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Archive for November 29th, 2010

Sell Yourself First. The most critical element in every sales effort. Thomas A. Freese.

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Sell Yourself First. The most critical element in every sales effort. Thomas A. Freese. 2011. 978-1591843658. I am a fan of Freese’s work and his approach – because it works. This book offers a bit if everything to the reader. A good review of Question Based Selling, good strong examples and stories to reinforce, and something new. The new part is how to approach a potential client and/or employer with a very strong opening statements that immediately makes you unique from all others and puts the rest into a commodity situation. In our practice we use variants of this approach all the time and it results in clients telling us we are different from all others and we get the high value work. People do not trust or believe most sales people and Freese nails why it happens and what to do about it. He does it by talking about the elephant in the room and getting right at why people have learned not to trust salesfolks. I also enjoyed his chapter on selling value, not on price. Easy clear read (the guy is good at this). Useful for a coast to coast flight – but take notes and review. Simple yes, easy to do , no since you must change sales behaviors.

What is it About Salespeople? (psychologytoday.com)
So what can a CEO, Marketer, Salesperson, or CFO do to improve your pricing? Pricing part 11 (regnordman.com)

Category: Communication, Lifeskills, Sales, Sales Efficiency

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Training your customers for regular price increases. Pricing part 12

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Training your customers for regular price increases. Pricing part 12. If you want to be one of the successful companies who are able to regularly raise prices, through value selling plus other methods you have to start now. Start when they first become a new customer. i.e. start Day1 by reinforcing how to prevent late fees, change of terms costs, change order costs, decision delay charges, partial ordering charges and so on.

Use psychology 101.

Stepwise small price increases are more palatable than one large one.
The power of 9 still reigns in setting price (sets a reference price).
Large cuts are seen as better than a series of small ones (increase the perception of saving).
Humans love to see that they have avoided a cost versus having one forced on them ( The sense of something gained vs something lost).
Take an offer away when you say you will. ( Increase sense of loss)
Communicate your price increases many months ahead – see what the competition does

Use the power of stories

The need for vendors to remain viable
A mutual need for survival
All competitors will be treated equally

Be prepared for those who went to buyers school (e.g. Lowes, WalMart, IKEA, Safeway)

Run lots of “what ifs” prior to any large bids/contracts
Never volunteer you give price exceptions
Resist being bulled – cause they will try to
Maintain price integrity
Be ready to walk – they are talking to you because they want something from you.
Be prepared to let someone else go broke selling to them