Sales Are Important For Your Business

If you are a business owner, someone has to be selling … if you are a sole owner … you are the seller.  If you are an employee, your company cannot survive without salespersons. 

 

Every person from the CEO to the night janitor should know what your business is … really is … and not what you think it is.  That is NOT what your business cards says you do, but what you really do.  The thirty second elevator speech about your company should be as easy to speak as your first name. The first three steps are the most critical in developing your elevator speech. 

 

There last four steps are transitioning from the elevator speech to create “word of mouth advertising,” sometimes called “Ad Hoc Marketing.”  When “the customers” (and others) start selling for you (12 months or longer process). See http://www.symbiosis4u.us/Newsletter/AdHocMarketing.pdf   (Reading 15 minutes)

 

The sale person starts with the “education” base. This “education” base includes the foundational product features: size, taste, feeling, etc. “Education” is the first thing a salesman needs to learn.  (That is why you must track your contacts/sales ratio numbers.)  “Education” sales is hard selling, as every new salesman understands.   http://www.symbiosis4u.us/MP4/TheSalesman.html (Video 2 min)

 

Hard selling, with only education, is difficult.  Suppose an “education” salesperson calls on 100 new prospects.  The “education” salesperson may harvest only 3% who are interested in what the salesperson wants to sell.  Now that is not a good average … even a new salesperson will quit.  

 

If you call 100 NEW customers (even new businesses are new customers), here are the results of the percentages. 

 

3% Active (This may be 0.5% in a recession.)  The customer says “yes,” I want something like what you offer … but there may be  other companies extending the same offer.  If there are two other companies offering a product similar to yours, then the 3% is reduced to 1%. If there are ten companies selling with similar products, then any “education” salesperson will be hungry … in any foreseeable future. (That is why the third question of an “elevator speech” is important = what’s unique about your product, that no one else can say?) 

 

As a semi-retired non-employee business man, I answer ALL who call my business phone.  If I hear a recorded message, I will quickly hang up the phone (a recorded phone is 0.0% ratio).  If a live person calls my phone, I will ask what they are selling.  If not interested, I tell them “No thank you” and hang up.  If I am interested, I ask for more information, from about 1 of out of 100 calls.   

 

With 100 calls, this is what these numbers look like:

a recording = 0%,

a live person = 100%,

a live person with interest to me = 1%,

a live person with a sale = .05%    

 

7% Open (This may be 1.5% in a recession.)  “Open” means the prospect is interested in your offer, but not enough to give his hard earned money.  A competitor may have already offered a similar product. To make a sell, the salesperson must learn what the other salesperson has already told the customer about their unique products. 

 

30% Aware (might be interested in future)  Advertising companies know that a customer has to listen to 17 advertisements before they can recognize the product … they become “aware” of the product.     

 

30% Unconscious (no awareness of what you are offering)  The customer has not heard, or seen, your product or someone else’ product. 

30% No (No = contact does not what you offer)  An salesman must accept a “no.” If I tell a salesman “no,” and he continues to sell, then I know the person is a Ninja, not a salesperson.  MLMs (Multi-Leveling Marketing) companies sometimes train people to be Ninjas.   http://www.symbiosis4u.us/MP4/Ninja.html  (Video 2 min)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salespersons use the “education” base, which includes:

• Free Reports (I wrote a monthly article for ten years with the Western Bow Hunter (circulation 200,000).  After ten years, I pulled the business of the archery products. The business simply was not making any money and the Free Reports did nothing.)
• Give educational CD or DVD to contact (Over five years, I gave away about 500 CDs.)
• Webinars  (For one year [2002], every month I ran a webinar.)
• Ezine or a Blog (I have had a blog for about five years.)
• Work shops
• Info Nights for dinner
• Biz Presentations

 

My “education” sales did not produce the results I expected. “Education” based sales are appropriate for some:  medicine, computers, smart phones, IRS forms, etc. But these are not the best tools to start a customer. Why? Because using the “education” base, 90% are not active, or open, to your offer. The “Appreciation” base is better.

 

 

 

The “Appreciation” base offers what the customer wants (not giving just the facts about your product).  Appreciation means giving VALUE to your customer. 

The “Appreciation” base is flexible. It might include active (3%), or open(7%), PLUS the rest of the 60%. (30% are not interested in your product, or you, or just don’t like how you tie your shoe laces.)

 

Here are some of the VALUES that customers want, and how you can ask your customers to lead the conversation.

 

 

 

• Fun and Recreation  = Joy Of Living

          … What is the first thing you think about on Saturday when you awaken in the morning?

• Personal Growth = Intellectual
• … Do you prefer to read a book or watch a movie?
• Finances =Profit
• … Brian Tracy’s Value in labor market = (Assets – Debts) divided by years of working for Time

• Family and Friends = Relationships
• … see the http://symbiosis4u.us/MP4/DearWoman.html (8 min, the words are true, even if we don’t believe it)
• Community = Interest in politics
• … Are going to be the next POTUS (President Of The United States)?
• Spiritual = Different beliefs
• … When you believe something, how did you begin to knowing, what you believe? (Atheist, Islam, Buddhist, Nature, Christian, Jews, or Hindu)?
• Health = Long Life
• … Happy trumps health.  Have you ever known a happy person who should be “irritated” because he has no arms or legs.  The person who is not complaining, is happy.  http://www.symbiosis4u.us/MP4/ NickVujciic-ChangeYourLife.html  (Video 4 min)
• Romance = Two become one
• … Do you understand the difference between “falling in love” and “love?”
• Physical Fitness = Appearance or Stamina
• … What is more important to your fitness: exercise or diet?
• Work = Not Just a Job
• … What would you “do” for work, if you could do anything?
• Creativity = Painting, Dancing, Writing, etc.
• …  My family loved the Evian Babies video, who dance on roller skates. Trust me, it  will make you laugh out loud! http://www.symbiosis4u.us/MP4/EvianBabies.html   (2 minutes, unless you watch for ten, or twenty, minutes … it is that good.)

 

Be happy, healthy, wise, and wealthy,

Tom Van Drielen

Symbiosis Enterprises

Box 18907

San Jose, Ca. 95118