Today in business every potential sale matters. Sales & Marketing specialist Steve Mills states “if you are only converting 40% of your leads into business, then you are wasting 60% of your marketing budget”. Steve reveals that every salesperson, regardless of the industry, product, or skill level, makes mistakes. Here are some basic sales mistakes to avoid and some tips for selling more and having happier customers.
Number 1
Not listening. Do not just listen to what the customer is asking for; look past that to find out what they need. Too often salespeople sing the praises of a product without hearing what the customer wants. You cannot sell to someone if you do not know what they want. Listen to your customers, identify the need, and fill it.
Number 2
Not being up to date. Would you hire a doctor who told you they had not done any training since medical school 25 years ago? No! Why? Because there have been so many advances in the world of medicine and the doctor would not be well trained and so it is in the world of sales training. You must keep up to date in order to keep your conversions as high as possible. For details of how to do this click here.
Number 3
Being unprepared. Whether you are making a sale in a showroom, a board room, or on the phone, you need to know the details about what you are selling and be able to answer all pertinent questions. Be prepared. If you are prospecting for new business, know what you are going to say and be ready for questions you may be asked.
Number 4
Jumping straight to the sale. In any type of sales business, you need to establish a relationship. Even on the Web you need to have landing pages to provide information about your products or services before jumping to the shopping cart. Do not rush to the sale. Take the time to educate your customers, and they will reward you with sales.
Number 5
Not closing the sale. This is the flipside of the mistake above. Once you have provided your customer with the information he or she needs, ask if the customer is ready to make a purchase. It may seem unnecessary, but sometimes asking for the sale can be the nudge your customer needs to make a final decision.
Number 6
Going off topic. Some salespeople overdo the need for a “relationship” with excessive chatter. Others continue to talk about the product or service, but spend an inordinate amount of time on irrelevant information. While you do want to build a relationship and make your customer comfortable, the goal is to make the sale. If the sale is the topic, don’t veer too far off on tangents.
Number 7
Not researching your customer. If you are trying to sell to a specific client at a meeting, you need to know what he or she is all about. Do some research before the sales meeting and get a good idea of the prospects likes, dislikes, interests, and manner of doing business. The same holds true for consumers. Get to know who makes up your target audience.
Number 8
Judging books by their covers. Salespeople routinely miss sales because they prejudge their customers. Do not let race, creed, gender, ethnicity, age or appearance stand in the way of making a sale.
Number 9
Not following up on leads. Just because someone does not buy immediately does not mean they will not be interested later — particularly if they requested information. Follow-up is a critical aspect of sales that is often neglected.
Number 10
Failing to prospect for new customers. Even when sales are at their peak, you need to devote time to looking for more customers. No company can survive without a constant influx of new customers, so no business can afford not to prospect for them.
For further details of the sales, or marketing training provided by Steve call him on 0118 930 5700, or go to training link
Just to let you know that on 7th February Nigel Ward from The Cost Reduction Company and I, are holding a Networking/Training evening at The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, in MacDonald House (the Canadian High Commission) in Grosvenor Square, London.
The subject of our talks is – How to make more profit during tough times. Essentially Nigel is going to be talking about reducing costs and I am going to talk about increasing sales. There will also be great opportunities for you to network.
I have to say that the meeting’s that I have attended with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce have been some of the best networking events I have ever attended, So I STRONGLY suggest that you take a look.
For further details and to book your place, click on this link.
I am speaking at the Theale Business Group meeting on Wednesday 25th January. I am going to be talking about how to use LinkedIn to grow your business.
for details of the event click here
This blog is directly form Google is discusses how it is changing the way people search. Click here to read the post
You need a lot of passion for what you’re doing because its so hard. Without passion, any rational person would give up.
So if you’re not having fun doing it, if you don’t absolutely love it, youre going to give up. And thats what happens to most people, actually.
If you look at the ones that ended up being successful in the eyes of society, often times its the ones who love what they do, so they could persevere when it got really tough. And the ones that didnt love it, quit. Because theyre sane, right?
Who would put up with this stuff if you dont love it?
So its a lot of hard work and its a lot of worrying constantly. If you don’t love it, you’re going to fail.
Over the last few years I have attended and spoken at many events and conferences. I have always noticed how speaking positions you well, and how often people are keen to ask questions afterwards.
On each occasion I have enjoyed networking with others over a sandwich and cup of coffee. There have even been times when I was interested enough to follow up with several speakers and sometimes I purchased services from them and had services purchased from me. So in a way I am proof that the strategy I am about to tell you about actually works. But only for some people! In many cases people network, but they don’t do it with any form of plan, or targets. They don’t know what to say and they simply ‘wing it’. But as Natwest say “there is another way”
Promotional seminars can be used by a whole variety of industries ranging from marketing companies to accountants, HR specialists to IT companies. In fact to anyone who has got something interesting to say. And herein lies the key to success! Most business people who get up to speak at promotional seminars make the mistake of trying to promote themselves when what they should be doing is helping delegates.
So the keys are to put on a great, or even an outstanding performance (by the way if you need help with this, MAX Marketing’s Jim Ewan is the former President of the Professional Speakers Association and he would be very pleased to talk to you about presentation skills). You then need to ensure your talk is geared towards helping people and not just saying how wonderful you are. You need to give them something free. Then you need to ask people to take action and to do something as a result of your talk.
Before you start running and marketing your own seminars try to get someone else to run one for you. You might even want to organise one in partnership with another organisation, maybe a bank, accountant, industry body or solicitor. But the best way is to speak at other organisations’ seminars. So contact Chambers of Commerce, IoD, FBS, your own local business clubs, breakfast networking groups, Women’s Institutes, conference organisers and industry specific conferences or seminars.
One of the keys is to attract sufficient numbers of the right type of people to the seminar. Therefore the headline of your talk is vital to the success of the seminar and to your aim of winning some business by speaking.
Holding the seminar at an interesting venue is essential. It may surprise you, but not everyone is there to listen to you! I held one of my Marketing without Money seminars at Gleneagles last year and I found out that 65% of the people attending this lunch time session had either played Golf in the morning, or were doing so after my talk. I also held one at the Manchester United FC ground at ‘Old Trafford’ and you will be shocked to read that everyone at the seminar was a MUFC fan. The point is that the venue can be a draw to your seminar and that is what you want, to put ‘bums on seats’.
When should you hold your seminar? The bottom line is it does not matter whether it is a breakfast, lunch or evening seminar, there will always be people who can’t make the time you arrange for a variety of reasons. Avoiding Monday is always a good idea!
Charging
Should you charge for your talk? There are three reasons why you should charge. Firstly, something that is free is not necessarily valued. Secondly, you are professional and your time is valuable. Thirdly, the organisation you are speaking for will generally charge their guests.
The talk at a promotional seminar should last no more than 30 to 45 minutes. Your aim is to create interest by giving away a small amount of advice, not to give away everything.
The chairman or organiser must position you as well as possible, therefore you must have a written introduction for them to follow. If you don’t have this then they will just ‘wing’ the intro and you may not be properly positioned.
At Steve Mills Marketing we often gain new business as a result of seminars we have run. Why? Because ‘people buy from people’ and they also buy from people they know, like and trust. So in 45 minutes your job is to get people to feel as though they know, like and trust you, or have at least started down the path of doing so enough to want to meet you again.
Mingle as much as possible with your delegates, especially afterwards. I recently did a talk for the Association of Accounting Technicians. The talk was from 7pm to 7.45pm. I left the building at 10.35pm. Why? Because people wanted to speak to me! And I left with an enquiry which has resulted in a £12,000+ sale. I tell you this, not to impress you, but to impress upon you that promotional seminars work.
Get a list of all those who attended, or hold a prize draw for something and get everyone to put their business card into a hat so that you can call them afterwards.
The question is do they work for you? If not our team at Steve Mills Marketing can help. Whether you need help publicising your event, event managing it, or you want some training in public speaking we can help, so call us on 0118 930 5700.
Can someone explain to me why in tough times, when it is hard to win new business, small businesses cut back on their marketing?
In other words – “times are tough and so I am going to stop doing the very thing that is keeping me going”. I just don’t get it!
Cut back on your wasted marketing, yes. But cutting back on the marketing that is working, is just crazy! Instead, you should be doing more of this type of marketing. You should be investing more, time, money and effort into marketing and selling your products and services.
Just something for you to think about and if this makes sense to you and you want some help, then call me on 0118 930 5700.
For details of our 8 week Webinar Programme called ‘How to use LinkedIn to grow your business’ click this link Linkedin Webinar.
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