1. When your customer is in the decision stage of the buying process.

Perhaps your customer did not buy at the time you showed them your product. This could be for many reasons – maybe they needed to talk it over with a spouse, or maybe they needed to save up some money. Maybe they went on vacation and forgot about you. There are many reasons why your customer may not buy from you the first time you show them your product. You owe it to that customer to remind them that you are still there ready to help them.

2. After your customer has purchased a product from you, it is imperative that you follow-up with that customer to see how the product is working out for them.

Perhaps you would eventually want to show them some additional features that they may have overlooked or forgotten about. You need to assess their satisfaction with your product for two reasons. If they are unhappy with the product, you want to make sure you find a way to make it right. Either they should receive a full refund, or another product, or something so that the last experience the customer has with you is a positive one.

If the customer is happy with your product, you need to ask for a referral to other people they know who might like your product. You also want to ask for a testimonial from your happy customers. Testimonials are valuable to add to your marketing materials.

3. Finally, if a customer has purchased from you before, and they were happy with the experience, they are likely to purchase from you again if you have additional products or services that match their needs.

It is up to you to continue to follow-up with information and relevant suggestions for products that will help your customer.

You Need a Customer Follow Up System

Have you developed a plan for customer follow-up yet? If not, this section will help you get organized. Is the desk in your small business office overrun with business cards to search through every time you need a phone number? Perhaps you are using a day timer or on-line calendar. Perhaps you are using a contact manager. These are good tools but you need a better follow-up strategy.

If your customer follow-up system consists of boxes of business cards or names scribbled on writing pads I have a plan for you.

How to create your customer follow up system

You will want to select several tools to reach out and touch your customers periodically. You will need to balance the timing of your follow-up and maintain professionalism. You do not want your prospect to be turned off or irritated because you contact them too often. You do not want to appear desperate to sell something else. You also do not want to leave your customer’s remembering you up to chance.

Remember, the purpose of your customer follow-up is to help your customer solve a problem. If you don’t follow up periodically, your customer will forget you and move onto your competitor the next time they need a product or service like yours.

Several tools you must have in your customer follow-up system

- The telephone

In today’s online and high-tech world, people forget about the phone. This is still a great way to reach out and touch your customers. It is especially effective after the sale to ask how it is going and to see if they are happy with your product. The phone is a very personal way to interact with your customers.

- Email with auto responder

An email drip system with an auto responder will let you automate email contact with your customer to continue to feed them information and to keep your name in front of them. This is a low cost way to keep in touch with your list of contacts. With an email drip system, you set up your series of messages and then forget about them.

- Newsletter

A newsletter is a value-added way to provide information to your customer. Your customer can subscribe to the newsletter giving you permission to continue to contact them with relevant valuable information.

- Post Card or letter

Guess what? These days, people still love to get something in the mail with their name on it. They especially like to get a personal card or letter. Do you remember the last time you received an unexpected personal card or letter in the mail from someone you know? It really is exciting to tear open the envelope to see what is inside. You can really set yourself apart in the online world by sending a personal greeting card or letter.

Believe me, your competitors are not doing this. This is an excellent way to differentiate your business from the thousands of others out there. Sending a personal card or letter is a very effective way to do customer follow-up, but it can be time consuming.

What are the chances that you will really go to the store, buy the cards, write them out, address them, stamp them, and drop them in the mail? Not likely, right? I mean after all, we are all busy with our families and our business. Sending a card can be used for thank-you, to follow-up with contacts, or just to wish your customer a happy birthday.

Joe Girard, who is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the World’s Greatest Car Sales Person used greeting cards to stay in contact with his customers. His customers got a greeting card every month. This helped foster repeat business for him. When they were ready to buy another car, they always remembered Joe.

Another successful salesperson whose secret was greeting cards, was Tom Hopkins. Tom was the World’s Greatest Real Estate Sales Person. At the time he retired from real estate sales, he had sold a house everyday for 365 days. You can see from these two examples how powerful the personal touch of a greeting card can be.

These two successful gentlemen both attribute their success to the power of a greeting card and the effectiveness of a consistent customer follow-up system. But, in their day, they sent hand-written cards that they hand wrote, addressed and stamped to send. They dropped stacks of cards in the mail every day. Lucky for you, today this process can be automated.

- Setting up a tickler file

In order to follow-up with your prospective customers, you need a system that organizes them in a way so that you will know what method and message of follow-up they need. You should set up a hanging file system that is divided into sections for prospects, consultations, and customer. Organize your system so that it mirrors where you are in the sales funnel.

Prospects

* Phone Call
* Email
* Newsletter
* Card/Letter

Consultation

* Product walk through
* Follow up call
* Thank you card
* Newsletter
* Phone Call

Customers

* Thank you card
* Phone Call
* Consultation
* Referral
* Email List
* Newsletter

Adding your contacts to the system

In addition to adding your contacts to your contact manager, you will also want to do the following to work them through your system. Take a normal file folder, and staple your prospective customer’s business card to it. If you don’t have a card, just create a label. You can use the folder to write notes, or to store other paperwork from the contact like sales receipts, records, or anything else related to that customer.

The contact’s folder gets moved through the filing system in the same order as the sales funnel. If you have already completed a product walk through, you would move them into the follow-up section. They remain in that section, until you actually follow-up.

Once they complete one event, you move them to the next event. When they become a customer, they go straight into the thank you card file. Keep this filing system in your office and make sure you have time scheduled each day to go through it. This will help keep you focused on what needs to be done for each customer each day.

This is an excellent organized way of improving your customer follow-up. Your sales success will improve significantly with implementation of these few tips.

Becky Lynn Smith is passionate about internet marketing and her goal is to help you leverage the power of the internet to help your small business. Becky obtained her BBA in Management Information Systems at Texas Tech University. She took a job after college in the IT department at a major oil company in Houston, TX. After 8 years, she went back to school and obtained her MBA at the University of Houston. Becky obtained her Project Management Professional (PMP) designation from the Project Management Institute in 1999.

After leaving big oil, she took a job as the eTechnology Manager for a major mutual fund investment company. Becky’s team had responsibility for over 40 different websites. She learned a lot about developing websites, developing and managing content, and optimizing for search engines. Becky is a lifetime learner and is a voracious reader of anything she can find about Sales and Marketing. She has successfully managed many large IT and web development projects to completion.

Becky’s secret weapon for automating your customer follow-up system can be found at http://www.mysupersecretweapon.com

Her website, located at http://www.revolutionary-internet-marketing-strategies.com specializes in helping small business professionals and home businesses with strategies for marketing on the Internet.

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I have wondered for years if there are constants in sales management. Are there principles that would help me help others in the area of management? I realized, first and foremost, that there are two basic types of leaders: bottom line managers and people managers.

The bottom line manager is not invested in the individuals that make up his or her team as much as the people manager. The bottom line manager asks, “Is the team as a whole meeting their quotas?” The people manager, on the other hand, is deeply involved in his teams every day struggles and doesn’t pay close attention to the bottom line. Over the years, I have seen extremes in both camps. The bottom line manager tends to meet objectives by intimidation; however, this manager also tends to have extremely high turnover rates in his or her organization. The people manager tends to have longevity within his or her organization, but also tends to have inconsistency in production. What are the best practices for incorporating both?

1. Be a leader of integrity. I place this as number one, not because of arbitrary ranking, but because of importance. While studying the great leaders in history, the one characteristic that stands out in all of them is integrity. Without this trait, there is no leadership. Once the integrity issue is violated with your people, you lose the ability to lead. The vision you painted, the course you charted, is no longer attainable. If one little white lie is discovered, the ability to trust you on major issues is always in the forefront of your peoples’ minds.
2. Set expectancy in the interview. Most people do not have a problem with certain expectations and tasks, as long as they are aware of them up front. Make this a part of any interview process.
3. Structure is crucial for beginners. In the insurance field, a majority of the time, the individuals that are hired have no background in sales or insurance. They come from industries where they are expected to be at their desk at a certain time, complete certain tasks by a certain time, and be told when they can leave for the day. The insurance industry, as a whole, brings them into an environment where we may teach them principles for sales and products, but doesn’t place them into a structured environment for them to succeed. Balance is crucial here. We do not want to be so structured that they feel smothered, but we also want to offer enough structure for them to thrive.
4. Try to find out up front what their motivation is. There are three primary motivating factors that can be categorized as Fame, Fortune, or Romance. It is really easy to assume that every person who applies for a sales position is money-motivated (Fortune) and this can become our battle cry. While this can be the case a great deal of the time, there are those people who are going for the company trips and dream of winning that vacation for two (Romance). But in reality, many people are motivated by the prospect of getting an award and walking across the stage (Fame). The acclaim will motivate this group far more than money ever could. Learning what motivates your salespeople will help you better uplift them when they are not having the week or month they thought they would.
5. Know their limits and push the boundaries. Too many times, an individual will have preconceived notions of what they are able to achieve and, consequently, set their sights too low. They are constrained by their thoughts and beliefs. A good manager will always push those boundaries and stretch their goals. Once the salesperson achieves the stretched goals, you can stretch them again. Helping individuals expand their vision and achieve their goals is going to help you and your organization achieve your goals, as well.

Keith is the founder and CEO of Benton Marketing Strategies. Keith has been training sales agents for several years with a simple straight forward 5 step approach to sales. When sales people learn what to say and how to walk from one step of the sales process to the next, confidence replaces fear. Learn more at http://www.agentsalestrainer.com.

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An important aspect of providing an effective customer/consumer experience is in the development of the sales strategy/plan. This comes from developing an in-depth knowledge of who your customer is. Your customer may be the same or entirely different than the consumer of your product or service. By definition, the consumer is the end user of your product. The customer is the entity who initially buys your product or service. To illustrate this point consider your product to be a hairbrush. If Target buys your hairbrush to sell at its stores, then they are your customer. When Sally buys your hairbrush at a Target, she is your consumer. If Sally would buy the hairbrush from you on your website, she would be both your customer and your consumer. The key difference you must remember to be effective in business is – you market to your consumers but you sell to your customers! A separate plan/strategy must be developed to both of these groups even if they are the same person. Many businesses fail to establish both an effective consumer based marketing plan and a great sales customer focused selling strategy. It is a one two punch combination you should NEVER be without.

Just as in developing an understanding of your consumer, you must develop a through knowledge of your customer. This knowledge must be based on asking:

Who is your customer?

What are their buying patterns?

Why should they buy from you?

How are you going to do business with them?

What do you offer that your competitors do not?

What is your value proposition?

It is the answers to these questions which form the base of your sales strategy. Armed with the answers and a great knowledge of your customer, you are now prepared to begin the development of the sales plan. In it, the plan should encompass the following:

What product am I selling?

Why am I selling it?

What value do I offer in the marketplace?

Who is my consumer?

What understating do I offer of my consumer?

What is the purchase cycle of this product?

What type of sell through is expected?

How do I best merchandise this product?

How easy is to do business with me?

Whether or not your customer and consumer are different or the same, you must effectively address the above questions in your sales plan. In effect, you are building your case as to why this person/merchant MUST (not should) buy your product from you and why not buying it is out of the question. The sales plan must exude confidence to the customer that you have developed a through understanding of your consumer and their buying needs. While at the same time convincing the customer you know them and their buying trends/needs as well. I cannot say this enough…..most businesses fail to fully understand what is expected from them by their customer. You need to do this to succeed. You can have the best product in the world and if you can’t convince the merchant to buy it – what good is it?

Remember – an effective marketing and sales strategy is a one-two punch. To be effective you must develop and utilize both to your advantage. Market to the consumer with an understanding of who they are. Sell to the customer by knowing who and what they want.

Peter Cicero

Peter is the “brain child” behind Legacy 110. He created the Legacy 110 concept to assist others in not just making a difference but in creating a legacy. With his over 20 years of executive level management experience he has performed many successful business turnarounds. His excellent leadership qualities including strategy development and planning along with his “think on his feet” abilities make him the perfect fit to handle any of the your business issues. He operates under the premise of “give him a person or business and he will bring out their best!” Peter also has been coaching and mentoring executives on business and life issues for 20 years. His unique “look inside yourself” approach has transformed and helped others establish personal legacies. In addition, if you are seeking any assistance with your golf game, Peter would be happy to help. As a former pro, he likes to bring golf into all he does.

http://www.legacy110.org and
http://www.ciceroendeavors.com

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“Woe is me, woe is me,” says the salesman/manager that is attempting to make his sales objectives. When the economy gets challenging, companies look for ways NOT to spend money. Sales cycles stretch out and the average salesman/order takers do NOT succeed. When the economy is good and the market is growing, a back slapper can make his objectives. However, when times get tough, a good and successful salesman will be doing more than back slapping and telling jokes with his customers.

So how does one salesman succeed in hard times while the other salesman cannot make it? He can always cut the price right? Over time all that does is generate less profit for his employer and eventually downsize the company including the sales force. We have already had plenty of that in this marketplace. He can get more balls in the air (find more opportunities). However, if the sales cycles get stretched out, this just generates more work and still minimal additional sales.

Ok, B2B Sales Boost, you are the Sales Consultant, how do we address this challenge? First, I don’t want to say that achieving the sales objectives in this marketplace, or any other marketplace, at this time, is easy. However, there are ways to increase your odds of success.

First, you need to differentiate yourself while qualifying your prospective customers. This needs to be done in such a manner that you invest your time with the prospective customers that are going to indeed make a decision. Questions such as do you have the funding? Is this investment in your budget? What is your timeframe to implement? Need to be asked.

Secondly, you need to be able to quantify why the customer should make a decision relative to your offering. Frankly, for me this is a simple concept but one that is rarely implemented. Your solution should be bringing value to your customer. If you have not worked with the customer to quantify that value you are missing a major positive influence that can help you achieve the sale. There is never a time that a salesman does not quantify for a customer the cost of the product or service he is selling. However, it is a rare occurrence that the sales person quantifies in $$ the benefits/value of the investment.

You need to explain to the customer that it should be an easy decision making process. If the benefits/value delivered by your product or service is greater than the cost of that product or service, then the proposed business decision is a good one. If the cost is greater, then the customer should not proceed.

Have you ever had a salesman tell you, as the customer, that maybe you should NOT buy his offering. Do you think that salesman has added credibility and trust to his customer relationship. If the value is not greater than the cost today, who do you think the customer will call when the value exceeds the cost? You got it, the salesperson that told him to hold off.

However, if the value is greater than the cost at the initial time of “ask,” the salesperson has a lever to make the sale happen now vs. the customer delaying. The excuse of, “I don’t know, I need to think about it” is resolved with “If the value is greater than the cost every day you wait Mr. Customer you are losing money, why would you want to wait?”

Ok, so you are buying my dog food, but how does one get that value data? Those approaches can be taught. The approach requires confidence, and the proper questioning. With a little bit of coaching one can learn how to do this. To explain the process would take longer than I am allocated in this column but it can be taught. Without identifying the customer value, the sales cycle stretches out and you have no lever to shorten it. With the value quantified, you either get the business or quantify early on, that this customer is NOT a qualified buyer. Getting the business is great but determining you are not investing your time wisely is also very positive. If this occurs you can take that time and allocate it to finding a real buyer. Good luck and good selling!

B2B Sales Boost is a consulting company helping organizations improve their top line revenue and bottom line profits. Roger Bostdorff is the President of B2B Sales Boost. He spent over 30 years with IBM in sales, sales management and General Management. Roger is available for public speaking engagements on many business/sales topics. Please submit business management and sales questions to roger@b2bsalesalesboost.com To find out more regarding B2B Sales Boost on the web at http://www.b2bsalesboost.com or by calling 419-351-4347.

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Sales management consulting does not end there. Sales management consulting is available with other features. Aside from the total contact management that is available through Outlook, there is the familiarity of the program, too. Avidian’s software provides sales management consulting works through Outlook, a program that many individuals have already become very familiar with. Many individuals will choose to download a Prophet toolbar into their task bar, which create ease on time, as well as making sales management consulting easy. All an individual would need to do is click on the task bar icon to open the Outlook and Prophet section on their computer and create a mode of easy access for sales management consulting.

Another reason why many individuals choose to use Prophet sales management consulting is because there are daily reports that can be created from this program. A company can review how sales management consulting has worked for individual companies, or for all of the companies provided as a whole. Every sale that had been generated through Prophet can be viewed on the report. This can help you to fine tune what is needed with the programs sales management consulting, or show where sales management consulting with Prophet has truly been marketable.

A company can truly maximize their sales management consulting benefits with Prophet. There are reporting benefits that are deemed as highly beneficial with the sales management consulting software. Also future business projections can be created, which can maximize a company’s sales management consulting efforts. These printable documents can show where sales management consulting can make substantial room for progress, or where the sales management consulting is indeed heading in the right direction. The sales management-consulting program has various online reports that can be created and saved under different styles, such as an Excel spreadsheet, or in Adobe PDF format.

The benefits of the sales management consulting do not end there, though. The sales management consulting for Prophet offers various opportunities to work with the sales management-consulting arena. When an individual creates a report, for example, they have the diversity of shifting columns to create the look on the report that may be easier for them to read and translate. This ability to shift the columns can make it easier to read the optimization that is needed for maximum sales management consulting for the advertised company. Prophet also brings in the intimacy of corporate relationships with the availability of e-mail notifications that can be sent to more than one group at a time or to just one company in particular. Many companies appreciate this version of sales management consulting, and will often stick to the company that has Prophet as their main area of sales marketing overviews.

Companies that work with Prophet as a means of sales management consulting often find that their sales management consulting experiences are of a higher quality than other programs. The simplicity that Prophet has to offer as a sales management consulting business cannot be surpassed. The Prophet program creates a basic, yet highly functional system for sales management consulting. Notes can be added within the sales opportunity window, as well as products and other factors that can maximize financial revenue for the companies. Prophet sales management consulting services can commence quickly, as the only thing that takes time for the program is the actual program download. There are more sales that can result as a huge benefit from using the programs’ sales management consulting capabilities.

It is evident that Avidian can maximize sales management consulting for any corporation through their Prophet program. Companies often see a huge increase in their sales management consulting as a result of the purchase of the Prophet sales management consulting software. Prophet takes the frustration out of sales management consulting, and adds the focus back towards the projected maximized benefits of sales management consulting through easy-to-use features. The various features take the guess work out of the sales management consulting, as well as adding areas that show where sales management consulting can be improved between companies. Companies have shown an increase in sales thanks to the sales management consulting that is available through the Prophet programs. Companies have seen better productivity that has occurred with their companies as a result of the sales management consulting software.

Clearly, sales management consulting is better with Prophet Software. Sales management consulting is sure to take a positive turn in the future as more and more companies adapt the Prophet software to their sales management-consulting program. Sales management consulting companies are also turning to Prophet so that they can better assist their clients. Sales management consulting is indeed on the brink of a better sales management consulting revolution, thanks to the sales management consulting software, Prophet. Maximum benefits are a benefit for everyone that is involved with Prophet sales management consulting software.

About Avidian Technologies:

Avidian Technologies is a software company specializing in creating software solutions for users of Outlook and Exchange. Prophet, developed by Avidian Technologies on the .NET platform, is the leading contact management and sales CRM software built in Outlook. The company is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. For more information, please visit http://www.avidian.com or call 1-800-860-5534.

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Although it’s impossible to eliminate all no-shows, there are many steps one can take to bring the percentages down … way down. Appointment scheduling and appointment management can become like clockwork if you put the right system into place.

1. Let Them Know the Cost to You – Whether you are a hair dresser, pet sitter or dentist, it’s always good business to let your new customers know up-front how important it is to you that they take their appointments seriously. Letting them know up-front will set the tone of your business relationship moving forward. Be personable about it; let them know there is only one slot for that time and many others who may desire that spot. If they don’t show up, not only have you lost money, but someone else was not able to use that slot because of that commitment from them. Giving them a personal picture of how it affects you will make this approach effective.

2. Phone Calls and Reminders – Many in the medical profession have implemented this strategy. What is required to make this method effective is consistency. If you call once to remind someone of their appointment, they will expect this in the future and use it as their “alarm clock” to their appointment. If you suddenly fail to call, they’ll miss their appointment. There are services available like ClientTell and CallPointe that will do the automated phone call appointment reminders for you. Again, whatever you do, you must be consistent. http://www.clienttell.net

3. Reverse Psychology – There are restaurants that do not take reservations. It’s first come, first served. Many people have a hard time with those because they desire a table ready when they arrive. Well, what about “walk-in only” unless you secure the table with a credit card? This gives the person the option to secure it, or not. The same method could be used for hair salons, doctors’ offices, etc. What you are doing here is making appointments a “special privilege” instead of a “right,” thus making them more appealing and leading to more appreciation of them.

4. Online Automation – Here is one of my personal favorites, because not only does it help eliminate no-shows, it actually gains you more business by giving your company the “ Wow!” factor by giving your customers the ability to book their appointments online. CheckAppointments, an online appointment scheduling software, has a really great program that’s free that does just this. It will allow your customers to book appointments 24/7on your website and it sends out automatic e-mail reminders 24 hours before an appointment. Customers also have the ability to cancel their appointments online. http://www.checkappointments.com

Although there is no sure-fire way of eliminating no-shows altogether, becoming proactive in having a firm plan of action in place is where you will find your greatest success in eliminating that dreaded no-show and loss of revenue.

The more automated you can make the process, the greater your success will be, which will allow you to do what you do best!

Christine Fullerton leads two large entrepreneurs organizations in North Carolina and has a passion for educating and empowering entrepreneurs and small business owners.

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The Halo Effect:

People who mould their opinion of somebody else on just one (often outstanding) trait. You are falling into the halo trap if, for example, you conclude that someone who has a very attractive outward appearance must, therefore, also be intelligent, successful and outgoing.

Prejudice:

If people have sympathetic feelings for or have antipathy for somebody quickly. Factors which influence your judgement are things like clothing, hairstyle, eye contact, way of speaking, handshake and gestures. Lots of people conclude from the fact that someone has long hair, for example, that they are, therefore, unreliable.

Centrist Tendencies:

People who tend to shy away from extremes. Many trainers who score either very good or very bad marks, are familiar with this phenomenon. Assessments are near the middle and are scattered. You can avoid this mistake in two ways:

1. Six or eight categories should be used for the assessment scale.
2. Proceed with the evaluation on the premise of what the sales person’s work should be.

Both excessive expectations and fear of a negative classification lead to false judgements.

Being too strict:

Many people are too critical in their assessment of others’ behaviour. For example, a sales manager who places a great deal of emphasis on polite, reserved manners, judges a client’s acceptance of a casual, unconventional sales representative in a worse light than is objectively the case. Sales managers attending management training courses have often admitted they are overly strict when they expect excessive requirements from their sales people.

Being too lenient:

Many sales managers shy away from giving sales representatives a negative classification. The sales managers who make this mistake are those who are unsure of their own judgement or who fear that they will not be able to justify their judgement in an interview with the applicant.

The contact mistake:

Liking engenders contact – contact engenders liking. This is one of the social psychological principles. A sales person appears more likable if the manager feels emotionally attached to that person. This closeness initially comes about through frequent contact. Do not, therefore, give too much of your time to any one sales representative. Keep interviews to a maximum of 30 or 40 minutes for each salesperson.

Short-termism:

Your most recent perceptions and impressions are those which are utmost in your mind and are judged more important than previous impressions. To eliminate short-termism, during the course of the interview make notes of your observations and refer back to them when you have the time to be objective about your impressions. In order to develop skills to assess employees, you can attend a management training programme.

Richard Stone ( richard.stone@spearhead-training.co.uk ) is a Director for Spearhead Training Limited that specialises in running management training courses to improve business performance. View more ways to motivate a sales force at => http://www.spearhead-training.co.uk/FreeTrainingMaterials/articles-section.php

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The sales process is designed with sequential steps that, if followed, should lead to qualification of an opportunity either “in” or “out”. If qualified “in” the next steps should lead to the sale. The sales person should have multiple deals working at the same time each following the steps of the sales process. That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

Sales people rely on the support of their entire organization to allow them to achieve the customer satisfaction that will ultimately result in the ’sale’. And, yes you guessed it, the ’sale’ will lead to the achievement of company revenue and profit targets.

If there are obstacles preventing the ’sale’, the true nature of the sales person will mean that s/he will try and fix the issue which in turn will take them away from spending time with the customer OR if the sales person is a top performer you will lose them if you make life too difficult for them.

Complectus was founded to help companies understand what these obstacles are and help them deploy the fixes. Complectus is Latin for ‘Embrace’… i.e. Embrace your sales organization and it will love you back. It’s not rocket science and it’s not just sales training.

There’s no point training your sales people in sales skills, product knowledge or how to get that appointment with the CXO if, when they leave the classroom and return to the field you’re not supporting them effectively. Maximum sales productivity is IMPOSSIBLE without internal alignment.

It’s like organizing the deck chairs on the Titanic or, my favorite, for those of you that know me….. it’s like putting lipstick on a pig! I think I have a pretty good idea what the common obstacles are which inhibit a sales person from selling. But I never cease to be amazed by some of the stories I hear. They come in all shapes and sizes:

· You know the deal is qualified, why is it a harder sell internally than to the customer?
· Why doesn’t my CRM system help to drive sales?
· Why is my technical support person great with Visio, but terrible in front of the customer?
· I thought you said we could deliver it 2 days?
· How can I be strategic when I have all this day-to-day BS to deal with?
· etc, etc, etc

My subsequent articles will be discussing how you can refocus your sales organization to help you drive revenue, profit and customer satisfaction. The answer to the question, why do sales people waste 63% of their time? Lack of internal alignment.

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This is a shame because it’s also one of the most powerful things you can do to promote your business to prospects. Testimonials are referrals or endorsements from your customers and serve as statements that testify to your competence, professionalism and ability to deliver a strong product or service. Testimonials are widely used not only because they’re effective but because they are low-cost or free way to promote you business and build its image.

By all means, use testimonials but make sure to use them properly or they won’t deliver much of a punch. There’s are easy ways around the classic mistakes made by so many users of testimonials. Just follow these seven rules to help ensure your testimonials deliver new customers in a big way.

1. Use the person’s full name, title and company. Anonymous testimonials carry no credibility. They suggest you never bothered to get the person’s permission to use the statement, or that they gave some excuse why their name couldn’t be associated. That’s a very bad sign. More cynical people might even think you fabricated the quote, which destroys your integrity with that prospect. By contrast, a testimonial attributed to a person of high rank with a respected company elevates your company’s status. If someone isn’t willing to stand behind their testimonial you’re most likely dealing with someone who isn’t a true fan of your business. Move on.

2. Make sure your testimonials are recent. If you’ve been using the same statements on your marketing materials for five or 10 years it indicates you haven’t been active. It’s important to refresh the testimonials and keep them up to date and relevant. If your testimonials are outdated people are apt to think your business is outdated.

3. Use a photo. You know the person making the endorsement is really committed to their statement when they agree to have their name, title, company and photograph as accompaniments. It also brings a visual dimension to your testimonials, bringing them more fully to life. Photos help attract the eye, increases the odds people will read your testimonials.

4. Use testimonials from well-known people and companies that have celebrity value. If you have client companies such as GE, FedEx, Google and Southwest Airlines what does that say about you? That you’re playing with the big boys. That you’ve got the chops to do business with Fortune 500 companies. That’s a major seal of approval. If the business person providing the testimonial is a C-level executive, that adds additional sizzle. Naturally, the statement also takes on heightened status when it comes from a well-known business leader of local or national repute. There’s a reason why major corporations use people like Michael Jordan and Valerie Bertinelli to endorse their products.

5. Make sure they’re effusive. I see far too many testimonials that are lukewarm in their praise. You’re better off using no testimonials than ones that sound like they were grudgingly supplied. Good testimonials are given without reservation and are enthusiastic in their endorsement. Your prospective clients aren’t likely to get a charge from testimonials that don’t include plausible superlatives.

6. Use at least three. A single testimonial leaves your business sounding like it has one lonely fan. Two tends to be a bit thin unless they’re truly outstanding. Three good testimonials give you substance. More are fine but don’t go crazy or it becomes overkill and can make you look like you’re trying too hard. Keep them fresh, effusive and selective.

7. Use audio or video. If a person is willing to go on video or be recorded it shows true commitment to being a spokesperson for your business. And the testimonials come to life with vocal inflections and facial expressions. It’s much harder to fake enthusiasm for a product or service during an audio or video recording session.

Follow these rules and your testimonials will stand head-and-shoulders above the vast majority of your competitors. That means you’ll win the business and grow your company.

Mike Consol is president of MikeConsol.com, which provides business writing seminars, Web 2.0 strategies and media training. Consol spent 17 years with American City Business Journals, the nation’s largest publisher of metropolitan business journals with 40 weekly newspapers across the United States.

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Whether you are in a sales role yourself or are responsible for sales within your organisation, you need to think about how you are approaching sales. Most of the time people connected with sales are good at paying attention to the “what” – i.e. what the figures are. They forecast them, they report on them, they analyse and discuss them especially when there is a shortfall! (How much time is spent analysing sales success compared with missed targets?) Not enough is spent in looking at “how” the sales were achieved, or not. This is crazy as the “whats” are an outcome of the “hows”. This is going to consider the “how” of your sales approach with the intention of delivering the “what”.

After many years of working in sales and sales related roles I believe that too often the focus is wrong. It is too internal! This might sound crazy as you are selling to customers outside your organisation. However, the drivers and constraints around sales are usually tied in with the internal budget, structure and systems. The sales operation is given a target based on what is needed in terms of revenue for the business. Typically, it is a lift on the previous year’s target through some financial debate to arrive at a percentage increase. OK, businesses do need to grow, where they can. However, research carried out over 10 years showed that:

58% of sales people under-perform against their target.

42% over-perform and of these 12% contribute 50% of the total results.

Despite this organisations continue to increase their sales targets across the board!! If 58% are not achieving their targets – why will they suddenly reach even higher ones???? I believe that the first step in exploring your sales approach is to make sure that the organisation reframes itself towards a genuine customer focus. It might assist in more accurate and realistic target setting. In turn, this could have a surprising benefit on the morale of the sales people.

I do acknowledge that there are some cultural differences in the way people will go about buying and selling. When looking at business to business sales, I am not sure they are as widespread as some may think. A starting point for many sales training programmes I run is to look at definitions of “to sell”, and “salesmanship”. Each has a phrase which I keep stressing, “to convince of value” and “to influence or persuade purchaser to buy.” As I state, if you can find out what is value as far as they prospect or customer is concerned, show them how you can deliver it and they will be eager to buy. The point of the effective sales approach is that it is about helping people to arrive at the buying decision, not making them feel they have been sold something. Ask yourself, if you have ever been in the position of feeling you were sold something, how did you feel afterwards? Psychologically it is a major shift from being sold something to feeling as though you are making a decision to buy.

Too often the language of sales, and sales managers, is gung ho and even as though the whole approach is competitive and a battle. In the world of business to business sales, surely the approach should be more collaborative and co-operative, especially if you want to build a relationship for more, on-going business? There is evidence that many sales operations seem to be out of sync with the buying process within their customers.

The % of leads which result in meetings is down
The % of meetings which result in presentations is down
The % of presentations which become sales is down

There are a variety of reasons for these results. One factor is that the buying process is often well underway before the sellers are making contact. When sales people have the chance to meet with prospects they are frequently too keen to get into talking about their product or service. Although experienced sales people understand the principle of asking questions, practice is that they are too quick to move to telling. They overlook the old saying, “telling is not selling”!

Rather than put the emphasis on finding the right sales approach, the various sales techniques, benefit selling, objection handling and closing, think about looking at your sales approach from the other side. (Going back to the two definitions mentioned earlier.) Do you understand the buying process(es) your customers use? Some of your clients may have a formal process they have to go through before committing to purchases. Others will still go through a process, even if it is unwritten. A key to a good sales approach is to understand the buying process and be able to connect your sales process to fit with it. You may even think about looking at Sharon Drew Morgen’s Buying Facilitation Method® which helps the prospects and customers clarify their situation and wants in a rather different manner – and helps them towards buying.

A good exercise is to identify the steps involved with a buying process. It may be something simple such as this:

1. Identify a need or want
2. Information search
3. Evaluation of suppliers
4. Negotiation
5. Purchasing decision
6. Review or evaluation

An effective way of doing this is to use a number of the sales team to share their thoughts and experiences to arrive at the typical process for your marketplace. Then break it down with some further questions:

* What is involved at each stage?
* Who is involved at each stage?
* What can we do to influence things at each stage?

By carrying out this exercise you naturally lead on to thinking about who is involved. Do you know what the Decision Making Unit (the DMU)is within your customers? There are a number of different models for this. Fundamentally, there will be people who contribute through influencing the decision, some who specify what is required, some who have a say as they will be the users, and some who can sign off the expenditure. How well can you map the DMU? Who has what level of influence and at what stage? What are their drivers? Why will they opt for you? Making this an essential part of the preparation can improve your success rate with your sales activity. Taking an honest assessment of the buying process and your knowledge of the buying process you can identify areas where the sales organisation and sales approach can be improved.

Working with the buying process and building contacts and relationships within the DMU may change your sales approach, moving more towards influencing buying decisions. It gives you a good basis from which to develop your sales process, ensuring it fits with the way your customers buy. Rather than so many sales models which tend to be “push” style of influencing, this switch takes you to more of a “pull” style. This has the advantage of creating a smoother path to an order, with fewer objections being raised. The sales skills required to achieve success with this approach may be different to those which have been currently considered important up to now. Putting more emphasis on different skills and steps to fit more closely with the way your customers buy can help your sales results and your account management.

To embed this sales approach – encouraging buying approach might be a better name – make sure it becomes part of the sales operation and sales culture. Incorporate information about the buying process and the DMU within your customer record system. Insist it is completed and maintained – it is not negotiable! Discuss the approach and the detail at sales meetings. Encourage the sales team to share their experiences, especially their successes. If people do not know the buying processes for their customers or cannot map the DMU establish the reasons. Maybe it is an opportunity for coaching and training to give them the confidence and skills? At the end of the day, your sales approach needs to be one which encourages or influences people to buy so the sales team have to follow the process which achieves this. After all, in order to sell you need people to buy your products or services!

Graham Yemm has over 20 years of experience as a consultant. He runs a UK based consultancy, Solutions 4 Training Ltd and works both in the UK and internationally with organisations at all levels, helping them to improve sales performance through both consultancy and training. For more information see http://www.solutions4training.com or contact him at info@solutions4training.com or call +44 1483 480656.

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