Great sales start with even greater detailed meticulous planning.  All the homework, research, and effort you put into your pre-call sales plan will lead to great conversations and even larger sales.  The proof of this is in your own experiences and in the habits of the highly successful salespeople in your company.

Putting in the effort to plan for your sales call removes the risk of error, nasty surprises, and wasting of time.  The more you prepare, the easier the sales call is.  In fact it is so easy it is like having a great conversation!

Doctor, bare with me.  You and I are going to be looking at this presentation for the very first time. – Anonymous Salesperson

Failure To Plan Is A Plan To Failure

Yet most salespeople do not do anything in regards to pre-call sales planning.  (Looking up information in your computer before you walk in to a call does not count as pre-call sales planning.  It is more like cramming for a test.)  The excuses as to why not are as numerous as the stars in the sky.  You have:

• I know all there is to know about my customer.  I have been calling on them for years!
• I have so much to do that there is no time!  Besides, I have practiced my presentation numerous times.
• The data is old, wrong, and not applicable to my customer.
• A personal favorite… Hmmm, let me think about it and I’ll look up some information after the call.

Do any of these sounds familiar?  Have you said them yourself before?

You know when a call goes bad because you did not plan at all for it.  Questions sound awkward.  The customer is politely listening but you can see in their eyes they feel sorry for you or even begging that you end the torture.  What was once an hour appointment is done in ten minutes.  You never even get the chance to ask for the business and if you do it is completely inappropriate.

The sales call is so bad, so horrible, that you even consider becoming a hermit.  If you do not have that insight and you cannot understand why you are not making sales… well, what does your pre-call sales plan look like?

Meticulous planning will enable everything a man does to appear spontaneous. – Mark Caine.

9 Steps To Pre-Call Planning

1. Review all the sales notes, previous contracts, previous buying habits, and other information on the customer you are going to call on.
   • If it is a brand new prospect – review who their vendors are, buying habits for same priced items, and how they win business.
2. Review the image of the company you are going to visit by looking at their website, facebook, twitter, blog, and any other information you can find on the internet.
3. If the company is public review their annual report.  This will help you see how profitable they are, what their vision is for the future, and if they have announced any major plans that will effect your business.
   • If you know other vendors that work with your client/customer talk to them.  Find out about payments, length of contract negotiations, and who they turn to in times of trouble.
4. Google who you are meeting with and where.  If they are on LinkedIn, see how removed you are from them and if you can get connected.
5. Compile the information from your research and look for gaps in information.
   • You will turn these gaps into “areas of interest.”
   • Create a hypothesis as to why these gaps in information exist.
6. Write open-ended questions that will test your hypothesis and help you fill in the information gaps.
7. Visualize the sales call:
   • How do you expect it to go?
   • What will you do if you are cut short?
   • What will you do if you are given more time?
   • Where do you expect the customer give you objections?
   • When do you want to close the sale?
8. Create anticipated objections from the information you have gathered.
9. Practice your sales presentation with your questions in front of the mirror, your friends/family, and in the car.

A lot of my time was spent searching, thinking and planning my life. – Ryan White

Time Invested = Big Money

Pre-call sales planning is a time consuming process that reaps huge rewards.  You are likely to spend more time on the pre-call plan than you are on the actual sales call.  That is okay.  It means that you are digging deep to understand more about the needs of your customer.  It means that you are preparing to enter into a deep conversation that will be enlightening and have an impact.

What most salespeople do not like is the fact that proper pre-call sales planning takes time away from other things, like watching TV.  Yes, you have been called out.  The dirty little secret is that you, the salesperson, get paid the big bucks because you do not punch in/out on a set schedule.  Sales can occur at anytime.  Therefore you have to use your downtime to plan, practice, and prepare for success.

Will you use everything that you have planned for?  Most likely not, but you will be prepared.  That preparation equals confidence, which equals being ready for anything.  Having that feeling you will walk into any presentation, sales call, or meeting looking taller, stronger, and calmer than the other people in the room.  Your confidence will rub off on everyone else.   You will feel as ready as ever to take on the world.

The great conversation – the magic – that happens from investing your time into pre-call sales planning will result in larger sales.

How do you plan for sales success? What are some examples of pre-call sales planning failures?

When it comes to sales questions are amazing wonderful tools.  Sadly when it comes to all the practicing, pre-call planning, and preparation that sales professionals do it seems that questions fall by the wayside.  Which is too bad because questions make for great conversations and help the participants of the sales call find winning solutions.

Great questions provoke thought.  They make the listener stop and think.  Great questions elicit honest and at times emotional responses.  Great questions help you, the salesperson, reach a deeper understanding of your client.  In return you will gain a respect most salespeople could only dream of through your desire to learn more.

Did you or did you not order the ‘code red?!?’ – Lieutenant Kaffee from A Few Good Men

What Do You Want To Know?

Even a street vendor knows to ask great questions.

First reason why most salespeople do not ask insightful questions is because they do no know what it is that they want to know.  In not knowing they ask fluff questions or the like to “move the conversation along” without giving a thought to their customer.  This is akin to being forced to watch a torturous PowerPoint presentation (as if there is any other kind.)  Their customers’ thoughts, feelings, and interests are secondary to the sales presentation.

It is easy to recognize such poor questions because they sound awkward, mistimed, and forced.

In order to begin to have great questions you have to hypothesize about your customer.  Yes, you are making assumptions but you not going to act on them.  Instead you are going to formulate questions that test your assumptions and either confirm or refute your hypothesis.

You have to know what it is that you wish to understand about your customer.  Then ask it – directly to your customer.  It is always amazing how many salespeople ask questions that are vague and/or require the customer to answer a series of them.   The only result is to make the salesperson look foolish and frustrate the customer.

Successful stellar salespeople do all the necessary preparation to identify what it is they specifically want to know.  They write questions that are clear and direct that will elicit an answer.  They use the answers they receive to provide valuable clear information that will help their customer buy.

All nonsense questions are unanswerable. – C. S. Lewis

5 Steps To Create Great Questions

• Write down what you want to know. During your pre-call planning, as you sift through all your information, write down what you want to know about your customers actions, buying habits, business needs, and desires.
• Come up with a hypothesis to your customer’s actions.
• Write open-ended questions (those that start with Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How) that will give you answers to what you want to know and test your hypothesis.
• Practice asking your questions out loud, if they sound awkward to you and others then you need to revise them.
• Keep a record of the questions you ask that elicit deep responses. Use this record to build better questions and follow-up questions.

Successful people ask better questions, and as result, they get better answers. – Tony Robbins

Never Fear The Answers

Another reason why most salespeople do not ask great questions (or even ask them at all) is that they fear the answer.  That fear goes beyond hearing “No” and enters the realm of losing control of the sales call.  Fear that they will not be able to respond to whatever answer the customer comes back with.  Fear that they will not be of value at all.

That is true test of sales!  Great salespeople never fear the answers.  The love them, embrace them, and recognize that the answers – while possibly taking a sales call to the edge – give the salesperson the information necessary to help the customer.   The answers help turn the sales call into a great conversation and build a foundation of trust in the business relationship.

Never fear the answers because in them you will find valuable feedback that will make your products/services better.  You will learn how your competition is positioning against you.  You will learn novel uses of your products.  You will learn the truth about your customers.

What are some the best questions you have heard or used?

I was once told that when a customer gives you an objection that the selling really begins.  The theory being that there is interest by the customer but they need a reason to buy.  Their objections are there for you to help them justify buying.

Well, I object!

Sorry to cut your head off with that answer.

When a customer asks a question, it is just that… a question.  Sadly many salespeople see it as means to dig deeper and present harder.  You see they have been trained to do a number of steps to overcome the objection and win the sale.  Instead they simply talk past the customer – the one politely listening and nodding – that wishes the torture would just end.  Most times, the sale is never made and another customer is annoyed.

Doubt me?  Be the customer and go engage in a sales conversation.  Ask a question and watch how the salesperson goes through their steps.  You will be amazed about how they never really answer your question.  That is because they are overcoming an objection.

If you are in sales, do you do the same thing?

The way you see people is the way you treat them. – Zig Ziglar

Does It Come In Blue?

So how do you overcome the sales trap of overcoming the “objection”?  Easy, recognize that a question is just a question.  That is a question is a tool used to learn more, to become better informed, and to weigh the pros/cons of a decision.  If you believe a great sales call is a stellar conversation, then you know that questions are an integral part of great conversations.

Imagine you are at a car dealership looking at a brand new car.  You are listening to the salesperson present all the features that this car has.  You ask a question, “Does it come in blue?”  Which answer would you prefer?

A)   Yes it does! We’ve got one on the lot right now, would you like to test drive it?

B)   How do you feel about the color blue?

C)   Yes.

D)   We’ve got over ten different colors to choose from; blue is one of them.

Is this your sales process?

If you are a standard salesperson than three of those answers will do.  Most of them answer the question as an objection and do not seek to find out more from you.  You might like blue, hate blue, or simply don’t care.  What you do care about – what 99.9% of all customers care about – is being listened to.  Therefore there is only one choice above that is correct.

To answer a customer’s question you first need to understand the thought process behind the question.  So by answering the question with a question you are demonstrating that you are listening and seeking to better understand the needs of your client.  You are using the tools of a great conversation.  The answer your client gives you will determine if it is just a question or some deeper need.

Remember, you only have to succeed the last time. – Brian Tracy

Sales Is Not A Process

Each sales call you have with a client is unique.  You cannot place a process upon it.  Sales calls do not follow an algorithm.  A sales call simply has a beginning, middle, and an end.  What happens in between is different from sales call to sales call.

When you treat sales as a process you might as well be telling your customers that you see it like an automatic phone system.  The ones that ask you to listen to options and make choices.  (Oddly those options are never what you need when you call.)  The same automatic phone systems that follow an algorithm designed to make it difficult for you to actually get in contact with a human being.  I have yet to meet a person who enjoys going through that torture.

If sales calls are not a process then the questions a customer gives you are not objections to be plugged into a flow chart, but a means to engage you, the salesperson, in a conversation.  Your job is to listen and seek to understand what information the customer needs to make an informed decision.  Heaven forbid, you might even have a conversation with your customer!

What are your thoughts on objections vs. questions?

Let’s talk about the dirtiest word in business.  You know the word.  It is the most important word that means the lifeblood to any business.  The word is… sales.

Person To Person Sales In The Andes

Why is it dirty?  Without sales there can be no revenue, and without revenue there can be no cash to pay salaries and the bills.  Sales are the most important component of business and it is typically the connection a business has with its customers.  Yet… many people don’t want to be known as a salesperson.

Could it be the polyester suit cheesy smile say anything promise everything close close close personality that most people have about salespeople?  Or is it that people who don’t want to be known as a salesperson are afraid of being told “no”?  Is it beneath them to ask for business?

Whatever the reason is without sales a business does not exist.

“We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

How To Overcome Your Sales Fear

You are going to be different than most people.  Whether you work for a large corporation or you are in business for yourself, you are going to embrace sales!  You are going to excel at it!

Before you begin your embracement of the dirtiest word in business you need to know what sales is not.  Sales is not…

• Being pushy.
• Wearing polyester plaid suits.
• Cheesy smiles.
• Lying about what your product/services can do.
• Being the perfect “pitchman.”
• Always knowing everything.
• Always talking.

If you think that those traits are part of sales, then you have been sadly misinformed or abused by an annoying salesperson.  Now that you know what sales is not, let’s talk about what sales is…

• Listening.
• Asking questions to learn about needs and be better informed.
• Educating customers and clients about options.
• Searching for the right answers to client questions.
• Sincere smiles and thank you’s.
• Honesty and integrity.
• Practicing.

I am betting that you identify with the traits and characteristics of sales just mentioned.  If you do, then you are ready to be an ultimate salesperson.  The next step is for you need to get rid of your fear.

The fear I am talking about is being told “no.”  To avoid that most people adopt a different personality that is not them.  I call it the “Salesperson Secret Identity”.  Why is it a secret, because even their loved ones wouldn’t recognize them.  They come of as stiff, unbending, not listening and when the pressure hits… pushy.  This all comes from the fear of getting shot down.

Don’t be like that!

Conversing about product quality

Instead recognize that sales is a conversation.  At the end of that conversation you are asking the other participant(s) to do something.  Successful conversations have the traits of what makes a successful salesperson as listed above.

You have conversations everyday in your life.  You are asking others to do things for you and in return they are asking you to do things for them.  It is as natural as breathing.

So unless you have a fear of conversing with another person, then there should really be no reason to fear talking to another person about your product/services.  With that “no” is a natural part of any conversation.

Your fear… easily laid to rest.

“Everyone lives by selling something.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Okay, Not That Easy

Well, actually it really is.  Most things in life are simple.  We allow them to become complicated through our fear, procrastination, and ease to distraction.  By doing so we don’t see how simple it is.

This month the Finding Answers Blog is going to help your remove the barriers, distractions, and fears to help you in sales.

So will you do me a favor and give some of the solutions here a try?

How Old School for the 21st Century

Recently I was approached over the phone by a company that wanted me to purchase keyword advertisement for life.  The idea being that my company would have preferred ad placement when someone searches for specific keywords like business coaching, corporate coaching, etc.  That a few grand up front would have a longer ROI than the horror of pay-per-click when one gets the bill from Google. (I learned to quickly control the content portion of ads after my first bill.)  A pretty straightforward proposition from this company, which is using cold calling as a sales technique to get the business.  Great proposition; bad sales approach!

Being a former “sales guy” I am always eager to be sold to.

There are mountains of papers, books, pamphlets, newsletters, and blog posts about how horrible cold calling is.  It sucks.  Cold calling is not the preferred methodology when it comes to sales.  People hate it when they have to do it and when it is done to them.  Yet, at some point in every business, it happens.   So it happened to me.

“Give him money and watch it burn a hole in his pocket.”

Person To Person Sales In The Andes

Being a former “sales guy” I am always eager to be sold to.  I am looking for a reason to part with my cash.  As my father said, “Give him money and watch it burn a hole in his pocket.”  So very true at times.  The real reason I like to be sold to is that I get a chance to learn from someone else.  I get to listen to their probing techniques; I learn how they handle my objections, and how they swoop in for the close. It is a great chance to receive a sales education.

The sales person did not to build a relationship, which is hard to do over the phone, yet they did not even try.

So that is why I was heart-broken when I told this particular sales person my objection to buying their products/services that they just hung upon me.  This sales person did not try to clarify why I objected (price was the biggest issue), nor did they try to find a way to make me a better offer, and the left me felt feeling… inadequate.  That I was not worthy of being a customer, which my money is not “good enough” to be fought for.  The latter really ticks me off.

For this company I was not the ideal customer most likely, yet when they got their target list for their cold calls I fell on it somehow.  The sales person did not to build a relationship, which is hard to do over the phone, yet they did not even try.  There was no effort to understand what it is my business does and how their services could be of value to me.  All of these are fatal flaws of the cold call.

The result for this company has been to insult a person, who may not be an ideal customer, but who is now motivated to blog “negatively” about the experience.

How can your business avoid this fatal mistake?

• Train your sales team to be ready for push back. Objections are part of every sales call.  There are millions of them.  In fact if you do not get an objection it really means that your customer is not listening or you are not selling.  Why?  Objections mean the customer is engaged with what it is the salesperson is presenting.  It means that the customer is looking for a reason of value to purchase the goods and services you are offering.  It means that – shhh, don’t tell anyone the secret of sales – a conversation is taking place (perish the thought!)
• Cleanse your call file. Just because you have a territory, call list, or computer generated targets does not mean that you have the right customers to call on.  You just have the right names that met the criteria used to find these “clients”, that is all.  You have to make sure that they meet your ideal customer that your business wishes to obtain.  If they do then you pre-call plan how to engage in conversation, visualize how the call will go, and what you expect to happen.  You provide the four steps to ideal customer service during the call and afterwards.  This little bit of effort before the call will result in a tremendous amount of success and long-term sales.
• Train your sales staff to be human. Most people will say that they are “not a sales person” or cannot “be pushy” to be in sales.  That is not what sales is about.  Sales is a conversation between two or more representatives from different businesses or between a business and consumers.  That is sales.  Unless you cannot carry a conversation, most people engage in some of sales whenever they ask for something, then you can perform sales.  While much money has been spent testing scripts, phrases, charts, benefit statements, and pretty pictures by the marketing team, it is up to the salesperson to communicate that information.   Please do it as a human! I beg you! We all beg you!  Which means put the script down, be true yourself and have a conversation!
• Avoid cold calling at all costs. It is a horrible way to do business and its long-term effect is negative perception for short-term gain.  If, heaven forbid, you are forced to go this route, then train your staff to research their targets and build business rapport before even thinking about asking for the business.  Or you’ll get blogs like this.

This most likely was not the intended outcome the company that called me wanted.  Yet this is what they get in return when they do not train their sales team effectively.  You get to learn from their mistakes.

What cold calling stories do you know that have left you freezing?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.

In a perfect world your ideal customer would be only listening to you.  Sadly, we do not live in a perfect world.  This video demonstrates some of the forces that might be influencing your customer and how they interact within the market.  If you can not identify who or what influences your customer then your sales cycle could become a lot longer!

Watch Who Influences Your Ideal Customer? in Educational & How-To  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

In the past sales used to be about interrupting and pushing your product or services. In recent years sales has taken a more “customer centric or customer focused” approach. All about the customer and how they feel and what they want and how you can help them. Or is it?

I mean you’re in sales right? You are supposed to really care about your customer, right?

Street Vendors

Ask yourself one important question before your next sales call, “Am I’m really concerned about what my customers thinks?” Now I know it sounds quite insulting that I am implying that you really don’t care about your customer. I mean you’re in sales right? You are supposed to really care about your customer, right? You are supposed to really want to understand their feelings, their needs, and her desires, right?

The reality is that in execution you’re really focused on yourself.

Now you may have gone to some amazing sales training courses. You may have picked up some awesome books by such authors like Jeffrey Gitomer or Brian Tracy. Both are amazing sales trainers and accomplished authors.  (They both desire to see customers get the best service possible for their money.)   The goal of the books and the training is to get you the salesperson focused on the customer. The reality is that in execution you’re really focused on yourself.

In reality you were only listing to find the opportunity to speak to get your point across.

When you are in that sales call with your customer you are focused on every word they are saying. You are listening to them as they espouse whatever believes, concerns, or needs they have. You are waiting for them to give you that opening you have been seeking to deliver the message that you have about your products or services. Following all the training you have about being customer centric you gave them their time and now it is your turn. It is in their silence that you have your opportunity to speak and persuade them to purchase from you.

After the call you climb back into your car you congratulate yourself on being focused on the customer. In reality you were only listing to find the opportunity to speak to get your point across. That’s not being customer focused or even being centered around the customer. In some cases that is not even being polite.

You could think of these training programs as breeding little vampires that will entrance their customers and then suck them dry.

Customer Focused Sit Down

To be customer centric or to be focused on your customer you have to know them  better than they know themselves. The best salesperson that can execute this type of selling model is someone who honestly cares about their customer. They care about the customer staying in business, being profitable, and being a success. In this case the salesperson could almost be considered like a coach or a advisor that is unique in helping a customer achieve his or her goals. The salesperson understands that at times their products and services are not in the best interests of their customers. Conversely they also understand that their products and services are the only solution to make their customer successful. The salesperson can do this because they know their customer very very well.

• How well do they know the customer? Well, here are a few points below that you can measure yourself against:

• The customer centric salesperson will know how their customer was educated and how the education influences their decision making.

• The salesperson knows that the customer is one personality at work, one personality at play, and completely different personality when under stress.

• The salesperson knows who, what, when, how, and why their customer is influenced by other people around them.

• The customer focused sales person could explain to you in great detail the desires, hopes, and goals of each of their customers.

• The salesperson has ingratiated themselves to the point that they are almost a member full-time of their customers staff.

When you look at the above bullet points be honest with yourself and ask, “Do I meet the criteria above?” It is okay if you do not right away. It takes time and energy to become truly customer focused.

Customer Focused

All the training you have done so far around being customer centric or focused has really been about how you can leverage information for your own personal gain. When you look at it like that, you are not really focused on the customer at all; your only focused on yourself. You could think of these training programs as breeding little vampires that will entrance their customers and then suck them dry.

So how can you be different?

• First, really listen to your customer. Even if you burn a sales call without pitching a product you can learn more in those 10 to 30 minutes that you could in a product conversation that lasts hours.

• Second, remember why you are there in the cells called the first place. The customer and you both know you are there for business. Make it about business, but have your radar and your receivers tuned into everything else surrounding business.  When you leave the sales call, your post call notes should be about everything you talked about, witnessed, and observed. Everything.

• Third, be yourself. This is sometimes the hardest thing some salespeople can do. With so many profiling, personality surveys, and marketing data given to a salesperson it is easy to believe you have to be all things to all people. When the reality is you are nothing to no one. So be yourself and recognize that you’re not going to get along with all your customers and that is okay.

• Fourth, find ways big or small to celebrate every success your customer has.  The more you take interests in their goals and wishes the more likely your customer will be interested in yours. It is so funny how that golden rule seems to apply to everything in business.

• Fifth, and finally, be willing to tell your customer no. This sounds odd, because we’ve always been taught that the customer is always right. Sometimes that can actually be in the worst interests of your customer. You’re better off letting your customer know, politely, that now is not the time for whatever they may feel they are entitled to. It’ll hurt. They’ll be upset. In the end they will thank you for your honesty and your willingness to stand up to them.

In conclusion, being customer centric is really about being a true friend, in the business sort of way, with your customer. It is about being honest with yourself, knowing your limits, and being empathetic with your customer.  Focusing on their goals, celebrating their successes, and helping them complete their wishes is really what being customer focused is all about.

So, are you customer focused?

About the author:

Erroin A. Martin is a Business Advocate with the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, a business coaching and consultancy provider for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs. He has fifteen years experience working within the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, natural resources, medical devices, software, technology, business services, and agriculture industries in various levels of leadership across six continents. He has led diverse teams in sales, marketing, planning, and in the Army.  He currently coaches business leaders and physicians in the tools needed to plan for their success. Learn more about the Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC at www.vongehrconsulting.com or call +1 203 433 8079.  You can follow him on Twitter at @Erroin

The Von Gehr Consulting Group, LLC, was founded by Erroin A. Martin to provide business coaching, business consulting, and other services to companies both large and small.  The primary goal is to have his clients be passionate about their business and reach the unachievable.

You have worked diligently in identifying who your ideal customer is.  You can picture exactly in your mind how they look, dress, eat, drive, and most importantly spend their money.  Yet do you know who influences their decisions?

Now I am sure you have noticed that I have not written what, but who?

It is the “Who” that has a tremendous amount of power over how your ideal customer purchases your product and/or services.  If you have not identified the “Who” for your ideal customer then here are three things you can do to start today:

1.  Ask Your Customer

How weird is that? Talking to your customer? Yet that is something that many businesses still do not do.  I have not quite figured out why that is.  Maybe it is because they fear the answer will be no or something else that is negative. The reality is your customer will tell you “Who” influences them.  A great example is when you ask for (close for) the business and they say,”I have to talk to my spouse.” or “I need to take this to the committee.”  Your ideal customer is telling you who has an influence over the decision.  Asking them ahead of time will let you in on that information.

Engage in an open conversation with your customers and tell them why you want to know who else is involved in the decision.  Remember that people love to talk about themselves.  Ask and listen.  You will be amazed what you will learn.

2.  Ask Your Competition

Look at your competition.  How are they marketing their products/services to your customers?  Who do they target their ads towards?  Are their ads directed towards children, spouses, or how they will win with their bosses?

Your competition maybe wrong, and they maybe right, either way your competition is a wealth of information.  You should never ignore them.

3.  Look At Their Community

They are many factors that go into this last part and you really need to do your homework.  One trap that can easily be sprung is the trap of assumptions.  One thing customers hate is when you make the assumption that they are not in control of their decisions.  Yet, the community where they live, work, network and shop has an influence on them.

If your ideal customer is a heavy user of social media sites like, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. You can see who their influencers are by participating in their conversation.  (Keep this mind, sometimes the influencers do not have the largest network.  This means their voice is not diluted.)  Twitter has many great third party tools that are free that can help your identify a users influencer like Klout.

What is key to all three of these secrets is listening and observing.  By doing this you will be able to learn much more than you could ever know.  With that information you can engage in meaningful value driving conversations with your customers that will result in higher sales.

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Somewhere it is written that it takes 21 days or more to change a habit or establish a new one.  (Although I am sure under the right pressures those days can be shortened.)  If it is really the case that it takes 21 days then you should use that number when establishing how many times you are going to speak with your customers/clients.

Meeting With A Client

First, you cannot bug your clients/customers for twenty-one straight days.  That is simply insane and they are in their correct judgement to bar you from the door.  If you have an established call cycle that you are working with to obtain clients then you can spread those twenty-one days over a number of weeks or months.

Now you are probably saying to yourself that spreading out twenty-one customer contacts over the calendar can really make your sales cycle longer than it should be.  Yes, that is very true, it would definitely do that.  Unless you are sitting on a huge pile of cash, that probably is not going to be a good thing for you to waste that time.  So instead divide that number by three and you will come up with seven different times you are going to contact your client/customer.

Okay, but didn’t you just say that it takes 21 days to change a habit, you ask.  I did and the number seven is the number of times you are going to contact your customer through three different means.  Those different methods are:

• Face to face meetings

• Telephone conversations

• Webinars

• YouTube Videos

• Podcasts

• Mailers

• Newsletters

• Blogs

• Tweets

• Emails

• Brochures

• And anything else that puts you in front of the customer.

The key is to keep your message consistent and with value to your client/customer.  Remember they have reached out to you and/or have done business with you in the past.  Therefore they are initially receptive to the information you have to offer.  If you have done your intelligence of the market and customer correctly then it should be easy for you to offer value.

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Who purchases your products and services?

What do they look like?

How do they interact in your marketplace?

These are just some of the questions you need to know the answers to when you seek out your ideal customer.  For the small business or niche business, your ideal customer is not everyone that walks through your door.  In fact, even for the larger companies, their ideal customer is not the everyman.  Instead it is a very specific person/demographic.

Does that mean you are chasing away dollars?  Not necessarily.  If you do not have an identified ideal customer you are more than likely to attract customers that are actually a drain on your business.  You know who these customers are.  They are the loudest complainers and hog your valuable time and resources.  These “service hogs” take up so much of your time that they destroy your profit margin and make you lose opportunities with customers that actually appreciate your products/services.

How can you identify your ideal customer?

Get a pen and paper and start writing out what they look like.  Review your customer files and find out who provides 80% of your revenues.  Conduct surveys with your best customers asking them about their business and decision making process. (Hint: ask them why they chose you!) Conduct market research and utilize free databases to add more meat to the sketch you have your ideal customer.

Without an ideal customer, you will never achieve your goals for your business.

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