COVER CONTINUED ...
you both personally and professionally. Share wins and customer success stories, communicate your guarantees, and stay top of mind, or you’re going to win fewer deals. Two-thirds of winning any deal is making people trust you and your company, but so little time is spent on these areas of selling. We all focus on features and maybe the benefits of our products and services, so it’s no surprise that people don’t buy from you or your team when that’s how you sell. Adjusting to selling in the new economy isn’t easy, but it is what needs to happen to win. Small business is being assaulted on all fronts, but small businesses aren’t adjusting. They are simply losing market share, accepting lower profits, and complaining about competition and the internet. A newsletter, like the one you’re reading, is a great way to build those relationships, nurture prospects and customers, make offers, and stand out from the competition. This is one way you move a prospect’s internal threshold. Think about it. Owning a piece of media like a newsletter allows you to create content that builds trust with you and your company by offering personal stories, customer success stories, etc. It also allows you a place to get the message out about your product or service. All of this has the benefit of moving those prospects closer and closer to a 10 in each category. The way we sell has to shift. The question is, are you willing to take control and shift with it in 2018?
With all the options on the market, including the option of doing nothing if you don’t follow up long-term (possibly for years, depending on your product or service), you’ll get nowhere. “Owning a piece of media like a newsletter allows you to CREATE CONTENT THAT BUILDS TRUST WITH YOU AND YOUR COMPANY by offering personal stories, customer success stories, etc.” Just because people inquire doesn’t mean they are ready to buy. They may be in the research phase still, and maybe they wanted to get some information from you, so that’s why it’s so important to follow up. If you want to gain points for your company and for yourself as a salesperson, you have to let the prospect peek behind the curtain to get to know
After you chat with Jim and he leaves, you make one follow-up call and never contact Jim again — except with promotional emails. What do you think that does to your overall points each week and month that passes? You see, Jim is trying to make a large purchase, and when he first reached out, he wasn’t 100 percent ready to buy because he was gathering intel on all the companies to make an informed decision, and your actions (really, your inaction) informed Jim that you were not the company to buy from. You’d think, with all the information at everyone’s fingertips, that would speed up the sales process — and for some low-ticket commodity items, it has — but for larger purchases, in many instances, it has slowed down the buying process. Selling to Jim today requires that you follow up and nurture him. It requires that you build a relationship and educate him. You need to show that you have his best interest at heart and that you’re a good person and work for or own a good company. What Jim needs is some TLC, but you were still selling like it’s 1996.
–Shaun
P.S. Remember that contest I mentioned earlier in the newsletter? By the time I started at The Good Guys, the contest was about halfway over, but at 16 years old and with half the time, I outsold everyone else in the company and won the trip
to Vegas. I was very excited until I went to claim the prize, sent in the paperwork, and was notified that you had to be 21 to win. P.P.S. If you want to chat with my team and get a road map for selling more prospects and getting more referrals, go to newsletterpro.com/schedule and make a no-obligation appointment to find out how you can implement the aforementioned strategy in your business for 2018.
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