1. Tell Us Who You Are. What do we know about you? When I Google ( ) you, what is the first result? Make sure you spell out, in multiple places, who you are, what you’re trying to sell, and how it will benefit your customers. |
2. Network For Prospects. Evan White reflects on how they first got the word out about I Wear Your Shirt, “We tapped our friends, family, business friends, social media worlds, and just about everyone we could! If the idea is good, and people like it, you can literally tell everyone. And they’ll listen.” Lean on every resource you have to get the word out. |
3. Carefully Select Prospects. Make sure you follow Jason Sadler’s advice on cold calling/emailing companies: “Don’t mass email companies. Take the time to contact them individually, say something about their company or mention something you’ve seen them in. This has been the most successful way of ’sales-pitching’ people when I tried (which wasn’t much)”. |
4. Be Brief. Like blog posts or any other online writing, the shorter your pitch, the better. Master the art of a brief email and make sure it includes, in bullets: Important facts, benefits, and costs for your proposed partnership or the product or service you’re selling. Use your website to fill in the details that didn’t fit in the email. |
5. Master verbal jujitsu. Your potential customer is going to have many questions for you. Can you skillfully answer them? Dr. Marlene Caroselli, a business author and a keynote speaker, offers the best way to prepare: “Gain practice in developing the skill of responding quickly and easily to unexpected verbal thrusts that potential customers often send your way. Enlist the help of a friend. Once a week, have him toss out a far-out question. Without missing a beat, reply to it and — if you can — find a way to make a connection to the product or service you sell.” |
6. Have no fear. QuotaCrush author Mark LoRa has sound advice for when it’s time to close the deal: “Embrace the word ‘NO.’ Don’t be afraid to ask for the deal. Typical new salespeople let deals fester because they are afraid of hearing the word no. I say, get to the no. Then you find out the real reason for the objection – and eventually turn it into a yes by negotiating.” |
More business resources from Mashable:
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In fact, everyone is always doing their best under the circumstances. As my friend Al says, there’s no such thing as irrational behavior. That’s because in this moment, given the perceptions someone is holding, the way they behave is in fact the only way they can behave. |
Consumers don’t make choices as much as they react and respond to the inputs and assumptions they have about the marketplace, their life and your brand. |
If you don’t like the way someone is acting, understand you can’t change his behavior, you can only change his circumstances. |
This makes it really difficult to vilify the recalcitrant consumer. It’s not that they’re stupid, it’s that you didn’t explain it very well. As Zig has said, “I can understand why you’re not interested. Other people who believed [insert belief here] weren’t interested either. But once they discovered [insert new fact here] they were eager to try it.” |
Sure, people are willing to lie, break promises, willfully misunderstand, avoid responsibility and blame others. But why? They’re doing it because under the circumstances, it seems like the right thing to do. As marketers, we can often change the circumstances. |
There’s an infamous scene in the Godfather where a movie producer turns down a ‘reasonable’ request from the Don. The Godfather is stunned. How could someone turn him down? |
After the family kills the producer’s prize racehorse (and puts it in his bed), the producer changes his mind. |
What changed? Before the intervention, the producer didn’t understand, didn’t believe, didn’t fear the Godfather. So he made what he believed was the best possible decision. Afterward, his worldview was forcibly changed and he made a different decision based on different facts. |
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