General Tips Archives | Page 25 of 40

How Do I Handle A Customer Who Wants To Cut Back on Budget?

December 11, 2012/1 Comment/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

This is from a Q&A call our team recently did in our program called The Accidental Salesperson. As we were transcribing this, we thought we’d give you a peak inside our thinking when we answer client questions. (This is a transcription of spoken audio so forgive some of the clunkiness).

Q: My biggest problem is getting more budget from clients who are constantly looking for ways to cut back.

A: Here’s my general answer to this: When you are in a business where there is a confined space called budget, in other words, the company actually creates a budget and they literally cannot go beyond it, then the contractor has an amount that they need to work with and they’re unlikely to borrow from one bucket to put into another bucket although they can. Whenever you have a hard and fast budget, then you really don’t have a lot of movement there.

Usually Budgets are Arbitrary and Random

But I find that more often than not, budgets are arrived at by an arbitrary and random means. In other words, one arbitrary means is we have $25,000 in our training budget this year. If I were to say, “Well, why do you have $25,000?” They would say, “Well we had $22,500 last year and we did a cost of living adjustment. We’d like to spend a little more.”

Well, OK. So why did you have $22,500? What’s the foundation for the $25,000? The fact that there was a cost of living adjustment from last year’s $22,500 makes no sense. Read more

Curiosity Can Kill The Cat AND Make You Wealthy.

December 7, 2012/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

“Millions saw the apple fall, but only Newton asked why.”~Bernard Baruch

Are you, by nature, a curious person?

Having worked with thousands of sales people–and hundreds of managers–I honestly believe it is a pre-requisite to income success to be curious. Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.

When someone says to you that they have mastered something–or they are experiencing success in a field that you, too, would like to have success–do you sit them down and pepper them (nicely) with questions?
When you’ve learned that someone has figured out a way to get to the CEO, do you stop them in their tracks and invite them to dinner?
When you’re at a sales meeting, and you learn one of your associates has figured out how to find the pain of the customer better, do you handcuff them until they tell you EXACTLY how they did it?

You probably don’t. And I’m not sure why that is. Is it because we’ll feel stupid? Is it because we wouldn’t want to puff up the other person? Is it because we’d rather do it the hard way, learning it on our own, rather than the easy way–learning from someone who’s done it?

So the next time you hear of someone who has been successful at something, call them up, congratulate them, and invite them to tell you EXACTLY how they did it.

It will make you rich.

Who Are Non-Salespeople And Why Do They Matter?

November 30, 2012/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

In the last few weeks, we’ve been working on the launch of an online program called The Accidental Salesperson. The reason we’re launching this is that we find more and more non-sales people are being asked to sell, negotiate, communicate and manage relationships that already exist.

In many ways, these people below can be THE most powerful people in the company because they are the talent that does the work…rather than merely sell the work.

You’ve heard the axiom, “It costs a lot less to sell to a current customer than it does to bring in a new customer?” Yet, when we looked around, we saw very little attention (skill training) for that group.

Who Is The Accidental Sales Person?

Here is a list of the types of occupations and functions that might qualify for ‘accidental’ status. Obviously, every company is different, however when you read the list, you’ll see some titles that will fall into that category nicely.

1. Entreprenuers.

They sell to bankers, and other vendors, as well as they are put into sales scenarios, infrequently. They need to have a method of communicating value, which they do all of the time.

2. Professional Services (Accountants, Engineers, Lawyers).

They didn’t use to need training in this realm, but they now do. They are all graded not just on the technical skills but also on their Business Development Skills. “You don’t bring in business, you might not make partner.”

3. Field Service People.

In many ways, these are the most important, customer-facing people in the company. They are the problem finders and solvers.

4. Account Managers.

These are the people that take care of the accounts once they’ve been sold. They are the ones that can sniff out new opportunities and are positioned perfectly to communicate value to customers. Also applies to Customer Service or Inside Sales People. Read more

How To Handle Cost / Price Objections as a Non Salesperson

November 21, 2012/1 Comment/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

This is from a Question & Answer call our team recently did in our program called The Accidental Salesperson. As we were transcribing this, we thought we’d give you a peak inside our thinking when we answer client questions. (This is a transcription of spoken audio so forgive some of the clunkiness).

Q: “We are in a service industry and our biggest sales problem is overcoming cost objections.”

A: All objections are not created equal. The essence of an objection is that the prospect doesn’t believe that there’s any pain to not changing, or, there’s any pain to not choosing you.

So if I hear cost / price objections, you must conclude you’ve done a lousy job in two places in the sales cycle.

Sales Problem 1. Identifying The Problem

I’ve done a lousy job identifying the problem and attaching a cost to the problem they have. Or number two, I’ve done a lousy job of distinguishing myself against the other possible solutions that they have.

For example, we get asked to work with a company where we’re not the only option. They could go outside and work with other trainers and coaches like us, or, they can try to do it themselves.

There’s nothing that says they have to go out and hire trainers. The fact is that some companies can do it themselves. At least they could be marginally effective at it.

One Competitor Is Them Doing It Themselves

So my competitor is not necessarily the guy down the street who does similar things to what we do. My competitor also is them doing it themselves. Well, there is a perspective that people have that if I do it myself, it’s cheaper. Some of you are in business. I know a little bit about some of your business. You have that in your business, too.

I can either hire a realtor to go out looking for more commercial space or I can do it myself. But for certain solutions, doing it yourself is not a good idea.

First, it takes a lot of time. And often, people don’t put high enough value on their time like they should. If they only added up the time they spent doing things they weren’t good at, where it takes them five times longer to do it, they would realize quickly that hiring a professional is a much cheaper alternative.

So when I hear you say you can’t overcome cost objections, I would suggest that it’s probably because you haven’t done a good job upfront of nailing down the cost of the problem.

What’s The Cost of the Problem?

Once you have that, then the question is, “What kind of dollars are you willing to throw at the problem?” and if you can’t have a good, lively, honest discussion about that, then you’re probably going to get the objection that your prices are too high.

This goes for technical people who are doing add-on sales at a project. We work with a lot of CPAs, few of whom are natural salespeople. They’ve been trained to be a CPA and they’re very good at it. They were not trained to learn how to sell and market and manage the relationship. Read more

Biggest Challenges Facing Customers

November 16, 2012/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

OK, here’s yet another list we want you to make. The reason for this list is prod you into paying attention to the pains that your customers have.

The shift here is that you should be constantly focused on their issues – not yours. And you can’t do that if you don’t know what to listen for. So make the list, then take the top 3-5 most common issues and insert that into your story.

You Can’t Solve Problems If You Don’t…

November 2, 2012/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

PROSPECT PAINS.

What kinds of pains/problems do you help people solve? Do you have a list of those? No? Shame on you.

How can you be a problem solver if you don’t even have a menu of the kind of problems you fix? Start that list today.

Is Your Smart Phone Hurting Your Customer Relationships?

October 26, 2012/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

Brandon Gerard, one of our members of the Advanced Selling Podcast Linkedin group, asked a great question today and thought it was worth sharing:

“Is your smart phone hurting your customer relationships? I came across this great article, How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships by Scientific American, discussing how the presence of a smart phone causes people to trust you less if they see it sitting out next to you.”

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Click here to join in on the discussion.

Ask About Your Prospects Goals And Dreams

October 26, 2012/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

PROSPECT POSSIBILITIES.

Selling is emotional. What’s more emotional than dreams? How can you help–through your service/product–create future possibilities for your prospect? Don’t laugh so quickly. If you sell a solution, then you solve problems. And if you solve problems, you advance your client to a new future. Shouldn’t you know what that might be?

Your Prospect Needs To Know Your Value

October 25, 2012/in General Tips /by Bill Caskey

It seems that the very thing we are looking for – the motive – is something we should study extensively, but we don’t. Buyer motives are tricky. Motives are usually in some form of “pain” or “problem” with the prospect’s current reality, or “unexploited opportunity” (a brighter future that they can realize with your solution).

If we don’t understand their motives, how can we sell to them?

Most salespeople think motives have to do with their products. But that is a myth. Your value is tied to problems you solve or opportunities you help people create by being in their lives. Your clients buy from you because you solve a problem better or differently from anyone else.