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Archive for the ‘The Ultimate Sales Machine’ Category

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter 12: All Systems Go

Goals and Focus

In the last chapter of The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes drives home the point that you need to have determined focus on just a few areas to make your business hum. He says it is not about doing 4,000 things, but about doing just 12 things 4,000 times.

This is a great reminder that business is actually pretty simple. We often complicate it by adding layers on to layers. But if we could peel away the layers, we would see that we need a simple machine. A good business needs to put out a good product or service and have a strong plan for bringing in customers. And everything must run on systems.

When it comes to achieving goals for your business, it is important to note that it is not good enough to just write some goals down and refer back to them from time to time. You need to relentlessly focus on your goals until you achieve them.

Throughout The Ultimate Sales Machine, Holmes lays out different plans and systems for achieving business growth and building a thriving business. These are more than theories. If you apply some of these principles on a regular basis, you will really start to see some positive changes in your organization. I have personally seen great benefit in the areas of time management and meetings.

Engage Your Mind

Holmes spends some of the final chapter of this book talking about the power of the mind, and how you need to master yourself and your thinking before you can master your business. This is good personal development stuff, but I am not going to dig into it here.

Be Sure to Measure

In order for you to build a truly efficient machine, you need to focus hard on building the right systems and achieving the right goals. You also need to be able to measure the effectiveness of your efforts at any given time. When you build the systems to run your business, build measurement right in there. While you will be able to have the business run without you, it is still your job to make sure everything is tuned up and bringing in results. You become the mechanic. If you don’t take the time to measure, your carefully crafted systems will decay.

Final Thoughts

My in depth review of this book ends here. Hopefully, you were able to pull out some useful nuggets. The Ultimate Sales Machine is the type of book that is packed full of actionable ideas. If you found yourself  inspired by my posts, I highly recommend that you get your hands on this book. Its the kind that you can refer back to as you build out certain aspects of your business.

This book is not about flashy theory, but about down and dirty tactics to help your business succeed. While a lot of it focuses on sales, it is just as much about operating and running your business, especially the early chapters. Some of the tips I got out of this book have really helped me in my business, and I continue to apply Chet Holmes’ principles.

–

Coming next: The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Eleven: Follow-up and Client Bonding Skills

Follow-up to Build Solid Relationships

If there is one thing that wins or loses more sales, it is follow-up. Good follow up can increase your sales quite a lot. Bad follow-up leaves a trail of “could-have-beens” behind you. Follow-up isn’t just for those sales you haven’t closed yet either. Good follow-up with a customer can get that customer to buy more, buy again, and to tell other people about your business. You should really build a follow-up procedure into your business.

Follow-up is all about staying on the front burner with a prospect or a client. If they don’t keep hearing from you, they will very quickly forget about you. So you need to keep on reminding them. Don’t worry about being annoying. If you are a nice person with a true intent to help, you won’t be. If you are a bad person, you probably don’t care if you annoy people anyway.

A prospect is never closer to the sale as when you are right there talking to him or her. The moment you leave, she begins to cool off. Mostly because she has a lot on her plate. If you want to keep the prospect warmed up to your product or service, you need to work hard to keep it in front of them.

Its not just putting them on a mailing list either. A salesperson makes a personal connection with each customer and prospect. So the follow-up should be personal as well. Some of it should be driven by the salesperson. Keep the relationship going.

Of course, good follow-up happens best after a good sales effort. Throughout the rest of The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes talks about how you can change your business and how you can communicate real value to prospects. Your follow-up procedure should spring from that, so that you are continuing a value-based conversation that you have already started through your marketing and sales process.

Holmes gives 10 steps to great follow-up in this chapter. These can be used whether you are still trying to close the sale, or if you have won the customer already.

10 Steps to Great Follow-up

Step One: Send the First Follow-Up Letter

Sending a personal letter immediately after your meeting with the client can help solidify your bond or drive home the importance that the client choose your company. Holmes advises not to make the letter about you and your product. Here are four parts to a good follow-up letter:

1. Include a personal anecdote that you remember from the meeting.
2. Include a compliment.
3. Focus on their stated needs and the benefits of your product or service as they apply to these needs.
4. Be personal in your close.

The letter should focus on the customer, not the sale. Remember, it is about building the relationship. It is okay, even recommended, to add personal touches to the letter.

Step Two: Make the First Follow-up Call

Make this call right after you send the first letter. Think of this as a personal call. You have already done the selling recently at the meeting. You may want to offer something of value, like a piece of advice or something else you thought of that might help the client. The goal here is to increase the bond. If you make this call after the sales pitch and have a somewhat personal conversation, it will be easier in the future for you to connect with this prospect/customer.

Step Three: Share Something

It is a nice gesture to send something along that is humorous or useful. No, don’t forward the latest internet email prank. But if you find an article that may be of interest to the client, cut it out and send it along. If you found out that the client loves bass fishing, and you come across a fishing joke or cartoon, send that along. This is about bonding and letting the client know that you are thinking about him or her.

Step Four: Party

Through a client party and invite everyone to attend. This could be a great time to bond. On a more personal level, invite the client out for lunch. Maybe you will even have something new or interesting to share with them.

Step Five: Send Another Letter

One of the major goals of follow-up is to just keep doing it. Follow-up any additional meetings you have with another letter. Keep it short, interesting, and personal. Sending a follow-up letter shows that you care and that you enjoyed spending time with the client.

Step Six: Plan a Family Event

This usually works best for bigger businesses and big clients. If you are in that position, you can do something extravagant, like a hot air balloon ride. For smaller businesses, you can do something like a picnic and invite the client and his or her family. When the family is involved, it shows a higher level of trust and respect.

Step Seven: Offer Some Help

Can you offer any value, or are you just about getting the sale? Commit to being helpful to your clients. This includes sending them useful information, but it may also include helping them find the people they need for a certain job. You can also help bring two of your clients together so that they can collaborate and both benefit.

There is really no end to the ammount of help you can be if you get your mind around the concept that you are not just a salesperson, but an adviser and friend.

Step Eight: Send Another Letter

Yes, you need to keep this up. It doesn’t have to be a letter in the mail. It could be a fax or an email. But you need to make it personal. This is above and beyond any company newsletter or marketing efforts.

Step Nine: Offer Even More Help

If you can help your client succeed, both through the use of your product or service, and through your advice, you will be establishing a long-lasting and beneficial relationship.  Provide educational opportunities for your client. Send along a book that you know will help them. Always be on the look out for things you can do that will help your client be a success, even if they do not directly relate to your product or service.

Step Ten: Invite Them Over

Having a client to your home, or getting invited to theirs, is the ultimate sign that you have built a relationship that goes beyond sales. This is not a step you will get to, or need to get to, with every client. But when you do get there, it will be because of the relationship you have built, which is turning into a friendship. This is good for both of your businesses, as well as being personally rewarding.

Become a Friend

Your ultimate goal should be that your best clients also become your best friends. Become involved in their personal and business success, and you will succeed along with them. If you do your follow-up with friendship in mind, you will have stunning results. You won’t always become friends, but your follow-up will always be friendly, personal, and helpful.

–

Coming next: Chapter 12 – All Systems Go

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Ten: Sales Skills

6 Steps to Closing the Sale

This chapter provides a lot of in depth information about sales skills and the steps to take when closing the sale. As always, I will try to highlight the best information. Sales is an area that can use work in a lot of businesses, even ones that don’t technically have a sales force.

Many businesses leave the sales process up to the salespeople. This results in a wide array of approaches, most of which are ineffectual. The superstar sales people are naturals at putting repeatable systems in place. But you can’t cross your fingers and hope that your sales staff will figure it out. You need to build a system for sales just like you need to build systems for everything else in your business.

Here are Chet Holmes’ six steps to closing the sale.

Step One: Build Rapport

This seems like a wrinkled old sales concept at first. But Holmes is actually talking about building relationship. He suggests that you build rapport before the sales pitch. No funny baloney sales chatter. Endeavour to become friends with your clients.

One great way to build rapport is to start the whole sales process through an event or party. Get the prospects to come to you and to enjoy themselves. Get to know them a little and then move toward the sale.

Here are some great ways to get a relationship going:

• Ask questions and be interested in the answers
• Be humorous
• Share their pain
• Show that you care (by really caring)
• Find out where your lives intersect (common interests)

Step Two: Find Out the Need

Your success in sales will increase dramatically if you are addressing the buyer’s need. At a company level, you can find out the needs of your ideal customers by conducting a survey. On the sales level, there should to be enough flexibility to recognize unique need and respond accordingly.

Always seek out the need before you try to sell. If you don’t, you may be wasting your breath selling something that the buyer does not need. Or maybe you are not hitting on the need that your product solves that is most important to the buyer.

From a system standpoint, you should develop a list of questions to ask that will help sales people identify buyer needs. Then, you need to train, with scripts and materials, the answers to those needs.

Step Three: Show Value

Once you know the need, you can show the value of your product or service. The value should be directly related to the need.

Value not only shows the prospect that you can answer their need, but it shows the prospect the bigger picture. At this point you might share testimonials or your core story. This is where you begin to hook the buyer. This is also where you would provide an education to the buyer. This all goes toward establishing your business as the leading expert in the industry.

Step Four: Create Desire

Once you have shown value, you need to focus on getting the prospect to want what you have to offer right now. There are many things you can do. The goal is to bring into focus the need and the plan to solve the need. You can walk the prospect through a series of questions which will let them talk themselves into your solution. You can present market data that makes a decision obvious. The important thing is to get the prospect to see the negative impact of not acting and the positive result of acting.

If you can reframe the prospects current situation so that it is no longer acceptable to them, you are within a breath of getting the sale. So, spend time doing just that. Show them a better way and make them see that where they are at is not where they want to stay. Holmes points out, “if your prospects are comfortable with the current situation, they are not motivated to change.”

Step Five: Overcoming Objections

Objections threaten to derail any sale. The first thing you need is a system to identify objections in the qualifying stage of the sale. This can go hand in hand with finding out the need. By finding out the need and asking a few questions, you can usually understand what common objections may come up and then neutralize them.

There will be times when hidden objections come up before the close, and you need to have a plan to handle them.

First, view every objection as an opportunity to close. This isn’t hubris. Instead, its about executing a good plan. When a prospect says that they want to buy, but then list something that is standing in the way, you have been giving a golden opportunity. They have basically agreed to buy from you, you just need to have an answer for their objection.

When you get an objection like this late in the game, you need to always agree with it validity. This will disarm the prospect and give you the opportunity to work together on solving the objection.

The next key step, and one that is often missed, is to isolate the objection. Ask if this objection is the only thing standing in the way of a purchase. If the answer is yes, you know that if you can solve the objection, you will get the sale. So you need to let them know that they have a valid objection, and then ask them if it is the only thing standing in the way of making a purchase.

Now you ask the prospect if they will buy if you can find a way to neutralize their objection. If the answer is yes, you are very close to getting the sale. You just need to show them how you will overcome the objection. There are many ways to do this, from showing them data to changing the pricing structure to adding on a little extra service.

Step Six: Close the Deal

There are lots of tricks and practices for closing the sale. But the best thing that Holmes says here is that people are usually bad at making decisions, and that it is your job to help them make a decision.

Most people are very happy when they buy something. Think about when you buy something. You are usually excited to get it and use it. The same goes for all buyers. As long as you are not selling a scam or a lemon, you should be proud that you are helping make buyers happy. You are solving a problem, filling a need, or satisfying a desire.

The reason most sales people have a hard time closing has nothing to do with they buyers. It has everything to do with the self esteem of the sales person. If a sales person has low self confidence and a fear of rejection, he will not do a very good job closing the sale.

The trick is to refocus on what you are providing to the buyer. You are providing a great product or service, yes. But you also need to provide them with help making a decision that will benefit them. Once you realize that people have a hard time making a decision, even benefiting decisions, you will see how important the role of a sales person really is.

Closing the deal is about all of the prior steps, but as a step unto itself, it is just helping the prospect make the right decision.

–

Coming next: Chapter 11 – Follow Up and Client-Bonding Skills

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Nine: The Nitty-Gritty of Getting the Best Buyers

6 Steps to Land Your Dream Customers

Dream customers. Those are the ones that, if you are honest with yourself, you want more than any other kind. They are the big buyers or the consistent buyers. A few of these sprinkled in will help your business to soar. The only thing that is stopping you from getting them right now is … they are hard to land. Or at least you think so.

You need a plan to land these customers. A plan that you can stick with. One that you won’t abandon at the first no (or even the second, or twelfth). Chet Holmes presents just such a plan in Chapter Nine of the Ultimate Sales Machine. Here are his six steps to help you land your dream clients.

1. Choose Your Dream Customers

Holmes recommends that you pick around 100 prospects that you would really like to land. Don’t just pick them randomly, but come up with some kind of criteria. Perhaps they have a certain income level or live in a certain neighborhood if you are targeting consumers. If you are targeting businesses, maybe you are looking for a certain size or type. Taking a little time before you get started to write up the profile of an ideal customer can be helpful.

Once you have the criteria, start to build your database. It is an important step to create more than a list. A database, whether done on Excel or with your CRM solution, is a place for you to store ongoing information about these prospects. You need to track your every move in trying to win them, as well as their responses and whatever new information you learn about these dream customers. The more you know, the better you will be able to hone in on the customer.

For businesses, you not only need to determine which businesses to target, but who in that business to target. You really need to market to the person who has the authority to say yes. In many cases, this means appealing directly to the CEO. As difficult as that may seem to some of us, the rest of these steps show how it is achievable and worthwhile.

2. Pick the Gifts

Holmes advises that in order to get noticed by your dream customers, you should regularly send them gifts. Not gifts that are in the bribe category, ie. expensive gifts. Send inexpensive things that will get attention and maybe a laugh. Make them useful, things they will want to use or play with, or give to their kids. Tie the gift in to the message you want to relate, as well.

Giving a little something extra, like a squirt gun or a desk toy, helps you to stand out from the crowd. It will help you get your sales letter read and the name of your company remembered when you do your follow up call.

3. Craft a Letter

You need to include a letter with every gift that you send. It should be short, and it should be different each time. Make sure it ties in well with the gift in a clever way. For instance, if you send a magnifying glass, you can talk about the clues to greater success.

In the letter, you need to offer them something that they can easily say yes to. You need to do it in a very clear call to action, so that they will know exactly what you want them to do next. Don’t push for the sale too early. The short letter is not a good place to do that. Instead, try to get a meeting, or have them attend a webinar.

A note if you are selling directly to consumers. You will probably not be able to send out a gift to each consumer (unless you can). So make your marketing piece, or letter, stand out on its own. Also, be consistent.

4. Get It Scheduled

For a campaign like this to work, you need to have consistency. You need to continue to market to these dream customers every single month, until you get the sale. At least once a month.

Every thing you send does not need to include a gift, but that should be a regular calling card of your effort.

If you decide when you get started that you are going to stick it out, and plan each marketing piece ahead, you will be able to succeed. The more these dream customers become familiar with your business, the more likely they will make the jump to becoming your customers.

5. Follow Up on the Phone

Your mailing is just the opening salvo to soften up the customer. Holmes says that you must follow up every mailing with a phone call. At least if you are selling to a business.

The goal of the follow up phone call is the same as the goal of your letter. You want to move the prospect not to the close, but to a meeting or webinar where you can present them with your story.

One idea is to offer a free report about something that will be of interest to the prospect. This report should be delivered live by someone from your business. I say someone, but it will usually be the salesperson. Just don’t call a salesperson that. Come up with a new name, such as advisor or expert.

Following up via phone will increase your closing rate and will speed up the marketing process, thus saving you money while making you money. So don’t neglect this important step.

6. Do the Presentation

Once you do get a presentation with one of your dream customers, you don’t want to blow it by just giving an average sales pitch. Instead, you should present a report, or briefing, that will be riveting and educational to your prospect.

Here is how to do that:

• Use data that is relevant to the customer (and avoid listing product benefits)
• Tell a story or educate in a way that encourages a buying attitude (ie. show them why they need to be worried about something, etc.)
• Find a “smoking gun,” the thing that will make you stand out from all the competition
• Focus on their pain points (and how to solve them)
• Make your pitch only after you have provided them great value (and keep it brief and at the end)

Always make education the goal of your presentation. With a little effort, you can put together a briefing that will be very valuable to your dream customers. Overdeliver on the educational component, and they will be very receptive to hear your short sales message at the end of the presentation.

If you follow these 6 steps thoroughly and consistently, you will be able to win the majority of your dream customers.

–

Next: Chapter 10 – Sales Skills: 6 Steps to Closing the Sale

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.  

Chapter Eight: The Eyes Have It

Part 2: 8 Mistakes Presenters Make

In this section of The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes talks about eight common mistakes made by presenters.

1. Thanking Prospects for Time or Apologizing for Taking Their Time

Thanking prospects for their precious time or apologizing for taking their time is not a good idea. It is setting up the precept in their mind (and yours) that your time is less valuable then theirs and that your presentation is a waste of their time. Instead of thanking them for taking time out of their busy schedules, do a great job on your presentation and have them thanking you for taking your time to share it with them.

A big side effect of respecting prospects time more than your own is that you will often rush your presentation to fit into their schedule. Instead, create a great educational seminar and find out how long it takes you to present it fully, allowing time for questions. Then tell the prospects exactly how much time you need and how they will benefit from giving you that time. 

2. Keeping Your Hands in Your Pockets

Holmes says that this makes you look like a slacker. Always keep your hands visible, above your waist and in front of your body. Your hands are a powerful tool to help punctuate your speaking.

3. Sitting Down

Don’t ever do a presentation sitting down (unless you can’t stand for physical reasons). Standing up helps you present from a position of authority, as in most cases your prospects will be sitting down. It helps them cue in on who they should be paying attention to and it helps give your words more weight. 

4. Allowing Prospects to Lead the Presentation

Holmes refers to this as being lead around by your nose. It is a common mistake to answer prospects questions right in the middle of the presentation and to let that sidetrack the whole thing. You need to maintain control of the presentation. You can always answer questions later on, but even so, maintain as much control as possible. It is always better to lead by asking questions of your prospects, rather than let them lead by asking you questions.

5. Being Glued to the Slides

You need to know your material. Anyone can read the bullet points from your slides. Your job is to give a dynamic presentation. Those bullet points just drive it home for your prospects. If you need to constantly refer to you slides, it shows that you are not prepared and that you do not know your material.

You need to know what to say for each slide. You also must know what is coming next, so that you can lead into it. 

6. Being Too Serious

Humour goes a long way toward keeping interest and helping prospects remember key points. Be sure to add a funny slide, story, or joke. Always remember to tie the humor in to your presentation, though. Use it to drive home important points.

7. Not Practicing Every Time

Holmes says that “the more you know the material, the more persuasive, powerful, and effective you can be.” Get to know your material before you ever present it. Then, keep practicing it before each presentation. You will refresh your knowledge of it and hone your presentation skills. You can’t just read over the presentation before hand. You need to practice it out loud, pretending that you have a live audience. 

8. Not Knowing What’s Next

It is important to pre-sell the upcoming information in your presentation. This keeps prospects engaged and helps them to connect more with the information because they are waiting to hear it. You can’t pre-sell upcoming information if you are not familiar with what is coming next.

You do not want to be on the same page as your prospects, wondering what is on the next slide. You should always be a step or two ahead, drawing your audience along with you.

–

Coming next: Chapter 9 – The Nitty-Gritty of Getting the Best Buyers

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Eight: The Eyes Have It

Part 1: 8 Ways to Be a Better Presenter

Chet Holmes devotes this chapter to visual aids, which are a very important part of the sales presentation. Humans typically remember about 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see. However, we remember 50% of what we see and hear. That is case enough to be backing up your presentation with visual aids.

85% of the information we take in to our brains enters via our eyes. In a presentation, if you do not offer something to stimulate the eyes, the brain will be more likely to tune out. A visual presentation can keep the eyes busy and keeps our brains more active and attentive.

Once you have established the importance of offering a visually rich presentation, employ these 8 rules to be a better presenter.

1. Keep It Simple

This may be a no-brainer, but you had better remind yourself of it often. Your presentation must be easy to follow and understand. Also, do not clutter slides with too much information. A key point and/or a picture should do the trick. You will expound on each slide verbally.

2. Keep Up the Pace

Do not spend too much time on any one slide. If you do this, the eyes will become bored and the listeners minds will start to drift. Keep listeners on the edge of their seats by moving through the slide material at a good pace. This will also help you stay away from bunny trails and long and boring expositions.

3. Use Facts and Stats that Stand Out

You’ll know you picked the right facts and stats is your listener says, “I didn’t know that.” The goal here is to educate your way to the sale. Good facts and stats can totally reframe the listeners mindset and key them up to buy your product or service. Teaching also puts you instantly in the position of educator. Your listeners will look up to you as someone that they can learn from.

4. Use Stories

Holmes says that a well-told story can increase recall by 26%. So, if there is a really important point that you want to make, incorporate it into a story.

5. Drive Curiosity

You should “unfold the information in a way that keeps your prospect curious,” Holmes says. One way to do this is to use teasers, or pre-sell upcoming information continously throughout the presentation. If you keep hinting at what is coming next, prospects will keep listening.

6. Respect the Headline

Holmes advises to consider each headline as valuable real estate. Do not waste good headline space by repeating the same headline over and over throughout the presentation. Instead, pull out the key point for the slide and make it pop in the headline. Avoid laziness when it comes to your headlines. Make each one work hard for you.

7. Make a Connection

It is important to develop rapport with your audience. You can do this a variety of ways, such as having everyone stretch or engaging in banter. The key is to establish respect and trust.

8. Focus on Them, Not on You

Everyone likes to talk about themselves. As a presenter, avoid the urge to talk about yourself and instead focus on talking about the listeners. Your job is to focus on them, their needs and how you can help them. You need to engage with your audience and find out what needs and challenges they have. Be sure to be flexible enough in your presentation to engage and customize for particular audiences.

–

Coming next: 8 Presentation Mistakes

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.  

Chapter Seven: The Seven Musts of Marketing

There are lots of ways to market your business. There is one thing that is essential. All of your marketing must work together to promote one message, your stadium pitch. If your marketing does not work together in concert to advance your story, you are casting seeds before swine. 

Chet Holmes says that you should be able to place all of your marketing in a stack, and that it should all be coherent together. Often, marketing efforts can have wildly different, and in some cases conflicting, messages. You need to work to develop a consistent message, look, and feel for your marketing. 

There are seven marketing cornerstones.

1. Advertising

Advertising has a very broad reach. However, unless it is geared toward gaining a response, it can also have very little impact. Holmes presents 4 rules for making your advertising high-response-generating.

1. It Needs to Be Distinctive: If your ad does not attract attention, it will not accomplish any of its goals. 
2. Capture Attention with a Screaming Headline: Holmes says that effective ads all have headlines that follow the rule: “Tell me what you want to tell me in 3.2 seconds.” A good headline communicates your message instantly and compels the reader to keep on reading.
3. Your Content Has to Keep Them Hooked: Your headline has the job of hooking your prospect. The content needs to set that hook. The goal is to keep them reading. Remember the cardinal rule of advertising, talk about them, not you. How will your product help your prospect. Make your content all about the buyer. It should be full of benefits for the buyer.
4. Call Them to Action: You must give your readers a reason to act right now. Make this as brainless and easy for them as possible. If you leave your prospects wondering what they should do next, they will probably do nothing. Instead, invite them to your website for a free report or have them call for a discount. Get them acting, and right away! Be sure to make your call to action easy, though. The prospect is not ready to commit to buy from you just from an advertisement. But they may be ready for a first date.

2. Direct Mail

Direct mail can and does bring sales. If you want to supercharge your direct mail campaigns, you will tie them in directly with your education based selling. 

Holmes provides a few quick tips on direct mail. First of all, use as much color as possible. Second, put your message right on the envelope. Third, make your piece look different and more like a greeting card than a phone bill. 

Direct mail should not be fighting your marketing battle alone. But as a  team player, it can be highly effective.

3. Corporate Literature

Your sales brochure is a great place to flesh out your educational selling. It doesn’t have to tell the whole story, but it can include important outtakes from your core story. Be sure to include more than just bullet points. Good data that will cue the mind to buy and customer testimonials should have a prominent place in your sales brochure. Also, include the same graphics here as you do in your presentation and other marketing materials. 

A brochure is a selling tool. It is often there in proxy of your sales person. Therefore, it must do a good job of communicating your message and converting prospects into a buying, or at least a learning mindset. 

Avoid the corporate ego piece. Don’t make your brochure all about how great your company is. That is of no use to anyone. Instead, focus on the prospect, on how you will meet his needs. 

Beyond a sales brochure, you should have a single sheet sales piece for every benefit that you offer. 

4. Public Relations

Public relations encompasses a whole array of things. Pretty much every intersection between your company and the public is a public relations marketing opportunity. 

A key component to public relations marketing is the press release. If you do a good job on your sales reports, you can incorporate them into your press release campaign. In fact, write all of your sales pieces with public relations in mind. No newspaper is going to carry an ego piece about your company, and no prospect is going to care to read one. Write press releases that are interesting to your prospects, and which include current customers in the story.

Another great source for writing your press releases is the market data you collect to build your marketing material. This is the kind of data that educates the prospect and sets them up to become buyers. For instance, if you have data that shows that certain chemicals used in lawn care are hazardous to pets, you can build a strong marketing piece and press release around that, mentioning your safe product as a good alternative. 

5. Personal Contact

It used to be that all roads led to Rome. In the same vein, all marketing should lead to personal contact. Getting the sale is about trust, in the end. While people do buy regularly online with no personal contact, if you want to build loyalty and increase profits with customers, you need to have a personal contact regimen built into your marketing.

Whether you use sales reps or customer service personnel, make sure they are well versed on your stadium pitch and are very familiar with your unified marketing message. Also, make sure they have access to all of the marketing provided by your business, including stories you have placed in the press. These are tools that they can use to get the sale as well as training material to make sure their story lines up with the company story.

6. Trade Shows

If you think trade shows are a waste of time, Chet Holmes says that you are doing them wrong. The key is to stand out and be the life of the party. In some cases, this includes throwing a fun after-party. 

Its not really that hard to stand out at a trade show. Here are a few of Holmes’ suggestions:

• Create a theme for your booth.
• Dress up. Not in suits, but in costumes. Holmes had great success with one company that he had dress in doctor’s lab coats. Of course, he tied the marketing message in with the theme.
• Give something away. In return for getting cards filled out, have a prize, like a vacation or a television. 
• Show up in force. The more people you have at the show, the better. Especially if you are all dressed uniquely. This way, you can have people walking around and directing people to your booth to enter your contest, etc.
• Have something to do at your booth. Whether you hire an artist to do caricatures or have a massage therapist, it is a great idea to provide a very compelling reason for people to come by your booth and stay awhile. This will give you plenty of time to talk to prospects, as well.

7. Internet

The internet has opened up a whole new frontier when it comes to marketing. Many traditional tactics have been turned on their heads. The key thing is to make sure your internet efforts work closely with the rest of your marketing.

Chet Holmes uses at 5 step process for internet marketing:

1. Capture leads
2. Build a relationship
3. Interact as much as possible
4. Offer a webinar
5. Convert traffic to sales

A big part of internet marketing is to build a list. This can be done through what Holmes calls “shy marketing.” Offer something of value for free in return for users signing up for your mailing list, ie. a webinar (web based seminar). 

You website should at the very least have an opportunity to sign up for a free newsletter or webinar on every page. If you don’t, you will miss plenty of opportunities to build new relationships that will turn into sales. 

Offering a free webinar is a great way to spread your educational selling message. 

Using these 7 marketing cornerstones as a group, so that they all play upon each others strengths, can bring you a steady stream of prospects and sales. 

–

Coming next: Eight Ways to Be a Better Presenter

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.  

Chapter Six: The High Art of Getting the Best Buyers

Winning the Best Buyers

In this chapter, Chet Holmes discusses a very interesting and exciting strategy for winning the business of “best buyers.” The first thing you need to do is to determine who your best buyers are. You should be able to do this by looking at your current customer list. In general, the are the big purchasers. Perhaps in your case they are the buyers who repeat frequently. All in all, they are that small group at the top of the prospect chain that you tend to drool over. They are where the money is.

Holmes’s best buyer marketing strategy springs from a simple fact. While you may have a large market with lots of potential buyers, there is always a smaller group of best buyers. If you win these best buyers, they will add significant income to your business. 

Since there are fewer best buyers, marketing to them is less expensive then marketing to all buyers. It may be a difference of 100 to 100,000. You can spend more money per buyer on marketing to those 100, and still save substantially over marketing to the whole group.

Holmes challenges you to think about what would happen if put some intense focus on a small group of best buyers.

These buyers will buy more, in larger amounts, and more often than other buyers. These are the buyers whose sales equal 10, or 20, or even 100 smaller sales. They are your ideal customers. So why not focus some special marketing efforts directly on winning them? 

Dream 100

Holmes calls this strategy the “Dream 100 effort.” It is a strategy that peels a small group of best buyers away from the crowd and focuses more intense, more interesting, marketing on them. This is something to do above and beyond your standard marketing efforts. 

For this to work, you need to pick the right best buyers. Then, you need to target them with your marketing campaign using focus and consistency, and keep doing it until these buyers become your customers. 

Holmes has a great example in this chapter about a computer company. Its sales averaged from $10,000 to $28,000. Then Holmes discovered one sale that brought in $160,000. He asked what it was, and was told it was a big company. When he asked why there weren’t more of these sales, the answer was that the business did not actively go after big companies. They focused on smaller companies and took a big sale if it came along. What if that computer company had a focused marketing effort to go after 100 of those big companies? Do you think that would make a difference on bottom line? You bet!

You can keep going about your business as you normally would. But in addition, you should start a dedicated effort to go after those dream best buyers. 

Spice it Up

Since these best buyers are a much smaller segment, and since they will bring in much higher profits, you can afford to add a little pizzazz to your marketing efforts. Holmes suggests sending along a little gift as a tie-in to each marketing piece. This could be anything and it doesn’t have to be expensive. You could send them a puzzle along with a piece that asks if they are puzzled about how to increase profits. Or how about a box of mixed chocolates with a piece that asks if they are overwhelmed with the choices that are available. Tailor the gift and the marketing piece to your company. Don’t forget to use educational selling techniques.

Each time you send out one of these pieces, you should follow it up with a phone call. Keep doing this until the sale is booked. It may happen on that first call. It may be months or even years. Just keep at it. Remember, these are best buyers, so it is very worth it. 

There are lots of other ways you can stand out and attract the attention of your best buyers with your marketing. If they are really big buyers, why not take out a personalized billboard near their offices? Or how about have a marching band go by carrying your marketing message on a banner? For most of you, those are way out of reach, but apply that kind of big thinking to your best buyer efforts. Maybe you can create a custom website personalized for each best buyer. Maybe you can have a couple of employees stand on the corner with your banner as the boss of the company leaves for the day. 

One other option that I have found that you may want to incorporate is a personalized cartoon. These are available from cartoonlink.com. They even have an option for going after dream customers.

Even with these efforts, you have to be willing to stick with it. If you keep up your efforts, and make each one unique, your best buyers will know who you are. This alone can make things happen for you. Also, it doesn’t matter how hard it may seem to get a meeting with the key decision makers at your target businesses. This method will make it happen. You just need to do it and keep doing it until you get your desired results. In fact, you will win the majority of your best buyers with far less effort than you thought you needed. 

What About Consumers?

These efforts also work if you are selling directly to consumers. In this case, you may not be sending direct packages to individuals. Perhaps you will pick a best neighborhood, and send out regular fliers. You can also do some unique things, especially if those best buyers are grouped by geography. 

Grow Your Business By Focusing on the Few

With this kind of focus on the few best buyers, you could double your business. There are less of these best buyers, but they are bigger sales and more often. You will not only be growing, but you will be securing your future. Don’t ignore the many. Keep up your normal efforts. But build a plan geared especially toward your dream customers. Then execute it diligently and watch it pay off in spades.

–

Coming next: Chapter Seven – The Seven Musts of Marketing

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.  

Chapter Five: Hiring Superstars – How to Accelerate Your Growth by Using High-Octane Talent at Every Level

Part Two – A New Approach to Interviews

Finding and hiring the right people is no easy task. The very first thing you need to figure out is the right personality for the job. Once you have that worked out, hiring becomes an easier process. When you place your job ad, you can gear it toward the specific type of person you want, being sure to attract the right talent. You can also start looking for the right people as you go about your daily life.

In this section Chet Holmes advises to be on the lookout for superstars everywhere you go. You may find your next star employee in the grocery store, at a restaraunt, or just about anywhere. The key is to know what you are looking for. 

Remember, being the right person for a job has little to do with age or background. If you find someone who has “it”, you should try to hire them. The fact that they already have a job should not deter you. In fact, its a positive. Think about the worse that could happen. You could try to hire away a great employee for more than they are making right now. That person could say yes or no. If he says yes, you have provided him with a great new opportunity. If he says no, maybe it is because he talked to his boss about it, and his boss offered him a nice raise to stay on. The point is, don’t be shy. You will probably be doing the person a favor, even if it is just to give her a great compliment on a job well done.

The Rejection Method 

Holmes advocates a method of hiring that you will not find in a human resources textbook. In fact, you may have a negative reaction to it. But if you bear with it, you will see why its a good thing.

Holmes says that the first thing you should do with any new hire is to reject them. You don’t have to be mean, you just need to tell them that you don’t think they are cut out for the job. You can be polite, but firm. You do this not because you don’t want to hire the person, but because its a great way to find out what they are made of. In other words, how are they under pressure and in the face of adversity. This is especially important for hiring sales people, who will face rejection every day. If they fold to your polite rejection and stop pursuing the job, how do you think they will do dealing with prospects that say no?

If you reject an interviewee and they argue with you, or keep coming at you, you will know that you have someone with a little more tenacity, self-confidence, and drive. These are are good things to have in an employee. And you may be able to find out if your prospective employee has these traits just by saying no at first. 

This first pre-screen should take place on the phone after you get a little information from the prospect. Make them work for the interview a little. Once they make it past that first pre-screen, you can treat them real nice when they come in for the interview.

3 Steps of the Interview

Holmes says that the first thing you need to do with your prospective worker is to help them relax. They may be coming in loaded for bear if you used the rejection method in your phone pre-screen. Make them feel comfortable and break down those barriers. 

Once you have the prospective relaxed, its time to start your probe. This is where you really get to know the person, and importantly, their personality. Ask questions that will reveal who the person is, not what kinds of jobs they have done in the past, etc. Holmes cautions to be aware of fair hiring laws here. Just make it very clear that you hire based on personality, not age, gender, or background. Get the interviewee to agree to talk about him or herself. To make sure you do not ask any innappropriate questions in your interviews, check with your lawyer and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Part of your probe could be having the interviewee take a personality test. Chet Holmes has some available at his site ChetHolmes.com. 

The final step of the interview process is to attack. This is basically a repeat of your pre-screen. Treat them nice throughout the interview and even in this attack phase. Tell them that you enjoyed meeting them and that they seem like a nice person, but that you are just not sure they are the person you are looking for. Use tact, but don’t be too soft. Many people will crumble here and just give up and go home. If you want to have superstars working for you, you need to weed these people out and find the ones that will fight to get the job, because you can be sure they will go the extra mile once they get the job. 

Umm, Well, Maybe

If you are like most people, you may agree with the concepts here, but you can’t see yourself actually doing anything like this. You will probably keep going about your hiring in the same old manner. You will keep getting more mediocore or bad hires than good ones, because the alternative presented here makes you uncomfortable. 

Before you yourself crumble, just ask yourself what even one top-producing superstar employee can do for you and your business. Maybe getting uncomfortable and serious about the interview process is worth it.

–

Coming next: Chapter Six – The High Art of Getting the Best Buyers.

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.  

Chapter Five: Hiring Superstars – How to Accelerate Your Growth by Using High-Octane Talent at Every Level

Part One – Finding the Right Personality

Let me start out my review of this chapter by telling you that if you are hiring sales talent right now, please go get this book and read this chapter. Chet Holmes includes a great deal of specific information and ideas in this chapter that, if you follow them, will help you get the best people possible. I will not be going into those specifics in this review.

Holmes is an advocate of using personality profiling in your hiring process. If you want superstars, you first need to know the personality make up for the ideal person for that job. Then you can use this information to better recruit and retain top talent.

Holmes says that the average bad hire costs a company $60,000. The scary thing is that the majority of hiring decisions are made as the result of an hour-long interview. That’s putting a lot at risk.

What you need to develop is a new method for hiring. This method should be good at finding out people’s faults before you agree to hire them. Which would you rather do? Hire someone only to find out that they are a bad fit and then have to go through the pain of firing (or putting up) with them? Or expend a little more effort in the hiring process to discover if the person has the personality for the job, and to expose faults that will get in the way of them doing a good job. In other words, a little more work and maybe some discomfort in the hiring process, or days, weeks, even months of frustration and the distaste of having to fire a person. You decide.

Two things to understand before you go out and try to hire superstars. First of all, they are pretty rare. It is going to take some work on your part to find the best person for the position you have to fill. This can be tough if you are in a tight spot. But with a little planning and a good approach, you can find the right people. It is very important to determine who the right person is even before you put out that first job posting. In fact, the way you word that job posting can have a big impact on the kind of talent you attract.

The second thing you need to understand is that it doesn’t matter what size your company is. Even if you are a sole proprietor, you can find and hire top talent. Holmes goes into how to do this in depth in this chapter.  

Hiring the right people will help your company grow faster than you thought possible. It is worth the extra effort. It is worth stepping outside your comfort zone. 

What Makes a Superstar?

A superstar is the type of person that you can put into a less than ideal situation and she will adapt and bring in results, quickly outperforming her peers. A superstar will intuitively understand a situation, work to improve himself and his job, and will become a success driver. 

You can not determine a superstar based on education, experience, age, gender, etc. A superstar is someone who has the perfect personality for the job at hand. 

Personality profiling is the missing ingredient. With it, you have a better chance of finding those superstars. Ignore it, and you may have someone who looks great on paper, but who isn’t so great in reality.

Takes sales for instance. You need someone who will have a high level of self confidence and who will be able to influence people. This person also needs to be compassionate, but not too compassionate. Holmes goes into great detail in this chapter about the right personality type for a sales superstar. 

The funny thing is, if you don’t have good handle on the type of personality that makes a great salesperson, you will likely turn a superstar away after a 1-hour interview. This person may seem overly eager and may come on too strong. Also, their self-confidence may make you uncomfortable at first. If you do understand what type of personality makes for a superstar salesperson, you will be able to look beyond first impression (and your own, different personality) and see whether someone is a good fit for the job or not. 

Hire On Personality

You can teach a person everything they need to know about a job. What you can’t teach is personality. If you need a go-getter, that is a personality issue. If you need a customer service person with a compassionate ear, that is a personality issue. 

When you hire, ignore the resume. Spend some time figuring out what personality type is best for the job. Then, in the interview process, work to discover the applicant’s personality. Chet Holmes has some useful personality tests at his web site, or you can use any of hundreds of methods.

Please do not make the mistake of only hiring people with the same personality as you, or even only people with compatible personalities. The perfect personality for a sales job may be a personality that rubs you the wrong way. You need to learn how to manage this so you can take advantage of having a superstar. 

–

Coming next: Chapter Five, Part Two – A New Approach to Interviews

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.