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Do Your Homework, Listen, and Don’t Buy It Back!

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A curious thing happens during the first two months of a new year.

Whatever the cause, for the first few weeks of the new year, I find myself restating boundaries because a subtle sort of bad behavior starts showing up. Let me explain what I see at this time every year that I’d like to see less often …

  1. my string of “talk at me,” inappropriate email pitches increases.
  2. more strangers act as if I work for them — as if it’s my job to review their book, their blog, their strategy for free — and they act out “feelings” if I mention that my time is committed to projects and my family.
  3. more people try “clever” tactics to get me to buy in — Do they really think the subject line “Following Up … ” will earn them points when I find that they’ve simply tricked me into opening their email?
  4. more people waste time trying to convert me long after I’ve made it clear that I declined their offer.

    5. And saddest of all

  5. more people who have my attention keep on pitching and selling even after I’ve said a definitive YES!

Maybe it’s a rebound response to all of that holiday generosity. It could be simply that we’ve depleted our resources contributing to the celebrations and now as bills come in, we’re tired, feeling poor, and “peopled-out.” Or perhaps it’s just a new resolve to “hit the new running” that gets people starting off on the wrong foot.

Do Your Homework, Listen, and Don’t Buy It Back!

All five groups don’t believe in what they’re “selling.” So they use words to override the objections they’re expecting. And to keep safe from the possibility of rejection, they make sure to keep pushing the offer.

Here are three things to keep in mind when you’re about to make an offer.

  1. Do your homework. They say it’s a game of numbers and that you have to work hard. Yet, the successful people would rather spend their time identifying 5 people who have a high probability of wanting the offer than blanketing 5000 in hopes of capturing a few more. They like the confidence of knowing as they go in what the person is about and why that person might want what they’re offering. Those successful people also know that it takes time and is often embarrassing to set things straight when someone hasn’t done their homework — if the offer is a business success program and I just sold my last business for billions, more talking isn’t going to change that situation.
  2. Shut Up and Listen Successful people understand relationship can only strengthen the transaction. Saying hello and establishing a conversation lets people know you have confidence in them and in what you’re saying. Pushing through to the pitch before you’ve made that personal connection allows the person you’re talking to (or at) the latitude to also not consider you a person. More words, longer emails, sent to the wrong person won’t get anyone the right connection. Clever tactics that get attention soon backfire — people don’t “buy in” to ideas from someone who tricked them. Talk some. Ask questions. Then listen. You may hear some reasons your offer is a great match for your audience. If you’re using email, try an email or two to get to know the people you’ll be making offers to in the future.
  3. Don’t buy it back! When someone says, they want what you’re offering. Stop talking. Start listening. Let the person tell you why they’re buying. Don’t continue explaining how great the offer is — even if you didn’t get to your favorite benefits. Start making it easy to get the offer going. If you keep talking, you’re likely to “buy it back” by talking so much that person decides that you love the offer more than getting it going.

Luckily by spring, these behaviors settle some, though they never fully fade away. So be aware of them. We all could do with a little more homework and planning. We all could be a little better at listening instead of talking. We never want to be buying back what we’ve already successfully sold.

What behaviors would you like to less often?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

10 Super Articles that Make Getting New Customers a Whole Lot Easier!

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Advice from 10 of the Best

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Last week, I wrote about

How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves (on You).

For today, I’ve gathered 10 super articles on attracting new clients or customers. I’ve read them all and added a summary to each link so that you can target the ones you’ll find most helpful. So here’s the list.

  1. Why Do People Really Buy? by Mike Sigers at Simplenomics A coaching session about how to understand your business’s sales story from one of the best sales and marketing guys on the Internet.
  2. #5.19: The “Steal From The Best” Issue by Andy Sernovitz for Damn, I Wish I Thought of That! Advice on how to learn from the research and development already done by the big guys.
  3. Features And Benefits And Sales, Oh My! By Diane Helbig for Ezine Articles “Stop talking. Stop thinking. And please, stop selling. Your prospect doesn’t want to listen to you ramble on about things they don’t care about. . . .
    Ask a few questions, listen, and then address only what you hear. Let’s explore this process.” [via The Top 10 Sales Articles ]
  4. Romance Your Customers By Making The Easy Sale First by Evan Carmichael An explanation of the most basic step of permission marketing.
  5. Put Passion into Your Sales by Niche Marketing by Brad Shorr for Word Sell Inc. How to sell more naturally by limiting your market.
  6. Don’t Overlook The Easy Sales from business know how Shows how to tap into the relationships you have to get help with your quest to find new customers who love what you do
  7. Easy Sales: The Trend for Small Business by Jack Yoest at Small Business Trends Here are the questions to ask so that you don’t find yourself investing too much time and too much of yourself in a deal you can’t close.
  8. The Art of Prospecting For Customers by Biz Info Library for SalesMotivation.net How to warm up cold calls.
  9. The Role of Leadership in Selling by Daniel Sitter How to show clients that your motive is provide a solution to their problem.
  10. How to Seize the Phone Even If You Fear Cold Calling by Tammy Stanley for Salesopedia The psychology of getting energized to make cold calls. “You would be hard pressed to find a sales professional who isn’t familiar with those trouble thoughts that talk him out of making calls now and convince him to wait for a better time to make sales calls or cold calls.” [via The Top 10 Sales Articles ]
  11. BONUS! Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques by Brian Clark for Copyblogger To use Brian’s own words, “Persuasion is generally an exercise in creating a win-win situation. You present a case that others find beneficial to agree with. You make them an offer they can’t refuse, but not in the manipulative Godfather sense.”

Selling, like any other new skill, takes practice to become natural. So don’t quit. A friend and her husband made a game of who would get rejected most.

People do say “yes.” If you follow the advice of the experts, folks will say “yes” even faster and more often.

What’s your reason for not telling “your audience” of potential customers about what you have to offer?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves

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SIMPLE SALES SERIES

Customers Get to Pick

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It’s a rule of childhood. Every kid seems to know it. I get to pick my favorite. You don’t. Some folks, as grownups, forget that simple truth. — they make us feel like we should let them pick for us.

That’s called the hard sell.

Ever been told, ‘You HAVE TO see this new product. You WILL LOVE our new service!” ?

What’s your response, right now, reading that? Mine is “You don’t know that! In fact, now I’m predisposed to like it just a little less.”

We’re hype adverse. Put that together with these natural human responses.

  • No one likes to be told what to think.
  • No one likes to lose the right to pick their favorite.
  • No one likes someone else to decide what they need.

We know other folks don’t get to pick — so when they talk as if they do, we back off. If you’ve met a sales rep who brings out these responses in you, it’s no wonder if you are having mixed feelings about taking on a sales role for what you do.

How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves

The question then is: How do we communicate an offer — a product or service — that we’re thrilled about and we’ve done all of the work to know folks will like it too, if only they’ll try it out?

Here’s what to do. You can do this in text or in person. (In text, point 2 looks a lot like an FAQ.)

  1. Offer a taste — a movie trailer. Make it a little one — spoon sized like at Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors. It might be one example of what you do, a case study, a blog post that you keep for sending to clients, a free weekly seminar, a phone call with you. Whatever you choose. Keep it concise and tightly focused on only one idea. It’s only one scene from your movie — overcome a tendency we have to give the plot away. (Often having the taste as an option makes people feel secure enough to buy without it.)
  2. Make everything about THEM. Ask questions and listen. Hardly say anythng. Be a verifier. Repeat back what you heard, “I heard you say you’re looking for . . .” Ask questions in that way until you’ve helped them draw a complete picture of your product or service. “I also hear you want . . . and a . . . If I put that together I get a . . . with the features of . . . . Does that sound like the ideal that you wish someone would offer someday?”
  3. Listen to see how his or her needs line them up with your offer. When you see that, you’ll have the confidence to say so. “We actually do that! Would you like me to tell you about it?” (Don’t worry if the needs and your offer don’t line up, just say so and don’t try to make things work.)
  4. Talk to the customer/client unemotionally about what you have to offer. You’ll know that you’re going somewhere when the person you’re talking to starts selling you on why it’s a good match. That’s when it’s time to start listening again.

Letting the customer pick is the same as when we were kids. We know what we need and why. We’ll even justify for you why it works for us, in essence selling ourselves on why we should buy.

What do you need to give this a try?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to work with you on these three easy steps, you’ll find her number on the
Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Call her now!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.