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What if you doubled the price of what you are selling? What additional value would you have to demonstrate to make it so valuable to your customers still wanted to buy it over the cheaper alternative?
The key here is value demonstrated – not features added.
Once you have identified this, you know how to step away from the price war and protect your margins. That’s what Rolls Royce does.
Customers buy value – not features
Cheers
Darren
Most fast food chains do not have a head office for their restaurants. They are called Support Centers.
The State Manager, Manager of HR, Manager of Business Development sit in this support center. It sounds an awful lot like a Head Office.
But it’s not. And deliberately so.
The fast food chain wants their customers to think that the local restaurant is the head office. They want the staff of that restaurant to act as though they are the head office. This empowers staff to make decisions and the customer feels good about dealing with them.
When you are selling, are you the head office or just a representative of it? If you can’t make decisions, provide prices or clear up issues on the spot the customer won’t feel good about dealing with you.
Customers like to feel good when dealing with their suppliers. Giving staff head office powers enables this. It’s about being the leader.
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here
There are only three possible outcomes after a sales pitch:
Most companies have strategies for two of these three outcomes.
Pack is customer nurture. Push off is start again
Provide is where it is let down. Most companies have a 2 strategy approach for follow up. They are:
Neither approach offers value to the customer, or dignity to the sales person. After all, who likes begging!
You’re better off to offer the customer value so they want to talk to you. (A discount is not value – it’s prostitution)
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here
If you want an audience (buyer) to engage with you, you need to communicate from their world – not yours.
But many sales people will ask about the content they sell (e.g. Do you need any blue widgets?). If the buyer says yes they have a chance for a sale. If the buyer says no, they ask another content question (e.g. How about red widgets?).
These sales conversations are usually short and produce nothing.
This happens because subject matter experts love their content. They spend their time thinking about what they have and how it can benefit their customers. Their passion is clear.
The draw back is that they can see problems that the buyer is not yet aware of and go straight for it. They are selling a pill for a problem that the customer does not know they have.
If they don’t know they have a problem, they have no need to buy your pill.
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here
The buyer does not care about you.
They don’t care how old your company is, how long you have been working in your position or how many awards your company has won.
They have no reason to care. They don’t wish you malice – they just don’t care what you have done. The buyer only cares about themselves.
They care how they will be better off after listening to you, how they will be able to use what you tell them to make better decisions in the future and to take better actions. They care about what is important to them.
We know this is true. Just look at the biggest movement in history – Facebook. Facebook is nothing more than a platform to tell other people what you are doing. (There is a secondary bonus to this that you can see what others are up to as well.)
Present your message to market in a way that means something to the buyer. That way they will care about it and then they’ll care about you.
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here
When app developers ask if I would recommend their app they are assuming that I want to recommend it.
I’m not sure if anyone sits around thinking, “Now who can I recommend this app to?”
They ask this because they want their app recommended – and that’s fair enough.
But that’s not where the users’ thoughts are. Their thoughts are how easy the app is to use, how functional it is and if they like it.
If that is where their thoughts are, that’s the place to start. Simply ask, “How do you like our app?” If the user likes it then you can suggest they recommend it. If the user doesn’t like it you get valuable feedback.
It’s like asking if you can move in on the first date. Sure you both might want to do that eventually, but the first date is not the time to ask.
What questions is your team asking?
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here
There is nothing worse than the party guest who spends the whole time talking about themselves. You know the one – they are just itching to tell you about what they do and why they are great. They are boring and to be avoided at all costs.
They’d be more interesting if they knew something about the person they were speaking to and could share what they do in a way that would be interesting to them. Unfortunately they don’t.
Are your sales presentations that awful party guest? The way you tell is to look at the first few slides of your sales presentation. If it’s about your company you could be that guest.
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here
Terminal uniqueness is a curse we suffer. We think we are unique – just like everybody else. We have the best service, a great product at the right price. Do you want to buy one?*
To us these are obvious factors that drive what we do. But to the customer it is just marketing guff. It’s all noise not music.
You’re better off to be relevant. When you’re relevant, service, price and lead times fall to second level importance.
But you can only be relevant when you can diagnose the customers’ problem. If you don’t know their problems you wont be relevant. If you’re not relevant your service, price and product wont mean a thing. If they don’t mean a thing there is no reason to buy.
Be relevant before being unique.
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”. To find out more or to purchase copies of this book click here
In all the on-the-road sales mentoring I have done for clients, it is amazing to see that very few sales reps set an agenda for a sales call. An agenda that the customer sees before hand.
The result is that the sales person starts speaking about themselves without knowing what the customer wants to buy. This gives control of the sales call to the buyer and they can move you on when they have had enough.
Set an agenda that gives you control of the meeting and you will have more power in the conversation.
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”, Due out May 2016. To find out more and register for pre-release information click here
In Swimming in the early 2000’s, swimmers were allowed to wear the Super Suit. These Super Suits gave swimmers the edge over their rivals. They were beating records by over a second when they jumped in the water.
After a few meets, FINA decided that the suit needed to be banned. It was the super suit that was winning – not the athlete.
The suits provided a fundamental shift in the thinking of swimming. It was no longer just about the action of the athlete in the water, their nutrition or exercise regime. Every athlete had this down pat and there were only small differences between swimmers.
The change came from different thinking – what the scientists were doing in the lab. This change in thinking provided the next evolution in the sport. Everything evolves and swimming is no different.
The role of the sales rep has evolved too. To stand out in the market place they need to evolve to the next level.
I’ve put a report together that shows you where the next evolution will come from. If you’d like a copy, just hit reply and let me know.
This is an edited extract from my new book “Better Positioning Deeper Conversations More Sales”, Due out May 2016. To find out more and register for pre-release information click here
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