Action Coach Portsmouth

Action Coach Portsmouth

Steve Mullins

Good Investment Bad Investment

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good_investment_bad_investmentHow much return is your investment in marketing generating?  Too many business owners spend money on advertising without any idea on how much revenue that advertising brings in.  It’s the difference between cost and investment.  Many businesses spend money on, say, Yellow pages but have no idea how much business this form of advertising is generating.  When asked “How much business has your £1000, £5000, £20,000, £100,000 or whatever bought in?” most business owners give a blank stare and admit that they have no idea.  This situation is absurd.  Would you invest thousands of pounds in a salesperson and not measure their sales to see if they made a return on your investment?

It is relatively easy to set up a measuring system to find out how leads are being introduced to your business.  Often it is as simple as asking every phone caller or every face to face caller to your business “Do you mind if I just ask you, how did you hear about us?”  If every piece of marketing has a reference code this makes identification of what’s a good investment easier.  Having recorded this information it is easy to analyze it and determine what marketing is working for you.

It is often in the detail where the most effective measures come about.  For example a client stopped just measuring Yellow Pages as a category and found that while he was advertising in three categories of Yellow Pages, only one category was effective and the other two were bad investments.  The next year by only investing in the one effective category made significant savings for his business.

Often business owners say that their staff won’t ask for this information.  That’s up to you.  Train and motivate them and don’t accept any excuses, after all it is your money that’s seriously being lost by not doing this.

Another client had a choice of thirteen trade publications that covered his industry sector.  He would routinely advertise in all thirteen over a year depending on his cash surplus and who rang him at any particular time offering him a special deal on advertising often for committing to multiple inserts. One month he decided to seriously test and measure.  He put the same double page advert, designed with his Action Coach, in all thirteen publications.

He demanded 100% participation from his sales team to find out where every lead came from and got that commitment.  The results were surprising.  Eighty percent of all leads came from one publication.  Twenty percent of leads came from a second publication.  Eleven out of the thirteen publications were a complete waste of marketing money for his business.  His marketing spend now comprises a larger, more effective, advert in every issue of the first publication and three adverts a year with the second publication. This has resulted in a saving of tens of thousands of pounds with an increase in sales as a bonus.

So I challenge you: What marketing initiates of yours are good investments, returning more than they cost and what marketing initiatives are bad investments that should be stopped immediately?

Create a Sales System

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sales processA key challenge business owners face with the sales people they employ is inconsistency in sales results. Many business owners struggle to pin down the exact cause(s) of these inconsistent results and usually end up churning their team on a frequent basis as a result of pure frustration. Of course, there’s a certain percentage of sales people who just plain lack motivation or work ethic and that’s an entirely different issue.

My intent here is to address the sales people that work hard, but are challenged in getting consistently great results. When a sales person delivers inconsistent results, the typical reaction is for owners to place blame on the sales person, (as, of course, it’s not the owner’s fault that the rep can’t sell, right? Wrong.) The ability for sales people to get consistently good results lies more in your control than you think. You just need an effective sales system.

Selling System Defined
An effective sales system is predetermined approach that delivers consistent, predictable sales results for your business and it can be broken down into several key components: Your Selling Process, Role Definition and Training Program. Your Selling Process Your sales process is essentially a series of steps that orchestrate the interactions which occur between the sales person and your prospective or existing customers. It’s “what you do” and “how you do it” and includes all the supporting tools and resources needed for each step in the process.

Your Selling Process
You begin by breaking down the sales process you follow as an owner into sequential, detailed steps. If you already have a successful sales person, then include them by mapping out the process they follow as well. Once documented, then review the process and fill in any gaps that exist or any areas that need refinement in your process. With the steps documented, next determine the tools and resources needed to support each step in your selling process, including marketing materials, sales scripts, presentation information, proposals, forms, questionnaires, checklists, etc.

Role Definition
The next key in building your sales system is to define the role of your sales person with absolute clarity. This should include their job description, duties, and compensation plan. It’s also essential to determine what objective, measurable results are expected for the sales person and how their performance will be measured against those metrics.

Additionally, regular performance reviews should be scheduled with each sales person to review their progress and provide coaching and help where needed. Each of these elements should be documented and developed into an appropriate position contract, to be reviewed and signed by both parties.

Training Program
The final key is to develop and document an effective training program to teach new recruits and even your existing sales team your newly documented sales system.

One approach would be to develop individual sales modules for each part of the process and determine how and when these will be covered in your training program. It’s vital to ensure that enough time and hands on training is included as part of the training program. So many sales people are hired and then given minimal, if any, training and then sent out on the street to bring in the business.

Some argue that learning by trial and error is the best approach, but our experience has shown that this approach leads to more churn or much longer ramp up times. Training your sales staff to follow your sales process also needs to be supplemented by training in the fundamental skills of selling, including prospecting, needs analysis, presenting, objection handling, closing, follow-up, etc.

It’s critical that these skills are also developed and it may prove worthwhile to utilize an outside resource for training on selling fundamentals. Training can also be supplemented with dozens of great books and articles written on the topic of selling every day. A key point to remember, training should not be an event; it’s a process and should be ongoing in your business. You can never get enough training and education on any topic, especially selling!

 

Using Sales Scripts

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red phone 2When talking to business owners about using scripts in their businesses, this first question to answer usually revolves around the meaning of the word “script”.

As consumers, we have all been subjected to the bad sales script, remember that telemarketer reading their lines to you word-for-word that made you feel like hanging up just to make it stop? Or consider the most overused and ineffective script of all time: what is the first thing you usually hear when you walk into a retail store? That’s right, “May I help you?” And, like many potential customers how do most prospects answer? “No thanks, I’m just looking.” Although it’s a bad one, the “May I help you” line is still a script, a plan of the language you choose to communicate and sell to your prospect. So, stop using the weak, ineffective scripts and start using ones that work

Language is powerful on many levels, especially in a sales situation, so it’s worthwhile to take a look at the scripts you are using in your business right now. Building and refining the most effective script can push up your conversion rate significantly.

Consider the experience of a plumbing business that depends heavily on yellow pages advertising. Traditionally, they had responded to customer calls regarding the price of their services by quoting from a set menu. After we revised the script and stopped quoting even “ballpark” estimates and simply asked for an appointment instead, the conversion rate jumped from 42% to over 60% in one month. That’s about a 50% increase in customers without spending an extra dime on advertising. Could your business handle that?

The reasons why it worked so well apply to your plan to script the key interactions with your customers.

Consistency – As we’ve already discussed, consistency is vitally important.

Word choice – I recently witnessed a coffee shop employee respond to a customers’ request for milk in her coffee. In this particular shop, the server didn’t have the milk behind the counter – the customer had to add the milk themselves at a separate bar. So how to turn this “lemon” into “lemonade”, especially when the customer values speed and convenience? When asked for the milk in the coffee, the server replied, “Sure, I’ll make a space at the top of your cup and the milk is right over there!” Even the fine distinction of “make a space” as opposed to saying “I’ll pour it a little short” makes a difference here.

Good questions – For example, the closed-ended question, “May I help you?” gives the customer an opportunity to say only “yes” or “no”. Try another approach with questions that engage, i.e. “Have you been here before?” A “yes” response is rewarded with, “Welcome back!” and a “no” response leads into, “We’ve just got some new stock in for Mother’s Day right over here.”

Flexibility to ask for the sale – It frustrates me when I am ready to buy, but I have to wait for the sales presentation to end. You might be different and need a lot of questions answered before making a commitment. Training your team on reading your customers communication styles will empower them to know how and when to ask for the sale. Even if you just train them to ask, you will get increased results.

Measurement – None of this can work for you unless and until you know where you are starting from and where you want to go. What is your conversion rate today?

Become a student – Much of what it takes to make an effective system of scripts for your business in simply gaining some knowledge and applying it diligently, you don’t have to break your marketing budget to get great improvements in your results!

 

Sell By Asking

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When it comes to sales, your customers quite literally have all the answers. When it comes to increasing sales, many businesses look to their marketing to bring in more leads. What is often overlooked is that they may very well have enough leads, but their sales process is not converting enough of these leads into paying customers. Your conversion rate is the percentage of leads that actually buy from you, and it is an often overlooked measurement of successful sales. So how do we increase our conversion rates?

Have you ever answered a question with a question? Would that be making a difference to your conversion rate? The answer to the latter is most definitely yes! Asking questions not only increases your conversion rate, but also builds rapport with your customer and ensures that the sale becomes their idea and not yours.

Asking questions also means active listening. You can ask questions about your customer’s work, business, children or hobbies but make sure that you are listening with sincere interest. It may even be helpful to note down some of the answers – such as the names of their children, interests, etc., for future communication. By asking questions and listening, you are building rapport and attaching importance to their conversation.

Also, by asking questions you are remaining in control of the conversation. Once you find yourself doing all the talking you are no longer in control. Just remember that the person asking questions sets the direction for the conversation. If the customer is dominating the conversation by asking you questions make sure you answer the question with a question. However, try to vary the questions that you ask. You may remember from looking after your own children or babysitting that being asked “but why?” over and over again tends to get a little monotonous.

Questions can guide consumer interest, discover a need and give accurate information. There are two commonly known types of questioning – open ended and closed questions.

Building Rapport and Qualifying

Open-ended questions are an excellent way to ensure customer involvement in the conversation and are key to identifying not only what they need but also a lot about themselves. You can use open-ended questions to build rapport, to find a need, to discover a customer problem and find the right solution. In journalism there are six key questions used in the interviewing process which is as equally useful in sales – who, what, where, when, why and how.

Here are a few example of open-ended questions which are very useful:

  • Who are you buying the product or service for?
  • How often would you use the product or service?
  • What features were you looking for in this product or service?

This type of questioning yields a lot of great information from your customer and helps you determine which product/service is uniquely suited to them.

Closed questions tend to get one-word answers “yes” or “no”. They can be used to gather information quickly – not unlike a checklist. Using closed questions can also confirm a buying detail and help confirm the sale.

By using questions you are encouraging the customer to communicate, building rapport, establishing their needs, directing the conversation, diffusing tension and inviting discussion.

Learning the art of questioning and listening is the key to increasing your conversion rate and well on the way to creating a continuing customer relationship.