Remember what it was like when you were a child and you wanted something? What did you do? I am willing to wager that you simply asked for it. In fact if you wanted something bad enough, I would bet that you asked and asked and asked. In fact you may have even claimed it when you were asking. If you have children now, I would like you to notice what they do when they want something. They ask for it. Often they even get what they ask for.

Keywords:
success,business,sales,positive mental attitude

Remember what it was like when you were a child and you wanted something? What did you do? I am willing to wager that you simply asked for it. In fact if you wanted something bad enough, I would bet that you asked and asked and asked. In fact you may have even claimed it when you were asking. If you have children now, I would like you to notice what they do when they want something. They ask for it. Often they even get what they ask for.

Why is it that as adults, we forget to ask for what we want or need? Is it that because when we were children, we asked and were told ” No you can’t have that?” Is it because we are simply afraid that we will be told NO?

Now I am going to really stretch out here, stay with me.

At networking meetings I used to host we were holding finalist drawings at each meeting for a trip to the Cayman Islands. There were a few people who were winning these drawings a lot. Why was that? Is it because they were asking for it, or was it because they were claiming it? The answer is both.

A during the length of the contest, I had a discussion with a few people about a phenomenon that I had experienced many times at meetings where they had a drawing for door prizes. Each time the prize was something that I really wanted, I would say out loud “that prize is mine.” I would literally claim the prize in spoken words while at the same time believing that I had already won and that I was holding the prize in my hands.

The results were startling. Nearly every time, I won. It was really incredible. In fact the people around me who heard me claim it would ask me how I did that. After it happened a few times, I started doing it more. It continued to happen.

At the contest progressed, I watched as one woman won the drawing at two meetings in a row. Each time, she claimed the win out loud and won. I saw someone else voice that they would probably win the drawing for one of my audio books, and their card came out of the fishbowl. If we can win drawings by speaking the words, by asking, by claiming them, then why do we not make a sale when we give our presentation? Is it because that we fail to claim the sale out loud? Is it simply because we fail to ask for the sale?

And what about other things in life. Relationships, goals, success, are these not things that we must claim to make them happen? Can we be with the partner of our dreams if we do not use our voice to tell them that we want to be with them? Of course not! Can we get help from someone that can help us if we do not ask for it? Of course not! People can not read our minds. But more than that there is an energy that comes form voicing what we want, from claiming the prize. It is an energy that is just as powerful when we use it for a positive outcome as when we use it for a negative outcome. If we voice a negative outcome, we will often receive it.

Have you ever experienced voicing a negative that came to pass? I bet if you think about it, you probably have. I hate to encourage people to appear to be talking to themselves, but I think that you could start using the power of your mind in combination with the power of the spoken word to start getting more of what you want. I know that it sounds strange, but what do you have to lose? Not a thing.

Can’t think of what to say right now? Try this. “Today I have what I need to succeed. I am successful.” Say it three or more times a day and see how your week develops. If we use the power of the spoken word in cooperation with the power of our mind, there is nothing we can not do. Let’s do it together.

By the way, on the day of the final drawing for the trip, the same woman who had claimed the win so many times in the finalist drawings, won the trip!

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Thousands of companies are saving tons of money using Linux software. Open source software, freely distributed, is powering servers, desktops, and laptops, running important hardware and delivering powerful business functionality each day.

Keywords:
crm, linux, open, open source, bill gates, microsoft, on-line sales software, sales leads, leads , lead software

Linux can save your business money. Powerful Linux applications power servers, desktops and laptops across enterprises and small businesses each day. Here in our business, our websites are open source, our support module is Linux, the CRM application and the Accounting system we use to run our business is open source software. Best of all our Linux tools, operating systems and applications, are all freely distributed.

Linux people are different. They search for power and function, but that is not all sought. Linux people believe that software should be freely distributed. The Linux community respects Microsoft; fantastic company whose apps like Office have improve millions of lives, really cool. But the dark secret in Linux circles paints Microsoft as a dinosaur, Linux people believe that expensive software with painful upgrade fees is headed for trouble.

Bill Gates Sees a “Sea Change” in Application Software

Microsoft sells operating systems and applications, and keeps on selling them. Backward compatibility with applications like Word can be hard and is this pain is by design. Microsoft wants to create pain and then fix, with upgrades. Microsoft wants upgrade dollars. This software model is starting to collect some rust. And the reason for this: free software is good. Free software is now available; free business applications to run your business, which are maintained, supported and best of all, are freely distributed. Bill Gates’s vision has focused on the on-line delivery model and even the free application delivery model.

Linux Distributions are a Personal Choice

Linux is built in distributions or releases, all slightly different. Ubuntu, a terrific linux distribution, is so good that it may be nudging Windows off desktops. Ubuntu is easy to deploy and easy to use plus it is loaded with applications for home users and business users. The Ubuntu desktop market share numbers are still viewed with a magnifying glass, but not too long ago, you needed a microscope. Ubuntu is easy to install and easy to use. Just get the software at the website and burn a CD. Ubuntu has just one CD or one ISO which loads in a snap. Red Hat, another distribution has 6 and takes much longer to complete. Ubuntu is lean because after the initial setup the user can craft his Ubuntu system just how he likes. The internet has Ubuntu distribution sites that power a tool called apt-get. All you do is apt-get install from a command line or user the Add Software GUI tools and you are getting the best linux apps right off the shelf and put right into your menu.

Ubuntu Distribution

The Ubuntu distribution has an Office suite with word processing, a spreadsheet, and presentation modules. All work can be saved in common formats like .doc or xls and are completely compatible with Microsoft products. The base Ubuntu application is loaded with graphics applications, CD, DVD burning and creation, multi-media including music and movie players, back-up apps, powerful anti-virus tools and networking applications that are best of breed. There is built in VOIP and message clients and many cool apps like Sticky Notes to make you more efficient.

Free Business Linux Applications

GNU Cash, free financial tracking, similar to Quicken. Cut an invoice, track bank accounts, run a budget and report your cash flow. Import your bank files and create buckets of spend for your financial analysis that will make an accountant jealous.

PBX and Phone Systems

Elastix will power up your phones. Did you know that most PBX commercial software is run using a freely distributed tool called Astericks. Elastix has re-packaged Astericks to ease the deployment and offers support. Expensive PBXs are not necessary. Linux has adapted other telephony tools like VOIP, predictive dialers, and call center solutions.

Do you need a content management system? A website or an intranet for your company. Plone, Drupal, Joomla deliver big. The functionality in these freely distributed tools match the priciest CMS software. The tools are supported and you can even buy how to books at your local bookstore.

Customer Relationship Management and CRM

How about sales tools, CRM or order management, even inventory management software? Full power CRM or customer relationship management tools are available for free or for super low prices. DataForceCRM, based in Dallas, is deploying a sugarcrm linux derivative that has been enhanced and strengthened and customers are shaving 80% off typical user fees. DataForceCRM offers wikis, forums, full documentation and will make sure user adoption is high. The tool is super flexible, has Outlook integration, manages marketing, tracks sales, eyeballs inventory, push button order management, gives customers’s a support tool and is Freely distributed to companies with less than 10 users. If your business has over 10 users, prices are still a bargain.

Companies pay high prices for customer support modules. OTRS, another open source backbone application in commercial applications, is there for the download and configuration. After set up your business will have a fully featured, professional trouble ticket tracker helping your clients get what they need.

Virtualization is taking IT departments by storm. Virtualization turns your single computer, you need some memory, into many virtual machines. This streamlines hardware usage and turns hard ware utilization way up. State of the art Virtualization called Xen comes with many linux distributions. In Ubuntu do apt-get install vmware-server and a fine tool is on its way to your machine.

The coolest thing about Linux is that in the 30 minutes I took to write this article, more applications were probably released. Sourceforge.net, a depository for linux tools is one of the busiest sites on the internet and full of Linux value added applications. Just yesterday I needed to edit a PDF. I google up pdfnet and there I went, for free. Very cool, ERP, or enterprise resource planning is free too. Linux support was targeted for genius level IQs but not any longer.

Conclusion
Companies realize good training and support drives value. Applications, even if free, are expensive if the learning curve is steep and if users are not guide. Smart open source companies are rolling out support modules to all service all learning types, wikis, live chat, forums, documentation and live phone contacts. Now with support in place, training available communities grow and grow. The applications I mentioned hit the tipping point where the user community is user support. Just this morning I was stumped with a virtual machine question. I googled the error code and added for Ubuntu. The page came up faster than I could call support, and the answer was clearly defined. Cool.

New technology can be daunting to learn and use. The linux world knows this and just in the last few years, has put strong arms around user friendliness. Opensource software is easy to deploy, easy to use, powerful and supported. I just covered a tiny fraction of applications available today. Just for fun, visit the sites in this article. Check out the super cool applications and then put a number to your potential savings. You may become a Linux Geek.

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If you want to jump-start your sales performance – connect to the positive terminal.

Keywords:
effective thinkers, mindset, success, sales

I hope it has been some time since you last had a dead battery. It’s not a lot of fun, especially if it is pouring rain and you don’t have a set of jumper cables.

Most people know a battery has a positive and a negative terminal. When jump-starting a car it is very important to know which is which. If you don’t connect the negative terminal on one battery to the negative on the other, and then do the same with the positive connections, one can do serious damage to the battery and alternator.

So what does this have to do with sales? Well if you think about it, those in sales have a negative and a positive. Instead of terminals, we call it attitude.

Unlike a car battery, everyone knows the difference between a positive attitude and a negative attitude … or do they? You would think this question is a no-brainer. A recent encounter caused me to wonder how evident this fact is.

It is no secret to many in sales that those who maintain a positive mindset towards their daily tasks, their prospects and their clients will out perform those at the other end of the spectrum.

Have you ever come across someone who didn’t realize they have a negative attitude? I encountered someone recently that if you looked up the word negative in the dictionary you would have found a picture of this person. Envision a person firmly closed to new ideas or different ways of thinking. He was sceptical about the impact of mindset on actions and behaviors. He believes established processes are more critical than creatively thinking through a solution. He was openly argumentative with his peers, challenged his manager, and discounted others results. His only defence, “I’ve always done it this way.” He was fortunate in having established a sizable block of business contacts over the years; which helped him produce above the required corporate quota.

I was left to wonder what his true potential could be if were to flip the dial from negative to positive.

Those familiar with the pioneering work of psychologist Dr. Henry Murray will know he was one of the first to postulate a direct, observable link between thinking and behavior. In the 1960s and 70s, a Harvard professor, Dr. David McClelland extensively studied achievement motivation and concluded that successful individuals have a significantly stronger drive or motivation to succeed than do average or below average individuals. Building on these works, the late Dr. Clayton Lafferty noted that successful sales people were likely to engage in constructive thinking, while unsuccessful sales people were prone to think in counter-productive ways.

Top sales people learn to be effective thinkers. That is, they consciously maintain a positive mindset; they focus on the sale and have established an inner drive to succeed. They combine their strong relationship skills with a strong belief in their clients. If you want to see what they look like, look up the word success in the dictionary!

If you want to jump-start your sales performance – connect to the positive terminal.

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According to IMS Health, poor countries are projected to account for less than one quarter of pharmaceutical sales in 2002. Of every $100 spent on medicines worldwide – 42 are in the USA, 25 in Europe, 11 in Japan, 7.5 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 in China and South East Asia, less than 2 in East Europe and India each, about 1 in Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) each.

Keywords:

In April 2002, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and the US-based Global Health Council held a 3-days workshop about “Pricing and Financing of Essential Drugs” in poor countries. Not surprisingly, the conclusion was:

“… There was broad recognition that differential pricing could play an important role in ensuring access to existing drugs at affordable prices, particularly in the poorest countries, while the patent system would be allowed to continue to play its role in providing incentives for research and development into new drugs.”

The 80 experts, who attended the workshop, proposed to reconcile these two, apparently contradictory, aspirations by introducing different prices for drugs in low-income and rich countries. This could be achieved bilaterally, between companies and purchasers, patent holders and manufacturers, global suppliers and countries – or through a market mechanism.

According to IMS Health, poor countries are projected to account for less than one quarter of pharmaceutical sales in 2002. Of every $100 spent on medicines worldwide – 42 are in the USA, 25 in Europe, 11 in Japan, 7.5 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 in China and South East Asia, less than 2 in East Europe and India each, about 1 in Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) each.

Vaccines, contraceptives, and condoms are already subject to cross-border differential pricing. Lately, drug companies, were forced to introduce multi-tiered pricing following court decisions, or agreements with the authorities. Brazilians and South Africans, for instance, pay a fraction of the price paid in the West for their anti-retroviral AIDS medication.

Even so, the price of a typical treatment is not affordable. Foreign donors, private foundations – such as the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation – and international organizations had to step in to cover the shortfall.

The experts acknowledged the risk that branded drugs sold cheaply in a poor country might end up being smuggled into and consumed in a much richer ones. Less likely, industrialized countries may also impose price controls, using poor country prices as benchmarks. Other participants, including dominant NGO’s, such as Oxfam and Medecins Sans Frontieres, rooted for a reform of the TRIPS agreement – or the manufacturing of generic alternatives to branded drugs.

The “health safeguards” built into the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) convention allow for compulsory licensing – manufacturing a drug without the patent holder’s permission – and for parallel imports – importing a drug from another country where it is sold at a lower price – in case of an health emergency.

Aware of the existence of this Damocles sword, the European Union and the trans-national pharmaceutical lobby have come out last May in favor of “global tiered pricing”.

In its 2001 Human Development Report (HDR), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) called to introduce differential rich versus poor country pricing for “essential high-tech products” as well. The Health GAP Coalition commented on the report:

“On the issue of differential pricing, the Report notes that, while an effective global market would encourage different prices in different countries for products such as pharmaceuticals, the current system does not. With high-tech products, where the main cost to the seller is usually research rather than production, such tiered pricing could lead to an identical product being sold in poor countries for just one-tenth-or one-hundredth- the price in Europe or the United States.

But drug companies and other technology producers fear that knowledge about such discounting could lead to a demand for lower prices in rich countries as well. They have tended to set global prices that are unaffordable for the citizens of poor countries (as with many AIDS drugs).

‘Part of the battle to establish differential pricing must be won through consumer education. The citizens of rich countries must understand that it is only fair for people in developing countries to pay less for medicines and other critical technology products.’ – stated Ms. Sukaki Fukuda-Parr” the lead author of the Report.

Public declarations issued in Havana, Cuba, in San Jose, Costa Rica in the late 1990’s touted the benefits of free online scholarship for developing countries. The WHO and the Open Society Institute initiated HINARI – Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative. Peter Suber, the publisher of the “Free Online Scholarship” newsletter, summarizes the initiative thus:

“Under the program, the world’s six largest publishers of biomedical journals have agreed to three-tiered pricing. For countries in the lowest tier (GNP per capita below $1k), online subscriptions are free of charge. For countries in the middle tier (GNP per capita between $1k and $3k), online subscriptions will be discounted by an amount to be decided this June. Countries in the top tier pay full price.

The six participating publishers are Blackwell Synergy, Elsevier Science Direct, Harcourt IDEAL, Springer Link, Wiley Interscience, and Wolters Kluwer. The subscriptions are given to universities and research institutions, not to individuals. But they are identical in scope to the subscriptions received by institutions paying the full price.”

Of 500 bottom-tier eligible institutions, more than 200 have already signed up. Additional publishers have joined this 3-5 years program and most biomedical journals are already on offer. Mid-tier pricing will be declared by January next year. HINARI will probably be expanded to cover other scientific disciplines.

Authors from developing countries also benefit from the spread of free online scholarship coupled with differential pricing. “Best of Science”, for example, a free, peer-reviewed, online science journal subsists on fees paid by the authors. It charges authors from developing countries less.

But differential pricing is unlikely to be confined to scholarly journals. Already, voices in developing countries demand tiered pricing for Western textbooks sold in emerging economies. Quoted in the Free Online Scholarship newsletter, Lai Ting-ming of the Taipei Times criticized, on March 26, 2002 “western publishers for selling textbooks to third world students at first world prices. There is a ‘textbook pricing crisis’ in developing countries, which is most commonly solved by illicit photocopying.”

Touchingly, the issue of the dispossessed within rich country societies was raised by two African Special Rapporteurs in a report submitted last year to the UN sub-Commission on Human Rights and titled “Globalization and its Impact on the Full Enjoyment of Human Rights”. It said:

” … The emphasis on R & D investment conveniently omits mention of the fact that some of the financing for this research comes from public sources; how then can it be justifiably argued that the benefits that derive from such investment should accrue primarily to private interests? Lastly, the focus on differential pricing between (rich and poor) countries omits consideration of the fact that there are many people within developed countries who are also unable to afford the same drugs. This may be on account of an inaccessible or inhospitable health care system (in terms of cost or an absence of adequate social welfare mechanisms), or because of racial, gender, sexual orientation or other forms of discrimination.”

Differential pricing is often confused with dynamic pricing.

Bob Gressens of Moai Technologies and Christopher Brousseau of Accenture define dynamic pricing, in their paper “The Value Propositions of Dynamic Pricing in Business-to-Business E-Commerce” as: “… The buying and selling of goods and services in markets where prices are free to move in response to supply and demand conditions.”

This is usually done through auctions or requests for quotes or tenders. Dynamic pricing is most often used in the liquidation of surplus inventories and for e-sourcing.

Nor is differential pricing entirely identical with non-linear pricing. In the real world, prices are rarely fixed. Some prices vary with usage – “pay per view” in the cable TV industry, or “pay per print” in scholarly online reference. Other prices combine a fixed element (e.g., a subscription fee) with a variable element (e.g., payment per broadband usage). Volume discounts, sales, cross-selling, three for the price of two – are all examples of non-linear pricing. Non-linear pricing is about charging different prices to different consumers – but within the same market.

Hal Varian of the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California in Berkeley summarizes the treatment of “Price Discrimination” in A. C. Pigou’s seminal 1920 tome, “The Economics of Welfare”:

“First-degree price discrimination means that the producer sells different units of output for different prices and these prices may differ from person to person. This is sometimes known as the case of perfect price discrimination.

Second-degree price discrimination means that the producer sells different units of output for different prices, but every individual who buys the same amount of the good pays the same price. Thus prices depend on the amount of the good purchased, but not on who does the purchasing. A common example of this sort of pricing is volume discounts.

Third-degree price discrimination occurs when the producer sells output to different people for different prices, but every unit of output sold to a given person sells for the same price. This is the most common form of price discrimination, and examples include senior citizens’ discounts, student discounts, and so on.”

Varian evaluates the contribution of each of these practices to economic efficiency in a 1996 article published in “First Monday”:

“First-degree price discrimination yields a fully efficient outcome, in the sense of maximizing consumer plus producer surplus.

Second-degree price discrimination generally provides an efficient amount of the good to the largest consumers, but smaller consumers may receive inefficiently low amounts. Nevertheless, they will be better off than if they did not participate in the market. If differential pricing is not allowed, groups with small willingness to pay may not be served at all.

Third-degree price discrimination increases welfare when it encourages a sufficiently large increase in output. If output doesn’t increase, total welfare will fall. As in the case of second-degree price discrimination, third-degree price discrimination is a good thing for niche markets that would not otherwise be served under a uniform pricing policy.

The key issue is whether the output of goods and services is increased or decreased by differential pricing.”

Strictly speaking, global differential pricing is none of the above. It involves charging different prices in different markets, in accordance with the purchasing power of the local clientele (i.e., their willingness and ability to pay) – or in deference to their political and legal clout.

Differential prices are not set by supply and demand and, therefore, do not fluctuate. All the consumers within each market are charged the same – prices vary only across markets. They are determined by the manufacturer in each and every market separately in accordance with local conditions.

A March 2001 WHO/WTO background paper titled “More Equitable Pricing for Essential Drugs” discovered immense variations in the prices of medicines among different national markets. But, surprisingly, these price differences were unrelated to national income.

Even allowing for price differentials, the one-month cost of treatment of Tuberculosis in Tanzania was the equivalent of 500 working hours – compared to 1.4 working hours in Switzerland. The price of medicines in poor countries – from Zimbabwe to India – was clearly higher than one would have expected from income measures such as GDP per capita or average wages. Why didn’t drug prices adjust to reflect indigenous purchasing power?

According to the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), differential pricing is also – perhaps mostly – influenced by other considerations such as: transportation costs, disparate tax and customs regimes, cost of employment, differences in property rights and royalties, local safety and health standards, price controls, quality of internal distribution systems, the size of the order, the size of the market, and so on.

Differential pricing was made possible by the application of mass manufacturing to the knowledge society. Many industries, both emerging ones, like telecommunications, or information technology – and mature ones, like airlines, or pharmaceuticals – defy conventional pricing theory. They involve huge sunk and fixed costs – mainly in research and development and plant.

But the marginal cost of each and every manufactured unit is identical – and vanishingly low. Beyond a certain quantitative threshold returns skyrocket and revenues contribute directly to the bottom line.

Consider software applications. The first units sold cover the enormous fixed and sunk costs of authoring the software and the machine tools used in the manufacturing process. The actual production (”variable” or “marginal”) cost of each unit is a mere few cents – the wholesale price of the diskettes or CD-ROM’s consumed. Thus, after having achieved breakeven, sales revenues translate immediately to gross profits.

This bifurcation – the huge fixed costs versus the negligible marginal costs – vitiates the rule: “set price at marginal cost”. At which marginal cost? To compensate for the sunk and fixed costs, the first “marginal units” must carry a much higher price tag than the last ones.

Hal Varian studied this problem. His conclusions:

“(i) Efficient pricing in such environments will typically involve prices that differ across consumers and type of service; (ii) producers will want to engage in product and service differentiation in order for this differential pricing to be feasible; and, (iii) differential pricing will arise naturally as a result of profit seeking by firms. It follows that differential pricing can generally be expected to contribute to economic efficiency.”

Differential pricing is also the outcome of globalization. As brands become ubiquitous and as the information superhighway renders prices comparable and transparent – different markets react differently to price signals. In impoverished countries, differential pricing was introduced illegally where manufacturers insisted on rigid, rich-world, price lists.

Piracy of intellectual property, for instance, is a form of coercive (and illegal) differential pricing. The existence of thriving rip-off markets proves that, at the right prices, demand is rife (demand elasticity). Both piracy and differential pricing may be spreading to scholarly publishing and other form of intellectual property such as software, films, music, and e-books.

Consumers are divided on the issue of multi-tiered pricing tailored to fit the customer’s purchasing power. Not surprisingly, rich world buyers are apprehensive. They feel that differential pricing is a form of hidden subsidy, or a kind of “third world tax”.

On September 2000, Amazon.com conducted a unique poll – this time among customers – regarding differential pricing (actually, non-linear pricing) – showing different prices to different users on the same book.

Forty two percent of all respondents though it was “discrimination” and “should stop” – but a surprising 31 percent regarded it as “a valid use of data mining”. A quarter said it is “OK, if explained to users”. The comments were telling:

“I work over 80 hours a week. As a small business owner, I may make good money, but does that mean I should be charged more than unmotivated individuals who are broke because they don’t want to work more than 30 hours a week. I don’t think so … Should (preferred) customers disappear in (the) off-line world? Should Gold Cards or Platinum Cards disappear? …

The interesting thing is that discrimination of pricing is very common in the insurance industry – the basis for actuarial work and in airlines – based on load factors. The key is the pricing available to groups of customers with similar profiles … Simple supply and demand, competition from other suppliers should offset … A dangerous policy to implement … As a consumer I don’t necessarily like it, (unless I get a lower price!). However, economically speaking, (think of a monopolist’s MR curve) the ideal is to have each person pay the maximum amount that they are willing to pay.”

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Do you have a defined objective for you 1st appointment? How do you measure it and what tools do you have in place to improve it?
If you’re 1st appointment to proposal ratio is less than 60%, here are some target reasons why and ways to quickly improve it.

Keywords:
sales leadership,sales training,sales performance,sales management training,corporate sales training

Have you defined what you want to happen at the conclusion of your 1st appointment? Only then can you actually set up a proficient sales methodology to achieve the defined objective more times than not. And with a pre-defined objective to your 1st appointment you can (1) set a realistic benchmark of success and (2) measure the outcome. It becomes part of your sales performance scorecard.

What is a 1st appointment to proposal ratio? It’s simply how many times you gain commitment with your prospect to take the next step, as outlined by your sales process.
Depending on your solutions-based product or service and your sales methodology, your ‘Next step’ may be one of the following:

An on-site demonstration
A trial period of your “widget”
A tour of your operations or manufacturing facility
A no-obligation survey
An evaluation and side-by-side comparison, apples to apples
A solution-based evaluation, apples to oranges

Whatever your ‘Gateway’ is, be sure to attach a business rule and definition to it, and then most importantly measure it.
For example, let’s look at a telecommunications company that provides voice, data and wireless services to their customer base. The objective of their first appointment is to gain commitment from their Target prospect to perform a diagnostic survey of their current services as it relates to their overall business imperatives and financial success factors for the current year and bring them back a ‘Blueprint’ of ROI based solutions.

With their 1st appointment objective ‘Gateway’ defined, they come to a decision to measure that gateway by having the target prospect sign a release form that enables them to contact their current service provider and request a specification report around line, data and feature connectivity.
The advantage of defining and measuring the first ‘Gateway’ is that it will provide you with a ‘Reality Mirror’ of how competent you are with the initial phase of your sales process. So if you have set a realistic benchmark company-wide of a 60% 1st Appointment to Proposal ratio and you have individuals below it, you can pro-actively provide them with targeted coaching and support tools to help them achieve the standard benchmark. And that drives more revenue.

If I walk into a sales division and diagnose their 1st appointment to proposal ratio is below 60%, I immediately know up to 5 specifics:

1. They are not calling on the Highest appropriate level of contact
2. They are not calling on the right type of company by industry or application
3. They have not defined a 1st appointment objective (A ‘Gain Commitment’ Gateway)
4. They have ‘no message’ or are poor at communicating the message
5. They are selling their services instead of selling the diagnostic steps in the Process and backing it up with 3rd party validations

The first two factors are directly related with whom you decide to call on.
You probably know who uses your product or service, but you might need some business acumen training to better understand the critical financial success indicators of your prospect parallel to their Front Burner business objectives.

More than often not, a low 1st appointment to proposal ratio is related to a process of not calling on the highest appropriate level of contact. By that I mean understanding the level of responsibility within a company that has the most input into a buying decision. Who has the ‘ownership’? Who is at the ‘need to know’ level? It may be more than one level or title, but it is important to resolve to a top-down selling process.

A top-down selling process will raise your 1st appointment to proposal conversion rates because you are in front of the appropriate person from the start. That person has enough clout to sign on to the next step or to legitimately dismiss the process. If you are dealing with a subordinate level, to the degree of which you are will be the degree your conversion rate will expeditiously decrease.

There was a start-up company in a recently de-regulated industry that had accumulated 300 million dollars in investor money to build a business. Their primary sales distribution channel was a direct sales team. They decided to retain a sales training firm to set up all sales strategies, appropriate processes and training to execute to their revenue goals. Interesting enough, they promoted just the opposite of a top down selling process.

They promoted a strategy and process of initiating contact with business receptionists. That’s right, the nice folks who sit in the lobby to answer and direct all the inbound calls. They felt if you promote yourself to these receptionists, flatter then with brand reference gifts, they would eventually lead you to the right person of authority to look at the sales proposition. After all, they know all the names and extensions, and who has what title.
I guess you could call it a bottom up selling process.

At the same time, I was heading up a direct sales team competing directly with their services in the same geographical area. We followed the sales strategies and processes I am outlining.
Our competitor’s sales cycle was longer and their average revenue per sale was smaller. Two years later, we had grown 509% and were acquired by a national company. That was the goal.
Our competitor filed chapter 11, let everyone go, and liquidated all assets. End of story.

The level of responsibility you decide to call on directly effects your 1st appointment to proposal ratio.
Here are (8) diagnostic tips to improve your ‘1st Appointment to Proposal’ ratio.
1. Employ an ROI-based lead generator system that contains data recognition, classification, and custom extraction specific to your business offering
2. Internally define what the objective of the 1st appointment is; a demo, a site visit, a survey or a proposal, set a benchmark of success and universally measure it.
3. Promote your Product/service offering in a way to provide a measurable soft or hard dollar ROI over time.
4. Call on the ‘Highest appropriate level of contact’ for your offering; one that that has fiscal authority if a proposal make business sense.
5. Use a diagnostic approach in your sales appointment to understand what your Prospect’s business objectives are in the short and long term.
6. Get some ‘Business Acumen’ training to become proficient in understanding how fiscal people measure their business and support your business offering with relevant terms such as ROI, IRR and Payback Period.
7. Don’t sell your product or service on the 1st appointment. Promote ‘the diagnostic steps of your process’ to evaluate the opportunity to increase performance, efficiencies or reduce costs.
8. Utilize a software proposal generator (non-Boiler-plate) that develops custom proposals specific to your Prospect’s required deliverables and how your solutions will facilitate them getting there sooner rather than later. Show examples during your 1st appointment process.
Defining a specific objective for your 1st appointment, setting a realistic benchmark of achievement and measuring the outcome will begin to get you on track to an 80%+ 1st appointment to Proposal ratio.
Then support the sales objective by developing or outsourcing quality tools tied to technology and best practices to allow more of your sales employees to achieve superior benchmark results.

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Fact number one: potential customers buy for personal reasons (theirs), not ours. They could care less about our company, glitzy website, or how long the list of product features so skillfully displayed. They only care about the oldest motivation in the book – WII-FM (what’s in it for ME!)

Keywords:
internet marketingideas, off line advertising, business marketing

One of the most common mistakes marketers make is advertising and marketing based on personal opinions and perceptions. Unsuccessful ones tend to think this way, not only about the product being sold, but also regarding how potential customers will act and react to our advertising approach. This then begs the obvious question (which isn’t so obvious)—why do customers buy in the first place. What is their motivation, purpose in buying? What do they need the product/service for? What needs are they satisfying in buying the products in the first place? Seems like simple and basic questions, right? Not really, when you dig deeper under the surface. The better we understand and appropriately respond to these questions, the more sales, revenue and success we will have.

Fact number one: potential customers buy for personal reasons (theirs), not ours. They could care less about our company, glitzy website, or how long the list of product features so skillfully displayed. They only care about the oldest motivation in the book – WII-FM (what’s in it for ME!). They want the benefit, the impact, the improvement, the comfort, or the security it will deliver, period.

Most small (and large for that matter) business marketing fails to address these crucial customer needs directly. All too often the focus is mistakenly on the greatness of the product or service, and not on what is important (to the customer that is). Marketers are often their own worst enemy. Frequently, they are not communicating on the buyer’s level of motivation. They are too busy figuring out how to “sell” the product than finding out the reasons the customer “buys” in the first place.

The problem comes down to the marketing strategy that is employed. Are you pushing the product or are you pulling the customer through the marketing process?

The distinction becomes very important and critical to success. Since buyers only care about their needs and take action for their personal reasons, why should they pay attention to why you think your product is so great?

When you push products, you are essentially telling the customer that they should buy from you because of your reasons. With this egocentric approach you often run into a stone wall of objections and delays. Pushing the product forces them out of their comfort zone and places unnecessary pressure on their decision making process. A relentless assault of closing techniques pushes them away from a purchase decision on “their terms”.

Pulling a potential customer through the purchase process is much more effective. When you pull you are leading them to the purchase like leading a horse to water. You gently guide them through your features and benefits and come to a decision on their terms. If they resist you have not educated them enough with information to motivate them or you haven’t addressed their objections sufficiently.

The potential customer will only make a decision when they are comfortably satisfied your offer has met all of their purchase criteria. As a seller, you must pull them through the process and always let them stay within the limits of their comfort zone. It’s by staying within these boundaries that trust is established and a long term relationship is built with the customer.

Also remember that the purchasing process is completely rooted in the perceptions of the buyer. They have ultimate control over the process, not you. Your job as a marketer is to develop all your communications to make them comfortable and lead them to the best outcome…purchasing your product or service.

Always be aware of which method you are using – push or pull – and adopt it to the potential customer’s personal reasons for purchasing and you will enjoy continuous success.

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Your POS system generates key statistics that tell you about your Retail sales performance.
These key statistics are: Average sale, Transactions per hour, Items per sale, Conversion rate, Sales per hour.

But did you know that tracking these statistics on an individual Salesperson basis can lead you to focused clues about improving individual performance. Most POS systems don’t enable you to track individual sales performance or generate individual KPIs (key performance in…

Keywords:
improve retail performance,roster,kpi,retail software,increase retail sales

Your POS system generates key statistics that tell you about your Retail sales performance.
These key statistics are: Average sale, Transactions per hour, Items per sale, Conversion rate, Sales per hour.

But did you know that tracking these statistics on an individual Salesperson basis can lead you to focused clues about improving individual performance. Most POS systems don’t enable you to track individual sales performance or generate individual KPIs (key performance indicators). If they do, they do not allow you to set a Store Sales Goal for comparative purposes.

If your POS system does track these KPIs they can lead you to some very important coaching strategies:

Coaching on Low Average Sale

Salespeople need to create value in the sale by demonstrating more expensive merchandise. This usually requires more skill and more product knowledge.

Customers need to be probed to identify their needs so the Salesperson can match them with the right product. There is no point in launching into a demo unless the needs of the customer are known. This leads to unsuccessful attempts at adding on. Perhaps the sale itself is lost due to inaccurate probing.

If the Salesperson is in a hurry they may not maximise their opportunity to sell. This will usually be characterised by low items per sale and/or high transactions per hour, as well.

Salespeople need to be aware of natural product add-ons such as extended warranties, product customisation and delivery options. Lack of product knowledge again is a cause for low average sale.

Coaching on Low Transactions Per Hour

Salespeople may be guilty of spending too much time with customer and not closing sales quickly enough. This is usually due to a lack of skill or motivation.

You need to identify a specific behavior that is cause the poor performance which may be thing like too much time spent merchandising, taking breaks, smoking, or talking to customers without trying to close the sale.

Converting customer is paramount to increasing transaction per hour.

Approach more customers and try to spend less time with them

Coaching on Low Items Per Sale

Salespeople need to at least attempt to sell more than one item to a customer. Product knowledge and sales confidence are the keys to a successful add on. Lack of sales skill will inevitably result on giving up too quickly or ignoring an opportunity to add on.

Probe customers with broad questions relating to the product they are buying. You may find out something about the customers that leads naturally to the ad on.

Since the customer’s mind is most open to buying prior to making a buying decision on the primary item, a Salesperson who always waits for that commitment prior to adding on may be minimising his/her chances of successfully adding on.

Salespeople are sometimes much to careful about saving a customer’s money instead of trying to sell them more items. If the store is quiet Salespeople need to try harder to ad on. Even if the store is busy, a customer who has already decided to make a purchase is more easy to sell something to than a customer walking into the store.

Coaching on Low Conversion Rate

Lack of probing, skill in selling, product knowledge, and approaching customers is usually the cause of low conversation rate.

In most cases increasing the conversion rate of the store is the quickest and easiest way to increase the sales average. Converting one more customer per period can create a dramatic effect on the sales for the day so Salespeople need to close faster and attend to more shoppers.

Lack of clear and targeted demonstrations and a lack of product knowledge can cause wasted time with Salespeople performing the sale but not closing the deal.

Coaching on Low Sales Per Hour

Usually this statistic is low because one of the other’s is low.

Make sure you are tracking this statistic accurately. If you are measuring sales performance for an individual who is selling for less hours than being tracked this will inevitable show us a low sales per hour.

Summary

Targeting individual deficient sales statistics provides vital clues to Store Managers about the specific area of performance that should be targeted for coaching purposes.

Coaching on the most deficient statistic yields the greatest and quickest results and the potential the biggest improvement in sales performance.

The author of this article has developed a software program used by retail stores to quickly and easily calculate individual salespeople’s statistics.

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Logical levels? What is that, you might ask? It is a model created by Robert Dilts, a pioneer in the field of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) after studying Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). Some believe that Bateson will before long (presumably in the 21st century) come to be recognised posthumously as “another Einstein of the 20th century” or even as beyond him. Bateson part Anthropologist, Social Scientist, Cyberneticist, was one of the most important social scientists of th…

Keywords:
NLP, Neuro-Linguistic programming, sales, educate, motivate

Logical levels? What is that, you might ask? It is a model created by Robert Dilts, a pioneer in the field of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) after studying Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). Some believe that Bateson will before long (presumably in the 21st century) come to be recognised posthumously as “another Einstein of the 20th century” or even as beyond him. Bateson part Anthropologist, Social Scientist, Cyberneticist, was one of the most important social scientists of this century.

With this background in mind, Dilt’s created a learning model called “Neorological Levels.” My persupposition in this article is that, in the consultive sale you uncover the need. This is the first level in the nuerological levels. If the person you are selling to doesn’t live in the “envorionment” where your product of service is needed, you will not get any further.

Once you have uncovered the “need” for your service. Your customer will start to evaluate your behavior. This is where the skills of rapport come in. Your prospect will evaluate how consistant are you with your method of delivery. This can be real or synthetic as NLP teaches. You can match body posture, tone and tempo and even breathe like they do. But this will only work for small ticket items. When selling as a consultant, your true nature will be revealed. This is where the skilled salesperson is head and shoulders above the rookie. You can’t fake it while your making it. In fake, it is better to lay your cards on the table and let them know you are a rookie. You will then be using this logical level of behavior to your advantage. People by their very nature want to help. They will help you close the sale.

Once you have worked through the first two levels of environment and behavior, you will start interacting with their beliefs and values. If you are positioning your product in alignment with their values, it will fit into their beliefs. The natural salesperson does this by nature. The prospect is using words like challenge, freedom or flexibilty. Each of these words are hot buttons for that person and they also relate to their beliefs and values. You would do well to listen for these words I term Impact words in my book, “Awaken the Genius.”

As you iteract on these first three levels in sales, you are getting to know one another — figuring out if you can do business together.

As you understand this level of learning, you will ask questions to educate and lead the prospect. Hence, to do this, you should be using the ABC of sales. Always be closing. This allows you to know if they have the capacity to make the decision to buy or not. Which is the next level. If they are not the decision maker you should work to empower them to get that person or group involved.

Once you have everyone who will be making the decision involved, it is time to ask the need-payoff questions. This is a series of questions that once the prospect answers them they are identifying with your product or service. Identifying is the next step in the logical level process. If they don’t have the need they will not identify. If they don’t think they or their company can demonstrate the behaviors necessary they will not identify. If your product or service is not in alignment with their values and beliefs they will not identify.

That means, it is your task in the sales setting to get these four specific areas to align and it will move your prospect beyond identifying and they will become part of your sales force — helping to refer family members, business associates and staff members and it all started with the idea of educating, enlightening and motivating them to buy your product or service.

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The first day of your new business is here and you have to secure your first customer. It all looked so easy when you were planning, but now this is real. What practical steps can you take to ensure your business gets off to a flying start?

Keywords:
getting customers

Starting a new business is always tough. You have spent hours and hours putting your Business Plan together, sorting out the financing, arranging your office and buying equipment. And the big day arrives … you have to get out there and secure your first customer. It all looked so easy when you were planning, but now this is real and doesn’t seem as effortless as you thought.

What practical steps can you take to ensure your business gets off to a flying start?

Put a Plan in Place

If you didn’t write a Business Plan (tut tut!) then putting pen to paper is your first step. You have to careful plan what you want to achieve and what you are trying to do. A Plan will help crystalise your thoughts and ideas and act as a spring board for creative thought.

It also will be a useful boost when you come to review your progress against what you set out to achieve – a cause for celebration or a kick up the backside!

The key element in your Plan is to spell out exactly who your typical customer is going to be. Are they young or old? Well off, or on the look out for bargains? Single or married?

Once you have clearly defined who you are after then chasing your first sale becomes easier.

E-Mail All Your Contacts

You may not think that personal friends and family may be interested in your product or service, but don’t forget that they have friends and family as well and so can help spread the word!

E-mail every one in your address book and tell them, if they don’t already know, that you are starting up in business and need their help. In your e-mail describe what you do and the products you offer and request that they forward it to everyone in their address book. A bit ‘spammy’ I know but when such a note comes from someone you know then it doesn’t seem so bad.

For those family and friends who don’t have e-mail, call them, write to them, to officially launch your business. Very quickly word will spread and enquiries and orders will start to flood in.

Ask For a Referral

It’s possible you may have ‘road-tested’ your business before you decided to go full time. In that case you will already have a small database of customers. Ask them if they can provide you with some names of people or businesses whom they think may be interested in what you have on offer.

A referral, or positive recommendation, is a powerful and easy way to give your business a kick start. If you want, why not offer a small gift, or a discount on the next sale, for all customers who refer someone to you? This gesture will further cement your relationship.

Tell Everyone You Meet

Be a walking advertising board for your business! Find any opportunity to tell people, especially strangers, what you do. Be enthusiastic! Have a rehearsed opening which encapsulates everything about the benefits and problems your business offers and solves.

Take your business cards wherever you go and leave them all over the place! Supermarkets, restaurants, shops, anywhere where people will find them.

Be a Media Star

The local newspaper or radio stations are always on the look out for stories which are of interest to the locality. Don’t expect them to run a story along the lines of ‘And today, Joe Bloggs has just started in business doing …’. Your story needs to be interesting and have an unusual slant. Did you travel the world and come up with your idea whilst riding a train in India? Did you have a flash of inspiration following a shocking experience? Carry out a survey which shows that local people are crying out for a service such as yours. Think of something that will grab the editor’s attention and this will increase your chances of appearing in print.

Build Relationships

Don’t be disappointed if you don’t get a sale on the first approach. Sometimes you have to patient. A way of achieving your batch of first sales is to concentrate on building a relationship with your prospective clients. Keep in touch, remind them you are still around and, assuming you have targeted correctly, they may eventually place that coveted order!

If you are about to start your business get planning right now and start to implement some of these ideas to get your new business off to a flying start.

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Have you ever just stood there after making a presentation and hoped that the other person would buy. If you do, you are leaving money on the table. Discover why asking is so important.

Keywords:
SalesandMarketing,CommunicationTraining,ClosingtheSale,SalesTraining,

People say to me, Maria, I am creating brochures and I am meeting people. I am telling people about my business and I just don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Do you have any suggestions?

When I say to them, “have you asked them to buy your product or service?” I quite often get a blank stare back at me.

“Ask??” You mean I should ask.

Yes, this is a very important part of doing business, and many people have lost sales that they would have received if they had only asked for the sale.

This is called, the close.

Some people have said, “But what if they say no?” So what, the odds are in business that you will have more no’s than yes’s. You see, the more that I have studied marketing, the more I see how true that is. Just consider the no’s practice on your way to a yes.

Some of the most successful marketers out there state that a 10% conversion is good. That means 90% were either not interested or were unable to purchase at this time due to a large variety of reasons.

A no doesn’t mean the end of the world or the end of your business, it just means at this moment they are not interested.

And, ask yourself, how many sales do you believe that you will get if you don’t ask. Not asking is considered the same as leaving money on the table.

Sometimes it means, you just haven’t shown them a benefit that they can relate to.

I have seen examples of people who have changed just a word or two on their web copy and then the sales started pouring in.

If you need to learn how to ask for the sale, there are many books written on the importance of asking and many considered it one of the success secrets in business.

There are countless articles, books and courses on closing a sale and if you haven’t read any of them, I would highly recommend that you do. They go into detail on the early close, the trial close and the final close. As well, I have seen different names given to different styles.

Sadly, the reality is, many people have a sales phobia and would rather socialize at networking event and hope someone will come up and buy their product or service. And believe it or not, other people may think yes it is a good product but you are apparently just showing me today.

So, if the word sales drives you into a frenzy then start by reading, “The Aladdin Factor” by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. It is a book on how to ask for and get what you want in every area of your life. And, has in it a formula for overcoming the seven most common “asking fears”

It is important to remember that no matter what business you are in, you are always selling yourself, product and or service and knowing how to do it well will assist and help your clients.

When you have a valuable product or service that improves people’s lives, consider it your obligation to let them know that it exists. You will feel more confident than approaching them as though you are a pest.

Just remember, it’s your job to ask and it’s ok if they say no.

Smile and go on to the person just waiting for your arrival.

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