Effective Communications in BusinessHow to Develop Effective Communications in Business : Communicating is something that we are all doing constantly, both verbally and non-verbally. Scientists have, in fact, calculated that something like 85% of communication is done non-verbally, through body language, manner, attitude. We have all, no doubt, met someone to whom we take an instant like or dislike. Why does this happen and what can we do to improve our relationships ? In business it is important to maximise our opportunities for successful interaction. Here are a few hints to help improve our opportunities for success. Good Communications are about buildingOnline shopping rapport with the other person so here are some hints: - Establish how you can help the other person. Find out what they need, what they are looking for from the relationship. Demonstrate that it is of importance to you too. Mean what you say. This establishes a genuine connection. - Be interested in what they have to say. Ask questions. Listen to the answers. Perhaps even reflect the answers back to demonstrate that you are listening in a positive, constructive way. Remember what you have been told. It can be useful to make notes after a meeting - children's names, hobbies, points of particular interest. That way you can refer back to your notes prior to a meeting or phone call. It helps build a relationship with the person. - Stay on point. It can be very easy to get distracted away from the meeting and chatter about secondary matters. This can be fine if both parties are interested and have time to spare. However if it goes on for too long, it can distract away from the business in hand and appear frivolous and unprofessional. - Disagreements and misunderstandings Price comparisonsometimes occur in business, and can occur if things have gone wrong, or if one person feels slighted or disrespected. It can be useful to firstly allow the complainant to vent their displeasure and then, after they have had their (uninterrupted) say, get out a notepad and start to list each negative point in turn. It's interesting how often, by staying calm and non-confrontational, how by this stage in the meeting, the original gripes have calmed down and become far less angry and damaging. Successful business is about establishing a win/win situation for both parties. By building good relationships with existing and potential future clients you can ensure that you remain a valued, trusted and respected contact in your particular field. The relationship is the key and can ensure that clients stay loyal whatever competitors are promising, to entice them away. - Don't be afraid of not selling. One of my clients, who regularly was the top sales person in the company, was quite happy to say to a client ' I can't help you today. What you have is better than what I am here to promote '. That way the potential client really trusted the judgment and advice being given and it built up confidence for future meetings.So your sales aren't going too well. Your forecast isn't looking too rosy and your prospects are delaying making a decision. Your boss is on your case, wanting to know what your forecast business is for this month, next month and the next quarter. How can you provide an accurate projection when business is so uncertain? How can you maintain your motivation and focus when all the cards seem to be stacked against you? Let's go back to some basics. 1. It's a numbers game! You know the more contacts you speak to the more opportunities you generate. Get prospecting! It doesn't matter how, just do it! Cold calling, foot canvassing, social media contacts or good old networking. Where do your ideal contacts hang out? What forums do they belong to? How can you interact with them? Don't wait for marketing to generate leads for you, generate them yourself! The more you practice the luckier you get! Buy yourself a bag of marbles and two glasses. Put all the marbles in one glass and place both glasses on your desk. Each time you successfully secure a new contact or meeting place one marble in the currently empty glass. The objective is to move all the marbles from one glass to another in the shortest possible time! 2. What do you want to achieve? You have an annual target set by your company, hopefully with input from you but if not, no matter. Ask yourself, does this target move you towardsproduct reviews what YOU want to achieve for YOUR life goals? If not, set your own personal goals and targets. Be realistic, but make them a stretch. Your goals should be specific, measurable and motivational, achievable, realistic and time based. Be very clear about what you want to achieve and why. 3. Break it down! You have an annual target, maybe broken down into quarterly and even to monthly by your company. a. Have you calculated the average sales value needed to achieve this for your particular offering? b. How many clients are needed to meet this? c. What is the average decision period for your offering? d. What conversion rate is normal for you and your business? e. How many new prospects do you need to generate on a weekly, monthly basis in order to maintain a healthy pipeline? Don't forget to build in delivery of the business into your pipeline based on how your company recognises business. It's no good having business forecast to close in September if it takes 6 weeks to deliver and your company recognises sales on completion. Get real and take pride and ownership of your forecast! Set yourself goals for your forecasting accuracy.It should be one of your key performance indicators as a sales professional. 4. Set yourself goals! And make it fun! a. "This week I will speak to X number of new contacts". b. "This week I will secure X number of meetings". c. " I will close X number of opportunities this month" d. "I will generate a pipe line of X qualified leads this month" e. "I will have a target of x % +/- for my forecasting accuracy each month/quarter. Remember; keep it realistic but a stretch. Have a log and play a game to see how you can meet or beat your targets. You can do this with a colleague but I find selling is like playing golf, you only have your own thoughts and beliefs to deal with in order to succeed. Remember, to reward yourself for each success. A specialist coffee, a new suit, night out, weekend away etc. It doesn't have to be extravagant just motivational!
Marketing Strategies For Success - 3 Surefire Shortcuts to Build Trust and Sales.The best way to make a sale is to build trust with your prospect. The fastest way to build trust is to prove the value in the product or service you are selling. There are three shortcuts that make building easy, simple, and fast. #1 Give a Sample or a Guarantee Now depending on the business you are in, this can be hard or easy. If you are in the food business then a sample is expected, everyone likes to taste what they are getting. Even in restaurants now many have turned to "tapas" to allow patrons to try taste-sized portions, smart restaurants offer a tiny taste of a new dish before each meal. There are many other product based businesses (think skincare) that serve up samples by the boatload, certain that when you try, you'll buy! Often it works. In a service business, it is all about being confident of your expertise and your offering so that you can make the prospect more comfortable. I guarantee my price comparedesign services! Yes, that's right I do. I guarantee that if you aren't happy with it, I'll buy it from you. I'm that certain that I am going to deliver a superior product. When you aren't that certain, maybe you need to examine what it is you are offering. Often you can guarantee the quality of the experience but steer clear of guaranteeing the end result. This is especially a good fit for consulting. The end result depends on the users' implementation, but you can guarantee the quality of the process you are presenting. #2 Give Information Often to get someone closer to a sale, they simply need more information. Women particularly, studies have shown, are prone to research their purchases before they buy. This is why while a man may know exactly what he wants, know precisely where to get it, and make one short trip; a woman, on the other hand, loves a mall or outlet center. She will check literally every shop that has anything close to what she wants, make a full comparison analysis and then buy. So when you can provide those comparisons upfront it can work in your favor. Consider the bold moves of several insurance carriers, Progressive being the #1, who offer this service. They know that if they do the leg work, the prospect is more likely to buy from them, even if they are potentially higher priced. Information in many businesses can be done through a "Special Report," the 5 Biggest Mistakes You Are Making in Decorating! or 3 Reasons You'll Never Get Your House Sold. A "Special Report" provides value content that the prospect didn't have before and drives them closer to a decision. This is a great leave behind item in a first call, or better yet an opportunity to catch web traffic. "Get YOUR Free Special Report" just give me your name and email address. You've captured the prospect to continue pursuit. #3 Give a Testimonial Third party credibility is one of the simplest ways to make a sale. Most small business owners when asked how they market reply "by word-of-mouth." This is testimonials. The efficient way to do this is to create a process for regularly collecting these rave reviews by using specific questions designed to elicit in-depth and on target responses. Often it is best if you aren't the one getting your own testimonials, as clients can feel put on the spot. In the internet world, testimonials can make or break a sale as often the goods being sold are solely information based. If your audience doesn't know you, doesn't trust you and you need a sale consider providing some of your goods or services at a reduced rate or complimentary just to build up testimonials. Whatever method you choose, these are key strategies for building trust quickly and effectively with prospects that you might not otherwise get a chance to profit from. Business isn't old school anymore and it is up to you to get creative, consistent, and persistent in your methods."How much will this cost?" Many sales people shudder when faced with this question. They stutter, stammer, and hem and haw. This is where the rubber hits the road and when the prospect will either give them the green light to move forward with the sale or say, "thanks but no thanks". Far too often, sales people feel uncomfortable talking about the price of their offering fearing that their prospect will put the brakes on the buying decision if the price of their product or service is perceived as being too high. They unconsciously flinch-mentally or physically-when responding and this hesitation is quickly noticed by the buyer. Over the years I have learned that the sooner price is discussed in a conversation, the more of a focal point it becomes. If you have not fully uncovered your prospects problem and determined exactly how your product or service can help them solve a particular business issue, then your price will always seem too high unless you are the lowest priced supplier in the marketplace. The key to responding to this question is to establish the value BEFORE you discuss price. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who sell a product or service fail to achieve this which means that their efforts to move the sale forward often ends up in failure. The most fatal mistake is to state the cost to your prospect too early in the sales conversation. Here are few strategies to use in future sales calls or meetings. First, if your prospect asks this question beforecompare price you are prepared to respond, you need to defer your answer. This sounds easy but in the real world it can be extremely challenging to actually execute. I remember talking to a prospect about coaching services and one of his first questions was, "How much do you charge?" While the price of coaching is relatively consistent from client to client, each person has different motives for utilizing this type of service. I knew that stating my fee too soon would likely cause my prospect to balk so I said, "It would be unfair for me to state a price without knowing more about your particular situation. Let me ask you a couple of questions and then we can discuss the investment." Your goal is take control of the sales conversation and you do that by asking high-value questions. The specific questions you need to ask will vary depending on the type of solution your company offers. It is essential to invest enough time learning about your prospect's situation so you can effectively position your solution. This sounds fundamental; however, after working with sales people for the last fourteen years, I have discovered that most people do not ask enough high-value questions. In order to establish the value or worth of your solution you need to learn how the problem they are facing affects the performance of the company. This can be expressed in terms of sales, profits, employee turnover, order accuracy, customer retention or satisfaction, time to market, market share, etc. Learn to ask tough, high-value questions that will help you understand the impact of the problem. Most sales people are uncomfortable asking deep, probing because they believe that their prospect will think that they are prying. However, personal experience has taught me that most key decision makers respect sales professionals who ask tough questions. Once a prospect expresses a problem, you can ask questions such as: "How is that affecting...?" "What impact is that having on customer loyalty, market share, etc.?" "What is that costing you in terms of lost sales, profitability, etc.?" "How important is this compared to other projects you have on your plate right now?" "If we had an appropriate solution what would that mean to your company or you personally?" After you have determined the importance and the impact of a particular problem, you can then demonstrate the worth or value of your product or service to your prospect. Not before. Another challenge with this approach is that it takes time. You need to exercise patience. You need to be able to clearly demonstrate why your offering is worth the investment. If you discuss price too soon then everything you say afterwards will seem like you are trying to justify the cost. However, when you demonstrate how your product will benefit the company and or prospect, your price will appear as a fair and equitable investment. Remember, there is a significant difference between cost and worth. Here is a simple comparison. A low-end, entry level car will get you from point A to point B. However many people will pay extra to do that drive in a luxury vehicle. Business-to-business selling is no different. Help your prospect see the value and worth of your product, service or solution and cost (or price) will become less of an issue. ? 2009 Kelley Robertson, All rights reserved.