The prospect has said “no” to you. So what do you do next? What you do will have a huge impact on your sales results. Most sales people just move on to the next prospect, and if they say “no”, they keep moving on in the same way over and over.

In 2007 we planned to sell our house and we invited a real estate agent to give us a proposal. He was very professional and timely and we were impressed. But a few days later we changed our minds and decided not to sell. So we effectively gave him a “no” and didn’t hear from him again.

A few years later in 2010, we decided to definitely sell our house. My husband suggested we contact that same real estate agent as he was so impressive. But there was a problem: I did not know his name or his agency. He had not been in contact with us since he heard that “no” from us.

This sort of situation happens frequently. Think about it in your own business. How many prospects have given you a “no”? How many of them would remember your name and your telephone number so they could call you if they now need your services?

Are you seeing the picture? Are you getting an idea of how many sales you might have lost because you treated a “no” as a “never”? There is a very simple way to solve all of this. You continue to stay in touch in a way that builds the relationship.

This will have a huge impact on your future sales. It will not give you immediate results, but over the years it will give you lots more sales and referrals. In fact, you would already have those additional sales if you had started doing what I am about to tell you as little as a year ago.

So what should you do? You could put them on your email mailing list. However, emails are great for conveying information but not for building relationships. If you rely solely on emails for continuing contact, you run the risk of being deleted and unsubscribed. Most people are overwhelmed and unaffected by emails.

So how should you keep in touch to build the relationship? My own way is making periodic phone calls combined with mailing greeting cards. They say “Hi”, “Happy Birthday”, “Happy Holidays”, and other greetings that are motivational. Greeting cards usually make people smile and feel appreciated.

In 2010 when we could not contact that real estate agent, we listed our house with another agent. The day our house went on the market, I received a phone call from the prior agent. He was quite indignant and asked “Why did you not list your house with me?” I told him I would have but couldn’t remember his name or his agency.

He had made no effort to keep in touch. If he had just mailed us a card a few times a year, he could have built a relationship with us and we would have remembered and called him. If he’d spent less than $20 on sending us greeting cards, he could have made well over $10,000 in commission on the sale of our house. Not a bad return!

Don’t make the same fatal mistake of treating a “no” as a ” never” and rush off to find a “yes”. If you want to increase your sales dramatically over the next few years, treat a “no” as a “not now” and then keep in touch in such a way that build the relationship. When their situation and needs change, they will think of you and will call you when they are ready to buy.

	The Ultimate Keep In Touch Tool

	Is This For You?

A few years ago I interviewed 21 leading coaches and consultants on their recommended strategies for getting known fast. I then compiled a downloadable book containing the transcripts of these interviews. The book was part of a program which I sold for a few hundred dollars.

As I am no longer taking on coaching clients, I have decided to give away this book. You may have it with my compliments. You may also share it. Just click here to download it.

I am now focusing on my SendOutCards business as it is ‘the better way’ – in more ways than one. I don’t know if SendOutCards would be a good fit for you, but if you are wanting an additional income stream, I recommend you check it out. SendOutCards is going to do to the greeting card industry what Amazon did to the book industry so the opportunity is HUGE and the time is now. Just click here and watch the videos. Don’t forget to watch the “Our Vision” video as this will give you a great insight into the culture, integrity and vision of this company. It’s very much in alignment with who I am.

If you’d like to have a chat about this – and why I see this as the better way – just send an email to me at tessa@salesconversation.com and we can set up a time. If you do decide to join my team, and earn some additional income (both immediate and residual), my promise to you is that I will do all I can to help you be as successful as you want to be.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. – Gandhi

©Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation, 2012

You will be successful in sales if you master and use four key sales skills. As you read through them, think about what other things are missing that most sales books and trainers spend a lot of time trying to convince you are also important in selling.

So what are the top four sales skills that you must master if you want to be successful?

#1 – Asking Questions

Selling is all about helping people get what they want. The only way you are going to know what they want, and if you can help them, is to ask questions. Show that you are sincerely interested and ask questions to put yourself in their shoes and live in their world. Ask probing questions while resisting the urge to tell them about your products and services.

#2 – Active Listening

After asking the questions, you need to really listen to what they say. There is gold in what they say and don’t say. Once prospects feel that you are sincere and really listening to them, they will enthusiastically open up and give you everything you need. But if they sense that you are not really listening to them, they will close up and only provide mostly superficial answers.

#3 – Problem Solving

Selling is about helping people get what they want, which is basically solving problems for them. By asking the right questions and really listening to the answers, you will have everything you need to brainstorm how best to solve their problems. Don’t offer a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. Use all the information you have to come up with a solution that is tailored to solving their specific problems. When you present a customized solution for their problems, they will really listen to you as you did to them and will honestly try to understand and accept it.

#4 – Nurturing Relationships

A great quote by Jeffrey Gitomer sums this up: “You can earn a commission by using a sales technique and making a sale. You can earn a fortune building friendships and relationships.”

If you master the first three skills, people will be attracted to you and will start to like you and trust you. Notice it says “start” because that is only the beginning. Now you need to put a system in place so you will consistently keep in touch and build on the relationships.

Most sales people just stay in touch to keep telling people about products and services. This does not build the relationships, which is entirely different and should be treated as such. You need to regularly nurture the relationships you have with your clients and prospects. It is about caring for and encouraging the growth of those relationships over the long term.

I have a hunch you have lost some additional sales from clients as you did not nurture their relationships. I also believe you have missed out on even more sales from potential clients because they don’t remember you since you didn’t make the effort to keep in touch and nurture their relationships. That’s a scary and troubling thought, isn’t it?

Selling Made Easier and Fun

Have you thought about what skills were missing besides these four that you expected to be there? Notice that objection handling skills and closing skills were not mentioned. That is because if you master the four key sales skills, there will be few or no objections. If an objection does come up, it will typically represent a request for more information.

If you learn the four key sales skills, you will not need to specifically work at closing the sale. The client will automatically make the decision to buy from you because it will be the obvious next step. You will find that selling is much easier than you previously thought or as often taught by others. As you routinely use the four key sales skills, it can also be a lot more fun!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEBSITE? Yes, you can, provided you include the copyright statement above and this blurb with it: Tessa Stowe has a regular newsletter where where she shares tips and strategies for turning conversations into clients without being sales-y or pushy. Sign up now at www.salesconversation.com.

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To find out about what I know to be the ultimate nurturing tool watch this 3 minute and 20 second video.

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I no longer take on new coaching clients as I’m focussed 100%++ on building a HUGE SendOutCards business and helping my team do the same.

This business may or may not be for you but I highly recommend you have a look at it so you know what it is. At some stage in the future it might be just right for you. Alternatively, you might know someone who would be interested and I’d appreciate your referring them to me.

I am looking for just a few individuals who are serious about changing their financial futures.

To find out more watch the videos here. Also send me an email to tessa@salesconversation.com and we can set up a time to chat to see if this is a good fit for you.

Please note, I only want to work with you if you are serious about changing your future and want to ride this HUGE wave of opportunity.

There is so much competition out there, and you really need to stand out or you will be lost in the noise. Instead of recounting the usual ways to stand out from your competition, which reflect your solution and your unique value, I am going to focus on five great ways that revolve around the experience of dealing with you. These ways will make your prospect want to choose you as they will like the experience and the feeling of being around you.

#1 Deliver a hard copy of your proposal – not just an email version. Wrap it in a BIG box with bright paper and put a BIG bow on it and attach balloons to it. Not only will it bring a smile to your prospect’s face, but the delivery itself will become a talking point. If your competition just delivers theirs by email or in an envelope, they will be remembered for how bland and unexciting their proposal delivery was. You have immediately and cleverly put your competition at a disadvantage.

#2 When you give a presentation, bring some chocolates or cakes and sweets and put them on a big plate in the center of the table. This is simple, effective, fun and memorable. You will find it relaxes people and they switch into their “real” vs. their business roles, especially if you just happen to bring their favorite items. Even if some or all of them don’t choose to eat, they will remember and appreciate that you made the effort and the competition didn’t.

#3 When you give a presentation, limit any PowerPoint slides to ten in one hour. Also have most of the slides include pictures. Remember the saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Choose fun pictures that convey the essence of what you want to convey. There will be a huge sigh of relief when you say at the beginning you only have 10 slides, and then there will be smiles when they see your pictures. They’ll enjoy it more and they’ll thank you at the end. When your competition comes and does “death by Powerpoint”, they will be thinking back about you.

#4 Regularly ask your prospects to meetings outside their offices. Invite them to a local coffee shop or a nearby hotel cafe. Even if they say “no” the first time, keep trying. People really appreciate getting out of their office some of the time and they’ll actually start to look forward to meetings with you. You’ll find that outside meeting places will accelerate building your relationships and your prospects will open up more. If your competition always has formal office meetings, imagine the difference in conversation and the relationship and who the prospects will prefer to meet with.

#5 Send a huge “Thank You” card to them for considering your offer. Include photos in the card – photos of them and photos of your proposal in the BIG box with the bow and balloons. When your competition sends a brief “thank you” email (and some won’t even do that), it will get deleted in a second while they all talk about your card and photos and displayed on their desk or notice board.

Do not underestimate the positive impact of doing these things. I recently advised someone to do number #1 and he reluctantly delivered his proposal wrapped with a bow and balloons. He told me afterwards that he thought beforehand that it was a little cheesy, but then he saw the big smile and excitement it generated. The prospect made a big point then of saying that the other firms had only delivered their offers in an envelope and a plastic bag! I wonder who the psychological favorite is!

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If you’d like a resource for quickly, easily and cost effectively implementing #5, watch this 3 minute and 20 second video.

I was on a sales forum panel the other day and someone asked “What is the most important step in the sales process?” There were a variety of answers given with qualification and with “asking for the order” being the most common.

As I read through the answers, it hit me about what was wrong. They were missing the most important sales step, the one that most salespeople miss. If I was to ask you to describe your sales process, what would you say? Think about it for a moment before you read on.

Have you thought about it?

If you are like most salespeople, you have described the process up until you make the sale. Maybe it’s something along the lines of “qualify, present, and close”. If you have, then you have also missed the most important step, and it’s the step that occurs after you make the sale.

The sale does not end when you close (and that’s why I don’t like that word). It has really only begun at that point. When someone agrees to buy from you, you have the potential to double, or triple – in fact exponentially increase that initial sale. You can only do this if you add APPRECIATION to your sales process.

This is where you turn your customers into raving, loyal fans so they want to buy more from you and will tell others about you. This is the golden step where you will get the greatest leverage from your sales efforts. This is how your customers will become your unpaid sales force. So how do you use appreciation to turn customers into raving, loyal fans?

You must connect with each of them individually. You need to show that you appreciate and care about them, personally and professionally. You need to do this regularly and consistently. It’s so easy to do, and unfortunately easy not to do, and most salespeople don’t do it.

In my entire corporate sales career, I’ve never worked for a company that had a customer appreciation plan or system in place. They just left it up to each salesperson to do, and most did not do it. They were too busy chasing the next sale because they had neglected this step and had not developed their customers as an unpaid sales force.

What have you been doing up until now – regularly and consistently -to show appreciation for your customers? What is your customer appreciation plan? Do you even have one? Make it a top priority to put a systematic appreciation process in place.

I suggest that you determine the top 20% of your customers that probably give you 80% of your revenue and put them on an “A” list appreciation plan. Split the rest between “B” and “C” list plans. Look for systems that can automate a lot of this for you. They are readily available so it is not a good excuse that appreciation plans take up too much time.

In fact, if you are thinking you don’t have time, it is probably because you are too busy chasing new customers yourself and you have not developed your unpaid sales force!

Remember when you appreciate your customers, they will appreciate you. Begin showing consistent appreciation and watch your sales grow as if by magic!

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Include sending physical cards in the post to your clients in your Customer Appreciation Plan. Cards to say thank you, happy birthday and to say “I appreciate you” even.

If you decide to send physical cards manually this is fine but make sure you do it. Most have the intention of sending cards and don’t as manually sending cards is time consuming and inconvenient.

If you want to use a system, the system I use and highly recommend is SendOutCards. They’ve recently removed the upfront fee for retail customers and you can now either pay as you go or have a monthly subscription if you want the lowest retail price.

To test drive sending a card, click here and click on “2: Send a free card”.

If you want to generate an income stream from sharing SendOutCards, click here and click on “1: Watch the video” and then “2: Send a free card.” Then send me an email at tessa@salesconversation.com and we can set up a time to have a chat about it. I’ll personally work with you to help you be as successful as you want to be.

WARNING: Sending cards will transform YOU and your business.

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“THANK YOU is one of the easiest things to say & is more powerful than all the marketing material you can buy!!”

-Chris Rollins

Suppose that you are about to give a sales presentation and you desparately need the sale. You are totally focused on getting this sale closed.

Now put yourself in the shoes of the person hearing your presentation. As you listen to the words and the conversation progresses, you intuitively pick up that he or she desperately wants this sale and is completely focused on getting the sale.

What are you thinking? They really don’t care about me. They just want my money. It’s all about them. Can I really trust what they are saying as they are probably just saying things to get my money? In fact, I can probably get a big discount if I ask for it. But do I really want to deal with someone who doesn’t care about me? How can I escape this conversation – fast?

Now suppose you are about to give a sales presentation, and you would certainly like to get the sale just as you’d like to really help this person if you can. But if this sale doesn’t happen, there are plenty of other prospects to talk to and help.

Now put yourself back in the shoes of the person hearing your presentation. As you listen this time, you feel that they really care about helping you and that is what they are focused on. I feel I can trust them. I should keep listening so I can find out more.

The difference in these two scenarios is what you actually care about. If it is making the sale, you’ll make less sales. If it is about helping the other person, you’ll make more sales. The first repels your prospect; the second attracts your prospect.

So in every sales conversation, try never spending a single moment worrying about whether they will say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That is up to them. What you must do is give them all the information they need to make the best decision. This is what you must be fully committed to and care about the most. Don’t be concerned about whether they want your help or not. As counter intuitive as it seems, you’ll sell more faster.

How about starting off a prospect conversation with: “I am committed to making sure you have enough information so you can make the best decision for you. During this process, I might even tell you that my offer is not the best fit for you and I’ll recommend something else. If I do feel that I have the best fit for you, I’ll tell you that and I’ll explain why. The final decision on whether you choose to buy from me or not is obviously up to you, and I’ll respect whatever decision you make knowing that I’ve done my best to help you.”

How do you think saying this would make your prospect feel? How would it make you feel as well? With this approach, you forget about ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and you focus on having great conversations to see if you can really help people. This simplifies the whole sales process, as you don’t need a lot of techniques to persuade them to say ‘yes’ as you are not focused on that. A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decision will just come naturally.

So from now, try caring more about helping your prospect and caring less about making a sale, and you’ll make more sales.

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A Caring Resource

In this article I talked about caring about helping your prospects and customers. You want to take your caring one step further and also show you really care about them as a person. Do this and you’ll have loyal customers who will not only buy more from you but they’ll rave about you to others.

There is no better way to show you care about your customers and prospects than to regularly send them real greeting cards in the post. Cards purely to give appreciation with no expectation of anything in return. When you do this, you’ll be amazed at what comes back.

Sending very personalized, high quality, real cards can be easily done from your computer – at a fraction of the cost of what you pay for cards in a store. Plus there is no need to go to the shops or the post office. The system for doing this is SendOutCards.

To test drive the system, and send a card with my compliments, click here.

If you are interested in making a difference by spreading the word about SendOutCards, click here and watch the video. Alternatively if you prefer to read instead of listen, click here.

If you would like to chat further about this, just email me at tessa@salesconversation.com. I’ll personally work with you to help you be as successful as you want to be.

One user of SendOutCards increased his sales by 14% last year and the only thing he did differently was send cards of appreciation to his clients. Sending cards works.

When you talk to your potential prospects, do you feel they are not telling you the whole truth, and are even holding out on you? They seem to be giving superficial answers to your probing questions and leaving out a lot. You often feel that your conversations just skim the surface of what is really going on.

Instead, wouldn’t it be great if your prospects really opened up and gave you really in-depth answers to your questions? How much would it help you if they told you what they really thought and what they really felt? Just think how much easier that would be, and imagine the positive impact on the speed and volume of your sales.

So how do you get a prospect to open up and tell you the whole truth? You have to change yourself! You must realize that you set yourself up for how your prospects respond to you. It’s all the result of knowing how you present yourself and interact with them.

Suppose your intention is to make a sale when you have a conversation. So you ask your questions to get something – a sale. Your prospects will easily pick up that you are trying to get something, and they’ll automatically try to protect themselves. So they’ll withhold information from you, and that will make it much harder for you to get a sale.

Now suppose you ask questions and you are not really listening. Instead, you are already thinking about what to say next. Your prospect will quickly know that you are not listening. They’ll conclude that there is no point in talking or explaining – so they won’t. They’ll say as little as possible – or maybe throw in some curve balls – so you can soon be on your way, and hopefully will not return.

Get the point? Perhaps you think that to sell, you need to act in a different way than the person you really are. For some reason, you believe you have to act like a “salesperson.” Your prospect will pick up intuitively that you are not being authentic. As a result, they won’t trust you, and they won’t want to do business with you.

Instead of setting yourself up for failure in this way, just imagine the opposite. Now your intention is to find out if you can help someone. Now you are sincerely interested in both the answers to your questions and in really understanding them. Leave all the chatter in your head behind and be fully present in the conversation. Just be your authentic self.

What happens? How does that make you feel about having a sales conversation? How do you think it will make your prospects feel when they pick up on your changes? You’ll both feel more relaxed. They’ll feel you are authentic and that you really do care about giving them help instead of just getting a sale. In return, they will give you the kind of answers you need to really help them.

So before your next sales conversation, set yourself up to find out the whole truth. Change your sales approach, and watch how your prospects respond to the authentic you!

When I interviewed David Frey on How To Master Referral Marketing he shared the following 3-1-3 Referral Strategy which has given his clients exponential results.

Most people do not like asking for referrals but you don’t have to even ask – in person. You can implement David’s 3-1-3 Referral Strategy and use cards to do the asking. Here is how it works.

You send a relationship-building card every month for three months. You don’t promote anything or ask for any business. The cards sole purpose is to build the relationship. Make sure you are sending fun, personalized, unique cards that they’ll want to keep on their desk.

Then on the fourth month, you send a referral card that reminds them that referrals are important to your business. You could send a referral card that on the front says “Who do you know?” Those are the four most important words in referral marketing. On the inside of the card you might write a personal message that says something like, “Hi Tessa. This is Dave. You may or may not know that I’m trying to expand my business. I really need your help. Would you do me a favor? Would you refer me to two or three people who you feel would benefit from my services?” It’s a very simple message.

Then you repeat the process. The fifth, sixth and seventh months are relationship-building cards. The eight month is a referral card. The ninth, tenth and eleventh months are relationship-building cards. The twelfth month is a referral card.

So if you are sending a referral card once every four months that’s three times a year you are asking for referrals.

Let’s just say that you had 200 clients. If you send out that referral card three times a year to 200 people, that’s 600 times that you have reminded people that referrals are important to your business.

Ask yourself how many times did you actually ask someone for a referral last year? Was it once, twice, or maybe three times?

It was probably none at all. Imagine if you ask 600 times. Do you think you could double the amount of referrals that you’re getting right now?

If you could just double the amount of referrals you’re getting right now, and your referral business is currently around $50,000 then doubling it would bring in an extra $50,000 and all you’ve done is send a few cards.

That is the 3-1-3 Referral Strategy. David Frey said he had implemented this with a group of pool builders in the pool industry and with hot tub retailers. They didn’t experience double. In most cases, their referrals have quintupled!

If you could quadruple (or even double) the number of referrals you get, what would that be worth to you?

Don’t wait. Make it your top priority to implement the 3-1-3 Referral Strategy today.

You can implement it manually or you can use a system to automate the process. The system I recommend is SendOutCards. SendOutCards allows you to create and send custom cards with your photos in your handwriting and with your signature.

You can test drive it now and send a card with my compliments.

Let me know your results from implementing David’s 3-1-3 Referral Strategy.

When I interviewed David Frey on How to Master Referral Marketing he talked about several referral strategies that are easy to implement and which really work.

One referral strategy he talked about is pinging.

There’s a guy named Keith Ferrazzi. He wrote a book called Never Eat Alone. There’s a quote from that book that says, “If 80% of success is, as Woody Allen once said, just showing up, then 80% of building and maintaining relationships is just staying in touch. I call it pinging. It’s a quick, casual greeting, and it can be done in any number of creative ways.”

That’s what pinging is. Pinging is reaching out to people on a consistent basis. It’s following up on a consistent basis and letting people know that you’re there to care about them.

Let me give you a very good real-life example of the power of pinging. I like to call this guy the “king of ping.” That’s how he created a crazily-successful business. His name is Joe Girard.

Joe Girard was nothing more than a car salesman out in Detroit. The Guinness Book of World Records heralded him as the world’s greatest salesman 12 years in a row because he would sell six to seven cars a day. If you’re in the automobile industry, you know that that is an insane amount of cars.

He said his secret to success was, “Getting people to remember me always.” The way he did it is he had a mailing program. He would send out a greeting card every single month. That was his mailing program.

His motto was, “I like you.” In every greeting card he would say, “I like you. Happy Easter. Joe Girard,” or “I like you. Happy Fourth of July. Joe Girard.” That’s what brought him great success.

In fact, at the height of his popularity he was sending out 14,000 handwritten greeting cards each and every month. He actually had to outsource that service. Do you think he would send out 14,000 handwritten greeting cards if it wasn’t working for him? That’s what made him the world’s greatest salesman.

Like Tony Robbins says, “Success leaves clues.” Just follow the successful people. If you want to become the world’s greatest salesman in whatever niche you’re in, do what Joe Girard did. Just start sending cards to people each and every month.

Let me put a caveat on that. The worst thing that you can do is send a boring greeting card. If you send a boring greeting card, they’re going to throw it straight into the trash.

I recommend that you need to send cards with interesting, different photos in them. I’ve found they don’t throw them away. When you put a photo on the front of or inside a card, they won’t throw the card away. If you put a photo of them inside the card, they certainly won’t throw that away. You can’t send boring greeting cards. You need to send heartfelt greeting cards that are unique and different.

If you want a system for easily creating and sending highly personalized WOW cards, I recommend SendOutCards. Click here to test drive it now and send a real card with my compliments.

If you are interested in also spreading the word about SendOutCards, click here and watch the video or read this document. Both will give you an overview of this incredible opportunity. If you’d like to chat further, just email me at tessa@salesconversation.com.

What are you waiting for? Start pinging and sending cards. It really works.