*The following is an excerpt from Mark Bishop's book, The Trusted Seller; the foundation for the What Buyers Want sales training program. Contact us for more information.
What's your response to the telemarketing calls you receive at suppertime or all the promotional materials sent to your home? I'm willing to bet you're occasionally annoyed that you must sift through 23 pieces of junk mail to find the only two things important in that day's delivery – your Entertainment Weekly and the electric bill. If so, you've got the requisite basis for understanding what a buyer goes through daily when trying to manage a never-ending barrage of unsolicited calls, email and snail mail.
I know you've got the picture, but it's an image worth revisiting periodically because it illustrates why it's so important to make sure that what you do – and say – is relevant to the buyer. It's the only chance you stand of getting your message heard.
Top salespeople succeed at getting noticed. They know how to get the buyer's attention and create awareness because they make every single encounter relevant to the prospective buyer.
"But wait! Timing sometimes affects relevance, right?" Yes, it's true. Sometimes the only difference between being relevant or irrelevant is timing. If the buyer happens to be in the market for a new copier, and you sell copiers, your message is more relevant to the buyer. Pretty common sense.
Well, my question for youis this: Are you making this reality work to your advantage? What are youdoing to position yourself so your message is remembered the next time that buyer is in the market for your products or services? The answer lies in a fourth behavior, persistence, which we'll cover in detail shortly. For now, let's just say that every message has the potential to be relevant – but sometimes, relevancy is achieved only as a result of touching the buyer with consistent, gentle reminders of who you are and what you sell.
If your product or service isn't a consumable, you're more affected by timing perhaps than other reps who sell products and services used all the time. But this section is equally as significant regarding your efforts to attract buyer attention. The message you craft must have the potential to be relevant when the timing is right. So, for now, let's set the issue of timing aside and explore a number of tactics you should consider when crafting relevant messages.
"Just the facts, ma'am." Without question, your ability to present information in a concise, clear and to-the-point manner is what most affects message relevancy. Why? Concise, clear communications stand a better chance at being read (and remembered), regardless of their timing. Four-page sales letters that ramble and fail to make points relevant to the buyer will be pitched the instant the buyer identifies anything irrelevant to the buyer's business.
The very best salespeople prepare their communications ahead of time, putting thought and effort in how to best communicate their message with as few words as possible. They frequently use executive-summary formats, making sure to appropriately group like points together and label similar information with short, easy-to-read subheadings. Regardless of whether the communication piece is a brochure, letter, email or whatever, the buyer is more likely to review it when it's in a format that can be easily understood when skimmed or forwarded.
Taking it a step further, the top-performing salespeople often resend materials previously disseminated by their corporate marketing folks. But when they resend these materials, they attach a note summarizing the pertinent information. In effect, they "translate" their marketing group's messages to make them precisely relevant to the specific audience they want to reach. For example, such a note might read something like this:
"Mark, I'm forwarding three pages for your review. This material was part of a corporate mailing that went out a week ago (not sure whether you've already received the corporate package). I can't believe what the marketing folks sent out – it was a book!
"Anyway, 80% of the corporate piece had NOTHING to do with your business. That's why I took the liberty of sending you the three pages that DO pertain to the project we're working on together. The enclosed three pages give you everything you need regarding our new networking management service. Hope this saves you some valuable time!"
Sammy, in the example above, makes the message relevant by singling out for the buyer exactly the information that will interest the buyer. It's an approach that works. Give it a shot!
Regardless of whether you're crafting your own communications or "translating" corporate pieces for your audience (you should actually be doing both), I recommend you to keep all informational exchanges relevant –brief, clear and direct. The buyer will let you know when he's ready for more.
Set yourself apart; be the best at something. You'll fare much better in B2B sales if you position yourself as the best at something instead of someone who is good at everything. Unfortunately, sales reps frequently tell buyers they can (and should) be called for any and all needs the buying organization might ever have.
Know what happens? Buyers typically don't call the folks who claim to be good at everything because they're not convinced that's really the case. Instead, the best people
– the specialists – are called when needed because they successfully established top-of-mind awareness with the buyer.
"Good-at-everythings" are simply filed (along with a zillion other potentially good vendors) for future reference in a formidable "catch-all" file that's emptied about once every year or so to provide more space for new "good-at-everythings" who won't be called either.
Spin a good yarn. I encourage you mightily to stick to the truth; it's easier to remember compared to lies that can bite you in the back-side later. Besides, as a career sales rep, you've already likely acquired several real-life examples illustrating how your products or services simplified life for another buyer... or made another buyer look good... or pleased the IT folks because of easier installations... whatever. The point is this: Stories work. But don't tell anecdotes simply to spice up your conversation. Choose stories that are relevant to the buyer's situation and that support the message you need to relay.
Interestingly, studies have shown that relationships begin to develop when people disclose information about themselves to other people (Jacobs, Hyman and McQuitty 2001, 3). By choosing to share a success story with a prospect about how you helped another client solve a tough problem, for example, you are accomplishing several important feats at one time:
Make everything you do recipient-friendly. When you surf the web for additional information on a topic you need to learn more about, which sites are you drawn to? The ones that make it easy for you to navigate and find what you need? Or the ones that contain one long block set in Arial, 9-point type? It's human nature: We're drawn to that which is easier to understand. Your buyer is, too.
It's great that you've got a relevant message. And you'll be successful at conveying your message if you make it as easy as possible for the prospect to get your point. I'm not suggesting that you adopt the singsong cadence used when instructing a three-year-old to follow directions. Instead, I'm simply encouraging you to structure your communications in a format that makes it easy for the buyer to get what he needs. These strategies work:
Never send a prospect to your website for additional scoop unless you happen to have an award-winning site full of relevant information. From a buyer's perspective, it's extremely frustrating to be hungry for a little bit more that actually could tip the scales in favor of a trial order, and then be told (by the very vendor that wants your business) to "check out our website" because "all the info" is there.
A second warning is this: Never expect a prospect to read your mind. If you plan to send something to a prospect that is relevant to the buying organization, (but only because you have some inside knowledge that puts 2+2 together), make sure you provide any additional explanation/data necessary so the prospect sees the relevance as well. Otherwise, the buyer just won't walk away with the same "aha!" that you arrived at when reviewing the same material.
And, right along those lines, never send buyers something you haven't reviewed yourself first. Sometimes I'll get electronic presentations that I start to review and end up in a spot where I don't know what something in the presentation means. I click to the notes page... nothing. I click back to the email to look for another attachment... nothing. I click back to the presentation thumbnail view in hopes of finding explanations somewhere... nothing. Sometimes, I call the rep for an explanation and sometimes I don't. Let's just say this: Anytime a buyer becomes frustrated at the prospecting stage, it doesn't bode well for trial orders, much less an eventual relationship.
A third caution: Never send buyers large attachments without first obtaining an OK. Just because you can send huge, unsolicited files to prospects (or current customers, for that matter) doesn't mean that you should. Call first; let the buyer know you'd like to send the file and even ask for permission. Then make sure that the buyer knows why you believe the document is beneficial to her.
Finally, never lose control of a conference call – especially one that's been set up to help prove to the buyer that the firm is capable of handling the business.
Let me hit you with an example that happens to me regularly: I join a conference call to have some technical questions answered by a specialist. The salesperson has set up the call. But when I call in, more participants than expected have joined in (more people always results in a longer call). Sometimes it's beyond the rep's control (the boss decides to "listen in"); other times, it may be planned this way.
Regardless, once the call starts, an interesting dynamic takes place. As I ask questions about the firm's ability to do such and such, the salesperson naturally defers to the boss because... she's the boss. The boss doesn't really know much detail about my situation because all my conversations have been with the sales rep. But she sure tries. After several minutes of explanation that typically is not relevant (in light of specific buyer details already shared previously with the salesperson), the sales rep tries to recover without making himself or the clueless boss look bad. Finally, when the specialist gets his chance to shine, he's interrupted repeatedly by the salesperson and the boss, both of whom attempt to clarify the engineer and then clarify each other. No one takes charge of the call (although the sales rep should), and it never plays out comfortably. Never let your customers see you in that state of confusion; it's just flat-out embarrassing for everyone involved.
Don't get me wrong – I think conference calls are a terrific application. But only if the salesperson takes control of the call and ensures the conversation stays focused and relevant to the buyer.
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