For you If you're working too hard...‏

Whether your job is selling, or managing those that do sell, or a combination of the two, there’s a fair chance you’re working long hours. Maybe too long?

Are you spending long hours on motorways way after 7pm driving to and from meetings? Are you burning the midnight oil draped over a laptop with a strong coffee trying to get everything done? Maybe both? 

How can you be brilliant at selling and managing in this state?
 

When it comes to being fabulous at selling, take note of Stephen Covey’s “Habit 7” (from his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”). Here he invites his readers to “Sharpen the Saw” – he sees this as “The habit that makes all the other habits possible”. Basically his Habit 7 revolves around the suggestion that, to be truly successful you should preserve the greatest asset you have... YOU! 

Clearly, not enough of us are taking notice of Mr Covey.  According to a survey of 1000 business owners 14% had no plans to take any holiday this year, and 59% said they were afraid of burning out. And 20% said they found it impossible to switch off from work. Even when they are away from the office, many business owners, bosses and sales people constantly check their emails on their smart phones even if they have ten people back at the office looking after things.

 

That’s not helpful and it’s not healthy  
 

You might be thinking “I agree, Leigh, but I am where I am and it’s just the way it is”. My reply would be... OK, let’s assume you go on as you are and do nothing to change things.  

 

Close your eyes and imagine it’s the 26^th February 2016 i.e. two years on from today. You’ve made no changes to your life. Imagine, how's your job? How's your life? How happy are you? How many hours a week are you working? 

 

Time to change?  
 

If you really want to Sharpen the Saw and achieve more sales success and business success, consider my thoughts on this ...
 

• Be realistic about what you can take on. When you’re planning your month, week, day, it’s no good scheduling 14 hours work in hoping that you’ll have one of those ‘miracle days’ when everything takes half as long as usual. It rarely does. Plan a challenging day by all means but keep it realistic.

• Think "Delegate or Ditch". Ask yourself 'Does this task REALLY need doing? If yes, ask 'who else could do it?' Trust others. A task that is a real chore to you might be a nice opportunity for someone else to show what they can do.

• It’s a 5000 meters race, not a 100m sprint. Pace yourself.

• Have a sense of perspective. Think family, partner, friends. They’d benefit from your company too.

• Don’t fight those battles that you know you can’t win

• Work out what’s causing you the most pressure – and work out where you can get help to ease that pressure.

• Drop the guilt. You are a key part of the company, so make sure you invest in yourself and your health.

• If and when you do manage a break, don’t try to do too much in it!

• Book your 2014 holidays now, don’t wait to see if you ‘get around to it’. You won’t. At least book time off in advance and organise your work schedule around these breaks, not the other way round.  

• Think - If your business/role still needs your personal input every waking hour after several years in it then ask yourself if this really the right business to be in? 

For great sales keep yourself - and your team, in great condition.

Until next time

 

Leigh

PS: Hope you're not guilty of this mistake...

 

results@sales-consultancy.com

020 7903 5426

www.sales-consultancy.com

For previous 'Tricks of the Trade' go here

Customer Service: your most important sales tool?‏

You can have the greatest sales people on the planet, but if you’re leaking customers through poor customer service, your balance sheet will suffer.
 

And the cost of acquiring new customers usually far outweighs that of keeping existing customers. Surely it's much more preferable to keep more of those customers you have? For me, every company should realise that their ultimate sustainability depends on their ability to generate consistent excellent service that keeps customers coming back and singing their praises. 

Yet 77% of customers say that if they experience poor service, they would avoid using that company again where there is another option available.  
 

But, is it me...or are customer service standards still sadly lacking?  
 

How good is your customer service? Are you aware some people could have stopped buying from you because they became unhappy with some aspect of your product or service – and don’t feel as though anyone has taken responsibility for fixing the problem? And didn’t tell you?  
 

Don’t rely on technology. There’s so much technology around nowadays that many customer transactions could be done automatically. I say COULD because, even though we have the power to automate so much nowadays, I would think very carefully about whether automation could help, or actually hinder, your customer service. For me the key aspect is accessibility. The customer should be able to speak to a real person, easily, if they want to.  
 

What could you do ?  
 

Remember many products and prices are the same these days, so the differentiators are going to be the buying experience and customer service throughout. How’s yours?  
 

My take on what you could do?

• Firstly, your team. Make sure you’re practising the very best internal customer service with your own team – are you treating your team how you’d like them to treat your customers? There’s plenty of research that, summing up in one sentence, confirms that if you take care of your employees, they will take care of the customers – and this in turn will take care of your profits. Read more here 

• Where do you want to be? Take time out to think... What, in a perfect world do you want your customers to be saying about you, your team, your brand, your company? Come up with some potential statements you’d want them to come up with if you asked them.

• What needs to happen? Looking closely at the statements you came up with, think about what sort of changes you’d need to make to ensure these statements come true. If you can’t get there in one go, prioritise.

• Where are we now? Asses. Where are your team now compared with where you’ve just established they need to be? Have they the skills to fill the gap? Have they the mindset? Are they capable of taking on board the changes you require?

• How can you get there?  What do you need to do first? What do you need to do next?  

• Measure and manage. Work out a way to measure your customer service. This could be simple, or sophisticated, but do something. You’ll need to be able to compare customer service scores this month v last month v last year etc  

As usual, not enough space here to elaborate but one thing is clear...if you sell and you’re not already pulling out the stops to guarantee high levels of customer service, I’d start now.
  

Protect those hard earned sales and get that sales success!  
 

Until next time  

Leigh

PS:7things not to do in 2014... 

results@sales-consultancy.com

020 7903 5426  

www.sales-consultancy.com

Forprevious 'Tricks of the Trade' go here

One BIG reason why you lose sales‏

Did you know that, without meaning to, you’re turning away up to 40% of your potential customers? 

Let me explain. In a nutshell, when choosing products or services, your customers will be motivated by one of two things; pleasure or pain. Never is the pain and pleasure principle more apparent than in the selling arena.  
 

What about your customers?  

Therefore it's crucial you know whether your customers and prospects are motivated towards what they want (gain/pleasure) - or away from what they don't want (pain) when they buy. Once you have established whether they are pain or gain motivated you can communicate with them in a way that is bound to build rapport, make them feel understood - and more likely lead to a fruitful supplier/customer relationship.
 

The Pleasure

Typically, when selling a product, the seller will concentrate on the positive features of the product (pleasures). The xyz widget can do this, so you'll get more of that. That works well if the buyer is a goal focussed, 'towards motivated' individual.  

The Pain  

But what if the buyer is not motivated by moving towards a goal? What if they're very 'away from' in their outlook? Whilst you're drumming in the positives of the product, they're not listening because all they want is for someone to ease the pain they perceive they're in. They're not listening to your pleasures, because you're not acknowledging their pain.

It's the same scenario - but two completely different outlooks.  
 

What's Your Personal Preference? 

You will have a natural pain or gain motivation yourself. Up to now you will have unconsciously imposed that on your customers, prospects and colleagues...in fact anyone that you've communicated with! To those with the same inclination, you will have had great rapport and connection. To those with the opposite inclination, you will have noticed less connection and rapport...even friction! From now on you know you can achieve great rapport every time just by matching their preference!

Think about your team. How much better could they perform if they knew this concept?  
 

Finding out their pain/gain motivation

Clarifying their pain/gain motivation is very straightforward. Simply ask a few open questions and check their responses. If they start to talk about things they don't want or are keen to avoid then it's clear they are motivated away from pain. From there on in your language should talk about their problems and how a relationship with you will resolve their problem or help them avoid one.

If they talk about what they want to achieve, what a new product would give them, their goals, then they are clearly gain motivated. You should therefore talk in positive terms of what they will get from a relationship with you.  
 

Talking in their language  

There isn't a right way or a wrong way regarding pain and gain. Just talk in their language, what's right for them. If you find yourself presenting to a group where it's not possible to clarify their individual pain/gain traits, use both towards and away from language to cover all bases.  

In your marketing, brochure, websites, email campaigns, be sure to include both 'towards' and 'away from' language to ensure you engage with everyone. Currently your marketing content will most likely be based on those traits of the person writing it, which engage some readers but leave many others cold. By ensuring your content includes both towards and away from language, you'll engage many more potential customers.  
 

Ascertaining the pains and gains of your customers and prospects and reflecting their preferences back in your own written and verbal communications will turbo charge your sales success results.

It’s all about the psychology of selling

Until next time.

 

Leigh

PS: 7 things not to do in 2014...

 

results@sales-consultancy.com

020 7903 5426  

www.sales-consultancy.com

 

For previous 'Tricks of the Trade' go here