Sales and Sales Management Blog

October 1, 2009

Guest Article: “Thoughts about the WIIFM,” by Jonathan Farrington

Filed under: Client Relationships,Closing Sales,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 8:02 am
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Thoughts about WIIFM
by Jonathan Farrington

When we agree to an idea or proposal, it’s because there’s something in it for us. It’s hard to influence people who can’t see what’s in it for them. Sounds one-sided, but it is true. Call it self-interest, selfishness or whatever. It is only human nature to ask, ‘What am I getting from this?’

People will say yes to your ideas if they meet their needs or match their view of life in the following areas:

• Principles and values
• Beliefs and opinions
• Needs and wants

So Give People What They Want & Need:

People agree to ideas and suggestions that match their needs or views of life. Underpinning all our lives are certain principles and values that we hold to be true. These become guidance for how we conduct our lives. They influence and mould our behaviour. They can differ greatly from person to person and successful influencers always take principles and values into account.

But how?
• Notice what principles and values drive other people
• Ask questions and invite comment and reaction
• Check with those who know them well

Some examples of principles:

‘Integrity and fairness are an integral part of business dealings.’
‘I think that older people deserve courtesy and consideration.’
‘Moral behaviour is part of the fabric of daily life.’

It would be unproductive to spend time attempting to dislodge these deep-seated principles. Instead, harness them to add leverage to your suggestions.

Beliefs & Opinions:

Beliefs and opinions can be transient or short-term. Remember when you used to believe in Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, giants and witches? Proof can easily dislodge a belief. So too can time.

An early step on the road to influencing others may include having to change lingering beliefs or convictions before you can proceed further.

‘I think that BubbleClean washing machines break down more often than the Tumblingsystem range.’
‘I think that all politicians are corrupt.’
‘I never make decisions on the 13th.’

Each of these beliefs can be dealt with by logical questioning or providing proof or data.

Needs & Necessities:

These are fundamental requirements – they have to be met if you are to influence others. Typical needs include: reliability, security, achieving a deadline, meeting a budget, keeping up to date.

‘Because of increasing competition, it is essential that we maintain an image and at the same time keep up to date.’
‘My team members are under great pressure, so it important to maintain their morale.’
‘The system must not only be reliable but secure, as well.’

Having uncovered needs, you may have to mould or reshape your ideas to dovetail with the requirements of others. Often, people have a hierarchy of needs, so it may be important to discover and use this:

‘Which is most important to you – reliability or security?’

Wants & Wishes:

Wants and wishes are not essentials, just a wish list: ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely … if only’. But their fulfilment can be the cherry on your influencing trifle, placed on top with a flourish, after the other person has agreed to your proposal.

Depends What’s On Offer:

Question: How will your suggestions benefit the other person?

The person or people you are influencing will interpret the benefits of your suggestions in different ways. Some will be interested in the features – the fine details, the nitty gritty of ideas. Others will say ‘How will I benefit?’ Others will seek out the advantages of proposals – how the benefits are different.

Features, Benefits & Advantages:

No doubt you are familiar with the differences between features, benefits and advantages, but it is worth re-iterating.

Features:

These are built-in aspects of your idea or suggestion – timing, costs, resources etc. They will remain locked up in your idea whether the other person agrees or not.

Benefits:

These are far more important than the features of your proposal. They translate boring old features into exciting statements which show clearly how others will gain.

‘This new hardware is made in Germany (feature) which means that we will save time and money on spare parts (benefit).’

Advantages:

These are comparative benefits e.g. – increased revenue, greater savings, and faster turn-around.

In Summary: The Benefit Balance Sheet

Most people do not agree whole-heartedly to an idea. There is usually something that niggles, however well you’ve addressed their concerns.

In the end, when we finally say yes to a proposal, it is because the benefits outweigh any disadvantages.

As you plan and prepare your influencing case, list all the benefits and advantages of your suggestions.

Use them to tip the balance in favour of yes.

 

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author and sales strategist, who has guided hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels. He is Chairman of The Sales Corporation, CEO of Top Sales Associates and Senior Partner at The JF Consultancy based in London and Paris and the author of the Jonathan Farrington’s Blog for sales leaders at http://www.thejfblogit.co.uk.  Best of all, like most of my guest authors, he’s a good friend of mine with a sharp mind and a great deal of sales and sales management wisdom.

July 10, 2009

Boost Your Sales: “What Do Your Communications Say About You?” by Paul McCord

Filed under: Client Relationships,Communication,marketing,Personal Marketing,sales,selling,trust — Paul McCord @ 7:42 am
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What Do Your Communications Say About You?
by Paul McCord

What are you doing with those prospects that are in your database that aren’t ready to purchase yet?  Are you in the process of establishing trust and good will—or are you demonstrating that you aren’t trustworthy or that you really don’t have anything of value to offer?

Or what about your existing clients?  Are you teaching them to pay attention to you because your communications bring value, or are you teaching them to ignore you because you simply waste their time with worthless, self-serving junk?

Whether you’ve considered it or not, everything you send to a prospect communicates your value—or non-value and your trustworthiness.  Everything you send.  No matter how small.

Most salespeople, professionals, and companies will put their long-term prospects into a database and keep in touch with them on a semi-regular basis.  They’ll send a monthly or quarterly newsletter, a “how ya doin, ya ready to buy yet?” email or letter on occasion, and make a phone call once in a blue moon.  Some will inundate the prospect with so much junk mail and junk email that the prospect wonders how to get rid of them.

Either way, the prospect is learning about the salesperson or company.  The question is what are they learning?

Let’s look at the three most common negative messages prospects get from salesperson and company communications:

You Aren’t Reliable:
Reliability is a major trust factor and what you send and when you send materials to your prospects will communicate to some extent whether or not you are reliable.  If you promise to send information, do you send exactly what you promised, when you promised?  If not, why should a prospect trust you?

Do you send a monthly or quarterly newsletter?  Is it on time, every time?  If the date on your newsletter is May and it arrives in June because you were too busy to get it out, what message does that send?  Think people won’t notice?  I received the Jan/Feb newsletter from an interior decorator—in April.  Is that how she handles all of her commitments?

You Don’t Value My Time
Are the items you send of real value to the prospect?  If it isn’t of value, why do you send it?

What people will send is amazing.  I get newsletters with recipes, gardening tips, and other information that might be appropriate for some salespeople, but not from the people who are sending it.  Recipes, gardening tips, household tips, etc. might be appropriate in a REALTOR’S newsletter, but not an accountant’s, or financial planner’s, or insurance agent’s, or from an auto repair shop.  If I get something from an accountant, I expect it to have some relevance to my financial needs.  If I get something from an auto repair shop, I expect it have something to do with automobiles.  I don’t expect an attorney to send me an article on how to give a massage (yep, got one). 

What can you send of value?  There is a ton of stuff.  Articles relating to the area you address; special offers; new services and/or products; major company news; and other pertinent information.  All of these items are likely to be of interest to a majority of your prospects.

The key is not to waste your prospect’s time.  Of course, not everything you send is going to be of interest to every one of your prospects.  But if your information is good, all of your prospects will find value in your communications—just not every prospect for every communication.  I get a number of emails after each edition of my newsletter.  Many praise a particular issue; others are indifferent.  But some of those who were indifferent to one issue may email me an issue or two later raving about the latest issue, while the one who was enthused about the first issue emails me to let me know I missed the mark with them on the last issue.  I, like you, have to aim to bring lots of great material to the table, knowing that each reader is at a different place in their careers.  What appeals to one, may not appeal to another.  However, if I bring enough diversity to the newsletter, I can hit everyone’s needs, just not in every issue.  You must aim for the same goal—bring substance to the table, and overtime, you’ll feed the lot.

Every time you communicate with a prospect or client, even with your mass communications, you are teaching them to pay attention to you because you value their time and give them value—or you are teaching them to ignore you because you are nothing but a time waster.

You Don’t Know Your Business
Sending out-dated or erroneous information also will be noticed by many prospects.  If you fail to review and carefully examine your information to make sure that it is up-to-date and accurate, you run a serious risk of convincing your prospect that you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.

The articles and other materials you send, whether written by you or others, must contain current, accurate and trustworthy information.  Never assume that yours is the only information the prospect is receiving about your subject.  Your object is to inform, not confuse.  Your goal is to impress, not show your ignorance or laziness.  Errors are especially easy to miss when dealing with statistics and factual matters of record.

This isn’t to say that you can’t send items that may challenge conventional wisdom.  You certainly can—and if you can back your information up, these may be your most potent communications.  For instance, I work obviously in the areas of sales and sales management.  Most salespeople and managers know there are a great variety of training methods and theories.  Controversy and going against convention isn’t an issue in this industry.  As a matter of fact, many are well aware that many conventional ways of doing things simply don’t work that well.  Consequently, going against convention and finding better ways is welcomed. 

But in other industries, for example, many sectors of the financial services industry, bucking convention many not only raise many eyebrows, but your very competence may be questioned if your ideas are not well documented by independent sources.  Does this mean that you can’t present non-traditional ideas in these industries?  No.  It simply means that you must go out of your way to document their validity because you know upfront that you’re dealing with a subject where innovation is going to be questioned—not just by peers, but by many prospects also.

In addition to sloppy work, overstatements and exaggerations are another red flag for prospects.  It is perfectly permissible to make strong statements about your products and services as long as you are not the author of those statements and you can identify for your prospects exactly who made the claims about your product or service. 

If you use superlatives about yourself, your product/service, or your company, they cannot be from you and you must fully identify the person who made them—meaning they can be checked out.  If you make the claim yourself, you lose credibility.  If you attribute the superlative to someone who is not fully identified, you lose credibility.  If you use an authority in your particular field and give full identification, you gain credibility.  If you use an everyday customer with full disclosure, you gain credibility.

Examine your prospect communications in light of these three most common mistakes.  Don’t allow yourself to lose credibility while trying to build credibility.  Every communication you have with a prospect or client is just as important as your initial communication with them.  You’ve worked hard to gain their trust and respect.  Don’t blow it by teaching them that you’re nothing but a time waster.

 

Paul McCord, a leading Business Development Strategist and president of McCord Training, works with companies and sales leaders to help them increase sales and profits by finding and connecting with high quality prospects in ways prospects respect and respond to.  An internationally recognized author, speaker, trainer and consultant, Paul’s clients range from giants such as Chase, New York Life, Siemens, and GE, to small and mid-size firms, as well as individual sales leaders.  He is the author of the popular Sales and Sales Management Blog (http://salesandmanagementblog.com). 

July 9, 2009

Boost Your Sales: “Trust Two Point Ooh,” by Clayton Shold

Filed under: Client Relationships,sales,selling,trust — Paul McCord @ 7:19 am
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Trust Two Point Ooh
by Clayton Shold

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

If you are old enough to remember the Popeye cartoons you’ll remember this quote. Popeye’s friend Wimpy used it often. You see Wimpy loved to eat hamburgers but was too cheap to pay for them. He was looking for credit, usually from a patron of the diner. If he approached you would you trust him to pay you back on Tuesday – or any day?

I suspect if you knew Wimpy and his reputation you would most certainly decline to buy him a burger.

If you were from the era when this comic strip first ran in the mid 1930’s you probably sealed business deals with a handshake and little if any legal paperwork. Why, because people trusted other people.  Here lies our conundrum, what has changed and why are we less trusting of some people than others?

I believe most people start out trusting other people, taking them at face value … especially when the degree of risk involved is low. Say someone introduces you to an individual and the person tells you what they do for a living. It is probably safe to assume you believe them; you have no reason to doubt their honesty. You are not suspicious of their statement, unless other overriding factors kick in. Did any non-verbal cautions flags go up? Did the person smile funny while telling you their vocation, did they shift uneasily, or did they avoid eye contact? Did your spider senses tingle?

In today’s society we tend to be more skeptical than in Popeye’s day, which is another way of saying we are less trusting. Why is that? Watch young children and you don’t see evidence of this.  Can we surmise then that life experiences cause us over time, to take stalk in other people’s actions which become the basis on which we begin to measure trust?

Trust relationships evolve over time. As people experience other’s actions they begin to build a ‘trust vault’ of memories. The vault continues to accept deposits as long as the person continues to interact in an honest, ethical and open way. Strong relationships rely on familiarity, a sense of fairness, open communication and mutual respect that continue over time.

It is easy to bankrupt the trust vault and it usually happens quickly. Once the vault is empty it is very difficult to rebuild and regain the lost trust. Take marriage where we pledge to “love honour and cherish until death to us part”. The vows exchanged are a commitment of trust between two people. An extramarital affair, once exposed destroys most if not all of the trust accumulated in that relationship.

The past decade provided too many examples of top business leaders who didn’t just erode our trust, they nuked it totally.

Wimpy lived on hamburgers and broken promises, what about those who require high levels of trust to be successful in their chosen vocation. We hold some professions to a higher standard than others with regard to trust. If you are in court, we have an expectation of fairness and trust the judge to be impartial. Think of your financial advisor providing guidance on your money matters, do you trust them to manage and safeguard your savings as if it were their own. Think about your hair stylist (someone Wimpy might have called a barber or hairdresser), you keep going back because of the trust established over repeated visits, confident you will leave happy. Some professions hold themselves accountable to a high level of trust, our armed forces, police and fire personnel trust their peers with their life.

So what changed from Popeye and Wimpy’s day?  Has our competitive spirit of winning at all costs eroded our decency, integrity and sense of fair play? Did it deteriorate because of shareholder’s greed in expecting quarter over quarter growth and profitability? Have we found it easier to initiate litigation with an expectation of a windfall decision that has bred legal beagles in sufficient quantity to sniff every pant leg? Have we become so selfish we will not extend credit to others to allow them to make deposits into our trust vault?

I believe the pendulum is beginning to swing back. Society is desperate for leaders we believe will do what is right, someone we can count on to fix what is broken, to take us on a path we can be proud to walk, to restore our confidence, to gain our trust.

We can all act as catalysts to accelerate this change. Reconstitute the principle you word is your honour, then ensure your actions support your words. Rejuvenate the notion your handshake is a binding gesture signalling your values, beliefs, and commitment to the other party. Treat others with respect and make regular deposits to their trust vaults.

This is much more than bumming a hamburger, it is about how we live our lives, the relationships we establish and the trust vaults we encourage and protect.

“I yam what I yam and tha’s all what I yam.” – Popeye

Clayton Shold is president and co-founder of Salesopedia. He is a business therapist to small and medium sized organizations in Canada and the US helping them leverage sales and marketing opportunities.

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If you like what you see on the Sales and Sales Management Blog, I encourage you to either:

Save it to your RSS Reader

or

Subscribe to my POWER SELLING newsletter where twice each month you’ll get a full length article designed to help you increase your and/or your sales team’s sales.  Just shoot me an email at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com with “subscribe” in the subject line and your name and email address in the body and I’ll get you subcribed, and since I hate SPAM as much as you do, I’ll never sell, lease, rent or give your information to anyone—EVER.

July 8, 2009

Boost Your Sales: “8 Essential Criteria for Winning a Big Contract from Me,” by Mike Schultz

Filed under: Client Relationships,sales,selling,trust — Paul McCord @ 9:12 am
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8 Essential Criteria for Winning a Big Contract from Me
by Mike Schultz

Smoking a cigar in the Adirondack chair as the red sun goes down over the lake on a warm summer evening. Between this and me is a major remodel of the fixer-upper lake house my wife and I just bought.

Since I inherited from my father special skills like hammering a nail into a wall such that I ruin the wall, I realize I’m about to spend a lot of time with architects and contractors. All I’ve heard from friends and colleagues is, “Be careful!”

The cliché digs on architects are that they are artists with no attention to detail and no grounding in reality. The digs on contractors are that they’ll take any opening you give them to cut corners, pad their fees, and drop you and your project at the first sign they have to work more than they thought or something better comes along.

I don’t believe any of it. I can dis doctors (quacks), consultants (here to fire people, read their watch, and tell me what time it is), lawyers (ambulance chasing naysayers), and accountants (boring bean counters).  It’s simply the reality that the great service providers in these (and all other) areas are mixed in with the rest of the average to rotten bunch.

The reality is I want to trust right away, but I’ve been burned in the past. We all have. And I’ve got my future hopes and dreams for my family and me wrapped up in turning this 70s wood-paneled, purple-shag-carpeted, water-damaged dwelling into our home. Thus I’ve got fear, uncertainty, and doubt about my ‘partners’ in this major renovation.

That’s a good dose of emotion, and I’m not a very emotional guy. Even the very special episodes of Blossom didn’t get to me (much). But I bought this house to raise a family and while away the next several decades, and so a lot of feelings are tied up in getting this renovation right.

Now I’ve got to find service providers to help me. For both the architect and the contractor, here are my buying criteria:

Be very good at your craft. Do I need you to be the best? I wouldn’t even know how to define that. I’ll probably look at your past work to get a sense of whether or not you’ve got the chops to do what I need done.

Deal with us fairly. We’ll both make sure the contract is clear and fair so we know our roles and responsibilities, but you can’t contract for every eventuality. I’ll probably get a sense of your client focus by speaking with you and listening for cues, by speaking to your references, and by asking around.

Meet mutually set commitments. Whether it’s in the contract, or whether it’s something we discussed, do what you say you’re going to do.

Understand our needs. I’ll give you overviews, answer your questions, and show you examples, but it’s got to register with you.

Anticipate our needs. Let’s say we lay out a room a particular way. Did we forget something? Let’s say you’re just about to put hammer to nail and you see that we might not have left enough room for the chairs to go back from the table. Call us.

Add to the conversation. Don’t just take our ideas and implement them. Take them and make them better.

Be responsive to us. Don’t return calls or disappear and we’ll have big problems.

Stick to the budget.

What I don’t care about is what your tagline is, whether or not you’re a “different kind of design/build firm,” or that you’ve got a unique methodology for designing and building houses. I don’t care about how good the schools, hospitals, or hotels are that you’ve built.

What can I say, buyers buy parochially, and that includes me. I’m trying to figure out if you’ll be good at serving people like us in a situation like ours. As much as you think the other examples might be good proxies for how much you can help us, they simply won’t be as good for us as ones that look just like us.

If everything comes together as we hope, the remodel and our relationship will go swimmingly. But will it all come together like this? Let’s hope contractors read marketing blogs.

Mike Schultz, President of Wellesley Hills Group, is world-renowned as a consultant and expert in services marketing, branding, and rainmaking. Co-author of the book Professional Services Marketing (Wiley, 2009), Mike is an engaging and thought-provoking speaker, delivering dozens of keynotes each year in-house for clients and at leading industry conferences. Mike is also Publisher of RainToday.com, the world’s foremost publication and membership site for insight, advice, and tools for growing a service business.

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Like What You See Here?

If you like what you see on the Sales and Sales Management Blog, I encourage you to either:

Save it to your RSS Reader

or

Subscribe to my POWER SELLING newsletter where twice each month you’ll get a full length article designed to help you increase your and/or your sales team’s sales.  Just shoot me an email at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com with “subscribe” in the subject line and your name and email address in the body and I’ll get you subcribed, and since I hate SPAM as much as you do, I’ll never sell, lease, rent or give your information to anyone—EVER.

July 2, 2009

Boost Your Sales: “Your Value is Like a Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookie,” by Kendra Lee

Filed under: Client Relationships,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 6:44 am
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Your Value is Like a Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookie
by Kendra Lee

Selling is a lot like baking. I love to bake. Every Sunday I make three batches of chocolate chip cookies for my family of three growing boys. Friends who stop by know the cookie jar will be full and ask to dip in. No kid or adult is immune and they can never stop at just one

Yum! These are good. Do you use real butter?

What kind of chocolate chips do you use?

How do you get them so soft?

I shouldn’t have another, but may I? Can I please have another?

Even though my homemade chocolate chip cookies are definitely not low fat, people eat two, three and four at a time – more than they ever intended, but what the heck? Their senses take over as the cookie melts away in their mouth. And their hesitation goes out the door.

Your clients are the same way. If they love, love, love your consultative recommendations, advice, and observations they’ll buy more and more. Make their job easier. Check in on them even if you aren’t working a current opportunity. Bring them new ideas and make recommendations you believe will best fit their businesses. Always be willing to listen and brainstorm. Help them financially justify their investment while only selling solutions that will benefit their businesses.

Sell your value. Show your clients the value of working with you. No doubt you hear these phrases every day. But when clients are pressuring you for a price break, it isn’t always as easy as it sounds.

Will clients really pay more to buy your stuff? Yes! They buy Starbucks and Krispy Kreme donuts instead of generic because they value the taste. They’ll buy your value, too, if you appeal to their senses.

While your clients’ budgets may say they should shop around, or they shouldn’t buy that extra service level, they will buy – and buy from you. They’ll do it because they feel confident in decisions you help them make. They can taste the success you’re helping them achieve melting in their mouth.

The memory of that success lingers, just like the memory of a homemade chocolate chip cookie.

In my opinion, if you’re going to take the time to make homemade cookies, you shouldn’t skimp on the ingredients to save calories or money. If you skimp, they’re no better than the packages or tubes you can buy at the store – and definitely not worth the effort to make or eat. Adults don’t see any reason to eat them. Kids will pass them by; and they certainly aren’t going to recommend them to their friends.

The fact that I perfected my recipe over years, and don’t skimp on the ingredients or the time to make them, has my family not just satisfied but bragging. Friends are coming back for more. New friends are coming out of the woodwork.

Your value will linger, too.

Your client will not only pay for your value, but tell everyone they know about how pleased they are! Before you know it, you’ll have a great testimonial for proposals, an eager reference, and referrals flowing your way.

I was speaking with a client this week who actually apologized for spreading our name “all over the place!” He said he probably should have told me so I could prepare our team, but he’d been so busy he hadn’t had a moment. He’d sent some referrals to look at our website and listen in on some audio conferences we were running. He hoped that was okay with me.

Okay? That’s value as good as a homemade chocolate chip cookie!

Kendra Lee is author of “Selling Against the Goal” and president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group helps companies rapidly penetrate new markets, break into new accounts and shorten time to revenue with new products in the Small & Midmarket Business (SMB) segment. Ms. Lee is a frequent speaker at national sales meetings and association events. To find out more about the author, read her latest articles, or to subscribe to her newsletter visit http://www.klagroup.com or call +1 303.773.1285.

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Like What You See Here?

If you like what you see on the Sales and Sales Management Blog, I encourage you to either:

Save it to your RSS Reader

or

Subscribe to my POWER SELLING newsletter where twice each month you’ll get a full length article designed to help you increase your and/or your sales team’s sales.  Just shoot me an email at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com with “subscribe” in the subject line and your name and email address in the body and I’ll get you subcribed, and since I hate SPAM as much as you do, I’ll never sell, lease, rent or give your information to anyone—EVER.

July 1, 2009

Boost Your Sales: “Building Client Relationships,” by Jerry Acuff

Filed under: Client Relationships,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 7:12 am
Tags: , , ,

Building Client Relationships
By Jerry Acuff

Does any aspect of selling deserve more of your attention than building client relationships?  Most of us would agree that client relationships are the backbone of our business.  They are the key to referrals and the possible insulation from competition and a down economy.  Three things to consider about client relationships are:

  • How do we build them with people we do NOT naturally connect with?
  • How do we maintain them?
  • How do we leverage them?  

How Do We Build Relationships With Those We Do NOT Naturally Connect With?

The fun part of selling is meeting those people that you just click with right away.  Their kids are the same age as yours or you went to the same college or you are from the same home town.  Conversation flows easily and you leave your first meeting thinking about how much you enjoy your job and meeting new clients. You don’t need any advice on how to connect with these people.

But what about those with whom we do not find a natural connection?  What about the client that seems stiff, bored and totally indifferent to your attempts to find common ground?  Maybe they don’t follow your favorite sport, don’t read the same things you read and don’t seem very interested in discussing family or personal life.  Now what?

Ask the right questions. Find out what is important to this person and then let them know that you have a genuine interest in them.  Almost everyone is interested in talking about themselves and most people have something that they are passionate about.  If you can find out what they value and get them to discuss it with you, it is highly likely that you will find it interesting and you will be on the right path to having a real connection with them.  Maybe you never had an interest in Civil War reenactments and thought they were a little strange.  But after your new client explains how he was finally able to connect with his aloof teenage son after taking him to a reenactment at Gettysburg, suddenly you see this hobby in a new light.  Maybe then you ask him to tell you a little more about his son and his face lights up.  It was all a matter of asking the right questions…

Three Steps to Building a Positive Relationship

  • What you think: your mindset
  • What you ask: the information you gather
  • What you do: the actions you take

What You Think: Your Mindset
Believing that relationship building is crucial and that, if done well and often it will increase your chances for fun and success is a must. You must also believe that the person you are trying to build a relationship with would want one with you. If you believe they wouldn’t want a relationship with you- you will be right. You also need a mindset that you have something to offer any potential relationship. If you believe otherwise, valuable business relationships will be difficult for you to build.

What You Ask: The Information You Gather
Until you know who and what the person treasures (and act on this information in a way that demonstrates that you care) you are at a relationship impasse.  One way to start the dialogue flowing is to ask someone, “So where did you grow up?”  This is a question that often brings back a flow of (hopefully) positive memories of their hometown and their answer will likely reveal something about them that will lead to your next question.  For example, the answer may be, “I grew up in Kitty Hawk, NC, where the first flight ever was flown by the Wright Brothers.”  To which you reply, “Do you have an interest in flying yourself?” And the client then tells you all about getting his pilot’s license when he was 19 and flying across country at 25 with his new bride.  Now you know what he is passionate about and this leads to building the relationship with your actions.

As a guideline to remember which questions to ask, think FORM. 

F is for family or questions about parents, children or siblings.

O is for occupation or questions about what they do, what they would like to do, what they are studying, or what they like best about their job

R is for recreation or questions about what they like to do in their spare time

M is for motivation or questions about what motivates them in life.

What You Do: The Actions You Take
Your actions differentiate you from other people.  Many other sales people may have the same information as you but do nothing with it.  This is the value of Inexpensive, Unexpected, Thoughtful Actions. IUTAs fall under several categories and are likely to help you connect with your clients and differentiate yourself from all of the others.  Suppose one of your new clients is grumbling about the tedious planning of his daughter’s upcoming wedding.  You mention that you and your wife went through the same thing a couple of years ago and the next time you see him, you bring along a couple of your daughter’s wedding planning books for him to pass along to his wife.  He is surprised you remembered and thrilled to have something like that to bring home that night.  He is not likely to forget the simple gesture.

Maybe you call to arrange a meeting and your client’s administrative assistance mentions the client can’t make it that day because he is sitting as a judge at the Italian Food Festival. The next time you see him you bring along the homemade mozzarella from the Italian market down the street.   He is blown away by your attention to detail and his whole demeanor changes as he starts the meeting.

These IUTAs  can be focused on important dates, family names, important events, personal goals or milestones, favorite foods, schools attended, important places, vacations or children’s accomplishments just to name a few.

In order to maintain these relationships that you have built, remember to take a few important steps.  Understand the lifetime value of a customer by making the time to maintain relationships and keep in contact with others.  Help others succeed whenever you have the opportunity and reach out to your customers even when you are not in need of help.  If the way you connect with people sends them a message that you are willing to make the time to stay in touch, they will naturally conclude that they are important to you.  You can maintain relationships with personal notes, phone calls or letters but less time consuming (and more up to date) is with email, notes on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter or text messages on a cell phone.  With the technology available to us today, it is easier and more efficient to stay in touch with people on a more constant basis.  These small contacts are likely to pay huge dividends to your business in the long term.

These are just a few ideas on how to build and leverage the client relationships that truly are the foundation of our sales success.  By paying just a little more attention to the details and making a more concerted effort to stay in touch with people, you will differentiate yourself from others by the depth and quality of your relationships with people.  There is no downside here and any and all efforts you make to build and maintain relationships will eventually pay you dividends in one form or another.

Jerry Acuff is the CEO of DELTA POINT in Scottsdale, Arizona. DELTA POINT works with sales and marketing leaders to implement innovative ways to sell and market in today’s crowded marketplace. Jerry has been featured on MSNBC and also in Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, Wall Street Journal On-Line, Investors Business Daily, Managed Care Pharmacy Practice, Fast Company, Selling Power and, Selling Power Live. He is currently on the advisory Board for the Marketing Department at Northern Illinois University and is on the Board of Governors for the Athletic Foundation at the Virginia Military Institute, his alma mater. For over 20 years, he has spoken and consulted extensively on the issues of sales and marketing excellence in the pharmaceutical industry. Jerry is the author of 3 books: The Relationship Edge, The Relationship Edge in Business and Stop Acting Like a Seller and Start Thinking Like a Buyer all published John Wiley and Sons.

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May 5, 2009

Guest Article: “What Exactly Is Rapport?” by Jonathan Farrington

Filed under: Client Relationships,Communication,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 9:06 am
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What Exactly Is Rapport?
by Jonathan Farrington

Rapport is the most important process in influencing others. It is vital if you want to maintain relationships. Without it, you are unlikely to achieve willing agreement to what you want. People who have excellent rapport with others create harmonious relationships based on trust and understanding of mutual needs.

Rapport is the cornerstone of all mutually effective relationships. It needs constant vigilance to keep it alive and effective.

Why Is It So Important?

Rapport is similar to money – when you are short of it, it increases in importance. Without rapport you will reduce your chances of getting:

• Unconditional agreement to your ideas and suggestions

• Full commitment from others

• Business, promotion, fiends

The way in which you interact with others has a major bearing on your success as an influencer.

Being in rapport means that you are in agreement with others both verbally and non-verbally.

Ten Good Reasons To Build Rapport:

• To really win friends and influence people

• To connect rapidly with a wide range of people

• To communicate magically

• To build solid, lasting relationships

• To create incredible results

• To help others improve performance and increase success

• To handle conflict

• To get promotion

• To talk your way in to things

• To talk your way out of things

A Recipe For Successful Influence:

Ingredients:

Trust

Openness

Comfort

Acceptance

Empathy

Flexibility

Something in common

Shared understanding

Method

Mix together as required. Notice changes and be prepared to maintain a flexible approach throughout. Keep communication flowing on all levels.

Self-Disclosure:

Telling others how you feel and what you think and believe, as well as telling them about your background, is a kind of currency. Give out information and usually you will receive a lot back in return.

People swarm, flock and group together by type, background, interests, beliefs, gender, work and so on. And one of the most efficient ways to get close to one another is through self-disclosure.

As we begin to experience a powerful common bond, so too does rapport begin. Mutual interests, ideas, values and beliefs are the wrap and weft of social interaction.

Most people like people who are like themselves!

Biographic Matching:

It is rare for two human beings to be together very long before seeking to discover similarities about themselves. This biographic matching can be social or economic, achieved through outlook, education or background – common experiences of the world.

When you match, you reduce resistance by playing down differences while building on similarities.

Pacing:

Once you are matching one another, you can continue to maintain the rhythm you have created by agreeing with one another, seeing things from the same point of view. Pacing is a conscious continuation of matching.

When talking, you can pace:

• Words that are used

• Tone of voice

• Language patterns

• Volume

• Body language used

Don’t overdo it – you may be accused of mimicry. Be elegant – your skills should remain unnoticed.

Leading

One of the goals of matching and pacing others is to be able effortlessly to lead them in another direction. Once you are deeply in sync with the other people, a change of pace from you will usually result in a similar change in others.

Matching and pacing help you share someone else’s experience and you will begin to know intuitively when it is appropriate to make suggestions, to influence, to lead.

Mismatching

You can also influence behaviour in others by mismatching. It is useful to mismatch when:

• You want a meeting to come to an end – clear up papers, put a pen away

• You want to conclude a telephone conversation – minimise responses.

• You need time to think before acting – use the bathroom, make a telephone call, add up figures on your calculator.

• What you are doing isn’t working – go for a walk, listen to some music, make a phone call.

• Matching is affecting your mood negatively – break off the conversation, change the subject.

Networking

Have you noticed how some people seem to be universally liked, trusted and respected? Chances are that they’re also good at networking – developing a wide network of friends, colleagues, allies and useful contacts.

Networking offers you a structured way of making certain that your ideas are effectively exchanged with others.

And Finally: Networking In Action

How can you get to know your team, other managers and clients better? Are there management associations you could join, luncheon clubs, your local Chamber of Commerce?

Organise team events outside working hours. Be seen at functions, offer to assist whenever you can.

Make yourself known – don’t stand on the edge looking in. Be part of the action.

 

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author and sales strategist, who has guided hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels.   He is Chairman of The Sales Corporation, CEO of Top Sales Associates and Senior Partner at The JF Consultancy based in London and Paris.  Visit his blog

May 1, 2009

Is Being Liked by Your Prospects Really Important?

Filed under: Client Relationships,sales,selling,trust — Paul McCord @ 9:13 am
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“There’s nothing in this world more important in sales than being liked by your prospect.”

“A prospect won’t listen to you unless they like you, so if you can’t get them on your side, you can’t create a sale.”

“If they like you, they may listen to you.  If they’ll listen to you, you may be able to get them to trust you.  If they trust you, they just might buy from you . . . .  Everything positive in the sale starts with them liking you, everything negative starts with them not liking you.”

These three statements about being liked were made by three top sales trainers.  Being liked must be the lynchpin to success in selling, right? 

I’ve attended numerous sales workshops and seminars, listened to a great many CD’s, and read dozens of books that all emphasize the critical nature of being liked by prospects and clients. 

On the positive side it is claimed that being liked:

  • opens doors
  • lowers prospect’s defenses
  • makes them want to say yes to please you
  • allows them to trust you

On the negative side they claim that if you aren’t liked prospects:

  • won’t believe you
  • will be suspect of your intentions
  • won’t give you full cooperation

Sounds like being liked really is the key to sales success.

Except it isn’t.

Certainly, being liked is a great asset and by all means we should do all within reason to be liked by our prospects and clients.

But being liked takes a backseat to being trusted and respected.

I suspect that you, like me, have heard many comments such as: “He drives me crazy and is one of the hardest people I know to get along with, but I wouldn’t trust my money to anyone else,” or, “I have to have my assistant deal with him because I just can’t deal with him.  I’d really love to find someone I can work with, but by gosh when he says something I can take it to the bank, and that’s worth a whole lot more than having to put up with him.”

I’ve seen thousands of situations where the salesperson and client weren’t friendly, much less friends; where the client didn’t like the salesperson but was eager to do business with them because they had earned the prospect’s trust.

We work in a profession that has a reputation for being less than honest—for being downright dishonest.  Many, if not all, of our prospects have had numerous bad experiences with salespeople.  They’ve been lied to, ripped off, and taken advantage of to the point they not only have erected a protective wall between themselves, they’ve also dug a mote and stocked it with crocodiles.  They try to avoid us if at all possible, and when they do have to deal with us, they expect us to lie, cheat, and try to screw them to the wall.

Your prospects have met the eminently likeable rip-off artist, the oh so likeable liar, the loveable conman; and as far as they know, you’re him, and if you are, well, that’s just par for the course when dealing with salespeople.

Prospects aren’t surprised to find likable salespeople whom they don’t trust.  That’s the norm.  They even buy from them because they can’t find someone they do trust.  And if you’re going to buy from someone you don’t trust, why not buy from the one you like?

No, being liked isn’t the key to sales success.

But if your prospects find likeable salespeople all around them that they don’t trust, what would happen if they found a salesperson they did trust?  They’d probably react in the same way as those quoted above—they’d be overjoyed to deal with them even if they didn’t like them.

Trust (real trust, not the shallow trust salespeople try to create by faking interest in the prospect by asking a couple of personal questions to find—or fake—common ground upon which to build likeability) is difficult to build and once built, easy to wreck. 

Although trust is one of the most difficult bridges to build with a client, it is the glue that builds lasting clients. 

Charles H. Green has developed an equation for measuring trust.  In the equation, Trust equals Credibility plus Reliability plus Intimacy divided by Self-orientation.  Although all four factors are important, in a sense the self-orientation is the most important.  The salesperson’s focus, whether on the prospect’s interests or on their own self interest, is the key factor in establishing trust.

By all means strive to be liked, but work to establish trust. 

Trust establishes clients and brings in business, being liked makes it more enjoyable.

February 23, 2009

Turning a Serious Concept into Marketing Pulp

Filed under: branding,business,Client Relationships,marketing,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 9:42 am
Tags: , , , , ,

If you’ve been selling for any time whatsoever, I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of being a trusted advisor.  I’m also sure you’d like your customers and clients to view you as one of their trusted advisors. 

Although the concept of being a trusted advisor has been around for centuries, Charles Green and David Maister in their book, The Trusted Advisor, began the popularization of the concept in the professional sales arena.  Today Charles is still one of the leading advocates and counselors of creating trust-based relationships in business.

Since the publication of The Trusted Advisor the concept of being a trusted advisor has grown to the point that I suspect it would be very difficult to find a professional salesperson that isn’t at least familiar with the term.  Just a few years ago, the concept of trusted advisor was new for many in sales.  As more and more people became familiar with the term, it began to appear frequently in literature and in sales, marketing, and management training sessions and has now entered the marketing world as a sales tool.

The root of the trusted advisor concept is action-what we as salespeople do with and to our prospects and clients.  How we treat our clients, how we relate to them, and who’s good we seek is paramount in developing a trusted advisor relationship.  Developing the trusted advisor relationship has far more to do with what we do than what we say, and it certainly has nothing to do with how we describe ourselves in our sales and marketing materials.

Inevitably, the term is being hi-jacked by salespeople, marketing departments, and companies as a sales tool.  Salespeople and companies refer to themselves as ‘trusted advisors,’ even to the extent that some companies have included the term in their company name.  Marketing departments have worked the term into their marketing material and tag lines.  It won’t be long and the term will appear in some company’s jingle-if it hasn’t already. 

Many of these salespeople and companies believe the term accurately describes who they are or who they wish to be; others, however, simply seek to take a shortcut and proclaim themselves to be trusted advisors in hopes of attracting business without having to do the work.  But whether used by those who seek to become a trusted advisor or by those who simply view the term as a marketing tool, they both are turning the term-not the concept-into meaningless marketing pap. 

Many react negatively to a salesperson who proclaims themselves to be honest and truthful (“honestly, . . .” or, “to tell you the truth, . . .”).  If you have to tell me how honest or truthful you are, I immediately suspect just how honest and truthful you really are.  The same is true for those who proclaim themselves to be trusted advisors.  Just as honesty, truthfulness, and trust are not things you proclaim but are things you demonstrate, becoming a trusted advisor is an earned position.  If you have to tell your prospect or client what to think of you, you probably haven’t earned it-and they probably won’t think of you in those terms anyway.

It’s sad to see a great term turned into meaningless marketing mush.  If you really want to become a trusted advisor to your clients, forget about marketing yourself or your company as a trusted advisor; instead, do the work, earn the position, and you’ll have a client for life. 

November 20, 2008

Guest Article: “My Client is a Jerk: Three Keys to Transforming Relationships Gone Wrong,” by Charles H. Green

Filed under: Client Relationships,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 6:21 am
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My Client Is a Jerk: Three Keys to Transforming Relationships Gone Wrong
By Charles H. Green

Have you ever had a difficult client? I don’t mean the client from hell, I just mean garden variety difficult. Difficult clients come in lots of different flavors.

• There’s the client who will not take the time up front to share critical information, explore ideas, or otherwise involve you in early stages;

• There’s the client who just cannot make a decision, regardless of how much data or analyses you provide at their request;

• There’s the client who is frozen by politics or fear or ignorance, who will not face facts about critical issues;

• Finally, there’s the client with personality issues, who argues, or rejects, or is otherwise disrespectful to you and your team, and who often shows favoritism to someone else rather than us.

Fortunately, there is a common thread to all these cases, which-if we understand it-can help us succeed.

The common thread has nothing to do with the clients. The common thread is us.

The Client Situation

First, let’s get some perspective-about our clients, and about ourselves.

We’ve all said, if only in our heads, “my client is a jerk.” But “my client is a jerk” is a terrible problem statement.

First, the client is unlikely to accept it as a problem statement, it’s highly subjective, and it’s quite unverifiable.

And frankly, people in a position to hire outside professionals typically have evidenced some degree of success in life. While it’s popular lately to describe the prevalence of “assholes” in business (see Bob Sutton’s excellent book), my guess is their frequency is overestimated. Most clients are intellectually and emotionally intelligent.

Most clients have spouses, or parents, or siblings, who seem to be quite capable of loving them. Most have a boss who has promoted them. It is wise to assume that, even if their behavior is bad, they have some ability to get by in life. True psychotics are pretty rare in business.

Furthermore, truly bad behavior more often than not comes from decent people who are stressed out. If someone is behaving badly, it’s a good bet that they are afraid-of losing something they have, or of not getting what they want.

If you can identify that fear, then you can replace demonization with a real problem statement-a far more productive approach. If, further, you can talk about that fear with your client, you will create a lasting bond that can serve you both well.

Our Own Situation

What’s true of clients is equally true for us. Particularly in selling, we are loaded with fears. We are afraid, first of all, of not getting the sale. And it goes deeper. We’re afraid of our boss, peers and loved ones knowing that we might not get the sale-afraid of their judgement. We’re afraid of the judging of the client, too-feeling that if we don’t get the sale, it means they think less of us.

But we ourselves carry the ultimate judges around in our own heads. We allow ourselves to be hijacked and held hostage by our own ideas of what constitutes success, or being “good enough,” or whatever value judgments we distill from our past, and apply to ourselves. There’s a thin line between having high standards and beating up on oneself.

If we allow ourselves to act from those fears, we are likely to run from judgment. One of the most emotionally attractive ways out of the tyranny of self-judgment is to blame others. It was not my fault, we want to say; the dog ate my homework. It was a bad hair day. Or-this sale was doomed because I got stuck with a difficult client. If you’d had my client, you couldn’t have done much either. It wasn’t my fault-it was the client.

But blame is more useless to us than our appendix. At least when an appendix gets inflamed, we recognize it and operate to remove it. When blame flares up, people at first commiserate with you, encouraging it. Then as it metastasizes into resentment, people begin to move away from you. Resentment, it is said, is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Misery may love company, but company doesn’t return the favor.

Blaming a client never got you the sale, and it never will; but it may keep you from getting the next one. People don’t like blame-throwers. Clients especially don’t.

If there is such a thing as a truly “difficult” client, the only valid lesson to draw from the experience is to avoid similar clients in future. And that is a lesson best kept to yourself.

Self-Diagnosing

What’s true of clients is equally true for us. Particularly in selling, we are prone to fear, hence to blame. And that leads to nothing good.

The first thing to do is to notice our thoughts. Practice taking a “snapshot” of your thoughts when you are stressed.

Ask yourself, “what is the problem here?” If your mental snapshot answer starts with, “my client won’t…” or “my client doesn’t…” or “I can’t get my client to…” or “my client never…” then you need to step back and reframe your thinking. You are stuck in the blame game, spinning your wheels, and going nowhere.

You need a problem statement that has you in it, first of all. And almost always it should be a problem statement that is joint. If you and your client can’t even agree about why you’re not getting along, you’re certainly not going to make much progress on the substantive issues you want to work on.

Good problem statements are joint. Jointness is reflected in language, e.g.:

• Our problem is we have differing views about the priority of X and Y

• We seem to have a problem in communicating when it comes to Q and R

• It looks like we differ about the timeframe to be considered here.

If you have a “difficult” client, find a “we” statement you can each agree to that gets to the heart of the disagreement.

Fixes

Sometimes, all we need to do is jointly reframe an issue and, voila-our clients no longer seem so difficult.

It never hurts to go back to basics. One reason people act badly is that they have not had someone listen to them. Really listen. Deeply. Without reacting with suggestions or action steps. Just for the sake of understanding. “Just” understanding our clients often ends up being the catalyst that changes everything.

But sometimes, we need to do some advanced work on ourselves-in particular, to find out what we have become attached to that holds us hostage. Here are a few.

a. Don’t hold yourself hostage to the outcome. We should have points of view-that is part of what clients pay for. And we should argue clearly and forcefully for what we believe is right. But we are not responsible for our clients’ actions-only for informing their actions as best we can.

No one ultimately controls another human being without their consent-even at gunpoint. Holding ourselves accountable for changing others is a recipe for misery. Do the next right thing-then detach from the results. You don’t own the outcome.

b. Check your ego at the door. The best way to lose the sale is to try very hard to get the sale; the best way to lose the argument is to try very hard to win the argument. It is not about you. The only one who thinks it is about you is you. Focus on the client, not yourself.

c. Be curious. Is your client “difficult?” Be curious as to why. What is he afraid of? What is at stake for her? What is your role in the situation? What are you afraid of? On what basic issues do you see differently? What do you think the client sees as the problem statement? What problem are you both trying to solve?

There aren’t any difficult clients. Not really. There are only relationships that aren’t working well. And nearly all of those can be fixed. But it must start with us.

As Phil McGee says, “blame is captivity; responsibility is freedom.” To get free of “difficult clients,” take responsibility for fixing the relationships.

Charles H. Green is founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates. The author of Trust-based Selling and co-author of The Trusted Advisor, he has spoken to, consulted for or done seminars about trusted relationships in business for a wide and global range of industries and functions. Centering on the theme of trust in business relationships, Charles works with complex organizations to improve trust in sales, internal trust between organizations, and trusted advisor relationships with external clients and customers.

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