Over the last few months there has been a lot of talk of
recession. Wherever you look and whatever you read, ever
since the American subprime crisis, talk of a recession
seems to be bombarding us from every possible media. Every
expert there is seems to have something to say about
whether there will or whether there won’t be a serious
recession and if there is, how long will it last and just
how severe will it be?

If there is a serious recession, learning how to keep on
selling in a recession will be vital. Sales training might
well be the key.

I have worked with many clients who have weathered
recessions, grown their businesses through recessions and
even set up and started successful businesses in
recessions. Now is not the time to be panicking. Now is the
time to be checking your sales activities, sharpening your
sales training activities and applying solid sales
principles.

1. Believe you can and stay positive!

One of the problems with all of this talk about recession
is that once people believe there is going to be a
recession they start to feel negative about their
prospects. The nature of belief is such that people only
tend to see what they believe rather than believing what
they see. Once you believe that there is going to be a
recession you tend to only notice articles, comments and
statistics that support your beliefs.

What’s more, your negative beliefs quickly affect your
outlook and the way that you feel about your business
prospects. Think about it for a second… If you thought
2008 was going to be a great year for business, your best
year yet; how would you feel? Conversely, if you thought
2008 was going to see a major recession and that it was
going to hit you and your business hard; how would you feel?

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Zig Ziglar tells a great story centered around a pump. In
fact, he used to carry around a chromed hand-pump to his
sales seminars to help illustrate his point. He would
present the idea that a pump only worked after it was
properly and sufficiently primed.

Priming requires a combination of technique, resources and
time. After a successful priming period, water would flow
from it freely and bountifully. It is the same with people
and success. We must develop and invest the proper skills,
materials and time in order to reach a wellspring of
selling rewards.

The following are several proven activities to assist you
with the priming of your success pump:

1. Re-evaluate and refresh your goals.

Goals are dynamic. A successful strategy must include
regular internalization and review of your goals, your
progress and the adjustments needed to guarantee your
success. Take an honest look.

2. Get congruent with your sales plan. Perform a GAP
analysis.

Review your sales plan. Notice the gap between where you
expected to be and where you are. What can you do about it?

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In practice building (and getting clients) it seems to be
that most self-employed people just hope for the best. They
simply keep doing what they’ve been doing and don’t have a
strategy for creating the practice they’d be truly and
deeply happy with. This is a big mistake in my opinion.

I used to write down my goals each year, but it never
really worked for me. I just didn’t feel really excited
about my new goals. They didn’t seem to propel me in motion
and so I kind of viewed them as being useless. I never
really looked at them, probably because they seemed like
“shoulds” rather than “really-meaningful-wants.”

Then I came across the concept of creating 3-year visions
instead of just a list of goals for the upcoming year. This
visioning wasn’t just about business goals, but also
family, financial, spiritual, and relationship goals. It
became a “holistic” way of looking at what you wanted in
your life. All the pieces looked like they would work
together, but only because you were compelled to make it
all work together, which was the first time I’d done that
in such depth.

The coolest thing about visioning 3 years out came to me
after I started doing this regularly. I noticed that ONE
year goals were never too much of a stretch. They seemed
like timid goals, goals that didn’t really get me excited.
But having to create a vision of what 3 years down the line
would look like allowed me to REALLY think BIG.

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According to a survey conducted by SBA (Small Business
Administration) 60 out a 100 small business owners claim
that over 60% of their new business comes from referrals.

But only a handful of professionals can clearly pinpoint
where their referrals come from and the exact process they
use to turn them into paying clients.

Amazingly – when it comes to referral marketing - majority
of entrepreneurs seem to rely on luck! Ouch – this is not
exactly the best formula for business success!

When asked about how they turn referrals into clients, most
professionals have a deer-caught-in-the-headlights, puzzled
look on their faces and keep quiet.

The First Two Key Success Factors of Referral Marketing

Those who truly can sleep peacefully at night knowing their
referral generating process is working with the predictable
precision of a Swiss banking system understand the power of
using FREQUENCY of EXPOSURE.

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You have to make more sales! This is the message that is
drilled into every salesperson’s mind on a daily basis.
Usually they’re expected to achieve this through cold
calling and other age-old techniques in a hope that they
will be able to make a sale. However, this single-minded
focus on sales figures tends to leave the customer unhappy
and unwilling to buy from the salesperson a second time.
How is this possible since they successfully sold the first
time?

The answer is not, as you may think, in the product or
service. The reason for this customer dissatisfaction is
that many salespeople are excellent at selling, promising
unparalleled service but are unable to meet customer
expectations. There is such a single-minded focus on making
a minimum of 50+ calls per day, but how much time does that
really leave for a salesperson to deliver? The need to make
so many calls in a day leads to an ineffective use of a
salespersons time. Yes, they may make a sale but it is
vital for salespeople to adapt their methods to focus on
long term client relationships.

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If you plan to cold call high-level decision-makers expect a mental transition to come. The time of transition comes to different people at different points in time, often without the seller even realizing it has happened. The way you think will morph into the very kinds of thoughts top decision-makers think. Seemingly, suddenly you will have their perspective of the world and be able to communicate in a way that gets fast results.

You’ll no longer be stuck in the quagmire of low-level
decision-makers who make decisions within limited decision
making capacity as dictated by the high-level decision
makers. You will be free to think and move through business
transactions with the same abilities as higher levels of
your prospects’ organizations.

A case in point.

This week on the fourth day of waiting in the hospital’s
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for “official” updates re: my
sister-in-law’s health disposition. Finally, on the fourth
day  I flipped over to my cold-calling-executives mindset.
Nurses said they could provide no information, seven
different physicians said they were not the attending
physician and could not counsel the family.

For whatever reasons these medical professionals were
limited in their problem solving ability. The hospital
administrator was the next logical stop - as he was “the
buck stops here guy who was accountable to share holders.”

One call to his office resulted in an on site visit by his
personal assistant; the appearance of the previously
unknown “attending physician”; and the collection of
family’s constructive feedback was reported back to the
hospital administrator.

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Hiring a service provider to prospect for you or sell your
product or service can be a very effective solution.
However, you can also waste valuable time, money, and have
the reputation of your company tarnished very quickly.
There are a few good, professional, and legitimate service
providers with solid business models and there are those
that do not. Be very careful. The purpose of this article
is to educate you and help you develop an understanding of
what to expect in the outsourced Sales and Telemarketing
industry in order to make a wise decision.

Beware of 100% pay for performance arrangements. Don’t give
in to the NO RISK temptation. When providers are
compensated for quantity instead of quality, you can
imagine what happens - the quality of each lead drops, as
quantities rise - and your in-house sales team has to work
twice as hard to weed out the “garbage leads”. These type
of arrangements fail the majority of the time due to
constant turnover, recruiting, poor management,
re-training, and re-ramping. No real momentum or business
continuity is ever established. Finally and most
importantly, your companies reputation will be adversely
effected due to the lack of professionalism.

Realistic Expectations. Many sub par providers of this
service will tell you just about anything you need to hear
to make the sale. They make a living turning over clients
with cheap rates and small tests. Why? Because they gain
more sales. Your provider should want to know your business
in detail and listen to your objectives. An honest provider
will tell you what is realistic within a certain amount of
hours. There are many variables, so its not feasible for
any provider to tell you exactly what to expect. However,
they should give you a realistic depiction of ramp times
and potential production. They should come up with a
customized strategy recommendation for success. A good
provider should be focused on how to maintain a long term
partnership.

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Copyright (c) 2007 George Sierchio www.actionbusinesspartners.com

Direct marketing is, and will probably always be, one of the best ways to get a steady stream of new customers for your business. And that goes for any type business. Obviously you will need to make slight variations between one industry and the next, but it still works very well. More importantly, it is a very measurable form of marketing.

This is something any company that does not have a million dollar advertising budget should consider extremely important, since no marketing is worth doing unless you can measure the results.

Interesting Statistics
Allow me to give you a few statistics on why I like direct marketing so much for lead generation for any type of company. Below are average response rates for various types of marketing campaigns:

Direct Marketing Response for Lead Generation
Email- .29%
Magazine- .49%
Mail- 2.56% (6.1% with follow up)

Looking at these numbers, why would any business not employee some form of direct marketing?

Key Phases to Effective Direct Marketing for Lead Generation
There are a few important things to keep in mind when deciding to develop a direct marketing campaign.

#1- The list you are marketing to is the first key to your success. Narrowing down a demographic, whether business-to-consumer or business-to-business, is a must. The size of the list is up to you (10,000, 1000, 100 names) but the type of people you are targeting should be as tight as feasibly possible. The tighter the niche, the more expensive the list, but this will also avoid sending wasteful amounts of material into the mail that won’t go to viable prospects.

There is a fine line between how much you spend on the list and how much the mailing costs. For example, a somewhat narrow list of 1000 names may be worth sending a low cost postcard mailing to, but a more focused 500 names may make more sense for sending an expensive mailing.

Where do you find these lists? Well there are many different resources to find the broadest or most minute type of prospect. For large volumes or very specified groups of prospects, you should use a list broker such as sales genie/info usa, melissadata.com, etc.

For a list of lists and places to find them, go to your local library and ask for the SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service). You can also find the SRDS online and sign up (for a fee) for their services.

#2- Focus on one subject. The worst thing you can do is to come up with a great list to market to and push everything you do on them in one shot. Even a catalogue company does not do this. Everything is theme based. So pick one burning problem and focus on that. This also may cause you to further break down a good list of prospects into sub groups that would benefit more from one solution or product than another.

#3- You need to get the marketing piece opened. Getting an envelope opened can be a challenge, but you can get very creative with the packaging to make it interesting to open.

What you want to avoid is making it look like pure advertising if possible. The easiest way is to use handwritten addresses or print them directly on the envelope. Stickers are a bad idea that scream “you don’t know me but I want to sell you something”. Actually, the return address should be pretty void of screaming the same thing.

You may want to consider not putting the company name on there until you establish a relationship. If you don’t need to know if the mail even got there, don’t even put a return address on the envelope. The only problem with this method is that you will not know if you have a bad address or not.

There are many other very creative ways to compel your audience into opening your marketing. An example would be to put something inside like a pen or a CD. Or you can use a bigger envelope or send a box.

These methods could get expensive so that expense should be offset by a higher margin product. You don’t want to spend $2 per prospect to sell something with a $4 profit margin… unless you have the ability to sell an incredible volume of them. You get the picture.

In the case where you want to avoid the “get it opened” issue altogether, then a postcard works best, but it is limited as to the amount of information that can go on it. This really needs to be developed with a graphic designer so that it catches the eye.

Additionally, everything must be said quickly and to the point since real estate on the postcard is limited. This is a great way to avoid accidentally including unnecessary “fluff” in the mailing.
Please note that postcards must be used to contact the correct audience.

I wouldn’t recommend trying to reach executives at large companies with a postcard but smaller businesses and consumers are good targets for this type of medium.

One other method is to use a single sheet of paper and fold it closed. It becomes a self contained package that has more information real estate than a postcard.

#4- Get the actual direct mail piece read. This is not rocket science but it’s not super easy either. The purpose of the first line in a letter is to get the reader to read the second line and so on. It should be aimed at a major pain point and not talk about what you can do but rather what the benefits in solving the problem are to the prospect.

Know the difference between a benefit and a feature. For example, a car that has automatic headlights is a feature of the car. The benefit is that it adds a safety feature to make sure your lights are on when they should be.

The focus of any campaign is on the benefits of solving the burning problem and then the benefits of your solution. You can talk about features but they must be followed up by benefits.

Make the piece easy to read by using short and concise sentences with a flow more like your personal way of speaking than formal writing. Examples and stories also are a good idea to include in any written piece. These types of things all generate trust and allow you to form a bond before you even meet the prospective client.

#5- You need a call to action. The reader must be asked to do something or the piece you have sent out is a total waste of time and money. Unless you have a mail order company, this mailing should really be a prospecting piece and therefore should prompt the reader to download a free report on the pain point, use the enclosed coupon, etc. It is usually best to not go for the sale immediately.

When you offer something for free, you can determine a good prospect when they actually take it and you can track it. Now you have begun a relationship (giving) and opened the door to selling something later (taking). You can’t easily take unless you give first. Being in the business of helping people and getting them what they need and want is the key to any successful and fulfilling business.

#6- You need to test your piece including the delivery package. One of the best parts about any direct marketing campaign is that it can be measured and tested.

Read the piece to yourself. If it doesn’t flow almost as if you were speaking instead of reading, consider revising it. Have others read the piece that have no interest in the subject as well as colleagues that understand the subject at hand.

Don’t forget to also test the entire package. Mail it to yourself to see how you react to it when it arrives. Send it to a colleague and don’t tell them it’s coming. If you don’t hear from them in a few days, you know you have some work to do on the package.

Once you think it’s ready, send it out to a small test group from the list you have developed for this campaign. Pick out about 10% of the list and see what happens. As long as the list is good (i.e. the names and addresses are valid), you can expect about the same result from a full blown campaign to the list.

#7- You need a SYSTEM. The best direct marketing piece in the world is worth very little if you do not have a process or system in place. This entails issues such as; tracking your success rate on the piece, having a follow-up sequence for those that did not respond and a follow-up sequence for those that did respond. Constant waves of contact will eventually produce a full sales pipeline.

Don’t Forget the “Waves”
The first pass is just that- a first pass. You really need to have 3 to 9 points of contact, or “waves”, in your system for it to be effective. Sometimes that also involves phone follow up and not just mailings or emails.

For each wave that involves a mailing, you need to follow phases 2 through 6 from above. Don’t forget to add in the proper tracking to all of the waves in your lead generation system.

Wrap-up
These are very basic steps to a direct marketing campaign. Every type of business out there can, and should, use some form of direct marketing/lead generation in their marketing mix. This includes low tech to high tech, B2C and B2B, retail to manufacturing as well as everything in-between.

Although a tight niche of prospects is a big key to any successful campaign, picking one subject to talk about and not going in for the kill immediately is really the most important thing.

Build a relationship with those interested in what you have to offer and they will sell themselves. Everyone likes to buy, but nobody likes to be “sold” on something.

Many entrepreneurs go into business for themselves armed
with great expertise in their field.  All too often,
however, they are missing one critical skill:  salesmanship.

Someone once said, “Nothing gets done until something is
sold.”  This statement is especially true in small
business.  Without the ability to sell a prospect on your
product or service, your business will not survive.

There are three critical steps to closing the sale and
getting your prospect to say “Yes.”

1.  Make sure your prospect is a qualified buyer.

My first year in business, I wasted precious time selling
to people who either didn’t have the funds or the need for
my service.  Once I learned to qualify prospects by asking
a few key questions, I was able to separate the buyers from
the “tire kickers” pretty quickly.

Qualifying questions look something like this: “Would you
like a price quote?”  “How soon do you need it?”  “Will you
need financing for that?”

By qualifying your prospects, you’ll funnel your time and
energy into more productive, revenue-generating
activities-like closing more sales!

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Increase the amount of the initial customer purchase by
offering discounts or other extra bonuses on quantity
purchases. What you want to do is encourage the buyer to
spend more money by offering special inducements, extras,
discounts and special deals.

Some buyers are happy to buy consumable products by the
case, rather than by single package, if they can save a
little money by doing so. Just look at the success of
stores like Costco. Much of their food items are bundled
into quantities that are larger than those a typical family
would buy. But often the price is just too hard to pass by.
People end up spending more cash to “save” money.

Once you have a customer in your store, or browsing through
your catalogue, your task is to maximize the value of that
purchase. You want to make it easy for your customer to
spend more than he or she originally planned to. And you
want them to do so happily and without regret.

Your goal should always be to develop life-long customers.
Therefore, whatever special deals you offer them should
always be in their best interest.

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