Is there a need to develop rapport when you meet a potential client?

Of course there is, but are you doing it properly?

I remember a sales course years ago that said when you go into someone’s office you should find something interesting to talk about. Years later I walked into a business executive’s office (frankly unprepared) and noticed a particular picture on the wall, so I decided to ask about the picture. It was then that I realized how tough that this appointment was going to be. The man I was talking to me called me out on my fake interest in his life.

I know that every interview should begin with an icebreaker, but are we choosing the right type?

Do you ask about the local sports team? What if they are not interested in that?

Do you talk about the weather? Is this too boring?

What if you asked them a question about something of personal interest (for example their business or their industry)? This will work if you are prepared in advance for any answer they might give.

Doesn’t this make sense?

Are you missing a piece of the puzzle? ‏

I hope you found my subject line intriguing? This is because what I am going to address today is very important to each and every business. It is the difference between mechanical marketing and expressive marketing.

Mechanical marketing uses tricks, bribes and schemes to attract the quick sale and is very easy to execute. Expressive marketing is all about getting your potential clients to understand how your products and services will make a significant difference in their lives. It is all about how your offering is different than what your competition offers. Due to this you might also find it intriguing to discover that expressive marketing will jet-propel you to success you’ve never experienced before.

Why can I state that? It is because ‘Expressive Marketing’ is based on proven truths that we have uncovered in our research. Mechanical marketing is like throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping that some of it will stick.

All of the benefits of ‘Expressive Marketing’ can be yours by contacting me, so that we can explore the possibilities. My number is 519-539-2267.

Who are you trying to appeal to with your marketing?

This is a very important question you need to answer. This is because there are in my opinion 4 types of idea adapters or buyers. Depending on your product or service you really need to know who these idea buyers are.

The 4 types of buyers are: early adopters, the practical, the unadventurous and the stragglers.

The early adopters and the stragglers each combine for about 50% of buyers. The practical and unadventurous are the other 50%.

The early adopters love to be positively differentiated by what they purchase. The stragglers are the 'lazy bones' people who may or may not get around to purchasing.

The practical and the unadventurous are the average people that occupy the center if you were looking at a bell curve. The challenge with these people is that they are the price checkers and they will try to get ‘blood out of a stone’.

Now you have to choose who you want to work with. I know whom I choose.

Is what you are doing remarkable?

Over the years I’ve come across what I consider interesting questions. I call them interesting questions because they caused me to think about the way I do business. What follows are 9 questions that should help you grow as a business. I came up with some of these and would like to give credit to the other questions but I am not sure who created them.

Is what you are doing remarkable? To answer this I will give you some questions to ask yourself;

• Have you abandoned yesterday’s tactics?
• Are all your clients excited about what you are doing?
• Do you do all you can in your pursuit of being remark-able.
• Are your products or services ‘marketing to the edge’?
• Are you absolutely sure that you can’t please everyone?
• Have you been first in anything in your industry or business sector?
• Are you pleased that you don’t follow the followers?
• Do you continually re-invent the processes and tactics of your business?
• Are a few people amazed at how unique your business is?

If you have answered yes to every one of those questions, how come you haven’t gone public with an Initial Public Offering? The reason is, is that you think you are remark-able and your customers don’t.

If you want to take your business to the next level – call me at 519-539-2267.

Do your clients have a number?

If you run a top-notch company you probably do have client numbers. The key question though is – do you treat your client’s like numbers?

How much do you know about your client’s? Do you know their hobbies? Do you know their spouse’s name? Do they have any children?

Why do I think getting to know your clients on a personal level is important? I want you to consider this story. I man purchased a small and failing company that made envelopes in 1959. He has grown this business to a $100 million business employing approximately 600 people. This company is now one of the U.S.’s major envelope manufacturers. One of the chairman’s business philosophies is practiced everyday by the staff. That is to deliver more than you promise. This is achieved by getting to know your clients.

The company’s chairman is Harvey McKay and he believes strongly in really knowing his clients. If it has worked for him you may be interested to see the questionnaire that he developed for their clients.

Here is the link maybe you can use it in your company.

http://www.harveymackay.com/pdfs/mackay66.pdf

What is more important your product/service or your customer?

Do you think it is your product or service? I hope not!

That is because the customer is the king, queen and all their children. It has been said for years that in order to market effectively you need to answer the question every potential customer is asking – ‘What’s in it for me?’

If you can’t provide a solution to your prospect in their terms with an answer to the question you will never create an enthusiastic customer. An enthusiastic customer tells all their friends about the great work you did for them. An enthusiastic customer wants more of his or her friends and acquaintances to buy your product.

Has this been the result of your sales?

What does your company stand for?

If you can’t answer that, how can your staff perform at a high level?

If your company doesn’t stand for anything, what do you think the reputation of your company is going to be?

Let me give you an example; you advertise that you only provide the highest quality products/services to your customer’s. Then you get a prospective customer in your door and all that you talk about is how low your prices are as compared to your competitor’s.

By stating contradictory statements the view of you and your company will be affected in the long-term. The reason I state that is because it is impossible to provide high quality products and services at the lowest price. 

What are you going to do today to improve you or your company’s reputation?

Is wonder the beginning of all wisdom?

According to the Greek Philosopher Socrates it is, but let’s look at this more closely.

Do you wonder or question why someone did not buy from you or do you just ignore it? I hope that you would question why they didn’t. In order to wonder or question you need to look at life differently.

I write that because if you and I are going to improve in our roles in business and in life, we need to improve. We can’t blame the customer for our inability to provide them what they want. We can’t blame another person for our inability to control our temper. So instead of blaming, why don’t you ask this question of yourself – What could I have done better in this situation?

Can you see how this question can help you improve your life and the situations in your life?

Are there some parts of your business that cause frustration for your clients?

“How come it is so difficult to leave comments on your blog?”  Yes these may be your thoughts after I requested that you leave comments to a commercial I wrote about last week. As my blog source has stated - If someone has comments enabled on his or her blog, then you can usually find a "comments" link at the end of each post.

As I had enabled comments on my blog I thought we were ready to go. Sadly in my opinion it appears to be more difficult than I expected to leave comments. I state that due to the large amounts of people who viewed my blog titled ‘Does this T.V. ad sell you on buying the product or just amuse you?’ My apology for the difficulty many of you had. I trust that you enjoyed the commercial and formed your opinion on it.

I just wish that all of your ideas would have been shared easier. That is the reason I started this marketing blog.

The great thing about this happening is that I had a chance to address something we all need to be aware of.

Are there some parts of your business that cause frustration for your clients? If so, what are you going to do about it?

Does this T.V. ad sell you on buying the product or just amuse you?

Often we stop to view ads that are really cute or exciting. They may attract us, but do they get us motivated enough to go out and buy the product or service?

I mention this because it is only through attracting clients and getting them to exchange their money for our products or services that we know that an advertisement or the marketing worked.

If you have the opportunity I would appreciate it if you would give me your comments after you have viewed this commercial. Just cut and paste it in your browser. Then click on the arrow to start the commercial.

http://davaidavai.com/2011/05/04/dirt-devil-the-exorcist-revisited/

Do you know if you are using the right media to reach your potential customers?

Have you been tracking the results of your advertising and promotion? If you haven’t - you are acting like you are independently wealthy and can afford to throw money around.

Many small business owners are very busy just trying to complete all of their own responsibilities, never mind tracking the results of their advertising and promotion. This busyness tends to happen because this type of business owner is working in their business not on their business.

If you are working on your business you have a plan. This plan gives you a sense of direction and motivates you and your staff members. This sense of direction helps reduce the amount of crisis that come up out of no where. One example is that you are approached to do some advertising in a particular newspaper or media outlet. By having a sense of direction, all that you need to do when approached is ask a few questions, then decide if this offer fits in with your long term plan.

Wouldn’t that be a better way to run your business?

Are you using your eyesight or your insight?

Eyesight sees the shapes and surfaces of things and people. Insight probes the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is the core, the main reasoning for the situation or concern.

Let me give you an example. Someone comes to your office and you are discussing a particular situation with them. You assume you’ve got to the core of it and then you proceed to offer them a solution. As you explain the solution to them and ask for their order, they immediately say no.

Why would they say no? Simply you have not uncovered the heart of the matter. So how do you do that? It is done by asking probing questions. These probing questions are questions that go underneath the surface of the issue. They go deep and penetrate to find out the deep reasoning of the situation. These are difficult questions to ask – and yet they provide you with all that you need to help a client.

When are you going to use insight and move your skills to the next level?

Do I sense that you have a fear?

If you don’t have the proper perspective of what fear is you are finished before you start.

A number of years ago I developed an acronym for the word FEAR. It was; Funny Emotion Arresting Results. The mind has a great ability to come up with situations that are usually not possible. Due to this you can create or imagine how tough something will be. Sadly this only prevents you from taking action.

So the next time you fear taking action remember what fear really is. Any result is good! If you succeed at what you started to do that is great! If you don’t get the results you wanted, learn something from it and correct or improve on it and take action again.

Remember what Fred Smith (the founder FedEx) said; “Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.”

Does integrity imply your strength of character?

When I think about the word integrity I am reminded of a quotation by a Nigerian writer named Chinua Achebe. He once said, “One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.” 

So how are you doing in your tests of integrity? I know that integrity is having the courage to say ‘no’ and face the truth that you may not be able to help a potential client. It is all about saying and doing the right thing because you know in your gut it is right.

It is also having the courage that when you believe something is bad - you do everything in your power to prevent it from continuing.

Demonstrating integrity in the workplace shows an understanding of what is important for your organization and soundness in your personal character. It demonstrates that you have solid workplace ethics no matter the consequences.

Can you think of one example of how you showed integrity in the past week? If you didn’t, how do you expect to be viewed by those you work with?

Have you thought about evaluating your customer service?

I know that you are so busy that you have not had time to even start to consider this. Maybe the following link to a Consumers Reports’ survey will open your eyes about what is going on - maybe in your own backyard.

So what is good customer service? According to Consumer Reports things like having an easy-to-find phone number that consumers’ can call at all reasonable hours to speak with a representative who actually can help.

If you are in competition with Walmart, are you ever lucky! Seriously you are lucky. Instead of me telling you all about the survey, use the link that follows to get all the details.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/july/shopping/customer-service/overview/index.htm

When do you use dignity?

On Wikipedia the word dignity is described as follows; “Dignity is a term used in moral, ethical, and political discussions to signify that a being has an innate right to respect and ethical treatment.”

If you used the Wikipedia definition it appears that you might not use dignity in your personal or business dealings.

If you are to act with integrity in all of your life actions dignity should be uppermost in your mind. As I wrote in my blog about integrity; we need to focus on the needs of others and praise or encourage others. These actions showing dignity to those you are with or associate with. Doesn’t that make sense?

How are you going to act with more dignity?

Did you know that integrity makes your character real?

I find it interesting to observe others and I do that for two reasons. Firstly I find humans more fascinating than anything else on earth. Secondly by observing others you can see a person’s character in the smallest of actions.

It is in these small actions that you begin to realize whether or not you can rely on that person or not. It is almost an impossibility to change someone else, so maybe it is time for you and me to improve our integrity quotient.

How should you and I act with integrity? I would suggest the following;

• Focus on the needs of others by giving or making a contribution to their life.
• Take the right action even when it is unpopular.
• Become mentally tough. (as if you are acting with integrity, other people will be out it try to bring you back into the herd of being average)
• Praise or encourage others.

Remember; "There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience." French Proverb

What directs you in your decisions?

The other day I was speaking to a client of mine. I was asking him some questions about how he made decisions. His responses were very enlightening.

It became very obvious by my third question that he made his decisions based on his character versus his reputation. He reinforced what I’ve always thought of him. He is an honest person who cares very deeply about his family.

There is a difference as reputation is all about what the outside world thinks you are. Character is all about who you really are.

In your decisions are you worried more about your reputation or your character?

Do I sense that you fear getting out of your comfort zone?

If we don’t have the proper perspective of what fear is we are finished before we start.

A number of years ago I developed an acronym for the word FEAR. It was Funny Emotion Arresting Results. The mind has a great ability to come up with situations that we never thought were possible. Due to this we can create or imagine how tough something could be. Sadly this only prevents us from taking action.

So the next time you fear taking action remember what fear really is. Fear stops us from getting results. Results are good! If you succeed in what you started to do that is great! If you don’t get the results you wanted, learn something from it and correct or improve on it and take action again.

Remember what Fred Smith (the founder of FedEx) said; “Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.”

Thanks for the information, can you call me back in a couple of days?

Isn’t it interesting that you can make a good presentation and people are not interested in your offer?

What do you suspect is the reason for that? I suspect it is for these reasons;

1. Your presentation hasn’t been as good as you thought.
2. You didn’t qualify the person before you made the presentation.

Did you notice that I didn’t blame the potential client? The basis for that is because in sales and marketing we need to take responsibility for the results of our actions. The questions we need to ask ourselves are;

·        How can I improve my presentation?

·        What are some good questions to understand or qualify the person before you make your next presentation?

·        Did I ask them to buy?

What makes your business unique from the clients perspective?

I call this your Unique Buying Points. It is different than a unique selling proposition (u.s.p.). The unique selling proposition was first proposed in the early 1940s as a theory to explain a pattern among successful advertising campaigns that convinced customers to switch brands. Unique Buying Points are an extension of the u.s.p. as they are the specific reasons that people buy from you. They are developed not only from your perspective, but from asking and then understanding the reasons your past customers bought from you.

You can only find out your Unique Buying Points by

• understanding in detail the service you offer, and 
• understanding what is important to the individual you are working with at that moment.

Once you know and understand these Unique Buying Points then you can speak with feeling about how your product or service suits the potential customers' needs or wants.

So what are your Unique Buying Points from the past customers perspective? When are you going to speak to your past customers to find out why they bought from you?

Are you going to follow Icarus in your business actions?

In Greek mythology Icarus and his father Daedalus were jailed on an island. Daedalus was very clever and he created wings out of feathers and wax. The two of them attempted to fly off the island using these wings. Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun; but curiosity got the best of Icarus and he flew higher and higher until the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea and drowned.

This myth should help all of us entrepreneurs stop and think before we take action based on our passion for our product or our service. This is the passion trap. This is when you get trapped by your own enthusiasm and forget to view what is going on around you.

Passion is a great thing as it provides power, daring and you become resilient. Sadly, though it can lead you to believe that you are immune to challenges.

If you think you are immune to the challenges of business; all of your grand ideas will be melted and you will fall into the sea like Icarus.

Do people really understand you?

Recently I went to a seminar and a number of the speakers began using a particular abbreviation.

At first I tried to figure out what foreign language they were speaking. I thought, "Why the abbreviation?". For me this was frustrating then I realized that they were abbreviating a two word phrase.

But what about the people you are speaking to?

I honestly believe that many times people have not bought from a company due to the use of abbreviations or industry jargon. In fact in the early 80’s when I started to inquire about buying my first computer I left many businesses because the sales person started rambling off with many things I knew nothing about.

So the next time you are speaking to a client; be aware of the abbreviations or industry jargon you are using.