I was right with you the first several times I tried to “network” at a meeting or social situation. I either didn’t say anything about my business…big mistake. Or I felt like a traveling salesman. There is a BETTER way. Let me give you a few simple steps.

JOIN ORGANIZATIONS YOU LOVE

First, get a real feel for the organizations you attend. It might be Toastmasters, if you love to talk. It could be your professional organization (no leads there, you’re all in the same business). It could be a round table, networking club or business organization.

I’ve gone as a guest or non-member to several different organizations. Each of these has a different feel in each city. I’ve gone to Toastmasters – Love! I’ve gone to the Chamber of Commerce – Fun but VERY expensive membership, I’ve gone to leads clubs – didn’t feel like I fit in and I’ve gone to Women Business Organizations – Love!

Find the organization that fits you AND that has a large enough membership to provide plenty of leads.

ONCE THERE ENJOY & BE PROFESSIONAL

These organizations are social and business building. Remember YOU are a walking advertisement for your business. I don’t mean to be trite but be sure you are dressed well and are well groomed. You will be meeting other business people. So, don’t go in too casually. Research shows that people make a subconscious judgment about you based on your appearance within the first 3-5 seconds of meeting you! Others will decide if you will be trusted, included and even do business with in a matter of seconds. So, even though I think most of you know this, it’s important not to skip over this.

SIMPLE NETWORKING SUCCESS TOOLS – WHAT TO SAY ONCE YOU ATTEND A BUSINESS MEETING

ALWAYS have business cards with you. Just be sure your cards are professional looking and not “too out there”. YOU want to INCLUDE more clients/customers not exclude them.

Here’s a template of your networking conversations:

1. Make a GAME out of attending. Have FUN with this. You’ll be much more at ease with practice. EVERYONE is nervous when they first attend these meetings. Your GOAL is to have a minimum of 10 business cards from other people by the end of the event.

2. Greet the other person & ask what business they’re in. Yes, you can add the social chit chat of “I’m looking forward to the speaker, or this is a great venue.” Remember though that networking is part of the reason you are there.

3. Ask an interesting question like: Who are your favorite clients to work with? What is your biggest challenge in your business? What do you LOVE about your business? Do your employees know that you appreciate them?

4. Make a mental note of what they say and ask for their business card.

5. They will usually ask about your business. However, don’t be surprised if they don’t. Many people are more interested in what they have to say then in what you have to say. If they ask about you, then you can proceed to the next step. If they don’t ask, then simply say: “Would you like my card?” Or “Here, let me give you my card.”

6. Now is the time to say your 10 second introduction or “elevator speech”. (You can read about creating your speech in the article on 10 Second First Impression).

7. Offer an idea of how you can help solve a problem for them based on the questions you asked originally. Ask them to keep you in mind for the services or products you provide.

8. Unless you have a great connection with this person, you are complete with this conversation. Shake their hand, let them know how much you enjoyed meeting them and keep moving.

9. When you have a moment at the meeting, take each business card & write down 1-2 key words or phrases that remind you of the person & conversation. Write this on the BACK of their business card.

10. Within 24 hours, write a brief postcard or note to EACH person you met. Be sure the card includes your business information. This will reinforce the individual contact. If you happen to have a card with your photo it will help others to remember you.

11. When you write keep it simple. Write something like: I enjoyed meeting you at XYZ meeting. I enjoyed hearing what you love about your business. I’ll keep you in mind as a referral when I discover others who need your services. Please also keep me in mind when you need ______. Wishing you prosperity! Iris Fanning

12. NOW you have an additional 10 names to add to your marketing campaign. Keep ALL these cards on file. You have their name, address, phone and usually email. You also have their tacit permission to contact them.

13. Remember, you need to continue to market and invite these professionals to try your services.

Small business networking is absolutely critical to your business success. As a computer consultant you are in the professional services business. This industry is all about relationships and relationships are built through networking.

You will need to make small business networking your priority for the first few months of operations. This is a process that can't be rushed. You're not going to go to your first network event and get six clients who all need network upgrades next week. But if you do participate in a small business networking event there’s a good chance that you will come away five or six quality contacts.

Networking For Contacts

Aside from the potential client contacts you make, the beauty of small business networking is that the accountant you struck up a conversation with just happens to have a neighbor who's brother is looking to network his company's regional office. Or the dentist you were talking to has a similar business philosophy and would probably be a great client to do business with. These contacts are priceless

Once you make the contact you then have to spend time following up with meetings, proposals and sales calls. But this time is much better spent than chasing down one-shot clients. Though small business networking you make in-roads with people who are, or who can put you in touch with, the steady clients that will support your business long-term.

Don't expect to walk out of every event with a handful of paying clients. Do expect, however, to generate a bunch of quality leads and referral sources. These referrals and leads are the crux of small business networking.

You need to have a bunch of different leads in your funnel and a lot of different contacts in your funnel at any given time. Some of these will be hotter at different stages and will be ready to move into paying client status at different stages and different dates. Small business networking keeps you in contact with these people throughout their buying phases.

The Bottom Line on Small Business Networking

Client contact and client referrals are what will lead you to long-term, steady clients - The kind of clients that will make your business a success. Getting out and attending small business networking events may appear to be unproductive socializing but the contacts you make will generate an enormous return on your invested time. Start your small business network today - you never know where it will take you.

Far too many of us waste good opportunities when we fail to network effectively because we employ tired techniques at trade shows. The following bullet points should increase your effectiveness and boost your sales at your next trade show:

Attending Only:

Arrive early for the breakfast event, join a nearly full table, and share your business card and brochure with everyone seated at your table.

Listen, learn and begin building these new relationships. Remember, showing interest in others is a good habit to get into.

Be sure to get business cards so you can add them to your distribution lists and then follow-up later to continue the art of relationship building. Remember, in addition to potential clients, building relationships results in referrals and word-of-mouth brand and business development.

Do the same for the luncheon and/or evening hors d’oeuvres.

Visit every booth and learn—what are the products and services offered, how do they market those products and services, what are their challenges, how successful is their booth at this show and at others, etc. Gaining knowledge is gaining power and this kind of power can be worth thousands in future receipts.

Be sure to get business cards from every business that fits your target market. And, of course, leave your business card and brochure in the hands of the person staffing the booth.

Use what you learn and your list of new contacts to grow your business.

Networking is not about selling; it is about building relationships. Building good relationships leads to win/win situations.

Exhibiting:

Create a booth display that puts your best foot forward. The impression your booth leaves with attendees and other exhibitors represents your brand, your products and your services.

Everything about your presence should say quality, service, credibility, honesty and trustworthiness.

Pre-market—get a list of the pre-registrants and the exhibitors and send out invitations to each person on the list, inviting them to visit your booth. Using a hook—a freebie or a raffle, for example—can increase attendance at your booths.

Send out invitations to attend the trade show and to visit your booth to everyone on your private distribution/contact lists. By doing so, you build attendance for the show, you assist others by alerting them to the show, and you increase attendance at our booth.

Gather business cards in a fish bowl or basket for a raffle,. By placing notice that those entering the raffle give you approval to add them to your distribution lists, you build new opportunities for new relationships and for business growth.

Follow up with every contact made at the trade show. Setting a coffee or a lunch date is a great way to get to know others better and to discover ways you can help each other.

Always add your new contacts to your distribution lists and your newsletter list.No matter how great our booth and our collaterals are or how much money we spend to look first-class, the key is to place relationship building above all other goals and objectives. When we approach others with the idea of learning more about them and wanting to build a relationship with them based on trust and honesty rather than sales, not only do we grow our businesses but, more importantly, we and our brands build a reputation based on values instead of products and services. And I believe that savvy business people ultimately buy first from those with similar values and those they trust.

Many marketing and account executives who sell advertising will ask the question do you want to increase your brand awareness or do you want direct response from the potential customer to come and buy from you tomorrow. Many of these account executives and advertising salespeople separate the two different goals.

Yet if you are in business you know you need the most efficient marketing message to send out to your target market and potential customers to get them in the door, but at the same time you need to build brand awareness and you were very much aware about to.

Why should you the business owner and customer of the advertising have to choose between brand-name awareness and getting people to buy your products and services as soon as possible? The fact is you should not have to choose; you should be able to get both.

If your account executive or advertising consultants cannot achieve this for you perhaps you need to switch to a new plan, new team or a different marketing mix. In other words fire them and kick them out the door if they cannot achieve value for you in both brand awareness and immediate response.

Having a bad marketing strategy or business image is a lot like a piece of spinach wedged in your teeth, a bad-comb over or leaving your fly open – everyone sees it, it looks bad, but no one will tell you to your face. It’s tough to know when you look good and when you need a little help. Your business image is no different. So how can you tell when you might need marketing and design help? Just as seeing a piece of spinach in your teeth in the mirror, the answer is often found through self-analysis. Looking at your competition, your prospects and your image are a great place to start. You owe it to yourself and your success to take some time to reflect on where you are, where you want to go and how you might get there.

So do you need marketing and design help? Let’s find out…

Price War:
Does it always feel like you have to compete on price? That’s tough, isn’t it? If this is the case for you, you’re not alone, I’ve found this to be a major challenge for most companies – those companies almost always desperately need marketing and design help. Here’s what happens: when customers aren’t educated on the value and benefits that they want from a professional in your industry they have difficulty evaluating which person is the best. So they evaluate professionals on something that can measure – price. You see, marketing’s first objective is to identify the value and benefit your customers want, then it should convey that value and benefit in a way that compels customers to respond and react. If there’s no perceived difference among you and your competition, customers will just rely on price when shopping.

Do you fully understand your customers’ needs and wants?
Do you know how to convey the value they want in a way that’s compelling to them?

If you answered “no”, you’re losing out on loads of customers and you need marketing and design help.

Find Out How You Stack Up:
Gather some of your competition’s collateral materials (logo, business card, advertisements, brochure, web site, etc). Ask yourself, “How does my business stack up with the rest of the field?” “Do you look like an expert compared to the rest of your competition?” Here’s what you need to understand: whether we recognize it or not, our collateral materials directly and immediately convey to prospects an image of expertise and quality. By visiting your web site, seeing an ad, or receiving a business card, your prospect is already evaluating whether or not you care about quality and whether or notnyou’re an expert in your field. If your prospects don’t perceive that you are an expert and care about quality, you’ve already got two strikes against you.

How do prospects perceive your commitment to quality and expertise compared to the rest of your industry? How is that affecting your sales? If you don’t look like an expert, and that’s something that’s important to you, you might want to look into marketing and design help.

To really find out where you stand, ask your prospects what they think about your marketing materials (make sure you recruit people that will give you a straight answer).

Take a Self Confidence Evaluation:
Have you ever told someone that your business image (cards, logo, web site, etc…) was temporary and that you we’re going to get it “fixed” later? Do you feel sheepish or apprehensive when showing or directing a prospect to some of your company’s marketing material? Do you avoid networking situations because your marketing and image don’t really show how good your business really is? Could you do a better job in promoting your company if your image was unique and eye-catching? Would you feel better about your business if you had a professional image?

If you’ve answered “yes”, you’ll want to contact a marketing and design expert. Not only do you need help, you probably want help as well.

Are You Insane?
Small business owners are a great bunch of people; most are positive, hopeful and optimistic. These are all terrific characteristics to have; they all want their business to grow, they hope to bring in more sales and they are optimistic about getting more customers, but few of them have a plan to achieve it.

I’ll ask prospects, “Do you plan on growing your business more this year than last?” The answer is always a resounding, “Yes!” This of course is a great answer. I then follow this question up with a slightly harder one, “What do you plan on doing this year that’s going to make that happen?” This is when I get the deer in the headlights look, “I don’t know”. Business owners are optimistic and hopeful – but they don’t have a plan, and they often see investing in their marketing and design as an expense, not an investment.

Business owners want to succeed, they hope they will succeed but they have no idea how to do it. They elect not to invest in their company, their people, processes, marketing and business identity, and yet are still hopeful that they are magically going to succeed and grow their business. That’s crazy!

If you want to succeed and grow your business, that’s terrific, just make sure you have a plan and a clear strategy to back it up. Part of that strategy might include getting your accounting books in order, implementing a clear and effective marketing strategy, gathering extensive feedback from clients, hiring a business coach, competitive analysis, permission marketing or upgrading your web site, company identity or marketing materials. These aren’t expenses, they are investments.

Doing the same thing from year to year and expecting different results is crazy – well, actually it’s defined as insanity.

Are you planning on growing your business? If so, what measures are you going to undertake to do it? What are you going to do, or invest in this year to grow your company?

Do you expect to grow your company this year, or are you just hoping? Be honest with yourself. If you hope to grow your business but you’re not doing anything significant to make that happen, you probably want to look into what effective, results-driven marketing and design can do for you.

Do a Skills Assessment:
One of the most beneficial concepts I’ve learned in business is knowing what I can, and what I can’t do well. Even within the field of design there are many areas I specialize in, and some I am not as strong in. In those areas where I was not as strong, I was savvy enough to recognize I needed an expert, so I hired one. I know I can’t do it all. More than that, I know I shouldn’t do it all, and you shouldn’t either. What do you really do well, and is marketing and design one of those things? Is your business being hurt because you’re trying to do the marketing and design?

Here’s a great exercise: pretend that you had a board of directors for your business, and you were on that board rather than the current owner or manager. If you were on that board, do you think that the person(s) currently doing the marketing and design for your business are qualified to help your company succeed and grow?

Does this marketing person(s) have the time; does she/he/you have the talent?
Do any of you have any formal marketing or advertising training?
Have any of you studied marketing and advertising, and how they affect consumers?
Do you feel confident that any of you know how your customer buys, and why she buys?

You might find that you’re in a good position to do the design and marketing for your company, but if you’re like most small business owners your talents might be elsewhere. If you’re really looking to grow, succeed and achieve in business, know what you don’t do well and bring people on in those areas to advise you and guide you.

How’s the Reaction?
Just as parents see their baby with rose-colored glasses, small business owners often see their company very differently than their prospects. Have you ever seen an average looking baby only to hear the parents rave over and over how she/he should be a baby model? Your business is probably your baby, and you’ll see it differently than how the rest of the world does. How your business is perceived by prospects (not you) will have a direct affect on your sales your success – how prospects view your business can be the difference between success and failure. Learning to see your business through the eyes of your prospects is essential. If you want to know why John Q. buys, you have to see the world through John Q’s eyes.

How might others see your business? Ask yourself these questions:
Do prospects often compliment your business image and marketing materials?
How do you think prospects would rate your business image and marketing materials: Outstanding / Good / Average / Below Average / Dismal.
Do you think prospect’s can see a clear and definite reason to do business with you over anyone else in the industry? Are you the clear choice?
Do you have a clear, unique marketing strategy (clear and effective process of attracting new customers)?
In your marketing and advertising, are you saying the same things as everyone else in your industry?
Do you think you stand out from the rest of the crowd (in a positive light)? If not, how do you think that affects your sales?

Be honest with yourself, do your answers suggest that your prospects see you as a clear expert, the clear choice to do business with, or just one of the crowd? Now of course you see a huge difference between you and the competition, but that’s not important – do your prospects see a difference? Based on your answers, do you think you might need marketing and design assistance, or are you in good shape?

Are You Keeping Up with the Joneses?
You might be in an industry that is shielded from new entrants and stiffer competition, but for the rest of us, it gets more challenging. Challenging is okay, in fact it’s good, but you have to have to meet the challenge with new ideas, more effective marketing and perhaps a better strategy. Are you keeping up with the rest of the industry, and how might that effect your sales? If you’re finding it hard to compete, there’s a strong possibility you need to infuse fresh marketing and design into your business. Ask yourself these questions:

Is your company growing at the same rate as the industry and your competition?
Do you see others in your industry that aren’t as good and talented doing better than you?
Is there more or less competition in the industry?
Is the competition getting easier or tougher to deal with?
Are you proactively competing with others in your field, or just hoping the competition won’t raise the bar on you?

The first step in getting help is recognizing you need it. Hopefully this article has given you some answers and some insight: either you should seriously look into getting marketing and design assistance, or you feel better about how you stack up against the rest of the field. Whether its marketing and design, or processes and procedures, you should always be looking at what’s working and how you can make it work better. How can you improve your business today?

When looking at a web site, business card, brochure, or logo, have you ever thought; “I really like the way that looks”, but you didn’t know why you liked it? You probably said, “There’s just something about it”. Well, that, “something about it” is what separates mediocre designers from experienced, talented ones – the talented ones know what that something is.

Designers…good designers know there’s a reason, a science behind why some business cards, web sites or logos look better and are more effective than others. It’s not luck; it’s research and it’s knowledge. Sure, you might like a different style than the guy down the street, but as a whole, business people respond to good design when they see it.

Most business professionals have a rough idea of what good design looks like; they just don’t know why it looks good, this might describe you as well. Going though this quick article will give you a better understanding why some marketing materials just look better than others; it will help avoid some common design gaffes that inexperienced artists or “owners turned designers” typically make. Armed with this new knowledge, you’ll have a greater understanding of how good or not so good your marketing materials are, and you can make some appropriate improvements.

Typography:
No, this isn’t the one that has to do with maps. Typography is concerned with the style, arrangement, or appearance of typeset matter. In normal language, it’s referring to the way letters, words, sentences and paragraphs interrelate to each other and with the overall layout of a design. Have you ever thought, “This brochure is hard to read”, “Why are there so many odd gaps between letters?”, or “Why is there so much space between the lines?” – that’s typography. Interestingly enough, typography is rarely if ever noticed unless it’s handled badly. If you’ve hired an expert designer, you’ll never really notice the typography at all, you’ll just say, “Wow, that looks good!”

Fonts, Fonts Everywhere:
Staying along the typography theme, there are hundreds of font styles to choose from today, just as there are hundreds of types of candy, but that doesn’t mean you should jam them all into your design, or your mouth! I guess the thought is, if one font is good, than 2 should be better – you know the rest: this is dangerous logic. Including a kaleidoscope of different fonts, colors and sizes is something you want to avoid. Designers affectionately refer to layouts like this as “clown barf”. Avoid fonts being the focus of your design; fonts typically work best in a support role, rather than the main focus. A good rule of thumb is to keep the number of fonts you use to under 3 (preferably under 2).

Keep in mind that the fonts you choose should support your content and your message rather than take away from it. Lastly, make sure you test your fonts on your target audience ahead of time to make sure the font(s) you chose are easy to read.

Clip Art:
Ahhh, nothing in modern design and desktop publishing has been so helpful, yet so hurtful as clip art. Clip art’s a lot like dynamite; it’s a good thing in the hands of an expert, and if you’re not, you might consider leaving it alone. When used (usually) in a subordinate role in the overall design, clip art can work well. A couple of quick final thoughts on clip art: if your intended message and image are professionalism and credibility, I implore you, no, I beg you, please steer clear of hokey, cartoon clip art. Between cheesy clip art and no clip art – take no clip art. You can have an effective, interesting layout with no graphics at all. With clip art - use where appropriate, use sparingly and use with caution.

Hey, Look What This Button Does!
If you’ve got a newer computer of any kind it probably came with some desktop publishing or graphics software. Invariably, you’re going to start playing with all of the different effects (in Photoshop many are called filters) you can apply to text, pictures and graphics. You know: beveling, embossing, making objects glow, adding a drop shadow, all sorts of goofy things. All of these effects are great, but much like clip art, you want to use them sparingly and when appropriate. To get the most out of these effects here’s something you always want to keep in mind: effects are great for adding a little spice to your layout, just a pinch. You can give your audience a slightly different look to a picture or section by applying an effect – just something a little different. When you catch yourself adding effects just because you think they look cool, stop, count to ten and slowly pull your hand away from the mouse button.
Hopefully, this article will help you avoid some easy-to-spot design gaffes. You might even be able to spot them in your competition’s advertisements and promotional materials.

When it comes to your business, choosing who does your design is a big decision; whether it’s you, the guy at Kinko’s, or a professional. Remember, it’s your reputation and your company’s image, so be careful. If you don’t have artwork that you’re proud to put your company’s name and reputation on, don’t put your name on it and don’t send it out. There is a direct correlation between the quality of the design/layout and the perceived quality of the company that it’s representing. One shouldn’t have any effect on the other, but they do, that’s just the way humans are. I make that correlation, you do, and I promise you that your customers do as well. So it’s critical to understand that your business card, your web site and your other marketing materials all make an immediate statement to the world about your commitment to quality. What does your marketing and design say about your level of quality?

I help small businesses build more confidence and credibility into their business brand. Through marketing and design initiatives; I help you feel better about your company. Making you feel good about your business gives you more confidence and less anxiety when you are networking, promoting or selling your business. If your business needs the reliability and talent of an in-house marketing and design department but doesn’t want additional employees, salaries and benefits, give me a call at 480.391.0704 - I have a new approach for you.

I was reading my auto club magazine a few minutes ago and I happened upon an article that really should be of news to no one.

Auto manufacturers are engaging in “platform sharing,” it says. This is when the same basic skeleton of a Ford Explorer can be found in its sister model, the Mercury Mountaineer.

It goes on to say that the Volkswagen Toureg and Porsche Cayenne share some components, and you can save $9,000 by purchasing the former.

Baloney!

The actual cost of driving consists of several factors, not the least of which is DEPRECIATION. Models differ dramatically in what they fetch as used cars two, three, four and more years down the line.

Right now, for example, I understand Toureg is losing value at a fast clip, while Cayenne is maintaining it. For this reason, leasing a Porsche may be as cheap, or even cheaper than leasing the VW.

That article goes on to concede that the Cayenne has at least a few differences, including leather upholstery, a “somewhat different engine” and a “unique all-wheel drive system.”

Guess what? That little perk, the driving system, may have saved my life last year as lesser cars were careening off the icy Interstate 80 at Donner Pass. My Cayenne struggled, but it corrected my scary drift in plenty of time to enable me to stay on track.

Oh, there was a box that suddenly fell from a truck in front of me on the Santa Monica Freeway. I was able to steer around it, at 65 miles per hour, the while staying in my lane.

With a lesser car, I, along with my two passengers, would have been rolled over ground beef.

This year, Porsche earned top honors for quality in a JD Power survey. Undoubtedly, that distinction, along with better repair histories, will also buoy the used-car values of its models.

Among all the significant areas in graphic design, logo design is considered to be the most crucial, thus making it one of the most challenging jobs to attain perfection. A good logo is unique, functional, follows basic design principles and represents the brand or company. One should always endeavor to get a good logo design that is simple, effective and unlittered. After all a logo is designed with some goal and targeting specific section of the audience. An effective logo should always create an impact on its targeted audience and be able to deliver the intended message instantaneously. A logo that usually does all the talking for a business is considered as an identity representing a company or its products.

An abbreviation of the word logogram, a logo generally is a phrase, word, or an idea. In today’s fast-paced world, the logo serves as a symbol; a representation for your business and it helps you get noticed. It is considered as the visual presentation of words, symbols, colors, and shapes. It is very much essential for a logo to have a meaning so that it remains in the subconscious mind of the people and gives a message about the company and creates its brand identity.

Whether it’s a text based logo design or a brand mark based symbol, every strong graphical illustration accord the facet of a business or a company. A logo with a slogan can also be created to substantiate a brand equity, which ultimately becomes a trademark of a company or an organization. A particular logotype is chosen depending on the approach that best fits your company.

A logo is a reflection of brand identity, used to create an unforgettable impression. It becomes ineffective if the targeted audience and the focus of the business are not defined clearly in it. In today’s Internet space, logo branding is very potent and weighs a lot because a logo can both lift and drown a business. Choosing the right logo is, therefore, important. If you start thinking about a logo right now, you can very easily recall some of the reputed logos like Nike, Microsoft, Adidas or Sony – this is because these logos have a deep impact and have successfully established brand recognition for the respective companies.

A logo represents the type of business and the product it offers. A logo can effectively communicate what a company does as well as reflect the company personality. A superior logo design gives a business the prestige and fame it deserves. If your business deals with construction, then it’s always better to have a construction-oriented logo, which will reflect your company’s identity in the market.

Although the whole logo creation process is incomparable, the right logo takes care of everything. An unparalleled logo is always defined or explained as that which people easily recognize and identifies with the company name on seeing it. Color combination used in logo creation should have some feelings or emotion that give some idea about the company and which in return create an emotional bondage.

Cost and figures for a logo design always vary dramatically from designer to designer and from one Logo-design Company to another. It’s always advisable to get your logo created by the company having loads of fine experience to their credit. There are numerous logo design firms or organizations in the web world that can create an identity for your company with a professional logo design.

“He has the gift of gab; he should be in sales!”

“People really like her; she’d make a great salesperson!”

“He’s the funniest guy I know; a natural for selling!”

Have you ever wondered how people get into the sales field?

Clearly, some are born into it. The President of the local car dealership has his son working as the sales manager of one of the divisions.

For those two, and for many others, you might say selling is in the genes.

If you’re a people-person, others notice, and they encourage you with the sorts of lines that opened this article.

But can anybody else become a good salesperson?

Must you be extroverted, outgoing, someone who doesn’t mind shaking hands and smiling into the eyes of strangers?

You can.

If I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t have written the best-selling book, “Selling Skills For The Non-Salesperson,” or “Telemarketing For Non-Telemarketers.”

But it’s not easy converting ardent non-salespeople into top achievers, especially if they say or simply believe the following statement to be true:

“I’m not a salesperson!”

To get people to try, to handle a modicum of rejection, to get some good orders under their belt, they cannot be burdened with negative core beliefs about this occupation.

If they dislike salespeople, or even feel in any way turned off by the negative stereotype of salespeople, there may be little hope for their development.

Which means there are two types that can succeed: (1) People that are positively predisposed toward selling, i.e. they think they might be good at it, though they haven’t tried, yet; and (2) People that are neutral about it; that are willing to have an open mind, accept and implement instruction, and not disable themselves with negative beliefs about the process.

If you look at one of the great backwaters of the selling profession, it has to be the insurance industry.

It hasn’t altered its recruiting and training practices for a century, and it is unlikely to do so anytime soon, because its very product is risk aversion.

Insurance, as everyone knows, is about pooling risk. Actuaries work long and hard to determine how many claims will be filed during a given period, and then they adjust rates to reflect those risks and to garner a certain profit.

When it comes to recruiting new agents, actuarial thinking also comes into play.

Knowing that a certain percentage will wash out, insurance executives do what they can to minimize the costs of these “accidents,” these “claims” against profits, if you will.

So, they shift the cost of failure to the trainees themselves by offering straight commission positions or the tiniest subsidies they can get away with offering.

For example, one company will not pay for its new Life and Health agents’ licensing training, right away.

They’ll reimburse the fees, but only after the newbie has earned $6,400 in commissions.

But the training only costs about $300- $500!

How many recruits do they discourage from ever signing on because of this stinginess? It’s hard to tell, but definitely some.

Insurance companies are notoriously weak when it comes to recruiting successful salespeople from other fields, because they believe, without substantiation, that insurance selling is unique, and that success in other fields is not transferable.

So, they won’t pay a top earner from, say, a mortgage brokerage business to move into insurance. That person will have to do exactly the same things at the same rates of pay as complete novices, a decade or more their junior.

The inbreeding in the insurance field is not an embarrassment, as it should be, but is underscored as a strength.

Companies will boast, “Every one of our executives started as a field agent!” without realizing this is an indictment, one of the primary reasons new ideas in selling and in motivation, compensation, and management find it so hard to penetrate this industry.

No wonder the biggest threats to conventional companies and their profits are coming from upstarts that are dispensing with typical agents and salespeople, opting instead for “direct” marketing models.

Have you ever wondered why certain people can withstand the bumps and bruises of life better than others?

Why are they hardier?

Is there something in their body chemistry or personalities enabling them to weather the worst of life’s storms with a smile on their faces?

If you examine the literature pertaining to what makes certain people less susceptible to the damage that can be wrought by rejection or failure, you’ll find that they have these strengths:

(1) They believe the setback is temporary, not permanent. This enables them to move on to their next achievement.

(2) They perceive setbacks as impersonal. They don’t believe that it was their fault that they didn’t succeed. They don’t take losses personally, dwelling on the idea that their personality flaws or weak skills caused their misfortunes.

(3) They see a silver lining in the darkest clouds. Able to take a gain from their losses, a lesson, or an inspiration, they move on.

(4) They don’t generalize defeats into larger, more ominous patterns. If they weren’t invited to the book club discussion group and their kid earned only a “C” on an exam, they don’t tell themselves these episodes mean they’re headed down the drain.

(5) They remember wins, and relish them, more than losses. For instance, if they speak before a group and ninety-five percent write positive evaluations, they remember them instead of dwelling on the 5% they didn’t reach.

Having noted these strengths, the key question is this: Can we develop them if they’re not a part of our makeup?

We can, by using affirmations geared to bolstering each one as a belief. We can tell ourselves:

(1) All setbacks are temporary, and they’re stepping stones to my inevitable achievement.

(2) Sometimes things just don’t work out, but it’s not my fault, because I can’t control other people, only my continuing efforts.

(3) Every setback has something to teach me or a way to inspire me. Now, what can this one offer me?

(4) This setback only pertains to itself, and in innumerable ways, I’m still successful, and I’ll be even more successful in the future.

(5) I’m going to praise the good, remembering my wins, and downplay my losses. I’ll turn stinging defeats into mild disappointments, without delay.

I was spontaneously coaching a teenager the other day who is seeking his first job.

He was calling the restaurant where he wants to become a bus boy for the summer. After submitting an application, they told him to follow-up around the middle of the month.

Right on time, he rang them up, but the general manager, with whom he chatted, has been elusive.

So, while he was phoning in again, possibly for the fourth time, I prompted him; or at least I tried.

“Say, the general manager asked me to call,” I advised.

My protégé was told the GM was on vacation.

Sensing the call was heading straight to the dumpster, I urged: “Ask when he’s expected to be back!” to no avail.

My stage directions were being ignored.

While this was happening, I was in pain, having trained thousands, make that hundreds of thousands if you include my book readers, in the skills associated with penetrating screening and conquering voice mail.

After the call, to further my credibility and get his attention, I tried to tell the teen, “I made a video on the subject,” but as the expression rightly says, “No man is a prophet in his own land.”

By that time he was already onto his next call, chatting with a pal about rollerblading.

Another quote applies to what I was feeling. It is less famous, but dead on:

“Nobody is born effective!”

We all have to be trained and we have to learn. This applies to phone work as much as to being a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker.

The teen, naturally, thinks he can impress all by himself, and I admire him for trying, and then for trying again. He has gumption, which is no small thing.

But, like most, he doesn’t know what he’s missing. There are simple, honest, and powerful techniques for coming across better and being more influential by phone.

But if you keep doing what you’ve always done you’ll only get what you always got, as they say.

For those of us who do training, and who invent new and better techniques for getting past call screeners and voice mail, it would be wise to remember that in a sense, every trainee, irrespective of age, is for practical purposes, a resistant, headstrong teenager.

They just don’t know how much more effective they can be!

If you set up a sales force in your company it behooves you to spend much time on teaching the sales men and women in your company the ins and outs and fundamentals of selling.

Additionally they need to be acutely aware of all your company’s products and services, terms and conditions, delivery and customer service. But that is not all you must stay up on the competition’s offerings too and then break this down for your sales people and train them in all aspects of all of this.

One thing our company was aware of was my passion for training and my mantra;

“Failure to Train Sales People can ruin your Company”

and by God I was not about to let such a thing ruin my company or even one single territory or franchised outlet that we opened. (Carwashguys.com is my company).

You see; Failure to train your sales force, sales staff and sales people really can ruin your company and faster than any competitor ever could. It is essential to have competently trained staff working for your team.

And when you do you will know it, as sales will post consecutive gains month after month and year after year. If you are wishing to have sales at those levels then you must train your sales staff and make sure they all can cut the mustard.

Top producers like Anthony Robbins use this technology and never say anything about it and if you are building a business or expanding an existing business then you must have and use this too. The technology breaks down into specific parts (4 in total), that when assembled create a powerful, workable selling dynamic that is irresistible to anyone.

Most sales techniques are based in some form of pressure, force or convincing. In this article, as you read on, you'll see that none of that is here. Those 3 forms of selling are backed by a lack of distinction and do nothing more than create an experience to the customer that is unpleasant. Unpleasant in such a way that they will avoid you and speak negatively about your business to everyone they encounter that is looking for your product or service (you can recover them but that will be in another article!).

So let's begin...there are 4 specific parts and here is what they are.

Specific part number one:

You must know exactly how other people will benefit or gain from your product or service (and as a side bar, you must be absolutely empowered, inspired or excited by those benefits and gains, why? because if you aren't, either is anyone else!)

Specific part number two:

People absolutely must know, exactly how they will benefit or gain from having your particular product or service. You must show them specifically how, where and for approximately how long they will benefit, in other words have them experience the impact in their life or business, past, present and future.

Specific part number three:

Ask pleasurable and painful questions that get people into the experience!

You can ask specific questions that will cause the other person to begin to experience the product or service before they even purchase it! Some of the pleasurable questions are "what would it be like to have a powerful coach (if your business is coaching) supporting your sales team in your business?" and "what would having that powerful coach make available to your business day to day?" and "what are the benefits and gains 3 years, 5 years 10 years down the road?" (be sure to introduce a time line into the sale)

Then you can begin to ask painful questions to the potential customer like: If you don't take on this product or service, what will it cost your business every day? and then what will it cost your business 5 years, 10 years down the road? what will it cost you financially? what will you miss out on? (can you see where I'm taking this?) At this point they see both the benefits and the costs of having or not having this service and they are actually experiencing that through the questions you've asked!

Specific part number four:

Close when they are at the peak of the experience! At this time if you've done steps 1 thru 3 effectively you can simply ask them, if they'd like to purchase, product or service "x", create and sign a contract etc. What you will get are people satisfied and excited to get this product or service from you. This is proven, over and over and over again! - do it and watch as people say yes, time and time again!

You've has a tough day, maybe even a tough month. I walk up to you and utter these words, "You are responsible for your results."

What do you think about that?

When you hear me say that you're totally responsible for the results you produce in your business---you might jump to a conclusion. You may even think that I'm suggesting that you should take the blame for your results.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

By taking responsibility for your results and your outcomes--- you grant yourself great power.

If you acknowledge that you're truly responsible for the way your projects end ---good or bad--- you give yourself great power. You can use this newly discovered power to make your projects end up another, possibly more desirable way.

Before I go on, let's agree on a few things.

The first agreement: The results you produce are determined by your choices and your actions.

Second agreement: A lot of people look upon failure as a bad thing.

What if there was an optional way, a more productive way to view a failure?

I believe that failure isn't really as much about failing as you might believe.

I'd like you to think of failure as a success. You don’t fail.

You are successful at reaching an outcome 100% of the time.

Here's a question that will help shift way from the more traditional mindset.

Is the result you produced the result you had intended to produce, or was the result unplanned?

I want you to start looking at failure in a new light. I want you to start thinking of failure in a different way. I want you to think of failure as a process that generates unplanned results.

Using that definition you can begin to view your results as a stepping stone to greater success.

This shift in thinking will provide you with the chance to change the choices and/or the actions that are producing your unplanned results without making yourself feel like you've been doing something wrong.

Here is a story I use to illustrate the point.

The genius inventor, Thomas Edison, had performed more than thousand, unsuccessful experiments while on his mission to create the electric light bulb.

Edison was asked, “How were you able to continue with your experiments after encountering so many failures?”

Edison replied, “I did not look at the unsuccessful attempts as failures, but rather as a thousand ways not to make a light bulb.“

He took responsibility for each outcome, made adjustments and continued on to success.

For most people, the ability to take responsibility for unplanned outcomes and adjust accordingly calls for a new “skill set”. You have to develop and exercise the “skill muscle” called responsibility.

Focus on developing your “skill muscles”.

One way to develop these “skill muscles” is to pattern your results oriented behaviors after the model for Effective Communication.

Effective communicators know their outcome and state it in the positive. In other words they focus on what they want versus what they don’t want.

Effective communicators have the awareness to know whether they are moving away from or towards that desired outcome.

Effective communicators have a flexibility of choice and action that allows them to make a course correction, especially if what they were doing was producing unplanned results.

As your “skill muscles” grow stronger your ability to achieve your desired outcomes more easily and more often will emerge. Your ability to communicate effectively with yourself and with others will grow proportionately.

Be ready and willing to ask yourself, “For what parts of the project am I willing to take responsibility?”

In addition, I suggest that you stop taking things as seriously as you have been.

That is not meant to imply that what you’re up to is not serious. It’s just that life is serious enough without making it more so.

In classic sales training which has been entrenched for over 60 years, we learn that there are five simple steps to selling. If you followed the steps, you get the sale.

Open the Call
Investigate needs
Give benefits
Handle Objectives
Close the Sale

But as small business owners have been vocal about, they need to grow their business, yet they aren’t getting the sales using this approach. So what’s happening? If you are selling a big ticket item, like a year-long support contract, an infrastructure installation, or a long-term training program for a corporate management team, your selling cycle doesn’t fit the traditional model any more.

What am I supposed to do instead?

The selling cycle for larger/longer products/programs/services has four characteristics that make traditional selling techniques ineffective.

1. Length of Selling Cycle

The selling cycle may require many calls or connections over a period of months. Multiple sales calls have a completely different psychology from a simple product sale that you close on the first appointment or their first visit to your website.

2. Size of Customer Commitment

Large purchases involve bigger decisions. This alters the strategy of the sale. As the size of the sale increases, successful salespeople must build the perceived value of the service.

3. Relationships

Most large sales involve an ongoing relationship with the customer. This is where multiple offerings that represent different pricing levels, what some call your ‘marketing funnel,’ come in. Why? They must get to know, trust and respect you before they will invest greater time and money in your offer.

To the customer, the larger the decision, the harder it becomes to separate the seller and the product. So it is important to keep in mind, that as the sale grows larger, the customer puts more emphasis on the salesperson/service provider (you) as a factor in the decision to do business with you.

4. Risk/Return/Resistance

In small sales, customers can afford to take more risks and try something new on the spot, like your e-book or tele-class, for less than $50 on your Web site. The consequence of that risk is relatively low.

Each larger purchase represents a bigger decision and more significant risk. The perceived value of a $250 program package and the pain it will solve must be more explicit. It must be targeted and it must promise greater results. When you expand that to a $999 package or a retainer of $5,000 or $10,000, the customer becomes more cautious with each increase in the size of the decision you are asking them to make.

You Need Different Selling Skills For These Major Sales

There are four distinct stages of a sales call when dealing with the large sale. Neil Rackham developed this model in the book SPIN Selling: Preliminaries --> Investigating --> Demonstrating Capability --> Obtaining Commitment

Preliminaries

In large sales, preliminaries do NOT have the influence on success that they do in small sales. The more senior the people you sell your services to, the more they feel their time is at a premium. So your objective in the preliminaries is simply to get the customer’s permission to move to the next stage of the call. That means your traditional questions and comments to build rapport around personal interests do not apply.

Investigating

Investigating involves asking lots of questions, collecting data, uncovering needs, and understanding the customer and their organization. In fact, for higher value selling, investigating is the most important of all selling skills and can increase the overall sales volume by more than 20%.

Success in larger sales, be it personnel placement, commercial development or technology installation, depends on how you handle this stage. Successful calls entail asking a lot more questions than we were trained to ask in traditional selling. Uncovering implicit and explicit needs is the sole objective of the Investigating stage of the call. This is where you build the relationship before the sale is made.

Demonstrating Capability

There is no surprise here – you must demonstrate to each prospect that you have something worthwhile to offer. You must prove that your solution will address each customer’s unique problems. Selling a solution is not the same as rattling off a list of features and benefits. You must connect with their pain and offer a solution that makes you exceptionally qualified to meet their need.

Obtaining Commitment

Obtaining commitment is not the same as your classic closing script. Remember, the bigger the decision and the more sophisticated the buyer, the more negatively they generally react to pressure and closing techniques.

In larger sales, there may be a whole range of other commitments and other decision makers, you must obtain before you reach the order stage for your program or service. In seeking the next step, your call objective may be to get the customer’s agreement to attend a seminar, or to identify the next decision maker. Larger sales always contain a number of intermediate steps – advancing the customer’s commitment toward the final decision.

Next Steps to Get it Right

These steps are only theory until you put them into practice. Here are four rules for learning any new sales skills:
1. Practice Only One Behavior at a Time - Focus on one new thing at a time.
2. Try the New Behavior at Least Three Times – Don’t knock it, until you try it.
3. Quantity before Quality - Use it often enough and the quality will look after itself.
4. Practice in Safe Situations – not on your biggest client

If you apply these distinctive strategies to approach major sales in your market, you will see more doors open and more clients moving deeper into your marketing funnel. The more they engage with you and the more you build the relationship, the easier and more successful will be the sale and delivery of your offering.

During the last few decades telephone communication, and especially telemarketing, have gotten a bad rap, resulting in the establishment of The Do Not Call Registry, and the seeking out of alternative marketing media, such as email and the Internet.

But there is no medium as direct and effective as reaching out and selling someone by phone. This hasn’t changed, despite the black eye that telemarketing has earned because of a few bad practitioners.

Frankly, I believe there are few media that are as empowering as the phone.

Let me tell you why I say this.

Just this week I visited a very successful financial services firm. It uses a number of means to market, including direct mailings, retail displays, seminars, and personal visitations.

But to round out its marketing mix, every salesperson has to put in a minimum of phone time, and there are numerous cubicles reserved for this purpose in the middle of the agency.

When you inspect these work areas you’ll see they are Spartan.

A chair, a writing surface, a few pages of letter sized lists—no computers—and of course, a presentation and a single line telephone.

This is the stuff of magic, this bare bones assortment of items.

These few, inexpensive tools produce a ton of business with buyers who are, after all is said and done, grateful they were called about a vital product.

The phone may have “gone underground” during the past several years, but it will rise again, especially in the esteem of marketers who will see once more, that reaching out and selling someone is the best and cheapest way of earning new business!

Every company needs to prepare a telemarketing lead list if they want to expand its clientele. Some business houses even hire teams of telemarketers to organize telemarketing lead lists. Only experienced and professional telemarketers can offer you resourceful telemarketing lead lists. As a business entrepreneur, you need some valuable telemarketing leads to help your business. But you will have to be careful while choosing any telemarketing lead management firm.

It’s advisable that you should carry out extensive research to find which ones are the most reliable. The telemarketing firm should have vast experience to offer you perfect telemarketing lead lists. Ideal telemarketing lead lists should comprise of fresh and productive leads capable of spreading business goals. The lists are prepared on the basis of calls and interviews. The lead generating company will first interact with your prospective clients. It carries out a widespread survey of your potential clients, and forwards all the necessary information to you. On the basis of their research work, you will be going ahead with your business deal. So, the significance of telemarketing lead lists is immense. If you want your business to move ahead in the right direction, you will have to concentrate on coming up with useful telemarketing lead lists.

It’s not always possible for the companies to set up a team of telemarketers and assign the team to generate utility business leads. That’s why more and more telemarketing companies are coming up to cash in on the opportunity. If you are running a business and want to realize the full potential you need to have exquisite telemarketing lead lists. The lists will offer all the required ingredients to make your business more profitable. Telemarketing lead lists hold the key when it comes to bring the best out of any business.

Many companies do not know how to do cold calling correctly and many people do not like to do cold calling because they feel there are bothering the customer. As a franchisor we often opened new franchise businesses with a marketing program, which included listing all the potential companies our business franchise might do business with them the area.

Once this list was established we try to find contact names and contact each company directly. Generally we try to do cold calling on some types of clientele and others we preferred more direct marketing and actually stopping in the business itself.

It is important to establish goals in cold calling. Each company should determine what those goals are. For instance if you are selling a product or service which is rather complicated and it needs further explanation for the customer you are cold calling and therefore your objectives would be to try to turn 40 percent of the cold calls into sales appointment meetings.

In our case our goal was to get the franchisee 10,000 to 20,000 worth of monthly gross income in services. And we attached our cold calling efforts to our overall marketing program goals. We later found out it was easier to have goals prior to the main goal during cold calling so that our marketing team would make sure they got to a significant number of decision-makers.

Marketing consumer products over the phone is called telemarketing. A recent study indicated that products and services sold via telemarketing amount to hundreds of billions of dollar each year. Political bodies, charity organizations, and various other organizations to raise funds and invite donations also use telemarketing. Public opinion polls are also conducted with the help of telemarketing.

Telemarketing involves the use of persons trained in conversational skills and automatic dialer software and equipments. Telephonic surveys usually make use of a script that derives only a small range of responses. A telemarketing firm maintains a list of prospective customers. The list is prepared based on information such as the customer’s past purchasing trends and credit limits. The telephone numbers are collected from various sources such entries made into competition or application forms and previous requests made for certain information. Phone numbers are generally taken from other companies, telephone directories, or any other public lists.

Telemarketing has developed a certain degree of antipathy among the masses. People are often telephoned at the wrong time and place. Telemarketing companies have been criticized for making unsolicited calls and using high-pressure sales techniques. This has led to the implementation of strict regulatory and legislative controls. The Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and various other state agencies control telemarketing. The U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 also puts restrictions on it. The Direct Marketing Association and a number of state agencies maintain do-not-call lists to save people from unwanted telemarketing calls. Persons who do not wish to receive calls from marketing firms can enlist themselves in those do-not-call lists. Marketing companies that do not honor do-not-call lists invite heavy penalties. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has published a national do-not-call list, in spite of protests from marketing firms