Beyond networking… all the way to new business.

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I’ve been attending networking clubs and networking meetings for the better part of 25 years.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Business Networking International event with Chapter Lucky 62 in New York City as a guest. I wanted to give a short talk on networking strategies, but it seems as though the rules of the club forbade it. Respecting that, I attended anyway.

I didn’t really know what to expect since I had never been to a BNI networking meeting before, but I must say, whether they had selected me as a speaker or not, the meeting was exceptional. Very structured, but exceptional. And did I mention structured?

It began with a two-minute educational segment. I expected someone to get up, hem and haw, and give some weak tip. Instead, I listened to an amazing duet that turned their tip into a song!

The singsong tip got the meeting off to an incredible start – both in tempo and in tone. The message was so well constructed and completely customized that I am including it here for your educational pleasure.

Let me tell you something about your personality
You’re the only one with it, so let it shine brightly.
You may not be the only lawyer doctor broker cake decorator accountant in town,
But you’re the only one that’s unique inside and out

So let me tell you how
To stand out from the crowd

You gotta lead with your personality
You gotta lead with your personality
They have got to see individuality
You gotta lead with your personality

You may share a profession with a thousand other folks.
But what sets you apart is you make really lame jokes.
And that’s ok, it just ads to your character, it makes you like-able
People do business with people they like,
Especially if they like title!

So let me tell you how,
To stand out from the crowd

The singer-songwriter, Antony Bitar, is a real estate salesman. If you think his song lyric is great, you should see his YouTube introduction of himself for his real estate business. This guy gets it.

The guitar player accompanying Antony, Adam Lomeo, was actually showcasing his talents to the group. Which, by the way, were flawlessly excellent.

Back to the meeting… After the introduction, a sheet of paper was passed to each attendee that contained everyone’s signature slogan. I was about to be exposed to one of the coolest, one-of-a-kind introduction routines I’ve ever seen. About 80 members are given 30 seconds each to give their introduction, and at the end, the entire group recites their tag line.

As you can imagine, some of them were classic. A woman photographer ended her commercial with “I shoot your family” and the group responded, “so you don’t have to.” And the Xerox salesperson said she had been copying since the 2nd grade when she copied off her buddy’s test paper – the audience howled.

I did get to give a short 1-minute talk – my host, Jennifer Gluckow, gave me her commercial spot, but I went over my 1 minute time limit and got dinged. Timing is everything.

After the 30-second commercials, two people got to give a 5-minute talk to give the members and their visitors a more in-depth look at their business and their ideal referral partners.

Before the meeting ended, members had the chance to thank each other for business, or at least the opportunities for business. And there was a lot of it.

Then a black book was passed around the room where members entered the dollar amount of their closed business from BNI referrals. NOTE WELL: They’ve passed more than $4 million this year in referral business. WOW!

This was one of the most serious, yet fun business groups, hell-bent on self-promotion and giving business. And did I mention structured?

Here are 4.5 things you can learn from this meeting:

1. You don’t always have to say your message. Sometimes you can sing it, and it’s much more attractive and effective.

2. Creating group participation for individual commercials is both powerful and memorable. When 80 people say your tag line in unison, it creates a unity of group and memorability of message – especially if it’s funny.

3. Leads and networking groups don’t work unless there are plenty of leads and everyone is willing to give them. This group was just as interested in giving as they were in getting. Huge – especially in NYC.

4. The science of networking is getting more sophisticated. You have to be prepared, be willing to share, and be reputable.

4.5 Your creativity, style, and overall presence create attraction. Master all three elements.

I’ll be back in NYC in a few weeks. The BNI meeting is at the top of my list to attend. I’ll be bringing a few leads.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Foolproof Your Online Marketing Strategy

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The main reason you build a website is because you want people to see it. If your site has no visitors, developing it is a waste of time. The sad truth is many people struggle to learn the best ways of getting people going on their websites.

If you’re one of those people, you can take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone. The good news is that today’s handy guide will give you examples of what you need to do to make your site popular! Intrigued? Check out these dynamite online marketing methods. You’ll wish you had found this page sooner!

Foolproof Your Online Marketing Strategy
Photo courtesy of Mattias Frenne

Tune up your website

The first step to marketing success is to start with your website. You might think it looks good but does it work well for the masses?

Often, site owners forget about usability and accessibility when designing their online homes. Even some so-called web designers tasked with creating your site forget those core requirements!

Some of the questions you need to ask yourself are:

  • Can visitors get to the pages they want with ease?
  • Does the site function well in a mobile web browser?
  • Is it quick to load?
  • Is the content on each page relevant?

The last point in the list above is of particular importance. Humans and search engines will not rate a web page well if the content on it is of no relevance to the topic. For example, a web page on fishing isn’t relevant to a website whose primary subject is computers. After all; fish can’t use computers. And you can’t use a PC to catch some fish!

There is a plethora of tools on the Web that can help you to tune up your website. For instance, the Pingdom Website Speed Test tool will analyze your site and tell you what to fix. The kinds of things it will check include page loading times, broken links, and script optimization.

The W3C website has a ‘markup validation’ service. It can verify that your web pages adhere to the Web standards you are using (i.e. HTML 4.01, XHTML and so forth).

Make sure your Web host is reliable

Another consideration to make is where you host your website. It’s a well-known fact that cheap hosts run unreliable and slow web servers. That means the performance of your site will get affected and result in a loss of visitors due to downtime.

When choosing a Web host, you should find out what their service levels are. Do they boast 99.9% uptime, for example? Location is also another important factor.

If you live in the United States, you don’t want your website hosted on some far-flung corner of the globe. In an ideal world, your Web host should be in the same country as you for optimal performance.

Optimize your website for humans and search engines

SEO or ‘search engine optimization’ is an important part of the online marketing process. Your marketing strategy will doubtless have a particular demographic in mind. It’s your job to make sure that your website only targets that group of people.

When I was an intern working at Today’s Growth Consultant, one thing I learned was the importance of SEO in any marketing campaign. DIY marketers make the mistake of diluting the content on their sites with irrelevant keywords and phrases.

Foolproof Your Online Marketing Strategy
Photo courtesy of Florian Simeth

Luckily the Internet is home to a plethora of sites telling you how best to optimize your site for SEO purposes. Even the mighty Google released a helpful PDF on the basics of search engine optimization!

The main points to bear in mind about SEO are as follows:

  • Keep your content relevant and straight to the point;
  • Don’t stuff your pages full of spammy keywords and phrases;
  • Don’t ‘cloak’ your web pages. In other words, don’t fool people into thinking they visited a page about one topic. When, in fact, the content is about something different.

Make good use of landing pages

A proven online marketing technique is to use landing pages. In a nutshell, landing pages are ones created with the purpose of getting a visitor to do something. You might want them to fill in a form, for instance. Or, perhaps, you’d like them to buy something online instead.

Landing pages are usually associated with PPC (pay-per-click) ads. They are the ads you might see on the sides of search engine results pages. Although you can sometimes see them on other websites too.

When launching a new website, landing pages and PPC ad campaigns offer a good way to drive traffic to it. That’s because organic (natural) SEO campaigns can take a long time to offer results.

Set up social media profiles

It’s no secret that the world has gone social media crazy! I challenge you to find someone that doesn’t use one of the many social networking services online!

Because of the popularity of social media, it makes sense to set up profiles for your organization. With links to your website as well, of course! Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn are a few social network services you can sign up to.

The content on each profile should get updated on a regular basis. You can also use this platform to answer any pre and post-sales questions from your customers. Tools like HootSuite make it easy to manage a plethora of profiles from one useful application.

Start a blog

It doesn’t matter whether you run a business or non-profit organization. You will want to share news with your customers and followers. Social media is a great way of doing that. But don’t forget that your website is also a useful tool to communicate news with others.

The way to do that is to start a blog on your website. WordPress is a popular open-source platform you can use to begin blogging on your site. One thing I love about WordPress is how you can set it up to auto-post links to new blog posts on your social media profiles.

Just make sure the contents of your posts are relevant to what you do as an organization. By following these top tips, you’ll be able to form a decent marketing strategy in no time at all!

Why your sales process or sales system doesn’t work.

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Are you being forced to sell someone else’s way?
Are you uncomfortable using a ‘system’ of selling?

I read a report yesterday stating that 70% of all sales systems and sales initiatives fail. I have no idea who created that number (personally, I use 74% for all my statistical reports), but the point is clear. A system of selling and its accompanying sales process are pretty much doomed to failure before they begin.

NOTE: Please do not email me, telling me your system is the greatest and it works. Somebody is staking their claim that 70% or more do not work, and if yours is among the few that do, congratulations. If your system works it means you have a very small sales force, or that your system has been in place for so long that it’s refined to favor the customer, not the company.

For years I’ve written about why systems of selling fail, but please be clear about my beliefs: Almost all systems of selling do not work, and along with them are the failures of the manipulative sales processes that are attached to them. I’m about to tell you WHY the system doesn’t work, and then offer strategies that do work. Maybe it will help you in your awareness and decision-making process as you try to elevate your sales skills – or your sales results, or even your sales team – to a level of superior.

FIRST FAILURE: The sales system is all about the company that prepared it. It’s not relevant to the salesperson or not engaging enough to the customer. It’s too much perceived work on the part of the salesperson for not enough results. It’s too much of a hassle. The person that trained it sucked.

SECOND FAILURE: The sales process is at odds with you AND the market. The process doesn’t include mobile application. The process is old. The process deals with manipulation. (“Find the pain,” “what keeps you up at night,” and “qualify the buyer.”) The process deals with things uncomfortable for the salesperson. The process is not compatible with the way the company does business.

THIRD FAILURE: The sales leader who bought it isn’t convinced it’s going to work, he’s just using it as a CYA tactic. There is forced participation rather than joint buy-in. The sales leader is more interested in his or her salespeople being accountable to him or her for their activity, NOT being responsible for themselves and their outcomes.

FORTH FAILURE: Senior management has not endorsed or used the process. Senior management won’t use the process themselves.

FEAR of FAILURE: The salesperson thinks it will cost them sales. Period.

Want more reasons systems fails? Here’s a bunch – in no particular order. Pick the ones that best apply to you:

  • No buy-in from salespeople BEFORE purchase
  • No collaboration with the people who will actually USE the system
  • The system and/or the process is too manipulative
  • Lack of proof that the system actually works in your environment
  • No proof that the system or process actually works in your market
  • The system does not match the salesperson’s style or personality
  • The system is not in any way customized for your salespeople or your customers
  • The system is not flexible
  • Natural resistance to change
  • Fear of lost sales
  • Resentment for being forced
  • Poor training by the launch person
  • Too much work perceived for not enough sales
  • Sales are low right now, and this is a stab at resurgence
  • Trying to fit a round sales peg in a square sales hole

RESULT: You lose sales, lose salespeople, and there is lower morale. YIKES!

NOTE WELL: It’s most likely that many of these reasons apply to you or your system. Damn.

ALSO NOTE WELL: Sales is NOT a system, nor is it a manipulative process. It’s a series of STRATEGIES that are in harmony with salespeople AND their customers.

Here are some sales STRATEGIES that do work:

  • Create a ‘go to sale’ strategy that everyone is comfortable with: friendly, engaging, value-driven, conversational, and backed with proof from video testimonials.
  • Everyone should participate in creating the sales strategies from the CEO down.
  • Collaborate with the sales team – they’re the ones that will USE the strategies.
  • Create strategies that are flexible and comfortable. Have several different opening questions to choose from. Offer alternative ways to engage or close the sale.
  • Have a ‘Value Proposition’ in favor of the customer.
  • Whatever the strategies are, they MUST start with social attraction.
  • Whatever the strategies are, they MUST work in your environment.
  • Whatever the strategies are, they MUST be easy to use and time efficient.
  • Whatever the strategies are, they MUST be state-of-the art and state-of-the-market.

MAJOR CLUE: Collaborate with existing customers. Get them involved with and in agreement to (accept) the strategies you use.

AND NOTE REAL WELL: Sales are all your revenue and all your profit. Salespeople are the conduit for all that revenue. Why would you jeopardize your money and your profit with a system that everyone will fight?

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The ‘Art’ and ‘Lessons’ of Shopping for Bargains.

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I’m spending the day at Marché aux Puces, the antique flea markets of Paris. Also known as the “Puces” or “MAP,” it hosts 14 named market areas that offer an authentic and one-of-a-kind atmosphere. The market, steeped in history, brings together antique dealers, designers, artisans, artists, and customers from all over the world.

It’s a powerful business location. Picture 2,500 antique dealers ready and willing to sell items ranging from bric-a-brac and advertising memorabilia, to designer jewelry and handbags, vintage fashion and furniture, all the way to museum quality pieces dating back centuries.

It’s more than the eye can imagine, and way more than the wallet can afford.

I’m bringing my ‘A game’ to the market because the sellers are both seasoned and knowledgeable. It’s clearly a ‘buyer beware’ market and cash trumps credit cards by as much as 20%.

NOTE: There are three types of sales prices at the market. ‘Retail,’ ‘negotiated,’ and ‘wholesale.’ Retail prices are for the unsuspecting customer who’s willing to pay what is marked on the item or what the dealer asks for. Negotiated prices are for the savvy buyer who is able to negotiate the listed price and pay something he or she is more comfortable with. Wholesale prices represent the real amount the seller is willing take to part with his cherished item.

Of course, I’m trying to buy things between with a price somewhere between negotiated and wholesale. Meanwhile the dealer is trying to sell at a price somewhere between retail and negotiated.

Let the games begin!

After buying a few negotiated items, as luck would have it, I ran into the great Michael Andrew Wilson, a longtime friend and professional shopper.

To give you a frame of reference, Michael purchased all of the furnishings for every Ralph Lauren store in Europe. He has spent millions of euros at this market, and every seller and dealer knows him personally. You can learn more about Michael by reading his blog at http://mawparis.wordpress.com

I’ve been to the market 20 times. Michael has been to the market 1,000 times. He knows everyone. I know no one. But by walking around with him, I had ‘wholesale’ prices wrapped up.

One other advantage that Michael has: he speaks fluent French. I speak broken French without verbs. When the buyer and the seller speak the same language it’s much easier to complete an agreed-upon transaction. It’s also much easier to haggle for a lower price.

All in all, it’s a buyer’s marketplace UNLESS the buyer wants something bad. And, if the seller is savvy he or she will hold out until they find out how bad the buyer wants it. Luckily, those sellers are few and far between.

Most of the dealers at the market fully realize their sale is of the moment, and when a buyer walks away it’s likely they will never return. The more conversation the seller engages in, the more questions the seller asks, and the more the buyer feels like they’re getting a ‘deal,’ the more likely it is that the customer will part with cash.

The seller’s fatal flaw is also the buyer’s fatal flaw. It’s impatience and the need for immediate gratification. The more profitable sale is exactly the opposite. It’s patience combined with extended emotional engagement.

Which kind of seller are you? How would you be able to win the sale over 2,499 other competitors, all within walking distance on a sunny day in Paris. To me the answers are obvious, but maybe that’s because I’ve been there many times before.

Let me share a few with you so you might be able to engage your customers in a way that they will buy from you rather than your competition…

1. Find out how the buyer intends to use whatever it is they’re about to purchase. Where will it go? Who will see it? Will their family and friends admire it? Have they ever bought anything like this before? How much do they know about this particular product? How long have they been thinking about purchasing this kind of product? Do they think the value is there?

2. Try to uncover their urgency for purchase. Why do they want this now? Do they understand that this is one of a kind? How much do they love it? How much do they want it? How much do they need it?

2.5 Make certain you’ve explained affordability based on value and that their perceived value is the basis of their desire. Everyone thinks most sales are made based on price and everyone is wrong. Sales are made based on desire, need, and perceived value combined with urgency and utility.

DO THIS: Take a long look at your sales presentation. I recommend you record your sales presentation and use that for your review. You will see in an instant how engaging you are and how well you let the customer have a chance to buy. Or not.

I posted a few pictures of my selling/buying adventure on Instagram – @jeffreygitomer – if you want to take a look.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Are you a social sales pacesetter? Or are you losing business to one?

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Here are a few questions to get your social sales juices flowing:

  • Why are big companies interested in big data?
  • Why are formerly non-social companies suddenly scouring and analyzing social data?
  • Why is ‘mobile’ the new ‘social?’
  • Why is ‘cloud’ the new data room?

Often referred to as pacesetters, companies that have chosen to embrace and engage cloud, analytics, mobile, and social strategies are cleaning the clock of their competitors who have chosen the path of cautious resistance or even abstinence.

NOTE WELL: The real pacesetters are using all four strategies – not one or two.

PERSONAL NOTE: When I saw the statistic that 68% of Facebook usage is mobile, I realized the revolution was in full swing and those not playing hard would lose sales, loyalty, goodwill, reputation, and profit.

REALITIES:

  • Customers are smarter. You must be at least as smart.
  • Customers are social. You must be at least as social.
  • Customers are mobile. You must be at least as mobile.
  • The availability of online information about you AND your competition is instant.
  • Customers expect an easy-to-buy process.
  • Mobile is not an option – it’s an imperative.
  • 24-7-365 is the new 9-5.

My good friend, Sandy Carter, is one of IBM’s General Managers, and their social selling evangelist. Sandy fed me some support data from their recently published IBM’s 2014 Business Tech Trends Report. The report reveals that previously emerging trends like Big Data and analytics, cloud, mobile, and social are now being implemented across corporate enterprise beyond just experimentation and wait-and-see.

The Tech Trends Report also found that the gaps in IT skills that used to exist within these core segments are starting to narrow as organizations are uncovering the skill sets needed to use these technologies to their full advantage.

THE SECRET: These big pacesetter corporations have discovered that by partnering with smaller, specialized companies they are able to obtain the critical skills they need to gain a competitive advantage – thus paving the way for innovation and increased market share. They also learned that total integration of all four pacesetter elements was their breakaway move.

BOTTOM LINE FOR FASTER SUCCESS: Pacesetter organizations are now finding partners in a myriad of places including academia, start-ups, clients, citizen developers, and established specialized leaders. Pacesetter corporations that integrate cloud, analytics, mobile, and social technologies across their business are four to seven times more likely to use cloud to deliver social, mobile, big data, and analytics.

In short, pacesetters use technology for the competitive advantage and the results are more profitable business outcomes.

Here are a few concepts beyond buzzwords that will help you think about and understand why these strategies are being deployed and bringing amazing returns:

1. Cloud Strategies: Where can I store data and apps that are accessible on demand globally?

2. Social Strategies: How am I in touch with my customers to give them information and social proof, and how can they be in touch with me to tell me all is well?

3. Mobile Strategies: What are my customers using to communicate ideas, needs, and desires? How are they accessing my information? How are they purchasing?

4. Analytics Strategies: Data helps make better and smarter decisions. Data shows the past, reveals the present, and helps predict trends in the future. Another word for analytics is profit. REALITY: An app without analytics is a washing machine without a motor or a car without gas. How is your EXISTING data being mined, analyzed, and used to target trends, analyze profits, and increase sales?

4.5 Partnering Strategies: How are you using SEO experts, app builders, bloggers, and social awareness companies – global outside experts – that can help you achieve amazing success in a fraction of the time (and cost) it would take to do it yourself?

YOUR BOTTOM LINE: Now is the time to get your social mojo working in your favor. The opportunity is ripe and the expertise you need is at your fingertips. Carter told me, “The companies we deal with that listen to us with ‘all ears’ and eagerly implement the pacesetter solutions quickly convert their investment to ‘all clicks’ as their social interactions skyrocket and sales quickly follow suit.”

How’s your conversion doing?

“Get involved and get more.” If you search the hashtag #IBMBTT you’ll be able to access pacesetter ideas and answers – and maybe add a few of your own.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].