Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 243
June 1, 2017
Sales Research, Part One
Before you meet with a new prospect, the one thing you absolutely must do is background research. I’ve written several blogs on research techniques, and the topic is important enough (and vast enough) to warrant further discussion. Today and tomorrow, we’ll be exploring some methods of research to help you hit the ball out of the park during your first meeting.
One of the best places to start your research is with a simple Google search. Look up the company on Google and sift through the first few pages of results. If you click on the “News” tab, you’ll find their blog posts, press releases, news stories, etc. All this information can be useful for building your knowledge of the company, and can also be used as fodder for discussion in your first meeting.
In your research, you may come across the company’s annual reports. I’d encourage you to be cautious about taking the annual report as an indication of what they’re thinking about top-of-mind today because the annual report – by virtue of its nature – is a retrospective document. A lot of things change, and considering how long it takes to edit, publish, and circulate an annual report, the contents could be very much old news.
In addition to reading everything about the prospect’s company, you should also look up their competitors. Why? Because they may already be using your services or something close to your services and you could use that as a little bit of a competitive edge. You can add some excitement into the conversation by showing your prospect that they’ll be falling behind the competition if they don’t use your product or service.
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May 31, 2017
Networking Partner
When you’re at a networking event, you can get a lot more accomplished if you partner up with one or two people and work the room together. Let’s say there are 50 people at a two-hour event. You probably don’t know everyone in the room, and you definitely won’t have the opportunity to introduce yourself to everyone. If you introduced a fellow networker to your existing connections and they did the same for you, you would create a win-win situation and maximize the number of people each of you meet.
You should have a little pact with yourself to make an effort to be a facilitator of introductions. Introduce yourself to a new person, tell them what you do, ask them what they do, and maybe just set the precedent: “Hey, let me introduce you to a few people I know, and you can do the same for me.” Not only do you get a chance to meet people you may not have otherwise met, but you also get an instant rapport boost because you are being introduced by someone that the person already knows. In other words, you’re no longer a stranger – you’re a friend-of-a-friend.
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May 30, 2017
Turn Tedious Work into Meaningful Work
No matter how much we love our jobs, there are times when work can seem tedious. Maybe we must make a bunch of cold calls; maybe we must enter a couple hundred business cards into our contact database; maybe we must send out follow-up emails to all our clients from the past month. Whatever the case may be, it all comes down to the way we frame these tasks in our own minds.
Have you ever heard the fable of the three-people building a cathedral? It goes something like this: A man walks into the courtyard of the cathedral being built and asks the builders, “What do you do for a living?” One person says, “I’m breaking rocks.” Another person says, “I’m making blocks.” The last person says, “I’m building a cathedral.” The three people were doing exactly the same job. They just had different perspectives on what they were doing.
When you’re making cold calls, when you’re putting sales campaigns together, when you’re writing your next sales letter, you ask yourself, “What am I doing?” Are you really just making cold calls? Are you really just crafting a campaign? Are you simply writing a letter? No. What you’re doing is you’re finding your next 50 customers. You’re making connections that are going to turn into sales. Why does it pay to think this way? It turns tedious work into meaningful work – the work you love to do.
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May 29, 2017
Frugal Innovation
For any growing company or small team, being able to do more with less is key to success. According to the TED talk by Navi Radjou on the essence of frugal innovation, “Frugal innovation is the ability to create more economic and social value using fewer resources.” We hope you enjoy this little piece of inspiration today.
Click here to watch the talk.
Here is a summary from TED:
“Navi Radjou has spent years studying “jugaad,” also known as frugal innovation. Pioneered by entrepreneurs in emerging markets who figured out how to get spectacular value from limited resources, the practice has now caught on globally. Peppering his talk with a wealth of examples of human ingenuity at work, Radjou also shares three principles for how we can all do more with less.”
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May 28, 2017
Weekly Recap, May 28, 2017
Monday: Read Behind Every Good Decision: How Anyone Can Use Business Analytics to Turn Data into Profitable Insight, by Piyanka Jain and Puneet Sharma, if you’re interested in learning a variety of analytical techniques and how to use analysis to guide decision-making.
Tuesday: Body Language Clues, Part One.
Wednesday: Body Language Clues, Part Two.
Thursday: Learn how to let the person with whom you’re speaking want to hear more.
Friday: Explore how before you start pitching the benefits of your product or service, you must acknowledge the current state and explain why it’s still worth investing time and money (and yes, risk) to make the change.
Saturday: Check out an article published in Success Magazine online on “10 Ways Successful People Make Smart Decisions.”
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May 27, 2017
How Successful People Make Smart Decisions
As a sales professional, you’re constantly asking people to make choices. Depending on the complexity of the job, you may be asking your prospect to make dozens – even hundreds – of decisions. As we all know, making choices and decisions can be difficult, and the psychology of how people make choices is both fascinating and very relevant to our jobs as sales professionals.
An article published in Success Magazine online on “10 Ways Successful People Make Smart Decisions” suggests that learning to prioritize decisions and making them effectively is essential to your success and happiness. For more on this topic, read the full article here.
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May 26, 2017
Acknowledge the Sacrifice and the Risk of Change
When you’re meeting with a prospect and attempting to make a compelling case for change, you must remember that people are often averse to change. You may think to yourself, “Oh my goodness, all I have to do is tell them that this new technology is available and they’ll just jump all over it.” Not necessarily. What seems obvious to you may not be so obvious to your prospect.
Remember: the easiest thing to buy is nothing. If you recall Seth Godin’s hierarchy of decision-making, avoiding risk and avoiding hassle are numbers one and two. If you have a piece of equipment that’s working fine, are you really going to be so anxious to rip it out and install a new one… much less go to the mat to argue for the capital, fill out the rebate applications, endure the pre- and post-inspections necessary, and so forth? To accept something new, something old must be given up, and you must acknowledge the sacrifice of change. If you don’t do that, you’re going to be at a disadvantage. You’re going to be less persuasive.
You also must acknowledge the risk of change, because if the current technology is still working, the boss is probably not on their case. You must get them to a state where they’re comfortable enough to take a leap of faith and accept the risk of change.
So what’s the moral here? Before you start pitching the benefits of your product or service, you must acknowledge the current state and explain why it’s still worth investing time and money (and yes, risk) to make the change.
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May 25, 2017
Talk Less, Listen More
Passionate people love to talk about their passions. If you’re in the efficiency industry, you may be passionate about efficiency. One of the habits that I’ve noticed among passionate salespeople is that they dominate the conversation waxing poetic about their business. While it is great to show your passion, being verbose is not always the best way to create interest in your product or service. People value what they ask for more than what they are offered unsolicited.
So, what does this mean for you? Suppose someone asks you what you do for a living. Rather than launching into a long spiel about your business, give a short response and ask them what they do. People love to talk about themselves, so you can build rapport by asking your conversation partner about his or her own business.
Once you learn a bit about the business in question, focus on something you can relate to. Perhaps you’ve worked with clients in your prospect’s industry. If so, you could mention how much your product or service has benefited those particular clients. Chances are your prospect will be intrigued enough to start asking you questions to get more information.
This is just one example of the many ways in which you can create interest without explicitly saying why your product or service is interesting. Let the person with whom you’re speaking want to hear more and they’ll be more inclined to ask you questions.
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May 24, 2017
Body Language Clues, Part Two
Today, we’ll continue with some more body language clues:
If your prospect feels confident in what they are saying or thinking, they may:
– Clasp their hands behind their back.
– Clasp their hands in front of their body.
– Touch their fingertips together.
– Sit in a dominant position. Taking up a lot of space while sitting with hands clasped behind the head or ankle crossed on opposite knee signals confidence.
Action: Avoid debate – the prospect likely knows a lot about the topic, and you don’t want to ruffle their feathers.
If your prospect feels defensive, they may:
– Fold their arms.
– Cross their legs.
– Note: Be intelligent as you evaluate these positions to make sure that you’re actually seeing a shift in body language that correlates with the topic of discussion. In some cases, people may fold their arms or cross their legs simply to get comfortable.
Action: Try to be more flexible.
If your prospect is doubtful, they may:
– Hide or cover up their mouth.
Action: Reassure the prospect.
If your prospect is anxious, they may:
– Bite their fingernails.
– Fidget.
– Tap their fingers or heels.
– Jiggle the contents of their pockets.
– Whistle.
– Note: Any one of these actions alone may not be a definitive sign of anxiety. Look for three or more of these symptoms before jumping to conclusions.
Action: Probe for the source of the anxiety and alleviate accordingly.
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May 23, 2017
Body Language Clues, Part One
True sales professionals pay close attention to body language. Why is it valuable to understand body language? First, you get a relatively accurate gauge of your prospect’s thoughts and feelings based on these visual clues. This can help you decide what to talk about (and what to avoid talking about). Second, you become cognizant of what messages you’re sending with your own body language. You can use this knowledge to help build rapport with your prospect.
Over the course of the next two days, we’ll do a high-level fly-over of what body language can mean to you.
If your prospect has a positive reaction to what you’re saying, they may:
– Rub their eyebrows.
– Scratch their eyebrows.
– Scratch part of the forehead above their eyebrows.
– Push their eyeglasses back in place.
Action: Keep doing what you’re doing!
If your prospect has a negative reaction to what you’re saying, they may:
– Touch their nose.
– Scratch their nose.
– Note: They may have a cold or allergies. If so, don’t read too much into it; however, touching or scratching the nose is generally a good indication that they’re not really loving what you’re saying.
Action: Shift to another talking point to move away from the negative evaluation.
If your prospect is interested in what you’re saying, they may:
– Tilt their head.
– Speak with greater vocal modulation (sing-songy speech patterns).
Action: Look for additional signs of interest.
If your prospect wants to leave the conversation, they may:
– Not stand directly facing you with their shoulders parallel to yours.
– Look at down at their watch.
Action: Redirect the conversation by changing the subject or asking a question.
Stay tuned for more on this topic tomorrow…
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