Sales – Velocity Media

24 November 2015

Are your motives costing you business?

Networking can be an interesting experience. While you meet a lot of different personalities and businesses, two types of people tend to stand out in the crowd, those who are interested in building relationships and those focused on the sale.

While we need sales to survive in business, there is a real danger in making sales your only focus. Could your motives be costing you customers?

The sales-focused, money driven person

We all know this character, and there’s a high chance we’ve all been this character at some point in our careers. They are the ones who nearly give you a paper cut as they shove their business card under your nose or the businesses that make you feel like a dollar sign rather than a living, breathing, paying customer.

While you may still buy from these characters, chances are you are buying because it is easier, cheaper, or there is no other viable option at the moment, not because you are loyal to them.

The same applies to your customers. When you focus on ‘getting the sale’ your customers’ money has a habit of becoming more important than the problems they need solving, and let’s face it anyone willing to pay becomes your customer not just those you know you can help. While this might help you with short-term cash flow, it can harm you long-term and leave you vulnerable to disruption.

If your customers are only with you because you are the cheapest or the most viable at the moment you need to prepare for a mass exit when something better comes along – and it will.

The service-focused, value-driven person

Smart business owners know that the best way of generating more sales is to stop selling and start serving.

I’ll never forget the day I decided to stop having sales meetings and start having problem-solving sessions. I was no longer at a meeting to ‘get the sale’ I was there to ‘give value’ through an idea, suggestion, shortcut, solution, contact or similar, and ensure my potential customer walked away with something far more tangible than my business card.

Making this shift not only felt more authentic, but it also made building relationships easier, meetings more productive, and it generated a lot more sales and referrals.

Why? Because people want to be helped not sold to.

So the next time you are networking or at a sales meeting, remember that customers want to be more than a sale to you. And if you don’t want to act as a lead source for your competitors, make sure you never make them feel that way.

Amanda

21 October 2015

How to stay relevant in the mind of your customers

Few things can kill your business faster than becoming irrelevant to your customers. The hard fact of business is that change is inevitable, while you can be on trend and meeting needs and wants one day, there is no guarantee that it will be the same the next.

With greater competition, new technology and changing customer demands how do you ensure you stay relevant in the mind of your customers?

1. Stay connected

When we start out in business, we are more open to input. In fact, we actively seek it to make sure we are on track and that our customers are happy. We value customer feedback, listen to concerns and promptly make changes to rectify problems. While some businesses continue this process, many others don’t.

It’s almost like there is a certain point in business where we know better. We have the experience and industry knowledge now, we know what is happening and what our customers want – so we no longer ask them.

We detach and become so focused on growth and development that we lose that customer connection we so desperately need to stay relevant and meet growing needs. Our time becomes precious. We limit the calls and meetings we have and opt for an email – bulk email – to stay in touch and “save time”.

We start to tell more than we ask, push more than we pull. But to weather the storm of changing needs and wants we need to connect with our customers. We need to understand their purchase decisions, why they make them and how we can make the experience better, and this comes from talking to them, not just looking at the numbers.

2. Understand how your customers use your products and services

When we developed our products and services we knew the problem they solved and how we thought they should be used. But that is only one perspective. Your customers may have a completely different idea or purpose for your products or services.

They may even use them to solve problems you hadn’t thought of, or didn’t know they solved. By understanding how your customers use and want to use your products and services you can start to identify limitations and opportunities to make them even more relevant going forward.

3. Know why your customers do business with you

Do you know why your customers chose to do business with you over your competitors? What was special or different about you? What did you provide that no one else did or did as well? What got them over the line?

Once you know the bigger reason of why they chose and valued your business you can ensure this is prioritised, communicated and maintained even when you need to change, adapt and expand to suit needs and wants.

4. Sell the experience, not the product or service

The moment you start selling a product or service by its features and benefits you compete with everyone in your industry. But when you sell the experience, tell the story, share the vision or back the cause your customers are buying something else entirely. Your customers no longer compare you in the same way – you are in a different league.

This shift creates loyalty not just at a product or service level; it creates loyalty at a company-wide level so when your customers do change, or when you introduce new products and services and try to upsell, cross-sell or resell customers, holding onto them and converting them is far easier.

How do you stay relevant in the mind of your customers?

Amanda

6 October 2015

How to convince customers to believe in you

It doesn’t matter if you are pitching an idea, promoting a product or delivering a service, to make a sale your customer needs to believe in you. But with only minutes to win them over, where do you start?

1. Communicate your why

If you are like many of us in business, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who do what you do. But not all of them do it for the same reasons you do.

To inspire, attract and recruit the customers you want, you need a cause or passion that is much bigger than the products or services you provide. Give your customers something to aspire to and believe in. As leadership expert Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

2. Show your passion

Have you had the privilege of being around someone who is truly passionate about what they do? It is infectious. You can’t help but get excited and passionate right along with them.

When you get passionate about your business, you engage and excite your customers in the same way. By showing you believe in your products and services, you give your potential customers permission to believe in them too.

3. Speak ‘to’ them not ‘at’ them

Ultimately your customer wants to be heard and understood; that is why it is so important to talk to them and not at them. Your potential customers are people with real issues, frustrations, and needs, and they have come to you to get help.

For this reason, switch your focus from selling to solving. Instead of talking about generic features and benefits, ask questions. Get to know them, their business and the reason they need your product or service.

Their answers will give you the clues you need to develop a personalised pitch, which in turn will give them the belief you are the right person or company for the job.

4. Tell stories

To increase your customers’ belief in you, you need to establish your credibility. While you can talk about your background, qualifications and experience directly, telling stories is far more effective.

To show you understand a potential customer’s needs, share stories of how others with similar goals or frustrations used your product or service and the results or outcomes they achieved.

If you find yourself pitching a new concept or idea without any existing customer stories, then try using metaphors to increase their interest and understanding.

5. Be relatable

Be mindful of body language, the tone of voice and the words your customers use as this will indicate how they like to communicate and do business. If they have a relaxed approach, be relaxed. If they want to get straight to the point, then get down to business. Meet them at their level.

But don’t stop there. To be more relatable, you also need to find points in common. Do you share interests, passions or opinions? Have you experienced or solved similar frustrations? Do you have shared contacts? Are you in a similar phase of life or business? We all want to do business with ‘like-minded’ people.

Amanda

21 September 2015

Four marketing lessons your customers can teach you

Your customers are one of your most valuable assets in business. They not only provide the necessary income through sales to help your business survive, but they also provide valuable insight into your products and services, and the best way to market them.

If you want to find out how to be more strategic in your marketing, spend your budget more wisely and attract more of the customers you want to work with, the answer lies in your existing customers. Here are four marketing lessons your customers can teach you.

1. They can tell you what customers to target

One of the best lessons your customers can teach you is who you do and don’t want to work with. Make a list of your most challenging customers. What made them challenging? Why did you not like working with them? Do they have any characteristics in common that may help you qualify potential customers better?

Now make a list of your top customers. What did you love most about working with them? What made them a great customer? Do you see any commonalities or patterns that will help you find and identify your top customers easily?

2. They can tell you where to find more customers

Once you have identified your top customers, look at where you found them or how they found you. Are there any commonalities or patterns here?

Did a particular advertisement, message, referral source, marketing activity, incentive, product or service, attract your top customers to you? Is there a particular social media platform, publication, website or influencer they were influenced by?

If you can, also compare how your most challenging customers found you. This will allow you to qualify your sales and marketing efforts and ensure you attract more of your top customers into your business.

3. They can tell you what customers will love most about you

Often in our marketing we will pick out the features, benefits and solutions that we think will appeal most to our customers.

While we can often be right, a customer can give you a more practical example or application that you or a potential customer may not have thought of. They can also find additional benefits or prioritise benefits differently to how you would have imagined.

4. They can get new customers to trust you

Your current customers play a major part in your marketing and sales process; they minimise the risk of your new customers purchase decision. While you can address the frustrations of potential customers, offer solutions and provide an incentive, your existing customers provide the ‘proof’ that what you say or do works.

Without their stories, testimonials, case studies or referrals your sales are hinged on how much trust and rapport you or your sales people can build, or how competitive your pricing is.

What marketing lessons have your customers taught you?

Amanda

8 September 2015

Why you need to ask questions in your sales and marketing

Questions are powerful in sales and marketing. When you use them right they uncover needs, challenge thought processes, demonstrate your uniqueness and increase conversions.

If you aren’t convinced already, here are four reasons why you need to ask your potential customers more questions in your sales and marketing.

1. Questions engage

Questions draw readers into your words and make them involved. When a question is asked (a closed question in this case) we naturally answer it, we can’t help but agree, disagree or form an opinion.

When this happens, your potential customers are more likely to read on. Your potential customer will want to see if you share the same opinion, have an interesting point, or can provide the solution to the issue, problem or ‘what if’ scenario raised in the question.

2. Questions challenge beliefs

A well-posed question can help you challenge your potential customers beliefs, disrupt their thought process and help them uncover needs they don’t know they have so your message or point of view can pierce through.

These piercing questions are particularly important when people have “heard it all before…” or when you are launching a new product, service or concept and need to educate people on why they need your business.

3. Questions break down perceptions

A lot of times potential customers bring perceptions to your business and industry. They make assumptions about what you do and how you do it based on their level of understanding and experience with competitors.

While this can work in your favour (the education is done for you), it can also work against you and fuel their objections if they have had negative past experiences.

When you pose a question based on your point of difference or a failing in your industry (think “Tired of [insert point]?” “Sick of [insert point]?” or “Isn’t it time you [insert point]?”), it can change your potential customers perceptions of you, demonstrate your understanding of them and separate you from competitors.

4. Questions can make sales

Leading questions, where you ask your potential customer a series of questions you know they will say yes to, have been proven to increase sales conversions.

When you can get potential customers in the habit of saying “yes” when you ask them to act or buy they are more prone to say “yes” again.

What questions could you ask to engage and convert your customers?

Amanda

13 July 2015

Three marketing time savers

While marketing is an essential part of business, it can also be one of the first areas we put on hold when we get busy. Sure it saves us time in the short term, but with consistent marketing being the key to consistent business, it can cost our cash flow in the long term.

To help you streamline your marketing efforts and stay consistent even when you are short on time, here are three marketing time savers you can implement without impacting your results.

1. Develop a promotional calendar

One of the fastest ways to waste time (and money for that matter) in marketing is to not have clarity. By mapping out your promotions for the next three to six months, you take the last minute panic out of your communications and ensure your social media, newsletter and promotional content are aligned for greater results.

To do this, firstly identify possible themes for each month. Your theme could be around the different products or services you provide or want to sell more of, the time of year it is (seasons, Father’s Day, Christmas etc.), or trending products, services or topics.

Once you have a theme in mind look at the products, services or packages you want to promote (or need to sell) and the promotions, calls to action and incentive you need to use to get people to act.

2. Repurpose your content

Whenever you write content, whether it is for your website or a brochure, a blog or social media post you should be thinking of how else you could use the content.

Could a social media post be expanded into a blog post? Could your blog post or speaking presentations be broken down into several social media tip updates or an image/infographic? Could you expand your blog post for a longer feature article to submit? Could your newly revised social media profile also form part of your About Us page and speaker introduction?

What about the past blog posts you have written could you provide an update, follow up or a ‘top blogs/tips on [topic]’ post to get more out of your existing content?

3. Leverage your time through tools and team members

One of the biggest hurdles for many business owners to get over is to realise you don’t have to do it all. If you don’t enjoy a particular area of marketing, aren’t good at it or are wasting too much time in it outsource it to another team member or professional.

If you do enjoy it, and you are good at it look to simplify, streamline and leverage your time through technology. Chances are someone has had the foresight to develop a tool, website, app, program or process to help. Search around, get recommendations and experiment until you find your match.

How do you minimise your time in marketing? Do you have any favourite marketing tools you use?

Amanda

30 June 2015

The top three selling emotions – and how to use them

As we are discovering “why?” is one of the most powerful questions we can ask. Not only in terms of problem solving, but also for motivating and influencing our customers and prospects.

When we can convince our prospects as to why they should buy from us, and take them on an emotional journey to get there, we are in a far greater position to make the sale.

But what emotions should you appeal to and where do you start? In my experience here are the top three selling emotions and how to use them.

1. Discontentment

To move quickly, people need to experience discontentment with their current situation. As much as we want to move towards pleasure, we are far more motivated to move away from pain. Just think about it if we were all motivated by pleasure, we’d all have what we want, or be well on the way to getting what we want.

The purpose of using discontentment is to create a need or desire in the mind of your prospect. Discomfort can come from many different emotions including frustration, envy, resentment, regret, guilt and even fear to name a few. You might find yourself appealing to current emotions or the possibility of them experiencing them in the future by taking prospects to the ‘worst case scenario’ (think life insurance for instance).

When you can demonstrate their pain and frustration or potential or pain and frustration, you start to make your prospect discontent. If you can make them uncomfortable and then show them a way to be more comfortable than they have ever been, you have increased your chances of making the sale.

A word of warning: When you are appealing to emotions, particularly strong, negative emotions tread carefully and sensitively. You need to make sure the feeling is about one specific area that you can move your prospect out of quickly to not leave those feelings associated with your brand.

2. Hope

Hope is a powerful emotion. It can motivate us to act completely out of our comfort zone and do some crazy things for the potential of a reward.

Once your prospect is discontent, give them hope that there is a way out. If discontent is your ‘worst case scenario’ then hope is your ‘what if…’ scenario.

A word of warning: Hope is where expectations are made. While you do need to build up your ‘what if…’ scenario, don’t build it up to a point where they could experience disappointment if they buy from you.

3. Excitement

Now your prospect has hope it’s time to build excitement. Excitement motivates us to move forward, and it also ensures that whatever we are excited about stays at the forefront of our mind.

To get your prospect excited though, they also need to see the value, incentive (“what’s in it for me?”) and urgency. You need to demonstrate to your prospect that they need and most importantly want to act now.

A word of warning: When someone is really excited they want to act immediately – and you want them to act immediately because the feeling can be fleeting. To cater for this make it easy for them to act by being clear on the next step. The fastest way to squash excitement is to make the process too hard or long.

Are you appealing to the right emotions in your marketing?

Amanda

5 May 2015

How to expedite trust in sales

In business, trust and profit are intertwined. In order to make more sales or convert new leads, it starts by building trust. The more trust a potential customer has the more likely they are to purchase with you and the more a customer trusts you, the higher their spend will be.

But how do you start to build trust with a contact you don’t know and perhaps have never met?

Be friendly and relatable

When it comes to building trust, nothing can surpass being friendly and genuine. While people want to work with experts, they also want to work with people they feel they can relate to and who don’t appear to be too far above them.

Whether you are in front of a potential customer or they are simply a name on your database, always be friendly, pleasant and upbeat in your communication.

Engage and validate

Take an interest in your potential customers and what is important to them. It can be as simple as seeing how they are doing, asking for their input or feedback or seeking their opinion on an issue.

Encourage conversation and listen to what they are saying. Where possible, try to implement or reiterate what you have heard so your customers can feel important and validated.

Make and deliver on a promise

When you have not formed trust with a potential customer, it is important to create an opportunity for you to make a promise and deliver to start building their trust in you.

Can you introduce them to a key contact? Can you provide answers to pressing questions, or insights, guidance or tips on a key issue or topic you know they will be interested in?

The promise could be one-on-one to them personally or to a larger audience through a free webinar, event, e-book or cheat sheet for example.

The first promise or claim you make should have no risk to them. So it is not a purchase you are seeking; it is a freebie or favour that will help you build their trust initially. Once you have gained their trust on something small, it is easier to ask for their trust on something bigger like making a purchase with you. In fact, if you play your cards right and give them something the value or need, the sale will often happen naturally.

21 April 2015

Four places to find leads quickly and easily

Every now and again you can have a slow sales week in business. While it can provide the opportunity to catch up on all the tasks you’ve been “meaning to do”, it can put additional stress and pressure on you when it is for an extended period.

So what do you do when your slow week turns into a slow month? Here are four places to find leads quickly and easily.

1. Your current customers

Your existing customers are the easiest place to generate new leads and business. From asking for referrals and introductions to finding ways to upsell, cross-sell and resell your customers to get them spending more sooner, your customers will always be able to provide new leads once they have seen the value in working with you.

How to get the best results:

Talk to them! Find out more about them or their business and where they ultimately want to be. Identify ways you can help them get there through the products and services you provide. Go to the customers who are already impressed with your products and services and ask them if they know anyone else who could benefit in the same way they have.

2. Your database and past customers

After your current customers, your database and past customers are your next point of call. Already familiar and interested in your products or services they are the second easiest to convert.

How to get the best results:

Identify the objections or reasons people haven’t bought yet or again and find ways to get around them. Offer an incentive. While your database is interested and has possibly bought before, they will often need an extra push to get them over the line.

3. Cross or joint promotions

Joining forces with, and getting the endorsement of, other like-minded businesses that have influence in your industry or over your target market can be a quick and easy way to tap into a new database of leads. As it is beneficial to the business you are co-marketing with it is often an easy sell too.

How to get the best results:

Make sure the business you partner with has the same target market as you and that you know, like and trust them. You will, after all, be recommending them to your customers. Again, make sure you offer incentive so new leads a reason to act or at the very least get in touch with you.

4. Networking

Networking, whether at traditional events, online through social media or making the most out of everyday opportunities, can be a low-cost way to attract new leads and referral partners.

How to get the best results:

You only have limited time when networking so it is important to know and clearly articulate what you do, who you do it for, why you do it and what makes you different. When you do, you can easily qualify networking opportunities and identify the most valuable contacts so you can spend more time building rapport with them.

How do you find leads quickly?

Amanda

9 February 2015

The three keys to emotional selling

Emotions are powerful motivators. They influence every purchase decision we make. Every day we buy based on feelings of love, fear, greed, guilt, anger, frustration, happiness, hope, and curiosity and then justify our purchases logically.

While we can try to avoid using them, the truth is if you want to persuade people to buy your products and services you need to appeal to their emotions. Your potential customers are not as interested in the features of your product or service as much as what it will do for them, give them, save them, make them feel or help them become.

So to help you get greater results from your marketing, advertising and sales meetings, here are the three keys to emotional selling.

1. Understand key emotional drivers

There are a number of key emotional drivers that motivate each of us. But the catch is they don’t affect us all, in the same way. Your job is to work out the drivers that will appeal to your customers the most. Here are just a few:

▪ To love and be loved
▪ To feel secure and have stability
▪ To feel important and receive praise
▪ To have pride in who we are and what we do
▪ To feel like we are making a difference

2. Know your audience

In order to appeal to your potential customer’s key emotional drivers you need to have an intimate knowledge of your target audience. You get this by looking at your past and current customers, what they needed, what they bought and why they bought it. You also get it by putting yourself in your potential customers shoes.

▪ What are their greatest needs and wants?
▪ What are their most pressing frustrations?
▪ What is their deepest fear?
▪ What keeps them up at night?

Once you begin to understand your potential customer and what they want and need from your industry and business, you can then identify which emotions you need to appeal to in order to push their buy buttons.

3. Tell the story

As you begin to talk or write to your potential customer, paint the picture of their current situation particularly the pain and frustration, they are experiencing. Once you’ve made them uncomfortable, give them hope, explaining what it could be like once they have your product or service.

By doing this, you are allowing them to have an emotional experience with your product or service before they even try it.

So the next time you are in a sales meeting or preparing your marketing material, remember words tell but emotion sells.

Amanda

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