Talking yourself out of a sale

Hello All Readers-

This has been a crazy few weeks.  Time seems to fly when your immersed in work.  I don’t need to go into specifics, but let me tell you my head is swimming.  The past few weeks have been a whirl-wind of sales calls.  Most of them amounted into “much ado about nothing.”  Frustrated I began to introspect – what the heck am I doing wrong?

Which leads me to my blog post today.  Talking can be deadly when it comes to sales.  We all know a salesperson who can “sell ice to Eskimo’s.”  I assumed my father was one of those people.  He commanded authority with his facts and figures.  He was a wealth of knowledge about every subject.  Everyone seemed to love him, but he had an average sales career!  After I took off my rose colored glasses I began to examine why.  My father was a schmoozer, but not a closer.  Then I identified this happens to a lot of salespeople.

I identified an average salesperson has two distinct character flaws.  First, they throw around facts, figures, technical terms and acronyms.  Depending on the industry listening to a sales pitch seems like gibberish.  The more complicated the subject, the more gibberish is floated around.

Your average customer doesn’t need to know every technical specifications, or your industry babble. Floating too many facts will make them weary.  The customer assumes you’re trying to hide behind the facts.  The techno-babble will make them throw more questions at you.

Back to my problem – talking about social marketing, blogs, posts, SEO, traffic, conversions, and webpages frighten prospects away.  They only care about more leads, and more business.  Asking a prospect about their website put them on the defensive.  They don’t want to appear out of touch – so they will shut down the conversation, rather than appear naive.

Prospects just care about solving THEIR problem.  A long list of a facts will rarely impress them into buying.  Your job as a salesperson is to identify their most pressing problem first.

P.S. – the last thing most sales hinge on is price.  If your customer is sold, they will always find the money…

Second, average salespeople talk TOO MUCH.  The customer is thinking, they’re talking.  The customer is looking, they’re talking.  The customer is talking, they’re talking over them. The customer is walking out the door, they’re chasing them down talking all the way.

The best advice I ever heard from a manager was ask a question, and then BE QUIET.  The person who speaks first loses. Good sales technique identifies what people really want to know, and how it differs from what you’re telling them.

Bottom line – keep everything simple.  Stop trying to make the sales process complicated.    You can’t talk someone into a sale, but you can sure talk them out of one.  Need a perspective – give your pitch to a person in a “non-sales” environment.   Gauge reactions, listen for their critical questions, wait for the “WOW” look in their eyes.

Have a good week and market well,

Christine

 

As always – If you like what I’ve said – retweet, Like my fanpage, and check back often.  Post a comment  –  Know of a business professional who is interested in social, mobile and website marketing.  Let them know about Lady In Red Marketing – forward them my blogposts and URL.

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Lady In Red Marketing – Social Marketing for Small Business

My thoughts center around measurement today.

I know we’ve all had a long, cold (and here in Connecticut) snowy winter.  How much snow?  By most people’s estimation – too much, but by skiers estimation not enough… At my house we’ve had about 95 inches of the white stuff.  Which equal the following metrics.  I measure it by paying for 8 driveway plows, but my daughter’s summer vacation is a little shorter this year.  They added another week in June to make up the 5 snow days.  My point?  Everyone measures things differently despite the face we’re still measuring the same thing…results from snow.

When a prospective client contacts me the first order of business is knowing what results they want their marketing to accomplish.  Visibility, sales, email sign ups, SEO, traffic, social dialog… the sky is the limit.  As a former boss and mentor said – you can’t manage what you don’t measure.  You need a goal to shoot for to create a good marketing campaign.  What do you want to measure with your social marketing initiative?

The newest changes to FB fan page administration give us more robust marketing data.  We can see when people are reading posts, or liking our FB page.  (PS – that’s a hint – visit my facebook page and click the like button).  When you need to get interaction – ask a question.  How about posting some pictures or a video.  Use your voice, and make a big noise on the web.

Still small business have a little (or big) of fear of the web.  For example, a small business owner is already overwhelmed by the day-to-day operations.  On social networks the discussion is more frequent, but less sales oriented.  Adding a marketing tactic where they need to manage frequent interaction is not in the cards.  Get in the social game, and start to share some knowledge.

Don’t shy away from using the tools.  Hiring a social marketing consultant to manage some details may be warranted.  Either way plan accordingly – you need to keep up your social discussion thread.   Bottom line – Get a group of loyal followers who want what you offer – and talk to them often.

While I can’t promise specific results I’ve seen business owners double website/social traffic results in only 90 days from a robust social marketing program.  Let’s chat if you’re interested in hearing about driving traffic to your small business by website, social or mobile marketing.  Our services work for clients who want to dominate their local marketplace with underground business marketing.

Here’s to a successful week – market well!

Christine

According to a Huffington Post  70% of small business owners have a FB page – read the article.

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