I woke up on Tuesday morning to 6 cm of snow in Canmore, Alberta. Beautiful in the mountains – where it belongs! Winter is here and that can only mean one thing. The Fourth Quarter push!

If not handled correctly relationships can be strained in Q4 as you try to get the “deal done” before the end of your commission year. Why? Because clients are tempted to hold back, see how things are shaping up for their own end of year and not want to rush a purchase. You often have opposite goals.

Most companies will lower your prices and offer incentives to “buy now” – only further training clients to wait longer to buy – and risk angering everyone else that bought at full price earlier this year. My advice? Tread with caution for the next 2 months; be creative, think long term, and don’t act hastily! Consider all the effects of your actions. Not just the short term relief of getting paid on the deal next week.

Over the years we have compiled a list of successful ways to get past this end of year blues. And, I thought I would remind you to revisit the article today. The list is complied both from my own experience and that of our own Engage community members. It’s relevant whether this is the end of your month, your year or any quarter in your businesses fiscal. I would love to have your ideas to add to the list.

If you have a suggestion that everyone can use to get past the end of the quarter blues and make sales, while enhancing your client relationships please share them with us – dd your comments below! If we use your submission on our blog, I will reward you with fabulous prizes!

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

Participate in Our Poll!

Participate in the poll and see what other sales professionals are saying. Last newsletter we asked: What do you use as a creative yet appropriate email sign-offs for prospective customers? Here are the results:

• Regards: 28%
• Sincerely: 8%
• Thanks: 32%
• Cheers: 8%
• Others…: 24%

This week, I have a request from a client this week that I thought I would put out to you: How often do you use client testimonials when selling? Vote and see how you compare to the rest of the Engage community…

Register Your Vote & See the Results!

Yesterday at the airport I listened in on a sales call. Nope….I was not wiretapping eavesdropping or anything else sinister. In fact I could not help but listen because the rep was beside me and speaking on her speaker phone. This is unacceptable sales behaviour.  Ignoring the obvious privacy violations, the lack of call quality its self is enough to drive the prospect into the arms of a competitor.  

A month ago, a sales rep was cutting his finger nails next to me on the plane

Last week I was listening to sales calls and could hear the reps eating lunch on the phone as they spoke to clients.

These are all real life examples of client repellent behaviour.

In sales, your goal is to create a situation in which the customer is attracted to you, feels good about you, and wants to buy from you. This is the whole point of building rapport and a relationship. During the entire sales process every action you take must be working to build on that rapport. If you erode rapport, you repel the customer. And you risk losing the sale. In case you’re wondering, having a sales call on a speaker phone erodes rapport.

Sales conversations are worth doing right – or not doing at all. 

What else erodes rapport during a sales conversation?

• Cell phone going off during a meeting
• Being late
• Not finishing on time
• Making sales calls in noisy areas, or outside even if you are using a headset
• Not remembering who the prospect is when they call you back (a downside of not having a good database system to track your outbound calls)
• Not thanking customers for their time, their orders or their referrals
•  Not taking notes
• Poor personal hygiene – including scufy dress and dirty shoes
• Yawning
• Coffee and / or cigarette breath

Help a fellow sales professional out and add to this list! My goal is to eradicate sales repellent behaviours – and first we need know what they are.

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

Colleen

Thanks to Lori Richardson at www.scoremoresales.com for announcing that Salesforce.com has just released a “kinder gentler” version of their best in class CRM specifically for entrepreneurs with just 1-2 seats needed. In fact just the other day a micro business asked me to recommend a small scale CRM and I excluded Salesforce because I didn’t know about this option! OOPS – better stay on top of things this fall…

The new edition, called “Contact Manager” is only $9 per user per month. The limit is two seats, and you can upgrade as your business grows.

This is a very simple way to finally get your sales data into a CRM that can help you make sales.  Features according to Salesforce.com include:

• Contacts and Accounts – Contact Manager Edition lets users store and manage their contacts and accounts in the cloud so they can access this information regardless of location.
• Outlook and E-mail Integration – Track communications from Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo or any e-mail system, keeping a complete record of customer interactions. One you have integrated with outlook you have full integration with you smart phone making this app portable!
• Reporting – Run pre-configured and customized reports on your contacts, accounts, and associated activities.
• Customization – Contact Manager Edition can be tailored to track the data that is most important for your company’s particular needs.
• Google Apps – Contact Manager Edition includes built-in integration with Google Apps.

You can sign up for a free trial and be started in 1 day.  Try it out and let me know what you think.

Cheers Colleen

Are you ready to make some money?  Join me  for the 3rd Annual Business Optimization Week. This year’s event is very exciting with 15 phenomenal speakers and authors – including me! Stacey Hylen has put a lot of work into making this just as successful as the past events and with your promotions it can be successful for you too.

Mark your calendars! The event begins Monday, October 26th and continues through Friday, October 30th. For a list of the speakers along with their topics visit:

http://businessoptimizationweek.com

…And if you are unable to listen live you are in luck.

All the speaker presentations will be recorded and available to you for an incredible price of only $97.

All 5 days which includes 15 speakers for the incredible price of $97 and you will have the opportunity to listen to the recordings at your leisure and as often as you choose.

http://businessoptimizationweek.com

Hope to hear you on the calls!

Colleen