Anyway, in the article I’m referring to he talks about how the whole idea of basing a sale on identifying pain is maybe not the best premise. On first read I found it hilariously spot on the mark.

On second read I realised how many people have ‘jumped on the band wagon’ of identifying pain to the exclusion of virtually any other reason as to why a customer might buy. Trouble is, unless you’re very, very good at this technique, you end up coming across as a snake oil salesman.

I’ve met one guy who is very good yet, without exception, anyone can spot the people he’s trained a mile off and they don’t have anywhere near his finesse. And guess what? They sound phoney, nobody likes their attitude or approach and they fail.

“… if you want to find pain, become a doctor” – is Jeffrey’s sound advice that really hits home.

So, if you’ve been going down this path and getting nowhere, why not STOP right now? Adopting this no-nonsense approach can free you to instead use sensible, gentle conversational questioning techniques to find positive bases for people to buy from you…

I thought I’d check out the mobile airtime company that was hassling me. I found two different sites on the Internet, both in the same style, though different colours, and identical head office contact details. Neither had information about key people in the company (so maybe the guy who called me really didn’t know the name of the Managing Director) but that was easily overcome with a little help from Google.

On one site the company described itself as one of Europe’s leading contact centres with capacity for more than 600 operators over 36,000 square feet of office space and a turnover in excess of £22+m.

On the other site it was one of Europe’s largest and most respected mobile phone specialists with capacity for more than 300 operators over 16,000 square feet of office space and a turnover of in excess of £20+m.

Something was niggling away at the back of my mind so I went back to double check my facts a few days later and discovered that the two sites had “morphed” into one!

The company has apparently decided that it is first and foremost a contact centre and adopted the size and number attributes from that site. So that settles it then. However, it obviously decided it liked the colour and content of the mobile phone specialists’ site. And it has kept the gem that was on that site last week:

“We genuinely believe our people are our most important asset and our highly trained and motivated team is committed to supporting the companies principle’s of providing the highest levels of customer care” (the bold is mine).

Out of interest, how many people, at what level in the company, do you suppose were involved in contributing to that brand identity exercise before it got sign off?

I’m happy to admit that my English grammar is by no means perfect but, please, nobody spotted that “companies principle’s” should have read “company’s principles”??? So the tips that emerge from this example are:

• Don’t rely on spell checks to pick up grammatical clangers
• Get a third party who hasn’t been involved in crafting your wonderful words (someone whose command of the language you respect) to proof read for you before you “go public”

Meantime, the activities of my fast-talking female “friend” at the company have, so far, been effective. No more calls trying to sell me an airtime contract!

Be sincere

This one is pretty self-explanatory:

If you don’t believe in what you’re doing it’s a con, plain and simple.

You may get away with it for a while but you’ll be found out sooner or later. Insincerity is pretty easy to pick up by voice so, unless you’re an accomplished actor, I wouldn’t even try it!

We hear how they’ve been “stitched up” by rogues or, at the very least, let down by incompetents whom they’ve charged with responsibility for sales, marketing, financial, legal or IT issues and it’s all gone horribly wrong.

So how did they allow this to happen? Well, in hindsight they’ve obviously made the wrong choice(s). Brilliant. We know that in hindsight we all have 20:20 vision. So how do we get the 20:20 before we get to the potential disaster?

The two obvious ways are:

• You buy in the expertise you need from somebody proven to actually be able to do the job well (outsourced or employed)
• You learn how to do it yourself from a reputable source

Yet there are two potential flaws in this (somewhat flippant) answer.

The first assumes that you know at the very least what questions to ask and what answers to expect in order to ascertain whether an individual claiming expertise in any of the essential areas is actually any good at what he/ she does and whether you would be getting value for money in the service you’re paying for.

The second presumes you know where to go, whom to go to, have the time and can make the commitment to learn how to perform these functions to the best of your ability and to the credit and success of your company.

Once again good old common sense has an often sadly ignored role in this. What about a middle ground where you could pool teaching and learning skills, gradually building mutual trust and without anybody spending huge amounts of money ?

Networking groups abound yet they seem to be set up with the prime reason (if not sole purpose) to introduce and refer business rather than trading skills and services.

You may have tried networking and love or hate your experiences of it. It doesn’t really matter for our purposes here because, regardless, you will know at least some people whom you trust and who can either help you directly or put you in contact with someone who can.

• Start inviting people who are each as good in their field as you are in yours to come and talk to each other
• Ask how willing they are to help each other
• Find out what additional help they in turn need and build a group that ultimately can fulfil all, or at least most of your collective business skills needs

It’s a good idea to agree a unit value for each function – an hourly, daily or part-day rate is usually favourite. Then barter time where possible either to perform the function for each other or use that time (where practical) to teach/ show how to do it. I prefer the latter for reasons I’ll go into further down the line.

Introduce members gradually and monitor the value of their contributions. Some may turn out to be mainly “takers”: They’ll pay for the services on offer that they need rather than really enter into the spirit of the group. And that may be perfectly acceptable until somebody else comes along and wants to join who does what they do but wants to give, too. You just have to decide as you go along what’s in the best interests of the group.

Try it out and let me know how you get on .

Our Selling For Business sales and marketing communications skills course is well established. Yet it has always been a Big Thing for the owners of micro and small businesses (that it’s aimed at helping) to take on board and commit to somebody in the company doing.

So we thought long and hard, talked to customers, business associates and fellow networkers to get their input.

As soon as one of them pointed out the fact that our training is always designed to be within the comfort zone of any delegate, it was as though a veil had lifted. The working title for that course was originally Comfort Zone Selling. We only changed it because we were transfixed back then (as was almost everyone doing any amount of their business via the Internet) with having a dot com address, which we couldn’t get. We still kept the comfort zone approach and our company name, CoZo, came directly from that

We also finally accepted that there are some people who will never be comfortable with the idea of selling, no matter how simple and pain-free we know we can make the activity.

What’s more, we now knew that those people could make huge leaps forward in their business profitability without ever overtly selling. People who take the Selling For Business course have told us they have done so even before they reached the modules on the more traditional sales communication skills.

As the result of practising what we preach, (listening to the market needs and wants and responding to them) admittedly somewhat belatedly, we now have two new courses:

Comfort Zone Soft Skills Training and Comfort Zone Selling

And guess what? People relate to them easily, see immediately what each is about and can choose which one is more relevant to their situation, their market and their needs.

Our company name now also makes a lot more sense…

If you’re having a problem with any obstacles that are making it difficult to gain acceptance from your market of something you know will help, don’t keep trying to push a snowball uphill, instead learn from our mistakes, talk to your market and sort it out sooner rather than later!

All the best

Yet it applies to anything in your life or business that you know isn’t right and needs fixing.

You’ll always be able to think of a thousand reasons (excuses) why it’s not quite the right time for you to improve your sales and marketing skills:

• You’re too busy servicing (sometimes unprofitable) existing customers
• You have more quotes to get out to potential customers
• The payroll needs to be done
• The VAT needs to be done

The list is potentially endless. Then you wonder, six months or a year down the line, why you’re in much the same position as you were, yet your competition, whom you believe in truth to be no better than you, is charging ahead.

Well maybe your competition just got smart and decided to invest a little time learning how to better position itself so that it demostrates its understanding of the target market’s problems and pains and has the best solutions for them.

Unlike my partner’s son’s line of business, this (and other areas of sales and marketing) isn’t rocket science. And you don’t need a high priced consultant to show you how to do it. Do you remember Portia Nelson?

You are the only impediment in your progress, not the demands of your customers, the quotes for potential customers, the payroll or the VAT man. If you’re not completely happy with your company’s performance isn’t it time you figured out how to fix it?

Once you start and see how it all fits neatly into place, you’ll wonder what on earth took you so long!

I know you’re visiting (from the stats and because you tell me so when we speak terrestrially) but many of you are not interacting online.

Is it just because you’re reserved or shy? Or do we need to focus more on certain areas to provide you with the help you need to successfully grow your business?

Now’s your chance to shape the way this blog site develops:

• What do you enjoy reading or learning about?
• What do you want to see more of?
• What would you like to know more about?
• How do you believe we could help you become more successful?
• What information or skills would help you grow your business?

Don’t just sit on the sidelines – Join in!

Give me your comments and suggestions – I look forward to receiving them and acting on them.

I was phoned a few days ago by a chap representing the publishers of a growing business handbook. The publishers are well known and the publication is sponsored by the Institute it’s published in association with. The chap was immediately open about the possibility of editorial/ advertorial possibilities and rate negotiation.

He emailed me the media pack and the blurb said that the handbook was “a perfect way to reach entrepreneurs and senior decision makers in thousands of dynamic SMEs as they plan their future growth”

Under Distribution and Readership it says that the handbook will be

• Available through all high street bookshop chains
• Widely distributed through corporate libraries and business information centres
• Backed up by various targeted marketing activities by the publisher

This all sounds fine, but there’s no real substance in it.

It then goes on to talk about the institute and its membership before getting to the advertising rates.

When the chap called me back a couple of days later I asked him questions I thought would be pretty easy to answer, since the handbook is in its 10th edition:

• What is the print run?
• How many copies were bought by Institute members for each of the last couple of editions?
• Ditto how many bought through bookshops?

Worryingly, the chap couldn’t give me the answers, yet he represents the publisher!

He then went on to quote me some impressive names of blue chip companies that had advertised in the handbook in the past. I pointed out to him that, in my opinion, those companies don’t tend to advertise in this type of publication to generate response – it’s a brand exercise, so there’s no real way of judging the effectiveness of their spend.

I’ve told him that the only way I’ll consider advertising is if he sends me the last two issues, I can find adverts for comparable services to ours and they tell me when I call them that their ads in the handbook pulled quality response.

He promised to send me those issues but I haven’t received anything yet…

If you’re offered an advertising opportunity that you’re not sure about, please don’t rush into it, take your time and do your homework.

Do any of you have good or bad experiences you’d like to share with our readers? If so please respond with your comments.

You should be regularly checking that your customers are happy with your business service – you can’t afford to assume that they are.

The world is changing and customers are aware of competitive offerings and, though many will still not say a word to you about any upset, you don’t want to wait until they walk off with another suitor to find out there was a problem.

So, during your contact call you first want to discover whether there are any hidden snags. If there are, lucky you, you have a chance to sort them out and put them right. But don’t ask for your testimonial at that point.

If, on the other hand, you satisfy yourself that your customer is indeed happy: Ask for a testimonial and make it as easy as possible to comply.

“Well, it’s all right for you, you’ve already made it in your field. You’ve forgotten what it’s like for those just starting out” and find it hard if not downright impossible to envision a day when the activity described will ever come easily or naturally to you?

I came across a post recently that honestly and delightfully described the author’s preparation for and results of early attempts at cold calling, having taken time out to rebrand her company.

Bear in mind that this lady is a self-admitted sales professional and you’ll feel pretty good about your own attempts at the end of the article.

Jill Konrath’s warm and human appraisal of where we can all go wrong, her ability to laugh at herself and and her tips to keep us on the straight and narrow are the timely dose of smelling salts for anyone one who’s faint hearted about cold calling!

Happy prospecting and please add your comments