by Mike Brunel | May 29, 2019 | Sales
This last week I was asked by one of my clients how they can prospect better.
It does not matter what it is you sell, whether it is a service, or a product.
Prospecting is the lifeblood of any sales organisation.
Would you like to know a system that allows you to stand out from all the salespeople in your market, and position you as the expert in your field?
Credibility is a big factor in sales.
Whether you are a rookie or a veteran, your clients want to see if you have creditability.
They judge you and what you offer, every day.
If you can somehow market yourself as the “go to” person, the one person they think of when they think of sales in your category, you are 90% ahead of every other salesperson in your market. There is case study after case study, where businesses (you are a business) shift from hunting the “prey” to positioning the client to understand your expertise.
One way of doing that is to create a Bio.
How to Create a Bio
Here are 4 simple steps to get started with your bio:
- Write a brief story about yourself. In 25 -30 words, describe yourself professionally. Highlight your qualifications and experience, including any skills you may have that are transferrable from other sectors of your industry.
- Note your business, professional and/or other achievements. You may have achieved some success in sport, been awarded an MBA or raised a family. Show the client that you are a three-dimensional human being, not just a marketing machine.
- Add a photo of yourself. These days, your mobile phone can take good pictures—or just get a friend or colleague to take one. I personally prefer a good black and white photo, as I think it looks just a little more professional than a colour print.
- Describe what you have to offer. Do you have a positioning statement that will instantly tell the client who you are? I have a real-estate friend whose positioning statement is, ‘Dedicated to Superior Customer Service’.
Try these, Good selling for 2022, and please feel free to share.
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by Mike Brunel | May 22, 2019 | Sales
As many of you may know, I owned a media consultancy company called NRS Media. We consulted to Radio, TV and Newspaper publishers, and online media companies all over the world.
As you can probably appreciate, it involved a lot of travel, with many of our staff often on planes for weeks on end. (with weekends off, of course.)
If you want to watch a great movie on air travel as a businessperson, I would recommend Up in the Air starring George Clooney.
Some of the tricks and manoeuvers he goes through to get on some of his flights are very funny and I am sure many of our staff think the same, as they contemplate their journeys.
One of the questions that I always ask when I arrive at the counter is “How busy is the flight today” if the answer is “Okay, not too bad, not too full” I always ask the next question.
“Can you block off the middle seat?” I ask,
“I’ve got a bit of work to do and want to spread out”.
Usually if they have one, they will do it for me.
You see, the middle seat is NOT the seat of choice for a frequent traveller, it’s a seat that nobody wants, unless it’s the kids and they share it with each other.
The kids don’t mind, it gives them the chance to play against each other with some new video game, or a movie they can watch.
So, the question is, would you pay for the seat to be FREE? Well, some people would, and one airline, my airline, Air New Zealand does just that.
It’s part of their new makeover on their new flash Boeing 777’s. If the seat next to you is empty, you can secure it; if you part with $150.
They also sell you the option to stretch out on a mini futon, sort of like a mini bed. As the saying goes, two seats are better than one, and the middle seat is catapulted to “wow” status.
Not a bad idea, thinking outside the cockpit, don’t you think?
I love looking at other businesses for ideas. Your sales organisation can be innovative too, you know.
Create your own upsells.
Good selling.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
That’s why you can get FREE in your inbox every morning for 7 days; the 7 Day Sale Challenge.
Hop on over here and subscribe.
For more content like this, please make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
by Mike Brunel | May 15, 2019 | Sales
This week I wanted to share a question that one of my clients asked me in a call last week.
We were talking about ideas to motivate her team.
This was her question:
‘How do I get my team to think like me, or to at least follow some of my behaviours?’
We got talking about her love of reading; any books on business that she could get her hands on, she would read.
It was a habit she had learnt long ago, from one of her original managers.
She had discovered by reading these books, which shared successes in other companies, that she could apply many things she learnt to her own business.
Start a library.
I said to her “why don’t you start a company library?”
She looked at me with a bit of a sideways glance, and said, “You aren’t serious?”
“Yes I am” I said.
Not only start up a library, but bribe them to read a book a month.
Tell them that you will pay a $50 bonus for every book report they submit each month.
It does not have to be a fifty-page novel, just a few pages on the key points they learnt from the book.
Whoever reads the most over the year, gets an iPad preloaded with a collection of both yours, and their favourite books.
You will certainly notice a difference in their attitude.
It’s also a way to quietly bed down your culture.
The ones that you notice will go that extra mile and do the reading, are the people that you want in your organisation.
Have a great week.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
That’s why you can get FREE in your inbox every morning for 7 days; the 7 Day Sale Challenge.
Hop on over here and subscribe.
For more content like this, please make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
by Mike Brunel | May 1, 2019 | Sales
Do you know the life-time value of your clients?
What does it mean to the long-term survival of your business?
I was visited recently by my mother in law. We do get on most of the time, after she forgave me for snatching her daughter, nearly 25 years ago.
Each week she goes to her hairdresser and gets her hair tended to with the usual treatment and blow wave.
I know this because of a recent episode that she has repeated to her daughter, every time she sees her.
She is angry.
She is angry over a small thing for sure, but for someone who has been doing that activity for over 30 years, one might begin to understand why.
Vouchers.
She received some vouchers in the mail from this hairdresser, with the offer of a discount when she next visits. It appears that this might have been a generic promotion that was sent out to this entire businesses’ database.
As it was scheduled to be used by a certain time, my mother in law-perhaps being a little absent-minded- decided on her last visit to this hairdresser, to produce these vouchers and ask for a discount on her just completed treatment and blow wave.
Sorry that voucher has expired.
Once the daughter of the owner looked at these vouchers, she explained that they had expired and ‘sorry, but the discount no longer applies.’ (a week over).
Well, you can imagine what the reaction was… not good; and as a result, the relationship has now ended, even after a couple of phone calls between the two parties.
Value.
After asking my mother in law a few questions, we discovered some interesting maths. This woman had been going to the hairdresser once a week for over 30 years, with an average price of $30 per visit. Give or take a few weeks away here and there, I calculated that at 48 weeks a year for 30 years, she has spent $43,200.00 or thereabouts at this particular salon. (1440 x $30 = $43,200.00(48x30x $30))
The lifetime value of that client was a whopping $43,200.00
The hairdresser had lost a lifetime client over $3.00. (The voucher was for 10% off the visit.)
It makes you think. It might sound a little trivial to fight over $3.00, but sometimes that is all it takes.
It can be argued that it was really a silly reaction on both parties and in the end, it could have been resolved.
However, these are the little things that can trip many of us up.
Do you know what the lifetime value of your client is?
Worth finding out.
Good selling.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
That’s why you can get FREE in your inbox every morning for 7 days; the 7 Day Sale Challenge.
Hop on over here and subscribe.
For more content like this, please make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. He has hired hundreds of salespeople around the world.
He made a lot of mistakes when it came to hiring his superstars. Check out his How to Hire A Super Salesperson Each and Every time – It’s packed with tips and ideas on how to hire great salespeople. Don’t ever Hire Bad Salespeople Ever Again. Promise!
