Sale Accelerator

10 Tips For Pioneering Internet Sales

Remember that that when you invest in top level SEO, SES (Search Engine Saturation™) that a larger percentage of your customers will be Internet customer or e-customers.  It’s critical to know the difference between these and customers that originate from off-line sources.

Tip #1: Know what kind of e-customer you’re dealing with. 

When going for your next long term customer know who you’re dealing with.  Some e-customers are flexable while others are more resistant.  The difference between these two types of customers is what I call pubic “A” and public “B”. 

Tip#2: Position your self in the driver’s seat as the expert you are.

The strong-hold for e-customers is information.  Put your self back in the position of the expert.  You and your staff know more about the right way to buy your product or service than almost any customer could ever know.  Don’t become the “effect” of their knowledge or misinformation.  Be courteous but strong.

Tip #3: Open a can of websites: 

What websites have they visited?  E-prospects can emotionally lock-up. Usually when this happens, the customer is holding some information that they obtained online.  Ask about experiences they’ve had online.  Ask where they inquired and then survey their satisfaction with other sources.  When dealing with a research intensive shopper you will find this helps them more than you.

Tip #4: Get the prospect from online to phone line fast and to the appointment without delay.

Everyone knows, the faster the customer gets in front of you or you in front of them the better your chances of doing business are.

Tip # 5: Explain e-Tail vs. Retail.

Visually show the customer in person, the difference between a retail price and an Internet price, which is usually lower, side-by-side.

Tip #8: Decode their e-mail address.

For example an e-mail address like mudflaps@aol.com belonging to a female looking for a mini van, may very well be a home maker seeking to convince her husband to trade in the truck for a mini van.  Pay attention to .net, .org, .cc and corporate domain extensions.  Free e-mail may be used by people that lack sales confront or are at work usually on someone else’s time.

Tip #9: Use your cell phone to everyone’s advantage including the customer.

Giving your cell number demonstrates that you invest time and money in order to communicate.  Just find a good call plan.

Tip #10: Make the Internet appointment stick.

The relationship that starts healthy stays healthy.  Give your e-customer a reputation to live up to. Next make them verbalize their commitment.  Now get the duration of the appointment nailed down.  Next create a sense of obligation and then a sense of dependency.  Create a mental picture of a completed cycle of action.  Finally ask them specifically what would have to happen for them not to make it. 

If they respond quickly with “if something drastic comes up etc.”, then you’re fairly safe not to waste yours or their time.  If they hesitate and mutter around then re-trace your steps, build a stronger relationship then re-confirm again. Obviously there is a great deal more to this training but you get the idea.

Breaking Records In Broke Times

11 Sensible Tips For Peak Sales Performance

Tip 1.  Separate the industry being slow from you being slow.  Only when times are slow in your specific business are you tempted to pay too much attention to the market.  Keep yourself from being sucked into the crowd as this inhibits your ability to hold you or your team accountable for much of anything. When that happens you are being the effect of your market.  You need to learn to be the cause not the effect if you’re going to flourish in down times.

Tip 2.  Own the reality that market share is market share.  In any given month more products and services are sold in the worst of markets than you have sold in your best month.  How much market share would it take for you to be successful in a down time?  You’ll find that if you do the math there is more hope than most would think.  As long as there is a market to have a bigger share of there is a path to success.

Tip 3.  Be comfortable taking market share.  No one wants to see their competitor’s kid go to a crappy college because you cleaned their clock.  Get comfortable with the idea and don’t just tell yourself you’re cool with it because most psychological evaluations of business owners show this to be a major issue.  In our business we pick only one business per market area, declare our loyalty and then I go to work on the competition.  Until I started asking about this hot button, I found that often businesses would actually feel bad about what I was doing to their buddies across and down the street.  Science isn’t going to start experimenting with the idea of giving artificial birth to Test Tube Car Buying Babies anytime soon so get used to taking the market share you need.

Tip 4.  Don’t use money to manipulate the sales staff into performing better.  Believe it or not money is the least effective motivator in the world.  Duty by contrast is the highest.  Debate all you want and the facts are still the same.  Ask anyone who has a career that puts their life at risk if they do it for the money and you’ll learn quickly that it just doesn’t stir the motivational Koolaid.  When times are down and you’re trying to rally peak performance, you need to inspire a sense of duty, community and teamwork.  Money will follow.

Tip 5.  Leave the pay plan alone unless you’re positive it’s the right move.  One of the most successful businesses I’ve ever seen or heard about changed his pay plan in 2001 during a dismal season.  He changed a sales bonus level from 18 cars to 20.  Within 72 hours he lost 90% of his top performing sales people, which lead to the managers and so on.  6 years later they still have not had a single month at the volume of their average month prior to the holocaust.  Always remember the golden rule.  Never ever mess with the pay plan in poor times.

Tip 6. Tap into your archive deals and orphan owners database like a keg at a frat house.  Most businesses could live off this list for 2 years if they knew how to effectively work it. 

Tip 7.  Effectively handle your finance customers if you have them.  During down times this is an area that can make all the difference but you have to approach it the right way.  It’s not a quick fix and businesses that take the shot gun approach to financing can make a mess in a hurry.

Tip 8.  Join a dang business 20 group!  If your goal is to take yourself down any other road than the “business as our forefathers did it” path, then you need to be in a progressive business 20 group. I’m not talking about the factory groups.  I’m talking about the cool kind.  I’ve never met a business that was active in 20 groups that wasn’t successful and wise beyond their years.  It’s a happy hour investment and just a common sense requirement in down times or any other time for that matter.  A good 20 group defines the meaning of “I need you to help me to help you to help yourself.”

Tip 9.  Mystery shop the competition personally and make it a requirement for everyone else.  Remember that with low tides come low markets and low markets require more market share if your going to win.  The biggest common sense key to getting started down the “club the competition” path is to put your self in a position to know exactly which club to use.

Tip 10.  Know the truth about goal setting.  A goal is typically a number you’ve never hit before or hit during certain conditions or during certain months etc.  Most people look at goals as unattainable even if they’re not that lofty.  The more the goal is glamorized the less chance you have of hitting it.  It’s just one of those psychological things.  So how do you hit the goal?  Raise it. If you have a goal of hitting 200 units, raise it to 250 even if the store hasn’t come close.  Launch a couple of initiatives and announce that 200 is just no longer an acceptable Super Bowl ring.  Change all the internal promo and you’ll find that you hit your original goal much faster even in down times.

Tip 11.  Remember most businesses that comprise your competition will be dealing with down times by over stressing the sales staff, which leads to anxiety, which in turn leads to poor performance.  While they’re inside brow beating each other remember that the customers are outside and focus your efforts accordingly and you’ll win big.

The Secret of Knowing When To Return eMails & Phone Calls

Are you or is someone you know sluggish at returning phone calls and emails?  I think most of us could answer yes about others and ourselves at times.  Here’s a fresh perspective to add to you think tank. Developing it has made a massive difference in my relationships.

Active Waiting vs. Passive Waiting:

Active Waiting: To maintain a state of poised readiness in anticipation of an event.

Upon sending someone a communication of any type, you go into what we call “Active Waiting.”  You maintain a state of poised readiness in anticipation of a return email or phone call.  In business when communication comes from an individual that has the power to make you money, you never want to let them go pass the point of Active Waiting before firing off some sort of reply.  Even if the reply is a note that you will get back to them is a good start.  This keeps them in active waiting, which means that making you money is on the top of their priorities.

Passive Waiting:  Doing nothing except waiting for the event to arrive. 

Once a person goes beyond active waiting they fall into Passive Waiting.  This usually takes place between 6 and 24 hours depending on the level of intensity associated with the communication.  Passive Waiting is a position in which the individual doing the waiting becomes more the effect of the return communication rather than an active, profitable participant in it.  If you send someone a communication and move into passive waiting prior to getting a response it ends up being detrimental to the other party.

Stress and Timed Release:

I define stress as a force that distorts a things true shape or form.  When dealing with someone under stress you are not dealing with the individual while in their true shape or form.  Stress induced by time is the most common form of stress.  When a person is in Active Waiting after sending you a communication there is an internal building of stress that develops when the reply goes beyond an anticipated period of time.  Ever sit at a red light thinking it should have changed already.  Almost without thinking about it a person will lean forward in his seat, check both directions and check the rear-view mirror.  All of these are physical expressions of the internal stress that is building.  We have all sat and listened to an answer to a question that is taking too long.  We begin to sigh, tap our feet, and cut in.  Once again these are all expressions of the internal building of stress.   

If, for example, you are sending out communication to a co-worker whom has the ability to generate income from your efforts but return communication is slow, stress will build.  You will find yourself not as motivated to assist this person even if it is a part of your job description as engaging with them equals stress.  This can cause a downfall for an entire team because when we talk about teamwork we’re talking about two subjects; Agreement and communication.

How we subconsciously gauge who’s calls & emails to return and when:

Typically, if we’re talking about communication that exists between people with an ongoing business or employer / employee relationship, our return phone call & email are based about 80% on the following factors.

1)      Convenience

2)      Priority of information received

3)      Respect for the sending party

4)      Perceived control over the sending party.  How much do they need you vs. you need them etc.

5)      Perceived internal consistency.  What you believe their opinion is of your ethical standards as a person.

Here is the number one reason used for not returning communication that is in actuality false by definition.

1)      Being Busy

If we’re going to implement a winning personal communication practice and be a true leader within our areas of influence, then this is one of those false datum’s that we want to shake.  Let’s think about it…  Busy doing what?  Communicating most likely, which means we should be saying, “I’m too busy communicating to communicate with you.” 

That doesn’t make any sense and what’s worse is that most of the people we’re saying that to automatically know that but they just don’t know how to verbalize or won’t.   Here’s a fun experiment.  Ignore your spouses for about three days and then tell them that you were just too slammed at the office to talk with them.  Let’s see how well that goes for you. 

The error in the thinking is the natural assumption that people automatically understand our challenges and priorities.  They don’t.  They just assume they’re not important and as a result stop making you the amount of money as would otherwise be possible.  If we’re clamoring for every ounce of profit we can get our hands on then this scenario would go down on the bad idea list.  I submit that if we can’t even go a short time without communicating with our family who understands our challenges better than anyone, without a detailed explanation, then why would we think the rest of our relationships are going to get it? 

“He who successfully handles the most communications in the shortest period of time typically realizes the most success financially and with their personal relationships. “

The biggest challenge most people have is with emails.  My advice is to take you Inbox at the end of every day and move all answered emails to an answered emails folder.  That way everything you see in your inbox is traffic that is un answered.  I like to keep voice mails as new until answered because once I feel the urge to save it and put it on the back burner I know that the individual who left me the message is about to go into Passive Waiting on me.

Right to Communicate:

Communicating is a privilege.  People don’t automatically have the right to communicate with us but often they think they do.  Call it entitlement issues.  What we’re talking about here is communication with existing relationships.  The idea of this concept is not to return every communication from everyone in the universe.  If you’re in charge of a large ship you should have levels set up and gate keepers to filter new opportunities with new people.  Once you allow someone in your inner circle, the idea is to continually integrate the relationship to the next level.  This doesn’t mean that you have to spend Christmas together or fly clear across the country 4 times a year. 

While everyone has their personal concept of good communication or of the ideal make-up of the best relationships, what’s really only needed is quite simple.  The key is to communicate frequently by any means necessary and to keep both parties in active waiting.  This is the only thing required to improve the profitability of any relationship from any distance on a daily basis.

Now do yourself a favor and go return some calls and emails.