Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Marketing 101: Styles make sales

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style makes sales, marketing

I think you’re really going to love this.

In today’s post, I’d like to share how a simple idea can help you develop a massively more effective way to sell your products or services.

Styles make sales

When I started out in sales and marketing, one of the first things I learned is that styles make sales. It works something like this.

Certain salespeople have a style of selling that is very effective with certain prospective customers. Conversely, if a salesperson’s style is at odds with a prospective customer’s buying style, the salesperson is less likely to get the sale.

In the companies I worked for back then, there were large and diverse sales-forces. A sales manager would look at the data they had on a prospect, then try and match our styles to the prospect’s profile.

I know you’ve spotted the challenge here.

As a small business owner, you don’t have that same abundance of salespeople to mix and match to the prospect’s buying style.

Usually, the salesperson is you.

This begs the question: How do you sell effectively to prospective clients or customers, who have a buying style that’s different to your sales style?

The answer is to align as closely as you can with what motivates them.

How?

Develop your own styles make sales model!

Here’s a quick look at how to get yourself started.

Before you begin your pitch or presentation, spend a little while asking the prospective customer a few informal, preprepared questions that require useful answers.

For example, you could ask questions, where the replies will indicate whether they are more (or less) influenced by facts, figures and graphs… than by stories, feelings and pictures. Then match your presentation style to theirs as closely as possible.

As your presentation continues, look and listen for other signals from the prospect, which indicate that you’re on (or off) the right track.

Spend the time required to get this right. And it does take time. Make no mistake, this isn’t busy work. It’s really important, valuable and challenging work. You’ll need to create several easy to answer questions, which uncover your prospect’s buying style. You’ll also need to park the idea of a one-size-fits-all approach to sales, if that’s what you currently use. And comfortable, old habits are hard to break.

What’s the pay-off?

It’s huge.

If you get it right you’ll enjoy the rewards of having a fluid presentation model, which matches the motivation your prospects need, in order to buy from you.

Just think what that would do to your sales figures, my friend.

7 Content topics to grab the attention of your marketplace

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content marketing tip

I write a lot about the importance of being useful with your marketing. A number of you have asked me if I can give you some specific examples, which you can apply to your content marketing.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done in this post.

Their needs and your products or services

Start off by thinking about the services you provide or your product range. Then, consider the following 7 topics (or theme ideas) and how you can incorporate them into your content marketing messages.

  1. People have an inbuilt need to feel connected: Share ideas to help your prospects connect with useful contacts. The Wall Street Journal wrote about how I achieved this for one of my clients – 4 Marketing Strategies That Paid Off For Small Companies
  2. Everyone is trying to succeed at something: Share ideas to help your prospects achieve their targets, goals or dreams. Obviously, as with pretty-much every topic here, if you offer a specific product or service that can help them in this area, incorporate that into the content.
  3. We all need to feel safe and secure: Share ideas to help your prospects reduce risk or feel safer.
  4. We also share a common need for a sense of belonging: Share ideas to help your prospects feel like an integral part of your business.
  5. Everyone wants to avoid wasting time: Share ideas to help your prospects maximize their time, or help them complete certain tasks faster, etc. I’m not a time management expert, but I’ve shared tons of ideas in this area, based on decades of running a successful business, without working crazy hours. The response is always excellent. So don’t be put off sharing from your experience.
  6. People want to improve and expand their knowledge: Share your industry knowledge, sure. But ALSO share your experience with them. For example, if you’re an accountant, don’t just focus on tax, profit and loss or the latest business news. They can get that anywhere. Tell them the common factors you’ve identified in successful businesses. And the ones you’ve identified in those that flounder or fail. Your experience is extremely valuable.
  7. Everyone wants to avoid unnecessary stress, especially now: Share ideas to help your prospects feel more relaxed and assured. If there’s a specific product or service you offer, which can assist them with this, incorporate that into the message or idea.

Are any of those topics missing from your content marketing? If they are, look for ways to incorporate them. Because this kind of useful, relevant information is the cornerstone of successful content marketing.

You’ll know you have the balance right, when your content marketing is SO USEFUL that people would really miss it if you stopped.

Scaling your way to success

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What’s the best way to scale your business for success? 

Here are my thoughts.

marketing tips, Jim Connolly

But first, I have a very quick question for you.

What do the following all have in common?

  • Kindness.
  • Honesty.
  • Caring.

The answer is that they’re attributes that are valued, extremely highly, by everyone. We are attracted to people who are kind, honest and caring. And given the opportunity, we prefer to do business with people (and brands), who are kind, honest and caring, too.

Now. Hold that thought.

Scaling your way to success

One of the BIG buzzwords right now, is ‘scaling’. Business owners are being told that it’s a cornerstone of commercial success. And that the best way to scale their business, is to automate pretty-much everything.

For example.

  • To let AI chatbots handle first-line customer service enquiries.
  • To have call trees handle incoming phone calls; especially customer service calls.
  • To automate their social media accounts.
  • To create impersonal, email / forum-based, drip-fed versions of their services.

In short: To cut back on the human touch as much as possible, whenever possible and wherever possible.

The huge limitation with that approach is clear. Automation software is…. well… software. And as such, is incapable of the human characteristics of kindness, honesty and caring.

The reason for the growth in automation-based scaling, is that it promises a lot and is extremely simple. It requires almost no effort. And it’s sold by the gurus pushing it, as a magic way to cut your overhead back to the bone; both in time and money.

Here’s the snag with automated scaling

As more business owners embrace automation-based scaling, prices and fees in their industries are being driven down and down. It’s a race to the bottom for those who’ve bought in.

Paradoxically, it’s also a race, which no one actually wants to win. This is why we hear these same business owners complaining about attracting fee-sensitive clients and how hard they find it to stand out and get noticed.

They’re discovering that it’s extremely difficult to build a successful business, with the most fee-sensitive clients, wafer thin profits and a customer base who will drop you in an instant, for a lower priced competitor.

Shrug!

Another way to scale… that actually works

While some business owners embrace the race to the bottom, where the winner is the cheapest provider, others have identified a far more profitable way to scale.

It’s a different race. A race to profitability and success. A race, where the winners attract the best clients, work on the best projects and earn the best fees.

You see, it turns out that kindness, honesty and caring, scale. In fact, they scale to infinity. People tell their friends about remarkable service. So, the word spreads. And they remain loyal to providers, who go the extra mile to look after their needs. So, they keep their clients for way, way longer too.

Yes, the cheapest prospective clients in your marketplace will always shop for the bottom dollar provider.

That’s perfectly fine.

Because every marketplace has a large and massively profitable niche, who eagerly pay a premium fee for a premium quality service. People hate automation and only opt for it as a last resort.

And even the bargain basement crowd seldom remain with an impersonal service for long. They often realize their cost-cutting error, once they’ve tasted the frustration and expense, of suffering with a problem, which can’t be resolved by automation software and requires a person. And there’s no person available.

So my friend, I suggest you scale your business for kindness, honesty and caring. It’s an excellent foundation on which to build a sustainable, valuable business.

Ignore the masses. You don’t need them!

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directly relevant marketing, targeted marketing, ignore masses

Image: Shutterstock.

Here’s a very straightforward, proven way to build a successful service-based business. I’m going to suggest you ignore the masses.

All right. That’s the intro finished. Let’s go!

Depending on the service you provide and your location, there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of prospective clients.

Except, they’re not really your prospective clients at all.

Whilst you may be able to provide a degree of service to some of them, for the vast majority you won’t be a very good fit. You can’t possibly be. None of us can.

After all.

  • Some will require a boutique style service.
  • Some will want a more local provider.
  • Some will demand the lowest priced provider.
  • Some will insist on the absolute premium, and happily pay the maximum to ensure it.
  • Some will need a provider that speaks a certain language.
  • Some will want a provider with a rare, highly specialist knowledge.
  • Some will require a provider who charges annually in arrears.
  • Some will only hire a provider with offices in multiple locations.
  • Some will want unlimited phone access at no extra charge.

Given you can’t possibly serve the majority of your marketplace, I have a strong recommendation for you. I recommend you adopt a much more focused strategy.

Here’s why. Along with how it works.

Ignore the masses

The temptation is to try and have as wide an appeal as possible, so you get a shot at as many prospective clients as possible. That’s a very common approach, but it’s wrongheaded. And a very expensive mistake.

Why?

Because by trying to be somewhat relevant to everyone, you fail to be directly relevant to anyone… including your actual prospects.

Your actual (genuine) prospects need to see your marketing and immediately identify that you’re talking to them. By weakening that message, you lose them.

They’ll assume you’re not what they’re looking for… when you’re exactly what they’re looking for and exactly what they need.

So my plea to you is simple.

Ignore the masses. They’re not interested. They’ll waste your time. They’ll want ‘this’ when you offer ‘that’. And you’ll go nuts trying to make them happy, let alone keep them happy.

Embrace your ACTUAL prospects instead

Focus on being directly relevant to the prospective clients you can absolutely delight with your services. These are the people who will hire you, pay you the correct rate, recommend you to their friends and stay with you for years and years. These are the clients you can confidently build an amazingly successful business with.

These are the clients you need. And they need you. They really need you!

Now, go and let them know! Focus all your marketing, so that it’s strikingly obvious you’re exactly what they’ve been looking for.

It’s a strategy that improves everything, because your marketing will be speaking directly to the right people. And marketing that speaks directly to people, is marketing that motivates people. And motivated people are the people who hire you.

Marketing tip: How to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’!

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turn rejection into success, loss to success, how to

When a prospective client or customer decides not to hire us or buy from us, how can we turn their no into a yes? And how can we do this, even when they’ve had their objections or concerns fully answered and they still say ‘no’?

Faced with that kind of rejection, there are 3 broad ways we can choose to respond.

  1. We could just leave it. They’ve made their decision. End of story.
  2. We could contact them and tell them why they’re wrong and make sure they know they’ve made a big mistake. If we know the competitor who won, we could also include all the bad stuff we know about the lousy dirt bag.
  3. Or we could contact them and be more genial, helpful and good-natured to them, than if we had won the contract!

Yes, it’s number 3 I’m going to focus on.

Turning a prospect’s no into a yes

Imagine how the following might work, as a massively more effective way to respond to a prospect’s ‘no’.

  • You contact the prospect and thank them for the time they spent with you or with your proposal.
  • You also let them know, up-front, that you respect their decision. This is important. It shows you’re not doubting their ability as a decision maker.
  • You could also add that as a result of their decision, you’re working to improve your proposal or presentation.
  • You then find something generous to say about the competitor who won, so long as it’s true. Nothing sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek, but truly gracious.
  • And finally, you let them know that if they ever need anything, you’re there for them and happy to help.

Here’s what we know for absolute certain. Very, very few people respond with that type of good-natured, yet professional strategy. But when they do, they get remembered for the very best of reasons.

Here’s what can happen

Here are just some of the outcomes this can generate for people, who were originally rejected!

In many cases, the prospect who rejected them suddenly wonders if they made the wrong decision, in choosing the other provider. I’ve (occasionally) seen this result in an immediate about-turn, with the rejected provider winning the deal.

Much more commonly, I’ve seen the rejected provider given the contract, as soon as the winning provider screws up. It’s almost as if the prospect is unconsciously looking for their original choice to fail, after becoming fully aware what a wonderful provider they rejected. By respecting the prospect’s decision and leaving the door open to them, the rejected provider makes it extremely easy for the prospect to contact them.

But that’s not all!

Ask anyone who uses this ‘turn a no into a yes!‘ strategy, and they’ll confirm that it also results in a number of referrals, from the prospects who didn’t change their mind about hiring the rejected provider.

Given the fact we have this third way to respond, it makes sense to use it and maybe turn a no into a yes!

Why not me?

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marketing tip, get picked, get chosen

Someone, somewhere is asking that question today. And there could be a number of reasons why they didn’t get chosen.

  • Their proposal was very professional. But someone else’s proposal gave 3 recent, checkable examples of exceptionally high quality work.
  • Their presentation was really good. But the CEO’s best friend personally recommended another provider.
  • Their meeting with the prospective client went well. But their marketing caused the prospect to assume the fee would be lower, so the prospect hired someone cheaper.

It’s natural for our initial reaction, when we miss out on something, to be externally focused. We tend to look for reasons why another person wasn’t smart enough to see how good we are and hire us or buy from us. That’s certainly how I used to think.

But not any more.

Get picked or chosen

Experience has taught me, that it’s a great deal more profitable to look for ways to improve. To focus on how we can do better the next time.

Get feedback whenever possible. Though the quality of the feedback is often inaccurate. That’s especially the case in situations such as the first 2 of my examples.

Above all, seek out ways to increase your odds of success the next time. Replay the situation where someone else was picked. Unpack it.

Look for all possible opportunities to improve. For example.

  • Could your opening be stronger?
  • Do you check for clarity (often enough) before moving on?
  • Does your proposal, presentation, sales pitch or introduction have maximum impact?
  • And is it memorable?
  • Are there enough trust building assets; reasons for a prospect to trust you?
  • Are you leveraging your contacts?
  • Do your testimonials inspire confidence and desire?
  • Could you improve with expert training?
  • Is your content, proposal, follow-up, etc., professionally written or DIY?

Those are a few of the most obvious places to start looking for ways to improve.

And keep on improving, until you manage to get hired, get the account or get the contract, 10 out of 10 times.