Look to existing customers for easy sales
Every business wants to attract new customers, and most have a variety of strategies for doing this. Strangely, I find many of my clients are less good at retaining existing customers, a task infinitely cheaper and more rewarding.
In fact, in times where new business is hard to come by, reselling to those you have already sold to might be a genuine survival opportunity.
Here are some ideas for retaining, nurturing and profiting from existing business relationships –
1. Talk to your customers every day. Ask how you can help. Find out what they need.
2. Develop personal friendships with key members of their organisation by finding out what you have in common. You should be familiar with their family situations, their hobbies, interests and life goals if you are to truly connect with them. People buy from people, as the old cliché goes!
3. Offer advice and support in areas where their business is suffering.
4. Think about how you can introduce customers to them. If they prosper, so will your relationship with them.
5. Keep investing in them, via product and service improvements which will benefit them directly.
6. Visit them regularly even if there is no immediate business in prospect.
7. Be willing to introduce your customers to your network of fellow professionals, particularly if they can add strength and stability to your relationship.
8. Use email for monthly newsletters to inform, educate and support their commercial goals. Include one key offer to entice them to do further business with you now.
9. Where appropriate, invite them to join clubs, societies or networking groups of which you are a member. This can be a great way to keep close to your customers and meet them in a relaxed and social atmosphere.
10. Don’t be afraid to ask for their help with your business. “What would you do in my situation…?” will show that you don’t have all the answers, and they will feel flattered you approached them.
Finally, once you are confident that they trust and value the relationship, ask them for referrals and recommendations to other potential customers. If you do all the above well enough, you may never need to look for new customers again!
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions to this column online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Monday, 21 September 2009
Jon Cooper – When your customers return, will you recognise them?
Post-recession, everything's changed!
I was in the States last week, working on a deal I’ve been trying to land for years. More of that another time, but I also spent some flying hours reading the ever-brilliant Jeffrey Gitomer, an inspirational writer and guru of sales, marketing and networking.
I’ve always found his books and articles hugely entertaining and readable, but his latest newsletter really grabbed my attention.
I’ll paraphrase without plagiarising – for the real thing, visit www.gitomer.com
It’s all about how your customer has changed during, and maybe because of, the recession -
1 – He’s angry that his home and investments went down in value
2 – He won’t be banking, or buying homes, cars or insurance like he did before, and has lost all his respect for previously revered institutions
3 – He’s online, and blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, Linkedining and YouTubing about his buying experiences. If your service sucks, all your other customers will soon know
4 – He’s Googling, not Yellow-Paging, and can do this anywhere, anytime on his mobile device
5 – He’ll buy immediately if you take credit cards online, including after midnight 365 days of the year
6 – By the time he buys, he will have checked your price and facts online in seconds, and read what customers, as well as you, have to say about your company
7 – Because of this, he knows as much about your products as you do, and more about your competitors’ products than you do
8 – He wants you to answer the phone, and is sick of your hold music, your automated options, your offshore so-called “help-desks” and you telling him how important he is while he pays 10p a minute holding on your 0870 customer “service” line
9 – He’s looking for ideas, answers, help and advice, not crummy, transparent special offers
10 – He expects you to be as computer-literate as he is, and will be utterly turned off if you reply to his online query from a Hotmail, msn, AOL, gmail or other proprietary address. Get your own domain name for £7.99pa to meet your customer’s minimum expectations!
As Gitomer wisely adds, we are not going to “recover” from this recession; we are going to “revive and revise”.
Is your business ready?
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions to this column online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
I was in the States last week, working on a deal I’ve been trying to land for years. More of that another time, but I also spent some flying hours reading the ever-brilliant Jeffrey Gitomer, an inspirational writer and guru of sales, marketing and networking.
I’ve always found his books and articles hugely entertaining and readable, but his latest newsletter really grabbed my attention.
I’ll paraphrase without plagiarising – for the real thing, visit www.gitomer.com
It’s all about how your customer has changed during, and maybe because of, the recession -
1 – He’s angry that his home and investments went down in value
2 – He won’t be banking, or buying homes, cars or insurance like he did before, and has lost all his respect for previously revered institutions
3 – He’s online, and blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, Linkedining and YouTubing about his buying experiences. If your service sucks, all your other customers will soon know
4 – He’s Googling, not Yellow-Paging, and can do this anywhere, anytime on his mobile device
5 – He’ll buy immediately if you take credit cards online, including after midnight 365 days of the year
6 – By the time he buys, he will have checked your price and facts online in seconds, and read what customers, as well as you, have to say about your company
7 – Because of this, he knows as much about your products as you do, and more about your competitors’ products than you do
8 – He wants you to answer the phone, and is sick of your hold music, your automated options, your offshore so-called “help-desks” and you telling him how important he is while he pays 10p a minute holding on your 0870 customer “service” line
9 – He’s looking for ideas, answers, help and advice, not crummy, transparent special offers
10 – He expects you to be as computer-literate as he is, and will be utterly turned off if you reply to his online query from a Hotmail, msn, AOL, gmail or other proprietary address. Get your own domain name for £7.99pa to meet your customer’s minimum expectations!
As Gitomer wisely adds, we are not going to “recover” from this recession; we are going to “revive and revise”.
Is your business ready?
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions to this column online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Jon Cooper: Creative thinking wins every time
Build power into your message!
Anyone successful in sales understands the difference between features and benefits, and that customers buy the latter, not the former. Twin turbos (feature) mean you get to work faster (benefit), and 2GB of RAM (feature) means you finish your work sooner (benefit) when you get there! There is also a way of negative selling, highlighting drawbacks instead of benefits. 512MB of RAM probably means you’ll be there all day!
All we really need to be told is how a particular product or service is going to affect our lives.
I heard a lovely little parable the other day which graphically illustrates the power of this approach.
It tells of a young boy, sitting on the steps of Grand Central Station in New York. He has a board next to him with the words “I am blind, please give generously” written on it.
There is a hat in front of him, and a man stops and drops a few coins in it. He then takes the board, turns it round and writes some words on it before replacing it.
The man returns later in the day, to see the boy smiling, his hat overflowing with coins and banknotes.
Hearing the man’s footsteps, the boy asks if it was he who changed his sign earlier. “What did you write?” he asks in amazement.
“I wrote, “today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it”” the man replies.
That simple phrase made people think about the reality of the boy’s condition, and was 100 times more powerful than the statement of his blindness by itself.
It reminded onlookers of the good fortune they enjoyed by being able to appreciate the beauty of the day, and shows that a dry statement of fact will never carry as much impact as a few vivid words which immerse the reader in the world of the writer.
I think there are at least two other messages we can take from that story.
Firstly; there are always people less fortunate than yourself. Take the time to help where you can, and be thankful for what you have.
Secondly; it shows the power of creative thinking. There is always a better way, so be innovative, different, and build power into all your messages.
Have a question you'd like Jon Cooper to address? You can submit it by either adding a comment to this post online or by e-mailing it to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Anyone successful in sales understands the difference between features and benefits, and that customers buy the latter, not the former. Twin turbos (feature) mean you get to work faster (benefit), and 2GB of RAM (feature) means you finish your work sooner (benefit) when you get there! There is also a way of negative selling, highlighting drawbacks instead of benefits. 512MB of RAM probably means you’ll be there all day!
All we really need to be told is how a particular product or service is going to affect our lives.
I heard a lovely little parable the other day which graphically illustrates the power of this approach.
It tells of a young boy, sitting on the steps of Grand Central Station in New York. He has a board next to him with the words “I am blind, please give generously” written on it.
There is a hat in front of him, and a man stops and drops a few coins in it. He then takes the board, turns it round and writes some words on it before replacing it.
The man returns later in the day, to see the boy smiling, his hat overflowing with coins and banknotes.
Hearing the man’s footsteps, the boy asks if it was he who changed his sign earlier. “What did you write?” he asks in amazement.
“I wrote, “today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it”” the man replies.
That simple phrase made people think about the reality of the boy’s condition, and was 100 times more powerful than the statement of his blindness by itself.
It reminded onlookers of the good fortune they enjoyed by being able to appreciate the beauty of the day, and shows that a dry statement of fact will never carry as much impact as a few vivid words which immerse the reader in the world of the writer.
I think there are at least two other messages we can take from that story.
Firstly; there are always people less fortunate than yourself. Take the time to help where you can, and be thankful for what you have.
Secondly; it shows the power of creative thinking. There is always a better way, so be innovative, different, and build power into all your messages.
Have a question you'd like Jon Cooper to address? You can submit it by either adding a comment to this post online or by e-mailing it to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Jon Cooper: Negotiating with difficult people
Learn to make a deal!
“That’s my final offer – it’s not negotiable” might seem like a statement designed to close the door on any further discussion, but in reality it can be just an invitation to do business.
I found myself on the receiving end of a far more difficult and adversarial stance, taken by a landowner I was hoping to deal with earlier this year. He opened the bidding with a simple denial that he could be even slightly interested in selling to us, “at any price”!
In all these situations, it’s important to separate the deal from the emotion, and to be able to interpret what the other person really means.
Successful negotiation skills can be learned, so here are some tips to take with you next time you’re across the table from the intransigents from hell!
1: Connect with their side. What makes them tick, on a business and personal level? Find common ground to build trust and friendship
2: Research recent comparables for this kind of deal, to establish what would be a fair and reasonable outcome
3: Focus on the 20% you agree on, not the 80% you don’t
4: Say “Yes, and…” not “Yes, but…” to make your views an addition to, rather than a contradiction of theirs
5: Ask for their advice; what would they do in your situation?
6: Ask “what makes that fair?” of an unreasonable proposal. Then bring up your standards of fairness, where different
7: Ask “why not…?” before a counter-proposal of yours
8: Discover their bottom-line. Everyone has a minimum they must take away from the table, and you will have a maximum you can give up. You need to know both, and then work within the uncertainty zone in the middle
9: If your offer has been refused, involve them in redrafting the agreement to avoid giving the impression you are simply giving up all your ground
10: Create a side-by-side problem-solving opportunity by using “we” instead of “you” or “I”. Round tables are better than square for the same reasons.
It’s been said that the best deals involve both sides hurting just a little. In reality, a perfect deal happens when everyone is totally happy. Aim for mutual satisfaction, not victory!
Have a question you'd like Jon Cooper to address? You can submit it by either adding a comment to this post online or by e-mailing it to jon@jupiterdawn.com
“That’s my final offer – it’s not negotiable” might seem like a statement designed to close the door on any further discussion, but in reality it can be just an invitation to do business.
I found myself on the receiving end of a far more difficult and adversarial stance, taken by a landowner I was hoping to deal with earlier this year. He opened the bidding with a simple denial that he could be even slightly interested in selling to us, “at any price”!
In all these situations, it’s important to separate the deal from the emotion, and to be able to interpret what the other person really means.
Successful negotiation skills can be learned, so here are some tips to take with you next time you’re across the table from the intransigents from hell!
1: Connect with their side. What makes them tick, on a business and personal level? Find common ground to build trust and friendship
2: Research recent comparables for this kind of deal, to establish what would be a fair and reasonable outcome
3: Focus on the 20% you agree on, not the 80% you don’t
4: Say “Yes, and…” not “Yes, but…” to make your views an addition to, rather than a contradiction of theirs
5: Ask for their advice; what would they do in your situation?
6: Ask “what makes that fair?” of an unreasonable proposal. Then bring up your standards of fairness, where different
7: Ask “why not…?” before a counter-proposal of yours
8: Discover their bottom-line. Everyone has a minimum they must take away from the table, and you will have a maximum you can give up. You need to know both, and then work within the uncertainty zone in the middle
9: If your offer has been refused, involve them in redrafting the agreement to avoid giving the impression you are simply giving up all your ground
10: Create a side-by-side problem-solving opportunity by using “we” instead of “you” or “I”. Round tables are better than square for the same reasons.
It’s been said that the best deals involve both sides hurting just a little. In reality, a perfect deal happens when everyone is totally happy. Aim for mutual satisfaction, not victory!
Have a question you'd like Jon Cooper to address? You can submit it by either adding a comment to this post online or by e-mailing it to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Jon Cooper: Professional firms should forget about hourly rates
A fair price for a fair job!
I was personally reminded today of the perils of time-costing so beloved of solicitors, accountants and many consultants. I received an unfathomably large bill from a lawyer who did some property work about 3 months ago. I was aghast, but immediately grasped the problem.
He had billed me for what the job was worth to him – the supplier, not what it was worth to me – the customer!
I have approached his firm with a proposal to help him move from hourly billing to value pricing. The proposition that “time is money” is over 250 years old, and attributed to Benjamin Franklin. However, clocks don’t write cheques, and you don’t attract and retain clients by selling hours.
You sell solutions, service and value.
For the benefit of anyone currently charging clients by the hour, here’s why switching to value pricing could transform your business:
1: Pricing a job at outset gets any objections from clients on the table before you start; far better than arguing over the bill at the end!
2: Clients feel special, as you are calculating a bespoke value for their work. Hourly rates, by contrast, are applied at the same level for everyone, irrespective of the value you are adding to their business.
3: Sharing risk by quoting fixed prices projects experience and confidence in your delivery and performance. Clients will feel that you must know you can do the job, otherwise you wouldn’t have committed to it.
4: Clients will appreciate that you are not about to rip them off. Can you imagine how you would feel if an airline charged by the mile for your ticket? Maybe the pilot would deliberately take the long route to rack up the costs!
5: Value pricing forces internal efficiency. Fixing revenue ensures you will delegate and review work flows so you can offer service whilst ensuring you meet your own profitability aspirations.
6: Annual price increases are easier to factor in, as each job is costed individually. No firm likes sending out notices of hourly rate hikes, and no client likes receiving them.
In summary: value pricing encourages trust and nurtures long-term relationships with satisfied clients, leading to mutual profitability and success.
It’s time to ditch the clock and focus on value!
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions to this column online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
I was personally reminded today of the perils of time-costing so beloved of solicitors, accountants and many consultants. I received an unfathomably large bill from a lawyer who did some property work about 3 months ago. I was aghast, but immediately grasped the problem.
He had billed me for what the job was worth to him – the supplier, not what it was worth to me – the customer!
I have approached his firm with a proposal to help him move from hourly billing to value pricing. The proposition that “time is money” is over 250 years old, and attributed to Benjamin Franklin. However, clocks don’t write cheques, and you don’t attract and retain clients by selling hours.
You sell solutions, service and value.
For the benefit of anyone currently charging clients by the hour, here’s why switching to value pricing could transform your business:
1: Pricing a job at outset gets any objections from clients on the table before you start; far better than arguing over the bill at the end!
2: Clients feel special, as you are calculating a bespoke value for their work. Hourly rates, by contrast, are applied at the same level for everyone, irrespective of the value you are adding to their business.
3: Sharing risk by quoting fixed prices projects experience and confidence in your delivery and performance. Clients will feel that you must know you can do the job, otherwise you wouldn’t have committed to it.
4: Clients will appreciate that you are not about to rip them off. Can you imagine how you would feel if an airline charged by the mile for your ticket? Maybe the pilot would deliberately take the long route to rack up the costs!
5: Value pricing forces internal efficiency. Fixing revenue ensures you will delegate and review work flows so you can offer service whilst ensuring you meet your own profitability aspirations.
6: Annual price increases are easier to factor in, as each job is costed individually. No firm likes sending out notices of hourly rate hikes, and no client likes receiving them.
In summary: value pricing encourages trust and nurtures long-term relationships with satisfied clients, leading to mutual profitability and success.
It’s time to ditch the clock and focus on value!
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions to this column online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Jon Cooper: Is it important…or just urgent?
Proritise for success...
Ever get the feeling you’re overworked, always busy, stressed and yet often seem to accomplish very little?
Do you frequently leave work with a pile of stuff you really should have finished today, still to do tomorrow?
If so, you probably need to examine one of the fundamentals of time management, namely the difference between urgent and important tasks.
Urgent tasks are those which need doing now, whereas important tasks are those on which you need to spend most time.
Here’s a simple 4-box method of analysing your workload and deciding what to do first…and last!
Box 1: Urgent and important: Bills to be paid now, health or family problems, customer complaints; try to look at the root causes of why you are getting dragged into these situations. This will often feel like crisis management and should be pretty rare with proper planning. Finding space in your diary well in advance of deadlines will eliminate the stress from many of these tasks, and move them into Box 3.
Box 2: Urgent but not important: Plan to give these as little time as possible. For instance, answer priority emails and phone calls as briefly as possible, and delegate tasks to others whenever you can. This is the box where most work tends to be concentrated; probably because focussing on a series of trivial actions can seem like you are accomplishing great things.
Box 3: Important but not urgent: These are jobs which must be done, but not necessarily today. Replying to most emails falls into this category, and you should avoid the knee-jerk tendency to answer all your messages right now. Most of your work should be concentrated here in Box 3, meaning you get through lots of essential tasks, without the pressure of a deadline.
Box 4: Neither important nor urgent. These are jobs which you really should be delegating, or simply leaving undone. You might find that if you leave things to simmer here for a while, they will either slip into Box 2, or become irrelevant. Surfing the internet for nothing in particular is a classic time-hungry example of a Box 4 task.
Thinking about what you REALLY need to be doing, and when, truly can make a difference in your personal effectiveness, wealth and happiness.
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions to this column online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Ever get the feeling you’re overworked, always busy, stressed and yet often seem to accomplish very little?
Do you frequently leave work with a pile of stuff you really should have finished today, still to do tomorrow?
If so, you probably need to examine one of the fundamentals of time management, namely the difference between urgent and important tasks.
Urgent tasks are those which need doing now, whereas important tasks are those on which you need to spend most time.
Here’s a simple 4-box method of analysing your workload and deciding what to do first…and last!
Box 1: Urgent and important: Bills to be paid now, health or family problems, customer complaints; try to look at the root causes of why you are getting dragged into these situations. This will often feel like crisis management and should be pretty rare with proper planning. Finding space in your diary well in advance of deadlines will eliminate the stress from many of these tasks, and move them into Box 3.
Box 2: Urgent but not important: Plan to give these as little time as possible. For instance, answer priority emails and phone calls as briefly as possible, and delegate tasks to others whenever you can. This is the box where most work tends to be concentrated; probably because focussing on a series of trivial actions can seem like you are accomplishing great things.
Box 3: Important but not urgent: These are jobs which must be done, but not necessarily today. Replying to most emails falls into this category, and you should avoid the knee-jerk tendency to answer all your messages right now. Most of your work should be concentrated here in Box 3, meaning you get through lots of essential tasks, without the pressure of a deadline.
Box 4: Neither important nor urgent. These are jobs which you really should be delegating, or simply leaving undone. You might find that if you leave things to simmer here for a while, they will either slip into Box 2, or become irrelevant. Surfing the internet for nothing in particular is a classic time-hungry example of a Box 4 task.
Thinking about what you REALLY need to be doing, and when, truly can make a difference in your personal effectiveness, wealth and happiness.
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions to this column online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
Jon Cooper: Getting past the gatekeeper
Don't fall at the first fence!
So, you’ve got a brilliant product or service which blows all your competitors out of the water. Not only that, but you’ve priced it so well that your customers are never going to say no! If only you could get to them to tell them about it…
I’ve recently been working with a large organisation which sells vending machines to businesses throughout the UK. They were concerned that their telesales team had recently been connecting to decision makers less and less frequently.
As anyone who’s ever tried to sell by phone will know, many of your potential customers are surrounded by a human firewall, a virtual moat manned by PAs and receptionists charged with one simple task – to protect their executives from the white noise of uninvited sales calls.
Here’s a plan we put together, designed to overcome this perennial dilemma.
1: Call the company, and ask for the sales department, rather than the named decision maker. You will always be put through. Aim: Avoid immediate rebuttal from gatekeeper.
2: Explain to the salesperson that you’re in sales, just like they are, and you’d appreciate a little help. Aim: Get them to identify with you and open up.
3: Ask them who they currently use for supply of your product or service, and how they feel about that current supplier. Aim: Research the company’s need for change.
4: Ask who the decision maker would be where your product or service is concerned. Always ask for their direct extension number, so you “don’t have to bother them again” Aim: Enable contact with your buyer without risk of being blocked at the switchboard.
5: Contact the decision maker directly at their desk and mention your previous conversation with sales, where they suggested a need for your product or service. Aim: Create a perceived referral from someone else in the company.
We found that this approach increased direct conversations with decision makers by over 40%, and produced a call-to-appointment ratio 32% higher over the next quarter.
Of course, any aspirations to those kinds of improvements assume that your telesales personnel already display the essential attributes of honesty, integrity, credibility and humour, through a gentle yet persuasive phone manner.
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
So, you’ve got a brilliant product or service which blows all your competitors out of the water. Not only that, but you’ve priced it so well that your customers are never going to say no! If only you could get to them to tell them about it…
I’ve recently been working with a large organisation which sells vending machines to businesses throughout the UK. They were concerned that their telesales team had recently been connecting to decision makers less and less frequently.
As anyone who’s ever tried to sell by phone will know, many of your potential customers are surrounded by a human firewall, a virtual moat manned by PAs and receptionists charged with one simple task – to protect their executives from the white noise of uninvited sales calls.
Here’s a plan we put together, designed to overcome this perennial dilemma.
1: Call the company, and ask for the sales department, rather than the named decision maker. You will always be put through. Aim: Avoid immediate rebuttal from gatekeeper.
2: Explain to the salesperson that you’re in sales, just like they are, and you’d appreciate a little help. Aim: Get them to identify with you and open up.
3: Ask them who they currently use for supply of your product or service, and how they feel about that current supplier. Aim: Research the company’s need for change.
4: Ask who the decision maker would be where your product or service is concerned. Always ask for their direct extension number, so you “don’t have to bother them again” Aim: Enable contact with your buyer without risk of being blocked at the switchboard.
5: Contact the decision maker directly at their desk and mention your previous conversation with sales, where they suggested a need for your product or service. Aim: Create a perceived referral from someone else in the company.
We found that this approach increased direct conversations with decision makers by over 40%, and produced a call-to-appointment ratio 32% higher over the next quarter.
Of course, any aspirations to those kinds of improvements assume that your telesales personnel already display the essential attributes of honesty, integrity, credibility and humour, through a gentle yet persuasive phone manner.
Jon Cooper is the founder of Jupiter Dawn Consulting. Add any comments or questions online, or by e-mail to jon@jupiterdawn.com
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