Six Sales Secrets

Six Sales Secrets
By BJ Farish, Profit Builders Consulting

Since the dawn of time (or at least since the creation of money), people have wanted to get as much money as quickly as they possibly could. Offers like “Make $1,000 by working just 4 hours a week” or “Make Enough Money to Quit Your Job Next Month” seem to on every utility pole at every intersection. If you can make $1,000 in just four hours, why wouldn’t you work forty hours and make $10,000 in a week? Each of these “opportunities of a lifetime” involve selling some type of product or service.
It has been said that there are two kinds of people in this world: those that know that they are in sales and those that don’t. Everyone is in sales. Parents have to sell their children on the benefits of eating vegetables (even if Brussels sprouts are nasty). Managers have to sell their employees on the benefits of working their fourth Saturday in a row. Sales people have to sell products and services to customers that are bombarded on a daily basis with phone calls, emails, and visits from twenty other sales representatives. If you have been selling for years, these tips will be reminders of things that you may have forgotten. If you are new to selling, these are tried and true techniques that will give you an edge over your competition. Here are six secrets to improving your ability to sell:

1. Relationships matter. You buy from people that you know, trust, and like. Your customers are no different. They want to purchase products and services from someone that understands their needs and appreciates their business. One national company that was fortunate to have several multi-million dollar accounts lost a key customer. Their pricing and service were excellent and unparalleled in the industry. When the decision maker at the corporate office was asked why they were shifting to a new supplier, he responded, “Your sales rep sold us a great system eight years ago. We haven’t seen him since we signed the contract. We went with someone that wanted our business.” A few visits from the salesperson over those eight years would have kept a huge customer happy.
2. Being consistent brings new business. Regular contact with your customers is a key to building relationships. I had a potential customer tell me, “We’ve been buying from your competitor for years. We’ll never buy from you.” That sounded like a challenge to me. I continued to call on that company and within a year, their supplier had a service failure. Because I had stayed in contact with them on a regular basis, they called me to see if I could get them the products that they needed. This customer that planned on never buying from me became one of my largest customers.
3. Solve a problem. Your customers have problems. As a salesperson, your job is to identify the problem and find a way to solve it with your product or service. A seasoned telecommunications salesperson related the story of one of his biggest prospects. He asked his customer, “What is the single biggest problem in your organization?” The response was quick: “We don’t have enough parking for our employees. What can you do about that?” The sales rep came up with a plan to set up a portion of his customer’s employees to work from home. He helped them avoid spending millions of dollars to erect a parking structure by offering a telecommuting solution. It is standard practice now, but in the mid-1980s when this deal was initiated, it was virtually unheard of. Be creative with solutions and your customers will reward you with their business.
4. Tell the truth. This secret is pretty self-explanatory. When my wife and I were building our home, we would stop in every couple of days. After one visit, I was excited to see that our deck was finished. The next day, I returned to the construction site and noticed that the deck was no longer there. I asked one of the workers what had happened. “I put the deck on incorrectly. We’ll have it fixed by the end of the week. It’s my fault and I’m not allowed to work on it unsupervised anymore.” I appreciated his candor. Rather than blaming someone else, he took responsibility for his mistake and shared how it and when it would be corrected.
5. Under promise and over-deliver. I used a dry cleaner for several years. After the first couple of visits, I never had to give my name or my telephone number. The store owners would see me walking from my car to their store and have my clothes already pulled and ready to go by the time I got inside. They had promised me next day service. “Your jacket will be ready by 5:00 pm tomorrow.” If I needed to pick my order up by 3:00 pm, it was ready. I found out later that they consistently had my order ready by noon the next day. My orders were always ready well before I needed them and were hanging on the rack by the cash register before I made it inside their establishment. They understood the importance of under promising and over delivering.
6. There are no shortcuts. Being a salesperson is a great way to make a living but it also involves a lot of hard work. Preparing for a one hour sales call can take four hours or more. Putting in the time to research your customers’ needs and finding solutions requires diligence, dedication, and patience. If you take off at noon every Friday, you are losing five hours per week of selling time. That is the equivalent of losing over thirty days of selling opportunities. Selling gives you the freedom to make exactly what you are worth. A highly successful friend of mine who started her career in direct sales often repeats these words, “If you do the things you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do them, then you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them.”

BJ Farish is the president of Profit Builders Consulting and provides new business development, sales training, and marketing services. You can reach him at bjfarish@profitbuildersusa.com, 253-929-9804, or www.profitbuildersusa.com.

Are you ready to save $30,000 or more?

Just finished a project for a customer. We were working on sales and revenue growth opportunities. As a side project, the company owner asked me to review some items on the expense side. As I looked over what he asked me to check out, I showed him how to reduce his costs in one area by over $30,000. Not too bad for spending an hour in exploring some different options.

5 Tips for Streamlining Expenses

As the economy continues to languish, many companies continue to look for opportunities to shed costs without jeopardizing productivity, customer service, or quality. During an economic crisis, laying off employees is the first thing that many companies think of. Sometimes that is a necessary step, but here are five tips to take prior to cutting personnel:

1. Take a look at your assets-Do you own 50,000 square feet of warehouse space but can operate more efficiently out of 30,000 square feet? Find a tenant to lease that extra 20,000 feet or challenge your sales team to fill that space with revenue generating business. Do you have trucks or other equipment that are not fully utilized? Sell them and replace them with equipment that you can rent only for the peak times. Do you have additional furniture or computers in your facility that you do not use on a regular basis? Donate them to a local non-profit (and make sure that notify your local paper to get some great free publicity).
2. Review your telecommunications services-Telecommunications consultants can assist you in evaluating your company’s needs and matching the right services for you. Pay for voice, data, and wireless services that you actually need and use rather than the standard packages that are available. VOIP may be a cost effective way for you to handle your telephone system. Consider video conferencing periodically instead of traveling to each of your branches.
3. Use email instead of postage mail-Can you invoice your customers electronically? What about managing payments through your bank’s website? Eliminate the costs of ink, paper, envelopes, and postage. Plus, you will have the added bonus of electronic records of each transaction. Scanning a documents and attaching them to your email is another way to avoid postage.
4. Small parcel services-Are you using UPS, FedEx, or another small parcel service? Are you getting the best rates? Consider a cost comparison with the US Postal Service for items that you cannot email. Are you getting the best discount possible based on your shipping volume with your current supplier? Invite your salesperson to get you the maximum discount available for your organization. Also, are your employees in the habit of sending packages overnight rather than three day ground? Make three day ground shipping your default method and use priority overnight services only for those items that absolutely must arrive the next morning.
5. Audit services that your company uses-How much does that coffee service cost? What about the 5 gallon bottles of water for the cooler? Have your office cleaning service costs climbed but your office square footage remained the same? Has it been a year or more since you reviewed those services? You may be able to reduce your costs or eliminate unnecessary providers.
6. Renegotiate your lease-On your way to or from the office, take note of how many buildings there are available for sale or lease. Your landlord may be willing to reduce your monthly rent payment to keep you in your current space. You may also be able to get additional space at a lower cost by moving to a new location. Property management companies can sometimes offer free rent to offset moving expenses and may offer a custom build out at no additional charge.

Brainstorm other expense reduction ideas with your team. Bring in a group that includes sales, operational, warehouse, drivers, and administrative personnel. Tell them your goals (in dollars or as a percentage) for cost reductions. You will be amazed at the ideas that they generate. You will also reap the benefits of making your employees feel more included in the overall operation of your organization. As you implement their ideas, they will continue to come to you with additional ways to streamline your company.

Generating New Business in a Down Economy

With the housing market continuing to suffer, financial institutions struggling to stay solvent, and a deficit expanding, the outlook for new business appears bleak to many. As the success in the household moving and storage industry remains tied to the housing market, company owners are asking themselves, “How can we grow our business when the market is shrinking?” Pockets of stronger real estate markets exist throughout the country. According to a recent article in BusinessWeek, Spartanburg, SC has had an increase in home values of 1.81% in 2009, Binghamton, NY is up 4.45%, and Champaign-Urbana, IL is one of the top thirty housing markets in the country.
Boeing and Microsoft have laid off thousands of workers in 2009. Other companies have cut employee pay and benefits as a way to reduce overall costs. Streamlining expenses is important and necessary, but not the only way to make it through the tough times. Finding new revenue streams is key to a company’s long term success. A stool with one leg will not stand for very long. Similarly, a company will not last very long with one source of income. Adding more revenue streams will help your organization stand strong during lean times.

Here are four ways to increase and diversify revenue while the market recovers:

1. Treat real estate agents like national accounts-Who knows about moves or potential move before they even end up in the MLS? Real estate agents, of course. The average homeowner that lists their home for sale receives between 10 and 20 pieces of direct mail from moving and storage companies. When moving and storage sales representatives strengthen relationships with real estate agents, referrals are more likely to flow. Referral fees for booked moves can also have a positive impact on the amount of referrals. Inviting agents to tour your company facilities or observe the care that the crew takes on a move are additional ways to create confidence in your organization.
2. Turn all of your employees into salespeople-The saying goes “There are two types of people in this world: those that know that they are in sales and those that don’t.” Everyone is in sales. Do your crew members and office staff generate new business? Do they have an incentive to help grow your business? Many movers have programs in place that split the commission for a move between the sales representative that actually books the move and the employee that referred the new customer. Make sure that everyone in your organization realizes the impact that a referral has to the company. If you employ 20 people that each refer one move that averages $5,000, that is an additional $100,000 of revenue to your organization.
3. New furniture delivery-The slow time in the industry is typically October to April. Most retail businesses, including furniture stores, have their peak business in the fourth quarter. Assign a salesperson to seek out retail delivery business. Many furniture stores contract their deliveries out already. They do not want to make deliveries, they want to sell furniture. Show them the benefits of outsourcing this function of their business.
4. Disaster restoration-Frozen pipes and house fires are terrible situations that homeowners sometimes have to deal with. Aligning your company with service providers such as ServiceMaster, Servpro, and similar companies can provide additional business for your slower season. Most disaster restoration companies have limited warehousing space and personnel available to pick up and store damaged goods so that they can be cleaned and restored. This business is typically short-notice, but can fill the empty spaces on your dispatch board. One east coast moving company had their best year in the company’s history as they worked through the aftermath of cleanup and restoration from a hurricane that damaged many local hotels.

Persistence and patience in developing new business will pay off for your organization. Strengthening your sales efforts in a tough economy will make your company even more profitable as business recovers to pre-recession levels. Your team will maintain the additional business that they created during the slow times and will continue to seek out new opportunities for growth.

Maximizing Your Company's Impact on Social Networks

If you are not on Facebook or Twitter, you have at least heard about those and other social networking sites. Even both of my grandmothers have Facebook accounts so that they can stay connected with family. In fact, one of them even has her very own blog. With 350 million active users, 50% of which log on in any given day, Facebook has a huge sphere of influence that you can put to work and that is only one of many tools available to you.
Now is the time to get engaged in online marketing. All of the tools mentioned here can work together to promote your brand. Here’s a quick how-to guide to maximize your online impact (don’t skip steps as there are some helpful tips that you may or may not be doing):

1. Website-Most businesses have a website, but are you cross-linking with other sites? Have you integrated an RSS feed from your Twitter account to update your page regularly? Do you update your content at least monthly to boost your search engine results? These are all things to consider to drive traffic to your site.
2. Facebook-Create a page for your business. This is easily done with your current Facebook account. What?! You don’t have one?! Create your own profile first, then you can create a Facebook page for your company. Many retailers and restaurants have contests for monthly prizes, such as a 10% off coupon, free drink, and more as incentives to become fans of their pages. You can keep your customers updated on a regular basis with helpful moving tips, specials, and industry news.
3. Twitter-If used properly, Twitter can be a very effective and time-saving communications tool. You can link your Twitter account so that it updates your company’s Facebook page, LinkedIn status, and your website with one simple text message. (What?! You don’t text?! You can always update from the comfort of your computer.) In 140 characters or less, you can send updates as often as necessary to keep your message in front of your prospective and current customers. www.tinyurl.com converts lengthy web addresses to a tweetable size so that you still have room to make a comment.
4. Company blog-Keep your customers updated with your company’s activities. Did you open a new location? Add new employees? Upgrade your CRM system? Have a summer picnic? Posting pictures of your offices and employees (with their permission, of course) is a great way to engage with your customers. People want to do business with people that they have a good relationship with. Leveraging your website or blog with personal touches will go a long way to strengthening your customers’ ties to your organization.
5. LinkedIn-My teenage son calls LinkedIn the Facebook of business. You can certainly get in touch with former co-workers and use it as more of a social tool if you want, but LinkedIn is a very powerful network building tool. Joining groups can keep you updated on the industry but can also put you in touch with potential customers. What groups are your customers members of? Join those groups and post helpful tips in the discussion areas. You will create value for your customers and your company.