Let me share with you the two words I never want to hear in sales.
- Discount
- Chasing
Every time someone asks me about whether they should “discount” their prices to attract more customers, I die a little inside. And when I hear a sales rep or business owner tell me they are “chasing” customers, I die a little more inside. When you discount, you effectively say, “I don’t believe my product is valuable.” And when you chase customer, you annoy them, and you chase them away. So this post is my PLEA to all of you who want to close more sales.
Last week, I was reviewing some sales processes for a sales team and we were looking to find some opportunities to increase conversions. When I looked through the CRM and saw the emails and conversations they were having, I almost fell off my chair! While everyone was scrambling around looking for that next sales trick, marketing gimmick, or tactic of the week, they were BLIND to what was really going on.
They were boring and annoying their customers!
I couldn’t believe it! Emails that had no excitement, no urgency, no real call to action were being sent out and they were shocked that it was hard to get leads to come in. So I am reaching out to anyone who is trying to close more sales and grow their business. The number one rule in selling is to find a way to connect with your customers. People want to do business with PEOPLE! I was so fired up, I had to shoot this quick video to send a message and a call to arms for us all to remember what customers really want.
Okay, so what do we need to do to close more sales and connect with these leads?
1) Show Them You Believe
In today’s noisy marketing and sales environment where we compete for customer attention, it is easy to get quickly lost and ignored. What do customers really want? They want to believe in something. And they want to know that YOU believe in what you are doing. Are you demonstrating your pride in your business? Are you passionate about what you are doing to help your customers? Are you borderline obsessive when you talk about what you are doing? Or are you just boring, trying to be professional, and hoping that enough people are just ready to buy? Do you really care about your customers?
2) Tell Stories
I don’t know how many salespeople don’t understand that if they become master story tellers, they will close more sales and have fun doing it. Rather than trying to talk features and benefits, tell stories about how your product or service was used by your customers. Share stories of previous client interactions that made an impact. Gather testimonials. Get written ones and get videos. Make it a part of your culture to be obsessive about hearing your customer stories.
Imagine if you were going to look for a mechanic, and you stumbled upon a website and the only copy on the site was, “We are trusted mechanics.” and then there was just video after video of customers sharing their stories. About how they were scared about trusting a mechanic, or that they didn’t know what to expect, and then the level of service they received was unreal! I know I would be ready to buy. Social proof and referrals are everything in today’s world. When was the last time you bought anything without first asking your friends about it? A restaurant, a business coach, a mechanic. People buy from people they trust. Stories build trust.
3) Make Mistakes and Test New Ideas
Too many people are so afraid of making mistakes, that they take the safe road and really say nothing. That is what really kills me, folks! We don’t want to annoy our customers with the wrong message, but instead we are okay chasing them with boring voicemails and emails.
“Hi ____, I wanted to just check in with you and see if you had thought any more about….” BARF. I hate the check-in.
So why not get some sales balls and stand for something? Test some new ideas. Reach out and ask your customers for help on this. Get them involved. Send them weird stuff, make funny videos, create different ways for them to interact with your brand, do something different. Stand out.
But the trick is to TEST everything. Test your words, test your language, your tone of voice, your message, your level of energy. Then make a plan to review what works each week. I always tell people to test their VOICEMAILS. Leaving a voicemail is an opportunity to test a 30 second commercial. Make yourself about five different types and see which ones get you the highest return rate. And then connect them with an email message you will send as well. Seek to understand your customers and gain insights about your audience. When you start seeing patterns emerge through your testing, you can begin to build best practices. Slowly, step by step, you will build the perfect process.
[Tweet “You can’t START with a perfect process, so go make mistakes and test TODAY.”]4) Have Fun and Get Excited
Which brings me to my last point. If you are not enjoying what you’re doing, then why the hell are you doing it? No one wants to buy something from someone who doesn’t care. Are you surprised your customers aren’t super-pumped to return your calls and emails when you don’t sound like you are even that interested? Oh, but Joe, I made 100 follow up calls this week! I am too busy to do all of this. Well, I would rather you made ONE good, well thought out sales call that you followed all the steps above than call 100 people with a boring message that lacks any real value and waste their time. What does poor follow up do to your brand image? What do you think they say about you when you send crappy messages?
So make it your MISSION to have fun with what you are doing and get your customers excited! Show them that you are actually a really cool person that they MUST get to know and do business with. And then if you do a good job with that, they can’t help but tell their friends how awesome you are. It really is THAT simple.
[Tweet “Two words I never want to hear in sales – “Discounting” & “Chasing””]So if you want to close more sales, don’t chase. Be super interesting and let them chase YOU!
Go out there and re-connect with some old leads with passion and purpose. Set a game plan to test this strategy for the next month and track your progress. I would love for you to post comments below on how this works for you!
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