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What's the slowest time of year for your business? For many of us, it's the "Dog Days of Summer". Yet for one company, it's the absolute busiest time.
This company whips their customers into a feeding frenzy to buy, and there's no seasonal reason for it. The customer urgency is 100% manufactured. How? Read on....
Mike S.
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Are Sales Cycles Getting Longer?
We have all heard the noise about the changing IT Marketplace. Customers are doing more research before engaging salespeople, more people are involved in the evaluation process, and renegade business units are buying stuff outside of the IT Departments. We know all these things are happening.
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Have you Made your Decision Yet?
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Research by CEB, Forrester, and others all show it's taking longer and longer to close a sale, and it's driving sales departments crazy.
Impending Events
Any salesperson can sell when there's an urgent impending event. When a new office opens, and they need equipment. When a business gets damaged by fire and needs replacement gear right away. A move, an expiring lease, a new regulatory requirement. There are many reasons a customer may need to close a sale quickly. But in most cases, a sale doesn't have an impending event. What then?
Sales Process
Elite salespeople are able to drive purchase decisions and create action, while everyone else is waiting for the phone to ring. Why?
IT Salespeople have been spoiled for decades. There is so much customer demand, and the products and services are so easy to sell. We haven't needed to work hard to make big sales and earn big incomes. Now, sales teams are paying the price as they miss quotas, flub their forecasts, and wonder why this business suddenly so hard.
Creating customer urgency is a sales skill, and one where very few salespeople have mastered. Fortunately, it's a fairly easy skill to learn.
Urgency is a Persuasive Skill
Nobody can magically hypnotize customers and get them to sign contracts, but there's a simple process to create urgency. It has three components:
- Create an Impending Event in the Customer's Mind
- Create a "quid pro quo", where the Customer benefits by taking action and loses by NOT taking action
- Keep the Impending Event "front of mind" at every stage of the sales cycle
For in-depth instruction and examples of how to execute these three steps, check out the upcoming Webinar
How to Create Urgency.
Attitude
One of my former salespeople always had a positive, expectant attitude about closing his sales. When I'd  ask how he was doing, he'd respond "They are horny to buy, Mike, they're horny to buy". In his mind, it was always smart to take action, and any reasonable businessperson would want to do it now.
There always needs to be a reward for a customer taking action, and a penalty if they don't. Successful salespeople get their customers to adopt this attitude.
Why is July 31 the Best Day to Buy?
As I mentioned in the introduction, there is one company that has their best selling month in July, and the best selling day on July 31.
Who is the company? Cisco. Why is July 31 the best time to buy Cisco? Because John Chambers decided it would be. An Impending Event manufactured out of thin air.
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"Why Should you Buy on July 31?
Because I said so" |
You Can Influence Customer Urgency
When customers have a clear understanding of the benefits of your offer, a compelling reason to take action, and a penalty for for inaction, you have the elements in place for a speedy sale. Easy, isn't it?
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WEBINARS
"Micro Sales
vs.
Macro Sales"
How Elite Salespeople Make Huge Sales
Tuesday, Nov 15
Sales Webcast
The Time to Buy is Now
Thursday, Jan 12
12:00 noon
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Trans4mers Sales Leadership Group
Sales Assessment Tools
Jan 23-24
AdTran
International Sales Team
Value Based Selling
Huntsville, AL
Jan 29 & 30
HTG
UC Peer Group
Leadership Skills
Phoenix, AZ
Feb 6-7
Channel Partners
"Your Next Million"
Las Vegas
April 10-11
promo code
SPK0417
HTG
UC Peer Group
Life Legacy
Dallas, TX
ShoreTel CEO
Peer Group
Business Strategy
Toronto, ON
May 16-17
Sales Smackdown!
Influence 2017
NSA Convention
Breakout Session
Orlando, FL
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Here is your chance to see if you are as smart as you think you are.
Think of a difficult or impossible Sales Management problem. Enter it into the question box below.
Mike will provide deep insight into your dilema, based on his 25 years of Sales Management experience. Or not. It depends on how silly the question is. E-Mail Mike at:
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If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. If you are just looking for the "unsubscribe" option, it's below.
"Carpe Dinero" = Seize the Money.
Sincerely,
Mike Schmidtmann
(703) 408-9103
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Feel free to SWIPE* any ideas you find useful, and "pay it forward!
*Steal With Integrity, Purpose and Enthusiasm"
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