Reference selling involves getting the right customers to agree to be a reference, ensuring that the right message is proffered and arranging the conversation between the prospect and the customer. This process takes time and most customers can only be involved in so many conversations before they lose interest.

photo credit: Marc_Smith

The prospect needs to investigate the customer to check the reference and the entire process hinges on that particular span of time. Hopefully the customer is still happy about his/her experience with your product/service. Sales personnel are typically involved in bringing prospect and customer together.

Compare that to an online social network where customers and prospects
interact continually. Many contacts occur between multiple customers and prospects and reference checking is unnecessary in this arena. Sales personnel need not be involved in this sales model.

All the company needs to do is know where prospects and customers congregate and then it is just a matter of listening to the conversation and setting up introductions between prospects and customers by inviting them to join the network.

This will work with Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other social networks.

You’ve been in business for a while and want to increase your profits and grow the business. You’ve been stressing as to whether you should concentrate on lowering your cost or increasing your revenue. Perhaps you need to be looking at the business from a totally different vantage point. Here are three keys to growing and sustaining your business and they start with your customer.

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

1. Understand Your Favorite Customer
It doesn’t matter how good your product or service is or how good you or your business is. If you don’t understand who your favorite customers are and what pain they’re suffering, you will not be able to make them satisfied. There are five variables to be considered in understanding the favorite customer: their physical location, their demographics, how they think, how they behave and the words and phrases they use when discussing your business and your product/service.

2. Build a Marketing Message
The second principle for business success is that you need a marketing message that describes clearly and concisely what your product does for that favorite customer. This message must show the customer how you will take away the pain and why he/she will be happy and contented doing business with your company. This message must be in the words that the customer relates to, the same words he/she uses when they discuss your product/service.

3. Communicate This Message To The Customer
The third principle for business success is promoting your product or service. Now you know whom you’re targeting and what your message is and since you understand all of the variables concerning your favorite customer, you can figure out how to promote your product/service. This means either directly selling to the customer or advertising or indirect selling to get the message to him/her.

Remember that the most important principle for business success is strong customer satisfaction. This requires an emphasis on marketing that permeates the entire organization. Everyone must think about selling and satisfying customers all day long.

Also remember that the core purpose of a business is not to “make a profit,” rather it is to “create and keep a customer.” Profits are the result of cost effectively creating and keeping a sufficient number of customers.

If you’re a customer dealing with a salesperson you need to recognize who you’re dealing with. If you’re the sales manager, you need to understand who you’re sending to interact with the customer.

photo credit: petesimon

Here are twelve different sales types:
Guerrilla….ambushes you and finishes you off by getting you to sign the contract.
Gorilla….tramples around and gets the job done in spite of him/herself.
Gentleman….obeys the rules and is very courteous and friendly and asks politely for the order.
GI….does exactly what he/she is ordered to do and no more or less.
General….is a great sales manager but has long forgotten the basics to be effective in the field.
Gestapo….sneaky bugger who coerces you into signing the contract.
Greek….customer can never figure out what he/she is saying because he/she talks Gobbledeegoop and Greek.
Good Guy/Gal….always puts the customer first and has a hard time asking for the order.
Grunt….doesn’t have a clue but can recite the features and ask for the order.
Graduate….the MBA type who always impresses you with his/her knowledge.
Guide….knows how to take you from where you’re at to where you need to go.
Gutter….gets down and dirty with you to understand what your needs are and stops at nothing to get the order.

In his column in USA Today, Steve Strauss posted this in answer to a question he received. He listed these five reasons why the hard sell is a very shortsighted strategy. Consider all of the downsides to the hard sell:

•Poorer quality sales: When you force someone into buying something they may not really want, what you are really doing is setting the business up for failure. What the company is left with then is a faux-sale and a disgruntled customer.
•Disgruntled customers: Indeed, this is potentially an even worse problem. Customers who get products or services crammed down their throat don’t usually stay customers for long. Feeling used and abused, they rightfully take their money elsewhere.
•Unhappy employees: The parade of bad outcomes keeps on coming. Aside from fake sales and unhappy customers, forcing the hard sell strategy on your staff often leads to low morale and high turnover. People will only work in a high-pressure sales environment because they really need the job, they like the money or they thrive under pressure’
Most people however, when forced to sell something they do not believe in, or sell something to people who are only marginally interested, will look for a new job that is not so morally compromising.
•Bad morale: Between the high turnover rate, and selling stuff in questionable ways, the overall staff mood at the hard-sell workplace is typically very poor. Employees in such places don’t believe in the company or the product and they often conspire against management, whom they perceive to be the enemy. This all in turn creates:
•A bad brand: It is hard to create a positive brand and stellar reputation when your employees don’t like you and your customers resent you.

So please, do yourself a favor and avoid the hard sell.

For the complete article, please go to Strategies: Do us a favor and avoid the hard sell, it’s bad for business.

Do you ever stop to consider the language that we use to describe our relationships with our customers. The target customer. Our hunter sales people. Shotgun marketing. Farming the installed base. Rifle shot marketing. In every one of these instances, either the customer is a target or we reduce him/her to a cow or a hen to consistently produce milk or eggs.

photo credit: Losttrekker

No wonder the customer has rebelled. And it is about time that we realize that the bullets are headed our way but no longer as arrows to a target but bullets of information either blasted out by customers as shotgun pellets or as rifle shots of information targeted directly at us, the enterprise.

The customer is no longer the target, we the enterprise are. We need to stop thinking of the customer as the target.

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The sale is not the only way for you to interact with your customers, says Mike Moran of Search Engine Guide. You need to remember about the rest of the buying cycle and not the last click that comes about from the search. Too many people have gotten the idea that search marketing is great for sales, but have forgotten everything else about search marketing, and maybe marketing in general.

To really benefit from your customer searches, your site must be search engine optimized with the right search terms in your content. This only happens if you truly understand the language your customer uses to describe your product and you can only discover this if you listen closely to your customer.

For the full story check out: Stop Selling Your Products!

I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I always want to tip better if my wait person smiles and makes me feel comfortable. So I’ve stolen a little from a Nat King Cole classic and written a song for all wait staff:

Smile though your feet are aching
Smile though your back is breaking
Although a tear may be ever so near
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll get your tips in a higher pile
If you just smile

Today, most customers search the web, read blogs, forums & group discussions, ask questions in their social networks, join on-line communities, and, in the end, know very well what they want, where to buy, and most important how much to pay. The bigger the purchase, the more completely the customer educates him/herself. So, like that bad penny that keeps turning up, the objection about PRICE will keep coming your way. This difficult objection, one that is not easy to handle without some thought, comes flying out of nowhere (it seems) and you have to respond. Griff has some ideas on handling the price objection.

Have a clear message

Make it easy for your clients to understand what you are selling and why it benefits them. Sooner or later they’ll figure it out so help them get there fast. This way, if there is no benefit to them, they’ll be on their merry way to something else and will not hold a grudge against you for wasting their time.

Go and find the client

Don’t sit around waiting for your clients to find you, you need to go and find them and show them that what you are selling can fulfill their current needs.

Communicate your message

The internet has taken away the power from the information gatekeepers like newspapers, TV and radio. Almost everyone has a voice and only if you foster the conversation will you be successful. You need to communicate to your audience so that they don’t go somewhere else.

Get your client talking about you

With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, everyone is more popular than they were just a couple of decades ago. Everyone is blogging and if you get your client talking about you, word of mouth will spread your story.

Even the smallest client is important

Don’t forget your smaller clients. They were the ones who most likely helped you get started and helped build your business. They can still spread the word about you.

When you hear the objections: “We don’t have a need” or “We don’t have the budget” – what do you do?

Here are some tips.

Selling is about understanding and fulfilling your customers needs. Closing the sale is important but unless you solve the customer’s problem and show him/her that your product/service gives value, you won’t get the deal. In this economic downturn, this becomes even more important so you need to understand your customer’s needs and objectives by asking relevant questions and listening to the answers.

When you receive the “put off” response, don’t stop: ask an open ended question to find out “why”. Here are some typical questions to establish your customers needs and objectives:

1. How will you go about using a company like ours when there is a budget or need? [Then listen: if they say something to the effect that "they can’t imagine that ever happening." Then you need to understand not only why, but also what needs to be done to change that state. Think of their response as simply a state analysis exercise – this is where they are today and what needs to be done, by whom, to move them from current state to future state?

Another approach is more indirect. It explores more fully what is being done now to solve the problem your solutions solves. Remember, this is a conversation, not an inquisition. You want to build understanding. You acknowledge their point of view. Now is the time NOT to be defensive. If they attack your company, respond with "Tell me more about that? "Help me understand what lead-up to this state of affairs…"

2. What are you doing now to ______________ (fill their need).

a. What do you like best about that solution?

b. What do you like least about that solution?

c. What would be a perfect (or ideal) solution?

d. How will your company go about evaluating a new solution when budget is available or need is acknowledged?

e. What would make your life easier in that evaluation process?

NOTE: you have not told them anything about your solution yet. The key is to actively listen to what they are telling you. Your assumption is that your product (service) provides a real, substantial benefit to them; therefore, this conversation will help the both of you understand the problem and the value of the solution – listen and learn.

3. What would your expectation be of our company should you decide in the future to team-up with us?

4. The recap: "If I have heard you correctly, you like [this and that] about your current solution, and if you could make any changes in that solution they would be [such and such]. Evaluating a different solution would involve looking at (or measuring, etc) [reflect back the list]. Have I heard you correctly?” [Now, if the mood has changed, if the prospect is more open to talking, ask for the business by telling them (if it is true) that you have good news for them since what you offer meets their criteria. Then, explain the value you deliver directly aimed at what you have learned. No more. No less. NOW, ask for the business.]