In the early 1900s, Reverend Russell Conwell earned 5 million dollars by giving the same speech, titled “Acres of Diamonds,” more than 6,000 times to audiences across the country.
His speech told the story of a farmer who sold his farm so he could travel overseas searching for diamonds. After a lifetime of searching, he returned home penniless, having never found treasure.
In the meantime, the man who purchased the farm noticed a sparkle in the stream running through the property. He waded into the water and found – a diamond!
The farm was sitting on one of the world’s largest diamond mines, making the new owner rich beyond his wildest dreams.
The point of Conwell’s speech: You can find a fortune literally in your own backyard if you take the time to look for it.
The reverend concluded his talk by telling listeners: “Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or yonder seas. They are in your own backyard if you but dig for them.”
Isn’t this so true of salespeople and business owners? We pursue new clients, day after day, when the real ones are right before us.
Lapsed clients, clients who have been neglected, those forgotten by businesses who only work with a few of their clients, leaving millions of dollars sitting there waiting. If only we were to approach them.
This lesson was taught in the early 1900s and is still true today.
So go and check out your diamonds. This story illustrates that every client you’ve ever had needs to hear from you and be part of your tribe, your business family.
I know a pizza company that believes you must dominate everything within 1 km or mile of your franchise. I mean, dominate it!
Every mailbox, sign, or business within a 1 km radius of the store must know about them. They do this through mail promotions, in-store activity, events, promotions, and anything to get that top-of-mind awareness and move them into the 94% as quickly as possible.
With the advent of email and online marketing to your clients, it has never been easier in the history of marketing.
There is a great quote that I found about customer service, which I think is very true.“Customer service is the new marketing.”
As quoted earlier, keeping clients is much easier once you get them. It drives me mad when I work with clients through my consultancy service, and I discover that they have a database of several thousand, and they ignore them. It’s with an attitude of “They won’t buy from us.”
One sports organisation that we worked with had 7,000 lapsed clients. That’s 7,000 members they had not talked to in any fashion for years, yet they were still on the database, ready to be sold to.
Just ignored, that organisation came to us with a desperate request to build a membership program for their following year’s membership.
We suggested starting with all those lapsed clients on the database. The answer? Oh, they tried us and never came back. No kidding! Really!
Our theory was that you had to at least ask them and find out why they were not buying or what their problems were. Then you could provide a new solution so they might consider a proposal.
We ended up dropping the client. Sometimes, folk do not want to be helped. We also learned that this particular category was not ready for our type of selling. That happens, and in every sale and business experience, you have to accept that.
It’s worth remembering that often buying experiences, are based on how the customer feels they are being treated, spoken with, assisted, and helped.
Learn about the importance of looking inside your company for opportunities that might be staring you in the face.
Mike
PLUS, whenever you are ready…here are 3 ways I can help you grow YOUR business.
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Every week, all over the world, salespeople are subjected to a ‘rant and rave’ from a sales manager who runs a meeting with no direction, no agenda, no concept of time, and generally over-run by members of the ‘we know it all’ brigade.
Besides lacking agenda and strict time limits, the weakness of many sales meetings is agreement.
Every time I work with teams, I like to set up some agreements, some guidelines on how I run my event, team talk, or presentation.
I use this process at the beginning of every meeting, with sales people.
Some examples of group agreements
Participate 100%
Be on time
No such thing as a stupid question
No missiles / no mobile phones!
Have fun!
Participate 100%
This rule is paramount within any sales meeting. If you are asked to my meetings, you contribute- and if you don’t I will ask you not to come again. Sniggering and laughing down the back of the room was not tolerated in my meetings, period! Who is running your team, you or them?
Be on Time
My Dad used to say to me “Being on time is being early”.
If you have an agenda (which I advise) then there’s a start time for the meeting clearly advertised.
If I had sales people that arrived late, they were not allowed into the sales meeting.
Simple as that. I even, on one occasion, locked the door. Not very pleasant for them, if that happens!
No Such Thing as a stupid question.
If a question is asked in a meeting, there is nothing worse, than people sniggering or actually saying “Argh that’s a stupid question!”.
This is not school, people, it’s a business meeting. Everyone has the right to ask a question in my meeting, particularly if they are not sure.
It’s granted as much credence as anything. If you shut the negativity down, then you get input.
As a sales manager, you do not know all the answers. They do, the people in your team. Trust them.
No missiles / no mobile phones!
No Missiles– I cannot stand when a person asks a question and are made to feel small because someone on the team says a negative remark. (Missile)
What that person says is true to them at that moment. They do not need another team member undermining them. That’s a form of bullying.
Please just listen to the contribution and who knows, one might even learn something.
No Mobile Phones- I know it might be hard for some people, but phones are either muted, or turned off.
If you want, bring in a ‘fine’ process. A dollar for every phone on, looked at, or played with. No phones means no phones.
Have fun!
I think that’s the key rule of any sales meeting game. Do things differently, meet somewhere new, have a breakfast meeting, dress up, and have themes.
Don’t recreate the same environment, over and over again.
However, do stay firm and be in control. Believe it or not, it’s your team’s expectation that you do so.
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!
Research has shown, in a hundred different ways, that people will do more to avoid the loss of something than to score a win.
Is that true of your sales company?
What is the cost to you if you do not get that latest weekly budget? Does it hold more emotion with you than getting your monthly goal?
As a sales manager, what do you fear most; the achievement of the target, or not getting the target for the month?
I think it is the latter.
Here is my quick tip this week to get you thinking less about your benefits, and more about what your client might lose.
Next time you present your proposal to your client or your next big deal, explain in detail what your client will lose in time, money, and getting to the right quality market.
This should be in your proposal several times, with all the other benefits you offer, but the loss has to be stressed more.
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!
Part of the reason people panic is that selling seems like a mysterious process. We can solve that mystery. Selling is like any other journey: the territory you are covering may be new to you, but it has been travelled before, and there are certain steps you can take to clear the way.
Each step you take along the way matters. Let’s look more closely at the selling journey.
Building up
Selling a product or service is, in many ways, like a building project.
I have been involved in two major renovations for both a home and a commercial building. Here’s how the process unfolds:
1. You speak with an architect who presents you with some plans, drawings, or visual examples of what your home or building might look like.
2. Once you approve your plan, you seek a builder to do the construction.
3. If you want to approach the build with confidence, you’ll also want to be involved in the builder’s plans and timelines. Using excellent project management tools is key.
4. Still, even the best-laid plans sometimes change. You might go back and forth and change a few parts of the plan.
5. Even when you get started, you need to keep in mind the need to be flexible, adjust to shifting timelines, accommodate last-minute decisions, and possibly suffer some setbacks.
6. You need to be nimble, but it’s hard, because there is a lot at stake, financially and emotionally.
7. Soon enough though, you start to visualise the final product and then watch your home or building take shape. Finally, you see your completed project in front of your eyes. All of that planning has paid off.
Following a plan and actually building that home requires discipline and principles.
It’s the same with sales, which unfold in similar stages. With both types of projects, it is important to begin with the right mindset, so why don’t we do that when it comes to constructing a sale?
Why don’t we plan the process that will let us get a result we want? Most business owners jump in too quickly, assuming that their product is so magnificent that people should just buy it.
Or, they don’t bother to plan. Usually, salespeople do not follow any particular steps or process on the way to the sale of that product.
If you look at sales the way you look at building your home, though, you will see that there are certain processes you have to follow to get a good result. It does not have to be a complicated process, but you do need a plan.
Knowing a few simple steps in the journey to your sales is all that is required.
If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?
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!
Do you ever feel compelled to donate money to a charity because they have sent you a letter, accompanied by those return address envelopes, already printed with your name and address?
Or, have you been offered a gift, as a thank you, or for helping someone out?
Have you wandered down the street and been asked to donate to the Cancer Society, and in return you are given a pink ribbon?
If so, you understand the Hare Krishna Principle of Selling — a.k.a. the “something for nothing makes me want to listen to their sales pitch” theory.
A less expensive, but also effective, “gift” that you should consider giving your prospect is useful information.
You see this all the time, in this world of content and adding value.
Beneficial, little-known tips, specific to your prospect’s needs (e.g., “This weight loss programme for men over 65 that makes you feel 40 again…”).
Or interesting facts that make you look pretty cool to their family and friends. (e.g., “The press hasn’t yet got hold of this little-known fact about our new miracle cure…”).
The point I want to make here is that they feel like they’re getting something of some value from you — and they haven’t done anything to warrant it — there’s a chance they’ll feel obligated to buy from you.
One of the natural retail offers is a gift with purchase.
According to many insiders of the famous make up brand Estee Lauder, this offer contributes to up to 50% of their sales.
My question to you is “What can you do to help out your clients? What information can you share to help them add value to their clients?”
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!
For the 30 years-plus that I have been selling, I have never once taken a salary.
In other words, if I did not sell, I did not survive, feed my family, or build my business.
I sold on results and commission, and I still do. However, that’s me.
I thought it might be useful to explore other ways to reward success.
Why you shouldn’t pay your salespeople commission
There are actually two other ways to reward success, and one to keep your clients loyal.
If you are thinking of a selling career, in my experience there are 3 sales types.
Commission Sales
Relationship Sales
Service Sales
Over the course of this article, I will go into the pros and cons of each.
Let me firstly set this straight; selling is a career, and there are many professionals (and businesses) that rely on selling to make a living.
It’s the greatest profession in the world and might be one of the oldest.
Nevertheless, millions of people struggle with it, and refuse to acknowledge that they are sales people. In fact, many quiver in their boots at the very mention of the word – selling.
Let’s dive into the difference between these three types.
Commission Selling What is commission selling? I define commission salespeople as those where all of their income is derived from commission. A share of a sale that has a percentage attached to it, which is paid to them once a sale is complete.
I’ll use my old company, NRS Media as an example. My staff were commission-based sellers who received a range of 10-15% of every sale we made.
In our case, we sold 12-month membership subscriptions to small business advertisers that used a radio, TV or newspaper to advertise their product.
As an example: For small media companies, we created an offer to advertisers with a sale price of $5,148 over a 12-month period. We got 10-15% gross for that sale.
$772.20 per year paid (monthly) based on 15%.
On average, we sold 100 of these annual memberships over a two-week period.
Doing the math at 15% x 100 memberships, that means we would sell 100 x $5148= $514,800 x 15% = $77,220.00.
We would charge the media company 1/12th of that each month.
The beauty of our business was that we had critical mass over time and relationships with hundreds of radio, TV and newspapers. It took time, but the rolling revenue was pretty good.
That was our model. The con of commission-only is that you have to take the risk upfront, with the rewards paid out based on your performance.
The next type of sales career is Relationship Selling.
This type of job, by my definition, sits alongside the commission sales role, but most have a base salary and a more modest commission structure, or some type of bonus plan.
The pro of this type of selling is that its suits salespeople that work with existing clients and need to build long-term relationships.
Relationship salespeople tend to focus on longer term sales cycles and usually are what we call soft-sellers, or soft-closers.
The challenge with these people is they are often happy with the base salary and therefore do not prospect or go that extra mile.
As a manager, there needs to be a firm expectation of building additional long-term relationships.
The final sales type is Service Sales.
I define a service sales person as one that usually relies more on selling to an existing client.
This is often from a service call or in a retail environment.
These people do not prospect, and generally, they tend to be uncomfortable with that type of approach. However, they are important in the sales environment.
Whatever career you decide to take in sales, it’s always good to get some help.
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!
