Might be more relevant to small business owners than salespeople, but this free report from the great Frank Kern has a little something for everyone. Especially check out the concept of “loading the cool” – we’ll get to more stuff like that soon here too.
It’s called “Three Ways To Triple Your Income This Summer” – Can’t argue with that as an aim. Check it out….
How?
We’ve all heard it said that “people buy from people”. That saying is as old as the hills. Sales people pride themselves on their rapport building. But what are we trying to achieve with this? If you’re trying to be your customers friend, you’ve missed something critical.
1) You’ll never get to be their best friend, this is a business relationship. Stop kidding yourself. They will never put you ahead of their old trusted friends, their family or their business needs. So what are you trying to do? Surely build trust and break down some early objections of buying from you.
2) If we build a friendship just to ask for their business, we’re not a trust worthy friend and more importantly we’re asking favours rather than earning real trust for the thing we’re supposed to be an expert in (our product). Having friends who are always on the scrounge is just annoying.
It is human nature for people to trust:
Friends
People in authority
You need to be both if you want people to really believe what you recommend and more importantly, if you want to stop selling on price alone. If you can balance both the above roles, you will have people seek you out to buy from you and you will not have to worry about price as the main driving factor. In future posts, I will start to show you how.
Stay tuned……………….
One of the main reasons I started this new Blog was because I saw how much things had changed. It’s not the sellers haven’t changed (and that was the part of the problem I’ve always focussed on). It is the buyers who have changed over the last year. Have you seen a change in your customers behaviour? Nevermind finding new business, are your current clients spending less? Has their decision making process got longer? Order values smaller? This is because, for a number of reasons, we have all been stoked full of fear. That’s a powerful influence when money is changing hands.
I have started this new site to get my thoughts beyond my own company and my private training clients. This is too important not to say to a wider audience.
Traditional sales models were slowly but surely giving a smaller return than they used to. As buyers became more savvy, and the science of buying was promoted (as the science of selling had been first), I found my sales conversion slowly dropping. Nothing dramatic, but that meant each year I had to fit in more and more cold calls to keep hitting targets. That had to change.
But now that we are in a new economy run by a mix of new understanding and outright fear, sales people need to run to catch up or they are in for one hell of a fall. Do you think the recession is over? Anyone out there selling to Greece at the moment?
There is a book called ‘The Great Depression Ahead’ by Harry Dent. He is predicting a larger crash to come (starting this autumn). He may or may not be right, but he’s had a good hit rate with his predictions so far. Scary stuff.
But I’m not trying to scare you. You know your market and your current sales figures better than me. The reason I’m writing this is that I’ve proven that there is a way through all this. But it’s not by doing the same old things you were two years ago. And it’s not by just doing more and more, just to tread water (that way lies a real heart attack in the current markets). We need to try new things. Understand our markets. Really understand our buyers. Make real connections with people. Close new business regularly.
But there is a bright side to all of this. A REALLY bright side. Most of your competitors don’t know what to do either. Most are just paralysed by the fear of making a wrong move. Whether you’re a salesperson who owns a ’patch’ or a business owner; whatever you do next, could put you light years ahead of your competitors. Your market may have shrunk, but here’s an opportunity to corner it. A 40% share of a £60m market is better than a 20% share of a £100m market. I have clients who are cleaning up in the current conditions. If you can win business that could have gone to your competitors, they’ll get desparate (or even go under!) and you’re set to watch your dominance grow.
What do you need to do?
We’ll get to specific techniques in the very near future. But first we need to look at mindset.
You need to be prepared to reposition yourself – almost reinvent yourself with confidence and authority (and specific techniques). You need to lose the fear to try something new (especially hard for those who have been selling for years and who have tasted success in the past) and you need to really work to implement a new method. The key to that is committing to change and then working to see results. Seeing is believing and everything flows from there.
The pay off:
Once you’ve made the changes, you will actually be doing less work for more money. You will spend time being creative and original when otherwise you would just have another day of mindless cold calling ahead. You will like selling more again (it was like being reborn for me). Whether a business owner or a salesperson, you will have more time and money on your hands. I know I’m not the first to make that claim – it sounds so cheesy these days. But I’m going to SHOW you how to do this and I’m not charging you a penny for this training. So bare with me, I’ll post some real useable material up soon (I’m just putting some finishing touches to some articles and videos now) you really have nothing to lose from revisiting this site and reading the ramblings of a fluffy sales renegade…..
Let me break it down for you… Everything you’ve been taught about selling can be tracked back to 1953 and Dale Carnegie. Taking nothing away from Carnegie’s achievements, but times and buyers have moved on. Package it up however you like… even the much hailed ”consultative selling” is still basically ploughing the same old ground. Why? Because what Carnegie planted in salespeople’s minds was the idea that there was a formula that will ensure we can bring prospects to our way of thinking. And we’ve been preoccupied chasing that dream ever since.
In the 50s the advertising industry was still running slogans like “You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!”. Obviously they’ve moved on miles from there (well the best have!), where as sales techniques have stagnated by keeping on honing what salemen were already pretty good at and missing the big issues that have never been properly addressed. World class sales people and business owners often have the right mindset naturally but very few can articulate it to someone learning to sell because they developed naturally over time, not deliberately created from scratch.
Although there are many sales trainers who i respect as people, I can only think of 2 that are working on truly new ideas. What we want to roll out on this blog is a new mindset and sales process that will revolutionise the way you think about selling and think about your customers. The key principals that we want to give you are:
And most important:
Don’t be a d***head.
Why? When a salesperson calls you and starts off overfriendly and all “Alright Mate? How was your weekend?”, what is your first thought? “Who’s this d***head!”. Don’t be that d***head. Don’t confirm everyone’s stereotypes of sales people.
Welcome to the new Fluffy Sales Renegade Blog. I’ll be posting the first new material soon and will be launching the first free training video asap.
Check back soon and we’ll have everything up and running for you.
In the meantime, we’ll be covering;
Cold Calling
Multimedia contacts
Presentations and pitches
“Closing the Sale”
and lots of practical ideas you can roll out quickly.
Please let me know if you want new ideas about any other area of sales. From avoiding waking up in the morning with your boss in the boot of your car to selling mindsets or useful buying questions – just let me know in the comments box below…….
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