Essential tip for anyone in business.
Let me tell you what I do when I have an open sales, confidence or presentation course.
If I have a room full of strangers, I like to start my course by asking 2 questions.
1 Put your hand up if you don't know me. All the hands go up.
2 Keep your hand up if you like me. Most of the hands go down!
I then ask those who have put their hand down why don't they like me.
The usual answer is;
"I don't like you - I don't dislike you - I just don't know you yet. I only met you 2 minutes ago. I will probably get to like you."
I then ask those who have kept their hands up, why they say they like me - again having only known me 2 minutes or less - when their hand went up.
The answer to that one usually is;
"You haven't given me a reason to dislike you,"
If you adopt this attitude, and you begin by liking everybody you meet, a few things will happen. The first thing is, new people you meet will be a lot more likely to like you. This is of course going to make it easier for people to do business with you. Another consequence is that you are more likely to be recommended to associates of those we meet. The final thing of course is life and business will be a little sweeter.
Sometimes some of the most important things in business are the simplest.
I hope you find this helpful
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
How a bottle of Scotch ( which I never gave away or opened) and a thank you card ( which I never sent) made me thousands of pounds....................
Amongst my many and varied sales roles, I have worked as a new and used car sales executive. I was on commission for selling the cars, as you would expect. I was also on commission for the upsell of other products. One of the products I used to sell was "Gap" insurance.
"Gap" insurance pays the difference between the payout you would get from your insurance company and what you actually paid for the car, in the event of your car being written off for any reason, for say a 2 year period. As with all good insurance, a waste of money if you did not have occasion to claim, but an absolute godsend if you do claim. Imagine getting the price you paid back 2 years later and being able to go out and buy another new car.
Now I was only averagely successful in selling this product, until I read an article on "social proof"
This article said if you see other people have bought and been pleased with a product, you are more likely to do so yourself. So here is what I did.
I bought an expensive bottle of Scotch Whisky. I bought a quality thank you card. ( You're probably ahead of me here).......
The whisky bottle went in the drawer I knew I would open often during the course of the sale. With the card under it. During the course of getting the various pieces of paperwork out the bottle would clank about. I would get it out and look a little bit embarrassed, saying "I'm not a drinker, particularly not Scotch, I wouldn't know if that was a good one or not." (if your customer knows his whiskeys he will tell you what a quality expensive one it is). "A customer Who I sold gap to about 18 months ago brought it in for me last week, with a lovely card. He said I persuaded him to have the gap - I don't think I did anything different to what I usually do. It's nice when people appreciate you doing your job properly." - "Anyway - lets get on with sorting the paperwork for your car............." Then later after the sale paperwork is sorted, and it come to explain - not push - gap insurance, you can show the thank you card, which says inside how grateful Derrick and Margaret are that that I sold them gap, and how it made up a difference of £4,826.32p between what they paid for the car and what the insurance company paid.
A tangible illustration like that is nicer, and easier than a pushy unpleasant sales pitch, where a customer feels he is being sold to. And - the salesman has done the job properly, explaining and illustrating the product fully, without being pushy and in a way the customer will fully grasp all the implications. Is it immoral? Well not if you truly believe the product is right for the customer.
I am running a one day seminar - "Improve your Sales - How to be Persuasive Not Pushy" on 16th March email paul@bespoke-sales-training.co.uk for more details of this very affordable one day workshop
"Gap" insurance pays the difference between the payout you would get from your insurance company and what you actually paid for the car, in the event of your car being written off for any reason, for say a 2 year period. As with all good insurance, a waste of money if you did not have occasion to claim, but an absolute godsend if you do claim. Imagine getting the price you paid back 2 years later and being able to go out and buy another new car.
Now I was only averagely successful in selling this product, until I read an article on "social proof"
This article said if you see other people have bought and been pleased with a product, you are more likely to do so yourself. So here is what I did.
I bought an expensive bottle of Scotch Whisky. I bought a quality thank you card. ( You're probably ahead of me here).......
The whisky bottle went in the drawer I knew I would open often during the course of the sale. With the card under it. During the course of getting the various pieces of paperwork out the bottle would clank about. I would get it out and look a little bit embarrassed, saying "I'm not a drinker, particularly not Scotch, I wouldn't know if that was a good one or not." (if your customer knows his whiskeys he will tell you what a quality expensive one it is). "A customer Who I sold gap to about 18 months ago brought it in for me last week, with a lovely card. He said I persuaded him to have the gap - I don't think I did anything different to what I usually do. It's nice when people appreciate you doing your job properly." - "Anyway - lets get on with sorting the paperwork for your car............." Then later after the sale paperwork is sorted, and it come to explain - not push - gap insurance, you can show the thank you card, which says inside how grateful Derrick and Margaret are that that I sold them gap, and how it made up a difference of £4,826.32p between what they paid for the car and what the insurance company paid.
A tangible illustration like that is nicer, and easier than a pushy unpleasant sales pitch, where a customer feels he is being sold to. And - the salesman has done the job properly, explaining and illustrating the product fully, without being pushy and in a way the customer will fully grasp all the implications. Is it immoral? Well not if you truly believe the product is right for the customer.
I am running a one day seminar - "Improve your Sales - How to be Persuasive Not Pushy" on 16th March email paul@bespoke-sales-training.co.uk for more details of this very affordable one day workshop
Sunday, 16 January 2011
The way to be Confident.......
The way to be confident is to act confident.
I take it to another level. I get my "students" to pick a film star to play their life story. They are now going to do the scene the student has been dreading, eg the big presentation, or the cold call phoning, or whatever it is that makes the student nervous.
The student now has to imagine how the actor feels about playing them. The actor is not nervous. It's just part of the job, there is not the emotional baggage. It can be played without trauma, because the actor does not feel this is his life under the microscope.
Now all the student has to do is play the actor playing them.
That is often my starting point for nervous people. We then role play it out until acting confident starts to become natural.
I take it to another level. I get my "students" to pick a film star to play their life story. They are now going to do the scene the student has been dreading, eg the big presentation, or the cold call phoning, or whatever it is that makes the student nervous.
The student now has to imagine how the actor feels about playing them. The actor is not nervous. It's just part of the job, there is not the emotional baggage. It can be played without trauma, because the actor does not feel this is his life under the microscope.
Now all the student has to do is play the actor playing them.
That is often my starting point for nervous people. We then role play it out until acting confident starts to become natural.
Friday, 14 January 2011
Two Questions Every Business Owner Should Ask Themselves
Two Questions Every Business Owner Should Ask Themselves.
When I was selling advertising space in a regional travel book, I used to visit a lot proprietors of Hotels, restaurants, cafes, pubs and guest houses. I used to, as part of my sales process ask them these 2 questions.
(1)Why would anyone want to come here?
(2)Why would anyone want to come back here again?
When they had answered those questions, I had a pretty good idea of how successful they were or would be. Let me illustrate with a typical type of answer - say for a country pub...
(1) Because it is a charming old 17th century coaching inn with beautiful hanging baskets outside, a lovely location on the edge of the village, with a view down to the lake. We do an extensive range of fresh locally sourced home cooked meals, freshly prepared on the premises, all at a reasonable price.
Good answer don't you think?
Now we come to the second question, and this is where I could determine who was going to be a long term success, and who was going to have "tried everything but had such bad luck"
her are the two types of answer to question (2) - can you tell who will thrive and who will struggle?
(A) (2) Because it is a charming old 17th century coaching inn with beautiful hanging baskets outside, a lovely location on the edge of the village, with a view down to the lake. We do an extensive range of fresh locally sourced home cooked meals, freshly prepared on the premises, all at a reasonable price.
(B) (2) Because we make people feel welcome,look after theme, make sure they have a good time while they are here, and give them a great experience. We like to make customers into friends.
Those who give answer (B) realise they are not just in the "food and drink" business, but the customer experience business.
No matter what business you may be in, always remember if you have customers you are in the customer experience business.
There are more goods and services than there are clients with money to buy them. Customer choice has never been wider, are you delivering a good customer experience?
When I was selling advertising space in a regional travel book, I used to visit a lot proprietors of Hotels, restaurants, cafes, pubs and guest houses. I used to, as part of my sales process ask them these 2 questions.
(1)Why would anyone want to come here?
(2)Why would anyone want to come back here again?
When they had answered those questions, I had a pretty good idea of how successful they were or would be. Let me illustrate with a typical type of answer - say for a country pub...
(1) Because it is a charming old 17th century coaching inn with beautiful hanging baskets outside, a lovely location on the edge of the village, with a view down to the lake. We do an extensive range of fresh locally sourced home cooked meals, freshly prepared on the premises, all at a reasonable price.
Good answer don't you think?
Now we come to the second question, and this is where I could determine who was going to be a long term success, and who was going to have "tried everything but had such bad luck"
her are the two types of answer to question (2) - can you tell who will thrive and who will struggle?
(A) (2) Because it is a charming old 17th century coaching inn with beautiful hanging baskets outside, a lovely location on the edge of the village, with a view down to the lake. We do an extensive range of fresh locally sourced home cooked meals, freshly prepared on the premises, all at a reasonable price.
(B) (2) Because we make people feel welcome,look after theme, make sure they have a good time while they are here, and give them a great experience. We like to make customers into friends.
Those who give answer (B) realise they are not just in the "food and drink" business, but the customer experience business.
No matter what business you may be in, always remember if you have customers you are in the customer experience business.
There are more goods and services than there are clients with money to buy them. Customer choice has never been wider, are you delivering a good customer experience?
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