Sales and Marketing Questions

Here are a few questions to simulate your strategic thinking for the New Year. 

If you are getting too many no’s or don’t knows, just leave a comment and I’ll do my best to reply.

1. What sets your business apart from the competition, why should they choose you instead of your competitors? 

2. Have you got five or more lead generation strategies to generate sufficient leads to achieve your budget for 2010? (Excluding referrals).

3. Do you close above 50% of your prospects? (A prospect is defined as someone that has shown an interest in your products and services).

4. Have you got three or four referral systems that are being consistently worked by the appropriate people in your organisation? (Word of mouth does not count).

5. Are you spending sufficient time in managing and developing your sales and marketing activities?

6. Are you attempting to increase the size of every sale with every new and existing customer/client?

7. Do you have a cheaper alternative when people cannot afford to buy from you?

8. Are repeat sales built into your sales model?

9. Do you know how long an average customer/client stays with you in years?

10. When you have lost a customer/client do you know why?

11. Do you continually communicate and educate your customer/clients in terms of the benefits and applications of your products/services?

12. Do you have a very strong initial offer to start a relationship?

13. Have everyone that 'sells' been trained in consultative sales?

14. Have you done anything before that’s worked in sales and marketing, but you no longer do it? (If yes start doing it again).

15. Do your sales people have script books that enable you to ensure that your sales expertise doesn't ‘walk out the door’ if your best salespeople leave?

16. Is it really easy to buy from you or could you make it even easier?

17. Do you use joint ventures to obtain more customers or sell more products and services?

18. Is your website generating sufficient leads in relation to your investment in it?

19. Do you take advantage of your existing relationships? (For example has your solicitor, accountant or banker helped you beyond just providing a service?)

20. Is the time that you are investing in social media and the internet producing a return? 

Let me know what you think to the questions or if you have any issues.

These questions are from our strategic business audit document.



Regards




Mark



Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Get More Done In 2010

Just a quick post to suggest that its worth completing the form 'How To Remain Focused The Secret To Time Management.' It only four pages so it won't take a lot of time reading it! 

Regards


Mark

A Results Driven Approach To Your Business Success

Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Sell it again Alice

Last Friday I had a nostalgic trip down memory lane and enjoyed seeing Alice Cooper in his 'Theatre of Death' tour in Nottingham.


It was the third time I've seen him and he keeps on coming up with new ways to 'act' out his death!


Hanging, guillotine, a box full of spikes and a large syringe administered by his nurse the 'killer. Tiffany Lowe, after the song poison.


Its all harmless fun, it was a real laugh hanging out with lots of people with strange makeup and black Alice wigs. They weren't all middle aged + but it wasn't a family show either!


Anyway back to my normal subject of marketing. Prior to the gig there was a bloke with a drum handing out leaflets promoting the recording of the gig.

This was on a memory stick, which enabled the punters to take away half he concert. The other half was available via a download later on plus some other goodies.

As you can see I was one who decided to part with more money.


So Alice sold the gig twice, not to everyone of course, but that's the opportunity for you and many people in different walks of life. The opportunity to record to reproduce your knowledge, your skills digitally, then to sell it again.


So the question that's worth asking is. What do you know or what skills do you have that are worth something to someone else?


What are your skills and knowledge, which can be reproduced and sold many times over?


That's real leverage.


He's another idea even if you don't want to sell it; you can still help other people by sharing your knowledge.



Food for thought for the New Year.

All comments welcome have a great Christmas and all the best for 2010.


Regards




Mark



Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Sales Objections & Put Offs Can You Help?

Overcoming sales objections and put offs will increase your sales.


A put off is something like 'send me something in the post or call me in three months, or he's busy you'll have to send him an e-mail.


An objection could be 'that's too expensive, you'll have to get your price down.' Another example might be 'we've already got one or our existing machine is okay, or we are happy with our existing supplier.


I have a number of objections and put offs within my results driven sales system as you'd expect.


What I'd like to do is build a bigger list with your help and I'll develop lots of response and share what I put together with people that help me.


So can you send me your common objections and put offs and in return I'll send you a new objection book when I've designed suitable responses for you.


If you have a standard reply to an objection or put off that you use already, could you send me that as well to help other people?


I will send you a copy of this new objection book when its are collated, in February next year.


All you need to do is send me some objections or put offs and subscribe to this blog and I'll send you the book in February. 


Regards 


Mark





P.S. This isn't going to be a PDF, there will be a very small charge to cover the production and postage costs for the objection book. 


I'll let you know what that will be when its put together next year, but rest assured it will be only be a nominal cost.


 P.P.S. This offer will end at the end of January 2010.


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Sales Rescue

Have you ever had a verbal conformation that the prospect wanted to buy from you, but later on they got ‘cold feet’ or ‘buyers remorse.’

There are a number of ways that you can try to overcome this situation.

1. Get them to commit to signing an order or agreement in the first place.

2. Write to them after they have placed the order, re-enforcing the positive points of your proposition, telling the customer or client what a sensible decision that they have made and how they will benefit from the purchase.

The second point I don’t really like, but that’s a personal point of view. The first point strays into the area of legal advice, so no comment on that one! Talk to a practicing suitably qualified person.

If a sale is going down the pan, you need to communicate and find out why.

Don’t use e-mail, its too impersonal.

Get on the phone or meet the person and ask them what are their concerns, try and isolate the real reason (s) someone has changed their mind, then offer a solution.

Ask some questions like these

What’s stopping you going forward?

What are your concerns?

Is it the return on investment?

Will buying this product/service give you a return you are looking for?

Is it the delivery options?

Is there an issue with financing the purchase?

Are you happy with the guarantee?

Keep calm and don't let any frustrations show, have a genuine concern.

Sometimes its not in your clients best interest to proceed, in that situation its better to agree with your prospect and accept the situation, or if you feel its not right for them mention it yourself.

On the assumption that it is the right thing for the client to proceed, when you have isolated the concern if you don’t have an immediate solution take time out, consider what else can you afford to do to make it work.

It’s not all about price cutting, for instance recently I restructured a deal where there was a strong guarantee, but the client was still not sure, so we structured our deal whereby if we did not deliver they could not lose.

We did not cut our fees just how they were paid.

I welcome any comments you have, your own experiences etc.

Regards

Mark


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Talk to your customers

Talking more to your potential customers and your existing customers pays dividends.

It's kind of obvious, but how much time do you spend, finding out what your customers or clients want? Are they really happy with what you provide for them?

Could you do anything more to serve them better?

What are their frustrations how could you help them overcome them?

How do you compare to your competitors? Ask your customers they will know.

Early this year a client of mine who has a manufacturing business, asked me to create a unique selling proposition for him and part of the process involved talking to his customers.

What we found that his customers felt that all manufactures in his industry, had poor product photographs.

So we hired an expensive product photographer who took some really good pictures and together with a graphic designer produced a great new brochure. It was in fact more than a great brochure it was a presenter that my client's customers used in their own sales presentation.

The presenters were leather bound and they cost around £25 each. Here's the best thing. his sales started to grow, he took on more accounts because of the presenter and the quality photographs.

His prospects and his existing customers all wanted the presenter, this together with the new unique selling proposition, he closed more sales.

Part of the USP made a promise that if his customers placed an order before 9.30 a.m. that the product would be with them the same day by 3.30 p.m. or its FREE.

The moral of the story is ask questions, listen and take action.

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Great Customer Service

I took my wife on a Mediterranean cruise with P and O to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. If you ever want to find out more about customer service and marketing I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Also you have some fun, meet some great people and visit some wonderful places.

Lots of the simple things are done consistently well. For example the staff always use your name, ask you if you are enjoying yourself, engage in conversation just in passing. Every effort is made to make you feel welcome.

When I get a minute I will write some more specifics about how they go about it.

Regards

Mark Wheatley

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Politics In Organisations

This is an extract from an e-mail that I sent to someone on the subject of politics in organisations, its a few observations and quotes on that particular subject, which impacts us all from time to time.

On the first management course I attended back in 1987, we had an organisational behaviour module, taught by a professor called John W. Hunt who wrote a book called managing people at work.

Here are three things that he said during the lectures which I’ve often thought about in the years that followed.

1. There are three sides to every argument the person you are having it with (their version), your own version and the truth.

2. Its very difficult to effect change without a crisis (you can see that now in the political arena ‘cuts’ have to be made to balance the country’s books. Some politicians don’t want to do it, but they have to because of the crisis).

3. Whenever you get more than two people in an organisation there are politics!

Another thing to consider is developing a greater empathy for other people, thinking about their point of view. It’s a key skill to master; you can apply that to anything from sales to leadership or simply getting on with people.

Finally, if you have ever read ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie, he teaches you how to avoid arguments because ‘even if you win an argument, people will resent you for it.’

If you have any thoughts on this one let me know.

Regards

Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Sir John Harvey Jones on Management

Another quote from Sir John.

'I've spent 30 years going around factories. When you know something's wrong, nine times out of ten it's the management - in truth, because people aren't being led right. And bad leaders invariably blame the people.'

The observation is spot on and can be applied to many different types of oganisations, business, politics, etc.

I would be interested to read your comments.

Regards

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

No time to market

You cannot manage time you can only manage yourself and others.

Most businesses that fail do so because of a lack of sales, caused through ineffective marketing.

Ineffective marketing is normally caused by.

1. A lack of knowledge and poor execution

Or

2. The business owner knows that marketing is important and they have the knowledge to build and implement an effective marketing plan........BUT they don't seem to have enough time to do it.

Sad but true the ability to manage self and others leads to insufficient time being allocated to building a marketing and sales system that works.

Anyway that's all for now I don't have time!

Regards

Mark

A Results Driven Approach To Your Business Success

Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

An Easy Way To Grow

One of the easiest ways to increase sales and profits is to obtain more customers/clients like your best customers/clients.

If 100% of your customers/clients where like your best customers/clients what would your sales and bottom line profits look like?

(Multiply your total customer/client numbers by the average annual sales value and profits of your best customers/clients).

If you do that exercise and build a multi sequenced marketing campaign it can make a significant difference to your profits. In my coaching and training programme I can show you what is the best approach to take advantage of this marketing principle.

Regards

Mark Wheatley

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

What is business development

Let’s start with the purpose of a business, according to the author business writer Peter Drucker ‘‘there is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.’’

Beyond that to retain customer/clients and make sufficient profit to sustain and grow the business, as well as satisfy the stakeholders.

Business development is a series of management disciplines that should work congruently to achieve those three aims create customers, retain them and make a profit.

Successful business development from a consulting point of view, which is my standpoint, is working on the business, maximising the results in certain key areas including:

Strategy, Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Operations including IT and Finance, taking account of people management and leadership.

Techniques to measure the success of a business development project are again based around the three aims, number of new customers, improved retention and increased profitability.

You could argue that this is business improvement, but the difference between business improvement and business development is the additional aspect, which is managing the future of the business, looking forward to make sure as best you can in an ever-changing world, that the strategy is robust enough to sustain the business in the future.

Management need to undertake research, ask questions about the economic, political, technological and social influences, review the competition, ask questions about the changing market place and the anticipated needs of the customers/clients in years to come.

So part of business development includes the process of looking outside the business and thinking strategically, to ensure that the business changes to meet the needs of the future. Strategic Management.

Happy to take any questions if you want me to expand upon this subject.

Regards

Mark Wheatley

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Multi Sequenced Marketing

I said the other week on Twitter that I would tell you about a client of mine that was generating a significant number of new appointments.

Essentially the technique involves creating several pre-prepared communications, that follow in a sequence, in this case all aimed at getting an appointment.

All of the communications are linked, its a bit like telling a story.

So there are sales letters, e-mails, postcards, telephone scripts all put in place prior to starting a campaign.

Its not about being a pest or being pushy, its about creating different reasons why its in your prospects best interest to see you.

You may have heard the one about good salespeople keep following up and the less successful ones giving up at three attempts. This method allows you to keep following up without running out of things to say.

It can be used not only to gain appointments, it can also be used also to sell products and services.

The system is great if you are going after specific prospects that if you converted into customers/clients, it would make a significant improvement to your bottom line profits.

If you are interested in developing something along these lines, this is one of the services that we provide.

Regards


Mark Wheatley



Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Structure of a Sales Message

There are a few structures which you can use to construct a winning sales communication; this is one of them. This outline is based on the AIDA formula, Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

The adaptation is the concept of Removing Doubt, in terms of how the prospect cannot lose out by being your customer/client.

Outline of an ad e-mail or sales letter.

Target the right prospect (Fundamental).

1. A compelling headline or in the case of e-mail a compelling message (Attention)
2. Graphics (Attention)
3. A proposition leading to an offer (Interest)
4. How will they benefit from your proposition and offer (Desire)
5. How they cannot lose by taking you up on your offer (Remove Doubt)
6. How others have benefited – Optional (Remove Doubt)
7. A call to action (Action)

Regards


Mark Wheatley

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

The Power of Sales Scripts

When I talk about scripts I don’t mean like a badly trained telesales person who sound like they are reading. I mean well rehearsed natural sounding scripts very much like the way a good actor can deliver lines.

So when someone says to you I want to think about it You could say……….

You: Well that's quite understandable it can be a little daunting dealing with a new supplier or buying this particular product ...............What particular aspect of what I've covered with you; do you need to think about, is it the service we offer, the discount structure that we have put together or is it the actual products?

Good Scripts can increase your closing ratio Enable you to sell more and obtain more referrals

The script book

The purpose of the scripts is to assist you in making more effective and professional face-to-face sales presentations and to help you handle telephone sales situations as well.

Your scripts can be written up and recorded in a script book.

The objective of a script book is to make both you and the company a lot more money.

We all have good days and bad days, even the best salespeople. Sometimes you say something that's really good and convincing and on other occasions, you'll struggle to find the right words and lose a sale.

A script book will help you perform at a more consistent level.

We are all unique individuals and we don't all feel comfortable using exactly the same styles phrases etc. Yet we know that some salespeople that the right phrases that have more ammunition which they are able to draw upon it.

When you develop a script book you will create your own arsenal of useful phrases that suit your personal style.

Clearly you won't have the script book with you when you meet a customer or client you can of course have it by your side, if you're making telephone calls. You need to keep referring back to the book to learn your lines.

How the scripts are controlled is individual to each company.

My recommendation is that a central script book is maintained and you and your salespeople contribute to it being updated, with your managers working together to continually improve the different phrases that you develop.

There will be certain scripts that you will have to learn verbatim such as how you integrate the Unique Selling Proposition, key selling points and cross selling phrases, or up selling phrases.

The Voice

When delivering scripts is also important to work on your voice, your tone your speed of speech. For example if you talk too fast you sound too much like a salesperson.

The way you use the voice of course, has a massive impact on the words that use, is important to match people for pace and volume, when they're talking, fast talking people should slow the pace down to match the pace of slow speaking people.

A loud booming voice shouldn't be used on a soft-spoken person.

How the words sound more important as the words you use.

Below are a few advantages of a good script book:

• You will close a lot more sales and make more money
• You will be able to handle all objections and put off’s such as; ‘Send me something in the post” You will sell more to each new client/customer
• You will get peoples attention
• You will build better rapport and relationships
• You won't forget what to say or say it in the wrong order
• You will be able to make more sales calls
• You will reduce the number of bad days If you're new to the company your training will be a lot faster You will up sell, cross sell more and gain referrals and testimonials
• You will be able to get the message across consistently and including the distinct advantages you offer and why they should choose your company
• A sales script ensures all aspects of what you are trying to sell is covered
• You will have all the right questions to gather the right information to close the sale
• You will sound sincere and professional
• If your best salesperson left all of his/her superior sales conversations would not be lost

Changing what you say impacts the bottom line without any extra effort, once you’ve developed them and learned your lines. So change what you say and change your results.

Good Luck and Good Selling

Regards


Mark Wheatley 

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Sir John Harvey Jones

I was looking through some quotes the other day and found this one by the late Sir John Harvey Jones.

'Basically I try to jolly things along. After all, the problems can only be solved by the people who have them. You have to try and coax them and love them into seeing ways in which they can help themselves'

It's a great example of collaborative consulting which is the method that I prefer to use.

I met Sir John at a networking event some years ago, if you ever get a chance to read his books or see some of his old programmes such as the 'Trouble Shooter' T.V. series, his approach and methods are still very relevant today.

Regards,

Mark Wheatley

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Time Management

I was asked the other day about what stops some small business owners growing their business, why don’t they market themselves well?

There is no simple answer to that question, but if you asked me what is the thing that I see the most, that stops some small business owners marketing and growing their business. Its managing themselves and others.

If you cannot free up some time, how can you develop the business?

An improvement in time management skills plus some general people management skills can make a significant difference to your success, if this is a problem.

Michael Gerber coined the phase ‘working on the business instead of working in the business.’

I would regard developing the marketing and sales strategies/tactics as being on of those working on the business tasks.

It’s very difficult to allocate time to do this if you haven’t mastered skills like how to use your time effectively, skills such as delegation, setting high quality goals, or being too accessible or simply saying yes too often.

The worse one is ‘reverse delegation,’ when your staff give you back the job and you end up working even longer hours.

Let me know if you have some issues with time management, tell me what they are and I’ll give you a few pointers. Also if you have any tips of your own lets hear them.

Regards,

Mark Wheatley

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved

Asset Marketing Part 3.

Three more hidden assets

1. Your existing relationships with your customers/clients

2. The community

3. Your suppliers

I was talking to an editor of a magazine the other week discussing a business opportunity and whilst in our discussions the subject of databases came up.

I mentioned that I found it strange that many companies did not actively seek to build their database or do much with it.

He agreed making the comment that he was glad. I said ‘why is that?’ ‘Well if people collected their customers/details more and marketed to them, they would not need us.’

The database allows you to build and create a stronger relationship with customers/clients. To nurture and build that relationship you need to collect their details and get them onto your database.

Whatever your marketing costs are to generate enquiries, you are wasting them if you are not building your database.

Another hidden marketing asset is the community around you.

Here’s a practical example. Someone I know runs a convenience store; he supports the local school through sponsoring competitions.

One he ran last year linked in with British Sandwich week, he organised a sandwich competition for the local school children.

The children created different types of sandwiches and there were some prizes naturally.

The local paper were involved, it was a ‘win win’ publicity event and relationship building exercise.

There was another hidden asset involved; the suppliers of the convenience store provided the food for nothing.

You only need some imagination and effort to make your hidden marketing assets work for you.

If you’d like to explore any of these further let me know in the comments box below and I’ll answer your question.

Regards

Mark Wheatley








Copyright Mark Wheatley 2009 All Rights Reserved