2: Marketing Yourself Shamelessly
In a sales situation, a customer is not passively receiving information but assessing what he hears, and ultimately makes judgments based on three things: his impression of the product, his impression of the provider, and his assessment of the salesman. While the traditional approach to sales training equips the salesman to present the first two, very little addresses the third: how do you market yourself?
A company considers salesmen, as employees, to be pretty much interchangeable, but the reality is that to the customer, the salesman is the most critical factor. No matter how reputable the company or serviceable the product, their impression of the salesman will make or break the deal. (EN: My sense is that there's a greater balance between the three, such that a customer will suffer a bad salesman if they value the product and trust the company - and a "good" salesman who pushes a bad product likely won't get much in the way of sales. But as far as the present book is concerned, it's probably important to stress as the only one of the tree over which the salesman has much power. He can't do much to change the product or improve the perception of the company, but he can control himself.)
The author presents a score-card, to assess each client's estimation of the three factors on a scale of 1 to 10. The sum of the three is what the author calls the "psychogenic" score (EN: this seems to have no connection to the original meaning of the term in medicine or psychology). He suggests that, to consistently close sales, you have to be at 20 points or above; and if you're not closing sales, you can use these scores to determine how best to address the problem: to discover which of the three factors is weakest, and consider ways to improve the score and secure more sales.
Over the long run, the success of a salesman depends upon building long-term relationships and a referral-based business - he cannot be successful if every sale he makes is a cold call to an unfamiliar customer, but must depend on getting repeat business and expanding sales within an existing customer base. Selling yourself is necessary to do so, and has the added benefit of getting referrals - your job is easier when your client base begins to grow itself.
Keep Everyone Talking about You
Getting positive word-of-mouth from your existing customers is valuable in gaining new ones. Your goal is to have your name come to mind when they are ready to buy a product you might sell. In marketing, this is top-of-mind awareness (the author abbreviates to TOMA): for product that people buy off the rack, they buy the first brand that comes to mind a majority of the time. It stands to reason that for products that are sold, they will buy from the salesman who has the same level of recognition.
While most salespeople are consistent in communicating to customers before they make the sale, they generally vanish afterward. The customer doesn't remember them, or remembers them as the guy who comes around only when he's looking to make another sale, which creates a negative impression that does not earn word-of-mouth.
Aside of just getting word of mouth, it's worthwhile to ask for referrals - the client may well know others who might be in the market, but unless you specifically ask, they may not think to refer them to you - though it's late remarked that you should first consider whether you've earned the right to ask.
The author suggests implementing a "campaign" to keep on top of customers and leads, considering various ways you might make contact with them regularly - not necessarily to press for sales, but merely to keep your name on their mind so that, when they do need to buy, they turn to you.
And yes, there's another list of things related to doing this:
- Be inventive in finding ways to keep in touch, and don't be reluctant to do things that seem unconventional or out-of-the-box
- Don't imitate others. If you use the same marketing methods as everyone else, you don't stand out from the crowd.
- Don't over think things: an imperfect plan, quickly executed, generates more results that a plan that is never executed because it's not perfect
- Be persistent: it takes six to eight "touches" for a person to remember you
- Leverage technology to enable you to contact all of your prospects and clients regularly
- Don't be complacent. It's easier not to undertake the effort not to touch. It's also easier not to make sales.
A Campaign to Build Awareness
The author regards Microsoft Outlook as "the greatest client management tool known to man." It's absolutely worthwhile to pick up a book that will teach you the finer points of its capabilities, because there's much more to it than a simple e-mail program that many people never discover. Rather than going into that detail here, he mentions a couple of books, and moves on.
The first step in his campaign is to input literally every person you know into it: clients, prospects, friends, relatives, etc. The initial data load will take time, but once you're past that, it will be easier to add and update individuals in your contact list. Get into the habit of doing this whenever you meet someone.
Don't just enter the basic information, but gather information about them - birthdays, hobbies, interests, etc. Getting this information is simple, just ask them and most people are pleased to share, and taking the time to ask signals that you are interested in an ongoing relationship rather than a quick sale. (EN: Another source on relationship-building stressed the value of this: a person feels "close" to another person with whom they have shared personal details, and suspicious of one who seeks to obtain this information covertly.) Knowing this information enables you to reach out to prospects in distinctive and memorable ways - though he does mention that sending birthday cards to professional contacts has been overdone and seems mechanistic and impersonal. His own distinctive touch is to record a brief video birthday wish, sent via e-mail.
The second step is to follow up with new contacts. The author's own tactics is to send every new contact a copy of a particular pamphlet ("Excerpts from the Treasury of Quotes" by Jim Rohn), which he claims to have tested against other small gifts and found it to have significantly better results for both himself and his students. He admits that this exploits the psychological trigger of reciprocity - doing something for someone else makes them feel that they owe something to you - but a minor token such as this doesn't trip ethical alarms.
Specific advantages to using that book is that it's "quite neutral" and presents business-related wisdom. Also, being a book of quotes, a person who browses it might respond to you about something they read in it, or you can innocuously contact them to ask about it if they don't. The book also contains a dedication page where you can include a handwritten personal message, and it's small enough to be cheap to purchase in bulk (it's something you will send to everyone - don't cut corners or play favorites) and mail in a slightly oversized envelope - pink, per his previous comment.
Third, set up a staggered schedule on which to make contact. Sending physical items in the mail is more effective than e-mail, which is easily overlooked, deleted, or tracked. How frequently depends on the sales cycle, but it shouldn't be so regular that it seems predictable. Also, the less familiar a person is to you, the more frequently you will need to touch base with them, and as they come to know you, it can be less frequent. Remember: six to eight touches.
One tip for managing contacts is to use an accordion file folder, with compartments numbered 1 to 31, so you can stuff and stamp envelopes in advance to be mailed at a later time. Some ideas of things to send: a distinctive newsletter, an article related to one of their special interests, a flier with information about products, helpful tips for using your products, a referral reminder, an announcement of a special offer, news clippings that mention them or their company, etc.
E-mailed items can be easier to coordinate through Outlook, but e-mail is less effective than physical items. People are deluged with e-mail from marketers, but the volume of physical "junk" mail has dropped to the point that getting an envelope in the mail is unusual, i.e., distinctive.
There is some expense involved in sending mail, but the author asserts that in his own experience, it's a good investment. The return he gets on sending mail to his contacts far surpasses the cost of sending it, and it's a much better spend than any advertising.
Even so, an e-mail newsletter, if not sent too frequently, may gather their attention, and e-mail newsletter providers can give you a wealth of information about how many people open it, and how often they refer to it. The aggregate metrics can help you improve our newsletters, but the individual metrics are more important: a contact who has referred to your newsletter multiple times is clearly interested in something, and making direct contact with them is likely to be productive.
More Tips for Awareness Campaigns
When sending items by post, remember the power of handwriting and use an actual stamp rather than a postage meter. This gives the impression that the mail has come from a "real" person rather than an automated bulk-mailing, making people more likely to open it.
The author suggests leaving off a return address, as he feels it makes people more likely to open it to find out who it's from. He concedes you won't get returned mail to prompt you to contact someone whose address has changed, but his sense is this is too rare to make much of a difference.
It may be worthwhile to keep a file of junk mail you have received to recognize tactics that are becoming overused. In general, direct mail marketers stumble on a tactic that works, then use it so often that people begin to recognize it as a sign of junk mail.
One piece never to send is a Christmas card or even a generic "season's greetings" card at the end of the year. This has been done to death - chances are that clients receive so many they will not notice yours, or notice that it's missing. Or worse, it will make you seem impersonal, following the "standard courtesy" extended by everyone who wants something of them. If you want to touch base at holidays, choose a different one - nobody sends a Groundhog Day card - and it may be effective if your service or product can be related to the holiday.
If you really feel the need to touch clients at the winter holidays, consider sending a small gift, which will stand out from the flurry of cards. It would be a better use of budget to send a more upscale gift to the top 10% of your contacts rather than a cheap one to all of them ... it's more important to reach the people who count rather than to count the people you reach.
Networking to Make Contacts
Social networking isn't a new concept. Most communities have a number of institutions that arrange events that enable people to network and meet. Any town of substantial size has a Chamber of Commerce, and there may be local industry associations. However, the author is a bit dubious - he notes that people show up at these events, exchange business cards, and then throw away the cards they collected as soon as they get home. It's shallow, ineffective, and unproductive contacts, though he admits to having done this at times and, on those occasions, sought to have "significant conversations" with a few people rather than trying to meet as many people as possible.
There is also the notion of social networking online - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like (EN: The author includes MySpace and YouTube, which is a bit telling of his level of experience). He suggests salespeople should approach these sites as methods to generate business, not to casually socialize. He doesn't have much to say about it, but seems doubtful and wary.
He's especially weary of "so-called social networking experts" because it's a bit too new a phenomenon for anyone to have developed much expertise and are generally looking to cash in on the desperation of people who are only slightly more ignorant than themselves. He also takes a dim view of people who blog about selling. If they have time to blog about it to the general public, they're obviously not spending their time very productively.
Random Bits
The author slipped in a few bits that really didn't fit what he was discussing at the time, but seemed interesting enough to preserve nonetheless.
There's an anecdote, somewhat out of the blue, about a quirky tactic used by a student of the author who was a financial planner. While shopping at a local bookstore, she got the idea to slip her business card into some of the books on finance. It wasn't' a smashing success, as it only generated one client for her, but even that was an excellent return on about two dozen business cards and a few minutes' time.
If you can pull it off, creating anticipation can be a great advantage to a salesman. While the temptation is to rush at the customer, it makes you seem desperate for their business, and puts you at an obvious disadvantage (if you don't spook them away completely by coming on too strong). Divulging a little bit of information to whet their interest, and building it slowly over time, is a more effective way of building curiosity, and making the customer feel that they have chosen to take interest in you, rather than been subjected to a sales pitch. If they are eager to hear what you have to say next, you're in a very strong position.