Lost at C , 5 P’s of Marketing now 5 C’s of Content

Content is king, to attract the right customers. Customers are People not numbers(from the old Yellow Pages, Golden Pages )

The days of breaking down doors, pounding the pavements and cold calling are thankfully gone. Just caused a lot of #stress on the #salesperson and the #Customer. Often this machine gun approached to #selling just chased away the Customer.

With Customers more up to date, well informed, looking at peer reviews and doing extensive research before they buy the modern sales person has to be a lot more strategic with their #sales and #marketing

Trust was always a key factor in selling so how does the modern sales person build trust ? People believe peer reviews in preference to adverts. But the advertising industry is catching up with Clever, Creative Content and video for mobile etc

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/lovable-video-marketing-campaigns#sm.00001dexxregqse9ju9vpwvtcd058

Then there’s the classic John Cleese parrot sketch with good olde fashioned Customer service / sales at its best / worst  :

 

 

Sales tip : don’t P on yr Customers

Trust is key to selling in a digital age

Digital selling retains many of the elements of face-to-face sales

Treasure your customers

Relate to their needs

Understand their needs and different buyer personas

Satisfy their needs with helpful solutions

Try to help them solve the problems they face

Don’t use the machine gun approach to selling, you’ll kill the customer!

Remember all customers are people not numbers on a spreadsheet. Customers need to to treated as intelligent human beings who have feelings.

Too many salespeople are so keen to reach sales targets that they just see customers as numbers and revenue making units. To succeed sales people need to have a more tailored approach based on careful listening to the customers needs.

Instead of being a pest on the phone become a helper and problem solver for individual customer needs. Social media can help once it’s not seen as spam.

Sales Tip : Are you too focused on self promotion?

Finding the right customers can be like finding a needle in a haystack. With all the sales channels  available it can be hard to know how to focus your sales strategy. Self promotion on social networks such as tweeting your great offers doesn’t work. You need to add value, be interesting or informative. With time, effort and the right sales and marketing strategy you’ll find sales coming you.

How much time should you spend on social media?

This depends on where your customers are and what you’re selling.

Participation on Twitter, and especially Facebook, is high, companies may find that other networks (and their ad products) are a better strategic fit. Pinterest, for example, has become essential to women’s lifestyle publishers, accounting for as much as 10% of their monthly referral traffic. WordPress, Instagram, Tumblr and LinkedIn may also be worth exploring, depending on your target customer demographic and other needs.

As a consultant trainer LinkedIn is a valuable way to help build more business contacts.

Offline networking and activities can be very important for high value goods and services.

Smile and the world smiles with you!

“Smile while you dial” you can actually trick your subconscious into a happier mood and it’s infectious. 

How can Cold Calls be turned into Hot Leads?

Sales people  often make lots of calls  to secure sales visits.  Cold calling(when no one knows you) can be demoralising  for both the sales person and the potential customer. Start ups  have to be particularly careful as potential customers don’t know anything about them.

To build trust start with engaging  potential customers. Know who their potential customers are, where they are and why they will buy from you?. Creatively use of a range of  resources  like going to exhibitions, Linkedin, social media, blogging, engaging in conversations with potential customers. and tweeting.

Then the cold calls can be converted  to hot calls which leads to sales.

My database was a shoe box on my desk before I started using Linkedin

I was a database developer in the late 1990’s, programming on Oracle database using PL/SQL. I started my own business before social media was been used in business. 

A shoe box of business cards collected from networking and attending trade fairs was my first database and then came Linkedin.

I can now store and email friends, colleagues and business contacts though email and now have more time to be out face to face with my business contacts. As you can imagine this helps my business generate more results.

How Linkedin can help sales people, be mad, be bold, be unique

You can do the following but always think of how to be unique and stand out from your competitors:

Your Profile, not only on LinkedIn, but also shows up in search engines like Google, contributions in Answers and Discussions. Try to be different.

Finding the right people at prospects or at current customers. Think about who you went to college with and worked with.Find their Profile via Advanced Search or by browsing through the network of your network.. Find information about prospects as preparation for your meeting. Read the Profiles of your contact persons before your meeting.. Maintain relationships with prospects or customers.

Sending personal messages, sharing ideas in Discussions and answer questions in Answers.Often appropriate humour works.

Receive Recommendations which are visible for everyone and in particular for prospects and customers.How can LinkedIn help? Receiving Recommendations and showing them in your Profile. Discover relationships between:Customers, prospects and other contacts Prospects and colleagues so you don’t contact the same prospects.

Searching and browsing in the network of you own contacts. Introductions or referrals to prospects.How

Through the “Get introduced to” option or via an email outside LinkedIn after finding the relationship between them on LinkedIn. Visibility, reputation and online branding of yourself and of the organization you work for.

Your Profile, not only on LinkedIn, but also in search engines like Google, contributions in Answers and Discussions. Word of mouth advertising, the best form of advertising.

Recommendations you have received and people who talk about you in Discussions, mention you as an expert in Answers or talk about you outside LinkedIn. Receive notifications when someone changes jobs. In this way you can ask to be introduced to the person who replaces them. You might also become the supplier of the new organization of your contact. Via Network Updates on your LinkedIn Home Page.Hear about trends in the market place from customers, prospects and other sales people.

Membership of Groups of which your customers and prospects are also member of and Groups where you can exchange ideas with other sales people.

Make sure that customers and prospects regard you as an expert (and as a consequence keep faith in you and are happy to refer you) Building trust is a major factor in sales. Contributions in Discussions and Answers.

Find the right organizations to become member of, both online and offline. Via Group Search and via the Profiles of people in your own LinkedIn network.

Welcome to Hi-Sales

Hi, I’m Sarah Dallaghan from Hi-Sales.com and this blog will provide you with sales tips and advice on sales skills. I will also be using educational and entertaining video clips from time to time.