Studies in persuasion technology show that what you expect tends to be realized. I call this the Law of Expectation, which is also one of the tenants of sales.

As a sales professional, your expectations influence reality. I recently came across a movie called, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" It explains how our thoughts and intentions shape our reality. If you haven’t seen the movie, I urge you to do so. (You can go to http://www.whatthebleep.com/ to learn more.)

The movie explains that human behavior is directly related to how others expect us to perform. As an example, there was once a study in which first grade students were told that blue-eyed kids are smarter than brown-eyed kids. The blue-eyed children subsequently scored better on tests than their brown-eyed peers.

After several months they decided to bring the children together and tell them that what they'd told them before was wrong. This time, they said that all children are born with blue eyes and the more we learn the more our eyes turn brown, so brown-eyed children are smarter. Just as predicted, the blue-eyed children started to have trouble with their studies and the brown-eyed children improved.

So what might happen if you truly believe you're a great salesperson? What if you were to see, hear and experience every prospect as a great candidate? How do you do this? One way is to make a great first impression; it’s the moment where the Law of Expectation has the greatest impact on your performance. You communicate your expectations by your word choices, voice inflection and body language. When you expect your prospects to buy, all your actions will lead them in the right direction.

Before each sales meeting, try asking yourself, "How do I expect this sales process to go?" If your other-than-conscious mind feeds back a negative response, mentally rehearse the end result you want in full color with sound and feeling. You may want to imagine the prospect signing an order form or handing you a check. Now picture yourself smiling and shaking hands with your new customer. Know that you’ve just done a great service. When you spend time rehearsing success, you’ll be comfortable with it when it happens.

Small Business Building

Appraisal Institute, Home Appraisal

Real Estate Schools, Home Building Inspectors

Logical levels? What is that, you might ask? It is a model created by Robert Dilts, a pioneer in the field of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) after studying Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). Some believe that Bateson will before long (presumably in the 21st century) come to be recognised posthumously as "another Einstein of the 20th century" or even as beyond him. Bateson part Anthropologist, Social Scientist, Cyberneticist, was one of the most important social scientists of this century.

With this background in mind, Dilt’s created a learning model called “Neorological Levels.” My persupposition in this article is that, in the consultive sale you uncover the need. This is the first level in the nuerological levels. If the person you are selling to doesn’t live in the “envorionment” where your product of service is needed, you will not get any further.

Once you have uncovered the “need” for your service. Your customer will start to evaluate your behavior. This is where the skills of rapport come in. Your prospect will evaluate how consistant are you with your method of delivery. This can be real or synthetic as NLP teaches. You can match body posture, tone and tempo and even breathe like they do. But this will only work for small ticket items. When selling as a consultant, your true nature will be revealed. This is where the skilled salesperson is head and shoulders above the rookie. You can’t fake it while your making it. In fake, it is better to lay your cards on the table and let them know you are a rookie. You will then be using this logical level of behavior to your advantage. People by their very nature want to help. They will help you close the sale.

Once you have worked through the first two levels of environment and behavior, you will start interacting with their beliefs and values. If you are positioning your product in alignment with their values, it will fit into their beliefs. The natural salesperson does this by nature. The prospect is using words like challenge, freedom or flexibilty. Each of these words are hot buttons for that person and they also relate to their beliefs and values. You would do well to listen for these words I term Impact words in my book, “Awaken the Genius.”

As you iteract on these first three levels in sales, you are getting to know one another -- figuring out if you can do business together.

As you understand this level of learning, you will ask questions to educate and lead the prospect. Hence, to do this, you should be using the ABC of sales. Always be closing. This allows you to know if they have the capacity to make the decision to buy or not. Which is the next level. If they are not the decision maker you should work to empower them to get that person or group involved.

Once you have everyone who will be making the decision involved, it is time to ask the need-payoff questions. This is a series of questions that once the prospect answers them they are identifying with your product or service. Identifying is the next step in the logical level process. If they don’t have the need they will not identify. If they don’t think they or their company can demonstrate the behaviors necessary they will not identify. If your product or service is not in alignment with their values and beliefs they will not identify.

That means, it is your task in the sales setting to get these four specific areas to align and it will move your prospect beyond identifying and they will become part of your sales force -- helping to refer family members, business associates and staff members and it all started with the idea of educating, enlightening and motivating them to buy your product or service.

Appraisal Institute, Home Appraisal

Real Estate Schools, Home Building Inspectors

Chicago Title Company, Commonwealth Title

Sales are the life force of any business. Here’s an outline of the key factors in getting them for your business.

Persistence

Business owners and decision makers are typically very busy people. Often, the difference between making a sale and not making a sale is catching the decision maker at the right time. One of the best ways to catch a decision maker at the right time is to catch him or her many times. Of course, you do not want to be contacting a prospect so often that you become an annoyance. Still, using a combination of phone calls, emails, faxes and snail mails you can ensure your prospect remembers your company when the time comes to purchase the product or service you sell.

Organization

One of the most important aspects of following up is being organized. There is a great variety of software to help you get your lead management in order, but all lead management software is not created equal. One feature to look for in lead management software is portability. Web based systems allow users to access their leads from any Internet connected computer. Another feature to look for is built in document management. Ideally, your lead management software will allow you to easily send emails, faxes and snail mails and document the contact automatically. A good scheduling tool is also a great asset to lead management software.

Follow Up and Consistency

Once you have contacted your lead, make sure to let them know when you will follow up again and follow through. Setting a time and day to follow up and then following through will build trust with your prospect. Just doing what you say you'll do is a huge source of confidence to prospective clients. After following up several times at the same time and day of the week, your prospect will come to expect your contact. Use this to build rapport. Become involved in your prospect's life and you are much more likely to make a sale. Use your lead management software to make notes about your conversations. Other wise, it is very difficult to remember the details of every conversation you may have. By following up and staying in front of your prospects, you will make more sales. The more familiar your prospects are with your company and products or services, the more likely they are to choose your company. Using the right lead management software can make the task of following up a breeze.

Commercial Bank, Finance

Homeowner Insurance Rates, Group Insurance

Health Insurance Brokers, Automobile Insurance

Sales cycles vary but it is important that you understand how much revenue your average small-business client is going to generate during a 12-month period. You need to know how long it takes to earn revenue from the point your prospect enters the sales cycle. 

Your sales cycle starts when you receive the initial lead and doesn't end until the point where that person writes their first deposit check and signs their first contract with you. The sales cycle encompasses all the time and energy you put into changing the relationship from a lead to a paying customer.

When you first start your business it will be your responsibility to estimate the total sales cycle time.  You want to know how long it's going to take to go though the sales cycle with an average lead.
Each section of the sales cycle involves time.  Things to consider include:

How long are you typically in a qualification stage? 
How long does it take you set the appointment? 
How long does it take you to do some pre sales-call research to understand what you're up against before you walk in the door?
How long does it take you to do the sales call? 
How many weeks are you on the sales call in the deep analysis and proposal?
How long is your follow-up cycle?

You should also consider what kind of funds are going to be required for each stage of the sales cycle and what activities you will need to do in order to convert leads into paying clients.

The Bottom Line on the Sales Cycle

Knowing the average time of your sales cycle is a large part of the business planning process. You won't know exact numbers but you need to estimate the total time involved.  Think about how long you're going to be at different stages of the sales cycle.  Knowing how much time each stage of sales cycle is going to take will help you figure out how long it's going to take to start generating revenue and producing a positive cash flow.

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Group Life Insurance, Life Assurance

Discount Car Insurance, Life Insurance Brokers

Cancer Palliative Care, Hospice Nursing

Copyright © 2006 John Horsch

When I create a sales page I have an overall plan in my mind, a basic concept of what I want to say, this plan usually evolves as I proceed on the copy, the words seeming to come out of thin air. I think this is due to the years I have spent writing copy and, at first failing, but never giving up. Sure I had my moments, most do. I felt like I had just created the most finely crafted sales page ever and nobody was buying, I was confused and even frustrated. I look back now at some of the web copy I created and laugh. It took me years to finally understand HOW to use certain words and the true power these words have when used properly, and used in the PROPER location on the web page. Of course, you MUST know your product, if you don't know what your selling there is no way you can write an effective sales page that sells.

My first draft I don't worry about spelling or cap's I just want the words to flow and get them down. Nor am I too concerned at this time about structure, these things can be worked out later. It can take me from 4 to12 hours just to create a one page sales page, and then days going back over it and tweaking the wording, the structure, the look and the overall feel of the sales page. Think that's too long? It's not, we are talking about making money here. The lifeblood of making money online is your sales page. Then I go back over what I have written and try to structure it from the customers eye. If I was a newbie reading this page would it overwhelm me? Is it too long and boring? Does it look funny? I ask myself these type of questions as I review my work.

Your sales page structure can be as important as the actual copy. There is a fine balance between too much ad copy and too little, this is something I battle every time I craft a sales page. Usually...no always I feel like I have too much copy, but at the same time I want to capture all the benefits of my product for the customer. Customers have different needs, different ideas on what they want, one thing on my sales page may not appeal to one prospect as much as it does the other.  More questions I ask myself- Have you created excitement at the top of your page? Have you "drawn-in" your prospect in the middle and kept them wanting more? Structuring your sales page properly can make the whole "sales" process much more enjoyable to your prospects, thereby creating a sale.

When crafting copy for a sales pages make sure to describe your product fully and tell your potential customer exactly why they need it. Capitalize and Bold a few key words throughout your sales page and be sure to use Trigger words within your sales page. If you can master the use of trigger words, and there placement, your sales will jump significantly.

Here is one of my favorite trigger sentences:
Don't waste another SECOND! Take ADVANTAGE of the LOW Introductory Price NOW!!

Notice how I capitalized and bolded a few keywords. You want to do this only on words that convey action or create curiosity in some way. Trigger means to trigger a sale... in an instant, that's our goal. They are particularly effective near the bottom, right before your payment link. Take the time to practice these techniques for a long successful online experience and watch your sales go up...up...up.

Online Stock Brokers, Online Stock Trading

Senior Retirement Living, Senior Retirement Home

Liability Adjusters, Insurance Claims

In the current complex and competitive market, managing the sales process is an important factor for most businesses. By automating a company’s sales process and efforts, one can increase its productivity.

Sales Force Automation, or SFA, is a technique used in marketing and business that automates the business tasks of sales. Sales tasks that can be automated might include contact management, order taking and fulfillment, information sharing, inventory monitoring, sales forecast analysis, and employees’ performance evaluations. Using SFA improves the efficiency and effectiveness of a sales team by streamlining and speeding up processes and eliminating errors. Through this technology, a sales force can have access to the latest information regarding customers' accounts and pricing.

SFA is almost like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which covers a vast array of topics, including areas of sales effectiveness, customer service, and marketing management. Certainly in business, each second is valuable and you can’t waste it searching for information. You can save time and money as Sales Force Automation provides optimized communication services. You also get complete management capabilities for applications and users. SFA helps you in improving customer satisfaction and it also increases sales force productivity.

Currently there are a number of SFA software solutions on the market. These software solutions help sales people take better care of their customers. They change routine aspects of sales and marketing functions such as lead assignment, contact follow-up, and opportunity reporting. Good SFA electronically manages all sales activities within a company. It is a methodology that enables sales personnel to concentrate on selling by providing tools to obtain very efficient information exchange in the sales cycle. Earlier sales force automation software installations were designed for the desktop or laptop and were not easily accessible by hand held devices. With the advancement in web based SFA technology, sales representatives can use Pocket PCs to record orders on the spot. These order details can be sent back to the system in real time over a network such as GPRS.

SFA can help sales people to manage customer interaction throughout the sales cycle, from primary contact through post-sale service. SFA applications serve two different users within a company, sales managers and sales representatives, who have changeable requirements. Sale force automation is essential in those industries where the direct field sales force tends to be high and account management is important. Pharmaceutical companies and manufacturing industries have obtained significant returns on sales force automation investments.

Before opting for any SFA software, research your options. A good sales force automation solution should have features such as multiple sales processing options and the ability to use multiple information sources. It should help in providing automation of customer assignments and field accessed decision support.

A sales force automation solution that is web enabled is at a huge advantage to those that are not. Web capability allows access to information and forms anywhere, anytime and also tools for accurate sales and demand forecasting. There must be strong security and flexibility to support new data and functionality without a large scale redesign of the system.

When choosing a sales force automation solution, keep in mind your clients and your sales force. Without flexibility to meet their needs precisely, you are likely to lose efficiency in the sales process. Choosing a flexible option will ensure your system will grow with your company.

Jumbo Mortgage Lenders, Loan Rates

Hertz Truck Rental, Moving Trucks

Windshield Replacement Nj, Glass Repair

Want to learn how capture and nurture three-quarters of the sales lead market through effective communication efforts?

First, you must learn to slow down. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? The same principles learned within that fable can be applied to your business marketing strategies today. While business-to-business marketers race to snatch up the most promising and qualified short-term prospects that come in from any marketing-lead-generation initiative, nearly three-quarters of the sales leads that can convert to sales are being heavily ignored. Why? Because salespeople are measured and paid for winning the race for short-term sales, usually causing them to focus on the easy sales opportunities and to ignore the longer term prospects. And because there usually is no process in place, the job of nurturing, managing and tracking the longer-term pipeline opportunities falls by the wayside. This lack of a sales leads development process may be costing your organization big bucks in lost sales.

Do you have the patience to move slowly and steadily for the sales in those longer-term sales leads? Or have you, in essence, ended the race to win these latter-day sales? Industry experts estimate that only one-quarter of those who are going to buy do so in the first six months. Yet, roughly another quarter buys within a seven to 12-month period, another quarter buys in a 13 to 18-month period and the final quarter will purchase sometime after 18 months. If your organization's concentration is on the first quarter, for quick selling turnaround, you are leaving the remainder of those sales leads (three out of four sales opportunities) out there for your competition to pick up. These longer-term sales leads must be nurtured with a series of communications efforts designed to move prospects along in their buying cycles. In other words, the philosophy to getting your share of those future sales is simple-stay in sight, stay in mind and stay in the race.

Here are 4 questions to ask yourself when designing your sales lead nurturing programs:

1. 1. How do we best deliver messages to the people who will influence or make the final buying decisions?
2. 2. How do we stay with them as they move through their consideration and buying process?
3. 3. How can we communicate in a way that addresses the prospects' issues and reduces the perceived risk of buying from our company?
4. 4. What can we offer that will cause the prospects to engage when they are ready to move forward with their buying process?

Want to engage prospects and start a sales-winning relationship with sales leads? Here’s how: Use a series of ongoing communications-by mail, e-mail or phone-designed to keep pace with the prospects' information needs to make decisions about your kinds of products or services. I've found that, as an added benefit, sales revenue per customer is usually significantly higher for those who are included in the prospect relationship-marketing program versus those who are not. Be sure to include multiple offers that appeal to all stages of a prospect's buying process. For example, if prospective customers are still early in their buying process, they will be more receptive to offers for free information in the form of how-to guides, white papers or e-mail newsletters. As prospects move further along in their buying process, appropriate offers may include those that require a higher level of interest or commitment on the part of the prospect. These include webinar invitations, demonstrations and checklists, and other decision-making tools. As prospects approach the buying ready point, they will be more receptive to such offers as longer, in-depth seminars, needs assessments or meetings with and getting proposals or quotations from your sales and marketing department. If you use effective and efficient relationship communication skills and not just focus your company's efforts on the easy or short-term sales leads, you can pick up the three out of four sales that others are leaving on the table. And that how you to win the business marketer's sales lead race.

Insurance Companies, Insurance

Investment Companies, Financial Advisors

Disability Insurance, Insurance Financial Planning

What’s a Targeted Selection Process?  As related to prospecting, it is a process or system of defining whom you want to call on and performing the due diligence of data procurement to understand who you are calling on and why you have chosen them.
It can be as simple as choosing an industry, picking a company name out of the yellow pages, understanding the appropriate level of contact to call on, and investigating a name that goes with the title. 
Or it can be as complex as an expensive CRM (customer relationship management) system for existing customers, defining market share of your product portfolio and routinely touching the existing base to broaden the revenue pond. 

But here’s what’s important to understand.  Your Targeted Selection Process is a separate component of your sales strategy.  It stands by itself.
But it is directly allied with your other Sales performance indicators.  The degree of success you’ll have in the business of sales is proportional to raising and maintaining these success indicators to a level more proficient than the industry norm. 
And the direction you decide to travel is strategic to the outcome.  I call it the ‘Playing Field’.  Because that’s where it all starts… it’s where the game begins.

Here’s what I mean.  There are basically (2) strategies in picking your ‘Playing Field’; a ‘Bottom-up’ approach or a ‘Top-down’ approach. 
The following is an example of a Bottom-up approach.  A Telecommunications rep initiates a telephone call into a company and asks the question “Who handles your telecommunications needs?”  Guess where they are sent?  If you said ‘office manager’ you guessed right.  If you said ‘Head Janitor’ you weren’t far off.

Is there anything ‘wrong’ with that?  Not really; it’s legal and a lot of folks out there do it. 
But let’s think through this option as a ‘Business person’ would.  Let’s study it as it relates to our sales process and individual Key Performance Indicators (KPI); Conversation-to-appointment ratio, 1st appointment to Proposal ratio, Closing ratio, sales cycle and average revenue per sale.  Because these success indicators are gateways that directly affect the outcome of a sales process.

Do your KPI’s go up or down with a bottom-up approach?  Historically, a bottom-up approach promotes a:

1.    1st appointment to Proposal ratio to decrease
2.    Closing ratio to decrease
3.    Sales cycle to increase
4.    Average revenue per sale to decrease

Bottom line, you’ll be leaving time and money on the table if you choose this Target strategy.
We’ll revisit the Conversation-to-appointment KPI in a minute.

At the other end of the Target spectrum is the ‘Top-down’ strategy for securing a new Targeted business appointment.  Let’s say that same telecommunications rep chose this approach in prospecting for new business.  The first step in this process is ‘Homework’; some due diligence prior to picking up the telephone.

Activities like:

•    Gathering a list of appropriate industries
•    Assigning the highest appropriate level of contact to each account; by company size and industry
•    Researching contact name for each appropriate title and account
•    Researching what each business does to exist and prosper

That sounds like a bit of work.  But what historically happens with a ‘Top-down’ approach in line with sales performance KPI’s?

1.    1st appointment to Proposal ratio increases
2.    Closing ratio increases
3.    Sales cycle decreases
4.    Average revenue per sale increases

OK.  We agree that’s a no-brainer.  So it all comes down to the 1st and foremost sales performance indicator, your Conversation-to-appointment ratio. 
That’s simply how many times you conduct a conversation with a target prospect versus how many times you achieve one.  And the national average on that KPI is between 4% and 18%; Top-down or Bottom up approach.  So it takes 10, 12 or 20 conversations to achieve 1 or 2 appointments.  And that’s a lot of work.  In fact, JDH Group studies show sales individuals spend an average of 50% of their time on prospecting activities, or about 22 hours per week.

That leads a sensible person to the conclusion that one needs to focus on efficiencies in Prospecting.  And to secure those ‘Competencies’ one must develop a communication ‘system’ in line with your business solutions, your ‘Top-down’ Prospect perceptions and your competitive influences. 
Not from a product/service angle, that’s ‘selling’ over the telephone.  But a communications methodology that lends itself to ‘Business acumen’; insight into what is strategic to your target prospect’s business objectives, what pains they are facing due to recent events or what changes are on the horizon that may effect their current status quo.

Next is figuring out how to communicate to your ‘Top-down’ target the prospective benefits of your product/service in terms relevant to their financial Key Performance Indicators; line items like ROI, IRR and Payback Period.  Those are success indicators that organizations rely on to measure progress toward their organizational goals.  It’s their ‘Scorecard’.

So lesson number one.  When you’re addressing a target level that has Budget authority; a President/Owner of a small company or a CFO/Controller of a medium size one, you’d better be talking terms in line with what they need to accomplish, not in a ‘sales language’ creating a prospect perception that you’re (1) don’t understand their business and (2) are simply trying to make a living.
From a 10,000 foot altitude, understand and communicate what’s on your ‘Top-down’ target prospect’s ‘Front Burner’ business objectives…not clear over in the freezer!

You can choose not to accept the standard ‘sales 101 playing field’. 
Identify your individual performance components (KPI’s) that are essential to your success and develop or seek systems to raise your competency ratios and performance efficiencies. 
And start your process by picking a ‘Top-down Playing Field’ and educating yourself to their world.

Accounting Services, Bookkeeping

Tax Accounting, Accounting Bookkeeper

Financial Services, Online Trading

You can attract far more prospects to look at your offer by providing an education than you'll ever get by simply offering your products or services. For example: Let's say you sell telephone systems, like Company X. Before discovering this concept, Company X would call hundreds of companies per day and ask if they were interested in talking about a new telephone system (product offer). They had four salespeople making hundreds of calls per day. They would get about 3 appointments per week. First of all, every company that has a phone system that is five years old or older can probably benefit from a new phone system in some way. More than 15 major providers of phone systems just ten years ago are now OUT of the phone system business. Yet the companies that have these systems, as long as they are working and they can still get used parts, might not think they need a phone system. So here's a company making hundreds of phone calls per day asking: "Would you like to talk about maybe getting a new phone system?" Anthing wrong with this process? No-- but, that's if you don't want to increase your profits and sales in 12 months flat.

Here are the three steps Company X used to its double sales, once they discovered the consumer education sales concept:

Step 1. The first thing they did was target bigger companies. The bigger the company, the bigger the phone system.

Step 2. The salespeople called the 2000 largest companies in their market with two simple questions: "Hi, we're doing our annual telephone system survey. I just need to know two things: What is the model of your phone system and how old is it?" In two days, the salespeople had a list of 508 companies with old phone systems.

Step 3. The sales representatives called on these larger companies with one offer: "We have a new educational program entitled:The nine ways you're wasting money on your voice and data spending." They then continued with: "We've been in the telephone business for ten years now and we've found that every company wastes money on their voice and data spending in at least nine areas. So we put together this educational program as a way to teach companies how to stop wasting money and start saving their valuable dollars. We do this as a public relations effort. If you ever need any help at all with your voice, data or telephone system needs, we want you to know about us. So this is simply us putting our best foot forward." This approach increased their appointment setting ten fold, from three appointments per week to 30 appointments per week. This company did $3 million the year before using this approach and put $9 million in their pipeline for the coming year in just six months of using this strategy. What kind of a free education could YOU offer that would make your prospects want to meet with you? Or respond to your ad? Or take an interest in your direct mail approach?

Important point: Sales is about building rapport, not breaking it. When you SELL, you're breaking rapport. No one wants to be "sold." When you EDUCATE, you are building rapport. In fact, studies show that your credibility increases significantly when you begin all meetings with data that is of value to the prospect- start all your meetings by teaching your prospect something, or by giving them data that proves that you've completed your homework. A newspaper company had fallen 40% in gross revenues and lost all of their profits. They used to call up clients and say: "Hi, we'd love to come and talk to you about advertising in our newspaper." They were quickly shut down and shut out. They started providing a "community educational service to help local businesses succeed, which resulted in a significant increase not just in getting in through the door see prospects, but also in sales. This client went up $100 million in sales in a single year. If your local newspaper called you up and offered to teach you the seven things that make all businesses succeed, you'd probably find that pretty hard to turn down. They'd still have to talk you into the meeting, but it would be an easier sell than talking you into an unwanted meeting to try and pitch advertising opportunities. Naturally, there's more to this and the subtleties are where you succeed, but if you embrace the concept of "educational-based-marketing" you will out-market your competitors at every turn. Think about this; what makes this strategy so powerful is that it attracts buyers before they are even thinking about buying. Educational- based marketing casts a wider net, attracts more buyers at every turn and closes a higher percent of prospects if and only if the "education" you provide is of true value. This is the least expensive, most effective marketing concept you will ever use.

Business Management Consulting, Management

Consulting Firm, Strategy Consultant

Life Insurance Companies, Insurance Sales Agent