How To Win New Business Without Sounding Salesy

Here sales improvement specialist Marcus Cauchi uncovers techniques that anyone selling their products and services can use to quickly bond and build rapport with prospects so that they are more open to a sales conversation.

•    Why prospects hate salespeople
•    Why being different works
•    How to differentiate your business through the way you sell

It’s Monday morning at Shiny Widget Co and the sales team are hitting the phones.

Salesman: “Hello Mr Jones we sell shiny widgets. We are in your area on Monday at 4pm and on Wed. When can I come in a show you what I’ve got? I‘m sure we can save you money or make your life easier.”

Bob Jones: “Erm, what’s this about?”

Salesman: “Let me tell you,”

15 minutes later yarn.

Bob Jones: “Can you send me something?”

Salesman: “Sure, our online brochure is on its way.”

Next day and the salesman is following up on what he thought were hot buying signals.

Dring dring.

Bob Jones’ voicemail: “This is Bob Jones’ voice mail, please leave me a message and I will get straight back to you.”

What it is really saying: “This is Bob Jones’ voice mail jail, please leave your message after the tone and I promise I won’t get back to you. Your PDF went straight into trash and if by accident I pick up the phone I promise to give you a stream of excuses and if I’m really weak, I’ll ask you to send it again.”

Who hasn’t had that special someone keep you from your busy day, waste your valuable time, read like a robot from their script and rush towards the close promising you savings or a happier, more efficient life?

So who wants to be one of them? The clown in a suit with the bone crusher handshake, wearing his comedy tie who thinks that by telling you all his reasons for you to buy from him that his unwelcome interruption will cut through the noise of your real life; the 139 decisions you’ve still got to make that morning, your child being bullied at school and you being behind on your numbers by 47% for the quarter.

If you want to sell more, stop selling. Salespeople suffer from a disease called PPS, Premature Presentation Syndrome, where they have to tell the prospect about themselves, their company, their solutions, differences, competitiveness, return on invest, etc. In 99% of cases they do this without ever having heard the prospect specifically ask them to do so.

You sell to go to the bank. To go to the bank you have to gather information not give it. The moment you give information you’ve wet your powder and the buyer no longer needs you. You become a tick in the box and they know just which shelf to get you off. An educated prospect is no prospect at all.  Let me repeat that because it’s important, an educated prospect is no prospect at all.

The moment you start discussing your features and benefits without having the context of the personal reasons they have explicited stated that are motivating them to buy what you have now, you run the risk of dragging them into a pricing conversation. If you are selling on price, you are taking orders.

A client of mine told me that their frustration with being sold to is that they feel like it is all about the seller. They are running their agenda only, which is to reach the close and to get them to buy something. The seller rattles through their questions like it’s a checklist and their answers don’t really matter because the seller is only looking for the answers that fits their script. So my client protects themselves by giving wishy washy answers, being non-committal and non-specific.

When my client buys they want to believe and feel that the seller has their agenda, their best interests and their welfare in mind. They want the seller to take them through a process that helps them to discover their reasons for buying, the causes of their problems and to feel that they are leading them through to the hope that their problems can be fixed.

For that certainty my client would be happy to pay a premium. For the elimination of doubt that this is the right decision; for the belief that the other person’s interests can only be served by serving their interests; for leadership and a safe pair of hands, they’ll pay a premium and if they are willing to pay a premium they will take you to the bank.

Whatever business you think you are in, first and foremost you are in the going to the bank business.

Happy Selling!

A blatant sales pitch

When is a sales pitch not a sales pitch?

When it’s an interview.

Experience in sales has taught me that you’re infront of a prospect to gather information not to give it. How can you possibly prescribe before you’ve taken the time to diagnose?

How often have you seen a sales presentation that begins with the salesperson whipping out his laptop, powering up the machine and rattling off all the features and benefits of their product and service. The prospect sits there patiently, asks questions, shows interest, parhaps throws out the odd objection and calmly asks for a proposal – all good old fashioned buying signals. You leave after an hour or so satisfied you’ve done a good job. Then you never hear from them again or when you try to call them they’re in hiding and you’re in voicemail jail.

I’ve written many times before on the importance of a strong upfront commitment, and of closing at the beginning, and of passing objections back to the prospect but as I train more and more people I discover just how ingrained the culture of telling not selling is.

Selling has been defined as matching their needs with the benefits you can offer. Why do you think this definition may be deficient? Why do you think that type of belief is potentially lethal in the sale?

How can you better sell under the radar? How can your selling prevent the buyer from building up defence walls?

What behaviours you exhibit and beliefs that you hold today sabotage your success and hurt your earnings?

Onanistic Management in Advertising Is to Blame for Crashing Revenues

Was anyone honestly shocked by last month’s league tables?

If you “sell” at cost or at a loss how can you be surprised when there’s no money in the bank account and you’re crashing down the league tables.

Agencies have got it into their head that it’s better to pay their big brand clients to have them in the portfolio than to make a profit. It might stroke the founder’s ego to get Dior, P&G or Astra-Zeneca as a client, but tell me how this makes any business sense.

What do they expect?

You operate on a 15% gross margin, then discount by 30% to be “competitive”. You tie up £millions worth of your highly skilled creative and operational account management time in unprofitable business, then throw your hands in the air when you can’t pay the bills and blame the economy for having to make swingeing cuts to your talented team.

Owners, founders, chaps at the top, lend me your ears. You’re in the profit business. Not a creative business. Not advertising. Not design. Not search. Not media. You are in business to make money. To make a profit. It’s better to make £10,000,000 and £1,500,000 profit than £1,000,000,000 and lose a penny.

But apparently the media industry is different. Moses came down and prescribed pitching as the only way to win business. “Open – Present – Close” he said and sure enough the faithful did what they were told. Well, that was over 5000 years ago folks. Things have moved on … a lot.

Imagine closing up front, then qualifying and then (if they qualify and have committed to buy from you), you present and they pay you what you’re worth. I know, it could never happen. God himself made the rules and anyone who bends or changes them is destined to a fiery afterlife and worldly damnation.

Shareholders of publicly listed companies should fire their senior management team if they allow a culture of discounting to prevail. Fire their account teams if they repeatedly over-service accounts without getting something of equal or greater value back in return. And if account managers see an opportunity to help a client that goes beyond the brief, issue P45s with alacrity if they dare fix the problem without at least getting a firm IOU or better still getting paid to fix it.

The time for pussyfooting around is long dead. Agencies are dying as you read this. Are you the cause of the problems you’re facing?