Selling to Consumers | Sales Training Blog by Skip Anderson

Social Media Connections - an Invitation

1. First, happy Black Friday to my retailing readers. May your Friday be especially Happy Black Friday to my retailing readers. May your Friday be especially black today.

I'd like to invite you to connect with me in any or all of the following:

2. Twitter users: Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SkipAnderson

3. Digg users: Be a friend on Digg: http://digg.com/users/SkipAnderson

4. Facebook users: Be a friend on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=649053305

5. Connect with me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/skipanderson

6. A final thought: Try something new. We all get into our comfortable ruts. Break out into something new. Routine is only helpful if it works; if it needs to be freshened up, do it.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Tell Us About The Worst Boss You've Worked For

I love hearing about management blunders. I've made a few myself (don't we all?), but I think I've learned about them. The mistakes managers make that they don't learn from are often the most interesting to me.

My human nature is to identify areas of improvement and then fix them. That's how I've been wired since I was a young kid, and that's how I've been throughout my life (it's no wonder that I ended up in the training and consulting field). As I grow older, I'm realizing how special this "gift" is, because there are so many people that either (1) can't identify the root causes of problems, or (2) can't create a solution to prevent the problem from happening again. There are so many that simply keep doing the same (wrong) things over and over and over again even if they don't work.

There was a lot of drama in one company this week because the company bought a laptop for one of its salespeople. The other salespeople wondered, and eventually asked, "Why didn't I get a laptop even though I've been asking for one?" They also wondered,"What is the criteria for getting a laptop in this company so I can get one?" and, "Why did we have to find out about the laptop via the grapevine instead of via communication from management?"

It got ugly. Real ugly.

My desire is that managers everywhere will learn the value of carefully thinking through decisions and predicting likely outcomes so they can prevent this kind of thing from happening again, because unecessary drama is distracting when you're trying to achieve excellent customer service, excellent sales performance, and create a highly functional workgroup. In many companies, though, dysfunction rules the day.

Speaking of management blunders, here's an entertaining (and accurate!) description of the eight worst types of bosses to work for.

Read the article, then come back here and share your stories of the worst bosses you've worked for (you can be anonymous of course). We want to (1) empathize with you, and (2) learn from their mistakes. Let's hear your stories!

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Sales Coaching: Missing from Your Sales Management Toolkit?

Great sales coaches don't do the sale for the sales person. Rather, they explain how (and why) to do the sale. Many sales managers don't expend any effort at all to coach their sales teams.

As a sales trainer, I learned long ago that there is a big difference between teaching someone to do something and just doing it in hopes it will rub off on the other person. One methodology is effective; the other isn't very effective (which is why training programs for new sales employees that are centered around pairing a new employee with an experienced one aren't very effective).

When I was a sales manager, I was once reprimanded by the owner of the business for not stepping in and closing. "Your whole reason for being here is to close business," he told me.

I explained to my boss that I could certainly work with prospects and close business, but since there was only one of me in the company, my impact would be limited. I explained that an alternative would be for me to focus on mentoring and coaching my 25 salespeople to become better at closing their sales opportunities, thereby expanding my reach within the organization.

He didn't buy it.

The problem was that he didn't understand sales coaching. He believed the sales manager should be the top salesperson in the company. He didn't understand that a sales manager could do a better job of increasing revenue if he gets others to do the heavy lifting. [Had I known this when I interviewed with the company, I wouldn't have taken the position. I could have earned a lot more money by being the top salesperson in the company than I did by being a sales manager who was expected to have the top sales performance in the company!]

Successful sales coaches:

- Observe

- Ask

- Comment

- Listen

- Suggest

- Explore

- Teach

- Challenge

- Inspire

- Support

- Nurture

- Let sales people fail so they can learn from it

- Think about the future, not just the present.

...all with the purpose of improving sales performance.

What's missing from my list? What do you think good coaches do? Let's talk about it...

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Rejecting Yourself

Many sales people who fail to ask for the order (close the sale) do so because they are avoiding rejection. Salespeople don't like rejection (who does). But what you're actually doing is rejecting yourself.

How can you be successful in selling if you don't respect yourself enough to look your customer in the eye and ask them to buy from you?

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Can You Save the Sale?

I received a call the other day from a friend who sells office furniture in an office furniture dealership. She works in a business-to-business environment, but I think some of the elements of this question are applicable to consumer selling as well, so i'd like to share her question with you:

"My client told me that he wanted to keep his office chairs under $400, so after asking a bunch of questions and doing some research, I presented a chair to him. It has all the basic features, it's a well-made chair, and it will fit into his budget. He also didn't want his environment to look like the "Taj Mahal" so wanted a modest look in his office, which this chair would provide. He liked it and asked if he could have a sample of the chair so some of his employees could try it, so I took a few days to round one up and then got it over to him.

I thought everything was on track, but then I got a call from my client and now he wants to know about a well-known very high end chair that would cost over $1000. He said some of his employees were aware of the chair and looked it up online and they were interested in it. He wanted to know if he could get a sample of that chair, too.

What should I do now?"

So here's your challenge: Come up with an answer to my friend's question.

When you're ready to see my answer, go here.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Sell More

So the economy is tough. I get that. I've even written about the bad economy in this blog.

But sales people need to sell more, even in a less than desirable economic conditions. So all of us who sell need to wrap our collective arms around moving forward, and not get sucked into the mental quagmire that is defeatest thinking.

So, if you're struggling, make today the day that you begin to sell more:

1. When your customer calls to order a cord of wood, offer a second cord of wood for a discounted price. Sell two cords instead of one.

2. Don't just offer cookies when someone orders a meal ("do you want cookies with that?"), offer a meal when someone orders cookies ("how about a roast beef sandwich with that?").

3. Don't just write the policy for their new automobile; offer a life policy, too.

4. Who can you sell to in your neighborhood that you haven't bothered to pursue yet?

5. The guy you see at the coffee shop every single morning for the last three years has never been to your store? R-e-a-l-l-y? Get him in there this week (he needs a new suit for his niece's wedding in February).

6. When you do an in-home consultation, do you stop at the homes to both the left and right of your prospect's house to introduce yourself? How about the house across the street?

7. The doorman knows everybody in the building. Surely there's one tenant who wants to remodel their kitchen. Have you asked him who it is?

8. What can you give away for free that will allow you to sell more? When I bought a car once, the salesman took me out to dinner. Did I refer customers to him? Yes!

9. You've never canvassed? (knocking on doors). Yes, you'll get rejected, but maybe it's time for drastic measures. Get out and find some new business, and lose a couple of pounds before the holidays in the process.

10. How can you let a customer leave your store with a new flat screen TV, but without a new sound system to go with it?

11. Open more new credit accounts this month than you ever have before.

12. You sell purses and leathergoods, but not with any leather cleaner/conditioner? All those $9.95 sales will add up. Start today. Become the top leather cleaner/conditioner salesperson in your company.

13. Real estate agents, if you must discount your commissions, okay, you must. But don't just do it without something in return. Get the names of ten contacts from your customer who can be added to your email or snail mail marketing list.

14. Don't just ask them if they want to see a dessert menu, show them the dessert tray. Then make sure you ask for the order ("which one can I bring you?").

15. And who doesn't want coffee with their dessert? But you may not get the coffee order if you don't ask (hmmm...better offer a cappuccino instead of coffee).

16. So somebody at your store is buying some luggage for a Christmas gift? Great! But before you complete the transaction, you'd better ask them who on their gift list could use a gift card. Sell a $50 gift card to one out of five of your luggage customers and you've just made up for the recession.

17. Sell a 16' x 14' sunroom instead of a 14' x 14' sunroom. They're only going to buy one sunroom, so they'd better have one with enough room.

18. Your customer needs to replace the broken window in the dining room? Sure, you can do that. But wouldn't the home look better if all the windows in the dining room were replaced at the same time?

19. Send your truck out to a neighborhood, knock on each door and offer to pick up the homeowner's snowblower and take it back to your shop to get it ready for action this winter. Don't wait for them to figure out that it won't start after the first snowfall of the season, provide a service that will resonate with all those suburbanites.

20. Everyone that needs a new water softener should be introduced to a drinking water purification system, shouldn't they?

21. Add chocolate sauce to the cheesecake for $1.00. Add chocolate sauce AND cherries for $2.00.

22. Fall is a good time to aerate lawns. Don't wait for customers to call you. Spend this week out on a massive lawn aeration campaign, offering a special price to customers who have never had their lawn aerated.

23. Sure, maintenance agreements or extended warranties are profitable for you and your company; but that doesn't mean your customers should automatically dismiss them without thinking it through. Try a new approach, if you truly believe in your offering, look the customer in the eye (keep that brochure out of the picture) and say, "Please, hear me out on this..." then, state your case and ask for the order.

24. In the north, where I live, people don't spend much time thinking about landscape design in the fall and winter. But this is a perfect time for you to get out and offer your services at a discount. Hint: past customers are often the best customers.

Okay, I could go on and on, but I have to get to my client.

Go get 'em today. Sell more!

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Emotions in Buying Decisions

I have been teaching about the component of emotion in the buying process for a long time. I ran across an excellent article by Dean Rieck, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement with almost everything in the article.

Dean is a direct marketing copywriter, so I was very impressed that his "12 Tips for Psychological Selling" don't only apply to marketing and copy writing, they definitely apply to face-to-face selling also.

Dean writes, "People are egocentric." I agree with that. He also writes, "People look for value." I agree with that, too. He says, "People love to buy." I really agree with that, too (And I disagree with the saying, "People love to buy but they don't like to be sold." Customers love to be sold, but in a way that is congruent with their personalities, their needs, and their unique situations).

I know of at least one sales expert that insists emotion plays absolutely no role in the buying process. I disagree with him. The role of emotion in the buying process is a major one, and if we can understand the emotional component in buying decisions, we can position ourselves to be more successful with our prospects.

Read Dean's article here.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

The Selling Smile

I'm an avid observer of human behavior, within the sales realm and otherwise. I enjoy seeing how people (often, successful ones) use a sincere smile to great effect. The power of a sincere smile should never be underestimated.

When I coach salespeople in face-to-face selling skills, I often share the observation that they don't smile enough. I might ask this: "Do you like to smile?"

Typically, they'll say "yes."

"Then you should do it more," I'll reply. "You have a beautiful smile, but I didn't see you smile one time during your forty-five minute sales interaction!"

Almost everyday, I witness missed opportunities for sales people to flash a generous, sincere smile to another human being.

Don't miss your smile opportunity today, whether you sell in retail, on the phone, at the neighborhood bank, or to corporate executives. If you're a sales manager, try this: smile at one of your employees today. If you're an employee, smile at your boss today. Do you like it when people smile at you? Guess what...others like it, too.

Who do you know that has a beautiful, sincere smile?

Photo by krikit.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Another Case of Apparent Article Piracy

If you have written articles online, you should check out Dave Stein's post about post. 

Dave is a well known sales trainer and writer, and a friend.

Readers of this blog may remember another recent similar accusation of article piracy.

Please spread the word...article piracy is a bad thing.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Retailing News: Selling to the Consumer

1. Order your next Pizza Hut pizza via Facebook. Read more

2. This holiday season's most wanted gift items.

3. Circuit City added to the lengthening list of company's filing for bankruptcy protection (chapter 11). Read more

4. Best Buy is predicting the most difficult holiday season in the company's history. Read more

5. The cost of theft to retailers. Read more

6. Retailers fear the worst as consumers slam their wallets shut.

7. Will Wal-Mart feel the pinch this holiday season?

8. Even upscale retailers are expected to take a hit this season.

9. At least here's one bright spot in retailing: American Girl sales strong.

Hang tough, friends.

Skip Anderson is a professional speaker, sales coach, and the Founder of Selling to Consumers, a B2C and retail sales training and consulting company. Subscribe to the free Sales Tips newsletter.

Post #200

I think the term "Labor of love" is grossly overused, but I have to admit that it does come to mind on the morning of this, my 200th post on this sales blog.

Lot's of early mornings and late nights have been logged because of this blog. What I hope we've ended up with is free sales training and sales knowledge for the greater sales community of B2C selling professionals.

I'm passionate about quite a few things in my life, but one of them is helping businesses and individuals maximize their sales performance. Hopefully, this blog has helped some of you do that in some way.

As I look ahead to the next 200 blog posts, I have a list of one hundred or so possible post topics on file. But if you have any topic suggestions (or other suggestions), please send them to contact Skip Anderson and mention "blog suggestion" in your message. I'm always looking for good ideas.

Sell more!

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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.

An Irritating Salesperson

In successful selling, we use our voices, our facial expressions, and our body language to help achieve our goals of customer engagement and a closed sales transaction.

The human voice is a beautiful thing...sometimes. A pleasing, impactful, effective voice can be a big asset in selling. Pitch, speed, volume, enunciation, and inflection all play a role in determining the quality and effectiveness of a speaking voice. If you don't know how you sound during a sales call, record it, and you may find your voice needs some work.

One thing I can't stand, though, is a shouting, irritating sales person:

That's Billy Mays, of course, apparently a very successful TV pitchman (in spite of his constant shouting). For some reason, this voice apparently makes customers open their wallets immediately. I don't understand this, though. His voice drives me crazy.

My advice: steer clear of constant shouting whether you're selling on TV, on the phone, or face-to-face.

[Thanks to Patrick Byers for calling attention to this New York Times article about Billy Mays.]

 

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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.

Do Salespeople Talk Too Much? Take the Poll...

Here's a question I'd like you to answer:

Online Surveys & Market Research

Please vote, then let's talk about it. Please share your comments.

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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.

Love Your Customer Award #2

We don't normally think of medical personnel as being "salespeople" and medical patients as being "customers", but I had such an excellent experience at a medical clinic this week that I've decided to award a physician with the second Selling to Consumers Love Your Customer Award for outstanding customer service.

My daughter was ill and I decided to take her to an urgent care facility one evening last week. Dr. David E. Schneider, a physician at Now Medical Centers was the doc assigned to our case. Dr. Schneider spent almost 45 minutes with us, and not only showed extreme care and professionalism for my daughter, but asked me about my medical history and even offered some insight into one of my medical conditions. Amazing!

Frankly, I was blown away. It is rare that a physician not only spends this amount of time with a patient at a routine clinic appointment, but also that he made such remarkable effort to engage my daughter and me so he could adequately address her medical condition. He truly modeled the "diagnose before prescribing" doctrine that I passionately believe in and teach in my sales training seminars.

Thank you, Dr. Schneider...and congratulations!

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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.

Networking: An Interview with Liz Lynch

Certainly, some B2C salespeople spend a great deal of time and effort networking (typically, those who sell real estate, financial products, and insurance). But other consumer salespeople haven't jumped on the networking bandwagon yet (those who sell in retail stores and showrooms, or those who sell in customers' homes). I'm always preaching the importance of networking as a way to expand both revenue creation and the reach of professional influence.

Liz Lynch is the author of the new book Smart Networking: Attract a Following In Person and Online.

I interviewed Liz Lynch to get some networking advice for readers of the Selling to Consumers Blog:

Skip Anderson: Liz, if a salesperson who has never put any effort into networking wakes up one morning and realizes, "Hey, I've got to start networking," where would you suggest they begin?

Liz Lynch: That exact same thing happened to me, so I’ll tell you what I did. Since it takes time to build relationships from scratch, I reconnected with people I already had in my network. These are the folks who already knew me and my work and who would most readily support anything I wanted to do. As it turned out, I got nearly all of my business my first two years from that small group. We can get so caught up sometimes in trying to meet the next new person who can bring us a million dollars of business, that we forget about the contacts we already have.

Skip Anderson: There are only 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week. How can a savvy networker decide where to put their efforts to achieve the most return on their time investment?

Liz Lynch: I didn’t pay you to ask this question, but you teed up the exact premise of my book perfectly! Smart networking starts with a purpose. First articulate the goal you want to achieve, then determine who you need to have in your network to help you reach that goal. Next figure out the best way to connect with those people. Is it in person or online? Is it through direct contact or an introduction from a mutual connection? By putting together a plan like this you can focus exclusively on the activities that will help you build the right relationships.
 
Most people work backwards and start going to events and meeting whoever they can meet and fitting them into their network somewhere. Or they join an online network but don’t really know who they’re supposed to connect with. It can be very random and take a lot of work for little result.

Skip Anderson: Are there certain personality types who do better at networking, and other personality types who struggle with networking?

Liz Lynch: I think different personality types have different struggles and triumphs when it comes to networking. Extroverts may find it easier to get out there and be energized by walking into a roomful of strangers, but they may shine the spotlight too long on themselves. Introverts may have a harder time getting started, but if they can get over this initial hump, they’ll may end up building rapport more quickly. Because they (we, because I’m one too) don’t like the attention, they’re more likely to want to keep the other person talking by asking questions, and this will actually help them develop a stronger bond.

Skip Anderson: Networking for salespeople needs to be not only about expanding their network, but also to create revenue. What suggestions do you have for networkers to align their networking activities with their need to generate revenue?

Liz Lynch: Ah yes, we all like revenue, don’t we? To get more focused on revenue, get more focused on who you’re networking with. Build your own strategic alliance group of folks who target the same customers as you do, but with complementary, rather than competing, services. You can bring each other in on projects and be more of a resource to your clients because you’re able to help them with more of their business needs. Use your networking time to find the right people for your alliance and to get to know each other well so you know exactly how to leverage each other.

Skip Anderson: What is biggest mistake salespeople tend to make in their approach to networking?

Liz Lynch: I think the biggest mistake is trying to sell at a networking event. People go to networking events to make connections, not to buy stuff. They don’t want to be subjected to a sales pitch. Of course they’ll ask you what you do, but it’s not the time to go into a 10-minute presentation and use boiler room closing techniques to get the next appointment. Have confidence in relaying what you do, but focus on getting to know them too, and on building a close enough connection that they’ll want to sit down with you for a follow up.

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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 vs. the Radar Screen

In my business travels recently, I've spent quite a bit of time on the coasts (U.S.). During those travels, I've been introduced as being from Michigan, Montana, and Wisconsin. The only problem is, I'm from Minnesota.

Those of us who live in flyover country understand that people on the coasts who haven't spent much time in the interior of our country sometimes get easily confused about Minnesota vs. Michigan, or Iowa vs. Ohio. Minnesota and Michigan are very different places (Would anybody make the mistake of confusing San Diego and San Francisco? Or New Jersey and Massachusetts? I think not!).

Am I upset about this lack of understanding of the Midwest? No*.

But it does point out that things that are not on people's radar screens are unimportant to them. If Minnesota isn't on a New Yorker's radar screen, so be it...Minnesota just isn't important to that individual.

In selling, you can't fight the customer's radar screen. We have to recognize when something is and when something isn't on a prospect's radar screen. If something that's important to us, as salespeople, isn't on our prospect's radar screen, we have two choices: (1) get it on their radar screen; or (2) forget about it.

We all have our unique perspectives. In sales, you'll go much farther trying to assimilate the perspective of your customer rather than trying to get your customer to understand your perspective.

*Okay, I have to admit that I'm just a teeny-weeny bit disappointed. It's not that i don't like Michigan or Montana or Wisconsin; they're all terrific states. It's just that Minnesota scored #2 on the "Best States to Live" index, whereas Michigan scored #28. Minnesota is #9 on the "Gross State Product Per Capita" list, and Montana is #48. And finally, Minnesota ranks #4 in the total number of colonoscopies performed, and Wisconsin is only #14 (now you know what we Minnesotans spend our time doing during the long, cold winter).

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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.

And Now: The Great American Cleansing Breath!

Today is the day of the great American cleansing breath; and do we Americans ever need it.

Vote...and then b-r-e-a-t-h-e- d-e-e-p-l-y.

The whole world will be able to join us in an even bigger cleansing breath on January 20, 2009.

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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.

Nuggets

Here are some weekend nuggets:

1. Consumer spending is at its lowest point in 28 years.

2. I love Copyblogger's thoughts about a marketing tagline. Hopefully, my tagline ("Sales Training to Sell More) passes muster.

3. Seth Godin hits the nail on the head with his short post about  "saying I'm sorry."

4. For those of you not on Facebook (or on Facebook but not using it for business), read Gino Orlandi's  5 Ways to Promote your Business on Facebook.

5. If you use Twitter, go to my Twitter profile and follow me if you like. I'd love to follow you back.

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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.