In the latest issue of SOLD MAGZINE you'll find my article, "Sales Secrets–Developing Needs: Three ways of building the prospect's awareness of needs."
I mentioned SOLD before, and I'm still very impressed: excellent practical how-to content drawn from a variety of sales experts; top-notch layout and graphics (and I am a fanatic about the importance of layout, white space and ease of reading so you can focus on what's important and not have your eyes lost in a sea of print.) SOLD is new, this is the third issue, but already is up to aboiut 70 useful pages, no fluff.
This issue and a continuing subscription are free. Go for it! Here's the link:
"Why Self-Employed Consultants Fail" is an article of special interest in the current BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK: Karen E Klein interviews Alan Weiss of the Summit Consulting Group.
For starters, the article says that there are around 400,000 consultants in the United States; half working at it as a primary venture, the rest either as a second career, or as part-timers.
A couple of points to whet your interest:
1. Consulting is "really a marketing business. Even if you go into it with a great approach or methodology, that's not nearly sufficient."
2. "Don't arbitrarily use a methodology. Come in and find out what has to be improved. Use observed evidence and create something for that situation.
S"o many consultants have solutions searching for problems. They go in with their methodology and try to find a place to use it. Everybody's fond of telling you what they want: a two-day leadership conference, a person coached for a month. Your value-added is to ask what they want, and discover what they need. That's where you get higher fees."
How much more does it cost to find and develop a new customer than to keep an existing one? The numbers vary, depending on who measured it, but probably five times is a reasonable estimate.
Implication: your existing customers will, very likely, come back for more. Even better, they may make referrals of others who then become customers, and who then refer more, and so on.
But things work the other way, too: if you antagonize a customer, you not only lose their business now and in the future (and have to spend five times the effort to replace him), but you also may find that not only are there are there no referrals, but may even be a lot of negative referrals.
The existing customer you antagonize costs you a chain of prospects that you never know about. (Not to count those prospects who happen to talk to that one-satisfied customer who is satisfied no longer.)
But suppose you are arrogant and suicidal and want to go about turning off happy customers. What are the best methods? We'll take for granted that they were happy because you did a good job for them first time— you showed up on time (or made delivery when promised), and so forth.
Partial checklist for turning happy customers into ones who'll never do business with you again:
1. Don't show up on time. (Cable Guys are you listening?)
2. Don't return calls.
3. Don't follow through.
Case: Ed the Tile Man came to us highly recommended by people in an up-scale community nearby. Mr A referred him to Ms B and so on. We took the advice. Ed came and did an estimate, and it sounded good. The work took several hours longer than he'd estimated, but he kept to his estimate. And, before I go on, let me say that 99% of the job was perfect. An A, though not quite A+.
A couple of weeks later, some small problems developed and we called him. ("5 year warranty" written into the contract.) No call back. Another call, same result. Meanwhile, we began hearing that the people in the next community who'd recommended him were having the same experience. Ed the Friendly Tile Man has turned into Ed the Invisible Man.
Now we've all quit dropping calls into his answering unit; we all just wrote him off. Well, not exactly: we've spread the word. So now Ed has to move on to some place new and find another chain of new prospects, and so forth.
I'm not alone in this, I find. Everyone knows Seth Godin, right? He did a post a couple of days ago, "The $20,000 phone call" See the article in Seth Godin's blog on another aspect of this same issue: when a prospect makes that first call (perhaps with $20K opportunities in hand), and that first phone call is not answered, or answered by some snotty-voiced unhappy receptionist. First impressions matter: and they may be the end of the story.
And another of my favorite bloggers, Jonathan Fields (like this humble blogger a lawyer who moved on to better things!), in his post Business Strategy Fail: Save $300, Lose $20,000 also focuses on the little things that (a) turn off existing customers, and (b) project indifference to those who would be prospects, and (c) wouldn't take much effort or cost many dollars to fix, and make everybody happy.
I needed a new laptop recently and did the usual rounds of stores. I ended up buying a HP from Staples, along with various accessories, and here's why: the sales rep asked good questions that broadened my thinking and gave me confidence that he knew his stuff, and that he was thinking ahead not just to making this sale but to winning my loyalty as a long-term customer.
I'd been around all the shops, and had in my mind settled on one at Sam's, costing around $1000. On the way to Sam's, I stopped at Staples for one final look, hoping they'd have finally gotten in some new Toshibas (my long-time laptop of choice). No luck on that front, but luck was with me as Evan stopped by to "answer any questions" as I was looking at one of the units.
Interestingly, instead of going for the sure thing and telling me the unit I was looking at was the usual "great choice," he began asking questions. (Whether the questions were Evans' own, or the result of Staples training I have no idea. But they were good.)
His first questions related to how familiar I was with computers in general. I passed on that score, so then he asked what I'd be using it for. Since I don't play online games, he said, then I didn't need one with an I-5 chip.
In short, his questions expanded my thinking. (I was upgrading from Windows XP to 7 and didn't know what I was getting into, and his questions guided me by bringing out the diffferences as they related to my actual work.)
He asked about my printers and my security software — a good way, of course, of expanding the potential sale, but prudent concerns all the same. My printers were fine, but my old security wouldn't jibe with Win7, so there was another sale.
All in all, his questions, drawn from his obvious expertise, built my confidence and trust in his various recommendations. That confidence made me more open to his further questions, and so on.
I wish I'd taken notes of the questions he used. Suffice to say, they went much beyond the kind of questions we more often run into, the questions that only sow distrust: "How much did you expect to pay?" and "Will you be paying by paper or plastic?"
As you know, in my books I focus on consultative selling and the use of the selling wedge, mostly in the context of making sales calls. on prospects My point here is that consultative sales questions can be equally useful when the prospect comes to you. Both involve selling face to face, just in diffferent contexts.
As I said in another posting today, in setting up this blog, SellingFaceToFace.com, I had in mind two readership poles: at one end people just going off on their own (voluntarily or after losing a steady job), and at the other sales pros looking for the kind of how-to sales tips they could glean from these pieces from the sales training courses I used to develop for big marketing firms.
In today's USA Today (Monday, April 15, 2011) I came on reviews of two books particularly apropos for those just going off on their own, perhaps as free-lancers, consultants, new business entrepreneurs, and the like. (Both reviews, I just realized, were by Kerry Hannon.)
EVIL PLANS: HAVING FUN ON THE ROAD TO WORLD DOMINATION, by Hugh MacLeod is about how he redirected his life and career (in multiple directions) after losing his job in advertising. I just saw the review today, haven't seen the actual book yet, so will leave you in the hands of Kerry Hannon and her fun review.
When I began this blog, SellingFacetoFace.com I expected to get a mix of readers: some old pro sales people looking for new ideas, and some newbies, just going into business, or starting up consulting or other kinds of free-agent ventures.
In today's USA Today, I came on reviews of a couple of books that are particularly relevant to that second group. Here's the link to Marc Freedman's The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife.
Frankly, I haven't seen the book yet, so will leave it to the reviewer. Maybe you'll find it relevant in navigating your own quest.
SOLD magazine arrived in my email box this morning, with a reprint of my article, "Sales Skills – Capturing the Prospect's Attention and Interest at the Start of Your Face-To-Face." SOLD is brand-new; this is only the second monthly edition, and it looks like a real find for sales professionals . . . as well as for those just starting out in sales, maybe in new business, consulting, free-agenting, and the like.
I'm frankly very impressed with SOLD (not just because of their wisdom in carrying my article!) but equally by the reader-friendly design and layout. If you're like me, your eyes are getting blurrier and blurrier from trying to read information on-line. Not so with SOLD. Not only do they have articles relevant to professional sales people, but—no less important—they have taken care to make it eye-friendly: not just pretty, but easy to pick up what articles are saying — no boring lines of type droning on like tiny marching soldiers.
SOLD is free, and the company behind it offers other info products, including online TV interviews and the like.