Marketing /Sales / Social Media Archives - Page 116 of 174

How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves

October 2, 2007 by Liz

SIMPLE SALES SERIES

Customers Get to Pick

It’s a rule of childhood. Every kid seems to know it. I get to pick my favorite. You don’t. Some folks, as grownups, forget that simple truth. — they make us feel like we should let them pick for us.

That’s called the hard sell.

Ever been told, ‘You HAVE TO see this new product. You WILL LOVE our new service!” ?

What’s your response, right now, reading that? Mine is “You don’t know that! In fact, now I’m predisposed to like it just a little less.”

We’re hype adverse. Put that together with these natural human responses.

No one likes to be told what to think.
No one likes to lose the right to pick their favorite.
No one likes someone else to decide what they need.

We know other folks don’t get to pick — so when they talk as if they do, we back off. If you’ve met a sales rep who brings out these responses in you, it’s no wonder if you are having mixed feelings about taking on a sales role for what you do.

How to Get Customers to Sell Themselves

The question then is: How do we communicate an offer — a product or service — that we’re thrilled about and we’ve done all of the work to know folks will like it too, if only they’ll try it out?

Here’s what to do. You can do this in text or in person. (In text, point 2 looks a lot like an FAQ.)

Offer a taste — a movie trailer. Make it a little one — spoon sized like at Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors. It might be one example of what you do, a case study, a blog post that you keep for sending to clients, a free weekly seminar, a phone call with you. Whatever you choose. Keep it concise and tightly focused on only one idea. It’s only one scene from your movie — overcome a tendency we have to give the plot away. (Often having the taste as an option makes people feel secure enough to buy without it.)
Make everything about THEM. Ask questions and listen. Hardly say anythng. Be a verifier. Repeat back what you heard, “I heard you say you’re looking for . . .” Ask questions in that way until you’ve helped them draw a complete picture of your product or service. “I also hear you want . . . and a . . . If I put that together I get a . . . with the features of . . . . Does that sound like the ideal that you wish someone would offer someday?”
Listen to see how his or her needs line them up with your offer. When you see that, you’ll have the confidence to say so. “We actually do that! Would you like me to tell you about it?” (Don’t worry if the needs and your offer don’t line up, just say so and don’t try to make things work.)
Talk to the customer/client unemotionally about what you have to offer. You’ll know that you’re going somewhere when the person you’re talking to starts selling you on why it’s a good match. That’s when it’s time to start listening again.

Letting the customer pick is the same as when we were kids. We know what we need and why. We’ll even justify for you why it works for us, in essence selling ourselves on why we should buy.

What do you need to give this a try?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to work with you on these three easy steps, you’ll find her number on the
Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Call her now!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

25 Things that People — Our Key Customers — Really Want

September 25, 2007 by Liz

SIMPLE SALE SERIES

Everyone Has Customers

I’ve been thinking a lot about customers lately. We all have them. Some are traditional sorts. They come to our businesses and pay us for products or services. Some are a little less conventional — they come in a customer role for things that don’t cost. Blog readers, first graders, park users are customers like those. Other customers don’t seem like customers at all, but really they are . . . mothers, fathers, sons, daughters all rely on our services like customers.

So it seems that knowing what customers want is more than a good idea. With that many customers everywhere we look, knowing what keeps them on a happy note would seem more like survival. Don’t you think?

25 Things that People — Our Key Customers — Really Want

Whether we have a business or we are just in the business of living, it’s good to know what will help us deliver a smile on the faces of the folks we care most about.

This list works for every kind of customer I’ve been able to think up. (Don’t go getting kinky on me.)

People want help solving a problem.
People want folks to notice them.
People want to be heard when they offer their thoughts.
People want to feel smart.
People want to be a part of things.
People want to be generous and for you to be generous too.
People want give and be good things and want you to give and be good things too.
People want to not worry . . . about time, money, health, injury, or other danger.
People want to know that you’ll be the same person or better than the last time they saw you.
People want to be entertained.
People want to be informed.
People want to learn.
People want to know you don’t say bad things about them.
People want to know they aren’t a number or a metric.
People want good cake not just icing on a bad one.
People do want the truth. They just don’t want it delivered with a sledgehammer.
People want to believe in something without someone picking on them for it.
People don’t want innovation. They want things that make life more livable.
People want things and experiences that make their fill their time more meaningfully.
People want to be understood.
People want their questions answered even when the answer is “I don’t know.”
People want the right to make mistakes without losing every time they do.
People want to make their own choices.
People want to know that you value their differences.
People want to know that you know they are people.

People aren’t hard to understand. We all were born one of them. The trick is to keep in mind that folks around us — even folks we don’t know –are people too. They have their own thoughts and desires in the same way we have ours. We can meet with them where we agree — 25 points up there give us plenty to start with.

In our lives and in our businesses, people are our only customers for our actions and behaviors. If we make it about THEM, everyone will be just a little bit nicer. Lose track of that and they’ll remind us.

What things do the people in your life want? Are you a product of your environment? Could you be a better one?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

The Recipe for a Product Offering that Will Sell

August 27, 2007 by Liz

SIMPLE SALES SERIES

It’s No Good if It Doesn’t Sell

We don’t decide what is a great product or service. Customers and clients do. If we what we do well is what our customers value, it will sell. In my publishing job, I said this over and over . . .

It’s not a good book, if it doesn’t sell — at a profit.

Customers decide whether our offer is better than any alternative. They let us know by how they vote with their money. Our job is to make an offer they find attractive, knowing full well that we cannot coax or coerce them to behave.

The Recipe for a Product Offering that Sells

While I was publishing, I spent a great deal of time talking to customers who used my products and to customers who did not.

Most marketers would recommend that you find out how folks are using your “stuff,” what they like, what they don’t, what they wish for, and what other “stuff” they like just as much or better. They would suggest that you especially find out why folks who aren’t using your “stuff,” aren’t using it. I did all that — but only about 10% of the time.

The other 90% of the time we talked about THEM, not about my “stuff.”

That’s how I got to my recipe for a product that sells. It’s the recipe I used when driving the strategy of the company we turned around.

Talk to your ideal customers about
- what wish they had more time to do.
- what they wish they could learn.
- what they wish someone would invent.
- what problem they would love to get off their mind or off their desks.
Listen actively to understand the outcome they prize. Find the patterns in what they say.

Build a product or service that does one thing well — in less time. If you bundle more than one need, do it carefully. Less is more. Simple is elegant.

Design the product or service to match customers’ sensibilities. Make it beautiful and functional, and a reflection of what they value. Adding “quality” they can’t see or don’t want is adding cost they don’t want.

Price the offer at what the work is worth — what you need to make a profit and what it saves the customer.

Test what you plan by asking customers who know you, who don’t know you, and who are notoriously on the opposite side of the fence.

Every bit of the development is about how the features of the product or service benefits the customer. Add to “How are WE doing?” the additional question “What drives YOU crazy?”

How do you find customer needs customers that aren’t being met? Are you your own customer? How might you use that in your favor?

I’m really interested in informal ways we get customers to talk about their experiences.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

10 More Outstanding Links that Answer “What DO You Do for a Living?”

August 22, 2007 by Liz

SIMPLE SALES SERIES

Some of the Best Answers

One of my favorite answers to the question “What do you do for a living has always been, “I’m an assistant notary public,” since there is no such job. But I answered it seriously here.

3.3: Three Steps to an Intriguing Answer to â€œWhat Do You Do?â€

Before we leave the topic of how to answer the “What do you do? question. I am offering a few more links to some other wonderful sources. Some are less serious than others. All are worth a quick look.

Outstanding Links that Answer “What DO You Do for a Living?”

“So, what do you do for a living?” Some fun answers

pdf http://www.whywork.org/about/faq/question.html a pdf study

How do you introduce yourself? Ways to make a good first impression when answering the question

What Exactly Do You Do for a Living? How to get more specific

So, What Do You Do For a Living? The difficulties of explaining a rare job description

What Do You Do For a Living? | Duct Tape Marketing Blog A fabulous example of how to do it well

Answer this question: What do you do for a living? Â» Leadership … Why it’s important

What do you do for a living? Sometimes just hearing other folks answer helps us have an idea of what to do.

What Do You Do For A Living? Are you talking about the most important part of your business?

Cuis-Zine Quizzing Blending your work life and your real life together

Now that you can say what you do for a living.

Can you say what you do for a life?

–ME :Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

How to Answer the Only Customer Questions that Count

August 20, 2007 by Liz

Still The Decision Model

Used well, this four-point definition/decision model can make your business thinking solid, swifter, and more customer-centered.

An explicit description of our customer and the niche market he or she represents
A company name and identity that fits and appeals to that ideal customer
A tagline that states what we promise and deliver
A “do line” that answers “What do you do?” in a few words

The goal of the four-part definition is the deep thinking. That’s the only way to stand on solid ground when the tough questions come. By thinking through and answering the four parts of the decision model, we’re writing the unique and compelling story of the business. .

How to Answer the Only Customer Questions that Count

The compelling story — the four-point definition — is important because it answers the only two questions customers care about when choose who to hire.

Key Question 1: What problem do you solve? (Can you, will you, do the job?)

Key Question 2: What is your unique value? (What do you cost? What are your benefits per buck?)

The two key questions are it. This is just one way the fou-point definition/decision model streamlines our business thinking. More on that laters . . .

Use the Two Key Questions

Now picture me back at that party where someone has asked, “What do you do?” I might answer this way, using the two key questions to guide my reply.

Answer to Key Question 1: I help businesses turn strangers into customer-friends who are fiercely loyal.
Answer to Key Question 2: I have a knack at seeing what businesses do in the way a naive, intelligent customer does. I show clients how they might fix any disconnects in their strategy and relationships.

When it’s you, be sure to answer the two key questions. Then STOP.

Let your audience have a chance to take in what you said. You’ll most likely hear your audience say it back to you in some way. Of course, it’s more meaningful when they talk about it themselves. Even their questions work in your favor.

Explian the problem you solve. Tell why you’re uniquely qualified. Then listen. When I do that I often hear someone tell me why I’m the right person to solve a problem.

Can you stand to hear a potential customer thinking, then talking, about how you might be the right person for a job?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Is your business stuck? Check out the Start-up Strategy Package. Work with Liz!!

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

20 Outstanding Links to Answer "What Do You Do?"

August 16, 2007 by Liz

That Intriguing Answer

Answering the simple question “What do you do?” can be stressful. If we’re not prepared we can offer all of the wrong details of our lives. Actually sometimes, we can offer our entire lives in total.

If instead we know who we are and what we’re about, we have our information sorted and internalized. We can answer the question with confidence in such a way that folks will ask us to elaborate on what we do and why.

I wrote about how to prepare your own answer in

3.3: Three Steps to an Intriguing Answer to â€œWhat Do You Do?â€

To fill out the information, I researched what other folks are saying on related topics, especially the famous “elevator pitch.” Here’s the best I found from around the blogosphere. They are 20 links to add to the article I wrote yesterday.