All Posts by John Aberle

I Love Podcasts

By John Aberle | Internet Marketing , Podcasts

I love podcasts. If you haven’t tried them yet, you might find they are a wonderful way to expand you knowledge while exercising or driving. Despite the name, which implies they are for an Apple iPod, podcasts are actually mp3 recordings that will run on any mp3 player or even on your computer if you have an mp3 player. Most sites with mp3 downloadable files also have a flash mp3 file you can use to listen to the recording right there. For an example, check out my PodBean site, http://johnaberle.podbean.com/. You can also Google – or use your favorite search engine, like Yahoo! to find “flash mp3 player” if you want to install one on your site.

Because I find podcasts so helpful, it came as a shock when I read something on Paul Colligan’s Business of Podcasting and New Media blog post, 1/28/09, “Podcasting Is Dead?” http://www.paulcolligan.com/. Apparently some authorities claim podcasting is dead. Yet Paul showed a Google Trends graph that clearly indicates an incredible interest level in podcasts compared to social media, new media, and online media. Obviously the public still thinks podcasts are vital and important. You can find my comment at http://www.paulcolligan.com/2009/01/28/podcasting-is-dead/#comments.

What do you thinK about podcasts? What do you like or not like about them?

Focus Your Marketing on Your Ideal Customer

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing

Everybody today is under pressure to perform, to do more with fewer people. So how do you get more sales with the time, effort and money available? The key today, as always, is to focus on your ideal customer’s profile.

Everything builds from there out. No matter how good your product, your ideal niche market is something less than the entire world poplulation. So look at your best customers to help determine where your niche really is right now. One rule of thumb is that 20% of your customers account for 80% of you sales.

Knowing the characteristics of your ideal customer enables everything else to flow naturally. For instance, knowing the profile of your ideal prospects makes it possible to figure out what their wants and needs are. It’s even a wise idea to ask them why they buy from you. Sometimes the reasons will surprise you.

Armed with that information, you can write your unique selling proposition or USP to appeal to what people fitting this profile care about. The USP tells them what is unique or special about your products, services, or business that makes you their ideal choice.

Using the USP, you can write your questions and benefit statements to appeal to those concerns. Ask these questions to find out if they have problems you can help solve. People buy when they see a product fits their interests. It must answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” When they feel good about what your products and services deliver for them, they will seek you out.

Your marketing campaign flows from the inner three: ideal customer > unique selling proposition > benefit statements > marketing campaign. Naturally, your headlines and your copy or written material must attract the attention and hold the interest of your prospects. Additionally, knowing your ideal prospect’s profile also helps you target your marketing activities and budget on the ways most likely to reach that sort of prospect.

So to get the most impact from your marketing campaign, first decide what your best customers have in common. Usually they provide 80% of your business. From that knowledge, identify your distinctive value to people like them. Develop questions to find out if they have wants and needs your products and services address. When you present your solution, stay focused on the benefits from their viewpoints. Use this knowledge and understanding to be sure your marketing materials speak to their concerns. And have this customer profile to guide your marketing investments. This focus will help you generate the most sales for your time, effort and money.

Customer Service Lessons Learned from Installing Plugins

By John Aberle | Blogging , customer service

I know that this sounds like a simple, silly thing to someone who’s a code jockey or programmer or even just really technically knowledgeable about WordPress. Nevertheless, because I’m a blogger who is only slightly knowledgeable, I have spent days in frustration over plugins. I would upload them to my blog site but they never appeared on my plugins page so I could activate them. Finally, it dawned on me what the problem might be – and I just confirmed I was right.

After I downloaded a plugin to my computer, I would click on it to extract it to a folder. What happened with most of them is that they created another folder or they were already in a folder. My installation instructions would say to upload the folder to the blog’s wp-content/plugin folder so I would. Then I would go to my Site Admin and select Plugins, but when I went down to the available but not activated plugins I wouldn’t find the ones I uploaded. Yesterday I realized it was because the plugin folder had another folder in it instead of the files that WordPress was expecting, so they couldn’t show up. When I moved the files up so there was only one folder, the plugins showed up.

This issue goes to the whole concept of customer service. All of us make the same kind of errors. It’s actually a form of blindness because we can’t see the assumptions we take for granted, the steps we are not even conscious of taking because they are so automatic.

What procedures do you have that are frustrating your customers? These are the things that destroy loyalty. On February 1st, I wrote about building customers by word-of-mouth in “The Best Marketing Is Word-of-Mouth.” It takes a positive, exciting customer experience to draw people to you. A negative experience creates word-of-mouth stories that drive people away. What can you fix in your products or services that will remove something annoying your customers so that they can enjoy their customer experience with you more?

The Best Marketing Is Word-of-Mouth

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing , Sales Management

We know it from our personal experiences. Word-of-mouth marketing is the best because we all believe our friends more than some advertiser. But generating word-of-mouth business is a challenge. I have no control. It just happens, right?

Actually, there are things we can do to encourage people to talk about us. I just listened to a fascinating podcast, “Word-of-Mouth Marketing,” by Karen E. Klein, Business Week Smart Answers columnist. She interviewed Bertrand Cesvet, about his new book, Conversational Capital.

Bertrand said we need to plan from the beginning to encourage word-of-mouth marketing. Think about the “story” we want people to tell. Basically, people talk about consumer experiences. He gave examples of Cirque du Soleil and Volkswagon to show what it means to have a story.

In Conversational Capital, Bertrand covers eight elements to becoming a topic people want to talk about. It really comes down to developing a great “story.” What I got from this is that it needs to be something people experience. I bring this back to benefits.

Just what is it that the customer can experience with your product or service that is exciting? In other words, what emotional connection will they make? Remember, not all word-of-mouth is positive. I’ve told my share of stories about service so bad I’ll never go back. Here’s an interesting “story” from a blog post Seth Godin made July 05, 2005: Red Lobster claims to be a Maine company, but they’re located in Florida and, at that point, didn’t have any restauarants in Maine. While I may not stop going there because of this lie, it undermines my respect for the chain. I’ll give them some slack because it’s a “theme” restaurant.

On the other hand, I’ve also heard wonderful stories about the salesperson who became a resource and so earned ongoing business – he helped the manager of this manufacturing line to solve a problem with production. The engineer I spoke to made it clear he wanted to ensure he would have access to that salesman’s knowledge and ideas because the rep made his job easier.

“Stories” I’ve told people include my confidence in getting a fabulous Ribeye steak at Outback Steakhouses everywhere I go in the U.S. The best story is about how Stephen Brooks in Covina comped a meal because the service wasn’t up to his standards. And I will long remember the extra effort by Tony Gonzales at my West Covina Men’s Warehouse to fix my cuffs so I could take the suit for a trip the next day.

What can you do to make dealing with you enjoyable enough that people will enjoy telling others about the experience? Give them a “story” to tell, but be sure it’s a good story.

Least Favorite Customer Type: The Bully

By John Aberle | sales

We all knew them when we were growing up. It seems every school or every community had at least one bully. The problem is that most of us still have to deal with them at work or as our customers.

If you’ve any length of work experience, you’ve had at least one boss who was a bully. If you are in sales, you’ve encountered them as customers. Sometimes they are normally nice people who are so frustrated with your company’s policies they lash out. But others bully people as a normal course of dealing with others.

I never felt comfortable that I knew how to handle them. Then I read Seth Godin’s blog for January 28, 2009. It rang true.

In a few paragraphs, Seth clearly defined bullies and then stated how to handle them. In essence, “A bully is someone who uses physical or psychological force to demean and demoralize someone else. A bully isn’t challenging your ideas, or working with you to find a better outcome.”

His solution is captured by the title, “Take the ball and go home.” I encourage you to check out this article at http://tinyurl.com/bhalav.

Suzi Defines "Sales"

By John Aberle | sales , Sales and Marketing

Suzi Pomerantz on her YouTube interview, “Business Development Defined,” described the difference between networking, marketing, and sales. I was particularly interested in her take on what sales is: “Sales is really implementation. That’s when you’re out meeting people, talking to people, finding out what their interests are, finding out what they do, and how, whether or not your services can help them.” Obviously my interest is self-serving. After all, I believe the role of a salesperson is to Help Customers Buy.

Ethical Dilemmas – When Billing Becomes Theft

By John Aberle | Consulting , Ethics

Greed and a lack of an internal moral compass produced our current economic meltdown – incredible numbers of people so focused on making astronomical profits that ethics went right out the window. Corporate executives have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders and investors that they completely ignored. Now, the American taxpayers are bailing out an industry that had our funds in trust.

The interesting thing is that it’s easy to point fingers at the people in the news to complain about how they committed theft and ignore our own ethical shortcuts. This past week I got some insight into how difficult it is to set our own ethical limit.

I had the great good fortune this past week to participate in training with a major small business consulting firm. I was excited about being there because the trainers said the things I wanted to hear about doing what’s best for both the client and their company. Everybody wins. I love it!

Even though I tend to be idealistic in how I approach caring for a client, I too have failed at times to live 100% according to my values. Sometimes personal survival temporarily overrode what I felt was right because I “needed” to keep my job. So this past week was good because I got to see other viewpoints that softened my rigid standards a bit.

But in the end, one executive’s story showing how he cared about what was in the client’s best interest, back when he was a field consultant, really stuck with me — because it showed me how far apart we could be in our viewpoints while both of us sincerely say the same words.
(For the rest of this article, go here).

NOTE: To read the rest of this article,you will need Adobe Reader.

To Find Your Place in the Market, Innovate

By John Aberle | Business Management , Sales and Marketing

Yesterday, when I was looking for a way to explain to my client what I meant about solving a need that customers have, my wife’s frustration with passenger seatbelts dawned on me. Why is it that the driver’s seatbelt gives freedom of movement whereas the passenger seatbelts are restrictive, confining, and uncomfortable? It’s no wonder we need laws to make people wear them. This is an example of finding a need to something that isn’t working well.

Alex Mandossian in one of his podcasts made the point well that the money is made by innovators, not the inventors. Innovators take an existing concept and tweak it so that the public will want it more than the original. I think a good example of this is Starbucks. They certainly did not invent the idea of coffee shops.

Faith Popcorn in her book Clicking describes it as “Clicking Through Small Indulgences.” Actually, I think Starbucks tapped into “Clicking Through Fantasy Adventure” as well. They definitely tapped into the desire for community. They created coffee shops that specialized in fancy Italian coffee drinks and cleverly expanded the concept of “small indulgences.” They’ve done a lot more things right that I intend to cover another time because they are off the point here.

The main point is that the people who survive and even thrive in down times are those who manage to innovate. Find out what your customers want and need – what works well with what they are doing now? What isn’t working? What would it take to make it work? Why? Be sure before you invest heavily in manufacturing that 1) the need is large enough to support ramping up production and 2) that the market is willing to pay enough for it to be profitable.

Once you have done all of this, remember the world does not beat a path to your door for inventing a better mousetrap. You still have to do a great job of marketing – read that to say of describing and showing the benefits they have been looking for. And finally, you need someone to sell it, to “Help Customers Buy.”

In closing, please let me know
• What are your favorite innovations?
• What are you interested in reading or hearing more about related to sales and marketing?
• Do you agree with my point here?

Sales Training from TD Ameritrade's Commercial

By John Aberle | Sales and Marketing

It’s interesting when you decide to make a point that you expect to annoy some people in sales then you see a commercial that actually reinforces your position. I was watching Numbers tonight, enjoying a new show instead of a rerun! Yeah!

While I often ignore commercials, TD Ameritrade’s commercial caught my attention. I like their commercials better than most. I’ve liked the character Sam Waterson plays in Law and Order so that positive feeling carries over to give him automatic credibility. However, you can burn that trust quickly in advertising. Fortunately for my “relationship” with this star, the ad agency and TDAmeritrade play it straight. Their commercials are believable.

Tonight’s was especially apt because Sam Waterson commented on their stock broker competitors. He implied that all they care about is the sale and their commission. In contrast, TD Ameritrade’s stock brokers “Listen first.” Moreover, they “Talk, not talk down.” I couldn’t write fast enough to get all of the rest, but he made the point about guiding you.

These are the points that I stress with my clients, my readers, and my listeners. In my “ethical bribe,” as Alex Mandossian calls it, I offer a free article on “Easy Sales” to encourage people to sign up for my mailing list. (I have not put this article on Ezine Articles so this is the only place to get it.)

The main point I make there is that when you know your ideal prospect, and you know what they want and feel they need (perceived need), and you offer benefits that fill their desires, you have an easy sale – no pressure, no manipulation, no control of the prospect.
You “help customers buy” because you guide them through the process of buying what they actually want. Hint: they don’t buy a drill to own a drill.

Do You Have the Sales Passion to Become Outstanding?

By John Aberle | sales

In the chapter on “The 10,000-Hour Rule,” in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell makes the point that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve world-class performance, whether it’s with the violin, the piano, or programming – provided, of course, that you even have the basic aptitude to excel at that activity. While he covers many other things necessary to great achievement, the point of this chapter is that the competent put in 4,000 hours of practice. The good performers will invest 8,000 hours while those who want to be true masters of the activity invest a minimum of 10,000 hours. It takes the brain that long to digest and organize those skills.

So what does this have to do with sales? Everything – if you want to become an extraordinary salesperson. You need to find sufficient desire and motivation to put in the time needed to become great.

Learning to Help Customers Buy still takes effort; it’s just developing a different sales approach than the Old School one. It takes an incredible level of persistence to perform 10,000 hours of sales activities, especially to do so with a conscious view to improve. You must constantly look for new and better ways to communicate and to grasp the real wants and benefits your prospect desires – without using control of the prospect, manipulation of his or her emotions, or pressure to buy.

Having a passion for what you are selling is vital to achieving world-class sales performance. After all, why would anyone put in years to master something they hate doing? To become an acknowledged master salesperson, you need enough drive to keep yourself focused on developing and improving your knowledge and skills – 10,000 hours’ worth of persistent practice.

I really value your input. Let me know what you think about this article. Does it jive with your experience? Please comment.