About Face

Let’s pretend you are just like this handsome dude in the picture; a guy, single, and in a bar. And it’s 80’s night.

Your name, as always and of course is…Rock Ledger. (Just go with me on this – my blog, my rules).

Even though you are still a certified Sales legend, these are not Good Times in the romance department.

Things are so bad that one woman said “No” to a date with you, even after you handed her 2 concert tickets, promised you wouldn’t bother to show up and that you’d never contact her again.

You don’t understand what’s happened to you! You have never had these kinds of problems in the singles scene before. Heck, your buddies named you years ago, “The Other Rock Legend”. Maybe you’re in a rut. Maybe the world is changing and your approach has to be different. Maybe it’s just a run of bad luck. Real bad luck.

Despite the cool Tears for Fears music, you’ve had it. You get up to leave. But then..…

…….She ……slowly…..walks…..by………

She is stunning. She is more than stunning…… she is amazing.

She actually turns around ……………….and looks at you.

You realize your mouth is awkwardly agape as you bask in the awesomeness of her beauty. So you snap it shut, straighten up and give her The Look. (The Look of course, was invented by you back in the day. It’s the one in which the left eyebrow arches, the head bobs with a half smile that says, “Hi there, I am Rock Ledger, and you deserve me).

It worked! She starts to walk over to you.

Good Times are back.

Her name is Cassandra and well; you are feeling good so you’ll spring for something special. You motion to Marty that you’re moving “uptown” now and will pass on the normal Bud Lite cuz’ for the lady, only Bud Lime will do.

“You are so beautiful” you tell her. And she is. “You’re so beautiful that you don’t even need much make-up”. You can feel you are getting your groove back now. She smiles sweetly and takes a sip of her Bud Lime.

You are a romantic guy so you keep on with the sweet talk. “Not much make-up at all Cassandra.” She smiles again. You know it’s a great move to get her to talk about herself, so you ask a good one. “Are you happy with the way your face looks now?”

“Excuse me?” she says.

You reply “No, what I’m saying is I’ve seen a lot of other women ….do like a whole total makeover thing on their faces and even look more beautiful than ever.”

“Are you talking about my FACE!” she cries. “What is wrong with my FACE?!” a little louder.

You’re thinking maybe you are in a little trouble but this is the best you’ve done in a while so you keep on keeping on.

“Cassandra, your face is beautiful. I bet everyone loves your face and knows your face, but you have had that look for a long time. I think I have a few good ideas you might like if you want to you know, freshen it up a little bit.”

She stares at you.

Yep. You suspect that now you are in fact, still in a rut. Deep in a rut.

Cassandra slams her Bud Lime bottle on top of yours and as that explodes all over you and the bar, she takes the rest of her bottle and dumps it on your head.

Good Times no more.

*******

I needn’t beat you over the head with the lesson we learned at the bar today. So I’ll keep it brief.

Cassandra has a face and a business has face. And both are things you as sales people, consultants and advisors need to be very careful about.

That face is very important to a business owner, especially if that business is small to medium sized. Be it the logo, the website, the facebook or LinkedIn page, the storefront, brand promise, the status in the community, the unique services they provide or the colors, the cars, or even the style of the owner- it’s all a crital “face” of the business.

And it can be that personal.

If you are in the business of helping businesses get better and or change; be careful how you go about messing with the “face” of that business.

Small business owners in particular are a prideful ego-laden bunch. You can’t talk like Rock Ledger did here (yes that picture is really me, but the nickname..not so much) and suggest tactlessly a business makeover, a switch in strategy or revamp of their websites or marketing plans – whether you’re a marketing consultant, a printer or software salesperson. If you do, trouble might brew (pun intended :)).

Whenever you foster change a business, especially a smaller one, you can be changing that “face” of the client. Be smart about it. Do it wrong and it can go very wrong. It’s not taboo – It’s just different.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

How To Avoid Being an HR ( and Customer) Nightmare

Am I an HR Nightmare? You decide.

Imagine that you and I just ran into each other in the street. We’ve never met before.

I smile and ask, “Excuse me Miss, may I take your hand?” or I smile and ask “You are simply gorgeous, have you ever been a model?” or I smile and I ask “Your place or mine?”

Well? Am I an HR Nightmare?

Before real HR personnel here race down the hall and escort me out of this building, let me explain why I ask. There is a lesson here.

First I understand a majority of you (OK, all of you), would have been appalled and/or frightened if any of the vignettes really happened. “Hell no!”, “Get away from me!” and “Police!!” would likely be the vitriol lobbied at me.

But let’s change the vignettes just a wee bit.

Imagine that you and I just ran into each other in the street. We’ve never met before.

I smile and say “Excuse me, I am a doctor and you don’t look well, may I take your hand?” or I smile and say “I am with Martin & Stevens modeling right here in Boston. You are gorgeous, have you ever been a model?” Or I smile and say “I am Detective McCarthy with Boston PD and I need to ask you a few questions – your place or mine?”

You get it now. Makes a little more sense.

But while I may not be a true HR nightmare; some of us are Customer or Prospect Nightmares.

Within moments of meeting customers or prospects, whether they call us or we call on them, some of us ask questions we have not yet earned the right to ask. We ask questions like “How’s business?” or “How do you market your business?” or “What challenges do you face?” Or “What are the goals?”

And shockingly we often don’t take the time to drop the necessary credibility first. We never proclaim our being a doctor, an agent or a police officer so to speak and hence we create a whole lot of tension, confusion or even anger.

Tension, confusion or anger by the way, stops the sales process dead in its tracks.

In a perfect sales world we have the credibility, trust and time already invested and would be able to ask these questions without worry of how a customer or prospect might feel or respond.

But we don’t live in a perfect sales world and yet still need information from our clients. So when that phone rings or we make that cold call we ask and ask away, sometimes to our detriment.

Here is a surefire simple way to avoid being a Customer Nightmare (Sorry really can’t help you if you are an HR Nightmare) and improve your chances of getting good questions answered.

Preface It: If you want to ask “How’s business going?” of a small business owner seconds after meeting them – Preface It with “I’m hearing a lot of things from my retailers lately, but how’s business going with you?” Here your experience with other like customers (retailers) earns you street cred and reduces risk of posing a question that might be considered an affront so early on. It also piques interest that you may know something of value; which can help you avoid getting booted out the door or off the phone sooner than you’d like.

Preface It is a simple formula: Any variation of Your Experience + Teaser + Customer’s line of business = one heck of an assist to get a good question answered.

Have at it.

(Next time, I’ll share another tip you can button right on to this one that will greatly enhance your effort to discover well with your customers and prospects).

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Kidnapped

I realize now I never told him what we were doing and why we were doing it in any real detail. It just needed to get done.

I was busy, so he needed to be busy. I just told him to get in the car with not much more than a “We gotta go!”

We went to Lowe’s. We went to get him a haircut. We went to the grocery store.

Finally on our way to a fourth destination he said, “Am I not a real person here? Don’t I matter? Where are we going!!? ”

I realized then that I had essentially kidnapped my 12 year old son.

The problem is “Kidnapper” was not on my bucket list. And a bigger problem might be that it happens in business more than we think.

During the kidnapping, my child felt anxious about where we were going. He felt anxious about not being able to influence where we were going. He felt anxious about not having any control of the situation. And he felt anxious that he’s as the mercy of his captor (me) who is not talking too much.

In hindsight, I think that if I offered more in guidance, direction or real or perceived collaboration about these errands, he would have felt a lot more comfortable and would have been engaged in helping me get everything done.

In foresight, I wonder if we as leaders or account executives or customer service reps unintentionally “kidnap” our employees or customers at times. I wonder if we unintentionally kidnap these folks in a major way for as long as weeks or months or in a mini way for as little as hours or minutes. Either way, kidnapping is a problem.

I wonder in the rush to get the message out, the order placed, the demo done or that call completed if we aren’t always so clear enough about where we are going and why we are going there.

I wonder if we aren’t open minded enough about being influenced or sharing some control along the way in these and other situations. I wonder if we don’t realize that our charges or customers feel as if they are at times, at our mercy.

What I don’t wonder about is this; If there is anxiousness about where, why or about influence or control, then employees and customers just stop. Stop listening, stop caring and in the worst case, stop attaching themselves to you.

In the end, ask yourself if you’ve ever heard or sensed iterations of my son’s words to me on Saturday from an employee or customer. “Do I matter? Where are we going!? ” If the answer is yes then check the kidnapping skills at the door.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Stop Being So Selfish

It doesn’t make you a bad person.

You’ve got a job to do. You’ve got to feed the kids and pay the bills. And you have to hit your quota.

But, you have to just stop it.

It doesn’t become you and it’s certainly not helping you.

Stop being so selfish.

Ask any sales rep just before they dial the phone, or walk in the prospect’s door or start that client webinar, “What’s your objective?” and I’ll guarantee that 99.996% will say something about themselves.

“I’m calling to let her know we have some specials and more to offer on…”

“I’m looking to try and get an appointment with purchasing…”

“I want to discover in this meeting what they are doing next year as far as initiatives go…”

It’s all about you isn’t it.

Don’t lie. I’ve been there too. I’ve sold door to door, on the phone and in the C-suite. You and I both know if we had to answer that question about objectives on the fly, we’d most likely blurt out something about what we want because that is what’s in our head.

Selfish objectives don’t work.

There is a big difference when you call on a client with the sole objective of making them feel valued vs. introducing that new sales and service program. The customer experience is far better and it leads to more sales.

There is a big difference when you open that door with the objective of taking something off the prospects plate vs. letting them know what you and your company can do. The customer experience is far better and it leads to more sales.

There is a big difference when your objective is to surprise and delight a prospect vs. to show what you’ve learned about their company. The customer experience is far better and it leads to more sales.

Today, when I call out to a training client or step out on to the sales floor to coach, my crystal clear conscious objective to “make the customer happy” or “this sales rep will walk away with something they can use today” is a heck of a lot more effective than in the old days when I’d call out to see how we are doing or coached on the floor so I could teach em’ some stuff.

So take a stab at being more selfless when you think of your objectives. Selfish doesn’t make you a bad person; it just makes you a bad sales rep.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

The APG3

It’s a pretty simple formula.

Elevator Speech = A+PG+3. Or as I’ll coin it an APG3

An Elevator Speech that leads with a powerful Analogy, offers the removal of some Pain or the addition of some Gain and has Three(3) parts that illustrate how that all happens; is simply the best.

That is if you think the Heath Brothers who wrote the best sellers Switch and Made To Stick, a world renowned writer and speaker Brian Tracey and Apple’s Steve Jobs know exactly what they are talking about. (Hint: they do).

Combine three of these genius’s passions and you’ve got a great recipe for Elevator Speech success.

The Heath brothers in their books, exude the power of the analogy (it brings instant vision, a feeling and an understanding to the listener). Think about the famous Hollywood pitch later made into that blockbuster movie Alien,… “It is just like Jaws but takes place in space.” Steal from them.
Brian Tracey has for years spoken of the power of “pain and/or gain” from a clients perspective. Love Brian. Love this perspective. Steal it.
Steve Jobs lives and loves “3’s” in all his presentations. Watch him on YouTube. He is the master of getting a compelling message out so steal from him.

Combine the three and you’ve got a killer approach to an elevator speech that is short, sounds like a human could say it (instead of the sound when it belongs in a brochure) is customer focused, attention getting and leaves em’ wanting more.

Let’s try one. Let’s say you offer marketing to businesses for a living…

“I’m like a smart GPS for how to grow your business with marketing. I know exactly where to go and make it incredibly fast and easy for a business to get that done right.”

“And there are three things I do really well to make this happen…”

“First, I keep my customers because I do what I say I’ll do; after almost 10 years, I’ve grown to nearly 100 customers that continue to trust me, and trust is a big deal”

“Two, I “get it“, I know how to bring new business into businesses. I’ve created new tools and training that frankly impress the heck out of clients when they see it.

“Lastly, I obsess over the service and help after the campaigns. I know what business needs when it comes to marketing and it isn’t this “one and done” type stuff. Most of my time and development goes into ensuring there is continuous sales improvement.”

“So let’s dig a deeper and let me show you a couple of the tools that impress retailers in particular OK?“…

So that’s a start. Tenses can easily change to “we”. Analogies can be changed to different better/ more interesting. Pain/ Gain can change dependent on what your focus is and the 3 things done exceedingly well are all fair game.

My example set aside, these pieces rightly so must be crafted and crafted well. A very worthy effort for you or any sales groups to be focused on. A good Elevator Speech makes for darn good voicemail, blog About page, email or Facebook post as well.

So that you can play this game at home; Here is the APG3 in summary;

Analogy: Be impressive and memorable with this.
Pain and/or Gain: not for you, for the prospect!
Three(3): pick the best, leave em’ wanting more!

Till next time,

Grow The Business,

Mark

3 To Listen For In 2011

Yep. Listen closely Sellers. They’re gonna happen.

Best be ready.

1) Clickety clack clickety clack. “What’s your name again?” you are asked by the prospect and then you hear the sound repeated: clickety clack, clickety clack. Yep, she’s typing away and Googling you Mr. Sales Rep checking to see if you are worthy to meet with or even just to listen to anymore. You best have a very compelling web presence.

2) “When can we see each other?” It won’t be those 20 lbs you lose creating your sudden irresistibility or even your liberal spraying of Axe that will make this phrase be heard in 2011 but rather, your clients will really just want to see you before they move forward. What do you look like Ms. Account Manager? Do you have a professional YouTube video I can see? Can we Skype our next meeting? Where can I see your face; on LinkedIn?, Twitter?, Facebook? Ironically (yet fittingly), faces will mean more than ever in this increasingly digital but less trusting world.

3) Sploouurgshhthwwppt! Yes, you guessed it! That is the sound of a self inflicted needle plunging into the eye of your customer. Gross yes, but it is often metaphorically a choice people make versus listening or considering us and we just can’t hear it over the sound of the customer sigh. The stakes are higher now with each and every client impression. Information is free. Reviews about you or your company are free. Products & advice are often free so when we interrupt a customer via marketing or sales in 2011 we had better bring our A game. . When you waste client’s time by not bringing value in every contact you just might hear that sound as that crazy busy customer yearns to suffer a different pain.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

The Wicked Awesome Awards

If I was in fact, having an actual awards ceremony, I think these four winners would give some inspiring acceptance speeches. And if they actually knew they were winning a Wicked Awesome Award (they don’t) they would be thrilled.

Until the WAA’s reach that “coveted” status, the awards actually mean more to me (and hopefully you) than anyone else. Why? Because each of these winners affected me in some wonderfully wicked awesome way. And you get the benefit of knowing how.

Each of these people over the last 6 weeks did something simple, yet so helpful they inspired me to stop, grab my red book and write down these moments. That’s a big deal in my book (literally) and makes them worthy winners.

Here they are;

Adolphe at Verizon who called me on his lunch break from his own cell phone to confirm that my cell phone was working properly while I was traveling in Kansas City last month. He said he would; I didn’t really believe it but by golly, he did.

Helen at Target who checked left, right and then all around her looking for her boss. And not having found him, grinned, left her register and helped the elderly woman bag her groceries way down at the end of the checkout lane. Helen, you’re right; some things just aren’t in the training manual.

Rev. Dean who sat next to me on the plane last month, each of us sharing stories about work and life, stopped mid sentence and sincerely asked if there was someone in my life he could pray for over the next month. There was Rev. Dean, thank you, thank you very much.

Tim and Jimmy at Hannaford, who insisted on loading my wife’s groceries in the pouring rain saying “Just get in the car- we got it!”. Tim is a made up name (and so is Jimmy) but this complete stranger and his son totally made my day and I wasn’t even there.

Congratulations all. No lives saved or Herculean efforts here but Wicked Awesome for sure.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

What’s Easy

I write a lot about easy. But this one’s a little different.

I write often about how important it is to small business customers and prospects that your products are easy, that your website is easy, that your billing is easy, that your ordering is easy, or that your customer service is easy. Basically easy is what small business needs.

Here’s the rub though. What’s easy for small business isn’t necessarily easy for you.

What’s easy for small business is:

To Keep Who They Got: Dislodging a vendor in a small business is not easy. Last I checked SB’s don’t have a team of sales or process strategists charged with looking at the value of bringing something or somebody in brand new. Nope it’s more like, “I’ve been with them forever”, or “I know his family”, or “It’s too much work to change mid year”, or “This thing is like 1/100^th of my budget why do I care?” etc. etc. You have got to make it easier to switch.

To Blow You Off: Heck, they themselves are or were, sales reps or account managers in one way or another for their own business-most of em’ anyway. And they have staff trained to get rid of sales reps and marketers like you and some personally make it an art to avoid everybody but customers, family, their accountant or their banker. It’s not that they don’t think you have a good product, it’s just that there’s no darn time to spare. You have got to make it easier to see why just a little time with you might be valuable.

To Not Believe You: The Small Business owner who has that type A personality, and is the wearer of all hats, and with the ego through the roof and the work ethic like nobody else;– Is she going to flat out just believe you when you say you can help grow her business? Heck no. You have to make it easier for her to trust you.

I usually end all my posts with real applications, real ways to get it done. I usually give you a few things you can just run with right now and tackle the problem and grow the business.

That would be too easy.

And there’s a better way. Though this blog is only 6 months old, type in the search box the word “easy” (10 posts) or “value” (13 posts) or “credibility” (7 posts) or any darn word you think might be make sense. Therein is a lot more help to make it easier for you and your customers.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

5 Oddly Wonderful Things to Say to Customers

They are only “odd” because folks don’t say them too often. And they are “wonderful” because well……just read on, and I’ll tell you.

“I just came out of a Training class on….” We rarely say this yet many of us attend training regularly in the classroom or online. We think it is a sign of weakness that we had or went to…um.. a training. Our clients want to know that you are getting training because heck, maybe you are getting smarter about them. And even if you didn’t go to a recent training, our clients want to know that you read that book on small business marketing trends or that other one on customer loyalty. Smart sells. Wicked Smart sells even better. You have to share it.

“I Love You…” Ah yes, warm and fuzzy for sure but I say, why not? Why not say “I love you” but tie it to a good reason? “John, this is such a pleasure. I love to talk to 5 year plus customers because you know the marketplace and you know us….” Or “I love to talk with customers who take the time to give us feedback, I know how busy you are …”. Love is a word customers don’t expect to hear, at least from a partner or supplier. And unexpected love is a very cool thing.

“Guess which one is the most popular these days?” If you want to improve your chances of a client or prospect listening well or listening longer to your presentation (or even a conversation), you should embed survey-like questions early into the experience like “What % of retailers do you think would say “keeping returning business is more important than getting new business?”” or “Which do you think most retailers prefer, this or this?” You make the call on the question but do two things; draw out the answer so you insert your value proposition, and then if you don’t believe me that this works, read the bestseller Made To Stick (Heath Bros) and take a look at the evidence supplied on page 89. Folks will pay attention longer to see if they are right or just to know what the right answer is. Find a way to conversationally add this to your client facing meetings and contacts and more sales will ensue.

“You can trust our business with your business…” This is obviously a B2B thing but 10 years ago I pitched this phrase as something we could and should close phone calls with or have on business cards or ( and these were really new then): emails! etc. etc. I have never forgotten it and always wanted to make it part of our customer experience but we haven’t done it just yet. Now I have proof that this would work – Have a look at this Roger Dooley article at his Neuroscience Marketing blog and learn about the real evidence supporting in “10 Words That Build Trust”! Then, tell me why you wouldn’t want to say “And as always, you can trust our business with your business, have a great day!”

“Here’s what I want you to do..”. It’s a rare day that we sales and marketing folks send out samples or emails or catalogues or brochures or links and ask any customer/ prospect to do anything. The most we often eek out is “Have a look and if you have any questions let me know” or “I’ll give you a call next week and you can let me know what you think.” Ugh. Be specific and give instruction. “Have a look at page 3 and circle your two favorites” or “Watch the video and jot down two things that you want more information on as that will be my first question to you when we talk next week”. People like to help people. People like (most of the time) to have clear direction. Psychologically, people will more likely keep that next meeting when there was something of detail they were supposed to do vs. just another scheduled contact.

There, oddly wonderful aren’t they? Let’s make them a little less odd shall we?

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Inanity

Sometimes the reasons we give people to buy are inane.

Inane as in lacking sense or silly as dictionary.com would define the word.

Here is my most recent TV commercial favorite. It’s the garage door that still works (praise the almighty) when you lose power at your house. This 30 second inanity begins as the fearful family pulls in the home to discover that there is no power to the house but Holy Driveways Batman, the garage door still opens! We are saved!

Are you kidding me? A) How often do you lose power and B) are you not capable of getting out of the car and using your key to the front door? So silly. The scary part is that some bright marketing agency felt that a garage door that works when you lose power is the key selling feature and that it should be the central part of a 30 second television ad, i.e. the reason buy.

That’s inane.

If inanity lives in prime time advertising it may still exist closer to home. So let’s make sure in the B2B world we don’t have any inane reasons for someone to buy hanging out there. Let’s make sure we don’t have reasons that lack sense or are downright silly.

I doubt these inanities still exist around here but just in case;

You should buy because I’m your account manager. I remember a time when folks would believe that and even say that. That having someone “assigned” to a client to be “account managed” was gloriously stupendous all by itself. Many a sales rep used to think (I hope) that since the customer has “me” as an account manager well that would…um….be a darn good reason to buy. A classic sign if you or your company still possesses this kind of inanity is if you get upset, hurt or worried when a customer chooses to buy a product some other way like going online or by calling someone else at your company.

You should buy because We’re the cheapest. This is B2B folks; cheap is cheap. 70% off, 60% off or”I can beat everyone’s price” gets you less and less today in the sales game. You might actually do better by raising your prices; it can reflect your investment in services/ product and impart more literal or perceived value to a client. Cheap makes you look cheap. Cheap undervalues what your product does. Cheap is something to avoid, not embrace. Very few can pull of cheap as a reason to buy and those who do it well leverage far more than the low prices to retain and acquire customers.

You should buy because We have- “hours from 8am to 8pm 6 days a week”, “.. a 100% guarantee..”. “ …free shipping on..”, “..online ordering..”, “ ..a loyalty program for…”…etc…etc”. These are pretty much Table Stakes folks; that is to say that everybody has these and simply needs to have them to get a chance to even play at the table. And frankly, one of these alone or even all of them together is not a killer reason to buy. Conversely, and somewhat unfairly, not having these can be a reason not to buy from you.

So let’s take a lesson from our colossally idiotic consumer group that is dumbfounded by what to do when the power goes out and they are caught outside with just a garage door remote control. Our business clients aren’t like that; they carry a bunch of keys to get where they need to go and they’ll need a lot more from you before they look to you for help.

Till next time,

Grow The Business

Mark

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