#32 Squirrels and Whales
Not all customers are equal. One of the keys to a successful business is identifying which are the best fit for your business. In this week’s podcast I talk about squirrels ( companies which are too small) and whales (companies which are too big)
Thanks to Matt Nettleton of Trustpointe, for his inspiration for this image!
Two Classes To Accelerate Your Recovery
As the economy is starting to come back, are you ready for the uptick? Is your marketing, website and sales skills up to date? If not, now is a good time to take a refresher or learn something new. I will be offering two programs this coming week to help you do, just that.
Both will be hosted at the Offices of Trustpointe
6666 E. 75th St., Ste. 150, Indianapolis
May 5, 3:30-5:00 p.m. How to improve the ROI of your Website. In this 90 minute program you will discover:
- How to use social media, email and even traditional media to drive traffic to your site
- How to create forms and offers to convert visitors into prospects
- How to use blog posts and drip campaigns to increase repeat visits, demonstrate your expertise, engage your community and increase your sales.
Cost: $35 Click here to register
May 6, 8:00 – 11:00 From Random Strangers to Raving Fans In this class you will learn a systematic approach to using marketing to generate qualified prospects, and move them through the stages of engagment from prospect, to client, to raving fan. You will discover:
- How to identify the most attractive niche
- How to focus marketing messages and content on your niche
- Creaete conversion experiences and drip campagins
- Discvoer your prospects pain and provide solutions which make clsing the sale the natural outcome
- Develop a self sustainging referal process
Fee: $29.99 Seating is limited, so be sure to register soon. Click here
Don’t Torture Your Prospects
About a month ago, I wrote this blog post for the Marketing Technology Blog. I had a number of interesting comments about the article, so I thought I would republish it here.
Don’t Let Your Drip Campaign Become Chinese Water Torture
An effective technique to move Random Strangers to Raving Fans is to use a “drip campaign”. To begin your campaign, identify a select group of people who fit a particular demographic, or better yet, share a common interest and send them messages. Email, voice mail, direct mail, or face to face are all viable methods to send the message..
To be effective be sure your campaign provides information relevant to your target customer, comes in regular, but not annoying intervals, and moves the prospect toward a purchase decision.
As you plan your campaign, be sure to avoid this mistake:
Over eager business owners or marketers try to accelerate the process by sending too much information, too soon, or too often. The result? Instead of being impressed your prospect is annoyed. Not only do they fail to buy, they tell you to go away, permanently!
As an email marketer, I am usually pretty patient with other marketing programs, but recently, Ratepoint wore out their welcome. How? Well it started innocently enough, with a postcard, an email and an offer for a free trial. Then there was the phone call during which I asked a few questions. Before the conversation ended I told them I was unlikely to use their product because I was a reseller for Constant Contact and AddressTwo, so there was no compelling reason for me to change.
Instead of taking the polite no, they moved me into an entirely different group and I became a prospect. There were more postcards, more email and more phone calls. As their sales people became increasingly annoying, demanding to know why I hadn’t activated my trial, I found it harder and harder to remain polite. (Lets face it, I am from NY and on a good day it is hard for me to remain polite)
If I would have ever considered trying their product, I am unlikely to now. The lesson? Too much marketing is not a good thing. If someone indicates they are not a prospect, let them opt out, and move on. Water may erode mountains, one drip at a time, but it won’t move someone to buy.
Want to learn more about effective drip campaigns as a way of moving prospects from random strangers to raving fans? Join Matt Nettleton and I on May 6
I Hate Cold Calls – But I Make Them Anyway!
I have always hated cold calling. Now that I am enrolled in a sales training program through TrustPointe, I still hate cold calling, but I understand it is something, as a small business owner, I need to do from time to time.
Cold techniques have not changed since this style phone was new!
In this article from the Harvard Business Review, Steve Richard outlines four tactics which will increase your cold calling success. He suggests:
- Get the direct line of the person that you are cold calling.
- Separate your cold calling into two activities: prospecting to find the right person, and call blitzing to get that person on the phone.
- Know the difference between persistence and annoyance.
- Utilize online resources
To this list I would add a few things I learned from Matt Nettleton, at TrustPointe
- Have a script. You don’t have to stick to it, but have a plan for the call which is designed to help you identify pain points, and create a reason for the prospect to WANT a longer conversation
- Allow the prospect to DECIDE on the next step. You control the choices you offer, but when they decide, they are more likely to follow through to the next step.
- Make cold calls even when you don’t feel like it. This is probably the best advice, I don’t always follow it, but I am always glad when I do!
Cold calling is part of a strategy which will move prospects from being Random Strangers to Raving Fans. Want to learn more? Join Matt Nettleton and I for a lively morning workshop. Click here:
May 6 – Random Strangers to Raving Fans
We had so much fun team teaching together last month that my sales coach, Matt Nettleton of Sandler Training Trustpointe and I will be conducing another session of our class ”From Random Strangers to Raving Fans” In this lively 3 hour session, we show you how to use a system to create the right messages for the right people at the right time.
We’re going to talk about how important it is that your sales and marketing support each other. After all, the best marketing plan in the world won’t help you if you can’t seal the deal, and the best sales strategy won’t help you if you don’t have leads in the first place!
Check out the details below. Hope to see you there!
Thursday, May 6, 8:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Sandler Training Trustpointe Offices, 6666 East 75th Street, Indianapolis
Fee: $29.99 Seating is limited, so be sure to register soon. Click here
Episode #29 Finding Sales Through Pain
This week on More Than a Few Words, I had the opportunity to sit down with Matt Nettleton, sales coach at The TrustPointe.
Matt has a wealth of experience working with individuals at all levels of organizations. In this conversation Matt explains to be successful in sales, a prospector needs to “find the pain” when speaking with prospects.
Sales skills are just one half of the selling process, which begins with a clear picture of your target customer. If you enjoyed Matt’s tips on how to more effectively “find the pain” and would like to see how this is incorporated into a complete sales process, be sure to check out “From Random Strangers to Raving Fans” seminar, jointly taught with Lorraine Ball. You can find out more information on Sandler Training at Trustpointe here.
From Random Strangers to Raving Fans workshop
I’m excited to be team-teaching a course with my sales coach, Matt Nettleton of Sandler Training Trustpointe. The class is called “From Random Strangers to Raving Fans: Using a system to create the right messages for the right people at the right time.”
We’re going to talk about how important it is that your sales and marketing support each other. After all, the best marketing plan in the world won’t help you if you can’t seal the deal, and the best sales strategy won’t help you if you don’t have leads in the first place!
Check out the details below. Hope to see you there!
March 25, 8:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Sandler Training Trustpointe Offices, 6666 East 75th Street, Indianapolis
Fee: $29.99 Seating is limited, so be sure to register soon. Click here
Episode 21 – Finding Your Ideal Customer
With Matt Nettleton
This blog has been very focused on business planning for the last two weeks. I think it is time to change it up just a little. Today I want to share an interview with sales professional Matt Nettleton.
I am an active participant in a Sales Training Class with Matt Nettleton of Trustpointe. I love his direct, no nonsense appraoch to building my business.
One of the things we have focused attention on lately is the difference between my average customer and my ideal customer.
The average customer, are the clients I attract now. But the ideal, are the clients I want to do business with. Doing business with these companies will help me grow my business over time.
Want to learn more about the difference? Take a moment, and listen to the interview with Matt
Free Consulting?
I am currently enrolled in the Sandler Training program; through Trustepoint I am really enjoying the program, because it is forcing me to rethink my long standing beliefs on the sales process.
One of the important elements of the program is the notion of not giving away “free consulting” as a way to make a sale. The folks at Sandler don’t believe this really works, and they are starting to get me to believe it too.
Then I read this post by Seth Godin about the “first transaction. In it he advocates, that the first time we “transact, it is ludicrous for me to expect there will be money involved. Is he really saying the opposite of Sandler?
Not really, he suggests:
Digital transactions are essentially free for you to provide. I can give you permission to teach me something. I can watch a video. I can engage in a conversation. We can connect, transfer knowledge, engage in a way that builds trust… all of these things make it more likely that I’ll trust you enough to send you some money one day.
This feels like “free consulting to the prospect, but not to me. There is nothing lost when I share what I have done with others, or what I know through books, blog posts and video. The trick is to find the balance, build trust and credibility, without giving up what I get paid for.
I am still learning to find where the line is, so I guess I will continue to spend time with my sales coach, Matt Nettleton, who by they way, looks a lot like Seth Godin.
At least when they are sitting down 
How Women Do Big Deals
Today’s post is written by Barbara Weaver Smith. I met Barbara through Twitter, and have had a chance to connect F2F as well. She is as much fun in person as she is on Twitter. I am delighted to share her post today. This is her second visit to Roundpeg, and it won’t be her last!
My new eBook, Whale Hunting Women, is about how women do big deals in business and community. What do women do instinctively that makes us good whale hunters?
Women learn early to practice certain habits that are good for sales—habits of listening, learning, mentoring, empathizing, and teambuilding. These are behaviors for which we are rewarded and may also be natural preferences that we’re born with. In the 20th century economy, which in the west was built on ruthless competition, women were encouraged to “unlearn” those habits and become more aggressive and self-promoting in order to succeed in the business world.
It didn’t work for women then, and it doesn’t work for anyone now. Today we work in a global, information-based economy that thrives on collaboration and cooperative deal-making. Women need to know this and allow our socialized skills and preferences to make us successful.
Big companies, which I define as “whales,” do not often buy from a single salesperson. Anything of substance that they buy involves the concurrence of a team of inside buyers—the procurement agent, the financial person, the IT leader, as well as the end users of marketing or software or legal or customer service or HR services, for example, or those involved in using manufactured products of all kinds.
Today the sale is not a good-old-boy back-slapping kind of sale. It is a serious, professional, somewhat distanced interaction. Buyers want to meet and interact with the people who will actually deliver services to them, not only the sales reps. So the nature of how the whales buy means that companies need to sell as a team. They need to involve subject matter experts in the sale. They need a salesperson who is a teacher and team choreographer, not a rock star.
In my work with entrepreneurs, I have found that women leaders are often especially devoted to (and good at) empowering their team, mentoring others to step up to new responsibilities, and orchestrating rather than commanding. Those practices come naturally to us, and we have come into a time where new business rules favor the so-called “soft skills” that women bring to their work. So let’s work that advantage and do some bigger deals!
Excerpts, reviews, and download link on Whale Hunting Women at http://www.thewhalehunters.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17. Special price during my virtual blog tour May/June 2009
Author: Barbara Weaver Smith, Ph.D.
President and CEO, The Whale Hunters
To learn about Whale Hunting Women & to order your copy today, visit http://cli.gs/WHWEbook
Thank you for visiting this post about Barbara Weaver Smith and Whale Hunting Women. Two people who comment during the tour will be entered a giveaway – post a comment on any post about the tour and you will be entered. The winners will win a three-volume audio set of Whale Hunters Wisdom. Volumes include I: Mind of a Hunter, II: The Hunt, and III: The Whale Hunting Culture ($90 value). Barbara Weaver Smith’s website – http://www.thewhalehunters.com
Barbara Weaver Smith’s blog – http://blog.thewhalehunters.com
Order your copy of Whale Hunting Women – http://cli.gs/WHWEbook
To see the tour schedule visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/04/whale-hunting-with-barbara-weaver-smith.html
