pursuing any further? If so, what can you say to overcome these objections and move it to the next stage?

Having a list of pre-prepared questions written down in front of you keeps your appointments effective and efficient, for both parties. Many of you may think this makes you look unprofessional, however, in my opinion the opposite is true. It makes you stand out from the crowd and shows the prospect how serious you are and how important this appointment is to you.

Explain at the beginning of the appointment, the reasoning behind it; that you don’t want any pertinent information to be missed or forgotten.

Having these questions written down will also help to:

• Improve your listening skills. You give the prospect your undivided attention because you don’t have to worry what to ask next.
• Keeps the appointment flowing in the direction you want and keeps everyone on track. Particularly if the conversation or prospect goes off on a tangent.
• Obtain all the key information you need to move to the next step.
• Keep you focused and stop you from “selling” too early in the appointment

As they are talking, make notes and highlight any ‘hot buttons’ or ‘key points’ separately that you will need to go back to. Do not interrupt and start ‘selling’ until you have finished asking all your questions, even when you hear something you know you can fix or when pressed by the prospect.

Interrupting stops the train of thought, stops them from sharing further information and stops you from getting a complete understanding of their needs and their priority of these needs.

When you have finished asking questions, go back and clarify anything that you need further information on to ensure your complete understanding. In addition, paraphrase the buyer's concerns to indicate your understanding, and clarify the problem that needs to be resolved. For example;

"So what you would like to do is improve the conversion rates of your sales team so all members are consistently meeting their budgets, is that correct?”

Once you have a complete understanding, you are ready to move to the next stage.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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I’m sure most of you would agree that selling to someone who has been referred to you is much easier and more enjoyable than those generated through traditional sales efforts such as direct mail and cold calling. The success rate is higher because they are in the market for your services and are also much less price sensitive because the referring party has told them the value and benefits that you can deliver.

Anyone who works in the Financial Services such as Accountants, Financial Planners and Trades and Services realizes the potential of well managed relationships. Many have built very successful businesses simply by managing a handful of alliances and have little need or desire to do any other form of marketing. Yet there are also a lot of people out there who try the same thing but it just never seems to work.

So why do they work for some people but not for others?

Successful alliances grow from good relationships with people who have a similar mindset, similar values and similar ethics. They are based on mutual trust which is built up and managed over time; having one meeting and following up with a phone call a month later just won’t work. Would you refer your clients to someone you hardly know?

It is also about your expectations of the alliance and how you position the relationship. It should never be about how many referrals you can get but rather how you can add value each others business and clients.

Here are some tips to help you maximize your alliance relationships:

1. Don’t attempt to set up an alliance with someone just because they are in a complimentary business. Do they have similar values, ethics and mindset as you?
2. Discuss your client base, do you have the type of clients they are looking for and vice versa?
3. Discuss the expectations of the alliance, how you would like to see the relationship work and why you think there is potential for both parties.
4. Give you alliances time to mature and develop and be willing to put the effort in, it can take 6-12 months before you really understand each others business.
5. Develop a system on how you will maintain contact and communicate. In the first 6 months aim to meet face to face at least every 2 months and have phone or email contact in between.
6. Don’t expect any referrals in the short-term, expect only to be informed and educated on their business, their clients, what is a good referral, how to find them and what to say when you do.
7. Develop ‘cheat sheets’ for their staff that outlines what to ‘look out’ for or ‘listen to’. Take it one step further and write a script on what they can say to introduce you. For example, “Mary why don’t I get John from XYZ to call you, he has helped a lot of our clients who have had similar problems...” It might seem obvious but it’s about making the process as easy as possible. There are many people who feel that introducing a third party is being pushy or rude.
8. Ensure everyone has a pile of your business cards to hand out. It helps the client to remember who you are when you call.
9. If you have been given a referral, communicate the progress to your alliance so they are aware of whether it was a good referral. Explain why it was such a good referral or why it wasn’t. Remember it’s about ongoing education until you get it right.
10. Once the relationship is established meet regularly to inform them of changes to your business such as new products or services and for you to learn of changes to their business, particularly staff changes.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here