A senior vice president walks into the company’s executive committee meeting to introduce her plan to roll out a new consumer product. She has prepared and practiced her presentation. She has anticipated questions and push backs and prepared her responses. She has clearly outlined the benefits of this program for the company.

She stands in front of the room and confidently presents her vision and plan. Something doesn’t feel right however. Sure, there is some head nodding and some note taking, but none of the enthusiasm she anticipated. What went wrong? What was missing from her selling this idea to the committee?

The missing piece has nothing to do with her delivery or presentation or idea. It has everything to do with the fact that she did not build bridges beforehand. If she had met with each individual on the committee beforehand, asked for their input, and sold them on her idea, potentially she would have had a room full of enthusiastic supporters.

Each member of the executive committee is interested in programs that benefit the company, but they also want to feel they have been included in the process. They are interested in how it will affect and benefit them.

The lesson here is clear. It’s important to build your bridges beforehand. Sell to the individuals first. Ask for their input. Tailor your message so it resonates with each person. Use the information you have about their interests, drive, and motivation to win their approval. Then as you present your plan to the team, they will feel that they are part of your vision. They will help you to sell the plan to others.

Basic sales training instructs us to use what are called WIIFM’s, “What’s In It For Me?” statements. WIIFM’s focus our sales efforts on how our product or service benefits the customer. They are meant to shift our mindset from our own agenda to what the customer wants and needs.

It has been my experience that using this benefit language is often the missing piece in elevator pitches as well as the communication of personal brand messages. As a result, many of our pitches fall flat. The use of benefit language makes an impact on our audience.

If you are an entrepreneur, think about your own elevator pitch. Do you make this important connection from your product or service to your customer’s wants and needs? A simple way to do use benefit language in your pitch is to state clearly what you do and then add, “what this means to you is”…

Here is an example. I could say, “My name is Bonnie Marcus and I coach women entrepreneurs to promote themselves effectively.” OR, I could say, “My name is Bonnie Marcus and as a professional coach, I help women entrepreneurs overcome their negative beliefs about self promotion, feel more confident and comfortable selling, so they can grow a successful thriving business.”

The same principle holds true for personal branding. Perhaps you have identified your value proposition, but do you use benefit language to state the business impact?

For instance, maybe I’ve identified that my value proposition is building strong teams. That statement alone does not have as much impact as when I tie it to business results. Find out what matters to your contact and make the connection for them.

Here’s how you could tailor your message.

” I build strong teams. What that means to my organization is that I help create more loyal, happy, and productive employees. Increased employee satisfaction means less turnover, lower employee acquisition and training costs. Also more productive employees means faster turn around on projects that results in more satisfied and loyal customers.”

Get the idea?

Don’t assume that people automatically connect the dots and bridge the gap between what you offer and how they can benefit. Don’t leave it to chance. Everyone wants to know what’s in it for them. Clearly communicate the benefit and the business impact to make your pitch or brand statement more powerful.

This week marks the first anniversary of my radio show, Head over Heels. Now, fifty two weeks later, more than fifty interviews later, and more work than I ever anticipated, the radio show has taken on a life of it’s own.

One year ago, I was open to trying something new and learning new skills; how to conduct good interviews; how to find interesting topics and guests; how to present valuable information to my listeners. I have had many terrific guests on the show who have taught me a great deal about a variety of subjects such as diversity issues and leadership, negotiation skills, accessing capital, how to use social media to build your business, how to communicate more effectively, how to create and maintain work/life balance, and many more. I am grateful to the generosity of all the women who have been on my show and graciously donated their time and expertise.

Thinking back on the experience of the last year, I believe that one of the most important skills I developed doing live radio has been to listen and listen intently. When you do live radio, you don’t have the opportunity to see the other person. You cannot always anticipate their rhythm, if they are pausing for a breath or completing their thought. Everyone has unique speech patterns and communication skills. Some of my guests are very animated and have many examples and stories to share. Others are direct and give clear concise statements. The point is that I almost never know before we go live how they will respond. Most of the time, I have never spoken to my guests ahead of time. Scary, huh?

But that’s where good listening comes in. I have learned to tune in to each person’s rhythm and personality by listening and focusing on the present. I have learned to listen carefully to their response and see if there is a logical follow up question. I have learned not to focus on what my next question is, but what they are saying right now that has significance.

As host of the radio show, I have learned to intentionally put my agenda aside, and focus 100% on my guests and the information they have to share. In the end, that’s the “secret sauce” to conducting successful interviews. But isn’t good listening also the “secret sauce” for building and sustaining relationships?

Next time you are meeting with a client or prospect, or engaged in a conversation with a friend, try to listen more intently to what they are saying, stay present, and put your own agenda aside for a moment and see how that affects the conversation. The more you practice this, the better you’ll be at building relationships to improve your professional and business life.

This is a guest post by Laura Caton from The Cornerstone Group Inc. www.thecornerstonegroupinc.com

To listen well is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation. ~Chinese proverb.

On May 21, more than 200 people attended the Sales 2.0 Conference hosted by Selling Power Magazine in Boston; unfortunately I was not one of them. However, a good friend of mine did attend and she came back from this meeting, brimming with enthusiasm. As we sat enjoying a delicious glass of chardonnay Saturday night, she explained her renewed gusto for selling–she was reborn. We talked about social networking and how this was the new way to generate leads. We both bemoaned the lead time for closing a sale and how businesses appear to be paralyzed by spending, any spending!

One of the more interesting observations that apparently came out of this conference for her was from Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO of Personal Selling Power Inc. In his opening speech, “7 Key Trends in Selling,” he talks about ditching the pitch. (btw, Bonnie offers a program called Ditch the Pitch). She said, “You know, it’s more about having a conversation. It’s more important than ever before to talk with prospects, as opposed to at them.” Wow, I didn’t know this was a news flash. I was even more surprised to hear my friend, who I also saw at the hunter/sales person personified, say this straight faced—as if this was news to her! Quite frankly, I was more interested in drinking my wine and talking recipes from this month’s Food and Wine.

Curious as to what else happened at this conference, I went on the Sales 2.0′s web site for more information. I stumbled upon this, Barry Trailer, a Partner at CSO Insights, was quoted as saying, “The number one mistake I see in the area of “customer engagement” is that the Sales Reps think they should be doing all the talking”. Okay, maybe doing the stop, listen and listen is a news flash!

As a wholesaler for a large mutual fund company in the early 80′s, the sales approach was the same; product, product, product. Every quarter was devoted to hawking a particular sector. Jam it down their throats whether it fit our audience’s business model or not. It was a matter of shelf space for prospectuses at the Merrill Lynch office and points earned for fantastic due diligence trips.  Just pitch the fund du jour and move to the next office. It was an unfulfilling sales position to say the least and I felt, dare I say, whorish at times.

Taking a more customer focused/consultative sales approach to selling is all about listening, and then asking strategic and investigative questions (so you do get to talk!). It applies to every sales appointment, phone conversation, and meeting you have with a potential buyer. Nancy Martini, CEO of PI Worldwide, states, “In a selling situation, the real world is divided into two “worlds” – yours and the prospects/clients. Often, sales professionals only focus on the “world” they are familiar with, their own.” The key is you can’t ask strategic questions if you don’t start by listening to the client or prospects’ needs.

Listening provides you with the information you want to work effectively in the prospect’s world. Good listening means you can link your value proposition to the client’s specific needs. It also means you can have a meaningful, shared conversation, as Mr. Gschwandtner suggests.

Most of us love to talk and listening is pretty hard. Many of us in sales love to share and socially connect with a person; which means talking.

So here’s a question, how well do you listen? Listening does not mean nodding your head in agreement and waiting to say what you want (this is my big listening challenge). It truly means putting your agenda aside. Make a point to practice good listening skills. Good listening is a commanding skill, which can set you apart from other out there. Ditch the pitch, sit back and never stop listening.

With extensive expertise in organizational & leadership development, the Cornerstone Group helps clients to build more productive organizations by better leveraging their most important asset, people.

Their unique approach to assessing people, finding their core strengths, and leveraging those strengths in current and future roles helps their clients to hire smarter, manage more effectively, and develop stronger leaders. Their unique process of assessment, training, consulting and ongoing support allows them to partner with their clients and create a road map for organizational success. www.thecornerstonegroupinc.com

How do you stay marketable in a down economy? Promote your personal brand.

When it comes to selling yourself, you should follow the same guidelines that you use when selling any product or service. Take an objective point of view, do an assessment of the product (you), create an effective pitch, and develop a sales plan.

1.  Know Your Product.

Do an assessment of yourself and get to know yourself as the “product”.

What are your strengths?

List 3-5 personality pluses and how these traits have helped you in your current and past positions.

List 3-5 recent accomplishments. What do these accomplishments say about you?

2. What is your sales pitch for your product?

Create your own personal pitch.

Answer these questions:

What is my story? my history?

What differentiates me? What special qualities do I have and why are they marketable?

How have these qualities helped me be successful in the past?

What are my features and benefits?

i.e. I am tenacious and what that means to my employer is that they can count on me to stay focused and complete my assigned projects.

3. Create Your Sales Plan

What is your career goal for the next 6-12 months?

Create action items to help you reach your goal.

Identify people you need to be in front of consistently. How will you accomplish that? Set timeframes and identify resources needed  if any.

What organizations should you join/attend? What committee should you volunteer for?

What special projects should you take on?

4.  Go out there and sell yourself.

Always be prepared 24/7 to talk about your accomplishments.

Consistently work your sales plan and stay in front of your “web of influence”, your important contacts.

Stay visible. Stay positive. Stay focused.

Approach selling yourself and your own personal brand with the enthusiasm and confidence your “product” deserves. You are the best possible “product”. Go out there and let everyone know what you’ve got!

Want to practice your positive self-talk?

NEW Group staring in April

Friday morning Breakfast Brag Club (TGIF)

Thank Goodness I’m Fabulous!!!

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]]> http://womenssuccesscoaching.com/2009/03/how-to-stay-marketable-in-a-down-economy/feed/ 0 http://womenssuccesscoaching.com/2009/01/why-is-to-sell-a-four-letter-word/ http://womenssuccesscoaching.com/2009/01/why-is-to-sell-a-four-letter-word/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:07:14 +0000 Bonnie Marcus http://womenssuccesscoaching.com/?p=383

I am always amazed at how  many people are traumatized when it comes to selling.  When I looked up “to sell” in the dictionary, I found these definitions.

• to transfer services to another in exchange for money. (OK. I can live with this one.)
• to persuade or induce someone to buy something. (Used car salesman approach?)
• to convince (hmmm. Still a bit negative.)
• informal definition: to cheat, betray,or hoax. (OMG!)

Yikes! No wonder those of us in sales often fight the negative public perception of sales people and NO WONDER no one likes to sell. It’s because they don’t like being SOLD TO.

There are many negative beliefs about sales. For those of you who think that you need to be born as a salesperson or need to be a certain personality type, I challenge you. You are hiding behind this limiting belief and assuming that only certain people can sell well. It’s too easy to take on this belief and the consequences are far reaching if you have your own business. After all, who can sell your business with more passion than you?

Sales does not have to be a daunting task. It’s about having basic conversations and dialogues with people. I emphasize dialogue because good selling is more about asking good open ended questions and listening. Don’t be intimidated into believing that you need to make spectacular slick presentations. Sales is  more about building rapport and relationships, gaining trust, and educating others about your product or service. Even sales professionals know that these are the basic skills they need to be successful.

You can have the best business concept in the world, but if you don’t get out there and acquaint people with your product/services, you will not be successful. Talk with people about what you do. Connect with the passion  you had when you first started your business. Make your message personal and interesting and just get out and sell!

Women’s Success Coaching is offering a teleclass on Self-Promotion in February. Four one hour sessions for $199. Check out Group Coaching to access more information or to register. First class is Tuesday evening, February 3rd from 7-8pm EST.

What does good selling have in common with good customer service? EVERYTHING.

Exceptional selling and exceptional customer service require a focus on the customer. Focusing on the customer makes the customer feel important and valued and when they feel important and valued, they are more likely to become a customer and remain a customer.

How do you stay focused on the customer’s needs rather than your own agenda?

In both customer service and sales, using basic sales techniques helps you to build relationships which will help you win customers and keep them.

1. Active listening. Active listening means to be present to the conversation and to listen carefully to what your prospect or customer is saying. What they are REALLY saying? Look them in the eye and watch their body language and stay engaged with your body language. Nod your head. Be responsive. Demonstrate that you hear what they are saying and don’t wander off into your own head about what YOU want to say next. When you think about what you are going to say next, you are not really listening.
2. Use Open-Ended Questions. Open ended questions are meant to “open up” the discussion because these questions cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. These questions start with “how”, “when”, “where”, “why”, “what”. You will find out more information from your client or potential client by asking them questions, listening, and gathering information.
3. Don’t make assumptions. Don’t script out your conversation in your head ahead of time and assume you know what the customer needs and wants. You need to ask the right questions to  get accurate information. A lost sales opportunity can happen when you assume that someone needs something and you gear your whole conversation in that direction only to find out later that they were interested in another product or service you have. They might have bought from you, but you didn’t present the product due to your false assumptions. Or in customer service, you assume that the complaining customer is wrong and don’t really listen to them and, therefore, lose a customer and miss the opportunity to improve your business.
4. Clarify. Make sure that you truly understand what the customer is saying. “So what I hear you saying is..” That way there is no misunderstanding.
5. Acknowledge and Validate. You show respect and understanding when you acknowledge the customer and validate their position. You show appreciation for their point of view. You are building a relationship.
6. Focus on the Client’s Agenda. When you listen to your customer instead of what’s in your own head, you have a much better chance to resolve customer issues or find an opportunity to sell your product or services.
7. Detachment. This is really crucial in order to maintain your cool in a customer service situation especially if it is your own business. When we become defensive, we build a wall between ourselves and our customers making it more difficult to resolve issues because we cannot hear the customer’s point of view. In a sales situation, when we are too attached to the outcome, we are no longer focused on the customer and we are not listening to what the customer wants and needs.

How would you like to be treated as a customer?

How would you like someone to respond to you when you have an issue?

Are you more likely to purchase from someone who talks AT you and doesn’t listen to YOU or someone who engages you in a conversation and asks you questions about what you need?

Remember, the way you like to be treated is the best way to treat your customers.

One of the most challenging aspects of good selling is staying focused on your client or prospect. As sales professionals, we work hard to prepare for our sales calls and presentations. We memorize the features and benefits of our product and services in hopes of having the opportunity to acquaint someone with what we are selling. Once we are actually in front of a prospect, it’s all we can do to hold back from blurting out everything all at once; telling our prospect about what we are selling and how beneficial it is for them to buy what we are selling.

Selling,
however, is about building relationships with people, with individuals.
If we enter into a monologue about our product without any knowledge of
what our prospect wants and needs, how effective can that be? Compare
it to a telemarketing call you might receive. The telemarketer has a
set script to sell you something and probably doesn’t have much, if
any, information about you. They talk AT you and you can barely get in
a word to tell them you’re not interested. When you are on the
receiving end of this type of sales pitch, how does that make you feel?
Are you open to listening? What are the chances you would purchase
something from this scenario?

If we want to
engage the prospect and build a relationship that will eventually lead
to a sale, we need to focus on the individual, not some generic
stereotype. Leave all your assumptions about this prospect behind and
create an open exchange or dialogue to learn more about this individual.

Here are some techniques to create that open communication:

1. Use open-ended questions.

Questions
that begin with “how”, “when”, “where”, and “why” help to quickly
engage the prospect to start talking as these questions cannot be
answered by a simple yes or no response. These questions are very
effective in getting people to “open up”.

2. Actively listen to your prospect

Active
listening requires you to tune out your own inner voice and focus on
what the client is telling you and what they are really saying. Give
them some type of sign that you are listening through body language or
affirmations.

3. Clarify

“So what I hear
you saying is….” Make sure that you fully understand what your
prospect is saying by checking in with them through the course of the
conversation.

4. Acknowledge and Validate

When you
acknowledge and validate you are demonstrating that you respect and
understand the other person’s position. This is important in building a
relationship.

5. Make no assumptions

It is so easy to
overlook this important skill. In order to fully understand another
person, we need to stay open to listening to them without any filters.
This is difficult to accomplish but once we let go of assumptions, it
is a powerful way to connect with someone.

6. Focus on the prospects/client’s agenda

Let go of your
canned sales pitch and trust that a focused dialogue with the client
will be more effective and can yield important information that can
assist you in closing a sale.

7. Detach from the process

Try to keep your
ego out of the conversation and agenda. Once you let this go, you will
be surprised how any resistance to your pitch can dissolve.

Remember: It’s not all about you. It’s about the Client. What’s important to them, should be important to you.