Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Get your timing right!

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One of the fastest ways to dramatically increase the number of sales you make, is to make sure you ‘close the sale’ at the right point in the negotiating process!

Why is timing so important to your sales success?

marketing timing sales In any sales situation, there is a certain point in time where the prospective client or customer is most likely to agree to buy from you.  If you ask for the sale within this golden period, you stand a far greater chance of the prospective client saying “yes.”

Here’s why:
If you ask them to make a buying decision before they are ready, they will think you are either ‘pushy’ or desperate.  This will massively reduce your chances of making the sale, because people hate to feel pushed or pressurised.

If you ask them to make a buying decision after their interest has dwindled, they will be far less motivated to buy from you.  This will massively reduce your chances of making the sale, because without that all-important motivation to buy, there’s little reason for them to purchase. The moment will have passed.

Hot stuff!

A great way to remember the role of timing in the negotiating process, is to think about what you do when you boil some milk in a pan.  You start off with the milk at room temperature.  Then, once the pan of milk is placed on the hot stove, it slowly gets hotter and hotter until it starts to boil. Once you turn the heat off, the temperature slowly drops until it goes back to room temperature again.

In a negotiation process, you need to ask for a buying decision ‘when the milk is at boiling point!’  This is the point where the prospective client or customer is at their most motivated to buy.

How to improve your timing

No two people are the same.  When some people are at their most motivated to buy, they will lean forward with their eyes wide open, nodding their head in agreement.  Others will hardly change their physiology, but ask you lots of relevant questions, and some will do neither!  Whilst anyone involved in face-to-face negotiating should study the basics of body language, you need to combine this with additional resources.

For example, try asking the last 10 people who didn’t buy from you, what it was that made them decide not to proceed and pay attention to anything that suggests your timing was off.

If you regularly hear people say that “it all happened so fast” or their head was spinning from all the details, this might suggest you need to slow down a little.  If you regularly hear people say that they just “went off the idea” or they are going to “review it again next year,” this might suggest you need to speed up a little.

I have been in sales and marketing long enough to know that there are many, many reasons why people decide to use one provider over another provider.  However, by paying close attention to this often-overlooked area of the negotiating process, you can significantly increase your sales conversion rate.

How to sell ANYTHING!

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In this post, I am going to show you how to sell anything (and for a great price too!)  This means not only making a sale or gaining a new client/customer – but making that sale or winning that contract in the most profitable way possible.

Overview

People often tell me that once they get ‘in front’ of a prospective client, they are pretty good at converting the prospective client into a paying client.  The problem is; they just don’t get in front of enough people! If this sounds like you or someone you know, here’s the solution.  By the way – forward what I am about to share with you to everyone you know that might find it useful!

If you are finding it hard to sell something, the temptation is often to lower the price, especially during a tough economic climate.  This is almost always a REALLY bad idea! Ironically, when we speak with buyers we find that price is not primarily what they base their buying decision on!  We find that quality, support, utility and back-up are ranked higher than price.

Before writing this article I held a poll where I asked people, which of the following were most important to them; price, quality or backup & support. Overwhelmingly, price came back as the least important! In fact, there is a lot of data to suggest that lowering prices actually reduces sales.

Price only becomes a hurdle when the cost of something is greater than its perceived value!

To make something sell, you need to make the perceived value of it higher than the asking price.  For example, a £100 item with a perceived value of £200 will sell very successfully; however, a £200 product with a perceived value of £100 will really struggle.

The bottom line is that people need to believe they are getting a great bargain.  If they do, they will happily spend their money with you.

What is ‘perceived’ value?

Perceived value is the value that someone places in a product or service, based on what they believe it to be worth or their perception of its value is. Whenever you find yourself looking at the price of something and thinking it’s a great deal, it’s because your perceived value of it is higher than the cost.

how to sell anythingThis is why successful sales and marketing is based around making the perceived value of something appear as high as possible, so that the offering seems like a real bargain when you learn the price.

Sadly, the marketing used by most businesses does very little to increase the perceived value of their products or services (herein called products).

Therefore, these businesses focus on reducing their prices; so that the price matches the low perceived value of their products.

In other words, they end up selling a great product for less than it’s worth – and make far, far fewer sales too.

OK – Enough about how ‘THEY’ sell and market themselves (that’s their problem not ours)  Here’s how YOU can sell more than ever before! (I really am too good to you!)

Firstly, focus on the benefits of whatever you are selling and make those benefits sound as valuable and irresistible as possible.
It is not enough to say something generic like ‘our service saves people money’ – you must give an example of how you saved someone a ton of money and then compare the cost of your service to the saving it achieved!  For example, when I was marketing my services in the 1990’s, I would send a prospective client  my quote; along with a press clipping of how I helped a business triple their turnover in just 120 days – by helping them get the biggest contract in their history!  It worked really well, because it showed people the value of my service and made my fee seem an outstanding bargain!

My competitors sent their quote in with a business card and their fingers crossed!

Failing to clearly show the true value of your products in your marketing will cost you a fortune.  Back in 2005, I met with an Accountant whose practice was in real trouble.  After looking at his marketing material and website, I explained to him that there was no mention anywhere as to the value of what he did; how he could help people pay less tax, make bigger profits and hold onto more of their hard earned money.

Here’s what he replied;
“Jim, if people are too stupid to work out for themselves what an experienced accountant like me can do for their business, that’s their problem!”

“No it’s not” I explained! “It’s very much your problem – because they will take their business elsewhere and you will go broke!” Within 18 months he had lost his business and was working for a former competitor!

Secondly, you need to add ‘bonuses’; things that people will value but which cost little to provide.
For example, I give away a free ebook and free mainland postage and packing to people who buy my Motivation Master Class Audio CD’s.  The ebook version of this programme is worth £9.99 and the free postage and packing is saving my customers a further £4 – making the programme exceptional value.

Thirdly, because value is always relative, you need to look at the perceived value and price of what your competitors are offering.
One of the ways a potential client decides what value to attach to your product, is to compare it with what your competitors are offering.  You must, therefore, research what your competitors are offering and then make your product more valuable than theirs.

For example, my friend Cheryl works in London as an Estate Agent; specialising in selling homes worth over £1.5 million.  The very first thing she does when she takes on a new client is show them around the other homes in their area that are being marketed at the same price.  This way, her clients can see what their home is being marketed against – how it measures up against the competition. Cheryl is then able to encourage them to make the improvements required to make their home stand out against its competitors.  The end result is that her client’s homes always sell very quickly and for a great price!

Fourthly, review your marketing material.
Take a look at your marketing material, everything from; your sales letters and advertisements to your website, blog and any marketing emails you might use.  When you read them, does every sentence and every paragraph pump value into your products and your business?  If a potential client reads your marketing, is it going to motivate them to take action, call, email or meet you?  Is someone reading your marketing material going to feel compelled to call, meet or email you?  If the answer is no, you are losing a fortune in sales.

How to sell any product or serviceIt is essential to the success of your business that your products are seen as being of exceptional value.  Competition has never been greater than it is today PLUS the consumer has never had so much choice.  If your marketing is pedestrian in its approach, it is hurting your business so improve it NOW.

Finally, review your sales pitch or presentation.
When you speak with a prospective client, do your words add value to whatever you are selling?  Do you identify their problems during your meeting and then sell your product as the answer to these problems?  If not, throw your presentation or sales pitch into the bin and start again!

No one wants to meet with you, to be bombarded with a list of benefits and features and then quoted a price or fee. They want you to inspire them, to show them that you have something that they absolutely need!  They then need to be certain that you are the best person anywhere to buy it from.  Your sales pitch is all about pumping value into your products and your business and then showing the person that you want their custom – not because you are greedy – but because you believe that if they buy from anyone else they will get a worse deal overall.

If you really believe that your products, your service or your business is the best solution for someone, you have a moral obligation to stop them making a mistake! You have an professional obligation to ensure that this person gets to benefit from being one of your highly valued clients.

This message must resonate powerfully through your marketing, your conversations and all your interactions.

Get moving!

Go on – right now, pump the enthusiasm you feel for your product and business into all your marketing and sales messages!  Make sure everyone knows how valuable your product is and how much you want to help them.  Don’t leave anything up to chance.  Tell your prospective clients that you are looking out for them;, that you provide a stunning service and that the only way you can be sure that they will be looked after is if they allow you to service their requirement.

You are a knowledgeable, hard working professional and you want your years of experience to help these people and their businesses!

Now go and make sure that EVERYBODY knows!
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To make it in sales – fish for whales!

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When I started my first sales job, over 20 years ago, my boss gave me a piece of sales and marketing advice that has helped me generate millions of pounds worth of sales – and I am going to share it with you right now!

“To make it in sales, fish for whales!”

I asked my former boss what his comment about fishing for whales actually meant.  He explained:

“Jim, if you go fishing and you catch 10 goldfish, you won’t even fill a cup – but if you catch 10 whales, you will fill half the beach!”

Sales leverage

With that simple explanation, he taught me how the amount of time and effort required to win a £50,000 sale, was not a great deal more than it took to win a sale of £5,000.  This simple idea totally blew my mind!  It was my introduction to what I know today as leverage.

I immediately realised that if I wanted to succeed in sales, I needed to prioritise my sales efforts and focus on where I could deliver most value as a salesperson – because that’s where all those whales are!

If you want to dramatically improve your sales figures, make sure your time and energy is invested wisely – fishing for whales and not goldfish!

Increase sales & profits quickly

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Here’s a powerful marketing tip, which will show you how to massively increase your sales very quickly.  It’s also a super-fast way to boost your cash flow and sky-rocket your profits!

In order for us to begin, I need to ask you something:

“What additional, valuable products or services ‘could’ you offer to your existing clients, which they would be happy to pay you for?”

This is a key marketing question; because selling additional services to an existing client is easily, the single fastest way to MASSIVELY increase your sales and profits! It’s an exceptionally high leverage marketing activity, because the return you get is totally disproportionate to the amount of time and effort required.

The reason the results are so amazing, is that you already provide a GREAT service to your clients and they already trust you.  This means that buying an additional product or service from you is a VERY easy decision for them to make. There’s no risk attached because they already know how brilliant you are!

Selling additional services to existing clients

Here’s a recent example, based on a client of my marketing program. This particular client came to me because he needed to quickly and dramatically increase his cash flow and profitability.

His company provides IT maintenance services to around 120 local, small businesses.  I suggested he find another service to offer his existing clients – before thinking about winning new clients.  He said that a few of his clients had asked if he provided an online data back-up service; which he did not.  So, he looked for prices, to see how much it would cost to provide the service and found that he could make an average profit of around £500 a year, per client, by offering this service.

I sent out a well crafted marketing email to his clients and in just 48 hours, we generated £21,000 of pure profit for him! Because this is an annual service, payable in advance, the end result was an immediate, MASSIVE cash flow boost!

Leverage the potential of your existing clients before looking elsewhere

Before you spend a penny seeking to win new business from new clients – make sure you are not missing out on a windfall profit opportunity from within your existing client base!

Selling additional services helps retain clients too

Not only does offering a wider spread of services to your clients make them more profitable to you, they are also far, far less likely to leave you for another provider.  To replace the provider of one service is relatively simple, but to replace a service provider who looks after 3 or 6 or more of your needs is a very different matter.

When you provide more services to a client, you also provide more value and the marketplace ALWAYS rewards value!

Selling additional services to existing clients is easy and extremely profitable, so what’s stopping you?

How to leverage a million in sales!

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I am going to show you a simple, high leverage way to generate stacks more sales super-fast; WITHOUT you having to invest a penny more on marketing! This is a step by step guide that anyone can follow, which can generate an almost unlimited amount of sales for you; with very little effort on your part.

Leverage leverage leverage…

When you study the the world’s most successful businesspeople and salespeople, you will see a word popping up again and again. That word is leverage.  Leverage, when referred to in marketing or business development terms, is all about getting the maximum return on everything you do.

I use leverage to get results in every area of my business and I want you to start doing the same from now on because the rewards are stunning!

Leverage an extra £500,000 in sales – for free!

Allow me to introduce you to a few people who can easily help you leverage your best sales, profits and turnover figures ever. These people have the attention of hundreds or thousands of new potential clients for your services – possibly even more!

You already know these people. . . they are your Accountant, Business Bank Manager and Company Solicitor.  How many local businesses does your Accountant work with 500 or 5,000?  And what about your Solicitor – another 1,000 or so?  Ok, what about your Company’s Bank Manager – 5,000 or 10,000 local businesses?

Of these thousands of local businesses, how many have a potential need for your services? If you are in a service industry; Recruitment, Insurance, Internet, IT or Training – there is potential for you to supply your services to almost ALL of these thousands of local businesses!  If you provide a product or a range of products, you will quickly know roughly what percentage of these local businesses are likely to have a need for your offering.  In either case, the potential here is massive!

Getting referrals and recommendations!

Speak with any group of businesspeople or salespeople and you will quickly learn that one of their most pressing marketing problems is winning new, high quality clients or customers on a regular basis.

Despite this, very few of them have actually held a meeting with their Accountant, Solicitor or Bank Manager to specifically request leads from their massive client base!

Business owners and entrepreneurs usually make the costly mistake of assuming that their Accountant, Solicitor and Bank Manager will ‘automatically’ recommend them and their services to their masses of clients and contacts. This is seldom, if ever, the case!  Accountants, Lawyers and Bank Managers are extremely busy professional people and unless there is some motivation for them to proactively pass leads to you – they won’t!

Leverage in action

What you need is a strategy that leverages the motivation of these professionals; making it easier for them to provide you with referrals than NOT to – and here it is!  These three great questions should be asked, preferably face-to-face, in the exact order they are given:

Question 1: How many clients do you have?
Question 2: How many of them do you think use (whatever you offer)?
Question 3: So, how many leads do you think you can pass to me over the next 30 days?

What these three questions do is extremely clever. Here’s the science behind each one:

Question 1: How many clients do you have?

This is what I refer to as the ‘foundation’ question. It forms the foundation upon which the rest of the questions stack.  People are proud of the size of their client base and are only too eager to show you just how hard they work and how successful their bank or practice is.

Question 2: How many of your clients do you think use (whatever kind of service/product you provide)?

This is what I refer to as the ‘focus’ question.  It causes the listener to focus on the profile of his or her client base and the nature of your product or service, before joining the two together. They know that you will have a very good idea of how many businesses, on average, have a requirement for your services or products – so their answer to you has to be realistic.

Question 3: So, how many leads do you think you can pass to me over the next 30 days?

This is what I refer to as the leverage question.  It causes the listener to review the two answers they have just given you and then give you a number.  It also sets up a time-scale and as the old saying goes; “what gets measured gets done!”

At this point you have just leveraged their motivation – making it far easier to pass you leads and far harder not to. Even if they fail to give you a definitive number, it is no longer easy for them NOT to provide you with regular introductions, referrals or leads. Now that there is a time-scale for when you will be expecting to have received some leads, they will find it easier to help you than ignore you.

Your Bank Manager, Accountant and Solicitor are trusted professionals and their recommendation is extremely valuable.  They will also know all about you and your business and they will know that you offer a great product or service – so there’s no barrier to them recommending you.

Each of these hard working professionals will be keen to help their other clients, and if they believe that your service will benefit their other clients, it’s only natural that they would introduce your services to them!

If you find it a little ‘awkward’ asking these questions, ask them in a playful way!

Amazingly, even if you ask these questions with a big smile on your face, as I always do, the impact is exactly the same!

Some numbers you will find interesting

If only one business in ten, on average, has a need for your type of product or service, it’s likely that your; Bank Manager, Company Solicitor and Accountant combined will have access RIGHT NOW to A THOUSAND new clients for you and your business.

If you only sold £500 worth of goods to these people each year, that’s a half a million pounds a year increase in YOUR turnover!

A quick million

If you work in any of the industries I have already mentioned in this free guide; that figure will be closer to a million pounds a year in new business for you and your business!

First impressions count – even online!

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How many times have you heard that; “first impressions count”?  Well, it’s true – first impressions count for a great deal – especially in marketing.  This is because, the first impression a business or a person creates with a potential client, is what forms the foundation of their relationship with them.

If that relationship is built on a bad foundation, it will fail.  After all, no one buys from a person or business that they have a ‘bad feeling’ about.

For example

I was contacted online last week by a total stranger via my Twitter account.  This person’s initial message to me wasn’t an introduction or even a simple hello – it was a full on sales pitch!  What was this person trying to sell?  I have no idea!  I just deleted his message as soon as it was clear what he was doing.

Approaching a total stranger with a sales pitch, instead of a friendly introduction, demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of how sales and marketing works!

Affiliates beware

Sadly, this kind of shoddy marketing is used by the huge majority of small, online businesses.  I get emails on a daily basis from strangers who want me to become ‘an affiliate’ of their latest ‘wonder product.’  Even though these people have not bothered to call me or build a relationship with me, they expect me to attach my good name to their business and product – neither of which I know anything about!

If you want to make a stack of sales online or offline, make sure YOU focus on creating a great initial impression in the mind of your target market!  Then, ensure that everything you do builds positively upon that strong foundation.

By the way, you can contact me on Twitter any time.  My username is @jimconnolly