SALES QUOTE
“I try to leave out the parts people skip.”
– Bestselling author Elmore Leonard when asked , “Why are your books so popular?”
For Salespeople…
Think about your sales call as if you were writing a book. What parts could you leave out? Are you schmoozing too long at the beginning of the sales call? Are you asking questions that lead to problems you are unable to solve with a product you sell? Are you calling on the wrong people who aren’t key decision makers? Those are all parts to leave out. You don’t have readers in your sales call who will tell you what they skip. You do know what moves your sales process forward. Anything that doesn’t move it forward should be skipped.
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THE BLOG S AND OTHER COLUMNS
I’m now writing The Real Deal, a column on women in business for Allbusiness.com Hope you’ll read more ideas so you can achieve your success in business.
You can get RSS feed for the blog.
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THE SELLING IDEAS FOR THE MONTH
Terrible or Terrific?
I’ve heard of some sales organizations where they assign working at trade shows as punishment for poor performance. That’s a bad idea. Trade shows can be a wonderful forum to jump start your sales. Here are some good ideas for you to consider if you sell at trade shows.
Start early. Selling at the trade show starts before the show begins. Try to get a list of the trade show participants, both vendors and visitors, before the show. Why? You’ll want to target some good prospects for you to meet with during the limited time you have at the show.
Some shows won’t give you the information. You still can learn who the sponsors are. They might be good prospects for you.
Plan what items to give away to attract people to your booth, how you’re going to collect contact information of booth visitors, what brochures or information you are going to give away and how to decorate your booth. A participant should be able to walk by and clearly understand what you do.
Arrive early to the show so you are manning your booth before the show opens. At a recent trade show where I was working, I saw several companies arrive several hours after the show opened to set up their booths. What were they thinking? They were losing valuable selling time.
One company didn’t communicate very well with the show management either. Each booth has a sign with the company name and booth location. This organization’s booth was identified as HCCD. I had no idea who they were. When they finally arrived, I learned they were a chamber of commerce. Passersby would have no idea who they were if they wanted to stop by later.
Have the show management print your entire company name on your booth sign so visitors will know who you are.
Housekeeping. Your booth is like your home away from home. Keep it neat and clutter free. Avoid stacks of giveaways and marketing materials that overtake your space. You can always replenish the items on your table.
If you’re not collecting names electronically, a fish bowl is a good way to collect cards that takes up little space. If you’re in a small booth with a standard display table, avoid pushing your table out to the edge of the trade show walkway.
At a recent trade show, I saw most of the display tables doing this. As a result, their booth visitors were in the path of all the other trade show visitors who were walking by the booths. Instead, pull your table in, away from the traffic, so you create some space in your booth for you and a booth visitor to talk where you won’t be trampled by the trade show traffic going by.
Make sure you stand in front of the table. There should be no barriers between you and your prospects.
What’s the worst that can happen? At this show, I was talking with the manager of worldwide procurement for an international IT company. My client wanted to learn the qualification process for doing business with this company. During the discussion it was clear that my client was a good fit for this company and this company was a perfect prospect for my client. My client gave a brochure describing his work to the manager. The manager asked for a soft copy instead. We agreed to send one.
Then the manager said something pretty amazing. He said, “You know, 80% of the people I speak with never follow up.”
Considering the time, energy and money spent on a trade show, what an incredible waste not to follow up! Within 24 hours we had scanned the business cards that we had collected into our customer management database and sent all the information that was requested.
That immediately put us in a unique group of salespeople—ones who follow through!
A trade show is a wonderful opportunity to generate more qualified leads that could result in sales. Who would ever consider the opportunity to close business as punishment?
Reward yourself and participate in a trade show. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
ACTION ITEMS
1. Develop a plan for your next trade show before the show.
2. Set objectives to measure trade show success.
3. Be sure to follow up your leads after the trade show!
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Programs
You can check for current programs.
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Theworst performing monthfor the S&P 500 since 1990 has been August.The stock index has suffered anaverage loss of 0.7%(total return) during August over the last 21 years.However4 of the last 5 Augustshave produced a positive total return gain.Thebest performing monthsince 1990 has been December, gaining an average of +2.1%
(source: BTN Research).
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Here are some selling tools to help you sell more now. Click on the photo to find out more!
Monday Morning Sales Tips : A book that has quick ideas for you to be more successful in sales. Real-World Selling: A book with selling skills and strategies that work in the real world of sales. Secrets of Persuasion: Audio CD for the clues to use to speed-read people and close more business.