Five Strategies For A Successful Business

Controlling the Buying Cycle

Why is it that some business owners seem to have great sales year after year, while others just make it from season to season? Successful business leaders are “industry specialists” and they know how to control their customers’ buying cycle through seven specific steps. Its not enough to just know the seven steps, we must be expert at recognizing where our customers are at in the cycle, and then apply strategies that will prevent them from getting caught in that endless “shopping” cycle.

Strategy 1: The Pre-Buy or Pre-Order
Its important that during the early stages of the buying cycle that you ask your customers for a pre-agreement. Imagine you have a customer who has found a source to satisfy need (stage three). Now is the time to ask if he or she would consider buying from you, based on what your product or service can do to satisfy the need. It’s not a final agreement yet; you are just “testing” them. Making note of their response will help you determine how best to proceed. Success is built around acquiring a series of pre-agreements throughout the sales presentation.

Strategy 2: The Order Form
During every presentation imagine that you have an order form with you. Mentally move through the things your customers need to decide as if they were actually placing an order. It’s up to us to move our customers into making choices. This is key to assuring that at the end, which hopefully is a purchase, they will feel like they have made the decision themselves. This is powerful for both them and you. As business leaders, our products typically have many specifications from which our customers will need to choose. Everything from horsepower in a riding lawn mower to the choice of a manual or electric start on their snowblower, to color, to style is an opportunity to “complete the order form”. Our goal is to fit the pieces of the final decision together. It’s easier for your customers to make a final decision when smaller choices have been made.

Strategy 3: Contact Frequency
Frequency is key to controlling the buying cycle. We must use effective means to increase contact frequency and keep the momentum going, especially in a mainly large sales environments. Once a contact is made and you don’t expect to see that customer again for a number of weeks or months, consider the fact that you may need to shorten that frequency. Too much time between contacts gives your customers opportunity to shop competitors or even to reconsider their purchase with you. Without being “high-pressure” try to find ways to shorten the time between contact. Send cards out for service checks or actually calling a customer to set a service “check up” appointment, or sending invitations for a special previewing of new items are all great ways to increase contact frequency.

Strategy 4: Timing
Being skilled in knowing where your customers are at in the buying cycle is a key strategy and prevents you from making irrelevant presentations. By asking the right questions and at the right time, you can usually determine their buying position. A qualitative question might be, “How do you feel about this?” or “What experiences have you had before with digital cameras?” A quantitative question is, “When do you need it?” or “What is your budget?”

Strategy 5: Hard vs. Soft Differentiatiors
To really apply this strategy to your best advantage, a good business owner must not be afraid to make hard differentiators. We do this by explaining our uniqueness, not our similarities. Example: Soft Differentiator – “We offer a one-year warranty program.” Hard Differentiator – We offer a five-year parts and service warranty program. Soft – “We have a great service department.” Hard – “Our service fleet is on call 24 hours a day and we respond to all calls within four hours.” Sometimes it is difficult to determine what makes a hard differentiator. A good rule of thumb is that if you can quantify the unique benefits of your product or service you have moved into hard differentiator.

Thomas J. Winninger, CSP, CPAE, and member of the Speaker Hall of Fame is the president of Winninger Institute for Brand Strategy and over 70 major companies in North America depend on him to assist them in maintaining their market dominance. Thom is the author of best selling “Price Wars”, “Sell Easy”, and new in 2000, “Full Price!” Contact the Winninger Institute at (612) 896-1900
E-mail: thomas@winninger.com; or visit our website

How To Be A Successful Business Owner!

Questions That Lead to Success!

Learning to ask the right questions at the right time is one of the greatest skills a business owner can master. Whether dealing with a customer in person or on the phone, questions, and how they are presented can make the difference in getting more “YES!” Knowing the right questions to ask will provide us with the necessary information to help our customers make the right purchase.

Soft vs. Hard Questions
The ultimate goal in asking a question is to gain information or facts. The are really only two kinds of facts in selling; soft and hard. Soft fact questions are general in nature and refer to the “qualitative” relationship customers have with your product or service or how they feel about it. Asking soft fact questions helps us to establish a relationship with our customers and it is a great way to get them to have a conversation with us, rather than just a question and answer time. Building a relationship with your customers through soft fact questions requires more time and effort than just using hard fact questions but it will go a long way to building your image as an industry specialist in the eyes and minds of your customers. Some examples of soft fact questions might be;

• What experiences habe you had before with high end golf equipment?
• How do you feel about that?
• If this is not your first purchase, can you tell me from whom you habe purchased before?
• What are you looking for in your pesonal experience in golfing?

On the other hand, if you are a sports specialist who has a difficult time asking soft fact questions, consider this. How much resistance do you have to battle when asking hard fact questions? Hard fact questions are qualifiers and are usually quantitative or require a direct answer from your customers. Hard fact questions might be:

• What is your budget?
• When do you need this?
• How many do you want?
• What color, what size?

The information you gain from a hard fact question is important, but must be combined with soft questions to create a relationship environment.

The key is to find a balance of the two. Starting out with a couple of soft fact questions will usually get the “relationship” started and takes some of the pressure off the customer. Once you’ve begun to build the foundation, you can ease into some of the hard fact questions and get the information you need to complete the transaction. Often, if you are stalled in a presentation, or you’ve come up against some resistance on the part of the customer, a soft fact question is called for. It usually repairs or strengthens the bond between you and your customer.

Phrasing
Another key element in asking the right questions at the right time is gaining skill in phrasing. It can mean the difference between gaining information or encountering resistance. Open-probed or open-ended questions begin with who, what, where, when, why and how. They tend to generate more detail from your customers and encourage conversation. When customers feel like they’re having a conversation with you, they are more likely to offer the information you need. Questions like, “How soon would you like to have your boat on the water?” or “When do you plan to take your first skiing trip?” will get your customer talking with you. If you can get them to talk about previous experiences or expectations, either negative or positive, you can also be a problem solver and really elevate yourself to the level of their “specialist”.

Asking closed-probe questions often get you only a one-word response. “Is this in your budget?” or “Can you make a decision on it this week?” will usually stall the conversation and makes it much harder to move towards a successful close. Asking only or too many closed-probe questions puts pressure on your customers by anchoring them to a commitment, they make either verbally or in their mind. They feel cornered. For example, by asking “Can we get together Monday?” pressures them to commit to a specific time. A question such as “What works best for you, Monday, or Wednesday of next week?” may very lead you to be able to then ask for a specific time, “Will morning or afternoon be better for you?” At this point, they have moved into a commitment, with less pressure and more than likely, they will feel like they really were in control.

Tie-down is another way to phrase a question by allowing you to make a statement while anchoring the customer’s agreement. As statement like, “The price of this power-boat is not as important to you as the thought of the lifetime of memories you can provide for your family, is it?” will let you know right away if your customer is interested in price only!

Strategies
Always remember, “Ask more questions than you make statements.” Most salespeople are more than eager to share their vast array of product knowledge only to bore their customers to death. Asking the right questions will get your customer talking to you, giving you the information you really need.
Integrate questions that result in positive responses. Look at the power in saying to your customer, “One of the benefits of doing business with a powersports specialist is that we create a long, steady relationship with our customers so that we can provide constant, outstanding service to them. Is that kind of service important to you?” This style of question converts a piece of information into a question and you’ve secured a tie-down and pre-agreement. Remember, “Asking the right questions is not just having the right questions to ask, but being able to ask them at the right time to build a foundation for a positive relationship.”

Thomas J. Winninger, CSP, CPAE, and member of the Speaker Hall of Fame is the president of Winninger Institute for Brand Strategy and over 70 major companies in North America depend on him to assist them in maintaining their market dominance. Thom is the author of best selling “Price Wars”, “Sell Easy”, and new in 2000, “Full Price!” Contact the Winninger Institute at (612) 896-1900
E-mail: thomas@winninger.com; or visit our website

How to Drive Away Business in One Easy Step

Helpful Business Techniques
I recently stopped at an airport bookstore and was confronted by a person who not only couldn’t find the book I wanted, he didn’t know how to operate the Books in Print computer database. He left me a couple times to check with someone else on how to process my request. While he was gone, I simply left the store without making a purchase.

This situation represents a problem that is all too prevalent in business today: people who don’t have the answers. Studies have proven that employees who are unable to answer questions and provide information about the features, advantages, and benefits of your products and services drive away more business than high prices do. The bookstore employee certainly drove me away.

Your best inventory is your people. Train them well.

Product knowledge is so important that world-class companies such as Disney World, L. L. Bean, and Home Depot continually invest hours in educating employees about their products and services. Disney Corporation has a lot of kids pushing brooms around its theme parks, but it has learned that the greatest value of these young people is not just making the park look good but being able to answer questions about everything from what time the parade starts to the names of the Seven Dwarfs.

Home Depot has become famous for helping do-it-yourselfers with their personal projects. It prides itself on hiring trades people and building the educational and informational base on its products and services by devoting a specified amount of time each week to educating its people.

Independent businesses, which are competing with price merchants and large chains, are in big trouble if the responsibility for the increase in sales of their products or services is in the hands of people who don’t have the answers. Train your people to increase their knowledge of the products and services you offer. Devote at least one hour out of every 40 to developing value-added skills in your people. Teach your people the techniques to succeed, and you will succeed.

And give them the authority to resolve problems. American Airlines has authorized its front-line people to reimburse customers for dry cleaning expenses if passengers spill food on their clothing during the flight. If your people are constantly telling the customer; “You’ll have to talk to the manager; I don’t deal with that” or “I don’t have the authority,” you are basically telling your customers you have not empowered your people to provide value-added service.

Put all of your employees on the team and cross train them so they work in departments other than their own. The objective is to give them a better idea of how and what the people in other departments do. Even administrators and senior managers should spend time learning something about each job so they have a heightened understanding of all functions within the company and how they relate to each other.

Assign one person in each department to a task force to develop ideas to better serve the customer. I have created planning sessions called War Games, complete with group commanders, in my company. People from various departments talk about how to better serve, challenge, meet, or otherwise deal with specific customer satisfaction situations.

As I think back to my experience at the airport bookstore, I wonder how many customers that employee had driven away. I also wonder if the bookstore is still in business.

Thomas J. Winninger, CSP, CPAE, and member of the Speaker Hall of Fame is the president of Winninger Institute for Brand Strategy and over 70 major companies in North America depend on him to assist them in maintaining their market dominance. Thom is the author of best selling “Price Wars”, “Sell Easy”, and new in 2000, “Full Price!” Contact the Winninger Institute at (612) 896-1900; E-mail: thomas@winninger.com; or visit our webite!

Successful Business Strategies, Twin Cities MN

A Must For Successful Businesses!

One of the greatest ways for a business to impact and increase sales is to stop selling! Selling is nothing more than giving people a few techniques, and then sending them out on the floor to pitch various products and services and then hoping that the training pays off and some sales are closed. I have witnessed this over and over in many different environments – generic sales training with minimal results.

My philosophy is to forget “selling” and to give your people the training to enable them to help a customer buy from you. The challenge is not to sell products but to educate potential customers about the value they will receive from purchasing your products and services.If your staff or associates can’t explain and validate to your customers why they should buy from you, then why should they? Customers can go to a multitude of businesses to purchase cars, boats, copiers, clothing, appliances, even medical services, but where can they go to receive personalized service from specialists in the industry?

The first step in learning how to help a customer buy from you is to determine the makeup of your customer base. We have mentioned this numerous times before but it is such an important element that it bears review. Being able to identify your customer base is the foundation on which you will build the rest of your strategies. Studies have shown that the majority of customers don’t really know why they shop at a particular store, business or dealership. Hence the lack of customer loyalty in today’s competitive environment. It is our job to identify their characteristics and then appeal to them. There are three basic types of customers:

• Premium
• Low-Price
• Uninformed

Approximately seventeen percent of your customers are premium or “gold level”. They are loyal to you, you have had several sales experiences with them and they trust you. They typically don’t shop around because they know you are the industry specialist. Twenty-seven percent of your customers make up the low-price category. They don’t care about having a long-term relationship with you; their only concern is to find the lowest price. The remaining fifty-six percent is the majority that is basically uninformed. They simply do not know how to buy. They’re not sure what they want and don’t know what to expect from a premium value driven business because they have not been taught how to recognize one or the value provided. They shop around a lot and become confused with the proliferation of advertising.

I say the challenge is to reach the uninformed majority. By educating this group about why they need your products and services and the accompanying benefits, the more your business will grow and experience stronger success. So how do you reach this uninformed majority? Develop a buying model based on the benefits of your products and services that attract and keep your premium customers coming back to you. In addition, by defining your uniqueness to this market segment you will give them knowledge that will stimulate their interest in you. A key technique is to almost give them the right questions to ask – by finding out their level of need and then appealing to it.

To create a buying model you must be able to answer the following questions about your primary customers.

• Who are your best customers?
• What are your best customers’ highest needs?
• What is the most important value you bring to your best customers?
• How frequently do your best customers buy?

Who are your best customers? Use discretion here because the ones who spend the most money are not always your most premium customers. Often, the one who purchases the greatest amount has driven owners out of business by leveraging you to death on price. The “best” customer can be defined in a number of ways; frequency, total number of units, or their value in terms of profit margin.

What are your best customers’ highest needs? Define them and you can design a program that will generate more premium customers. The logic stands to reason – similar customers may have similar needs – design your program to them and to the uninformed majority. Remember:uninformed customers may not know they have a need for you until you educate them!

What is the most important value you bring to your best customers?  Hopefully, it is more than just providing them with a product or service. Ideally, you should be able to define in twenty-four words or less what it is and how they benefit most from what you sell them. For example: Hertz brings to its customers a way to get out of the airport and to their final destinations faster than any other rental car agency. Its not cars they provide – its fast, dependable and convenient destination service! Remember that service-based value usually lasts far longer than product value. If customers remember your service – they will be buying more from you than just a suit, camera or a home comfort system. They will be building a long-term relationship with you.

How frequently do your best customers buy? A fatal mistake for independent business owners is to assume that frequency of contact should equal frequency of purchase. Just because customers don’t normally buy a new snowmobile every six weeks doesn’t mean your contact with them should diminish. You should be mailing your best customers several times a year on a regular basis. They should receive pre-season personal phone calls to remind them about service check ups, new models, etc. If you fail to contact your premium customer because you’re too busy meeting the demands of price shoppers, you will regret it.

By answering these and more questions unique to your business you can develop a buying model that will maintain your premium customers and educate the uninformed so that they will know why they need to purchase from you.

Thomas J. Winninger, CSP, CPAE, and member of the Speaker Hall of Fame is the president of Winninger Institute for Brand Strategy and over 70 major companies in North America depend on him to assist them in maintaining their market dominance. Thom is the author of best selling “Price Wars”, “Sell Easy”, and new in 2000, “Full Price!” Contact the Winninger Institute at (612) 896-1900; E-mail: thomas@winninger.com; or visit our webite!