Archives for category: Customers
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It’s Not You, It’s Me

August 27, 2014 //
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A sales proposal is a bit of a misnomer really. It should be called a buy proposal. ‘Here’s how, what, when and why we propose you buy from us.’

I supposed it’s called a sales proposal because most sales proposals start selling from the first line. If you’re not filling in a tender document and are therefore constrained by the order and flow of the information you present, you have 100% control over this document. Sales proposals don’t start with you. They start with your customer.

Next time you write a sales proposal, try this approach:

– First, what is your customer looking to accomplish? What are their goals? They’re not looking to buy what you have, they’re looking for the benefits and achievements that result from buying what you have

– Second, if relevant, what is stopping them from getting to where they want to be? Especially for larger investments, there is usually something that’s stopping them from achieving their goals, otherwise they wouldn’t be spending money with you. There is also an opportunity cost of not fixing the problem if they decide to do nothing

– Third, how have you helped companies with this problem before? Relevant experience in your prospect’s field is very important. They don’t want you learning the job on their time and with their assets

– Fourth, how will what you have uniquely help them achieve their goals? What makes your offering better than the competition, including ‘internal’ or ‘do nothing’ options?

– Fifth, what results will they get from investing in you? You need to demonstrate the planned for value if at all possible

– Sixth, what will this cost them? Simple, clear, unambiguous is the way to go

– Seventh, your call to action. What do you want them to do next? Call you? Have a meeting? Seek further clarification? Place the order? Lead them down the next natural step towards buying from you

The Sales Proposal: here’s what we propose you do, not here’s what we propose we do.

 

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

But Enough About Me

August 25, 2014 //
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In addition to my sales and marketing consulting work, I do a little bit of mentoring. The companies I work with tend to be either start-up companies looking for the best way to go to market or established companies who want to break into new markets.

I often ask the companies to show me samples of their communications and marketing, or to explain how they approach a sales presentation with prospects and existing customers. Most of them – around 90% I would say – start with themselves. Who they are, what they do, their history, that kind of thing.

It happens a lot, but it’s fundamentally wrong. Everything should start with your customer and their market. Whether you’re hoping to build a relationship, or you’re looking to challenge the assumptions and knowledge of your customer, you always start with them. Their market, their issues, their drivers, their objectives, their barriers, their success factors. If you can’t demonstrate that knowledge, you can’t make a connection, you can’t tell if you can help them, you don’t know if there’s a fit, you don’t earn their respect.

Once you demonstrate that you understand your customers’ pains and requirements, then you can establish how you’ve helped other companies with similar problems and how you’re uniquely placed to help them.

The direction of the dynamic with successful companies is from the customer to them, not from them to the customer. That way you’re not selling to them, you’re guiding them to buy.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

What’s the Call to Action?

August 13, 2014 //
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In my previous post, I shared the first of the two things you must do in any business communication. The second is so simple, yet is so rarely done.

What’s the call to action? In plain English: what do you want your customer to do? Your customer is busy, you earned their interest by explaining quickly why they should be interested in what you have to say and how they will benefit.

At this point they’re looking for your guidance. How do you want them to proceed from here? Make it clear what you want from them. Here are some examples:

– click here to request your [whatever you’re giving them]

– please expect a call from me early next week

– call this number to book your place

– reply with #AmazonBasket to add it to your basket & buy later

You’ve got your reader this far. Don’t blow it at the end by leaving them hanging. Tell them what you want them to do and make it easy for them to do it. Simple.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

Who Cares?

August 11, 2014 //
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Whenever you communicate with someone in business, whatever your business, there are two main things that your communication needs to do, otherwise you’re wasting your time – and theirs.

The first of these is the first chronologically as well. Why should the person you’re communicating with be interested in what you have to say? Their time is at least as precious as yours, so you need to be able to quickly provide them with an answer to the following questions that are really variations on a theme:

– what’s in it for me?

– who cares?

– why should I read any further?

The only way to answer is for you to clearly state the benefit to them of what you have to say. Ideally in the heading of your communication, and certainly in the first paragraph.

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Categories Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part III

August 8, 2014 //
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Do you ever fly with ‘low fare’ airlines? I do, frequently. We are blessed with 2 in Ireland. One’s called Aer Lingus, the other is called Ryanair.

Aer Lingus used to be quite up-market. It still is up-market to the US, but has joined in the race to the bottom on the cut-throat European routes. The pilots are good too. As my son said to me a few years ago when he was 9 years old, ‘Daddy, can we fly Aer Lingus? Their planes land like shadows.’

Ryanair competes on price and punctuality. When it’s not punctual, you feel cheated, violated almost. The pilots are learning their trade while at Ryanair I think. The landings are as if they lose interest at an altitude of 2 metres and drop you onto the tarmac. Our landing the other day was bone-shakingly hard, even by Ryanair standards. We are talking a free chiropractic session thrown in for the fare.

Vertebra realignment anyone?

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Categories Communication, Customers, General

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part II

August 6, 2014 //
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UK train travel is legendarily expensive, and usually fashionably late.

I had occasion to travel from a major city to London the other day. It’s a major inter-city service, chocka-block full, where not to reserve a seat means you’re making your own seat.

There was no wi-fi on the train. Yes, you read that right, no wifi. This is 2014, in the first world. Heck, they’ve had wifi on Irish trains for years!

I find that unbelievable. For an international visitor, business as well as tourist, you rely on a reliable wifi service. Not to offer one, as part of such an expensive service, boggles the mind.

The train arrived fashionably late too.

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Categories Communication, Customers, General

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part I

August 4, 2014 //
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In the old days of travel, you never really knew when the bus was going to come along. Yes, there was a published timetable, but it only ever bore a passing acquaintance with reality. They came when they came, that was it.

Nowadays, as I observed in the UK recently, you have electronic signs telling you – presumably via GPS – when the next bus is due to arrive. I think this is supposed to manage your expectations better, but it still has only a passing resemblance to the agreed passage of time. This has the opposite effect of what is intended. Sometimes a bus will be 25 minutes away for half an hour, by which time you know it has been cancelled because the next one has turned up.

At other times the bus might be 8 minutes away, but the subsequent minutes are long ones, it being 2 minutes away for 2 minutes, then 1 minute away for 2 minutes, then ‘due’ for 2 minutes. Somewhere there’s an awful lot of rounding going on.

It’s progress, Jim, but not as we know it.

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Categories Communication, Customers, General

Ask the Customer

July 30, 2014 //
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We do so much work trying to persuade our customers to buy from us that we often forget that they hold the answers to our success. If we provide a good product or service and we have our customers’ interests at heart, they’ll want us to do well and they’ll want to build relationships with us. In short, they’re rooting for us.

– Want to know what success looks like for your customer? Ask the customer what they’re trying to achieve, what’s stoping them from getting there, and what they require to remove the barriers.

– Want to know why you won the deal, so you can improve your offering? Ask the customer.

– Want to know why you lost the deal, so you can improve your offering? Ask the customer, but make it easy to get honest feedback by sending someone not involved in the deal, because it might be personal.

– Want to know how you can sell better? Ask the customer how they want to buy.

– Want to know what products and services to develop next? Ask the customer. They may not know what the next big thing is going to be, but they know what’s big for them right now.

– Want to know how much to charge? Ask the customer what they’re prepared to pay.

If in doubt, customer will out, to paraphrase Mr Shakespeare…

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Categories Customers, Marketing, Sales

The Fair Exchange

July 28, 2014 //
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The role of marketing is to influence the exchange of outcomes between two parties. This exchange normally involves one party parting with money, but not always. The role of personal selling, as one of the 4 main elements of the promotional mix, is to close the outcome in favour of the selling organisation – closing the deal.

The natural inclination of the sales organisation is to get the best possible deal, to extract as much out of the sale as possible. The phrase ‘don’t leave any money on the table’ is the mantra of the sales-maximising organisation. Taken too far, this short term mentality, that of treating the customer as someone you can shaft because they’re never likely to buy from you again, has been around as long the sales profession itself. It is flawed, and if you believe in karma, you’ll know that in some form it will come back to bite you.

A successful deal is all about a fair exchange. The deal has to feel right for both parties. If it doesn’t, one party will renege on the deal and it won’t stay on the books. Alternatively, if they can’t pull out because of contractual reasons, they will sour the relationship, if it isn’t sour already. They won’t be a repeat customer and they’ll also tell 3 times as many people about their experiences as they would if the deal was a fair one.

A fair exchange is a long term deal, a partnership, where both companies address their business problems and profit.

No-one said life was fair, but if you want to win in the long run, you can make it fair.

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Categories Customers, Marketing, Sales

There is a Difference Between I Like and It’s Good

July 18, 2014 //
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One of the guiding rules I have heard among oenophiles is this: if you like the wine, it’s a good wine. This brings up a really interesting point on people’s preferences, the differences between subjectivity and objectivity, and how that affects the purchase process and in turn the marketing we design to influence purchase.

Many people either can’t or won’t make the distinction between liking something and judging its quality. ‘If I like it, then it must be good’ is perhaps one view. Think about a piece of musical genre, or a sporting style, a movie, a wine, or any B2B or B2C product or service you come into contact with. It’s unusual to hear someone say ‘it’s good, but I don’t like it’, or ‘it’s not a great product, but I like it.’

Most reviews of restaurants, movies, books or other products tend to be either a number of stars, which is a quality attribution, and a thumb or thumbs up, which for me means whether or not they like it, but which could also be construed as a quality recommendation. Quality should be an objective thing, whereas liking something, or not, should be purely subjective. I would like to see more reviews that make a distinction between the two. I’m interested in your opinion, and that means you telling me why it’s good and why you like it. I value your view and that’s why the why is important to me.

So when it comes to marketing and sales, we need to figure out what is important to our customer:

– do they distinguish between I like and It’s Good?

– what would help us find this out?

– do both I like and It’s Good have to be in place for us to be able to positively influence their purchasing behaviour?

– do we want to sell to the I Likes or the It’s Goods?

I think the answer to all these questions is it depends, and is something you should figure out for your own situation.

 

 

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Categories Customers, Marketing, Sales
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