Archive for Sales
Does your customer know why you do it?
Posted by: | CommentsSimon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers — and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling.
In 2009, Simon Sinek released the book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Do you know why we do what we do?
(Do you know why you do what you do?)
Even if you do –
Do you communicate it to others?
Related Posts: Mirror Marketing
Develop your Sales Presentation using the Balance Scorecard
Posted by: | CommentsMost of us know the strategic use of the Balance Scorecard. We use it or at least a variation of it, to run our business. If it is good for your business, would it not be something that is simple and straight forward for your customer. A quick overview of the four areas of the Balance Scorecard:
- Financial: How do we look to shareholders?
- Customers: How do customers see us?
- Internal process: What must we excel at?
- Innovation and Learning: Can we continue to improve and create value?
Balanced Scorecard aligns organizations to new strategies: away from the historic, short-term focus on cost reduction and low-price competition, and toward generating growth opportunities by offering customized, value-added products, and services to customers.
All this sounds pretty good so why don’t we just reverse the strategy and make our Sales and Marketing presentations accordingly?
To measure your product or services value to your customer organizations:
- Financial: What increase in revenue or decrease in cost are they going to achieve?
- Customers: What will allow them to leapfrog or succeed more than their competition?
- Internal process: What will change and how do you minimize the worst case scenario?
- Innovation and Learning How easy is it to implement and who is involved?
If we continue on and follow the best practices for using the Balanced Scorecard. Our approach would continue by keeping objectives simple, use others(most specifically our customers) to help develop specific objectives, link objective to revenue increase/cost reductions and clearly state and communicate objectives.
This may not be totally encompassing of a good presentation but if these four scorecards areas were accounted for in every presentation, would you improve your likelihood of success?
Your Marketing bullets, are they sticking?
Posted by: | CommentsI see people fire one (marketing message)bullet after bullet and wondering why they are not sticking. They just keep bouncing off people. Take a look at this video. Can you emphasize with the bullets? Now, think about what the bullets cost you and what happens to them after the bounce. Do they stick anywhere? Your marketing message will not stick unless you have a receptive audience. Trying to sell to people before they know, like and trust you is just a waste of money. Don’t leave your marketing just fall to the ground. Use the sales funnel as an important tool in your marketing process and make sure everyone understands it throughout the organization. Your 1st step, should be a Marketing Assessment for yourself!
Technorati Tags: Sales Funnel ,Marketing Funnel ,Marketing Bullets ,Sales
Should there be a hole in your sales Funnel
Posted by: | CommentsWe marketers spend our time discussing target market, ideal client, core message but do we really listen to it! Do we take our own advice? That is the question I see many prospects questioning. We preach(ok, speak), give webinars, and even write books on the subjects. But do we ever not friend someone or hesitate about adding someone to our social media list. They might just become a client. So, we just say how can we help you and cram them into our funnel.
That says many times we just did not qualify them. Sound better! How
ever, I think we should put another hole in our sales funnel. Just not at the bottom, maybe in every section. Accept the prospect, and than see if he fits through our funnel. If we struggle keeping him in the funnel have a pressure relief valve that leaves him exit gracefully.
Wonder why we get bad clients? We are successful at cramming them through the funnel instead of leaving gravity do its job. You can provide an easy path and even accelerate it but stop trying to overcome objections, just provide answers to them and leave good old gravity take its course.
P.S. There is another way of getting people out of your sales funnel, it could be overflowing.
