When I coach salespeople, consult with companies and speak at conferences, I’ll often ask, “Who is your market?”

Nine times out of ten, the answer I get back is “Everyone.”

Wrong answer!

No company can market effectively to everybody. And no salesperson can be efficient or effective looking for prospects everywhere.

Which means, if you want to boost your sales, you need to focus your marketing and prospecting efforts where they’ll provide you the biggest returns.

No matter how wonderful your product or service is, some people will want it more than others. No matter what you do and how you do it, some people will appreciate and value it more than others. That’s who you want to target: the people most likely to buy from you.

So, whether you’re selling to consumers, businesses or governments, define your best prospects. What do they look like? What characteristics do they share?
For instance, if your product or service is aimed at consumers, here are some demographic criteria you could use to define your target market:
    • Age
    • Sex
    • Race/ethnicity
    • Religion
    • Sexual orientation
    • Height and weight
    • Education level
    • Marital/family status
    • Family size
    • Age of children
    • Hobbies/interests
    • Recreational activities
    • Job status
    • Profession
    • Household income
    • Geographic area
    • Urban/suburban/rural resident
    • Homeowner or renter
    • Housing type (detached house, town home, condo, mobile home, etc.)
    • Disabilities 
    • Pet ownership

Some of these criteria can be further subcategorized. For instance, pet owners can be subdivided by number of pets or type of pet owned: dogs, cats, fish, birds, etc.

If you’re marketing to businesses, consider these demographic criteria:
    • Industry or profession
    • Geographic area
    • Age of business
    • Business’ target market
    • Job title
    • Workforce size
    • Annual revenue
    • Number of locations
    • Franchise or independent
    • Business type (manufacturing, distribution, retail, service, restaurant, etc.)

The more specifically you can define your target prospect, the more effectively you can reach them, so use as many demographic characteristics as you can.

For example, your target prospects might be overweight, single women under the age of 40 living in the Seattle metropolitan area. Or your target prospects might be male retirees living in the southwestern United States with incomes between $100,000 and $500,000. Or they might be French businesses with annual revenues under €1 million which have been in business less than two years. Or they could be female medical malpractice attorneys throughout the country.

This is not to say that these are the only people you will sell to. You may well have customers outside your target market. You may have two, or even three, distinct target markets, each with its own unique characteristics. But the more narrowly you can define your market, the more effectively you can craft a marketing message that resonates with them and the more cost-effectively you can present that message to them.

Remember too, that repetition is crucial to sales success. You have to get your message in front of your prospect numerous times before they buy from you. Which means you’ll get far better results marketing to 1,000 targeted people ten times than marketing to 10,000 random people once. If you’re a salesperson, it’s also much easier to follow up with 1,000 people than 10,000.

Whether you’re a CEO, sales manager, professional or salesperson, you only have so much time and money. You can’t afford to waste them chasing after everybody. Instead, define and pursue your best prospects: the ones who need or want you most. It’s a sure-fire way to increase your sales quickly and profitably.

Listen as Michele Price interviews me on Breakthrough Business Radio.  Michele and I discuss how important price really is to your prospects, what to do when prospects ask for a discount and how to charge more than your competition.

To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the interview to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

Whenever you listen, make sure you have a pen and paper ready, because you’ll want to take notes!

The Myth of Price, Interview with Michele Price on Breakthrough Business Radio (mp3)

To learn more about Michele and listen to her interview other business strategists (which I strongly recommend), check out her web site: www.whoismicheleprice.com.

Do you know what it is? It’s a common word you use every day, probably without giving it much thought. But when you’re marketing, networking or selling, it’s the most powerful word you can use.

No, it’s not “free.” (Although that runs a close second.) It isn’t “results” or “save.” It’s not “quality,” “benefits” or “guaranteed,” valuable words all. 

No, the single most important sales and marketing word in the English language is “you.”

Think about it. Aren’t you your favorite subject? Aren’t you the most important person to you? And don’t you buy things you want and need for your reasons, when and how you choose to buy them? Well, your prospects and customers think exactly the same way.

Which means, if you want to increase your sales, you need to start using the word “you” more. Here’s how to use this most valuable word to enrich your business communication.

Marketing
When you create marketing materials (brochures, flyers, direct mail letters, web sites, etc.) focus on the needs of your prospects. Don’t dwell on the history of your company, the process your product undergoes or your commitment to excellence. None of that means anything to your potential customers. They don’t know anything about your industry and frankly, they don’t care.

To be effective, your marketing materials need to identify their problems and show how you can solve them. Your materials should speak directly to your prospects and use their language. The more often the words “you” and “your” appear in your marketing messages, the stronger your response will be.

Shoot for a 2-1 ratio of second-person pronouns (you, your) to first-person pronouns (I, me, my, we, us, our) in your copy. 3-1 or even 4-1 is better still.

Networking
The goal of networking is simply to meet people and get to know them. So when talking to someone in a networking situation, whether at a business mixer, a trade show or a cocktail party, keep the conversation focused on the other person.

Ask questions like:
    • “What do you do?” 
    • “How do you do that?”
    • “What’s your biggest accomplishment so far?”
    • “What’s your biggest challenge?
    • “What brings you here?”
    • “Tell me about yourself?”
    • “What do you read to keep up?”
    • “How did you get started?
    • “Where else do you go to network?”

Notice there’s a “you” in every question. When you ask questions like these, not only do you get valuable information, it makes the other person feel important, appreciated and understood, which builds rapport and trust.

Selling
We’ve all been taught to sell features and benefits. The trouble is, people don’t buy based on features and benefits. People buy what best fits their wants and needs. 

Which means you need to ask your prospect what their wants and needs are. You also need to ask about their concerns, fears, hopes, past experiences, priorities, budget, time frame, preferences, alternatives and more. That way, you can focus your sales presentation not on your product or service, but on your prospect.

Rather than drone on and on about your product or service, explain how it addresses their specific problems, criteria and desired results, using “you” and “your” frequently. If it doesn’t relate to your prospect’s issues, don’t discuss it. (You’ll save time and ensure you keep their attention.)

When you make your sales presentations prospect-focused instead of product-focused, they will resonate better with your prospects and your sales will jump as a result.

When we have something important to say, we not only feel a need to express it, we feel fear that we won’t get the chance, because so often we are interrupted, drowned out or brushed off.

A tactic I call “Intensive Listening” alleviates that fear for the person with whom you’re talking.

Intensive Listening goes beyond Active Listening in that it ignores the standard rules of conversation: you talk, then the other person talks, then you, then the other person, and so on.  When you are engaged in Intensive Listening, only the other person talks. You just listen.

Don’t interrupt.  Don’t argue.  Don’t judge.

Keep steady eye contact and use plenty of non-verbal cues (head-nodding, smiling, frowning, raising eyebrows). You can throw in an occasional verbal cue (“Mm-hmm.” “Right.”  “You’re kidding.” “Really?” “I don’t blame you.” “That’s awful.”), but otherwise, say nothing, even when the other person appears to finish talking.

Most of us feel compelled to fill any conversational gap immediately because we’re uncomfortable with silence. But that silence gives the other person a chance to think, to reflect, to uncover buried concerns and feelings before continuing on.

And when your counterpart does not have to fear losing the floor, they can relax and feel more comfortable, both with you and the issues being discussed. And perhaps most importantly, they perceive that you really care and you truly understand them.

What you are doing is giving them the gift of undivided attention, a thing so rare, we forget what it feels like. In return, the other person will give you several gifts: their respect, their trust and the information you need to best help them. (Although sometimes, the best way to help them is just to listen.)

Intensive Listening is not always appropriate. As its name suggests, it is best reserved for situations in which there are intense emotions, or there is a need for deep, detailed information. 

Intensive Listening is especially useful when dealing with extremely angry customers, when there is little or no trust or when someone has experienced a loss, such as a divorce, a layoff or the death of a loved one. Also, note that this approach works best face-to-face, although it can be applied over the phone.

Try Intensive Listening the next time you sense a need for deeper communication. You’ll be amazed at how beneficial it is for both you and your counterpart.

Great quotations can make you think, laugh or persevere. Sometimes all three at once. Here are some more of my favorites:

“No computer network with pretty graphics can ever replace the salespeople that make our society work.” —Clifford Stoll

“Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.” —B.C. Forbes

“Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.” —Joyce Brothers

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” —John Wesley

“I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.” —Wilson Mizner

“Never dull your shine for somebody else.” —Tyra Banks

“Defeat is nothing but the first step to something better.” —Wendell Phillips

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.” —Kahlil Gibran

“If you aren’t making any mistakes, it’s a sure sign you’re playing it too safe.”   —John Maxwell

“Yes, I sell people things they don’t need. I can’t, however, sell them something they don’t want.” —John O’Toole

“Experience shows that success is due less to ability that to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work, body and soul.” —Charles Buxton

“I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.” —Lou Holtz

“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.” —Napoleon Hill

“Fortune favors the brave.” —Publius Terence

“Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!” —Og Mandino

“Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.” —Gail Sheehy

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”         —Oscar Wilde

“Men are born to succeed, not fail.” —Henry David Thoreau

“Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is: the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.” —Winston Churchill

“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.”   —Isabel Allende

“We want consumers to say, ‘That’s a hell of a product’ instead of, ‘That’s a hell of an ad.’” —Leo Burnett

“Thinking is the hardest work there is. That’s probably why so few people do it.” —Henry Ford

For more of my favorite quotations, check out Great Thoughts on Sales, Business and Success; More Great Thoughts on Sales, Business and Success; and

For more of my favorite quotations, check out Great Thoughts on Sales, Business and Success; More Great Thoughts on Sales, Business and Success; and Still More Great Thoughts on Sales, Business and Success.

By the way, what are some of your favorite quotations?

The last couple of years have been grim for retailers. The still-vacant shopping malls that dot the landscape like 21st century ghost towns bear silent testimony to the difficulties of trying to keep a retail operation going during a recession. Those retailers that haven’t yet succumbed to the precipitous drop in consumer spending are working harder than ever just to survive.

Fortunately, a new book will help retailers keep their doors open. (And no, smarty pants, I don’t mean by using it as a doorstop.) The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business (Wiley, $19.95) by Bob Phibbs presents loads of practical, real-world advice that any retailer can put to use immediately.

What distinguishes this book is that Phibbs doesn’t just cover the topics you’d expect, like merchandising, signage and sales skills. He also touches on less obvious, but equally critical areas of running a successful retail business.

Phibbs devotes an entire chapter to hiring the right people, with savvy insights and clever ideas. (Wait ‘til you read how you can use the weather to help you make better hiring decisions!) Another chapter focuses on building and coaching your team, a topic most retail owners and managers don’t get anywhere near enough education about.

While I would have liked to have seen more material on marketing in this book, Phibbs does provide a good overview of how to use social media and other web strategies to attract and retain customers. It’s devoid of computer jargon, so even a devout technophobe can understand it and see the benefits of embracing web marketing.

My favorite part of the book, though, was a relative blip: Phibbs spends two pages discussing pricing philosophies and strategies. Those two pages alone are worth the price of the book a hundred times over. If you do nothing but digest what Phibbs says about pricing (it’s similar to what I share in my program, The Myth of Price), you will make your retail operation instantly more profitable.

If you’re in retail, whether you’re an owner or a manager, whether you’re responsible for a single outlet or an entire chain, you need to read this book. The economy may get better or it may get worse, but either way, you can survive—and even grow—if you put these ideas to work.

I regularly talk with executives in a number of different industries, and while I’ve heard a variety of reports about sales trends so far this year, one consistency is this: Virtually everyone I’ve talked to recently has said they’re hoping things will get better.

Well, I’ve got news for you:

Hope is not a strategy.

Successful companies don’t sit around waiting for circumstances to improve. They take action to create improvements.

So what are you doing to make things better? Because whatever the state of the economy, you as a manufacturer or franchisor have enormous potential to impact the sales of your retail or franchise network, which of course spurs your own sales.

Here are six specific strategies you can implement immediately to help your sales channel sell more of your products and services.

1. Increase Your Corporate Marketing Efforts
Whenever things get tough and companies are looking to slash costs, one of the first line items they cut is the marketing budget. Which is one of the dumbest things they can do.

Because effective marketing generates sales. Conversely, when you reduce your marketing efforts, your sales drop.

Marketing is an investment, not an expense. For every dollar you invest in marketing, you should see a return of two, five, ten (or more) dollars in sales.

If your marketing isn’t providing a substantial return, it doesn’t mean marketing doesn’t work—it means your marketing doesn’t work. Either your message is wrong or your tactics are wrong. Possibly both. Don’t cut it—fix it!

Study after study has proven companies that maintain or increase their marketing budgets during recessions see higher sales both during and after the recessionary period. Where do their increased sales come from in a shrinking market? From their competitors, who cut back on their marketing!

2. Launch a Publicity Campaign
Publicity has two distinct advantages as a sales and marketing tool:
    1) It’s free.
    2) It carries more credibility than an advertisement.

While you can’t say the same things in a press release that you can in a sales letter or commercial, you can use publicity to increase your company’s name recognition and create awareness of your products and services.

The key is to recognize that the media needs you. An editor’s job is to fill space. A radio or TV producer’s job is to fill airtime. Both are looking for entertaining stories or useful information that will make people want to watch, listen or read what they produce.

That’s where you come in. You can create press releases about anything as long as it’s of potential interest to that media outlet’s audience.

So what’s your story? What information do you have that would be of interest to potential buyers? What have you, your retailers or your franchisees done recently that people should know about? What tips can you share that could improve people’s lives? What newsworthy ways have your customers used your products or services?

Whatever the answer, that’s your press release. Write it down and e-mail it to every media outlet that might possibly be interested in your story. Don’t restrict yourself to industry-related publications. Since there’s no cost, you may as well include non-industry media to reach the widest possible audience.

And make it easy for your retailers or franchisees to do the same. Provide them with copies of your press releases for them to send to their local media outlets. Send them templates they can use for a variety of occasions. And encourage them to send you their stories.

Once you’ve begun, keep your publicity generator running! Don’t plan one publicity campaign and expect to ride that wave forever. Make a publicity calendar and plan something every quarter, or more often if you can manage it.

3. Optimize Your Web Site
When someone does a search for the type of product or service you provide, how high up in the results does your corporate web site appear? Do you know the terms people use to search for the types of products and services you make, and are those terms integrated well into your site? Are you making the best use of pay-per-click ads? When prospects visit your site, what percentage of them actually contact you or one of your channel partners, and how many leave your site never to return again?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re missing out on sales. And if you do know the answers but you’re not happy with them, you’re not any better off.

Optimizing your web site so it’s easily found by potential prospects and then converts those prospects into actual leads is tricky business. Do it right and you’ll have a never-ending supply of qualified prospects for your retailers or franchisees to talk with. Do it wrong and not only will you not get those prospects, you’ll waste huge sums of money in the process.

To complicate matters, the field of search engine optimization (or SEO) is constantly changing. Which means you don’t want to trust your site optimization to your web designer, in-house IT person or web hosting company. Hire a person or a company with proven SEO expertise and success.

4. Increase Co-op Funds
Just as it’s critical for you to bolster your corporate marketing, it’s critical for your retailers or franchisees to bolster their marketing. Unfortunately, like most businesses, independent retailers and franchise owners eviscerate their marketing budgets whenever things get tight.

To counter this knee-jerk reaction, encourage the marketing efforts of your retailers or franchisees by increasing the available co-op budget. Co-op funds are an investment in your sales channel’s success as well as your own.

5. Educate Your Channel Partners About Co-op
No matter what your co-op budget is, odds are most of your channel partners aren’t using all of it anyway. That’s because most independent retail and franchise owners know nothing about marketing.

So teach them.

Have your marketing director conduct a seminar, teleseminar or webinar for your channel partners. Buy a copy of Guerrilla Marketing (by Jay Conrad Levinson) for each of your retail or franchise owners and send it to them with a note promising additional co-op dollars when they send you an action plan based on what they read. Direct your district reps or regional managers to help your retailers or franchisees devise actual marketing plans and campaigns. Create a space on your internal web site where owners or managers can share their best marketing tactics and offer prizes for the best ideas.

6. Train Your Sales Channel’s Salespeople
More often than not, the sale doesn’t go to the business with the best product or the best service (or even the lowest price), but to the business with the best salespeople. If you want your retailers or franchisees to sell more, doesn’t it make sense to train them how to sell better?

Training has been proven to provide the best ROI of any sales investment. In fact, a 2000 study of 575 U.S.-based, publicly traded companies by Laurie Bassi, Jens Ludwig, Daniel McMurrer and Mark Van Buren found that companies that spent more on training (per employee) experienced a total shareholder return (change in stock price and dividends issued) in the following year 86% higher than companies that spent less, and 45% higher than the market average. Further, companies in the top quarter of the study group enjoyed an average of 26% higher price-to-book ratios, 24% higher profit margins and 218% higher income per employee than companies in the bottom quarter.

Findings like these make perfect sense when you think about it. Salespeople who get regular training are more adept at finding quality prospects, delivering effective presentations, holding their margins and closing deals.

(And such improvements can be immediate. I’ve had attendees of my seminars report back to me that they used what they learned the very same day to close sales.)

One Thing NOT to Do
You’ll notice there’s one strategy I didn’t include in the above recommendations: Slashing your prices. This is typically the first action companies take in tough times. However, it’s typically the worst thing a company can do.

Dramatically cutting prices rarely increases sales volume significantly, and even when it does, total profits still go down because every dollar shaved off the price was profit. Which means you’re worse off than if you hadn’t cut prices in the first place.

Worse still, dropping your prices sends a message to the marketplace that your product or service wasn’t worth what you were asking in the first place. That damages the perceived value of your offerings—damage that can take years to undo.

Instead of slashing your prices, take the money you would have given away in discounts and rebates, and invest it in marketing and training instead. You and your retailers or franchisees will see better results faster and it will set you up for increased sales down the road as well as right now.

You can’t control what the economy does. But you can control what your company does. Don’t just hope things get better. Employ these six strategies and make things better.

Last week at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut played the longest tennis match in history. Over the course of an exhausting eleven hours and five minutes—spread across an unprecedented three days—the two players shattered multiple records for length of time played, number of games played and number of aces served.

Both competitors inspired their countries, tennis fans and casual observers. And they served as a reminder that sometimes our goals don’t come as quickly or as easily as we’d like.

There are other lessons salespeople, managers, business owners and CEO’s should take away from this historic match. Such as:

Prepare like crazy
A few days before the match, Isner’s coach told him half-jokingly, “You could play for ten hours straight if you had to.” He was referring to Isner’s fitness due to his training and conditioning program, which, as it turned out, was essential to his being able to survive the grueling three-day battle.

How well are you preparing yourself for every sales encounter? Do you know your products and services backward and forward? Have you studied your competition thoroughly? Have you researched your prospect so you know something about their history, challenges, strengths and goals? Are you continually reading books, soaking up audio and video programs and attending sales training seminars?

Focus
Both Isner and Mahut had to ignore all the distractions around them: people shouting and cheering, camera flashes going off, planes flying overhead and more. They each had to focus exclusively on what they and their opponent were doing.

How’s your focus? Are you tuning out everything around you and concentrating on what’s most critical to your sales success?

Get a coach
Not only Mahut and Isner, but every professional tennis player—and for that matter, every professional athlete—has a coach. Because coaches help you get better. They can analyze what you’re doing wrong and share secrets for greater and faster success.

If you’re a sales manager or business owner, how much time are you spending coaching your sales team? And if you’re a salesperson, professional or CEO, how much are you investing with a coach of your own?

Be willing to make the extra effort
Isner and Mahut’s match lasted three times as long as a typical tennis match. Despite that, neither appeared to slack off at any point. It’s hard to even imagine the amount of effort required to play at such a high level for so long. And yet both players were willing to put forth the extra effort for as long as it took.

Sometimes a sale requires more effort than you expected. How willing are you to expend whatever effort is necessary? What extremes are you willing to go to? 

Don’t give up
Eventually in the fifth set, it became clear that whichever player could break the other’s service (win the game in which the other player was serving), would win the match. Which meant one of the keys was simply not giving up while waiting for that opportunity.

How quickly do you give up on a prospect? A strategy? A salesperson? Perhaps more importantly, how quickly do you give up on yourself?

Sometimes you still lose
Despite playing outstandingly, Mahut eventually lost the fifth set (70 games to 68) and the match. The simple fact is, one of them had to lose. And while it was a heartbreaking loss, Mahut will play again. After all, there’s always another game.

You can do everything right and still not make the sale. Sometimes the prospect just can’t afford it. Or the competitor’s offering is truly a better fit for this particular prospect. When you lose a sale, don’t beat yourself up. Determine what you can learn from the experience and move on. After all, there’s always another prospect.

A sales career—and often the sale itself—is a marathon, not a sprint. (To mix sporting metaphors.) Are you in it for the long haul?

During a conference at which I was speaking last week, one of the other speakers made the comment, “Flat is the new up.” He was discussing sales trends in this difficult economy and saying that companies should look at flat sales as a positive, because it’s better than sales being down.

People nodded and murmured agreement. The idea that “flat is the new up” seemed to resonate throughout the attendees and the concept was referenced later in the conference.

So is flat the new up?

NO!!!

No! No! No! No!

Absolutely, definitely, unquestionably no!

Let me explain.

While I agree we should appreciate each and every sale we make, and we should be grateful that our sales numbers are not as bad as they once were, to buy into the idea that “flat is the new up” is to set the bar too low.

Scientists working in the fields of neurophysiology and neuropsychology have proven we tend to get what we expect. In other words, the outcomes we achieve correlate with the expectations we—and others—set for ourselves.

The reason for this is our brains seem to like consistency. So our subconscious mind works to manifest the beliefs and expectations we already hold.

Which means, if you expect your sales to be flat, that’s what you’re going to get. If, however, you expect your sales to be up, your subconscious will work to manifest that outcome instead.

The same principle applies to your entire sales team. If a company’s owners and managers believe sales will be flat, their salespeople will—unconsciously—create that very result. Change your beliefs and expectations, though, and your team’s results will change accordingly.

And there’s good reason not to believe “flat is the new up.” The fact is, just because everyone else’s sales are down or flat doesn’t mean yours have to be! Throughout this entire recession there have been stories about companies whose sales have climbed despite the economy. Why can’t you be one of them?

Here’s an exercise for you. Answer these questions:
    • What reasons are there to believe your sales will increase this year?
    • What circumstances are working in your favor?
    • What advantages do you have versus your competitors?
    • Where are your opportunities for sales growth?
    • What is everyone else not doing that you could do?
    • What action steps can you implement immediately?

You might turn this into a group exercise for your next sales meeting. Or even a competition among your sales teams to generate the most ideas possible.

Because when you come up with good answers to these questions, you’ll free yourself from the limiting “flat is the new up” mindset. And you’ll unleash the creative power you have in yourself and your sales team.

Let your competitors settle for flat. You can—and should—expect more.

It happens every day. You ask your customer about their experience with your product, service or company. Your question is something along the lines of “How was everything?” Their response is a single word:

“Fine.”

You want to believe that the customer means it was “wonderful,” “terrific,” “exceptional.”

You’re deluding yourself. If they meant “wonderful,” “terrific,” “exceptional,” they would have said so.

Instead, they said “fine.”

Which really means, “It didn’t suck too badly.”

In other words, their experience was:
    • Decent
    • Acceptable
    • Unremarkable
    • Passable
    • Average
    • Undistinguished
    • Mediocre
    • Okay
    • Satisfactory
    • Fair
    • Middling
    • Ordinary
    • Pedestrian
    • Adequate
    • Uninspired
    • Tolerable

Talk about damning with faint praise.

“Fine” is the worst thing you can hear from your customer. At least if they say something negative, you have the opportunity to resolve the problem. But the word “fine” is insidious, because it lulls us into believing things are great, when in fact they’re not.

Which is not to say the customer was dissatisfied, because they weren’t. They didn’t have any problems, per se, but they weren’t impressed either.

If your customers are consistently telling you that your product, service or people are “fine,” then you have a problem. Because in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, you can’t afford to be mediocre, pedestrian or tolerable. You need to improve your customer experience.

How?

Ask them.

The next time a customer tells you things were “fine,” ask them what could have been better.

Or be proactive:
    • Conduct a survey of your customers or the whole marketplace
    • Assemble a focus group or two (or three)
    • Hire a mystery shopping company to give you accurate feedback
    • Engage a consultant to help you come up with ways to improve

“Fine” is not fine. It’s just a notch above awful. Which is not an acceptable benchmark. If you want to boost your sales now and in the long-run, treat every “fine” you hear as a sub-standard review. Then take action until your customers consistently describe their experience in more glowing terms.

Great presentation skills are a powerful asset for a salesperson. Lousy presentation skills are a serious liability. Even if you have the best product, service, delivery, warranty and price, a poor sales presentation can shatter your prospect’s confidence in your company, causing them to run in the other direction.

If your presentation skills suck—or aren’t as stellar as you’d like them to be—use some of these strategies to get them up to snuff.

1. Study others
Watch and listen carefully to people who are great presenters. Pay close attention to what they do and how they do it. Notice also what they don’t do. Take detailed notes whenever possible. And if appropriate, ask them for advice.

2. Read books
There are hundreds of books on presentation skills. Browse your favorite book store or Amazon.com. Cash flow a little tight at the moment? Hit your local library.

3. Invest in audio or video programs
Audio training programs allow you to learn while you drive, bike or roller blade. They also enable you to hear examples of good presentation techniques. Video programs go a step further and show you examples of effective presentation visuals.

4. Practice
No amount of reading, listening or watching will make you a better presenter unless you practice. To be a better speaker, you need to speak. As much as possible, as often as possible. Build practice time into your schedule.

5. Get peer feedback
It helps to practice in front of a live audience. Especially if that audience contains other experienced presenters. Ask your colleagues, bosses and anybody else who has a stake in your sales success to listen to you and critique you.

6. Videotape yourself
Get feedback from your toughest critic: yourself. Record yourself and watch the video. You’ll be amazed, impressed and horrified by what you see.

7. Join Toastmasters
If you’re not familiar with Toastmasters International, it’s a non-profit organization with thousands of clubs around the world. You can develop your presentation skills at your own pace, in a supportive environment. For more details and to find a club near you, visit www.toastmasters.org.

8. Hire a coach
A presentation skills coach is a significant investment, but it can produce massive dividends quickly. A coach can identify your biggest problem areas and help you correct them fast. Because of the immediate impact coaching can make on your sales, your company may pay the tab. If not, your investment is still tax-deductible. And well worth it.

I’ve seen enough sales presentations to know that many—if not most—salespeople don’t do them well. Which means sharpening your skills can give you a huge edge over your competitors. Don’t risk another sales with a sub-par presentation. Boost your skills and you’ll boost your sales.

LinkedIn is a powerful sales tool. To harness its potential, though, you need to use it effectively.

That starts with creating a great profile. The better your LinkedIn profile, the more likely someone searching for your product or service is to find you.

But what makes a great profile? And how can you build one with a minimum of fuss? Wouldn’t it be great if someone could take you by the hand and tell you exactly what to type in where?

That’s just what Mike O’Neil and Lori Ruff have done in Rock the World with Your Online Presence: Your Ticket to a Multi-Platinum LinkedIn Profile (CreateSpace, $19.95). In this well-thought-out book, O’Neil and Ruff, two of the world’s top LinkedIn experts, take you step-by-step through the process of building a robust profile.

The chapters and sub-chapters are laid out in the order each subject appears in a LinkedIn profile, starting with Name, Location and Industry, all the way through to Contact Settings and Opportunity Preferences. Not sure what to enter in a certain field? O’Neil and Ruff describe precisely what should go in there and provide examples.

In each section, O’Neil and Ruff share important Do’s and Don’ts, as well as best practices culled from their research into thousands of profiles. Their goal is for you to create your profile strategically, to give you an edge over the millions of other people on the site.

After you’ve built your profile (which, with the help of this book, shouldn’t take you very long) you’ll discover more about how to use LinkedIn. Additional chapters cover topics such as the LinkedIn Dashboard, Privacy Settings, Applications and Groups.

The book is well written and easy to read, with rock & roll metaphors sprinkled liberally throughout. (Hence the title.) The authors refrain from using jargon and explain everything clearly enough for even technophobes to understand. There are also plenty of screen-capture shots to illustrate precisely what’s being discussed.

Do the book’s strategies work? Is it worth investing twenty bucks and a few hours in front of your computer to create or upgrade your LinkedIn profile?

Well, using O’Neil and Ruff’s approach, I rewrote my entire LinkedIn profile. Not long afterward, I learned that when a person searched for the key words I used, my profile came up first. Score! That’s the best endorsement of this book I can make.

“All I’m askin’ is for a little respect…”
—Aretha Franklin

The Queen of Soul isn’t the only one who wants a little respect. Buyers want it too, and as a general rule, they’ll give their business to the company and the salesperson who gives it to them.

So if you want to boost your sales, make sure you and all your salespeople are consistently demonstrating respect for your prospects and customers. Specifically, respect their:

Time
People are busier today than ever before. So their time is at a greater premium than ever before. Don’t waste it.

Intelligence
Give people credit for being smart. Don’t assume they know less than you do. (With the abundance of information available today on the web, buyers often know more than the salesperson does.) And don’t do anything to make them feel stupid.

Needs
Don’t show your prospect what you like best, or the newest thing, or the option on which you get the biggest spiff. Show them what best meets the greatest number of their specific needs.

Budget
One of the things buyers hate most is when salespeople try to push a product or service that’s more expensive than the prospect wanted to spend. If their budget is simply unrealistic, you may need to discuss their budget with them and help them reevaluate it, but do so in a respectful manner.

Values
We all value things like quality, service, capabilities, thrift, durability, speed, reliability, cleanliness, security, convenience, luxury, excitement, and variety differently. Just because your prospect doesn’t value one or more of these characteristics the same as you, doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

Gender
Women are buyers. And if they don’t feel they’re being taken seriously, they’ll go somewhere else. Even if a couple is shopping and the woman is not the driver of the purchase, you can bet she’s an influencer—women control the checkbook in 80% of households.

Dignity
Whether a person is white or black, young or old, rich or poor, gay or straight, ambulatory or in a wheelchair, they are entitled to their dignity. This is non-negotiable.

Individuality
Every person on the planet is unique, with their own needs, desires, priorities, fears, challenges and experiences. Nobody wants to be treated as just a number. When you respect a prospect’s individuality, you start to build a relationship.

Sing it with me now! “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me! R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Take care, TCB! Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…”

Listen to my interview with Michele Price on Breakthrough Business Radio. First you’ll hear Michele dish out some important social media advice, then you’ll hear Mitchell From discuss tips and tactics for better referrals. After that, Michele and I talk sales insights and strategies for a full hour! Get ready to take notes!

To listen to other interviews, click here.

And be sure to check out Michele’s blog at www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.

People in my sales seminars tell me the biggest challenge they face when networking is not knowing what to say. So they often avoid meeting new people or avoid going to networking events at all, losing out on countless sales opportunities.

Savvy networkers know that the key to effective conversations is to ask questions. Asking questions lets you accomplish three things at the same time. 

First, it gives you control of the conversation, relieving the other person of having to think of what to say next. As a result, you can direct the conversation and keep it moving.

Second, it provides you with valuable information. In order for you to figure out if you can be of help to this person—or if they can be of help to you—you need to know more about them. (You already know all about you.) 

And third, questions communicate your interest in the other person, helping them feel appreciated and understood. (The secret to building instant rapport.) And it’s a fact of human nature that if you give people a chance to talk about themselves, they’ll think you’re a great conversationalist!

Here are some questions you can ask in almost any networking situation:
    1. What do you do?
    2. Do you have a specialty or an area of focus?
    3. How do you do that?
    4. How did you get into that field? 
    5. What changes have you seen in your industry?
    6. What do you love most about what you do?
    7. What’s your biggest challenge?
    8. What’s your latest success?
    9. What are you hoping to achieve next?
    10. Who’s your target market?
    11. How did you hear about this event? 
    12. What made you come here tonight?
    13. Have you been here before? 
    14. Are you a member of this organization? 
    15. Who else do you know here? 
    16. What do you read to keep up? 
    17. What’s the best book you’ve read lately?
    18. Where are you from?
    19. Where did you go to school?
    20. What was your major?
    21. How long have you been in the area?
    22. What made you move out here?
    23. What do you do for fun?
    24. Are you a sports fan?
    25. Did you see the game last night?  
    26. Do you have any kids?

And perhaps my absolute favorite networking question:
    27. Where else do you go to network?

Memorize these questions, develop a few of your own and use them the next time you’re at a networking event. You’ll find the conversation flows easily and productively.

Do you have a suggestion to add to this list? What are your favorite networking questions?

A prospect who has been referred to you is five times as likely to buy from you as any other type of prospect. So you’d think salespeople would become masters at requesting and using referrals.

You’d be wrong.

Too many salespeople, business owners and professionals make the same mistakes over and over again, costing themselves sales and profits. That’s deadly to your career and your business. Here are the common behaviors to avoid:

1. Not asking
Whether out of fear of being rejected or because they don’t want to appear as a pest, many—if not most—salespeople simply don’t ask in the first place. Understand this, however: If you’ve delivered a great product and/or service, your customer wants to give you referrals. You just need to ask.

2. Asking at the wrong time
If you ask for referrals before your prospect has had a chance to become your customer and develop sufficient trust in you, you’ll be shot down every time. Worse, it will harm your relationship with your prospect. The best time to ask for referrals is after you’ve delivered value. Once you, your company and your product have proven yourselves, you have a green light.

3. Not asking everyone
Everybody in your network who knows and trusts you is a potential source of referrals. Don’t ignore anyone.

4. Being too broad when asking
The average person knows hundreds of people. But that’s too big a mental database for most people to sift through at once. Instead, help them narrow their focus: “Who else in your family…” “Who else in your company…” “Who else among your colleagues…”

5. Not asking often enough
When it comes to requesting referrals, once is not enough. People meet people. Companies grow and shrink. People who didn’t have a need last year may have a need this year. So ask periodically. (Daily might be a little too often.)

6. Failing to follow up
Too many salespeople are bad at follow up in general. But when you fail to follow up with a referral, it makes the person who referred you look bad as well. When someone gives you a referral, treat it with VIP status.

7. Not rewarding referrals
If you gave someone a referral and they didn’t acknowledge it, you wouldn’t be very likely to give them any more in the future. By contrast, if you received a thank-you note, a gift or a check from them, you’d keep your eyes and ears peeled for more opportunities. Be sure to reward the people who provide you with referrals, ideally as soon as they provide one, and again if the referral ends up buying. 

If you’ve committed any or all of these sins, don’t chastise yourself too much. We’ve all committed them at some point in our sales careers. (I know I have.) Forgive yourself, and for your penance, call ten people who know, like and trust you and ask them for a referral.

You many not get ten, but you’ll get more than if you didn’t ask at all.

A few weeks ago, I shared Ten Reasons Blogging is Good for Your Sales. However, a blog is only as good as its content. And coming up with fresh content on a regular basis can be a challenge.

If you’ve been contemplating starting a blog, but wondering what you could possibly post, or if you’re already blogging, but struggling to come up with good content, here are some ideas:

    1. How-to articles
    2. Case studies
    3. Lists of resources
    4. Announcements
    5. Contests
    6. Product or service reviews
    7. Book reviews
    8. Questions
    9. Humor
    10. Poems
    11. Songs
    12. Survey results
    13. Industry news
    14. Staff or organization news
    15. Promotions
    16. Downloadable bonuses
    17. Photos of you and/or your team
    18. Photos of your customers
    19. Before & after photos
    20. Print, audio or video interviews
    21. How-to videos
    22. Video tours of your facility
    23. Videos of your products in action

If, after perusing this list, you’re still at a creative roadblock, you can always use someone else’s content. Many bloggers are happy to allow you to repost their work, so long as you give them appropriate credit and a link back to their site.

Do you have other ideas you can share? What have you posted on your blog—or what have you seen on other blogs—that’s not on this list?

I don’t need a lawnmower.

Because I live in a condo, I have no grass to cut.

There are a lot of other things I neither need nor want as well. Here are just a few:
    • Cat food
    • Prune juice
    • A pedicure
    • CAD software
    • Hearing-aid batteries
    • Baby formula
    • The Blu-Ray version of the movie Beaches
    • Laser eye surgery
    • Oatmeal raisin cookies

There’s nothing wrong with any of these products or services. Every one of them has a market. I’m just not in it.

Which means, if you’re trying to sell one of these things to me, you’re wasting your time, money and energy.

Too many salespeople, professionals and small business owners convince themselves that because their product or service is good, everybody should want it. As a result, they invest too much of their limited resources trying to make a sale to someone who will never buy.

To avoid this trap, determine your prospect’s interest level right up front. If they’re truly interested, great. Pursue them. But if they’re not, cut your losses. Move on to another prospect who may actually have an interest.

You can’t possibly sell to everyone, so to maximize your sales results, you need to focus on those prospects most likely to buy. If that’s not the person you’re talking to, move on.

We all want more customers, but some are more desirable than others. Here are seven types of customers to avoid at all costs:

1. The Cheapskate
According to the American Retailers Association, approximately 14% of consumers buy on price alone. They’re Cheapskates. To them, quality, service, durability, dependability and convenience mean nothing. They’ll drive 20 miles out of their way to save two dollars. And they’ll beat you up on price until you’re losing money on the deal.

2. The Deadbeat
Some customers always pay all their bills early. Other customers pay most of their bills on time most of the time. Deadbeats, however, pay as late as they can get away with, as often as they can get away with it. Not only do they create cash flow problems for you, they’ll often cost you more in collection efforts than you’ll ever make in profit from them.
 
3. The Liar
Jim Carey’s character in the movie Liar, Liar brought to life. The Liar believes truth is for suckers. They won’t tell you their true needs, issues, concerns or budget. Liars negotiate in bad faith, make promises they have no intention of keeping and blame everything and everybody else when something goes wrong.

4. The Diva
Sure, everyone likes to feel special from time to time, but the Diva demands special treatment all the time. Divas believe themselves to be above the rules, so your policies don’t apply to them. They’ll whine, they’ll cajole, they’ll even throw a tantrum to get their way. Basically, they’ll annoy you until you give in to them. What’s worse, attempting to cater to a Diva will actually drive good customers away.

5. The Problem Child
Problems are inevitable, but the Problem Child creates them. They can’t and/or won’t follow directions, no matter how clearly they’re explained. They ignore warnings because they don’t care or they think they’re smarter than the person who came up with the warning in the first place. And when a Problem Child screws things up, they’ll blame your product, your company and you.

6. The Abuser
Lacking empathy, Abusers have no respect for anyone else’s feelings, safety or rights. They bully people into doing what they want. Abusers yell, scream, threaten and call people names. And they will verbally—and sometimes, physically—assault you and your entire staff as long as you let them.

7. The Criminal
Most of the people in the above six categories aren’t truly malicious. At least, not intentionally. The Criminal is. This is the person who’s actually trying to rip you—or someone else—off. Whether they’re a con artist working a scheme, a shoplifter helping themselves to your merchandise or a drug dealer looking to spend some of their illicit cash, they prey on your willingness to be helpful and your desire to make a sale. By the way, if you suspect your prospect is a Criminal, it’s okay to call in an anonymous tip to the police.

All seven of these customer types will cost you more in time, money and aggravation than they’re worth. Some of them could even bankrupt you.

So how do you avoid acquiring these customers in the first place? As Mad-Eye Moody advises in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, “Constant vigilance!”

When dealing with a new prospect, keep your eyes and ears open for tell-tale signs. If all they’re focused on is price, they’re a cheapskate. If you catch your prospect telling a small lie, you can bet there will be bigger ones to come. If they lose their temper easily over small things, abuse is sure to follow.

Conduct credit checks and be cautious about who you extend credit to and how much. If it’s a high-dollar deal, consider doing a full background check. If there are convictions or lawsuits in the prospect’s past, you want to know sooner rather than later.

What if you already have some of these customers? Fire them. Politely decline their business. Refer them to your competitors. Ban them from your premises if you have to.

It’s always tough to turn away business. But some business you’re better off without.

Kelley Robertson understands that true sales professionals are always looking for an edge. He also understands that most salespeople are ridiculously busy and don’t have the time to slog through an entire book to find the nuggets they need to give them that edge.

So rather than write a book that needs to be read cover to cover, he wrote one that can be easily skimmed. Robertson collected 101 simple yet powerful ideas and assembled them into a single volume. The result is The Secrets of Power Selling: 101 Tips to Help You Improve Your Sales Results (Wiley, $19.95).

Each of the 101 chapters is short (two to three pages), concise and practical, with titles such as The Power of Adapting Your Approach, The Power of Self-Evaluation and The Power of Painting Mental Pictures. The book’s chapters are arranged alphabetically, so in effect, the table of contents is also the index. This makes it easy to flip right to the subject you’re looking for at the moment.

Whether you’re brand new to sales or you’re an experienced sales veteran, you’ll discover a number of useful strategies and tactics for increasing your effectiveness. I conduct sales seminars and training programs for a living and I found some great ideas in this book. Some of my favorite chapters included The Power of Apologies, The Power of Pausing and The Power of One.

In addition, Robertson shares:
    • six reasons salespeople fail to follow up;
    • seven things every salesperson needs to know to be successful;
    • five strategies for effective networking;
    • eight powerful prospecting strategies; and
    • seven tips for writing better proposals.

The content is well written and easy to read. Robertson provides clear examples and illustrative stories to support his points. And every chapter ends with a Sales Tip, which is really an action item. If you implement even a few of the suggested tips, I’m certain you’ll see your sales improve.

One recommendation: Don’t just stash this volume in your bookcase. This is not a book to be read once and then shelved away. It’s a valuable reference tool that you’ll want to go back to again and again. Keep it in plain sight for easy access. It’s likely to become one of your favorite sales resources.