Jill Konrath's Blog, page 34

If Your Prospect Makes You Feel Like a Doormat, Do This ...

What do you do with people who promise, promise, promise that they'll order for you, but just keep asking for more samples and additional time? That's the question that Helene posed for me the other day. Here's what I told her:

Just because you're a salesperson, doesn't mean you're a doormat. If you feel like you're being used, you probably are. You need to deal straight on with your prospect and say something like this ...

"John. You have said a gazillion times that you're going to order from me. You ask for tons of samples. I quickly respond and get you what you need. But nothing happens.

While I'd really love to do work with your company, it can't keep going like this. So what do you want to do? Should we get you going? If so, I'd recommend this ..."

Say it nicely, but firmly. It is simply a statement. You're not blaming or whining. Again, it's a statement of fact.

If he makes one more request, politely tell him that you will honor that, but then it's over. After that, he'll either need to place an order with you or you'll stop bothering him.

Sound brazen? It isn't. It's about having respect for your own time and responsibilities. Now, repeat after me ...

 

P.S. If you have some other ideas for Helene, please share them here! All suggestions welcome.

[Video] Does Social Selling Really Work?

If you're new to social selling, you're probably wondering if it's worth doing. After all, it takes time to build your online brand, search for info about prospects, connect with new people and especially, share your insights.

Let me give you an example of how different social selling is from our traditional approach. Thomas von Ahn of Viral Solutions recently shared with me that 58% of his company's revenue comes directly from LinkedIn initial contacts.

What's he doing? First off, he's got his bases covered with a decent profile. And, he's not one bit like those pushy, self-promotional people who are looking for quick hit. Instead, he's a go-giver, in it for the long haul because it's the right thing to do.

Tom has joined numerous groups that are frequented by his targeted customer. He participates in lots of group discussions. He even asks good probing questions to start his own discussions.

Tom regularly gives free advice -- without expecting it to immediately turn into business. He offers free e-books and free white papers. He shares good resources that can help solve problems his company can't. And, he even wishes people happy birthday.

Tom has identified the people he'd like to work with. And, he's open to finding new prospects as they emerge. To keep track of things, he logs conversations, tracks their needs and documents what they do, personal interests, etc.

Finally, his company uses a marketing automation system for follow-up purposes. As Tom says, "The social automation and personal attention allows us to reach more needs and solve more problems with fewer bodies and a higher ROI."

Social selling isn't rocket science. It's just the savvy use of social media to connect with people, showcase your expertise and create fresh opportunities.

What Online Scammers Know About Sales Prospecting That We Don't

Good scammers have figured out what it takes to get an unsuspecting person to click on their links and enter their sordid world of illegal or immoral activity. But people like you and me -- we're smarter than most patsies. We can smell them a mile away!

Hah! That's what I thought too -- until I stumbled across a couple really creative ones.

They found just the right words to capture my attention. My finger was all set to click on their link when a little voice in the back of my head said, "Slow down."

So what was it that caused that reaction? Here's the first message I got. It came in via Twitter. Over a few week period I received a few more, all with similar text. 

What makes this message so darn effective? First off, it came from someone I knew. But, more importantly ...

It piqued my curiosity. I wanted to know who was saying bad stuff about me -- and what horrible rumors they were spreading. 

Curiosity. That's the brilliance of this technique. Those scammers figured out a way to evoke it in me. And, we can take that same strategy and use with our prospects. In fact, we can evoke curiosity in our:

Email subject lines 
Voicemail or email messages
Initial conversations
Sales presentations

So have you ever thought about what your prospects are curious about? Mmmm. Now that's a new idea. Maybe you could ask them. Just as a starter, let me throw in topics such as: industry trends, how similar businesses are addressing problems, new ways to look at their challenges. Get the picture?

And once you get that figured out, then you need to experiment with different ways to share this information in a curiosity-inducing manner. For example, I have five different titles for this article before I settled on the one you see above. Why did I chose this one? Because it didn't give away the answer. You had to read the article to find out. 

Once you get into the fun of evoking curiosity, it's actually a lot of fun. You can literally see the difference in your prospect's reactions -- and ultimately your sales success.

[Video] The Rise of Social Selling

Have you heard the term "social selling" yet? If not, brace yourself. It's the way of the future. 

So what is it? Basically, it starts with social media -- which is simply user-created content. Your LinkedIn profile is a great example. So are your status updates and the group conversations you have. It also includes other user-created content like Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Facebook.   

Social selling is about what you do with this content. And sellers who've embraced social media are creating new opportunities that totally bypass traditional sales channels.  

In essence, social selling is about these 4 things:  

Building a strong online brand. Your digital image needs to highlight your experience and position you as a credible resource. 
Gathering sales intelligence. It's about researching this user-created content to learn more about the people and companies you're meeting with. 
Making connections. Social media gives you so many ways to initiate conversations, develop new relationships and connect with like-minded people.  
Sharing good stuff. You're expected to share your ideas, insights, information and resources with the community too. That's what good social sellers do.  

In short, it's about good selling -- using all the tools that are available to you today. If you're still a dabbler at these things, please consider this a kick in the butt. If you don't change, it's going to be harder and harder to be successful. Yes, it takes time to learn how to do this. You're out of your comfort zone. But that's what being successful is all about.

[Video] Stop This Cold Calling Insanity!

So, you still think that cold calling is a good idea? Look, I'm from the great state of Minnesota, and as you can see from looking around me, I've done a lot of cold calling in my life.

But I'm not here today to just talk about tromping around in the snow. I'm here today to talk about cold email messages that you might be sending to your prospects, as well as cold phone messages that you may be leaving.

The truth of it is, your prospects know if you're making a cold call on them. It's the same message that you leave for everybody and it screams, "Same message! Nothing special!"

In order to be effective today you need to have a message that really resonates with a particular person that you're calling.

And it can't be one that's just full of trivia that is irrelevant. It has to be targeted, it has to mention things about their company or their business or the challenges or the issues that they're facing. It has to have information or insights in the message that they would find useful and helpful in achieving their goals. 

If you don't do that, you can sure make a lot of calls. But you don't get paid on the quantity of messages that you leave -- you get paid on what happens with the message, if you can get an appointment or a meeting set up, and then what happens with the meeting.

So, don't fool yourself in thinking that sheer quantity is enough to get you what you need today. It isn't! You need to have quality, and that means that just calling cold doesn't work.

So that's your choice. Do you want to continue this cold calling insanity? Or, do you want to craft messages that actually work?

Download my Value Proposition Kit today to learn more about how to create irresistible sales messaging.