Selling to Consumers | Sales Training Blog by Skip Anderson

Fight Routine Customer Experience Syndrome (RCES)

My 83-year-old mother had surgery on her leg this week.

As I sat with her preparing and waiting for her surgical procedure, I got the sense that the hospital staff didn't care all that much about her or her experience. Everything was very routine, very bland, and very "procedural."

The second nurse that came in to her prep are and started putting stuff on her and taking her temperature and so on. What was missing? How about a nice, friendly, greeting? How about, "Good morning! It's so nice to have you here!" or "Marjorie, my name is so-and-so, and I'm here to help you get ready for your procedure this morning!". How about a smile (with direct eye contact)?!?

All of us in business (or customer service, or healthcare, or hospitality) must fight Routine Customer Experience Syndrome (RCES). What might very well be routine for you as a service provider, may very well not be routine for your customer. So please treat your customer (or subject or patient or guest) accordingly.

The only thing that should be routine in your business is how your fulfillment systems work flawlessly and with no errors (delivery or installation or checkout or surgery or whatever is the fulfillment system in your line of work). Your human interaction with your customer should be overflowing with personalization, sincerity, and fun...not routineness.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

A Favorite Sales Question

Here's the scenario: You're working with a prospect, and you're winding down the "investigation for needs and desires" (my term for finding out what they want). Before you wrap this phase of the sales interaction up, though, ask one of my favorite sales questions:

"What else should I be asking you?"

Many, even most, of your prospects will say something like "I can't think of anything." But some percentage of your prospects will hit you up with some amazing clues into their psyche. I once had a prospect say, "You should ask me if we can afford this." So I asked them. And they said, "No, we can't afford this."

That led me to ask, "Then why am I here talking with you today?"

Sales conversations can take such interesting twists and turns. But these twists and turns are often more than just interesting; they're vital in understanding your prospect, their needs, and their ability to pay for your product or service.

I credit the question "What else should i be asking you" for some of my sales success. Ask the question. It will help you, too.

It also works well if you're an interviewer interviewing a job candidate, or if you're a job candidate at a job interview. It also works when you're talking to a potential new vendor.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

B2C Selling Group on LinkedIn

If you're on LinkedIn, please join the brand new LinkedIn group, "Selling to Consumers." The group (free, of course) is for salespeople who sell to consumers, and also sales managers, business owners, sales trainers, consultants, and coaches. Join here.

If you sell retail, real estate, insurance, financial products, or do fundraising or sell in customers' homes, this group will give you a connection to others in the B2C sales community. Please join us.

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Get Coached!

I turn average salespeople into top performers. I have three sales coaching client openings. Typically, we meet weekly on the phone for one hour, but some of my clients do it differently. Please contact me here for more information. Ask about sales coaching in your message.

2008 isn't over yet. There's still one-sixth of the year left...make it count.

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Make More Appointments

My friend Tibor Shanto is presenting "The Ultimate Appointment Making Workshop" in Markham (Toronto) Ontario, Canada on November 28, 2008. Go  here to get more information.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Golly, I Wish I Had ED

Erectile Dysfunction drug advertisements are plentiful on television, at least here in the U.S. These ads have been successful at selling to consumers. They're so plentiful that they're starting to work on me...and I don't even have ED.

I find the many lovey-dovey couples they show on these ads interesting. Look at how happy they are! They look at each other with smiles as big as footballs, and they can't keep their hands off each other! What happy lives they lead!

My wife and I smile at each other only occasionally; and we usually keep our hands to ourselves.

Maybe an ED drug would help our relationship?!? (Don't get me wrong; my wife and I have an awesome marriage; it's just that we're pretty much over over the "smile at each other" stage of a relationship, and we're also pretty much over the "put hands on each other" phase, too).

These advertisements succeed (even to consumers who don't need their products) for two reasons: (1) Their frequency allows them entry into consumers' active attention; (2) They unabashedly present their product with confidence.

We can all learn from the ED drug ads. If we advertise, we should make sure the frequency of our advertising is sufficient to break through all the advertising noise our market is regularly exposed to. And we should present our product with poise and confidence and with no apologies.

I wonder how much money the pharmaceutical industry makes off of ED drug sales to customers who don't have ED. I bet there's some profit there...thanks to the power of [effective] advertising.

Flickr photo by John Worsley. Share your comments by clicking on "comments" below. If you you use Digg or Stumble Upon, please consider using the Share This button (below) so others can find this post.

Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

The Ultimate Business Book

Philip Calvert is putting together a book of business tips (each tip is just one or two paragraphs). Proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to charity. Each contributor has to agree to sell ten of the books once it's published.

I was the first to contribute a sales tip to the book. If you'd like to contribute your sales tip, go to the LinkedIn groups page for The Ultimate Business Book and post your tip there.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Bob Beck: An Apparent Case of Plagiarization

There's been some disturbing news this week. There appears to be credible evidence that sales trainer Bob Beck has been plagiarizing other writers' work, and in at least one case, selling the work for his own profit.

To familiarize yourself with this story, read Charles H. Green's The Case of Bob Beck  at Trusted Advisor Associates. You can read the same article, but with different reader comments at The Customer Collective. (thanks to Dave Stein for pointing out the duplicate posts). Charles is an apparent victim of Bob Beck's plagiarization.

Dave Stein is also apparently a victim. Read his post from last month on Dave Stein's blog.

Geoffrey James has information about Bob Beck. Read his post at Sales Machine.

To add insult to injury, Beck's blog is titled "The CEO's Trusted Advisor;" And he's the author of the book "Mutual Respect."

Fellow bloggers, please spread the word about this story so it receives the attention it deserves.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Pants On Fire

There's an nice article by Marvin M. Lipman, M.D., in the latest Consumer Reports On Health newsletter about medical patients lying to their physicians. It's titled, "The Truth Shall Set You Free."

"Some patients do it because of shame, guilt, or fear of offending the physician. A desire to impress can also prompt lying. Side effects prompt still other patients to stop medications without telling their doctor."

Customers lie to salespeople, too. I wish they didn't, but they just do. It's a fact of selling. It doesn't mean they're bad people; it just means they're human beings.

Common lies to sales people:

- "I have to talk to my husband."
- "I need to think about it."
- "I want to get a couple other bids."
- "We want to get this going ASAP."

Don't take everything your prospects say at face value. To be effective, you must know the truth about your prospects, but to get to the truth you must be perceptive, skeptical, and wise.

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"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."

-Galileo

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

How Did We Leave THAT Off Our List?

I'm on a governing board of a non-profit organization, and last week we had a day-long workshop for all leaders of the organization. The purpose of the event was to build community, share and learn about various initiatives within the organization, and garner commitment from all participants to move forward together.

During one activity of the day, a facilitator asked us us to identify the important traits of a successful governing board or committee. Eighty participants started shouting out their suggestions to the facilitator, who wrote them on a whiteboard. Here were some of the responses:

"All members of the committee are committed to the cause of the committee"

"Respect for other members"

"Show love and compassion for others"

"Have fun"

"Understand the issues at hand"

"Meet regularly"

"Be respectful of participants' time"

"Be organized"

"Support each other"

"Let people know when the meetings are held"

"Have an agenda and follow it"

"Keep accurate minutes"

Eventually, the suggestions started to dwindle. With twenty-five responses or so on our list, I noticed a glaring omission from it. So I offered my suggestion:

"Accomplish something."

I think all eighty participants began to chuckle or laugh, because they suddenly realized that the community list that had been generated was all about the "means to an end" and not "the end." Several people leaned over to me and said, "How on earth could we leave that off our list?!?"

I agree with everything on our list, but we were missing an opportunity to acknowledge that achievement and accomplishment were why we had these boards and committees in the first place. Our entire reason for existence is to get stuff done!

This isn't just a familiar dynamic in nonprofit organizations; focusing on the means to an end instead of the endgame itself happens in for-profit companies and sales groups, too. Sometimes groups get focused on distracting minutia.

The endgame in selling is to close the sale and to sell more this year than last year. If the minutia in your organization isn't helping you do that, then you've got to ignore it, set new priorities for yourself and your group, and move ahead with processes and systems that will help you to meet your business goals...your endgame. Keep your business priorities sharply in focus.

Get stuff done today!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Read the Sales Articles in the Free "Top Sales Expert" eBook

The Top Sales Experts just released their new eBook today, the Fall 2008 edition. It's a free download and everybody should download it! It's got 49 articles by 49 sales experts!

I have the honor of having the very first article in the book: "Using a Difference List to Talk About Your Competition and Strengthen your Team."

Some of the articles are more appropriate for business-to-consumer salespeople, but I've just done a quick look-through, and there are many articles that apply perfectly to business-to-consumer selling. Download it now! It's an opportunity for absolutely free learning with absolutely no strings attached!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Selling is a Process

Okay, so this guy who attended one of my sales seminars told the group about how he acted as contractor for his home. He had been a novice, but had thought he could handle it.

Everything was going fine until he realized the drywall crew put up the drywall before the electricians wired the outlets and switches. Why? Because he got the steps of the process wrong (and the drywall crew didn't bother to speak up). Electrical wiring has to go in before the drywall; it doesn't work the other way around. (I !appreciate him admitting his mistake in public!)

Selling is a process, too. But a lot of salespeople I see seem to look at selling as a random conversation. Randomness doesn't work as well as a well-designed process.

If you see selling as a random interaction, you would be well served to view selling instead as a series of steps. Visualize a staircase, with the steps representing advancing stages in the selling process. The steps are part of a bigger whole, but each "step" is important if you want to reach the top of the stairs.

Selling is a process!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

A Seth Godin Audiobook for Under a Buck

I've been following Seth Godin for several years. Although he's not a sales trainer per se, he's got a reliably sharp mind and he makes me think, which are two things I value in authors, speakers, and gurus.

I just bought his latest book, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, in audiobook form from iTunes for less than one dollar.

Although I haven't listened to it yet, based upon the quality of Seth's books and the quality of his thinking, I feel comfortable making this recommendation to you: Rush to the iTunes store and buy the audiobook (or buy the book version at Amazon for about twelve bucks) before someone realizes it's priced way, way under its market value. It's not a sales book, but I feel confident anybody in business will gain knowledge from hanging around with Seth Godin or one of his books. And, at an investment of only ninety-five cents, you're bound to come out ahead.

If you get Tribes, I'd love to see you come back to this site and share your impression of the book with other Selling to Consumers Blog readers.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Customer Engagement: It's Like The Baker's Oven

My wife and I went shopping for furniture the other night. The good news is we found a bunch of stuff we like. The bad news is that none of the salespeople we talked to engaged us.

Customer engagement is as important in selling as an oven is to a pastry chef. Without the oven, the baker merely has a raw, floury substance -inedible and useless. Despite the quality of ingredients used in the chef's concoctions, It takes the oven to catapult the ingredients into a form that is both luscious and attractive.

Without customer engagement, you merely have two parallel realities: the customer's and the salesperson's. Engagement is what melds the two into one unified relationship. Whether you meet with your customer for three minutes (as in a telemarketing phone call) or three hours (as in an in-home consultation to discuss the remodeling of a customer's home), the salesperson's engagement of the prospect is key.

- How can the prospect get to like us and trust us unless we engage her in the process first?
- How can we understand the unique characteristics of the prospect and his needs unless we engage him first?
- How can we pre-qualify the customer unless we engage her first?
- How can we determine what product or service solutions to present unless we engage the prospect first?

As sales professionals, we need our prospects to be actively (not passively) engaged in the buying/selling process. Higher engagement yields higher sales success.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

What is Your Body Language Telling Your Customers?

Differences in body language were obvious in the last presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. Regardless of your political beliefs, you've got to agree that Obama's body language was calm and measured, while McCain's was agitated and sometimes seemed almost angry.

How you, as the viewer, react to these two different styles of body language depends to some extent on your biases and political views. To many, McCain seemed crotchety and unnecessarily negative, while to others, it may have indicated that he was "a fighter" or "tough." Obama's ability to not appear to get rattled probably won him points with people who think the Commander-In-Chief should be measured and calm in the face of adversity, while others may wonder why he didn't bite back more aggressively.

Body language is important in interpersonal communication, and it's important in selling, too. Whenever I video record one of my speeches or sales seminars, I always learn something about my body language. I may recognize a funny face I made when an attendee asked me a question, or an inappropriate smirk I displayed when discussing a particular topic. Seeing how your body language and facial expressions impact your audience is very helpful because these actions can be managed, just like any other human behavior, but first you've got to understand your own body's "language."

Become aware of your body language and facial expression. Then, identify areas for improvement, and then set out to make appropriate changes so your body language can help you in your sales efforts.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Get Up Off Your Butt Today

Economic times are challenging; I get that. Need some inspiration?

Here's a video about a fellow Minnesotan who might inspire you to get up off your butt today and do something to take care of business.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

The Tale of Two Signs

Here's a house in the city I live in that has two political signs in its yard. The candidates on the two signs are from opposing parties running for the same office, yet they were posted in the yard of the same home.

I'm going to assume one member of this household supports one candidate while another member supports the other candidate (not that the household has trouble saying no to political door-knockers who ask to install lawn signs). Of course, this is their right, even though their votes will cancel each other out.

In business, we simply can't afford to have people in our organizations whose votes cancel each other out. I'm not talking about politics here, I'm talking about initiatives within your organization that are important to management. Everybody in the organization has to be pointed in the same direction. The leader of the organization is the one responsible for painting a picture of the future for all of employees to see and understand, and making sure consistent progress is being made toward the goals of the organization.

If your company isn't making the progress you want it to, here's the first place to look: Look for employees, or groups of employees, whose efforts ("votes") are being canceled out not by another employee or group of employees, not by insubordination, but by of a lack of clarity of goals or inconsistent management decisions.

It's okay to have opposing political signs in your yard. But in your business, you'd better make sure everybody is actively supporting the same initiatives, or your company will suffer. Don't be your own worst enemy!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Eye Contact in Selling

I've been studying the role of eye contact in human interaction, and in particular, in selling. When communicating with another human being, eye contact can help shape and define the perceptions of the participants, and help determine the outcome of the interaction.

When another individual is communicating with us, but he won't look at us directly in our eyes, we sense that the speaker is distancing himself from what he is saying. Therefore, it's important for salespeople to use eye contact to help establish rapport with customers and also further the sales process. Direct eye contact can also be a sign of aggressiveness, so when to use and when not to use direct eye contact is an important consideration in selling.

I think direct eye contact is beneficial during the following:

1. When establishing rapport. Direct eye contact, along with proper facial expression, can help establish trust and comfort early in an interaction.

2. When doing a presentation. When you're presenting your product or service, direct eye contact is important not only to help your ideas transfer to the prospect's thinking, but also so you can judge the prospect's reaction to what you're saying.

3. When closing. You've got to believe your product or service is appropriate for the customer, your eyes are the window to your soul! This is not the time for eye-shyness!

One last thought: I bought a new laptop a couple weeks ago. The salesperson did a good job with me, but when he got to presenting his maintenance plan, his eyes focused nervously on the brochure, not on me. My recommendation? Forget about the brochure, look the prospect directly in the eye, and explain the benefit of the program, then ask for the sale.

Here's an interesting post on eye contact.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Status Quo Paralysis

Years ago, I coined the term Status Quo Paralysis. It describes the paralysis that exists in prospects who have a need or desire for your product, but don't buy to solve that need or desire because they're reluctant to change. Purchasing requires change. Change reluctance creates status quo paralysis. This is a powerful force in consumers' minds. It derails countless sales interactions every year.

Status Quo Paralysis can be overcome! It's usually only like a bump in a road. The best remedy is prevention, and the best prevention is a well-conceived, strategic sales process that creates enough sales momentum to get the prospect easily over that bump. The result is a happy customer (who got over their change reluctance) and another sales for the sales person.

Seth Godin has a great post about customer indecision that is disguised as a post about the upcoming presidential election in the U.S. 

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Skip Anderson: Maverick

The word "maverick" has been in the news a lot lately, at least here in the U.S. But does calling yourself a maverick really mean that you are one? And even if you are, does it matter to your market?

I don't know if I'm a maverick; but it sure was easy to put type it as the title of this post. It's easy to say what you are, but difficult to actually be what you say.

It's easy to call your company innovative, but is it true? Does the marketplace want you to be innovative in the first place? When you call your company customer-focused, are you? Do you really think outside the box? Are your employees really empowered? When you say you're money-motivated in a job interview, are you? Is your sale really a sale, or is it just your normal selling price?

If you're going to define yourself with a word, make sure you live up to that word. If you do, it can be a great leap forward for your brand. Otherwise, it's just part of the irritating and omnipresent noise that permeates our collective ears.

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Skip Anderson is a maverick and is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Be Careful What You Put On Your Real Estate Sign

I was out for a walk and saw this real estate "for sale" sign. Be careful what you put on your real estate yard sign!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Make It Verbal

Top salespeople get their prospects to verbalize their needs and desires, even if they are obvious. During the act of verbalization, the need becomes more concrete and better defined in the prospect's own thinking, and the salesperson gains insight into the customer's perspective.

I often hear salespeople say "Oh, I know exactly what he needs; he needs [insert need here]." But selling isn't about what the salesperson knows, it's about what the prospect knows. It's common that these two perspectives don't match, but the prospect's perspectives wins every time.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers,  a B2C sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Selling to Consumers Sales Tips Newsletter.

Selling Financial Products and Services

With all the uncertainty in the economy and financial markets, this is the perfect time for financial services people to redesign their sales approach. Even clients who traditionally have had a high tolerance for risk have a new mindset these days.

Today, financial salespeople need to get prospects to verbalize their fears more than ever before. The worst possible strategy is to pretend concerns and fears do not exist. What can be verbalized can be examined and explored; what remains hidden from view in the professional/client relationship can cause the business relationship to go south.

Explore worst case scenarios. Ask tough questions. Encourage tough questions from your clients. Get everything out on the table. Encourage and welcome objections.

Consumer confidence is low; but that doesn't mean you can't create strong confidence in your knowledge and expertise.

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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.