In my opinion you always want to have the event shape you.  Learn from it and take away the lessons and then move on to bigger things. It is when we let a moment define us that we run into trouble.  Bad news of a lost sale or a crappy partnership that goes sideways could take you off course but it does not have to define you and your business.  If you let it, you will never get back on track.

I sat down with an entrepreneur this week and realized that a bad decision had been haunting him for years.  Instead of taking the lessons that could have been learned he was stuck in the bad decision. He was not moving forward he was just stuck.  Looking at the bad decision it seemed odd at first that such a small mistake could derail him but as we talked more he realized that since that instant he started doubting every decision.

In business I love the term fail fast.  It means that you need to try things and fail at them fast.  Don’t dwell and don’t carry them on longer than you need to.  Failure is a big part of business and an even bigger part of sales. Not every idea you will have will be a winner.  In fact, in my high tech days, I would say about 1 in 4 ideas had any merit.  The simple act of trying and failing prepared me to succeed. Make sure your problems shape you not define you.

Go do big things.

So why is this important to sales for your business?  I see this happen on a regular basis is the business world. A great sales person gets an offer from another company and decides to move on. He turns in his resignation, letting the boss know about the better offer. The business owner is scared that the salesperson that the company has invested time and money into is heading out the door, so they make a counter-offer to keep him or her. In my experience this rarely, if ever, works out. Face it: the salesperson had already decided to leave because something was missing for them (and it rarely is money).  Often, even if they stay, production tends to go down and within a year they will move on anyway.

Hiring Sales People

Instead of worrying that your sales person is leaving, look at it as an opportunity to find someone better for your organization.  Here are some tips for finding that sales superstar for your business:

• Develop a detailed job description –it is important that your new sales person knows what is expected of them.  If you already have a detailed job description see if it needs updating because now is the perfect opportunity.

• Review the metrics that the sales person will be judged on –determine if the metrics for the job need to be updated, changed, or new ones added.  If you are only using the sales (dollars brought in) as a metric, now is the time to add new ones. You should have other metrics to evaluate this new sales person by when they start their job that are dependent on the length of your sales cycle.  It might be unfair to only use the end result sales as a metric for how he/she is doing.

• Prepare for the interview –develop questions based on what you are looking for this new sales person to demonstrate for you.  A good sales person will always prepare and research before going into a sales meeting with a prospect so you want to make sure your sales person did their homework before they meet with you.  Don’t tell them about your company, ask them to tell you about your company.  This will give you a great indication if they prepared before coming in.  Try to see how they handle rejection; do they accept it and go away? Or do they ask questions and try to get to the root of the objection?  Interview for the skills you want to see in your new salesperson.  Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions.

• Check references – make sure that you check references. Talk to people who have worked with the prospective salesperson.  Don’t just take the names the candidate provides as reference, but look up the former company they have worked at on LinkedIn and look for your own sources for confirming their abilities.  Always check references before hiring sales people.

This is your opportunity to strengthen your sales team, so make sure that you spend the time a decision of this importance should take.

Hiring sales people should not be left to your human resources department, you need to be involved in the process.

Last week, sales people had 17 opportunities to up-sell or cross sell to me more expensive or additional products and services.  Only one sales person even made the attempt to get me to buy additional services and I should add that she was rewarded with a 300% increase in order size.  Sixteen other sales people couldn’t be bothered to engage with me and instead just rang in my purchase.

As a business owner, how much revenue do you leave on the table by not engaging with your customers and offering your expertise and knowledge to help them spend a little more money with you?  I am not talking about some robotic: “Will that be everything today?” statement.

Let me give you an example of what I mean:

I stopped in to my local book store yesterday and picked up a business magazine that I like.  This store does a great job of capturing my information when I check out, but does a lousy job of doing anything with it. I have never received an email targeting me with a selection of products based on my previous purchases.  At the cash register, they can see that I have bought the same magazine six months in a row but yet no one has thought to ask if would I like a standing sales order.  I finally had to ask for it (a standing sales order) one month when I was a little late in getting in and all the older copies were gone.

Forget the fact all my information (including phone number) is in their sales database; no one has ever recommended a book to me.  They don’t need to even look at my sales history they could just make suggestions based on what is sitting on the counter ready to be rung up.  “I noticed you are buying a book by Seth Godin, have you read his latest book, it just came in and it is getting great reviews.” Not difficult to do, but it is effective.

I hear that online retailers like Amazon are hurting sales at the book retailers, but if your average retailer would follow some of the things good on-line retailers do they would be doing much better:

1. Amazon makes recommendations of other products I might also like. The goal is to get me to buy more products now.
2. Amazon tells me what other customers like me are doing.  Amazon peer reviews and purchase habits to let me know what other people are doing.  Peer purchase for some consumers can be more powerful that staff recommendations.
3. Amazon understands  average transaction size do you? Understand the metrics.   It is important you know how much the average customer spends per visit and then work on increasing it.
4. You have an advantage over on-line because I am right there. You have the opportunity to ask me questions and determine the reasons I am buying.  With that information, you can customize your recommendations to me and my position.  Up-selling and cross selling is effective when you understand what problem the customer is trying to solve. Don’t try and sell me an unrelated item at the checkout like a local drug store here in Kelowna does.  No I don’t need skin cream when I am buying a portable hard drive but I might have purchased a protective travel cover.  Make it relevant and make it personal.

Increase Sales Now

Every business can learn to increase sales by developing up-sell and cross sell opportunities. Business owners could raise their sales levels without attracting new clients by concentrating effort on getting each customer to spend a little more on every purchase and get them to come back more often.  When was the last time your hairstylist called you to set up your next appointment or your mechanic called to say you are overdue for an oil change?   Smart sales people understand how to maximize opportunities.

If you want to generate more sales opportunities from your client base but don’t know where to start, give us a call. We can help you generate additional revenue for your business.

5 Common Google Adwords Mistakes

1. The most common mistake that companies big and small make is directing your Google advertisement back to the home page of your website.  When I am searching for “bathroom renovations,” send me directly to the bathroom renovations page on your website.  Sending me to your home page says that you think I have the time and patience to search your website for the information I want.  To be honest, I don’t. And I am not alone. If I don’t see the relevant information right away I am gone — back to Google to see where else I can find the information (most likely your competition).
2. It’s a mistake to accept all the suggested words that the Google Adwords Keyword Generator spits out.  You want to avoid just taking the whole list, which will have a lot of generic and irrelevant terms.  If you are an accountant, paying for generic terms such as “accounting” might generate traffic but often it might attract people looking for accounting software or an accounting course in night school. You don’t want those people clicking on your site. Irrelevant, generic Adwords traffic is an expensive marketing lesson.
3. It is a mistake to not use negative keywords in your Adwords campaign.  Google Adwords allows you to set negative keywords to avoid unwanted impressions and clicks.  If I am a window manufacturer I might want to use “software,” “XP” or “operating system” as negative keywords.  This filters them out because I don’t want people looking for windows software to see my Adwords.
4. It is a mistake not to localize your Google Adwords campaign.  Don’t be like the kids dentist in Vancouver whose ad showed up when I searched for a kids dentist in my local market.  Google Adwords allows you to set up specific ads to only show to searchers within a specified area around your zip or postal code.  Google Adwords uses the searcher’s IP address to determine where the search is.  This works best for more generic terms.
5. It is a mistake to fail to test your adwords.  Unlike traditional marketing venues like newspapers, magazines and radio, Google Adwords allows you to track and monitor your Google Adwords campaigns.  I can A/B test different ads to ultimately get the Google Adwords advertisement that best converts traffic.  Google Adwords allows me to track every aspect of my campaign so over time to constantly make small adjustments to fine tune my campaigns.

Google Adwords can be a very effective marketing tool for your business but it does take time and attention to set it up correctly.

Want To Learn More?

If you are interested in learning more about Google Adwords you might consider viewing our free on-line course on “Using Google Adwords to Generate Clients.”  Looking for more sales and marketing tips to grow your business?  Visit our webinar page for the topics we cover this month.

iPad As A Sales Aid

When selling professional services, your prospect meetings are usually one-on-one. Pulling out your laptop and running a powerpoint presentation would not be appropriate in this more intimate sales setting. It seems clunky and, in fact, it might downright alienate your prospect and change the flow of the meeting. I believe that using an iPad (or other tablet computer) is the future of sales, for service providers especially.

Six Reasons How The iPad Can Help You Sell

Here are my six reasons how I think the iPad can enhance your sales calls:

1. Easy to introduce into the sales process.  With features like “instant on” you can immediately share the desired sales aid to your prospect.  No more having to wait for your laptop to start up and go through its host of system checks while you awkwardly wait for everything to come up.
2. Give your presentation structure.  To this day I am amazed by the number of people who “wing it” when it comes to their sales presentations.  If you ever want to be effective at sales, you need to have structure and flow to your sales presentations.  The iPad allows you to set up a presentation with visual aids and even design it so your presentation has logical structure and linear flow.
3. Handle their objections.  With a bit of preparation, you can stock your iPad full of objection handling tools.  Show your prospect video from customers in a similar industry who had the same problem and how you helped them fix it.  It is much more powerful when someone else says you solved their problem then when you say it. iPad allows you to have these things handy and immediately available.
4. Show them your work.  Immediately use the iPad to show prospects your portfolio of work.  Use the power of “before and after pictures” to allow prospects to see what your company can do.
5. Customize it for them. With your iPad set up correctly you can have access to all your resources to customize your presentation for that specific customer.  Selling to a manufacturer? Then show them examples and testimonials from satisfied customers in their specific industry.  Remember, every business owner thinks that their industry is different than other industries, so show them a presentation they can relate to.
6. Explain the complex.  Prospects will only buy what they understand. If they are a little unsure of what they are buying, the sales process will stall or stretch on longer than it should. Use the iPad to provide visual aids to explain exactly how your process works and what they will have at the end. Visual aids on the iPad are a great way to explain or demonstrate things that could be complex to the layman.

Setting up your iPad to become the ultimate sales tool takes a little work but you will find that the effort is well worth it as you start closing prospects in fewer meetings with greater confidence.

A lack of sales confidence effects the:

• amount of money you make.
• the price you sell your services for.
• the length of time it takes you to close a sale.

Lack of Sales Confidence

Take for example Jennifer who helps small business owners to tame the paperwork monster.  She helps her clients get out from under the mess they have created and develops a system for moving forward.

Every time Jennifer quotes a client for her services she agonizes over the pricing.  She is worried that the price might be too much for the client or worse yet she might not be worth the price she is charging.  Based on my work with her I would estimate she has been undercharging by about 25% or more.  She called me one day because she had a meeting with a client and was worried about the price.  It was the largest quote she had ever done and she was scared that the client would balk at the price.  She called me to asked about tips to help when the customer said no.  She was already working out how much she could discount the quote to get the job.

Advice To Build Sales Confidence

My advice to her was very simple, walk the customer through the quote and pointing  out the value and when you get to the end tell them the price and then shut up.  Stop talking and watch the customer.  If the customer appears to be shocked by the price or indicates in some way that it is too expensive you can then start to ask questions to find out what the objections are so you can deal with them.

I also told her that she could not just lower her price on a job.  If the customer indicated it was over their budget Jennifer should start to remove items that the customer doesn’t value or need to lower the price.  Don’t devalue your services by discounting just to get work.

The last piece of advice I gave her was to read her file of client testimonials that she had collected before she went on a sales call.  She needed to remember that her clients loved her work and so many of them gushed about what a huge impact she had made both on their business and their lives.

Since she has started to get more sales confidence she has closed more deals, at a higher rate in less time.  Each time she goes to a sales call she presents with more sales confidence and with every deal she gets her sales confidence has grown.  We have made of changes to her presentation, her quote and her sales skills but the biggest lift has been from her increased sales confidence.

It is important to remember that you have have to have confidence that you are worth the amount you charge.  If you don’t believe that wholeheartedly no one will. Need some help with your sales confidence? Give us a call to find out how we can help boast your sales confidence.

I asked if she had gone next door to introduce herself to the new neighbors.  She looked at me with surprise that I would suggest such a thing (I get that a lot) and she announced she was not ready for such a meeting.

Not ready?

As I sat there processing this information, she quickly added that she wanted the meeting to be perfect and so she need more time to prepare for it.

This is something I see quite often in clients: “the need to be perfect”.

“Until my webinar is perfect I don’t want to schedule it.”
“Until my script is just right I don’t want to try it out.”

On and on it goes.  I understand the hesitation to share something until you’ve got it exactly perfect.  I often look at other consultants’ work and think, “why would they sell something that is less then perfect?” I get to feeling all smug and superior about my own work until I realize: they have it out there and are selling it while I am tweaking and fiddling still with my product that no one has seen.  Now who is the smart one?

“Perfect” is the enemy of good and you are far better off being good then waiting to get to perfect.  So I made my client get up and go next door with me and introduce herself to the new neighbors. While we were introducing ourselves to the receptionist the president of the company came out and introduced himself and invited us into his office for coffee.  A quick and simple “hi I am your new neighbor” turned into a half hour unrushed meeting with the president.

I am a big believer in being prepared, but I also believe that when opportunity presents itself you need to seize it.  Don’t let the quest for perfection get in your way of being good.

The commercial itself is funny and of course Ford is not to happy about the ad.  Their corporate council sent a letter to General Motors stating, “I write to demand that you refrain from running this commercial, immediately cease and desist from making any unsubstantiated and disparaging claims regarding Ford’s pickup trucks.”

As for GM; their response, “We can wait until the world ends, and if we need to, we will apologize.” So the next time you are working on your marketing and sales materials maybe it is time to add a little personality into them.

Love the fact that only the Chevy trucks and Twinkies will survive the end of the world.  I would imagine General Motors should be expect a letter from Hostess any day now.