Monthly Archives: October 2011

Commitment

Commitment

           Some words are very predictive of outcome. The word ‘try’ for example has always told me the outcome has a 50/50 chance of success, at best.
          When I had two teenage daughters and asked them to be home by midnight, I knew the outcome would not be favorable if they said, “We’ll try our best, Dad.” I could only be assured they’d be home on time if they said, “Yes, we’ll do that.”
          John F. Kennedy didn’t say, “We’ll try to go to the moon” and if he had, failure might have been acceptable….at least they ‘tried’.
          Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon.” He made a commitment. And America did land a man on the moon.
          The dictionary says to ‘try’ is “to taste, sample, test or make an effort”.
          Testing and trying often fail where commitment succeeds.  Commitment causes us to do all of the ancillary things necessary to see a project or effort succeed.
          Trying simply becomes a self full-filling prophecy when it fails. Commitment makes the occasional failure a valuable learning experience. 
Watch your words, for your words become your thoughts and your thoughts become your actions.
 
Randy’s What If
What if you committed today to implementing that new revenue idea you’ve been sitting on? Can we help? ENS Media always holds each consulting project in strictest confidence.
 

The New Learning

The ‘New’ Learning

          It’s been said that, “The ability to learn faster than your competitor is your only sustainable competitive advantage.”
          But ‘learning’ has come under the knife in recent years. Many conferences and face-to-face sales training events have been replaced by less costly and less time consuming virtual learning events.
          As a trainer myself, I personally prefer virtual events to live on-location events. Why? They are much less costly in terms of down time for travel in airports and hotels, and frankly, all hotels and airports start to smell the same after a while.
          I can also squeeze a lot more live virtual training events into a six day week than in-person on-location events.
          But I also recognize the difference in companies that have ‘training’ as an expedient budget line versus training as a strategy to stay ahead of their competition.
          In the training world, there are basically two learning models; Inductive Learning and Deductive Learning.
          In the Deductive or ‘direct instruction’ model, information and knowledge is passed from teacher to student through telling, showing, reading or lecturing usually in a seminar-style setting or webinar.
          The Inductive Learning model or ‘guided discovery’ model,is an inquiry-based method where the teacher creates a motivational environment that generates creative problem solving situations.
          In this workshop environment, students draw on their experience and existing knowledge to debate and discover facts, relationships and new truths through interaction with their peers and creative thinking.
          Workshops require skilled facilitators who can read and interact with the participants and manoeuvre through the various experience and interest levels to motivate ‘take-home’ learning.
          There is no doubt that students who discover the answers in a workshop with their peers, take ownership of their answers and use what they’ve learned in a more sustainable fashion than those who have had to listen to the instructions of others.
          Online seminars/webinars, are more efficient than hands-on workshops. But efficiency and effectiveness are not synonymous terms.
          If companies are serious about sustainable learning as their competitive advantage, I guess I’ll have to keep smelling airports and hotel rooms.
 
Randy’s
What If you had a hybrid learning solution, with a combination of live face-to-face workshops and ongoing webinars to keep new concepts relevant and sustainable?
And, what if training was not an expense, but rather a guaranteed investment? ENS Media Inc. guarantees a minimum ten to one return on all of our workshops in new and lift business or we refund your investment in full!!  

Like Fries with That?

Would you Like Fries with That?

             You have invested a lot of time, money and effort to get that sale. There is wear and tear on your vehicle, gas and parking money, the usual time consuming activities of research, pre-call planning, prospecting, presenting and more.
            Now you finally got the sale and you can’t wait to fly out the door; maybe because you’re afraid the buyer will change their mind, or you can’t wait to get back to the station and celebrate.
            In either case, many account executives forget the most profitable sale can be in the ‘fries’. The fast food folks understand the effect and efficiency of simply asking,“Would you like fries with that?” There is little extra time and no additional expense in making small up-sells during every sale.
            I learned that very early in my career when I was in newspaper sales. Yes,before I saw the light, I sold newspaper advertising. And I quickly learned the power of selling the fries during every transaction. Once the advertiser had agreed to the size, theme, layout and content of a full page or half page ad, I’d simply ask,“Do you want to direct more readers to see your ad with a small teaser in the classified section?”
            I consistently had the equivalent of one full page of advertising every month, made up of small classified teaser ads!
            Do you know how to add fries to every sale you make? It’s easy to get a ‘yes’ on the heals of a larger sale, with no additional costs of time or money on your part.
            Perhaps you can sell a link to the client’s web site on your web site for $2 a day. That’s only $730 a year, but if half of the accounts on your station bought those ‘fries’, it could easily add up to over six figures for your station annually. 
            Look around for the fries you might add to every sale you make.     
 

Randy’s What If

Templates and Robots

Templates and Robots

          How do you feel when someone is giving you an obviously canned pitch or presentation that does not appear to be tailored specifically to you?
          I’m often asked for standard presentation ‘templates’ or for pre-scripted answers to objections. Those who are looking for magic templates and processes are simply looking for the easy way to make a sale.
          My father taught me, “anything worth getting is worth working for”. When you are in pursuit of a major sale, robotic processes and template systems just don’t cut it. They’re fine for the rookie who hasn’t learned how to approach prospects strategically, or for small ‘quick hit’ sales.
          We have all seen the sales training that says, “this is the way (implying the only way) to get an appointment” or “when your prospect poses an objection, use this standard, snappy comeback”.
          There are a number of problems with trying to train your sales people in robotic selling or to use down and dirty templates.
1.)   Templates and robotic pitches make no allowance for buyer style and assume the same approach works for everyone.
     Custom tailoring your approach to suit your prospect’s buyer style does     take more research and effort, but pays off handsomely.
2.)    Templates and scripts don’t allow you to benefit from experience. When you custom tailor your presentations for continuous improvement, each presentation becomes better than the last one.
3.)    The average local business owner hears from 16 sales people a week trying to sell them one form of advertising or another. The odds are they’ve already seen the template or heard the script you’re using from one of your competitors. You know enough about marketing and branding to know the winner is always the one who differentiates themselves from their competition.
4.)    Custom tailoring every major presentation to be relevant to your client has the added advantage of giving you time to mentally rehearse your presentation as you write it.
         
          You’ve told your clients that marketing today is all about ‘engaging’ or ‘being relevant’. So it’s time for you to walk the talk. Robots who say the same thing to everyone are NOT engaging and I’ve yet to see the template that’s relevant to every buyer style and situation.
 
Randy’s ‘What If’
What if you gave every major presentation the time it deserves. Calculate what your time is worth per hour, then calculate the commission you will make on this sale. Putting time and effort into preparing a well thought out customer-focused presentation will always result in larger orders than, one size fits all scripts and templates.
 
Don’t know how to write customer-focused presentations? Contact [email protected] to discuss our Customer-Focused Communication sales training to help you capture larger 52-week orders.

No One Can Sell Like you

No One Can Sell You Like YOU!

          So your prospect says they like your presentation, but they want to present it to a board, partner or solicit a co-sponsor. Don’t let that happen!
·        No one knows your product, or has the passion for your product, like you.
·        There may be questions the board/partner/sponsor has that your contact can’t answer….further stalling the sale.
·        A camel is a horse, made by a committee; your presentation can really be compromised or get bogged down when others are involved.
·        If there are objections, you need to be there to handle them.
 
          When you encounter someone who is trying to sell your proposal to others, simply suggest, “Great idea! Can I arrange to be there to help you and to answer any questions that may come up that you might not be able to answer?”
          If they say “yes”, get the names/titles/positions of those you’ll be presenting to. Check out their websites, do your home work, and revise the presentation to address any needs or concerns you discover during your research. Don’t hesitate to ask permission to call each of the participants to ask them a few pre-presentation questions.
          At the presentation, make sure you make eye contact with every individual, and give everyone the opportunity to ask questions and present ideas. And give everyone in attendance a copy of your presentation.
          If the others to be presented to are not in your market, offer to do the presentation for them online via services like GoToMeeting.
 
          Odds are if your client says “no” to you helping, they weren’t really going to present your presentation at all, and they were going to use the other parties as their scapegoat when they say “no” to you.
          No one can sell your ideas as well as you!
 
Randy’s What If 
What if you met with every partner, board member and sponsor and kept your eyes open for additional sales opportunities from each of them?