Today’s internet marketplace is flooded with web site marketing products and services! You can click here if you want to learn more! And as the producers of these products and services aggressively compete for consumers on the internet, the noise from all the advertising makes it nearly impossible to discern one product’s benefit from another’s. We are an over communicated society! The authors of the book Positions (Al Ries and Jack Trout) state that in 2001, the per capita consumption of advertising is equal to $376.62 per year. “If you spend $1 million a year on advertising, you are bombarding the average consumer with less than a half cent of advertising, spread out over 365 days; a consumer already exposed to $376.61 & ½ worth of other advertising!”
And as the internet marketing noise has gotten louder over the last decade, we find ourselves asking, how can one be noticed and heard in the overcrowded internet marketplace? You can check out here Legal Marketing Strategy Pros specialize in Facebook Ads for lawyers . Since communication is the problem, we need to take more time to communicate while distinguishing ourselves from the other advertisers. The leading digital marketing company Freshlinks does this by differentiating ourselves as someone courteous, truthful, reliable, stable, and into the relationship for the long haul. We need to develop and habitually use a means of building relationships in a frequently changing marketplace.
Not Markets, But Customers
In previous years, Tom Peters and Nancy Austin told us their research discovered a sustainable strategic advantage observed in some organizations which was the group’s obsession with customers. It was not markets, not marketing, not strategic positioning, just customers. A market has never been observed paying a bill. Customers do that!
Ultimately, it all boils down to a perceived, appreciated, and consistently delivered follow-up, service, and quality to customers. Sales is the outcome of talking with customers in a marketplace based upon good communication principles and relationship building, whereby you eventually sell your product or service.
The Apathetic Salesperson
I am going to share with you a little story I once heard. This is a story about four salespeople. Their names were Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important sale to be made and Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. So, Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
Many salespeople are playing a numbers game and attempt to increase their odds of “winning” by picking only the “cherry” accounts, the immediate decision purchases. However, they are not producing “double win” situations with long-term stability.
Sales research has shown that, when considering all possible salespeople, 48 percent of them will give up after the first call and 25 percent more will quit after the second call. The salespeople are simply apathetic to the buyer’s need for a long-term relationship.
The Center for Marketing Communications in Princeton, New Jerseyhas determined the typical flow of 1000 leads. Of the leads studied, it was determined that only 266 of the prospects are going to purchase in the next twelve months, 114 of these leads will get requested literature late or not at all, and 192 of the leads will receive no salesperson contact.
After a careful inspection of many businesses and their sales practices, the following general observations can be made:
- people who say they are interested in your product or service are interested
- companies have trouble getting their request literature fulfillment out on time
- salespeople treat leads apathetically
- sales costs and intense competition continue to rise
- profit margins are continuing to diminish
Choosing a System for Building Your Relationships
So, what do we need? What is successful today? How can we excite and attract people? How can we increase business through more sales?
First, we want to build a positive relationship. While being truthful and sincere in our representations, we want to make commitments and be able to fulfill them. Instead of short-term relationships marked with interruptions, broken promises, deception, and discourteous treatment, we want to be recognized for longevity, stability, truthfulness, courteous treatment, and fulfilled commitments. More importantly, we should design a system so that if we don’t fulfill a commitment, the computer will for us! This is just a matter of structure and a clearly defined sales sequence.
There are at least three basic models by which we establish relationships and design our structured sales pattern: 1) Passive Systems, 2) Offensive Systems, and 3) Assertive Systems.
Passive Systems are what most people use to build relationships. For example, they do some advertising and then wait for a response such as a phone call. Sometimes they do a long letter which typically makes up most of the junk mail and email we are accustomed to receiving. A long letter attempts to tell you nearly everything you could possibly want to know about the product or service, and frequently closes with “Please call if you have any questions or interest.” In this respect, a Passive System is much like a retail environment in which we sit back and wait for somebody to walk through the door.
Offensive Systems are very much dependent upon face-to-face meetings. This method uses repeat visits to obtain attention. The visits eventually become interpreted as interruptions. Sometimes the Offensive System needs the use of a trick to get past the receptionist or the use of foods, giveaways, etc., to get attention. For example, a title insurance company might require its sales staff to make sixteen sales calls each per day. The complete strategy might be visit-visit-visit, going from one real estate office to the next, and buying donuts to get attention. However, this eventually becomes interpreted as a constant interruption.
What we would really like to establish is an Assertive System: a proactive way to maintain relationships by means of a well-defined sales sequence of events that each new prospective and existing customer must pass through.
The strategy of the Assertive System is to build sales systematically, which provides longevity. Our intent here is to remove the peaks and valleys of sales contracts and subsequently cash flow. Our strategy should also develop a relationship with each new prospect and continuing customer through multiple contacts and communications.
We intend to keep the salespeople focused on the long-term relationship through a well-defined selling sequence. In this way, the sales managers can assist their selling staffs’ efforts in attaining superstar sales levels.
The Assertive System builds a professional image in the mind’s eye of the prospect and the customer. The Assertive System ensures that literature and other requests are attended to in a timely manner, which demonstrates your ability to fulfill your commitments. Most importantly, the Assertive System makes sure that each prospect and customer is processed with the selling sequence so that no lead falls through the cracks!
In general, most of us would prefer to buy from our friends and close acquaintances. We sometimes use our friends as consultants. We trust their recommendations because we have a relationship with them. We build relationships with clients in the same manner that we start relationships with our friends. It usually starts with a commitment we make together, and then we keep our commitment; we follow through. In other words, we don’t usually go out of our way to make friends with people who don’t keep their commitments with us. And it is no different in sales!
Therefore, we want to structure a system that will not allow people to fall through the cracks. If we don’t follow through by delivering that brochure that customer asked for last week, then we begin to tear down the relationship. The customer will begin to feel that he or she cannot depend on or trust in you.
How to Start an Assertive Sales System
The Assertive System is relatively easy to implement because most of us intuitively know how we would like to treat and tend to our customers, as well as how we like to be tended to. The sales sequence cannot be open-ended in that we cannot be all things to all people. So margins and limits must be defined and set so that the structure takes a form that is perceivable and obtainable. You can begin by concentrating on your most favorite customer. Take the time and actions to do all the steps necessary to properly, attentively, and assertively manage your customer’s needs.
You have five stages of development that must be controlled and attended to. Picture yourself putting your customer on a conveyor belt at the beginning when he or she raises a hand and says “I’m interested in something you can do for me.” Your job is to keep this person from falling of the conveyor belt as it passes through the stages of:
- introduction to a new service or product
- obtaining an appointment to review the product or service
- post-appointment comparisons and decisions
- obtaining products or services, with post-purchase depression
- customer satisfaction, with requests for other products and services, and
- referrals to their friends
In short, you must take your customer from “I’m interested…” to “How many…” and this means impeccable follow-up with an eye for detail.
Concentrate on each stage of development as a mutually exclusive task and write down all the things you would do for this favorite customer. Do this for each of the five stages of development. Be sensitive, too, and aware of opportunities where an action on your part will reinforce and improve your relationship with the customer. Your list of things to do in each stage should include letters of communication for staying in touch as well as cover letters for special requests and literature requests. Your list of things to do will also include status checks and phone calls to the customer to confirm or note changes of status and decision making.
This is the premise of an Assertive System and will help you define your sequence of events in the course of a sale. There is much more to the implementation of your structured selling method, which includes time management techniques, the use of a personal planner, production procedures, and most importantly a personal commitment to develop and stay with new habits.
Depending on the volume of people you attempt to pour through your sales sequence, the use of simple Personal Information Manager (PIM) computer software similar to Rolodex® card files can effectively be superseded by real Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that provides for automated sales-track processes. However, a computer-assisted Assertive System requires an eye for detail and past experience in preparation so as not to come across to the customer as a computer-contrived relationship! Also, a computer sales system should automate the communication process, not just be a tickler and reminder that it is your turn to do something. An automated system takes actions for you!
If all you want is a tickler and reminder, then save your investment in a good computer information system (possibly put on the internet cloud for global access) with focused customer relationship management software that automates many tasks. Save on the cost of time to learn and master a good CRM system and the additional monthly recurring expense to have it automate important processes. Instead, buy and learn a good personal resource system (time planner) or use your smart phone apps to constantly remind you to do something and habitually live by it!
The Big Close
Whatever your company’s vision, you know it is effective when the salespeople take personal responsibility for achieving it. And nothing makes more of an impression on your customers than the appearance that the salesperson is taking personal responsibility for the success of whatever enterprise he or she is affiliated with. Think about that. People know. People want to make a commitment. Americans are aching to make a commitment as long as they feel free and comfortable in the environment you build in which to do so. And the word gets around fast about which companies are nourishing their relationships with their customers.
Remember that the individuals who live by the existing sales system are within their comfort zone, and your new ideas will cause them to change this environment. But during times of change we have extraordinary opportunities, leverage and influence – individually, professionally, and company-wide – when we have a clear sense, a clear conception, a clear vision of our sales intent and the road ahead.
Wow, what a great time to be participating!