Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

One of my favorite sales gurus is Scott Messer of Sales Evolution. Not only is Scott a good friend, he is a sales expert and master sales coach.

This post will help you solve Your Biggest, Nastiest, Stupidest, Most Expensive Sales Mistake... and give you several of Scott's brilliant sound bites to help you improve your sales success.

We're talking about a BIG sales mistake you probably made last week, will make again this week, and -- unless you heed Scott's wisdom -- will make next week again. 

All of which will cost you THOUSANDS if not TENS of thousands of dollars in lost sales. 

Scary, right? 

What is this big, nasty, pervasive, expensive sales mistake? 

Here it is: Not being a fanatic about collecting decisions from prospects.

Scott says selling is 100% about collecting decisions.

It's not about getting yeses, it's not about closing gimmicks. It's simply about being tenacious about taking prospects down a path (aka your sales process) to help them make a clear and definitive DECISION. As in "Yes" or "No."

Not "Let me think about it" - not "I'll get back to you" - not "circle back with me next week" - not anything other than a firm date and time on the prospect's calendar for you to hear "YES" or "NO." 

How do you do this? Simple - Scott recommends that at every step of the sales process, put a date and time on the calendar for a "decision call." Here's how to ask: 

• Let's put a date and time on the calendar for us to discuss your decision
• Let's put a pushpin in the calendar for us to reconnect about your decision
• Because you and I are both so busy, let's put a date and time on the calendar so you can tell me "Yes" or "No" or to answer any final questions you may have for me

Scott recommends that you forget about your sales pipeline - forget about your number of first appointments, forget about your number of "hot leads" - there is ONE and ONLY ONE measure of how healthy your sales pipeline truly is. 

That measure is - how many decision calls are on your calendar? A decision call, by the way, needs to be not only on YOUR calendar - it needs to be on your PROSPECT'S calendar because it is their responsibility to make one AND communicate it to you on that call. 

Example: I had a prospect call me two weeks ago. Let's call him Paul (which is cool because his name is really... Paul.) 

All was going well. Then I got a little derailed when he asked for references. Ordinarily, I would set a decision call by asking him, "When will you make time to call my reference folks? Let's make a time to discuss your decision after that." 

But I goofed. I was in a hurry. I let Paul wander off with no decision date on the calendar. When I called him this morning to circle back, he told me that he had gotten "distracted" and had not called the references at all. He then said, "I'll get back to you within three weeks." 

I laughed. 

Instinctively, I said, "You'll get back to me in three weeks because you're the kind of guy who likes to take lots and lots of time to make a decision and have people like me chasing you endlessly and leaving message after message and email after email when the real answer is no." 

Yup, I said that.

Out loud.

Right to Paul's face. 

Why? Because to quote another Scott Messer sound bite - "You can't blow up a good prospect." 

Paul laughed and admitted that he did NOT, in fact, enjoy being chased endlessly. 

So I put Paul out of his misery and fired him as a prospect. Here's how that sounded: 

"Paul, I'll put you down as a "No" for now. If you'd like to revisit working together, you know where to find me." 

He was perfectly cool with that. So I knew the deal was dead.

I've used that "No for now" line in the past and GOOD prospects will jump in with "No, no, no I definitely want to work with you. I just need more time to..." and they put themselves back into the active prospect column.

What do I do then? You guessed it - we set a decision call on the calendar. 

Anyway, back to Paul... I wanted to put a nail in the coffin so I sent the following email after we hung up the phone: 

===

Paul,

Because you are no longer an active prospect, please do NOT call the folks I sent as references.  

As I'm sure you can appreciate, references are precious and I do not want to burn out my reference folks by speaking with less than 100% committed prospects. (I probably should not have given you references this early in the process anyway. My mistake.)  

Best of luck on your adventures and thank you in advance for respecting my wishes.  

-- David

===

So the lesson is - be relentless with setting your decision calls. There is no other single determining factor that's more important to your sales success.

Trust me - I make more money when I relentlessly implement Scott's "decision call" philosophy. And I make less money when I don't!

Tags: sales prospecting mistakes, big nasty dumb stupid expensive sales mistake, doit marketing, marketing speaker, marketing coach

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Use the COMMENTS area below to leave your advice, insights and recommendations on these ideas to boost your sales success...

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I'm often asked to review my clients' proposals to help them land 5- and 6-figure training, speaking, and consulting contracts. 

The #1 most powerful strategy that will increase your hit rate no matter what you're selling is to be clear and explicit about your client's expected Return on Investment (ROI) -- using their OWN numbers. 

For example, take a look at this suggestion I made to one of my amazing management consultant clients last week... and see how YOU can model a similar section on page ONE of every proposal YOU send out... 

As you may know, I just finished recording the audio book version of the Do It! Marketing book.

The audio book will be published by Gildan Media - the same folks who publish audio books from Brian Tracy, Simon Sinek, and Mark Goulston... and distributed through Hachette Audio - the same folks that distribute audio books for authors like Malcolm Gladwell, David Sedaris, and Scott Turow. Not bad company... and who knows, maybe they need someone like me to carry their luggage!

It was a great experience - and you can see some photos from the studio recording here on Facebook... 

My audio engineer on this project was the fabulous Joel Metzler at Milkboy the Studio in downtown Philadelphia. Great facility and Joel was the consummate pro - a total pleasure to work with! If you need a killer studio facility and you're anywhere near Philly, Milkboy is the place to go. Just sayin'.

17 Tips to Create Audio that Rocks

I've done a lot of homebrew audio - on my laptop - with a Zoom H1 digital recorder - and with my trusty Blue Snowball microphone and Audacity on my Mac. And I've also done a fair amount of studio recording in studios ranging from the scary to the awesome (aka Milkboy).

Here are 17 tips for speakers, authors, consultants, and independent professionals who want to create better sounding, more professional audios for their podcast, radio show, audio products or voiceovers. 

1. Stand up when you record - it makes a HUGE difference to the way your voice sounds. For example, I recorded the entire 12 hours of the Do It! Marketing audio book standing up. (Wear comfortable shoes!)

2. Speak close to the microphone - you want to get right up in that bad boy's face. Somewhere between 4 to 8 inches from the microphone. If you're doing this at home, test different distances and use the one that sounds the richest, warmest and most clear. 

3. Use a pop filter. You will totally thank me later. It's going to be the best money you spend if you're serious about creating great audio.

4. Don't overinvest in equipment. You don't need a lot of fancy gear to sound great. A good USB microphone, a mic stand, a pop filter, and some basic recording and editing software like Audacity (free at this link) will go a long way. 

5. Don't skimp on studio time, either. If it's an important project where production quality counts, find a great local recording studio near where you live. Top notch studio time is surprisingly affordable these days. Expect to pay between $75 and $125 an hour for a top-notch facility and technical staff who can help you produce top-notch work.

6. Don't overprepare. If it's a big project especially - it doesn't make sense to overprepare. You should be familiar with the material (if you wrote it, you will be!) and that's about it.  

7. Don't underprepare. If you've never done an audio recording before, paid studio time is not the place to learn the ropes. Invest a few hours with "practice recording" at home. Your studio time will go that much more smoothly and quickly. 

8. Read - but don't "read." In other words, don't make it SOUND like you're reading. Speak naturally. Pretend you're talking to a friend so it's not boring.  

9. Mix it up. Use vocal variety - just as professional speakers and seasoned storytellers know how to vary their pace, tone, pitch, and volume to keep an audience engaged in what they're saying... YOU should use the full range of your vocal variety to emphasize key words, transition between points, and underscore important ideas. 

10. Use your body. Since you're standing, you'll have the ability to do more physical movement. Use it! It's amazing how the voice and the body are connected. Have you ever seen actors like Robin Williams or Whoopi Goldberg or Tom Hanks in those "Making of" special features on the Disney movies that they do voice acting for? They are gesturing wildly with their hands, bouncing on the balls of their feet, making silly faces, leaning into the microphone, sometimes even jumping up and down. And it's for a VOICEOVER. That's because your vocal energy is tied to your physical energy. Use it - and your voiceover range and variety will improve dramatically.

11. Remember the art of the pause. Listeners need a pause to comprehend the last thing you said. Think of pauses - some short, and some not so short (for dramatic effect) - as the punctuation in your audio. If you never pause, you exhaust your listeners who lose the thread of your long sentences or complex ideas. If you use pauses to insert "natural phrasing" into your script, it makes it much easier for your listeners to understand, absorb, and they WANT to keep listening!

12. Take it one page at a time. For the Do It! Marketing audio book, I had to get through 60,000 words and 280 pages. If I had thought about it that way during the recording sessions, I might never have made it! I took on the task one page at a time. Do longer recordings with this mindset, and you'll sail right through faster than you ever imagined. I cruised through 150 pages on Day 1 (6.5 hours) and 130 pages on Day 2 (5.5 hours). And it was fun!

13. Have a "keep going" mindset. Voiceover professionals know that their main task is to "get the job done" - and that momentum is their friend. Don't think about stopping. Don't take too many breaks. You're in the studio (yes, even your home studio) to crank out the work, not to obsess over minor details or do endless retakes. Keep going!

14. Flaws are good. Good professional audio editors will take out every inhale, smooth over every rough patch, edit out every vocal aberration. GREAT editors will leave in just enough of those same aberrations to make the voiceover pro sound human. When we chat in coffee shops, over breakfast or lunch with friends, or in front of prospects or clients in meetings, our vocal and verbal delivery is never 100% perfect. There's a difference between sounding professional and sounding sterile and robotic. So leave a few "personality flaws" in your audio. Maybe 5-10%. It makes all the difference and you'll sound like a REAL human.

15. Pause whenever you need to. Ah, the magic of editing. Whenever you screw up a line, swallow a word, stop to fix a typo in your script or for any other reason (sneeze, cough, get a drink of water) - keep the audio rolling and pause. Then pick up where you left off. Most professional audio engineers will mark the script at that point to help the editor, but you just pause as long as you need and jump right back in when you're ready. You don't need to ask permission, you don't need to apologize, you don't need to get flustered. Pause so you can GO!

16. Eat! And drink tea, bring lozenges, avoid dairy and coffee and bring water. Don't forget to eat breakfast on the day you're recording. Why? Because stomach grumbling is audible on good audio equipment. Yes, really. Avoid coffee - it dehydrates you. Drink tea - especially lemon tea or ginger tea that has a little bit of acid to clear and soothe your throat. Bring lozenges with you in case you need a midday vocal recharge - I like the Ricola classic Swiss herb cough drops. Avoid dairy products like milk or yogurt which tend to generate phlegm and block up your throat. Also, bring a water bottle so you have plenty of water available in the booth as you record. Water is your friend! 

17. Personality not included. No matter how great your script, it doesn't have any personality until you pick up the script and put YOUR personality into the words you've written. Don't be shy - in fact, if you don't bring your full personality to the recording, you'll miss out on the biggest opportunity that audio programs and products present - the opportunity to connect and build rapport with your listeners and have them experience what it's like to have a warm and personal conversation with you! If you're loud, be loud. If you're a little edgy, sound edgy. Don't hide your personality for the sake of a "professional sounding" recording. There's no such animal - the whole point of recording audio is so that you CAN marry your content with your personality.  

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas to create audio programs that rock!

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Happy Friday. 

A day worth celebrating with a free gift for you - a copy of the best book I never wrote: The Fortune Cookie Business Book.

Click here to download your copy right here, right now. 

Enjoy - and thank you for being a reader of this blog and a supporter of my work. 

(Psst... Want a hardcopy version? That can be arranged here.) 

Comments? Questions? Want to share what YOUR favorite Chinese meal is? (Mine is listed on page 187)... then please use the COMMENTS area below and...

Closing effectively is all about answering this question: "What can you do to minimize the risk to the prospect of buying your product or service?"

Look at all the products out on the market that offer risk-free, money back guarantees. Do you offer guarantees, warrantees, refunds, free trials or make-ups?

In today’s “do more with less” business environment, many economic decision-makers have a new top priority – and it’s NOT “Making the very best choice.”

It is “Not making a mistake that will cost me my job.”

If you can reassure someone with this mindset that buying from you is smart and safe and risk-free, you will automatically close more sales.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• How can I provide a free version of my product or service?
• What can I learn from the auto industry’s new trend of “the 24-hour test drive”?
• What does the buyer have to lose if they buy from me?
• What do they have to gain?
• How can I ensure the buyer’s success – not just their satisfaction?
• How can I employ the concept of risk-reversal – meaning that the risk is all on my side if they don’t achieve success?

When most sales training programs talk about overcoming objections, they usually don’t discuss the real objections that are in most buyers’ minds. These are things like:

• "I don’t trust you"
• "I don’t believe this will get the results you say it will"
• "This sounds too good to be true"
• "If this works, I would have heard of this solution already"
• "Who says so besides you?"

You should understand (and expect) that people probably will not trust you in the beginning of the sales process.

They have been sold stuff all their lives “against their will.”

They bought the steak knives, the late-night infomercial real estate program, the Girl Scout cookies, the raffle ticket, or the used car and regretted it later. (OK maybe not the cookies.) Trust has to be earned over time.

To address these aspects of buyer resistance, you can use a battery of smart sales tools.

You may be using some of these already, but the more you pile on, the more effective they will be.

Start to collect, document, and use:

• Client testimonials (letters are good; audio and video are even better)
• Awards and industry recognition of your product/service
• Press clippings and articles mentioning you or your clients using your product/service
• Objective, fact-based side-by-side comparisons with competing products/services
• Cost analyses and comparisons between using your product/service, using the competition, doing it themselves, and doing nothing

All of these items will help you reduce risk, build credibility, and pave the way for closing more sales - even to your toughest prospects!

Tags: Marketing speaker, marketing coach, close more sales, marketing for speakers, marketing for authors, professional services marketing, selling professional services

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on these ideas and join the conversation...

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, clients often ask me for branding and naming advice to help create a great company name.

Names like...

• The Cookie Machine
• The Video Advisor
• CareerNavigator
• SalesGPS
• The Coffee Hangout
• Guitars After Dark
• The Fitness Foundry

I've seen solopreneurs and companies go through the branding/naming (or re-branding/re-naming) process smoothly and efficiently in less than a week - and I've also seen train wrecks that needlessly dragged on for months. 

How to get started

First, take a look at two blog posts to help you set the stage for an easy, effortless, enjoyable naming and branding process: 

Instant Branding Toolkit

Building Your Brand Sandwich

How not to screw it up

Here are some ideas to dig into for the "how" or "do's and don'ts" of the naming process...

1. At first, sit down with your leadership team. No spouses. No customers. No low-level employees. 5 people maximum.
2. Generate ideas for your raw branding/naming "building blocks" (as outlined in my "Instant Branding Toolkit" blog post)
3. Work over the list until you have 10 strong candidates.
4. Whittle the list down by eliminating 5 of them - the process is "1 vote to eliminate." If there are no objections from the rest of the group, it's gone. If there are objections, then it is up to those individuals to argue the case for "saving" that name until the vote is unanimous either way. This voting/defending process makes things go MUCH faster. And it gets you to focus on much stronger names faster. 
5. With your top 5 candidates, do a customer survey. Not your spouse, your brother-in-law, your Uncle Marvin who used to be an ad agency exec, not your sister who is a brand manager for Tide. Actual, real, live customers. 
6. Take the top 2 scoring names from the customer survey and do an in-house survey with your own team. Use ONLY customer-facing executives. Sales reps are great. Customer service people are great. Field service people are great. Ask them two simple questions: 1. "Given what you know of our customers and prospects, which one of these two names will resonate with them the most?" 2. "Why?" 
7. Compile your results, make your decision, announce your winner, and start your transition to your new name. 

Boom - done!

Does your dog blog? 

Yes? No? Not sure? 

Well, don't worry because mine does.

You're about to get 10 blogging lessons from my black Labrador retriever, Woofie, who turns 10 soon. (FYI her birthday is April 29 and she loves getting birthday notes by email. And she replies to every one!)

What makes Woofie such an authority on blogging? Well, it's simple really - she gets a TON of traffic. Every month, I get emails from GoDaddy, where her website is hosted, to the effect that her website bandwidth (5GB/month) has been exceeded. Sometimes by a factor of two or three!

Put simply: there's a chance that this dog's blog is more popular than yours. 

So to help you fix that, here are Woofie's guidelines for blogging.

And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Late to the party but still ready to have fun... share smart marketing ideas... and put money in YOUR pocket...  

Please give a warm welcome to...

The Do It! Marketing podcast!!!

In this episode, my guest is author and professional speaker Jim Matthis. 

Jim is an international Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), business strategist and best-selling author. He helps business leaders who want to reinvent their businesses in changing economic climates.

Jim is also the author of the best-selling book: “Reinvention Made Easy: Change Your Strategy, Change Your Results,” and “Reinvention 101: Bold Ideas for Reinvention.”

Jim talks with me about the business of speaking AND how executives and entrepreneurs can punch through the noise and sell more effectively - even to prospects who are lazy, busy, and befuddled!

Listen in and then share YOUR advice, insights and recommendations in the COMMENTS area below... 

1. Charge higher prices
2. Focus your energies
3. Do less marketing
4. Attract bigger fish
5. Narrow your niche
6. Promote your expertise
7. Make clients shine
8. Believe in yourself
9. Clarify your value
10. Articulate your fabulousness
11. Start your movement
12. Begin right now
13. Stop wasting time
14. Don't be afraid
15. Close that deal
16. Use the phone
17. Blog more often
18. Take your shot
19. Make idea lists
20. Be the shortcut
21. Different ain't better
22. Better is better
23. Develop more allies
24. Serve great food
25. Showcase others' genius
26. Make it fun
27. Do it right
28. Manage your money
29. Aim higher sooner
30. Never give up
31. Look around you
32. Serve your peeps
33. Make your bed
34. Polish your shoes
35. Do the unthinkable
36. Think the undoable
37. Shift your services
38. Meet new needs
39. Solve old problems
40. Start with kindness
41. Elbow grease rules
42. Do the work
43. Fear the reaper
44. Listen with love
45. Energize your base
46. Refresh your perspective
47. Rediscover your mojo
48. Let it go
49. Be the change
50. Drive more innovation
51. Share the goodies
52. You're already there
53. Pass the Tabasco
54. Live the dream
55. Work crazy hours
56. Write that letter
57. Don't get arrogant
58. Don't get complacent
59. Use better bait
60. Kiss the dog
61. Boost your magnetism
62. Flip their switch
63. Dance the tango
64. Build your empire
65. Sell more passionately
66. Market without fear
67. It's game time
68. Sweat the details
69. Remember the goal
70. Invite more conversations
71. Offer deeper engagement
    
72. Don't wimp out
73. You're so close
74. Take the leap
75. Schedule your tweets
76. Get OFF Facebook
77. Buy the Book (Shhh...)
78. Make more videos
79. Write snarky posts
80. Think more visually
81. Death to PowerPoint
82. Always buy lunch
83. Pitch bigger deals
84. Put clients first
85. Close your email
86. Watch the horizon
87. Keep good notes
88. Capture ideas everywhere
89. Be the rock
90. Leave bigger tips
91. Share your toys
92. Rock their world
93. Make it work
94. Play your hand
95. Take a break
96. Time is limited
97. Jump on it
98. Now or never
99. Action makes traction
100. Kick some butt
101. We need YOU!

1. "The main ingredient of a star is the rest of the team." John Wooden
2. "Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead." Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969) Founder of Aikido
3. "The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." Vince Lombardi
4. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." Steve Jobs
5. “To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.” E. E. Cummings
6. "It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch?'" Winnie the Pooh
7. "You cannot be afraid to be who you are. Live your values. Live your life. A woman confided to me about 'sneaking out of the office' to go to her child's play and I said, ' Stop right there! I have never snuck out of any place. I walk right down the center hall, and if somebody doesn't like it, too bad. Don't worry about me. I will deliver.' Just stand up, do what you need to do, and smile about it. Look them in the eye and say, 'If you don't like it, fire me, and I'll go find another job, because I'm talented enough and I'm committed enough." Shelly Lazarus, chairman, Ogilvy & Mather
   
8. "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, and sweat, and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while doing greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt
   
9. "No road is too long, no honours too distant, advance slowly and without losing heart, for victory belongs to the most persistent." Winston Churchill
   
10. "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree, he will spend his entire life believing he is stupid." Albert Einstein
    
11. "It is not my job to make mean people nice, crazy people sane, or stupid people smart. It is my job to find nice, sane, smart people, and do business with them!" Bob Loeffler, Fearless Agent
    

By the way, these quotes were originally posted in a thread of over 50 great quotations shared on the LinkedIn Group, Professionals Who Speak. Smart cookies in that group - please join us here:

What is YOUR single favorite inspiring quotation of all time?  

Please take a moment to post yours in the COMMENTS area below - it could be one of your own or from someone famous, past or present. Doesn't matter if it's more personal, more professional, for business or for life.
Let's hear YOURS...