Sales Netiquette Pays Off
The Internet and e-mail have become a primary means for communicating with customers and prospects. Yet how effective are we as salespeople in selling over the Internet to get the results we need? Can email be just as effective as in-person or telephone contact?
Before communicating with customers, salespeople should understand each customer’s preferred method of contact (e.g. email, phone calls, visits). While some want personal contact and look forward to chatting with you, others prefer quick and to-the-point e-mail messages.
But beware. Without having had prior personal contact or a referral, emails you initiate may not yield significant sales or appointments. Having worked with hundreds of sales teams, we’ve found that prospecting success rates are usually lower using email vs. proven tele-prospecting techniques
Below are some tips for ensuring your efforts to sell via e-mail and over the Internet are effective:
1). USE CLEAR, CONCISE SUBJECT LINES that convey the key point of your email message.
2). KEEP IT BRIEF. Just as good business letters should be kept to a page or less, emails need to be short and concise (25-line maximum, but less is better). Be sure to read and edit emails to cut out unneeded words. Likewise, using shorter sentences makes the email quicker and easier to read.
3). KEEP IT SIMPLE. Address only one topic per email and be clear as to what action is expected (or what action you will take).
4). PAY ATTENTION TO FORMAT. Breaking up the email into short paragraphs (rather than one or two long ones) makes it easier to read. Avoid using either all caps or all lower case letters. And be sure to use proper punctuation for a business email.
5). DON’T USE IT TO REPLACE PERSONAL NOTES. While selling over the Internet via email is quick, recipients rarely get the “warm feeling” of a handwritten thank you note or birthday card. So, when the relationship is important and you want the impact to be high, use other means to communicate (e.g. carefully selected cards or a personal phone call).
6). COUNT TO TEN IF YOU’RE EMOTIONAL. Once sent, an email cannot be retrieved. Worse yet, it can be forwarded to many other people without your permission or knowledge. So, if you’re upset or tempted to send a very negative email, think twice befone selling on the Internet and consider the impact if others were to be copied.
7). ALWAYS PROOF AND SPELL CHECK. Your professional reputation is key to your success. Misspelled words, improper punctuation or poor use of the English language can hurt your chances for generating sales, particularly if you sell premium-priced products or services.
8). CREATE TEMPLATES TO SAVE TIME. When you write a good email (e.g. a thank you, appointment follow up or proposal submittal letter), save it as a form or template. With just a small up-front investment of time, you’ll save lots of time on the mechanics of selling over the Internet.
While email can be an effective sales tool, it is not usually a good substitute for things like telephone prospecting, negotiations or personalized notes. Since others can easily be copied on emails, selling over the Internet can be fraught with danger. Remember, emails that are poorly written, misrepresentative or emotional are permanently irrecoverable!
Since the benefits of email are substantial, all salespeople would be wise to adhere to these “netiquette” tips when selling over the Internet.
All Rights Reserved. The Sales Alliance Inc. San Diego, California.
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Value Trumps Price – Consultative Selling Pays
Consultative selling techniques are key to winning sales where premium prices are the norm. With a focus on value and benefits, this style of selling has an excellent track record for producing results.
Dozens of corporate buyer surveys regularly indicate that price is not the number one or two factor in their purchase decisions. Other factors, such as vendor reputation, product quality and overall value usually ranked higher than price.
Yet buyers often convince salespeople that price is their primary buying criteria. Why? They obviously want all the benefits the salesperson can provide but at a lower price, further boosting the value they receive. Indeed, it’s really about maximizing value, and price is just one of the components of value.
In today’s competitive environment, buyers often have the upper hand, especially when a consultative selling approach has not been used. Many buyers are even taking sales training and negotiations courses to be able to outmaneuver salespeople who try to sell products and services at healthy margins. Below are just a few of the techniques we teach for selling value.
Avoiding the Price Trap
So, how can salespeople use consultative selling avoid the price trap and instead sell value?
- Assess how prior purchases were made. What were the most important criteria at that time?
- Gather information on expected financial results and perform a ROI analysis
- Understand the prospect’s buying criteria and ensure you meet that criteria better than your competition
- Understand how the prospect benefits personally by a successful implementation of your solution, and explain how you’ll ensure those benefits are realized
- Gain strategic commitments, such as the prospect providing financial or competing vendor data, that boost closing odds
Using Consultative Selling and Concessions Strategically
But, what happens if you do need to make some concessions or help your buyer save face?
- Practice consultative selling and perform a complete needs assessment prior to entering into a negotiation
- Make sure you’re dealing with the ultimate decision maker before agreeing to any concessions
- See if you can trade a reduced price for a higher volume commitment, more favorable terms or referrals
- Offer high-value, high-margin services instead of cash discounts. These services could include extended warranties or upgraded maintenance contracts
- In heavy negotiations, pre-plan your approach with negotiation tactics like the walk-away point or splitting the difference
- Make sure you don’t grant concessions too early — tie any concessions to a signed agreement
Those adept at consultative selling often out-earn their product-selling counterparts. Why? Because value-oriented salespeople are great at selling premium-priced, high-margin products and services. Typically, these high margins provide for fat commission checks and better job security.
Not only does value trump price in the minds of buyers, salespeople using consultative selling have more success and bigger paychecks than the more product oriented salespeople.
All Rights Reserved. The Sales Alliance Inc. San Diego, CA
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Motivating your Sales Team
Ten Tips for Motivating your Sales Team
For more methods to motivate your team, see our Sales Compensation Programs and Sales Improvement Model.
1 – Work on your own personal motivation. Energetic and upbeat sales managers are able to spread their enthusiasm, instill superior sales motivation and dispel most forms of negativity.
2 – Begin and end meetings on a positive note with words of encouragement. All too often, meetings are routine and lack the positivity detract from sales motivation.
3 – Develop spiffs or other incentives to boost sales of high-value products and services. It is said that salespeople are “coin operated.” Using incentives to reinforce ideal sales behaviors is often money well spent!
4 – Add creative, motivational components to team meetings (e.g. contests, guest speakers).
5 – Look for ways to leverage (and reward) the effectiveness of your high performers such as providing them with administrative or telesales support.
6 – Scrutinize, then streamline, your sales processes and reporting. Salespeople will rejoice when you reduce paperwork !!!
7 – Conduct loss reviews to see why your people lost accounts and to prevent the same things from recurring. Salespeople are motivated by retaining existing customers and improving their closing ratios.
8 – Find ways to boost salesperson time spent in contact with customers and prospects. More contact means more sales. And more sales mean happier salespeople and enhanced sales motivation levels.
9 – Determine what motivates each of your salespeople, then use specific, individualized rewards to positively impact sales behaviors.
10 – Share success stories. Sales motivation is enhanced when personal accomplishments and others’ successes are recognized.
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