Just to review, your MAP is composed of three distinct elements:

1. Message: Have a compelling message

2. Audience: Share that message with a lot of people

3. Proof: Provide proof to back up your claims

In Part 2 of this series I discussed the importance of a compelling sales message and shared the formula for creating your messages. In Part 3 we will take a look at the techniques for sharing your message with a large audience.

At the end of the day sales, success boils down to one very simple (but not easy) thing: making sure that enough people hear your message. Regardless of your product or service if you simply tell enough people what your do you will secure opportunities to present your value proposition. And if you present often enough you will make sales regardless of your level of sales skill. If you want to make more sales you can either create a more compelling message or increase the number of people that hear your message. Hopefully, you will do both since that would be the most effective way to close more business.

Finding Your Audience

Regardless of whether you want to share your message verbally or via the written word there are more ways to share your message today than ever before in the history of selling. Let’s begin this section by looking at some of the ways you can share your message.

Verbal Techniques

1 – Cold calling by telephone and door to door

• Video
• Podcasts
• Public speaking
• Networking
• The Written Word

2 – Direct Mail
3 – Websites
4 – Online Content

• White papers
• Testimonials
• Article publishing
• Ezines
• Offline publications

Social Media actually combines both verbal and written communication. Users can post links to both video and written information for their connections to view.

The smart salesperson will incorporate as much of this list as possible in an attempt to build a large audience for her sales message. This article is just one of the many avenues that I use to share my message with as large an audience as possible. In fact, I personally utilize virtually the entire list in my own marketing.

There are two goals for creating as large an audience as possible. The most obvious goal is to secure an appointment to sell your product. Less obvious but equally important is to build a list of people who are open to receive ongoing communication from you. It is the latter point that most salespeople miss. Most salespeople are so focused on the appointment that they forget about creating relationships with prospects who do not have an interest in an immediate sales appointment.

At the end of the day people buy, because they feel like they know the salesperson, they like the salesperson, and most importantly, they trust the salesperson. Creating a large audience allows you to help the prospect get to know you and feel like they can trust you because you have shown yourself to be an expert in your field. Over time, assuming you provide meaningful content, the prospect will also feel like he likes you. And then out of the blue, you will find yourself opening unexpected sales opportunities.

Are you interested in selling Verizon Wireless services? Call us at (855) SELL-VZW or fill out the form below.  We look forward to talking to you soon!

The post The MAP to More Sales – Part 3 appeared first on ConectUS Wireless.

1. Message: Have a compelling message

2. Audience: Share that message with a lot of people

3. Proof: Provide proof to back up your claims

If you really want to increase your sales you can either improve your message, increase the number of people that you share your message with, or better yet do both. In this article, I will talk about how to improve your message.

Message Defined

Let’s begin by defining what a message is not. Your sales message is not a job title such as “business coach”, “health insurance agent” or “Mary Key Representative”. Your message is a brief description of the results that an individual can expect to receive from your products or services. In my case, my core message is: “I help salespeople, coaches, consultants, and network marketers close more their new sales opportunities.”

If after having read my sales message you thought that it sounded eerily like an elevator speech you would be absolutely correct. Now I know that most of you reading this hate the idea of the elevator speech but I encourage you to read further before making a final decision. In my opinion, this is the single most valuable weapon in your sales arsenal. Your sales messages will become the basis for all of your marketing. Your direct mail, your websites, and your cold calls will all be more effective if you learn to use the results that you deliver.

The Value of the Message

The reason that most people hate the idea of using an “elevator speech” is that they think that the listener will hear it and cringe. In actuality what happens is the beginning of a great conversation. In response to the message that I shared above I always get the same reaction from people that have to close sales: “How do you do that?” I have never had anyone say: “Oh, that’s an elevator speech isn’t it?” When I was actively selling dental insurance my message was: “I provide employers a new design in dental insurance that has premiums that are 25% to 40% lower than other plans and that pays for itself with two cleanings per year.” At almost every networking event that I attended this opening generated at least one good conversation that resulted in a sales opportunity. Had I simply said “I sell dental insurance” I would never have had half of the opportunities that I did.

Creating Your Message

The easiest way to create your sales message is, to begin with, a list of every service that you provide and/or every product that you sell. If you only sell a single product then begin with a list of each feature. Now look at each entry and ask yourself what the benefit to the user would be. Most of your products and services will have numerous benefits to your customers. Your goal is to create as comprehensive a list as possible. The bigger the list the more effective your marketing will become. Over time you will want to use different messages with different marketing endeavors as a way to test each. You want to find the one or two messages that generate the best response from listeners and/or recipients of other marketing mediums such as direct mail.

Conclusion

While it may be uncomfortable at first, you will find amazing results when you get into the habit of using a strong sales message both in your personal contacts and in your marketing. I would encourage you to try it and see what happens before you pass judgment. In the immortal words of the Alka Seltzer commercial “Try it, you will like it!”

Are you interested in selling Verizon Wireless services? Call us at (855) SELL-VZW or fill out the form below.  We look forward to talking to you soon!

The post The MAP to More Sales – Part 2 appeared first on ConectUS Wireless.

At the end of the day sales success boils down to just three things:

1. Message: Have a compelling message

2. Audience: Share that message with a lot of people

3. Proof: Provide proof to back up your claims

Sales success is really not that complicated when you get right down to it. The reason that you are not experiencing the level of success that you want is simply that you are weak in one or more of these three areas.

Two of the most frequent questions that I get are: “what about using questions to advance the sale?” and “what about overcoming objections?” As for overcoming objections, my response is that you cannot and should not attempt to overcome objections. The whole idea of overcoming objections is a myth. I am not saying that you cannot overcome an objection but that in today’s marketplace the cost of overcoming objections is too high to be worthwhile. If you look at your last 100 sales I can guarantee that you did nothing to overcome an objection in 98 of those sales. When you attempt to overcome an objection you create an adversarial relationship that results in alienating the prospect rather than advancing the relationship. In the 21st century advancing the relationship is far more important than attempting to overcome the objection.

As for the use of great questions, my response is this: artful use of questions can definitely result in closing more sales opportunities. But the key is the “artful” use of questions and that takes a lot of practice. Unfortunately, most salespeople will not put the time into becoming skillful in using questions during the sales process. That said if you have a compelling sales message and share it with a large number of qualified prospects you will secure a lot of opportunities to present. If you can then provide proof of your value prior to the first meeting you will close a lot of those opportunities regardless of your skill in using questions.

By now you are probably which of the three components is most important. Quite frankly I would tell you that you have to share your message with a lot of quality prospects. If the only thing that you did was talk to 100 people every day sharing a simple message of: “I sell ‘X’ and would like to tell you about it” you would get several opportunities to present every day. With zero closing skills, you would make sales if only by accident. Early in my career selling life insurance, I read the following:

“Show me a telecom specialist that will go belly to belly with ten people every day and tell his story and I will show you a telecom specialist that cannot fail!”

I have no idea who wrote that but it made a huge impact on my career. From that day onward I knew that I had to focus on telling my story to as many quality prospects as possible.

Are you interested in selling Verizon Wireless services? Call us at (855) SELL-VZW or fill out the form below.  We look forward to talking to you soon!

The post The MAP to More Sales – Part 1 appeared first on ConectUS Wireless.