Monthly Archives: February 2010

The idea that soft sell sales is all about personality is wrong

By John Aberle | heart-centered , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell

I had forgotten that people may interpret soft sell sales as an effort to succeed simply on the power of one’s great personality. Jim Sniechowski in his recent blog post, Soft Sell Marketing Misconceptions – A Dime a Dozen, mentioned misconceptions about soft sell. The idea that soft sell sales is all about personality is wrong. This false image produces the erroneous idea that soft sell salespeople are limited to sales to prospects who already know they wanted to buy that product or service.

Sales success takes proactive work, not just a great personality.

I can appreciate how someone might think that soft sell means personality. In fact, from over 30 years in sales and marketing, mostly in soft sell despite extensive hard sell training, I believe this problem is common to newbies in the field. Most people want to be liked. Unfortunately, regardless of your approach, whether traditional, hard sell or the rising in popularity heart-centered, soft sell one, sales success takes proactive work.

I’m not going to tell you that having a good personality has no impact on how easily likable you are any more than I’ll tell you that an attractive woman can’t get most men’s attention just by entering a room. In both cases, though, the initial appeal may undermine their ability to be taken seriously. In my experience, true heart-centered, soft sell sales success has little or nothing to do with having a likable personality.Continue reading

Email Marketing Terminology Tripped Me Up

By John Aberle | Internet Marketing , sales , Sales Calls

It seems with Internet marketing there is always something to learn. Earlier this week I got another of those lessons. I was feeling really good about finishing my 8th lesson of the 9 lessons I’m giving people who join my community by opting onto mailing list. Then I noticed that not everyone on my list had received all of the lessons. And some lessons seemed to be missing – bummer.

So I started to make up the missing lessons. In the course of trying to create an autoresponder campaign to ensure this wouldn’t happen again, I discovered my error. I forgot that MailChimp sets up campaigns and autoresponder emails under separate tabs. Other than when the get sent, everything about setting up an autoresponder email and a campaign email is the same. I found that most of my lessons I had, in fact, already set up on the autoresponder, having only missed #7.

The lesson – double check your terminology

So what was the lesson here? It was a reminder of the problem with communications Continue reading

Silence Shows Respect after Asking a Question

By John Aberle | heart-centered , Sales Calls , Soft Sell

In the early years of attending sales training seminars, one of the dramatic effects sales trainers, especially with a large audience would try for would be to tell us, “When you ask a question,” then they would pause for a moment and follow that by yelling, “SHUT UP!” They would continue with this cliché, “He who speaks first loses.”

If you’ve read any of my blog posts about heart-centered, soft sell sales, by now you should recognize that as a hard sell attitude. It’s all about control and a win-lose philosophy of sales. Nevertheless, today, I’m going to tell you something similar but from a different perspective.

Be quiet or shut up – what’s the difference?

When you ask a question, be quiet until your prospect or customer answers. So other than the fact that I chose to avoid saying, “shut up,” what’s the difference? The difference is respect.

It’s respectful to allow the other person time to think about what you asked. I know when someone asks me a question, I need to think about the answer for a few minutes. If you interrupt me while I’m thinking, obviously the question wasn’t important so I’ll pass on it. That meeting may then be over.

In this respect, you did lose, twice. Continue reading

Using "Yes But" for Objections Can Harm Your Relationships

By John Aberle | heart-centered , Objections , Sales Calls , Soft Sell

This habit of speech is one of the hardest I can think of to break. It’s natural when we feel attacked to defend ourselves. The problem is that we can harm a relationship we’ve worked hard to build. There’s something about saying “yes, but …” that undermines trust and liking someone.

Never Give a Compliment Followed by a But

Years ago I learned to never give a compliment then follow it with “but ….”  In the mind of the person receiving the compliment, the “but” cancels out everything positive you said before it. In sales and marketing, whether heart-centered, soft sell sales or hard sell, you can do the same thing, particularly when handling objections.

Learn to Separate Your Identity from Your Product or Service

For most salespeople, objections feel like an attack, like someone is saying there’s something wrong with you – even though it’s the product or service that seems to be falling short, it’s common to take them personally, to become defensive. As a result, we try a little empathy. That’s the “yes” part of our statement. We get in trouble with our person-to-person connections when we follow our statement of understanding with a ”but …” to show our prospects or customers that while they made a good point, they are still wrong.

If You React Defensively, You Lose

Continue reading

The Most Important Question on a Sales Call

By John Aberle | heart-centered , Sales Calls , Soft Sell

There’s one question that has served me extremely well in over six years as a small business consultant. It’s the same question that heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers need to ask their customers and prospective customers. The most important question is, “Why?”

Sales scripts seek to control the sales call.

I’ve had salespeople and small business owners ask me about writing a script. I have used them successfully 18 years ago when it was a required part of the job. I didn’t like them then, and I really dislike them now. Other than to memorize an opening question to get you started so you can avoid being tongue-tied, scripts are designed to control the flow of questions so as to control the prospect.

That’s a hard sell approach to sales because it only cares about one thing, getting the prospect’s money. While I did well, I only lasted a short time at the job because I began to really question whether our product did what we said it did — despite the stack of testimonial letters the company gave me from around the country.

Heart-centered salespeople seek to see their customers’ viewpoints.

Following that experience, I returned to talking with prospects. Heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing focus first on the customer’s needs and wants. While people may quickly tell you what they think they want, it’s very important to dig deeper to understand why. Nobody wants to look stupid so Continue reading

How to Fit in with Your Prospects

By John Aberle | Prospecting , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell

Reading my friend Bob Poole’s book, Listen First – Sell Later, he reminded me about the value of getting to know your customers’ industries. This is important to all salespeople and marketers, not just to soft sell sales and marketing people.

The First Step Is to Decide Who Your Ideal Prospects Are

To really help yourself get established in your sales and marketing efforts, study up on your ideal customers’ market or industry.  While you may have several different ideal customer profiles, pick one that you are most interested in, one which has a sizable potential for sales. Becoming an expert in an industry takes time and effort so be smart about your choice. Remember, your ideal prospects are companies like your best customers because they are most likely to have needs like those you are solving already.

Next, Learn about Their Industry or Market

Once you choose where you want to initially focus, start reading up as much as you can about it. Naturally, the Internet has a wealth of information on almost everything imaginable. The problem is that not all of it is accurate or true so you need to read broadly. A great source of information is to get a subscription to industry publications, most of which are free to people in that industry, including vendors. Also, get involved in one of the trade associations – one to which the people you want to contact actually attend.

Your Goals for this Research

There are at least three purposes to your doing this research and getting involved in a low key way: Continue reading