Today is International Honesty Day and to celebrate, Steven and I are releasing Honesty Sells!

About the authors:

Steven Gaffney (Arlington, VA) is a speaker, author, and leading expert on honest interpersonal communication, influence, and leadership, as well as the President of The Steven Gaffney Company. He is also the author of Just Be Honest and Honesty Works.

Colleen Francis (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) is the founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions. An award winning sales expert, she helps clients make dramatic improvements to their results with techniques proven in today’s tough selling environment.

About the book!

Honesty Sells takes an unlikely approach to sales success; instead of verbal tricks, silly gimmicks, or mind games, great salespeople use honesty to lure customers. Many salespeople think the only way to achieve real sales excellence is by using every trick in the book to sucker customers into buying. But top sales performers know the real way to win a customer’s heart (and loyalty) is by building open, honest relationships with them.Honesty Sells gives readers a proven system—and an honest one—for getting around gatekeepers and objections, increasing customer responsiveness, closing sales faster and more often, getting honest answers from clients and prospects, and troubleshooting problems before they scuttle big sales or important projects. For anyone who wants to sell more, sell better, and sell more honestly, Honesty Sells is a the perfect straight-talking guide to sales success.

About the website

Head over to www.honestysells.comto read about sales horror stories. Post your own and vote for the best er worst! and of course buy the book! Sell Honestly today (and everyday) and you will keep your customers for life while increasing your profits!

Colleen

Today I received another cold solicitation email. Have you too noticed an increase in the number of unsolicited emails in your in basket? I think companies are getting desperate. Sending more emails to more prospects then ever before because they think it’s a cheap way to prospect. Sadly, most if the emails I receive are complete crap. A huge waste of cyberspace. The one a received today was not bad – the best in a while – but there were a couple small changes that could be made to make this a really great cold solicitation.

Please keep in mind I think cold email solicitation is a complete waste of time. I do recognize that some corporate reps don’t have a choice  to particiapte so in thoase cases…you may as well make the emails as good as possible. This post os for your benefit!

 I have dissected it below for you. My comments are in blue.

 ”X” is working with more than 1000 companies - including Xerox, Kaiser Permanente, VeriSign, and Goodyear – to help them deliver more effective and consistent communications and training to their internal and external audiences and dramatically reduce costs.

 Not a bad opener because they at least tried to show their expertise. The trouble is that I am a 3 person company and the examples they used are all MASSIVE companies on the Fortune 500 list. Immediately I think, WOW – this service would be too big for me, too expensive for my budgets. So the rep’s mistake with this email is either (1) she did not target her marketing to the right buyer/prospects or (2) she mistakenly thinks I will be impressed with these references. In reality, these references scare me off. Remember that buyers want to do business with companies who understand their businesses. When the references are not relevant to the buyer they will assume you do not understand them and are therefore, not for them. This email says to me that this company and rep do not understand my small business, only big business.

 The following is a brief example X presentation that speaks to our value: View the X message for Engage Selling

 I like the fact that they customized this link, BUT whose “value” are they talking about? They don’t know what I value so how can they say this speaks to “value”? The only value that counts is the value in the client cares about. Providing an example should be step 2 of the sales process. Completed after a full qualification is completed. Then the examples can be fully customized based on the client need and what they value. 

 Thank you for taking the time to review this. Please let me know if you are interested in learning more about the solutions we have created for our customers, and I’d be happy to forward a testimonial.

Kudos for knowing that testimonials are important. But their mistake is that testimonials should be included in this email. It’s the testimonials that will get me interested in receiving more information. How can I be interested now? I don’t know how they can help me and the only examples they gave are unrelated to my business.

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

Colleen

Dear Colleen, My manager keeps telling me that I need to pay attention to buying signals and I embarrassed to say that I don’t know what the means. Can you help? What does a buying signal look like and what should I do when I see one!  – Anne in Richmond.

Hi Anne,

Thanks for reaching out. Don’t be embarrassed, better that you ask me then never figure buying signals out at all! In my discussions with sales people notice that they often ignore buying signals from clients. Partly this is because they don’t know how to recognize and buying signal and partly because they are too wrapped up in the conversation running in our own heads.

Stop it!

Listening to the client and recognizing buying signals as your opportunity to close will help you get more deals done more quickly. To do this effetely you will need to know the signals and the appropriate responses.

Here are some common statements / signals your client may make during the sales presentation or process.

Signal: “I could likely have a few people help me with that.”
Response: “Great. Do you have their names now?”

Signal: “That would work well with my plans to…”
Response: “Tell me how.”

Note: Although this doesn’t go for the close directly is helps them reinforce the benefits, and puts them in a position where they are visualizing ownership even more.

Signal: “Mary would be the lady who would help you with the paperwork...”
Response: “Good. Tell me a little about Mary. May I have her contact information?”

Note: We want to get them involved in discussing and planning the details of the next step (meaning the sale). Also, by getting others involved, of course they’re deep into the transaction.

Possible Buying Signal:  They relate an experience with a competitor, or a similar type of product or even if it was negative. “I talked to another consultant once about this program and didn’t have a great experience.”

Response: “Oh? What happened?”

Note: This could mean that they’re open to your service, and are hesitant because they were burned before and need to be assured that you are different. You need to get the details first. Dig deep. Keep them talking. The more you have, the more you’re able to deal with reasons, not symptoms.

This month be aware of what your prospects are saying and how they could be buying signals. Your job is to keep the conversations moving towards the sale. In other words: ask questions!

Good luck! Colleen

Participate in the poll and see what other sales professionals are saying. Last week we asked:What are you doing differently to ensure you meet or exceed quota this year? Here are the results:

• Nothing. We are doing fine without changing anything: 0%
• Asking for more referrals or creating a referral program: 17%
• Increasing face-to-face visits, tradeshows and seminars: 50%
• Making more calls, working more hours: 16%
• Better targeting of prospects so we are only selling to the best potentials: 17%

A couple of polls ago, we asked what social media tool you used. This week I’d like to know if you have you been able to convert any social media leads into sales… In other words: Have you actually monetized your time on Linked-In, FaceBook and other social media tools?

Register Your Vote & See the Results!

Chris, Conrad and I are back in Ottawa and that can only mean one thing… Less than 2 weeks to go before our annual Engage Powerhouse Event featuring Sydney Biddle Barrows, Michael Hughes, Susan Berkley, Eliot Burdett, myself and a panel of Sales Experts. Chris will also be making his Powerhouse Event debut with a presentation on Tuesday afternoon on ‘Arming Your Sales Team’.

I am doing tons of research and prep for this event to make sure that you receive the best and most profitable sales advice this year. Every room in my house has become a library and research station, just look at my bedside table. Even Conrad is interested in some of my sales reading. We have just 2 seats left for this year’s event so if you want to attend please register this week.

Over the last couple weeks clients have been coming to us with questions about pricing so I thought in an effort to help you deal with pricing objections and negotiation skills I would re-print a popular article from last year. It’s full of practical advice that works so please print it out and make notes in the margin about how you will implement each strategy in your business. Then, get out there and act!

Have a super week and I’ll see many of you at the Powerhouse Event!

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

P.S. A great big “Welcome!” to all the new readers who joined the Engage community in the last couple of weeks! You’re going to profit greatly from the resources you’ll find here to help you get more clients… Enjoy!