Sell the Price Difference Not the Total Cost Day 17 of The 28 Days To Better Selling
We will often get objections that our product or service costs more money in comparison to a competitor.
There are two main questions you need answered before proceeding:
Question 1: “Mr. Client, when you say the price is too high, how high is it? And compared to what do you feel it is too high?
When the client answers this question, you know what amount you are dealing with. The important thing here is to separate that amount from the total amount. By the client telling you the amount, you know what they are happy to pay, so you do not sell them on that amount, they are already sold on it. Focus on the difference.
Example:
Client: “I am sorry, but the purchase price of that house is too much.”
Salesperson: “When you say too much, how much too much?”
Client: “About $20,000 too much.”
Salesperson: “So what you are saying is that $280 000 is okay with you, but it is the additional $20,000 that is holding you back?”
Client: “Yes.”
Salesperson: “Well, let’s take a look at what you get for that extra $20,000 or $250 per month in payments. For an extra $250 per month:
- You are just across the street from the elementary school, and you said you wanted to be close to the school.
- The area you were looking in is 10 miles further away from your office. You save yourself 20 miles of travel per day, and in gasoline and wear and tear on your car it translates into $5.00 per day, which is over $100 per month. That is almost half of the $250 per month.
- The house has a view and you really feel a view gives you a sense of freedom.
- You have a two car garage that is very secure.
- Your wife is in love with it.
- You reduce your worry about your children walking to school.
- You save time not having to drive or walk the kids to school.
- You are closer to the office and save time again.
- You end up with a view you want.
Salesperson: “For a $150 a month on your mortgage I feel this one is the best option we have looked at today.” (You would not use the entire list but probable focus in on the top ones you would feel the client would relate too)
Note: The salesperson does not say “for an extra $20,000 or for $300,000” which is the total price. The focus is on the difference and the lowest amount and then broken down to a monthly cost
Your Assignment today is:
#1) Look at which services or products you have where you have price objections
#2) Assess how much more they may be perceived to cost in comparison to similar products or services.
#3) Brainstorm all of the additional value financially and otherwise someone would get from paying the extra amount.
#4) Memorize your value added list.
3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 5
This is part part 5 of the 19 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets inspired by Jay Levinson and adapted by Shane Gibson (me). Here’s today’s 3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Tips:
12. Dependent – “The guerrilla’s job is not to compete but to cooperate with other businesses. Market them in return for them marketing you. Set up tie-ins with others. Become dependent to market more and invest less.” Begin to blog, do interviews and profile your cooperative competitors online and many will reciprocate and help you grow your following and client base.
13. Armament – Arm yourself with all of the social media tools that your customer consumes or uses. Also find new markets through arming yourself with new social networks and mediums.
14. Consent – Permission is number one if you are going to be a Guerrilla Social Media marketer. Take time to build trust and relationships and never overstate or overstep your relationships online with pitches and unsolicited messaging.
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 1
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 2
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 3
Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets Part 4
Listening in Sales Day 9 of the 28 days to Better Selling
Today’s focus is on listening. A big part of being good at all the steps in the sales process has to do with listening and being totally present. I have put together (in PDF format) a brief self-assessment on listening for you to complete. A big part of being a successful communicator is self-awareness. Take time during and after this assessment to really look at yourself and acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses as a listener.
Your ability to be totally present during the sales process and to connect empathetically with the client can seperate you from your competition. Clients often drop clues as to what they value and what they need if we listen closely enough.
Your assignment today is to be totally present and listen intently to everyone you interact with.
Download the listening self-assessment here
3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets
In continuing with the series from last week here are 3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets inspired by the Father of Guerrilla Marketing my friend Jay Levinson:
6. Assortment of Weapons – Use a diversity of tools. Start with a blog or highly socially enabled site. Then use and master all of the major tools. You will identify over time which ones you have a talent for using, and which ones your market responds to best. Today these tools may include:
• Blogging
• Video Podcasting (YouTube, Viddler etc.)
• FaceBook
• Linkedin
• Flickr
• Twitter
• Forums
• Ning.com
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• FriendFeed
• Google Profiles
• Tumblr
• Ubertor (for Realtors)
• Meetup.com
7. Convenient - “Time is money is a lie. Time is life, don’t waste their time.” - Jay Levinson. This is critical, don’t make people work hard to find your information or consume the great content you create. Also don’t waste their time with 10 minute videos when you could say it in 3 minutes or even better, 3 Twitter tweets. Brevity is key in Guerilla Social Media Marketing
8. Subsequent – Always know what’s next, don’t write an e-book, write a series of e-books. Don’t just solve one customer pain, be in search of the next big thing that can help those who are connected with you.
Day 2 of The 28 Days to Better Selling
This is Day 2 of the 28 Days to Better Selling with Shane Gibson. Today’s focus is on developing a set of criteria and aggregating your referral sources and centers of influence to help you maximize and prioritize your referral generating opportunities.
Today’s assignment is:
1) Brainstorm all possible criteria for CIO and referral sources
2) Pick 5-7 top criteria
3) Make a list of existing and potential A category CIO’s and referrals
4) Book a meeting with at least 2 existing to say thank-you and share criteria
5) Share your thoughts and how you implemented this at http://closingbigger.net
If you haven’t signed up for the program you can join at anytime by signing up below:
10 Tips on Doing Business in Vancouver
Today’s blog post is on the lighter side. Some of my comments are in jest so please take them with a grain of salt. The post was inspired by a series of tips I posted on Twitter and the response I got from people on Twitter. For those of you who are new to Vancouver or plan on visiting for business here are 10 tips on doing business in Vancouver:
Tip #1: Doing business in Vancouver: Your meeting has a good chance of starting late.
Tip #2: Doing business in Vancouver: You will most likely talk about 8 non-related things before getting down to business.
Tip #3: Doing Business in Vancouver: Your meeting will most likely take place in Starbucks (via @robertaw99)
Tip #4: Doing Business in Vancouver: Your meeting may be bumped by something of little consequence until you learn Vancouver priorities (via @Bradinator)
Tip #5: Doing Business in Vancouver: Vancouverites are friendly but take time to introduce and endorse you. They take business personally.
Tip #6: Doing Business in Vancouver: Green is the new bling and being too busy is a sign of business weakness.
Tip #7: Doing Business in Vancouver: Not everyone in Vancouver is into doing business.
Tip #8: Doing Business in Vancouver: When you don’t get a call back right away don’t worry and don’t get offended. Follow-up again.
Tip #9: Doing Business in Vancouver: Everyone knows everyone, and many have done business with each other at some point. via @KontentCreative
Tip #10: Doing Business in Vancouver: It’s all about relationships and what networks you’re connected to. Take your time getting to know who is connected to who. Join your local Board of Trade and corresponding Vancouver Linkedin and Meetup groups as a start.
3 Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secrets
Last week I posted Guerrilla Social Media Marketing secrets 1,2 and 3. There are 19 Guerrilla Marketing secrets and after chatting with Jay Levinson he gave me the go ahead to share a few more. So here’s secrets 4,5 and 6 based upon my interpretation of Jay’s 19 secrets:
3. Consistent – Don’t change your identity. Brands, relationships, trust, and technology all take time for adoption and acceptance. Be consistent with your message and on-line social media identity.
4. Confident – You must be confident and instill confidence in the customer. Use social media to listen to your customers. Jay says, “Service is anything the customer wants it to be.” Listen! He goes on to say, “Quality is what customers get out of your product. “ This is great information that can help you provide specific, on topic, brilliant solutions to your target market’s pains.
5. Patient – Be patient. Be patient with yourself, it will take you time to master the Guerilla Marketing “Weapons of Social Media.” Be patient as you build a community online, build roots and a foundation that will be un-shakable. Be patient with your target market, they will rush in to use and engage in social media, but they will do it in their time-frame.
28 Days to Better Selling with Shane Gibson
Launches May 18th 2009
If you want to improve your sales and have been too busy to put a plan into place you’re not alone.
I have had many people in the sales community including sales professionals, senior executives and high tech entrepreneurs and bloggers who are all looking for ways to convert connections into long-term clients and relationships.
Their challenge is that most resources available are either one time training opportunities, or extensive and over whelming programs that are tough to implement. This program takes care of all of this.
The 28 Days to Better Selling program is completely free and is 100% content and 0% advertising or promotions. All content focused on helping you.
This concept was inspired by a 31 Days to Build a Better Blog program that Problogger.com put on for 12,000 other bloggers. As a participant it was very helpful for me. The concept is simple:
Here’s how 28 Days to Better Selling Works:
1) A daily task that you can easily implement to improve your sales and business
2) A succinct daily lesson to help you make the improvement
By the end of the 28 days you will have looked at 28 ways to fine tune and improve your sales process and business. The daily lessons will be in written, video or audio format and will take less than 10 minutes each to review.
To Register for the program please enter your e-mail address below:
Top Sales Blogs and Top Sales Podcasts This Week
This week has been an awesome week. I did two blog entries while I was away in Chile which was half of my usual volume compared to the previous few weeks. The most memorable one was the interview I did with Jay Levinson father of the Guerrilla Marketing movement. With that said the world of sales blogging and sales podcasts has churned forward regardless. Many of my peers and friends have posted some great new tips and content that I would like to share with you.
Shamus Brown did a blog post called “Your Prospects are Human Lie Detectors.” It’s amazing that in this era of extreme transparency that sales professionals and business people still are missing this core lesson.
Simone Blum urged us to be Un Reasonable when it comes to business decisions and launching a new idea or product.
Alan Majer provided a great list of 21 things we can do to succeed in a carreer in selling.
The guys at Sales Roundup put together a good sales podcast on finding and prepping for a sales job.
The guys at the Advanced Selling Podcast did a great podcast on The Rules Tools and Attitudes needed to put more prospects into the sales funnel.
Brad Trnavsky at the Sales Bloggers Union did a good sales blog entry on The Primary Role of a Sales Manager.
Skip Anderson in his Selling to Consumers Podcast talked about the Essence of Selling. It’s all about helping the client make a decision according to Skip.
Lastly I found this sales cartoon from Count5.com and it reminded me of at least half of the sales people that call my office daily. Anyone else suffering from the same?
Social Media Tips
These are a selection of social media tips that I have posted on Twitter over the past couple weeks. I thought I would put them all in one place for easy reference. Please add your tips and thoughts in the comments section.
20 Social Media Tips:
- Focus on a specific theme in your social media for extended periods of time
- Your blog is your home base, all social media should feed your home base
- Social media is 90 % contribution and connection 10 % marketing and sales
- Social media belongs to the people, they get to make the rules not the marketer
- Have a social media policy for your company. Help your people be effective and on message
- Promote other people’s dreams. It builds community, loyalty and brand for you
- “Marketing is a process not an event”- @jaylevinson
- Blog, tweet and talk about solutions to people’s pains and challenges
- Social media tools like twitter are listening tools more than they are broadcasting tools.
- Nano-cast to many small niches instead of broadcasting to everyone.
- Learn to break up large blog entries into many smaller entries. It’s more user friendly
- Take time each month to update your major social media profiles, use key words that your prospects would search for
- Use social search like http://search.twitter.com and http://blogsearch.google.com to listen to your customers
- Each social network has it’s own etiquette FaceBook type behavior doesn’t work on LinkedIn
- Answer people’s comments on your blog, or @ replies in Twitter. Social media leadership is about bi-directional communication.
- Think twice, click once.
- Take it off-line, book in person meetings or hold events for your online social media contacts
- Use an assortment of tools, it geometrically multiplies efforts
- Always be asking where are we going? What is the next Twitter or FaceBook going to be?
- Use a mixture of content on your blogs, top 10 lists, photos, video, audio, guest bloggers, and polls…
Register for updates on Sociable! Shane Gibson and Stephen Jagger’s new book to be released in June 2009.
Social Media Seminars with Shane Gibson.
Related Posts:
- Twitter tips for Sales People
- Social Media Phobia Why Executives Aren’t On board
- Succeed in Tough Times with Social Media
Darcy Rezac’s Networking Tip of the Week
I’m subscribed to Darcy Rezac’s (Twitter) Networking Tips. He’s author of “Work the Pond” the definitive guide to networking in business and in life. Here’s this week’s tip:
Trucker Network. We are firm believers in the power of business cards, and the following story reaffirms why everyone in your company needs cards. Last week Darcy heard this story about a guy who owns a trucking company who decided to give all his truckers business cards. Soon, his company’s business cards were posted on truck stop cafes and gas stations across the continent. The result? A 20% increase in business! And there was another interesting thing that happened–the drivers started dressing better, looking sharper. Why would that be? These guy and gals had never been given business cards before, and if we think back to the time when we received that very first box of business cards, there was a certain feeling of pride, status and belonging. There were two wins for this owner because of his simple investment in business cards.
– Darcy, Gayle and JudyTo read a story from Work the Pond! about giving cards to everyone in your company go to: www.tiny.cc/shepa
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