sales

Can you sell something you don’t believe in?

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Imagine you got each of the emails below from someone you know who wants to sell you something.

  1. [FIRSTNAME] OMG, you have GOT to go to this website RIGHT NOW and buy this WIDGET – it’s AMAZING and it will change your life. Truly, it’s that great – I grabbed one for myself and just emailed my entire family to place an order before they sell out.
  2. Em, hi [FIRSTNAME] – my company sells widgets that are better than the widgets you already have. They work really well. Go to our website to place your order.

Which “sales pitch” sounds more convincing?

Unless you are some type of alien being, my guess is you chose #1.

The Sell – It’s about Passion and Serving

 #1 gets the hands-down FOR THE WIN because the person trying to \”sell\” you something isn’t selling at all.  She 100% believes in the product, but more importantly her “sales pitch” was more about helping her friends and family have the same awesomesauce experience she had.

#2 Is probably more the classic salesperson who simply isn’t confident in the product. They are just looking to sell the damn product and try to make a buck.

Without belief – the sell is a lie.

 If you are a salesperson who is struggling – step back and look at the product and/or service you are trying to sell.  What is your belief scale?

  1. You need to believe in the product
  2. You need to believe in yourself
  3. You need to believe that you yourself would use the product and would 100% feel comfortable telling your closest friends and family to use it.

If all 3 don’t apply – you need to up your belief level or quit.  It’s that simple.

Customers can smell BS from a mile away

Let’s cut to the chase and be honest. We’ve all been pitched by the snake oil salesperson – haven’t we?  The robodialers who just get on the phone and dial for dollars – they don’t even know what they hell they are selling.  Or how about the owner\’s daughter who was pushed into a sales role and doesn’t want to be there, doesn’t give two craps about the product, and here you are on the other end expected to buy from them.

So if you wouldn’t buy from the snake oil person, don’t be a snake oil person.  What is snake oil anyway?

Going back to the beginning of this article and example #1.  True sincerity doesn’t need any fancy marketing materials or even a sales pitch – it speaks for itself.

I guess that’s all that needs to be said on the subject of can you sell something you don\’t believe in.  Believe to Achieve.

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improve sales

Improve your sales skills even if you aren’t in sales

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Sales, regardless if you are an actual salesperson or not, is just part of life and your career. Sales doesn’t always mean selling a product or service to a customer, in fact, you are probably giving sales pitches just about every day. That’s right, every time you pitch an idea, make a suggestion, or even go on a job interview, you are “pitching” yourself. So how can you improve your sales skills if you don’t pitch people often?

First off, selling kinda has a bad rap. You typically think of a sleazy used car salesperson, telemarketer, or door to door salesperson. But if you think about it, sales is really the most fundamental life skill. People think sales is pushing someone to buy something they don’t need, want, or can afford. But really, sales is moving someone to take action. And if you think about everything you did today, I’d bet quite a few of your actions involved selling. Am I right?

People are often uncomfortable with sales because they 1. Don’t understand it and 2. Can’t get past the used car salesman cliché. Selling is all about persuading, inspiring, and leading. It’s about collaboration and driving change. The best salespeople make you feel like the sale was your idea. Why? Because you trusted them, they had a genuine interest in your problem, they provided a solution that they knew would fix your problem. You wanted to buy from them.

People often buy for 2 reasons, to gain pleasure or avoid pain. Your job is to figure out which one it is. Sales really is about networking and listening to your customers. Find out who the decision-makers are, learn as much about them ahead of time as you can. When you talk to them take an empathic approach, one that focuses on understanding the other person and what they need. Serve, not sell.

What do the best salespeople have in common? They plan and practice. You wouldn’t show up to a golf tournament and expect to win having never swung a golf club in your life, right? The best in the biz have mentors and coaches who help them practice and make sure their conversation flows – they help them improve their delivery. Practice on friends, peers, coworkers, family, etc. until you get your pitch just right.

Making your “pitch” can be very nerve-wracking at times, but even with all that adrenaline flowing, it’s important to stay calm and not ramble. People don’t want to listen to someone drone on and on about how great something is. Selling should be a conversation, not a lecture.

A good salesperson knows when to fold ‘em and when to walk away. Yes, the late, great Kenny Rogers knew what he was talking about. Most salespeople hear no at least a few times before they make a sale, but they know when to press on, because that no is really a “not yet”, and when to throw in the towel. They are flexible and understand the path that their customer has to take in order to move forward.

Sales is a numbers game – it’s highly possible you will fail more than you succeed. However, it’s important that you don’t quit. You need courage and to always remember the long game. Sales is never rarely a one and done deal, and most times it’s actually not about you. If a customer is happy where they, they won’t get pleasure from buying and aren’t experiencing pain, then now is not the time. Check back in 3 months.

Have any great sales advice to add, we’d love to hear it! We also wrote a blog on increasing sales without a sales team, check it out.

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John Vuong of Local SEO Search Inc. talks hard work, sales, and being an entrepreneur

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\"JohnJohn is a seasoned sales professional and Internet marketer with an exceptional track record helping companies grow their clientele and profits. Through 15 years of experience working with CEOs, business owners, and marketing leaders at some of Canada’s most successful corporations, John developed a deep understanding of local marketing dynamics and consumer behaviour. John’s entrepreneurial spirit and experience working with more than 5,000 local business owners inspired him to start his own company, Local SEO Search, in 2013.

His parents were among the last of the “boat people” refugees who immigrated from South Vietnam in 1980, and John was born a few months later. Like many newcomers, his family persevered through difficult times, and relied upon help from various community organizations (including the Salvation Army and Canada Employment Centre).

Early on, John embraced the value of hard work. Throughout adolescence and early adulthood, he held a number of jobs and studied the many challenges faced by business owners. John set a goal to one day own a business and give back to the local community.

Armed with a strong knowledge of digital marketing changes — as well as the importance of search engines like Google and Yahoo — John became the sole owner of Local SEO Search five years ago. John invests time getting to know each client, taking a personal approach and making customers feel valued and appreciated. He educates them about how the “LSS” team draws more targeted clientele to their websites and storefronts, and why design, optimization, and authoritative content expands their bottom line, with a high return on investment.

A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, John earned his Bachelor of Administrative and Commercial Studies (ACS) in 2003. His career began at Yellow Pages Group, where he was among the top 2% of sales representatives across Canada. Now a proud father, John enjoys coaching and mentoring new entrepreneurs, and runs an annual school supply campaign to help deserving young people in elementary and primary grades. Local SEO Search also provides free education to small business owners through live events and their podcast, Local SEO today.

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Social Media – Quality vs. Quantity

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Does even thinking about posting to social media stress you out? How many times to post, what to post, when to post, etc.? Are you putting content out just for the sake of putting content out on social media? Are your followers just not engaging and your audience isn’t growing? When it comes to social media posts, quality beats quantity every time.

The norm has always been that consumers expect companies to have content readily available to consume – blogs, social media, enewsletters, downloadable ebooks, white papers, etc. They still look for this type of content, however just having a large library of stuff isn’t enough – consumers want quality of resources from companies they do business with – not just fluff.

First, we need to back up and define what quality means to consumers – it’s targeted, more personalized, highly creative messaging. Content that is focused on better understanding and interacting with your clients. Even small brands can easily produce content that looks just as good as the big dogs.

When a prospect is looking to learn more about your company, yes, they will Google you and visit your website, but they will also look to see what social media channels you are on, the type of content that you post, and how long ago you posted. Just throwing posts up that your customers and prospects don’t care about is not going to help you engage with them. However, one good quality post on Facebook can do way better than five poor quality posts.

Some tips to posting high quality content are:

  • Photos – they don’t need to be done professionally, but make sure they are well lit, not blurred or grainy.
  • Videos – also need good lighting and good sound.
  • Sharing Blogs – need to be interesting and relevant topics but also have good spelling, punctuation and grammar. It should be around 500 words or more to keep readers on your website for longer which is a good SEO signal to Google.
  • Sharing 3rd Party Content – share content from reputable sources that don’t require signing up for memberships. Articles from newspapers, magazines, etc. are usually good sources
  • Your content – only 20% of your content should be around your business – if you are constantly pushing a sale people will unfollow you

I get asked a lot about the best times to post on social media. There is no concrete answer to this. You need to post when and where your audience is going to see your posts. Why post on Twitter if your audience is on Facebook? If your audience primarily engages in the mornings, don’t wait to post until the afternoon.

Don’t get hung up on the numbers. Many people will engage in campaigns to buy likes or followers. This might seem great in the short term, but these people are most likely not your ideal clients and will never engage with you. At the end of the day, your goal is to be seen as an expert, a trusted advisor, and of course to get traffic to your website as that is where the sale is. If your engagement is low, then ask yourself if it is the quality of the post or is that the content isn’t resonating with your audience.

When it comes to social media posts quality will always beat quantity. You aren’t Gary V or Jenna Kutcher – you don’t need to keep up with the quantity of posts that they put out daily – they have teams of people who do this for them. For the DIYers – just focus on the quality. That’s all you need to do.

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customer experience

Marketing Trends 2020 – customer experience

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What we do as an industry has dramatically changed over the past decade.  We’ve shifted from trying to convince people to buy, to do, to act, to honing in on our customer’s journey and customer experience.

CX will rule Marketing and Advertising in the next decade.

The Customer Experience (CX) is king. People no longer want to be told what to do, instead they want to be educated, they want to be wooed and they want an AMAZING customer experience – one that they willingly will pay more for.

Read that again:  They will pay MORE for a better experience.

Not that cheap, one and done is gone – there will always be price shoppers, but the trend is more on “show me what’s in it for me” as in the customer not the vendor.

So how do you have a Fab CX?

  1. Put yourself in YOUR customer’s shoes. You need to know them inside and out.  What makes them tick, why do they buy from you – and why do they not?  Knowledge is complete power here.
  2. KNOW your Value Proposition and make sure your team does too. It comes from the top.  Empower your team to make decisions on behalf of bettering your client experience.  Be it a refund, sending flowers, giving a bit more – the list goes on.  In the end you’ll not only increase client retention – but employee retention. Happy Employees = Happy Clients.
  3. Over Deliver – I mean OVER DELIVER. Just woo the socks off them.  Be Chewy – train your team to LIVE your value prop and DELIVER. DELIVER. DELIVER.
  4. Share your happy client stories – but let it be focused on them – not you. There is an art to it as to not look self-serving.  Again, put yourself in their shoes

Marketing today is less about telling people what you do and more about showing people how you can improve their life and help them – even if it doesn’t involve what you sell.

CX should be at the core of your 2020 business and marketing strategy.

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Network Marketing

Is Network Marketing “REAL BUSINESS” and why it matters

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If you are making money – the answer is YES.   

 I think there is a stigma around the MLM (Multi Level Marketing) that’s not always warranted.  The visions of Ponzi pyramid schemes runs through people’s minds and all of a sudden one’s spidey senses are in hyper-drive at the mention of “joining the cult”.   

 Here’s my $.02.  Some networking marketing companies are not worth even considering, while others offer amazing opportunities for people to make a good deal of money if they are up for the hustle. 

  1.  None and I mean NONE will get you rich quickly.  It’s a sales job – it will take time.  Usually 3-5 years.
  2. If you want to be a big dog, you have to work like a big dog – I mean St. Bernard work.  
  3. It’s called Network Marketing for a reason – you have to share, talk it up and connect.
  4. You have  to BELIEVE in the product you are selling if you want to be one of those Big Dogs. 100% honesty and transparency will sell – if you don’t really believe in the product or service – you won’t be successful, at least on a big level.
  5. Speaking of success – it’s different for everyone. Some just want to make another $100 per month, some just want products at wholesale while others want to make 5-6 figures.
  6. For the most part – Social Media will 100% be your friend.  Again – it’s all about the network marketing part of it. 
  7. You need to understand the compensation policies – IE how you get paid, BEFORE you sign on the dotted line.  Every single one is different. 
  8. Speaking of policies – it’s YOUR responsibility to read the fine print.  Talk to others who have done it, research the hell out of the company – what are the complainers complaining about.
  9. Know that not everyone will think what you are doing is fabulous – haters will be haters. 
  10. Chances are your family and your BFF will not be your “partners” – INITIALLY.  If they are, they probably won’t be the hustlers – it’s just how it goes. 

 I’m a firm believer in multiple streams of income, MLMs do that.  So, am I currently involved with any Network Marketing companies?  Yes.  I’ve done several in my lifetime – either I liked the products or it was a great way for me to make a few extra bucks.  All were a decent experience. Currently Dave and I have a business with Isagenix –the comp plan is great, I love the products and it\’s easy to share what we do. . It makes sense for our nomadic lifestyle and we’ve met some cool people.  We still have our companies – this is just another income stream for us. 

How to choose one?  Do your homework, find one that fits your lifestyle and interests you!  Dave and I are long distance runners, and really active – so we gravitated towards the health and wellness part of the company we are with.  Again – it made sense for us.

What has been your experience?   

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How to take time off from your small business during the holidays!

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Depending on the type of business that you run, your business can either be super crazy during the holidays, think retail, or it could experience a bit of a lull. Many service providers, especially small businesses, often see a drop in business during the holidays. But just your potential buyers have checked out and gone on autopilot and decided not to decide until after the New Year doesn’t mean you put your marketing on hold for the last 2 weeks of the year.  Even if your business and customer engagement levels slow to a crawl this time of year it doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. And don’t worry – you can still enjoy some time with your family during the holidays too!

Reach out to top prospects before they check out for the season. Before the calendar rolls over to January, many businesses evaluate current contracts and services that they are using. Make sure you check in with your top prospects to stay front of mind, BUT you need to also make sure your current clients are happy and will continue to stay loyal to you. A little extra love during the holidays won’t hurt and may increase your sales.

Embrace the season of giving. Make sure that your clients know that you appreciate them. Sending them a holiday card or even a small gift will remind them that you care and take their business serious. At Red Barn, we bake cookies for our clients and we share the wealth with any top prospects that we are looking to woo as well. 😊

Optimize your email. Whether you plan to take a few days off or a few weeks, making sure your customers don’t feel neglected or ignored should be top of mind. Create an out of office message that lets people know when they can expect to hear from you, additional ways to reach you if it’s urgent, and when you may be checking emails while away. You should also list any special products or services with links to more information to help increase sales while you are away. You can also link to an FAQ page on your website that may be helpful to some common questions that you may receive. Be proactive!

Schedule, Schedule, Schedule. Just because you are going to be spending time away from your business, it doesn’t mean that all marketing and content comes to a halt. Create a bunch of content in advance and pre-schedule those weekly emails and blogs, and daily social media posts. Of course, you’ll need to check emails to see if you get any responses, and monitor social media for any messages and comments, but it takes a lot of the burden off when you automate and schedule in advance!

Don’t allow the demands of running your business overwhelm you to the point where you don’t know if you can take any time off for the holiday break. Everyone needs some down time and the holidays can be both stressful for your business and personal life. There’s no reason to miss out on a sale or lose customers just because you want to recharge and enjoy some family time – just set yourself up for success before you unplug!

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No sales team – no problem. How to increase your sales without a sales team

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When you own a small business, you may not have resources available to hire a dedicated sales person, but you still need to make sales, right? When sales are your goal but not necessarily your specialty, you need to make sure every lead, every prospect counts. That one missed sale could really affect your bottom line when you are just starting out. So how do you kick your sales effort into overdrive without a robust sales process and team? Check out these great tips to give your sales effort the boost it needs.

Email, email, email. If you didn’t read my previous blog on the importance and value of email marketing – go back and read it here. Email marketing is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to reach your prospects and clients. And yes, you should be emailing your current clients too – they still need nurturing to get them to continue to buy your services/products and buy additional services/product. Just because they bought once or twice, doesn’t mean they will continue to buy. Make sure you list is targeted as well. Don’t blindly email everyone whose email you have – unless they sign up for a specific newsletter. Make sure the people on your list are people who could actually buy your offering.

Be mobile-friendly. From your website to your emails to your social media profiles – everything should look great and be easy to navigate on mobile devices. Why? Because pretty much everyone nowadays owns a smartphone or tablet and they are using them to open emails, check social media, and visit websites. If they can’t quickly and easily access you on a mobile device, you may be losing a lot of sales.

Make the pathway to a sale easy. Can your customers easily place an order with you? Even if they can’t order direct from your website if it’s a service-based business, do you make your process easy? Are they able to get ahold of you or someone who can take the sale? Is there a lot of mundane paperwork they need to complete? Streamline your sales process to make it as easy as possible for your client to work with you.

Networking and referrals. What’s better than free marketing? Your network of peers sending prospects your way via referrals. When you network and build up a tribe of people who know you, know what you do, and genuinely like you – they are happy to refer business your way, especially when you reciprocate. The saying it’s not what you know but who you know still holds value.

Amazing customer service. Customers really learn a lot about your business from the customer service you provide. Providing timely responses to calls and emails, answering questions they may have about the product, and giving them value during the decision-making process could be the deciding factor in whether they purchase from you or not. Don’t go AWOL after the sale either – customer service is just as important as making the sale – you don’t want people spreading negative feedback that you could have easily controlled.

Still have questions on how you can take your sales to the next level – give us a call. We can help with everything from how to approach your prospects to defining your sale’s pitch and message.

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