Do you have a referral system?

Apart from networking organisations that you may belong to like BNI? Do you have any other referral systems? Or do all your referrals come from word of mouth?


If you had four solid referral systems working in your business, what might happen to your sales? 10% -15% increases are easily possible.


Systems that allowed you to ask for referrals without feeling awkward that encouraged the giver of referrals to easily come up with them.


Sounds  great doesn't it. There is however  a problem why many companies and practices don't get any referral systems operating. 

Its not that they are not bought into the subject, there are a few reasons why referral systems don't get developed or they simply fail.


Many of the reasons are found in my implementation posts that I wrote some time ago.


The word is 'system' many companies simply don't create them properly, they don't test it, they don't train their people and they give up too soon.


Let me give you something from some training I provide on networking strategically.


Almost every small to medium sized businesses that I come into contact with, attend lots of different networking events in search of referrals. Have you ever sat back and asked yourself questions like these?


What do I really want to achieve from attending these networking events?


How does it fit into my marketing strategy and business plan?


What am I going to do before during and after the event to achieve my goals?

Who should I try to talk with?

How can I get to speak to these people?

How much time have I got for this?

What pitfalls should I avoid?

How am I going to get people to deal with me?

How can they help me?

How can I help them? (To motivate them to help me).

What kind of follow up system do I need to build the relationship? 


The purpose of asking these questions is to have a purpose to your networking, to develop a strategy that will tie into your overall business goals.


There are over 65 different referral strategies in our results driven marketing system.


Here are some things you can do; promotions cards, coupons certificates gifts or discounts, make referrals a condition of business.

Here's one I got from MTV and Virgin in Time Square. A simple coupon was presented to me in MTV offering a discount redeemable in the Virgin shop, how simple is that.


For my readers in the UK, in the East Midlands there is a training grant available which could be used to develop and implement two referral systems in your business. It maybe available in other areas as well, I would have to look into that.


For any of my overseas readers, happy to discuss creating referral systems for your business or practice as well. It can all be done via the telephone and the internet.  


Take Care


Regards


Mark

Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Managing Your Sales Numbers

This post is relevant to anyone that uses the phone to follow up leads.

Unless you manage your activity, you won’t know how many calls you need to make a sale. 

The cornerstone of face to face selling is making enough calls.

There was a brilliant book written in the 1930’s by Frank Bettger “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling” In it he wrote this;

“You can’t collect the commission until you make the sale,

You can’t make the sale until you write the order,

You can’t write the order, until you have an interview

You can’t have an interview until you make a call.”

Frank was making cold calls, there's nothing wrong with cold calling apart from many people don't like doing it. There are plenty of ways of generating leads without cold calling. 

All of the lead generation that I advocate is direct response marketing. Where you are making an offer and asking for people to 'put their hand up' to show you they are interested. What that means is; they fill in the coupon, or go to the website, call the special number etc.

If people have given you their number and expressed an interest, you've got a legitimate reason to call, particularly if you have made it clear that someone will be calling them.

To achieve a certain level of volume in sales you need to create enough activity to hit your target. Kind of obvious that one, but why not take a look at yourself and ask yourself  the question. Am I doing enough to hit my  sales target?

Selling is a process which tends to follow a sequence, a typical sequence could be:

1. Sales Letter
2. Letter Follow Up Introduction Call
3. Presentation
4. Proposal
5. Order
6. Sale (The first invoice)

Consider your own sequence and determine how many letters, emails etc, are required to  and  to hit your annual target?’

Your answer will depend on the number of letters, emails, and follow up phone calls required to get an appointment and the number of appointments that turn into sales.

           

You could be getting plenty of appointments, but not enough sales. This would indicate that the improvement area is somewhere in the presentation and proposal stages.

  

The point is by monitoring your numbers, it tells you where you are successful and where you may need to improve an aspect of the process or your technique. Its the early warning system of a sales slump!

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

What is the link between Rudyard Kipling and Consultative Selling?

Let me explain the link.

One of the aspects of consultative selling is uncovering the problems of the prospect, finding out what the real problems are. 

Seeking to put a value on what the current position is for them  clarifying what your solutions would mean to them if they invested in them, its a particularly useful approach when selling business to business.

The link is is from the poem  'I KEEP six honest serving men.'

I KEEP six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

What and Why and When and How and Where and Who are the consultants questions.

You will never be stuck in a sales situation when you use them. 

Take Care

Regards Mark 




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

More On Sales Objections

There are a number of techniques that you can use to deal with sales objections.


Provided that a sales lead, is a qualified lead, its possible to sell to anyone. That assumes that you are selling something worth buying of course!


A qualified lead is a decision maker, who can afford what you are offering and can buy within a reasonable timescale.


It helps, if you think of objections as being unanswered questions.


There are several techniques you can use to handle them.


When I work with companies in the area of sales training, I ask them prior to the course to write down all their common objections. We work together at creating responses for them during the training.


There is however a different approach to having stock answers to objections. 


That being pre-empting the objections.


The idea is to bring up the objections yourself in the sales conversation.


For example, if you were selling cars and the particular make, had a bad resale value because  of a quality problem with a particular car, that had tainted the brand.


You might say; ''one of the problems you can have in the future with any car is a poor resale value, even when the sales price and the deal on your own car is favourable, you can loose money when you trade the car in. 


To stop this happening we've got a contract purchase option that guarantees the price of your car, when you trade it in, say in three years time.''


This has dealt with the potential objection before it was raised.


Its also worth mentioning that it has been known for prospects to tell lies or just avoid the truth and don't even raise the real objection! They can give you a false objection or an excuse to leave, which is why raising them yourself, does help deal with these unanswered questions.


I could go on there are a number of other techniques that you can use. 


I'm happy to deal with any comments on the subject.


Regards


Mark 


Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Do you bring your presentations to life?

Some people take laptop's to make presentations to the their prospects, personally I used printed pages from 
a PowerPoint presentation.

There are a few reasons for doing this, the first being communication.  A leading university concluded that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication. 


By having photographs, samples, graphs etc. It helps support what you are saying verbally and improves communication. Which if I recall is defined as sending and receiving information.

In terms of believability it also helps when your visuals have independent information from reliable and reputable sources.  The reason I use printed pages rather than a presentation on a laptop is; I can close the book and move on, if my prospect understands the point that I've made and they want to ask me some more questions.


 If you don't use visuals, why not develop some and try them out, to see how they can help you support your sales presentation.


I would be interested in hearing about what you take to presentations, what works and what doesn't.  


Take Care.


Regards



Mark 


P.S. If you want to be a guest blog writer on this blog let me know.


A Results Driven Approach To Your Business Success


Mark Wheatley associates is a business development company that specialise in low risk sales and marketing helping medium sized businesses and professional practices grow through coaching training and consulting services. Based in Nottingham in the East Midlands UK. www.wheatleyassociates.org Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

Repurchase Systems

A repurchase system is a hidden marketing asset. (See my earlier posts which explain more about hidden marketing assets).

Your customers or clients should benefit when they purchase your product or service when it’s needed. 

You might think that's an obvious statement, but do your customers or clients purchase at the optimum time?

Do you have repurchase systems in place?


For example, it might be better for you to get your hair cut every four weeks not every six weeks.

So the optimal time is four weeks not six, to avoid those bad hair days!

What does that mean if you own a hairdressers business or hair salon owner, if your from the USA? 

Lets say the price is £10 for a cut for man. If someone purchases every six weeks that's it works out at 8.66 haircuts a year, well we don't have a .66 of a haircut, so lets say its 8 haircuts a year.

For at least two weeks out of this six week cycle, your hair might look slightly untidy.

Its £80 sales revenue per customer, per year without any extras.

Now if the hairdresser pre-booked the appointment and managed to get their customers to have their haircut every four weeks, that would generate 13 haircuts a year or £130 per customer in revenue an additional £50 per customer on the six week repurchase cycle or 62.5% more.

Just by changing the repurchase pattern, you can achieve a significant increase in sales.

In our Results Driven Marketing coaching program we have around 23 different proven marketing strategies like this one, to increase sales and profits. Creating better repurchase systems is one of the approaches we can use.

The program is available internationally coaching takes place via the telephone or video.

If you implement the ideas and strategies that we create for you, your return is guaranteed. 


Significant levels of growth is possible with the system.


Why not email me to find out more.

Regards




Mark




Integrated Marketing  Copyright Mark Wheatley 2010 All Rights Reserved

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

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

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

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