Read Between the Lines and Let Your Prospect Win

Posted on by

winner

When a prospective customer asks you for a discount or some sort of negotiable pricing. They might be asking because they want to look good in front of their boss or maybe they just have a policy that you have to ask. In any case, give the discount.

The discount can be in many forms that are both in the form of money. Here are some options to choose from:

  • First month free
  • We will throw in some extra features (if you don’t want to give monetary discounts)
  • Percentage discount on the first year only

In most cases, it doesn’t really matter what you give as long as you give something. They want to be able to go back to their team and tell them they won. Remember, when they win, you don’t lose, you win Big, by sealing the deal and making your customer feel good.

 

The Sales Demo Sandwich

Posted on by

burger-clipart

When I first starting doing sales demos, I would jump right into our product to show all our features. After talking for about 15 minutes, the prospect would be either bored (I could hear typing in the background) or confused on why this would help out their business. I lost their interest and rarely could go anywhere after that.

My new and better approach is the Sales Demo Sandwich. It keeps the prospect engaged and more likely to convert.

Here are how my 30 minute demos go in my Sales Demo Sandwich:

  • First 7 minutes: Talk about their business and what their goals are.
  • Next 5 minutes: Quick overview of my product, sprinkling specific ways to improve their business (based on what they just told me).
  • Next 7 minutes: Ask for feedback and questions on what they thought about our product solving their goals.
  • Next 5 minutes: Jump into a more detailed demo. Answer questions by “Showing” them the product… not just telling them. Seeing is believing!
  • Next 6 minutes: Ask for questions. If they don’t have any probe for objections. Everyone has objections, make sure you get them out of the way.
  • Final: Close the deal if possible or close the follow up meeting (if they need to discuss with their manager).

Call Us For Assistance – DO NOT RETURN TO STORE

Posted on by

Trike instruction booklet

I just got this sweet trike for my kid and there are like 20 steps to put it together. Anyway, I got stuck and my first reaction was to just return and move on with my life. However, I saw the instruction booklet told me to call them first instead of returning it.

They talked me through it, they were super nice, and now I’m a happy trike bike owner!

I thought that big bold phone number was super smart. Most people don’t know this but when you return an item to the store. The manufacturer gets it pretty bad, here is what happens in most cases (specifically for the smaller guys):

  1. The retailer ships it back to you and charges you a bunch of fees (sometimes equivalent to the amount of the product)
  2. You give the retailer a complete refund

By adding this phone number the retailer probably just saved them 2X the cost of the trike.

Made Right Here: Wholefoods

Posted on by

whole foods logo

I love Wholefoods. I do. But, it is always double the price on everything. Everyone knows that … but when I’m inside Wholefoods I always am able to justify the higher prices.

One thing that Wholefoods does really well is the “Made Right Here” signs in their produce section. When you think about the people behind the counter making the food, you realize why it is priced a little higher. It is also ready to go. You literally can start eating the produce right out of the bin (no need to cut or add seasoning).

Made Right Here Sign at Whole foods

Here are some ways to charge more money in your business:
1. Offer a service – setup, installation, design, etc

2. Complete all the steps for them. For example: just don’t give them a watermelon. Cut the watermelon, put it in a nice bowl, add some nice seasoning, and give them a fork to eat.

Top 10 Ways to Stop Your Customer from Having Buyers Remorse

Posted on by

Nothing is worse than a customer signing up, paying you, not using your product because they are frustrated and then canceling. Uggggghhh so frustrating – I hate this so much. I focus HARD on making sure they stay.

Here are my top 10 tips that I use every day, every night. 24/7 baby! All right, here we go:

10. Pick up the Damn Phone and Call Them

Yes, I know you aren’t suppose to call a girl until 3 days after the first date. This isn’t dating. They gave you their billing information (which is pretty much a homerun in business) – call them ASAP and ask if you can help them out with anything. If they don’t pick up – leave a voicemail. Follow Up with an email. Text them as well – because honestly no one checks voicemail anymore.

9. Make Training Sessions Mandatory

Boom! Tell them every customer has to go through a training session. It is mandatory – No Questions Asked. Book the training session right after you close the deal. Make sure they attend – don’t let them weasel out of it. Offer incentives like a Free Edible Arrangements when the complete the session.

Make the training session fun and effective. I like to do a reverse screen share. Where I watch them use our product. I also like to get the product working for them on the call.

If you can get away with it, charge for the training session. Otherwise, let the customer know it is included in the cost. They will love it.

8. Make them Successful in Whatever Means Necessary

Know their business and make them successful. Do whatever it takes to make sure they see ROI on your product. If you have to use other tools or methods to make them successful – DO IT! Don’t be annoying about it, think outside the box and make it happen for them.

  • Do they need the data also in their Salesforce account – just do it, build the damn integration.
  • They need extra reports every month – put it on you calendar, and manually send them reports.
  • They want you to train their intern who also happens to be their bosses son who doesn’t give a damn? Train the hell out of him – make him an Expert.

7. Charge More Money

If you really care about the customer. Start charing them more so you can give them more attention. Build your top notch service into the price. Customers don’t mind paying you a little extra coin, if you can actually provide results.

Business owners are sick and tired of crappy internet products that just don’t work or are too complicated to use. Smart customers are willing to pay more for excellent service for something that actually helps their business grow.

6. Actually Care

Yes, this one shouldn’t be on the list but it is and it actually matters.

When your customer wins, you win BIG! You have a life long customer and they will probably tell customers about you.

5. Find out what your customer wants – they are the BOSS!

In most cases you work with the “Manager” and not the “CEO”. The customer is the manager and not the CEO. Make the manager look good. You report to the manager – that guy is your boss. You make your manager look good and don’t worry about the rest. Make suggestions about what will work for their business – but always always focus on making your “Boss” look amazing.

4. Be a High End Concierge Service

Think of yourself as a concierge service. Lets say you run a hotel and one of your regulars mentions that he is about to propose to his girlfriend of 12 years. Boom! This is your chance – give him a free upgrade to the presidential suite. Decorate their bed with rose petals, throw in some free champagne. Now, you have a customer for a life and story he will tell everyone.

Same thing with software products. Remember what types of features your top customers are suggesting and when you launch them – send them a personal email about it. Tell them you not only want to help implement it for them but also show them it over a screenshare so they can see the full power of it.

3. Figure out why they aren’t launching

If they bought the product, you know they are excited about it but a few weeks have gone by and they have not launched. FIND OUT WHY! Call, text, voicemail, snapchat, meerkat, badger, prowler, whatever they are on – you be on now and get to them ASAP!

There are 3 reasons…. I mean 3 Excuses why people buy and don’t launch, and this sucks for you. Everyday they don’t launch, is a day closer to them canceling.

Reason #1 They are “busy”
Reason #2 They need to get approval from their team
Reason #3 Waiting for something else to happen before (like a website redesign, a new person to start, etc, etc)

These are NOT reasons, they are EXCUSES.

If they are busy, ask when they are next available – you can work their hours if needed (weekend or nights if needed – just offer this, most probably they won’t take you up on this, but this lets them know you are serious). Get a date, book it on the calendar. If they try to cancel on you next time – let them know that you booked this way in advance around their schedule – so it is pretty rude of them to pull that one you.

If they need approval. Book a meeting with their entire team so you can get buy in. At the end of the call – get buy in from all team members. “Okay, does everyone here approve? Perfect, lets get this launched right now!”

If they are waiting for X … this is a tough one and a total cop out. Talk about how your service can provide value NOW and they are losing money every second they don’t launch.

2. Be FAST

Don’t be one of those software providers that takes 3 months to implement. No one, I mean no one appreciates that. Get to the launch quickly. Setup your entire team around speed.

You are on a ticking timer as soon as your customer pays you. Everyday you don’t launch for them is another day, your “Boss” looks bad in front of his company.

1. Be an Expert and Let Them Know That

You have to get the customer’s trust. Without the customer’s trust you have NOTHING! No trust, no agreement, no launch, no money.

When the customer believes in your expertise, they will give you the freedom to implement things without their buy-in on every little detail. Be up front about the fact that you do this for a living day-in and day-out. Ask for their trust if you have to. Let them know what has worked for other similar clients in the past which is why you are suggesting the strategy you are proposing.

Didn’t read this massive list of awesome stuff?

TLDR; Make the customer successful as soon as possible

How ClassPass Retains Its Customers and other Thoughts on Retention

Posted on by

quit-gym

Gyms are notorious for making it impossible to actually quit. They have an entire system built around not letting you cancel. A new company called ClassPass – allows you to easily go to classes from a bunch of gyms. They are pretty much a gym membership service that allows you to go to other gyms. It is a really cool concept, because it doesn’t tie you down to one gym. The total charge is $79/mo.

I read this Quora post on How Class Pass Retains Its Users, and one thing they do is charge you a reactivation fee, if you cancel and sign up again. This makes the user want to stay to avoid that penalty later on.

Some other thoughts on retention:

  1. HubSpot and Infusionsoft charge a setup and training fee ($3k+) when you sign up. This makes sure you are committed and if you decide to cancel later on it makes you think twice about losing that setup fee.
  2. Only allow canceling over the phone. This gives you the opportunity to figure out what the real problem is and allows you to solve it and keep the customer. Gyms, make you come into the gym to cancel and usually show you the spa and massage chairs to keep you … (totally worked on me unfortunately).
  3. Focus hard on making the customer successful. This is by far the best method. If your customers business is more successful because of you – they will never cancel. This is something Salesforce swears by. Keep investing in the customer until you get an email that says “OMG I Love Your Service and Product”
  4. Take over their main operations so if they remove your software it is really hard for their business to function without you. For example HubSpot takes over your entire website, blogging platform, analytics systems, CRM, and more. Great product and super sticky because of this. Another example is ZenDesk, they take over your entire customer service portal.
  5. Only allow yearly contracts and make it super hard to get out of them. This is something Oracle does well.

Kissmetrics had a really great blog post on SaaS retention: 8 Advanced Tips for Never Losing SaaS Customers.

Disclosure: HubSpot is a Digioh customer and HubSpot, Salesforce, and InfusionSoft are Digioh Technology Partners.

Objection Based Selling

Posted on by

Hit-me-hard

When I first starting selling Digioh, I would wait until the end of the demo to ask questions like “Do you think you would use this product?” or “Does our price fit your budget?”. Towards the end of the demo the prospect was one of the following:

  • Tired/Distracted (checking email, etc)
  • Already wrote off the product as not something they could use
  • Didn’t see value in it

This sucked! Because I just spent 45 minutes busting my hump giving an amazing demo.

I now have a different method that has been working – I call it Objection Based Selling. I try to get sales objections within the first 10 minutes of the demo. By getting the prospects objection super early while I have their attention, I can overcome it. This keeps the prospect engaged and I can steer the demo towards something they would actually use.

Objection Based Selling Demo

  1. First 10 minutes – Get to know their business (aka look for opportunities where can provide their business 10X value). In most cases the prospect may already know of a way your product can help.
  2. Next 10 minutes – go over a few features and ask “Is this something you could use?”, if they say no ask why, probe deep and make sure they aren’t confused on what the product does.
  3. Next 10 minutes – go over setup and “how it all works”, ask questions like: “Does this make sense to you?”, “Is this something you would want to use?”, if they say no, ask why.
  4. Last 10 minutes – go over pricing and ask “Will this fit your budget?”, if they say no, offer an irresistible offer like a money back guarantee. If they say “I’m not the decision maker.” Find out what price they can easily sign off on (most managers can sign off on a $250/mo charge without having to talk their boss)

I no longer fear objections, I crave them! You can’t sell your service unless you overcome their objections. Checkout this post on 7 Common Sales Objections and how to overcome them.

 

Good Vs. Great Salespeople

Posted on by

No Sales... - I know that feel bro Meme Generator Captionator 2015-05-01 17-36-20

Good salespeople know their pitch and can easily communicate the product.

Great salespeople talk to the customer and can tailer the pitch based on their needs.

Figure out your customers needs is what really sells your product.

 

Good salespeople will ask for things like a Demo Sheet, Brochure, or other assets.

Great salespeople will ask for more targeted leads.

Understand of which type of customers you can close the fastest.

 

Good salespeople will demand new features in order to close more deals

Great salespeople will demand higher prices in order make more money.

Identify which customers are willing to pay more money for the product as-is.

 

Good salespeople will practice their pitch over and over again.

Great salespeople will practice overcoming common objections.

Most salespeople fail at “Closing the customer”, not the actual pitch. Most prospects will give you at least 2 objections before they buy, practice how to get over those.

 

Lots of great books on this topic. My 2 favorite are “The Closer’s Survival Guide” and “SPIN Selling“

30-day Free Trial or 30-day Money Back Guarantee

Posted on by

30-Day Free Trial, means you collect money after 30 days. This is great if you have a very sticky product or your customer acquisition cost is low. You will for sure get more sign ups because there is very limited barrier to entry. However, the downside is most of the users will not turn into paying customers. So you have to be make sure your product conveys value quickly.

30-Day Money Back Guarantee, means you collect money now! This allows you to collect the cash up front but have to work hard to keep the customer happy (so they don’t cancel next month). You will get less initial sign ups because it requires the customer to take out their billing information. This method is good if you have a sales team and your product is at least $100/mo. This method will require some convincing which can be done in the form of a sales demo.

Both methods look similar but are actually 2 very different strategies. I first learned about the Money Back Guarantee Strategy from Jason Cohen, here is the interview where he talks about it.

 

 

How LinkedIn Premium, Keeps its Subscribers: “Put it on the Personal Card, then Get it Expensed”

Posted on by

I thought this email was pretty genius. I signed up for LinkedIn Premium about 2 weeks ago and then I see this email. It pretty much tells me to switch out my personal card and expense it to the company.

LinkedIn Premium Email

This is pretty smart. If I’m paying for this out of pocket, I’m more likely to see and cancel a $50 recurring charge ($50=like 6 Netflix accounts). But, if my boss (or bosses boss) is paying for it, $50 isn’t that big of a deal in the Marketing/Recruiting Budget.

The other really interesting thing is they most of detected that I bought it on my personal credit card by not putting in a “Company Name”. Very clever!

This makes a lot of sense. A product that costs under $50/mo is cheap enough where it makes sense to just sign up with your own credit card especially if it makes you more efficient at your own job. Then, you get an email like this and start thinking “Hey, why not, let me get this expensed”.