Category: Sales

Yesterday, I saw message after message
wishing EVERYONE a happy Thanksgiving.
This assumption that EVERYONE is American
ticks off the 95% of the world’s population
that isn’t American.

But…but…but my customers are American.
Are you certain of that?

My stories are written
in American English,
set in American cities,
feature American characters,
yet a sizable number
of my readers aren’t American.
They do buy from American eBook resellers
but they don’t live in the U.S.
I know this
because my publishers gather this information.

Does this mean
you can’t wish folks a Happy Thanksgiving?
Of course not.
I posted messages
wishing my American reading buddies
a Happy Thanksgiving.

Don’t assume
all of your customers are American.

Page counts on eReaders vary.
A 225 page story on one eReader
might be a 200 page story on another eReader.

Whenever a reader asks me
how long a story is,
I tell her the lower page count
(the 200 pages).
Why?
Because I’d rather she be pleasantly surprised
than feel cheated.

One of my writing buddies
tells her readers a range.
The problem with this strategy is
readers fixate on the high page count.
They’re expecting 225 pages
and if the story is shorter,
they feel cheated.

This is the same issue
with quoting a range of prices.

Mike Michalowicz
shares

“You want to appear
reasonable and flexible,
so you tell a prospective customer
that the kind of project they’re looking for
will run somewhere
between $20K and $30K.
Here’s why the range is a bad idea:
The customer only hears the low end
— they’re thinking $20K.
You hear the high end
—you’re thinking $30K.
You might think that ending up
right in the middle
would make both parties happy,
but in fact,
both parties feel dissatisfied.
The customer feels like
she overpaid by $5K,
and you feel shortchanged by $5K.

A far better strategy is
to quote a specific price
—one that has a little wiggle room built in
if the customer wants
or needs to negotiate.
If you quote $26K
and let the customer work you down
to $25K,
then you’re satisfied
and the customer can feel like
they got a great deal.”

Don’t quote ranges.

As a writer,
I hear about at least
one new opportunity a day.
I’m lucky.
Because I receive so many offers,
I HAVE to say no
to opportunities.

David Niu,
founder of TINYhr,
shares

“At TINYpulse, we grew
from 0 to 300 paying customers
in 10 months.
How’d we grow that fast?
By saying “no” to
clients, prospects and partners.

Saying no helped us
to stay focused and true
to our vision as a small company,
especially one just starting out.

My general outlook is:

If I never say no,
then I’m not focused enough.

If I always say no,
then I’m not customer focused enough.

There’s definitely a fine balance,
but my rule of thumb is
to say no to requests
about 20 percent of the time.”

Learning to say no
to opportunities not right for us
is part of success.

I have friended many editors (prospects)
on Facebook.
Reading one random update from an editor
is often useless.
Reading a year’s worth of updates,
however,
shows me her story tastes,
the little things that irk her
and that make her happy.
It is easier to sell to an editor
I ‘know.’

Clive Thompson,
author of
Smarter Than You Think,
shares
in the November/December CMA Magazine

“One of the paradoxes about Facebook
is that people’s individual posts and updates
can be quite meaningless.
Think of the proverbial
“Just had lunch at the mall.”
Over time, the individual utterances
begin to coalesce
into a rich tapestry of information
– what psychologists call “ambient awareness.”
After a month you have a short story,
and after a year you have a novel.
When I follow my friends’ Facebook lives
over time,
I’m left with a deep sense
of how they think
and what they value.”

Consider friending your top prospects.
Learn their likes and dislikes.

I had this conversation
concerning the Lululemon’s founder’s statement
about women’s thighs
over and over again
yesterday with different people,
okay, different men.

The men asked
“What’s the big deal?”

The big deal is that
I’ve yet to meet a woman
happy with her thighs.
So almost every woman
in North America,
maybe in the world,
thought Chip Wilson was talking about them.
He insulted Lululemon’s entire target market.

“But that thinking’s not right.
Women should feel better
about their bodies,”
many men pushed back.

Who cares if it is right.
It is reality.

The average woman
doesn’t like her thighs.
The average woman
also doesn’t want to shop somewhere
where she might be judged
on the shape or size of
her thighs.

Even if your target market
is slender young women,
please realize that slender young women
have body image issues also.

Many entrepreneurs believe
that selling to Walmart
is the break they need.

Selling to Walmart
isn’t easy.
It involves more than price,
more than quality.
They are looking
for vendors who can be easily folded
into their system.

As August Turak,
author of
Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks,
shares

“One time Walmart went shopping
for sunglasses.
The vendor with the best sunglasses
at the lowest price
didn’t get the lucrative partnership.
Instead it was the vendor
who arrived at the meeting
with their sunglasses already tagged
and bar-coded to Walmart’s spec.
The glasses were already mounted
on display cases custom designed
to take advantage of some unused space
the vendor had ferreted out
from a typical Walmart floor plan.
And the vagaries of
inventory management,
pricing, and product placement
had already been solved
by the vendor as well.”

Do your research
when pitching to Walmart.
Make it as easy as possible
for them to work with you.

The average person
wants to be right.
If we have an opinion,
a product to sell,
a blog post to write,
we look for support.
We don’t usually look for opposition.

The thing is…
the opposition is there
and the person you’re pitching
or writing to
might have opposing views.
Not preparing for this push back,
these questions is foolish.

Stephanie Scotti
shares

“The bottom line is,
if you haven’t encountered
the opposition in your topic,
you haven’t looked hard enough.
The Heath brothers suggest
that you start by sharing your thoughts.
Actively seek out those
who may disagree with you.
Talk, read and listen
for opposing views
rather than creating them artificially.
Be open to them,
recognizing that the momentary discomfort
of being challenged
creates the opportunity for greater confidence
because you will know
what common ground you share
with your listeners and
where the land mines are buried.

Above all,
you will come to the conversation
with a more complete and deeper understanding
of the topic that will resonate
with your listeners
and conclude with a resounding call to action.”

Actively look for opposition
to your idea.

One of the questions
I hate being asked
at parties and other networking events
is
“What do you do?”

When I was between jobs,
it was especially tough,
and now that I write,
and I like to keep my pen name private,
I either lie
or I downplay the truth.

Rohit Bhargava
advises

“Do say:
“What are you really excited about right now?”
Don’t say:
“What do you do?”

One of the reasons that
so many people dread networking events
is because of the “What do you do?” question.
We generally hate to describe what we do
and rarely have a way to share it
that we’re happy with.
Asking the alternative question
about what someone is excited about now
is rarely hard to talk about.
Most people will have an answer
to that question that is far more interesting
than the recitation of their job title and company.
More importantly,
when anyone shares something
they are excited about,
their tone changes
and the conversation improves right away.”

Do the world a favor
and ditch the
“What do you do?” question.

The easiest way
to make a connection with another person
is to help her.
The average person
will immediately seek to return the favor.

Rajesh Setty
shares

“I have said it many times
on my blog
that the most powerful force on earth
is the power of reciprocation.
Capitalizing on it the right way
would open a ton of possibilities
for you and your business.
I said the “right” way
because the wrong way
would be for you to wait
for someone to help you
and then you activate
the power of reciprocation
to help them back.
That would not hurt
but it rarely is as helpful
as the other way around.”

Help Others First.

As the finance liaison
on new business development teams,
I would often explain numbers
to marketing, manufacturing,
and other non-accounting folks.
The key to this
is to speak the same language.
I would talk about investments
to manufacturing folks
in terms of the machinery they knew.
“This investment is the equivalent
of buying a new XYZ machine.”
I would use something
they see and touch every day.

As
Carmine Gallo
shares in his latest newsletter

“Make numbers meaningful.
Big numbers sound impressive,
but are often forgotten.
Make your numbers meaningful
by placing them in a context
people can understand.

When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod,
he didn’t focus on the fact
that it had 5GB of storage.
That statistic meant nothing
to most people.
Instead he said,
“that’s the equivalent of 1,000 songs
in your pocket.”

If I told you that
the Apple iPad Mini was 7.2mm thin,
would you be excited about it?
Probably not.
What if I told you that
it was as thin as a pencil?
The product suddenly
becomes more interesting,
doesn’t it?

Apple spokespeople have mastered
this communications technique
—they make numbers come alive
by putting those statistics into context.

Most presentations include statistics or numbers.
If the number is important enough
to communicate,
I can only assume you want your audience
to remember it.
If you put it into context,
they won’t forget it.”

A number becomes more powerful
when it is meaningful
to the listener.