Would you like to double your sales in the next six to twelve months? Have I got your attention?

The two strategies I am about to outline have been proven time and time again to result in an exponential increase in sales. I’m not talking about a 10%, 20% etc increase. I’m talking about a 100%, 200% or even 300% increase.

These strategies are easy to implement and do and yet very few do them. Most people are so busy chasing new customers that they miss out on the easiest sales of all – which you will make when you implement these two strategies.

Off course I’m assuming you have satisfied customers and they trust you. You have delivered what you said you would deliver and maybe even more. So here are the two strategies:

Strategy One: Nurture Your Clients

You need to put in place a strategy to transform your clients from satisfied clients to raving fans. Raving fans will ‘naturally’ rave about you to others and effectively become your unpaid salesforce.

Most make the mistake of thinking that because they have done a good job; their clients will become raving fans and tell others. Unfortunately this is not the case. Your clients expect you to do a good job – that is what they paid you for. Statistics show that 14% of clients leave because they are dissatisfied with product or service whereas 68% leave because of the way they were made to feel.

To turn a client into a raving fan requires that you make them feel good. It requires that you transform the relationship from transactional to personal fast. You need to show your client that you care about them as a person rather than as a transaction. Also showing your customer that you care about them once is not enough. You need to show them that you care about them repeatedly and consistently over time.

In order to show your clients repeatedly that you care about them, you need to develop a plan to connect with them on a personal level at least once a month. This could involve a combination of such things as non-business phone calls (just to see how they are doing), sending them some information to help them with their hobby, going for a non business lunch/coffee, sending them cards and sometimes cards and gifts (Thank you cards, Hi cards, birthday cards, holiday cards, appreciation cards, etc).

You will probably want to have a different “nurturing” plan for your “A” clients versus your “B” and “C” clients.

As a result of implementing this “Nurture Your Clients” strategy over twelve months your sales will increase from your clients and you’ll get more referrals and more sales from referrals.

Exponential growth can happen from implementing just this one strategy alone. However what is really powerful is if you also implement Strategy Two. And the probability of Strategy Two working will be increased because you have Strategy One in place.

Strategy Two: Proactive Offers

First start by identifying who are the clients that give you 80% of your revenue. Typically 20% of your clients give you 80% of your revenue in a year.

For each of these clients do a six and twelve month forecast of what they will probably need from you in products and/or services.

Now come up with an offer that makes it very appealing for each client to commit to buying from you now what they will be buying from you in the next six and twelve months. What can you add that they will value to the extent that they will commit now rather than later?

Now present the two offers to them: a six month offer and a twelve month offer. Present it in such a way that they can see it is in their best interests to commit now rather than later.

You will be pleasantly – and very excitingly – surprised by the sales that will result (particularly if they know you care about them versus the transaction!).

Make it a priority to implement these two strategies so you can at least double your sales. Implementing them will I suspect cost you far less than what you spending to acquire new customers and it’s a much easier way to double your sales.

What are you waiting for?

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Implementing Strategy One

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Make sending cards part of your nurturing strategy. You can either do it manually – which is probably too cost and time prohibitive – or you can use a system.

The system I recommend, and use extensively myself, is SendOutCards. Test drive it and send a card now to one of your “A” clients just to say “Thank You” for being your client. I’ll even pay for the card and the postage.

How would your customers describe how they feel about you?

Bear with me for a moment if you think I am being a bit touchy feely. You are probably wondering what this has to do with sales.

You see, how your customers feel about you – which is really how you make them feel – has a huge impact on your sales.

For example:

If your customers feel that you just see them as a transaction, do you think they are going to keep wanting to buy from you? Will they refer others to you so they can be made to feel like a transaction too?

Conversely if your customers feel that you care about them as people, do you think they are going to want to keep buying from you? Will they refer others to you in the knowledge that you will treat them well and make them feel good too?

If your customers feel unappreciated by you, do you think they’ll keep buying from you? Will they send you referrals so they can feel unappreciated too?

Conversely if they feel appreciated by you will they keep buying? And will they send you referrals?

You know the answers to these questions -they are obvious.

Yet even though you know the answers to these questions, what are you consistently doing to make your customers feel good? What are you consistently doing to show your customers that you care about them as people? What are you consistently doing to show you appreciate them? What systems do you have in place for doing this?

You can absolutely increase your sales and referral just by making your customers feel good.

Joe Girard, who I frequently mention, is proof that making your customers feel good works and results in more sales and referrals. Joe Girard, the “World’s Greatest Salesman”, was a car salesman, and you had to make an appointment to buy a car from him. Really – an appointment to buy from a car salesman! Joe’s secret was that he sent out over 15,000 cards of appreciation a month to his customers and potential prospects.

So aim to be the Joe Girard in your niche. You’ll stand out in your market place and you’ll increase your sales and referrals. It’s not hard IF you do some simple things like Joe did.

Recommendation
The system I recommend and extensively use for sending personalized, real cards and gifts is SendOutCards. Try it out for yourself by sending a real card to someone right now. Just click here and you’ll be talked through creating and sending a card.

Is this you?
Are you looking for an opportunity to earn some additional income while still working in your current business/role? Would you like to join my team and spread the word about SendOutCards? You’ll receive comprehensive training/coaching and have a lot of fun along the way. If you’d like to find out more about this HUGE opportunity click here and watch the video. If it makes sense, send me an email at tessa@salesconversation.com . We can then set up a time to chat. The timing for spreading the word about SendOutCards is perfect for a number of reasons.

Do you think selling is all about persuading and convincing? Are you trying hard to get people to agree with what you tell them? If that is the essence of your sales approach, it will lose you sales. Here are five reasons why.

Reason #1: You will resist selling.

If you think selling is all about persuading and convincing, you will resist doing selling as you probably don’t enjoy the experience of having to get people to agree with you. Doing that is difficult and can feel like fighting. You may also be concerned about what people will think of you. As a result, selling will be something you do rather reluctantly, and really wish you didn’t have to do at all. If you resist selling, you are not going to be selling as often as you need to. Consequently, the less time you spend selling, the less sales you will make – plain and simple.

Reason #2: You will experience sales resistance from your prospects.

The moment you start trying to persuade or convince is the moment your prospect identifies you as a “typical salesperson.” As soon as they reach that conclusion, they go into protection mode to prevent themselves from being sold to. They put their sales resistance barrier up. When a sales resistance barrier is present, the chance of getting a sale goes down.

Reason #3: You will miss out on the larger sales.

If your prospect trusts you, it is fairly straightforward to make a much larger initial sale. You can do this by giving them an option which assumes they will be with you for the long term. If they trust you, they will give serious consideration to this longer term, higher priced option. However, if you are persuading or convincing your prospect, it is unlikely they will trust you. They’ll think that you care more about making a sale than you do about helping them. When there is little or no trust present, your prospect will be very cautious about making a long term commitment to you. Hence, they will probably not be interested in your higher priced option.

Reason #4: You will miss out on the easiest sales of all.

The easiest sales of all should be from your current customers. However, and this is very important, if you acquired a customer through persuading and convincing, it will affect the trust between you and your prospect. He or she will probably not be too keen on repeating the last sales experience with you. So next time they need something that you can offer, they may go look to someone else who cares more about them than about themselves.

Reason #5: You will have few referrals.

If your prospects and customers did not enjoy the persuading and convincing sales experience with you, they are definitely not going to give you referrals. They will want to protect their own reputation within their network of friends and associates.

So what is the solution?

Instead of thinking that selling is about persuading and convincing, approach selling as helping people to get what they want. If you approach selling in this way – and use a sales process that matches it – then there will be little sales resistance on your side and from your prospects. As you successfully build rapport and trust, your prospects will be more open to higher priced initial options. Finally, you will get more repeat sales and referrals from your customers.

Starting today, stop persuading and convincing, and intently focus on helping people to get what they want. Both you and your prospects and existing customers will feel the difference. This simple change in your sales approach will result in more sales and customer loyalty.

If you want to sell more, you can do it the hard way or the easy way.

The hard way is to go out and find more customers. The easy way is to sell more to your current customers. You can only do that easily if you are selling the sticky way.

If you sell the sticky way, you’ll get more sales from your customers, and they’ll become your unpaid sales force, enthusiastically telling others about you and sending referrals your way.

Selling the sticky way is so easy, and yet most sales people don’t. When you do, you’ll stand out from your competition and develop a group of very loyal customers.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that to have loyal customers, all they need to deliver is a great solution and service. But that’s what your customers are paying you for, and it’s expected. Just because you are delivering a great solution and service does not mean your customer will keep buying from you and will tell others about you. Selling the sticky way is the only way to ensure that.

Selling the sticky way is all about making your customers feel appreciated. It’s all about making them feel good about you. If you do it the right way, your customers will want to help you and they’ll want others to share the good feeling as well. They’ll spread the word about you and their experiences with you.

So how do you create this “feel good” experience?

So you already send emails to say thank you, to say happy birthday, to say hi. Ask yourself about the last time you received an email or text message saying thank you or happy birthday. Were you moved by their thoughtfulness to phone that person later to thank them? Or did you hit the delete key instead? Did you print out a happy birthday email and put it on your desk to show others?

When you receive a sincere personalized thank you, you feel closer to the person who sent it to you. But do you feel that same closeness when you receive it by email, ignoring the minimum effort that the sender made? Most people don’t feel as good about disposable email and text message greetings.

One great thing about technology is that it speeds up communication with a lot less effort. But the downside is that it can dramatically reduce the effectiveness of our communication when done poorly. Communicating with impersonal technology can actually distance rather than draw us closer together.

So to sell the sticky way, avoid the instant communications technology trap. Instead, use technology to trigger you to act in the real world. Use a computer reminder, but call them up, say hi personally, and find out how they are. Also send them real cards in the post – thank you, birthday, holiday cards. Maybe even include a small gift.

Joe Girard, the “World’s Greatest Salesman”, bestselling author and motivational speaker, perfected selling the sticky way. Joe was a car salesman, and you had to make an appointment to buy a car from him. Really – an appointment to buy from a car salesman! Joe’s secret was that he sent out over 15,000 cards of appreciation a month to his customers and potential prospects.

If you are not sure about selling the sticky way, try it and see. Start selling the sticky way to some of your prospects. You’ll soon see how they will soon want to become your customer when the time is right. With your existing customers, your sales will also go up right along with your prices. Try it and see. You sell ROI to others every day, so sell the ROI of selling the sticky way to yourself today.

Recommendation
The system I recommend and extensively use for sending personalized, real cards and gifts is SendOutCards. Try it out for yourself by sending a real card to someone right now. Just click here and you’ll be talked through creating and sending a card. SendOutCards can be the heart of your sticky sales strategy. If you’d then like to chat about how you can implement this system and get results, send an email to tessa@salesconversation.com and put Sticky Sales in the subject line.

Is this you?
Do you have at least one spare hour a day? Are you looking for additional income? Are you looking for time/money freedom? Would you like to join my team and spread the word about SendOutCards? You’ll receive comprehensive training/coaching and have a lot of fun along the way. If you’d like to find out more about this HUGE opportunity click here and watch the video. If it makes sense, send me an email at tessa@salesconversation.com and put Huge Opportunity in the subject line. We can then set up a time to chat.

Do you have a marketing strategy that generates leads for you? More than likely, the answer is “yes” because there is so much emphasis on having one, and quite rightly so.

Do you also have a sales strategy so that once you have generated leads, you can convert them into clients? You probably answered “yes” to this question as well.

Both of these strategies are very important for obtaining new clients. But what about your existing clients? What strategy do you have for looking after them to make sure they stay your clients, become more loyal, and provide you referrals? Do you have such a strategy?

Right now, you may be saying to yourself that since you do such a fine job and have a great product/service, your clients will certainly stay and remain loyal. Although doing a fine job and having a great offering is important, it is unfortunately not enough to keep your clients.

Several studies have shown that 68% of the time when a client leaves, it is because of how they were treated and how they were made to feel. Only 14% leave because they were dissatisfied with the product or the service. Shocking, isn’t it? Just because you do a fine job does not assure that your client will stay with you and remain loyal.

To ensure client loyalty, you need to consistently make them feel good. You need to show that you care about them and you appreciate them. You must implement a personal relationship strategy – this is the critical missing strategy. Most do not have such a strategy and assume it will somehow take care of itself.

You can’t afford not to define and implement a relationship strategy. If you care for your clients with a well planned personal relationship strategy, they will also care for you by giving you additional business and referrals. So what are the elements of a personal relationship strategy?

The basic components are not very complicated, and are inexpensive and personal things like:

• Phone calls just to say “hello” to let them know you’re thinking of them.
• Sending real cards to say “thank you” and celebrate occasions like birthdays and holidays.
• Small “fun” gifts from time to time (but always within the bounds of client rules).
• Looking for and sending them information on their business or personal interests.

For your personal relationship strategy to work, you need to plan and do all these things with no specific agenda and no expectation of anything in return. If you do, what you give out in terms of personally caring about those clients will come back as more business and more referrals. If you have an obvious or hidden agenda or expectations, expect it to backfire as the client will detect and resent your insincerity.

What I recommend is that you do these three things as soon as possible:

1. Decide on a sequence of events for key clients for the next 12 months. You will want a mixture of caring actions and you should schedule at least one each month.
2. Look for a system to automate the things that can be automated (e.g. sending of personalized cards/gifts). If you don’t have an automated system, you’ll forget and it will become “I didn’t have time” and “it was too hard”.
3. Initiate your strategy progressively, first with your most important clients.

Once you have implemented your personal relationship strategy with key clients, then extend it. Come up with a similar set of activities for all clients, the prospects you are working on, and those others in waiting. They are the ones who don’t need or don’t want your solution now, but probably will at some time in the future.

If you methodically and consistently do this, it will have a huge impact on your new sales, and you will find your pipeline is filling up with people who are keen to buy from you when they can. Don’t miss using a personal relationship strategy if you want more sales and referrals!

Enthusiasm has the power to attract people towards you and to motivate them to buy your products and services. It also can result in repelling people and losing sales. Enthusiasm is essential when selling, but you must make sure that your enthusiasm is helping rather than hurting sales.

So why does your enthusiasm sometimes attract prospects, and yet at other times repel them?

The reaction you get to your enthusiasm is a reaction to what your enthusiasm is focused on. Suppose that you are really enthusiastic about your products, your services, and your company. When you speak to a prospect, you enthusiastically tell them how fantastic your products and services are, how superior your support is, and how great your company is, and so on.

Now put yourself into your prospect’s shoes and listen. All you can hear is someone enthusiastically talking all about themselves, i.e. how great they are and how great their products are. All you can hear is me, me, me. So what has all this got to do with my situation? He obviously doesn’t care about me or is not interested in me. In fact, this entire conversation would be exactly the same whether I was here or not. So how can I escape this conversation fast!

In this situation, you had a negative reaction to your enthusiasm because it was indeed focused on you. Your enthusiasm will accelerate losing the sale. Acting this way, the more enthusiastic you are about your products and services, the faster you will probably lose the sale.

Now switch the focus. Suppose you are really enthusiastic about helping your prospect solve a problem and getting what they want. You talk enthusiastically to your prospect about the results they are going to obtain. Now put yourself back into your prospect’s shoes and listen again. What you are now hearing is someone who enthusiastically cares about helping me. Your feeling is that you want to hear more.

In this situation you will get a positive reaction to your enthusiasm because it is focused on your prospect. Your enthusiasm will accelerate making the sale. Behaving this way, the more sincerely enthusiastic you are about helping your prospect, the faster the sale will be made.

Now you might be saying to yourself: If my enthusiasm can lose sales, maybe I should play it safe and not be enthusiastic at all. Wrong! – just as miss-directed enthusiasm can lose sales, so can a lack of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is critical when selling because it transfers to the prospect, and you should not try to sell without it.

If your conversation is correctly focussed on your prospect and on the results they will obtain, but you show very little enthusiasm, your prospect will mirror your level of enthusiasm for helping them. So make sure you are prepared to be enthusiastic before every sales conversation. If for some reason you can’t, there is no point in having the conversation, as you will do more damage than good.

Before every sales conversation, you must make it a habit to get reconnected with your enthusiasm for the positive results you know that you can deliver. Read your case studies and testimonials and think about the great results you have previously achieved. Then as soon as you start the conversation with the prospect, channel all your enthusiasm towards helping your prospect. Your sincere enthusiasm will transfer to the prospect because you just reminded yourself of the proven results achieved with others.

So what is the message? Be sincerely enthusiastic about helping your prospects get what they want and your sales will increase and accelerate. When enthusiasm is focused on your prospect, it sells.

Has a prospect for your products or services ever said to you, “Your price is too high and I’d like a discount”? In this article I outline three key strategies for responding to this. One of these strategies even has the potential for you to make a larger sale than you originally anticipated. Curious?

First, giving discounts in the right way may well be the most appropriate thing to do. Conversely, giving a discount in the wrong way can not only lose you a sale but could lose you all possible future sales from a potential client. Read on to see what I mean.

Just suppose you say “yes” and immediately give a discount. What do you think this prospect now thinks?

• You seem desperate for the sale.
• I wonder how far you will lower your price. Mmmm, maybe I should have asked for an even bigger discount.
• The price you originally offered was not the real price. Are you trying to trick me? Can I really trust you?
• You don’t set a very high value on your own services and products if you are prepared to discount so quickly.
• You agree your price is too high. This is a problem.
• Next time I come to buy anything from you, I’ll ask for a discount again – an even bigger one.

The problem with just giving a discount by itself is that you have given something away and have asked for absolutely nothing in return. You’ve just created a win/lose situation. The potential client has “won” a discount amount and you have “lost” it. Also because it is a win/lose, over time you may start to resent this client and may not want to go the extra mile in service for them so eventually the win/lose turns into lose/lose.

Also, by giving a discount you have trained your client to expect a discount in all future dealings with you. Why wouldn’t they?

And just because you’ve agreed to a discount doesn’t mean you’ll get the sale, in fact, quite the opposite. You may have damaged your credibility to the extent this person no longer trusts you or wants to do business with you.

So what do you say when someone asks for a discount?

When someone asks for a discount, just reflect back and ask, “Why do you want a discount?” Listen very carefully to the response they give you. That will help you understand what is behind their request as you need to know whether money really is the issue or not before you can respond.

When you respond, take the focus away from discounting to changing the value. Have a value discussion by using one of the following three strategies.

Strategy One

This strategy is to be used when money really is the issue. Instead of giving a discount, you lower your price by taking out something of high perceived value. This is a win/win choice. They get the lower price and you still maintain your price for a certain value bundle.

“If price is an issue for you, then I suggest that we take out this particular product or service.”

“If price is an issue for you, then I suggest that we take something out. What do you suggest?”

You really want to train your prospects and clients that, in order to get a discount, they have to give up something of value. They need to understand that there’s a price for reducing the price.

Strategy Two

With this strategy you maintain your price. You effectively say “If you agree to my price, then I will add in this product/service.” The product/service that you add in needs to have a high perceived value by them and be a low cost item for you. Then it is a win/win.

“If you agree to my price of $20,000 for this product, then I will also include this additional item.”

What are some high perceived value (low cost to you) products/services you could include in your offers?

Strategy Three

With this strategy you reduce your price in exchange for a larger sale. You effectively say “If you give me a larger commitment/sale, then I will give you a reduced price.” That’s a win/win.

“If you commit to 1000 hours of consulting, then I’ll reduce my rate from $250 to $200 an hour.”

What are some financial commitments your prospects/clients could give you in exchange for a reduced price?

I hope you’re starting to see that when people ask for a discount, it creates a great opportunity for you. Next time you are asked for a discount, and money is not really the issue, try increasing the total value of your sale.

In fact go one step further. Be proactive. Don’t even wait for your prospects/ clients to ask for a discount and approach them with your own “If…then” offer to increase the value of the sale. You will be surprised at how easy it can be to get larger sales with minimal extra effort!

Are you constantly looking for prospects? Would you like more prospects to contact you when they are ready to buy?

Would you like prospects to contact you before they call your competition? Even better, how about they just call you and not even consider calling the other guys?

Wouldn’t it be great if these prospects were almost presold as well? The good news is that all of this is possible.

When it all comes true for you, your sales pipeline will fill up almost automatically, and you will make more sales a lot faster.

At this point, I’m sure that you are asking yourself how, and how soon?

It’s not really that hard. Even though it can be done, most people won’t do it. Yet they wonder why they keep having to continually find prospects, why their sales take so long, and why they are always fighting the competition.

Over the last week, how many people have you spoken to who do not need your products and services immediately? They may need them at some stage in the future, but you feel there is no point in selling to them right now.

What have you done with these ‘prospects in waiting’? Have you made a note in your diary to call them back in 6 months or whenever they have told you to? You probably concluded that at that future time, the prospect might finally have a need for what you are offering. This is what most sales people do in this situation.

But when you contact them in 6 months or when they told you to, you’ll be calling back at the same time as everyone else they talked to with similar products and services. You’ll be just one of the crowd. You’ll also be at the beginning of the sales process and will have to start building trust, a relationship, credibility, etc. while competing for face time.

Alternatively, suppose that you have already prequalified the ‘prospect in waiting’ – that they definitely have a need for your products and services at some stage in the future. Now you don’t wait 6 months to call them back – you start immediately to build a TRAC record with them.

A personalized contact record of Trust, Relationship, Awareness, and Credibility.

If you build a TRAC record with them starting right now, chances are very high that they’ll remember and contact you as soon as they need your products and services. Even if they don’t, you’ll be in contact enough that you’ll pick up when the time is right.

When they do need your products and services, because you already have Trust, Relationship, Awareness and Credibility with them, the sales cycle will move much faster since you have already gone past these steps in the usual process.

So how can you build this miraculous TRAC record with a minimum amount of effort? You obviously can’t spend too much time on it as you need to focus your selling time mainly on those prospects who are ready to buy now.

To build a TRAC record with ‘prospects in waiting’, you must put in place your own contact system which will build the record. You want to use a variety of communication methods – some technology based and some that are more personal. Your system can include things like a newsletter, emails, Google alert tracking, phone calls, events, and appreciation cards.

Automate your system as much as possible and in the most personalized way you can. Automate it or you won’t make the contacts on a frequent and consistent schedule. Personalize it or you won’t connect as you should with the target person. You have to develop a relationship with that person as an individual, as well as with them in their business role. It’s amazing how many tools and systems are now available that will enable you to automate your hi-tech and hi-touch client communications.

The time that you invest in setting up your contact system to build a TRAC record will pay off in a flow of prospects into your pipeline who are already predisposed to buying from you. Then continued use of your automated and personalized system will expand the TRAC record and pay you a double dividend in repeat business and larger opportunities.