by Yoon Cannon | Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Sales Coaching Tip – Overcoming the
‘Not Now’ Objection for High Ticket Items!
There are hundreds of sales coaching tips out there that offer clever but canned responses you can use for your prospects’ objections. I want to provide you something even better than that. I want to show you how you can set yourself up in order to have easy sales conversations without being “salesy”, so you can enroll new clients effortlessly.
One of the greatest sales skills you can have is listening. If you listen to your prospects long enough, they’ll tell you how to sell them. I refer to “selling them” not in a manipulative sense. “Selling” to me is about speaking in their language based on the way your prospect makes decisions.
Here are 3 effective sales coaching tips to help you overcome the “not now” objection, especially for the high-ticket items.
Sales Coaching Tip #1: Answer the “not now” objection BEFORE it comes up.
The best sales strategy to shorten your sales cycle is not to fire back with a stale, overused and gimmicky reply after the objection, but to eliminate the objection from occurring in the first place.
You may be selling a product or service that you think practically sells itself, but if it’s a high-ticket item you’re bound to be met with some hesitation and delayed decision making. Responses like “I need to think about it” or “I need to talk to so and so and get back to you” requires weeks and even months of added follow up that most people end up losing the discipline and motivation to properly do.
Very often eager entrepreneurs and sales professionals dive into presenting your products, services and pricing too early in the conversation without first properly qualifying the prospect. Here are 3 key qualifying questions you can be sure to ask in your preliminary conversations to establish the value they want to receive now:
- What is the result you are trying to achieve?
- What is your “why” for wanting to seek this outcome objective?
- What if you did nothing about it? What is at stake?
Sales Coaching Tip #2: Identify their level of urgency. Key questions to ask your prospect:
- Is your company (or are you) seeking formal proposals for this work?
- How soon are you looking to get started?
- Are you still analyzing or have you already made a commitment to move forward with the project?
- How much time and money have you already invested in addressing the problem?
If the answers to the above questions leave you with the conclusion that your prospect has no or little urgency, then you need to focus on creating that urgency for them.
Sales Coaching Tip #3: Find the economic buyer.
- Do you need anyone else’s approval on this?
- Who else in involved in making this decision with you?
- Who is funding this project?
- Who can immediately approve this project (or purchase decision)?
The reason I ask similar questions several different ways is because I undoubtedly end up uncovering that the prospect I am speaking to does actually have someone else who they will need to gain the final blessing from to move forward, particularly with higher ticket transactions. In those instances, be sure to schedule your appointments with both or all decision makers present.
Step 3: Understand their decision making process.
Similarly, if you want to avoid or eliminate the “I’ll get back to you” response, you need to ask them questions that will help you understand what they need to make their decision and how they make their decisions. Ask questions like:
- Are you seeking other proposals at this time that you’re waiting on?
- If I were to submit a proposal to you tomorrow how long do you need to make a decision yes or no?.
- What is your decision criteria for choosing the right ____?
Asking these questions during the preliminary stages will have your prospects telling you exactly how they buy and what decision criteria you need to match in order for a sale to occur. For those of you in the serving professions who prefer not to use words like “selling”, think of it as asking the right questions to help your interested prospects to decide if they should hire you.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Did you know that LinkedIn has proven to be 277% more effective at generating leads for your business than Facebook or Twitter? With more than 200 million users, LinkedIn is the most popular social network.
If you’re looking for ways to attract new clients faster and easier you need to learn how to maximize LinkedIn marketing for your business.
I have built my solo coaching practice on LinkedIn. What I love about LinkedIn marketing is that it’s free to use — can’t get better than that!
And, it does not require a huge amount of my time. In fact, LinkedIn alone has generated 6 figures in new business for me in as little as 30 minutes a day.
The thing I hear most often from solopreneurs is that while they have a profile on LinkedIn and accept connection requests, they have not been attracting new clients from their LinkedIn marketing.
Okay, that’s like saying you ordered the treadmill and got it set up, but you’re still not losing any weight. If that’s you my friend, I’d like to point out — you need to actually walk or run on that treadmill regularly to start seeing results.
Well, if you’re not on LinkedIn regularly, it’s most likely because you don’t know what you should be doing on LinkedIn to attract new clients. Here are 4 key actions you can take right away to get started.
1) LinkedIn Tip #1: Claim your vanity URL.
When you first fill out your LinkedIn profile the default LinkedIn address you receive will be made up of a garbled combination of letters and numbers. You want to make your profile look more professional and easier to share by claiming your LinkedIn vanity URL.
Instead of a URL like https://www.linkedin.com/in/hslegsbklbsekhb8, it will look a lot more professional as https://www.Linkedin.com/in/YoonCannon.
All you need to do is click “customize your public profile URL” down on the right-hand side.
2) LinkedIn Tip #2: Name your blog and website links.
Instead of using the default “My Website” you can help yourself stand out and be more memorable to your LinkedIn viewers. You will need to choose “other” in the 1st box in order to see the 2nd box where you can now write the name of your blog or website.
Then, in the 3rd box you can write in the url address of your website, blog site and/or landing page.
Each profile can display up to 3 website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile
3) LinkedIn Tip #3: Install applications.
LinkedIn provides a variety of different applications you can use to improve your LinkedIn profile. Check out the Application Directory, and consider linking your blog or applications like SlideShare to showcase your thought leadership and expertise platform. There are a lot of great applications available to help you stand out among your competition on LinkedIn.
4) LinkedIn Tip #4: Register for my free LinkedIn teleseminar.
There is so much more I can share with you in my 60-minute teleseminar than I can fit in the scope of today’s blog post.
If you want to eliminate the overwhelm of social media and discover how to attract new clients faster and easier let me help you during my free LinkedIn training call.
I invite you to join me on
Thursday, October 24th
1:00 pm EST, 10:00 am PST
To register simply click on
https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com/teleseminar
In this power packed LinkedIn training call attendees will discover:
• The reason why you’re currently wasting most of your time on LinkedIn
• How to quickly build your expertise on LinkedIn
• The 3 little known LinkedIn marketing secrets to quickly attract new clients
• Time saving strategies to profit from LinkedIn in as little as 30 minutes a day
* If you can’t make the exact date, register anyway and I will be happy to send you out the replay.
QUESTION: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to marketing yourself successfully on LinkedIn? Please share your comments below.
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, General, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Success Mindset
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 50 percent of U.S. businesses fail within the first five years. The primary reason is poor cash management, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) cites. Good cash management is about keeping your cash as long as possible, and convincing your customers to pay promptly. Keeping a few cash management principles in mind will help you keep a healthy business and stop you from becoming just another statistic.
The Confusion Over Profit
Profit and cash flow are related but not equal, stresses Inc. Your profit and loss statement gives you the simple results of revenue minus expenses. A positive result is considered profit, but you can’t tell how healthy your cash flow is by just seeing a profit. Areas you need to watch include:
- Accounts Payable
- Accounts Receivable
- Inventory
- Capital expenditures
- Level of debt
If customers are slow to pay, resulting in a high receivables, you could see a profit on the books, but a lack of cash in the bank. You could see a profit on paper, but not be able to make payroll or pay your suppliers.
Getting the Bigger Picture
You need to have visibility into your cash flow to know where your company stands, and where you might be in a week, month or year. Future cash flow prediction is an educated guess based on the trends you see in the areas mentioned above, says Entrepreneur.
As soon as you can, get your business onto a consolidated system, so you can easily see the patterns in your business. Cloud-based applications, such as the retail management software from NetSuite, bring together both your online and offline activities to give you a complete picture. Relying on spreadsheets or different applications to track online and offline channels makes it painful to bring the data together so you can accurately predict your cash flow.
When you have the complete picture, you’ll have visibility to such trends as:
- The payment history of your customers
- The accuracy of your planned expenditures
- The ability to cover unplanned expenditures
Without the consolidated view of your performance data, you won’t be able to make those educated guesses needed to plan for your company’s future.
Managing Receivables
Ideally, all of your customers would pay for your products and services at the time of the sale. That won’t necessarily happen as your company grows and increases the customer base by offering credit and special terms. Increase your cash by bringing in more customer payments:
- Give a discount for paying bills early
- Request a deposit when an order is taken
- Get invoices out quickly, and send reminders at 30-, 60- and 90-day intervals
- Once you’ve identified slow paying customers, put them on cash-only terms
Small business owners don’t like the idea of being a bill collector, but the SBA suggests you should do all you can to get something from the customer, because third-party agencies take at least a 30 percent cut if they are successful. Giving discounts as an incentive for payment will let you keep more of the cash in your pocket.
Managing Payables
Keep your cash as long as you can. This improves your cash outlook, especially to banks and investors.
- Use your supplier’s credit terms whenever possible
- Make payments on the last day of your vendor’s cycle — day 29 on a net-30 term
- Use electronic funds transfer (EFT) whenever possible
- Communicate with your suppliers, and build rapport in case you need a break to delay a payment
- Select vendors to work with that have the best terms for your cash flow, not necessarily the lowest prices
Talk to a Factoring Broker
A factoring broker is someone who purchases your invoices, so you use the cash flow immediately for things like making payroll or purchasing needed equipment for the business. This is an excellent solution especially when traditional means of borrowing aren’t available. A factoring broker I highly trust and recommend is Jack Wilson.
A healthy cash-flow is integral to helping you grow your business to the next level. You need cash flow to allow you to hire top talent, beef up your marketing and upgrade your systems. As the saying goes, “you need money to make more money”.
QUESTION: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to increasing your cash flow? Please share your comments in the box below.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Note From Yoon:
September is a great time to get refocused and refreshed.
With the kids back in school (here’s my youngest on the bus!)
and vacation season now ending this is the week to kick start your
business back into gear.
One great strategy to focus on this week is business blogging.
Enjoy this week’s blog article on blogging! Please share your
comments below.
Business Blogging Tips to Attract New Clients
Blogging is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate your area of expertise and also increase traffic to your site. That is why a number of businesses use blogs, not merely to attract new clients, but also to connect and interact with your prospects on a regular basis. It is important to understand that blogging will be as effective marketing strategy assuming your blogs provide great content to your target audience.
Why Blog?
You may wonder why you should blog for traffic, when there are a number of other online marketing techniques that can do the job for you. Here is why blogging is a good idea.
#1. Blogging is free – You can’t get better than free. All you need to do is add an extra page on your site or set up a WordPress blog page to get started.
#2. Google favors sites that add new content – The page rank of your site also improves each time you add a new blog post, thereby increasing the traffic. Updating your business blog on a regular basis adds high quality, meaningful content giving your site greater visibility in the search engines.
#3. Blogs reflect your expertise – Business blogging is a great way to tell the world what you know and how good you are in your field. When you want to gain the trust of your customers, post informational blogs on your site, offer tips and answer the common questions asked by them. Blogging is the easiest way to gain the trust of the audience by sharing of knowledge and information.
What to Blog About?
The next question would be — what should you blog about? Frankly, you can blog about any topic as long as it is relevant to what your offer is, your industry or your niche. To grab the attention of your audience, you should write about specific questions your prospects and clients frequently ask. Think about what your prospect’s greatest areas of struggle, pain and frustration is in their business as it relates to your area of expertise and that’s what you write about.
Tips on Choosing Your Business Blog Topics
Here are some useful tips that can help in selection of a blog topic.
#1. Industry Trends – Company blogs usually revolve around the hottest trends and events in the industry. Writing about these happenings, or giving your opinion or analysis about these trends through your blog is yet another way to tell your audience that you are up to date.
#2. FAQs – As mentioned earlier, blogs that answer the commonly asked questions will increase your readership immensely. Think of 10 or 12 questions your prospects ask you the most when they are considering hiring you.
#3. Case Studies – You can also blog about your client success stories which is an effective way of telling your audience how you have helped other clients. They help the readers relate their problem to the one discussed in your blog and keeps them hooked to your website longer. Make note, case studies work best when they are real stories and not fabricated.
Now that you know why you need to blog and what to blog about, what else is getting in your way of leveraging blogs so you can attract a steady flow of new clients?
Please share your comments and questions below.
Here’s to Your Success!
Blessings~
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Note from Yoon:
Setting your own hours, working from the comfort of your home (in your pajamas?) and being your own boss are some of the big perks of being a small business owner. As a business coach my clients are throughout the United States and even overseas, but it’s all headquartered right in my own home. This is me in my home office (ok, so I don’t always take the Richard Branson approach and work sitting in a hammock).
A major drawback, however, is the cost that it takes to get everything up and running. In today’s article I wanted to share with you my tips for one of the most common questions I receive from small business owners and solopreneurs who are trying to market their businesses on a small budget. Read below and make sure you share your comments and questions.
Blessings!
The Small Business Administration says that the average business owner invests $30,000 into their new business. If you’re dreaming of starting a business, or already have, and are strapped for cash; here are five low cost marketing tips to help you gain and retain customers:
Donate to local fundraisers and charity events.
Doing things like giving $50 to a charity to help victims of a natural disaster or donating some of your products to the school’s annual carnival — and getting your name printed on their handouts — is likely to be worth every penny you invest, says Entrepreneur. Aim to support any cause as a business that you would personally, and try to support events that are mid- to large-scale so that you get the most visibility for your dollar. As a bonus, your donation may be tax deductible.
Work with other small business owners to cross promote.
Nothing helps ramp up business better than by teaming up with others. Find businesses that have a natural connection to yours and hand out their sales fliers and business cards to your customers. And ask them to reciprocate. If you’re a dog groomer, it would be natural for you to work with people who specialize in walking dogs, baking organic doggie snacks, crafting dog sweaters and the local pet shop owner. In this way, you’re creating value, not competition, since each one of your offer unique goods and services.
Remember your customers’ special days
Collect info on your customers as part of your loyalty program, create and order postcards from OvernightPrints.com and then send the cards to customers on their birthday, anniversary, birth of a child or other special event that you know about. The cards can do double-duty by offering a discount or free gift when the customer comes in with the card.
Start a blog and be active in social media
Internet users are pretty savvy and are adept at finding free information. Businesspeople who hand out loads of useful info are often rewarded with the sale or contract, simply because they go above and beyond the average person’s expectations. An article from PC Mag says that providing tips, suggestions, hints or reviews of your product or service makes great web content. Also be sure to join relevant groups and be active in the conversations taking place on Twitter and Facebook.
Set up a booth or table at community events.
Dropping $100 for a booth at a local festival where thousands of people will be exposed to your products or services can offer a great ROI. Be liberal in handing out business cards, brochures, samples, pencils, magnets or whatever fun item that you have personalized with your name, phone number and website URL. Within a few days your name and phone number will be in the hands of hundreds or thousands of households in your city, where they’ll repeatedly be reminded of you and likely give you a call when the time is right.
There are actually hundreds of ways to market your small business inexpensively. I just shared 5. Please share your best ideas on other inexpensive ways to market your small business.
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | General, Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
There is a great misconception that spectacular company branding is reserved for large companies that achieve instant recognition from a single image. Although your business may not sell soda in red cans in over 200 countries worldwide, branding is a vital part of your business’s success. In fact, developing and implementing an effective branding strategy is essential for businesses of any size that want to stick it to their competitors and increase their client base.
Here are four steps to help you develop a winning branding strategy:
Step 1) Evaluate your business and consider your competition. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What aspect of your business are you most proud of? Now think about your competitors. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do you stack up compared to the competition? Determine what makes your business stand out.
Step 2) Uncover your clients’ perceptions of your business. You may consider your business’s knack for understanding and addressing the needs and goals of your individual clients to be a strength of your business, but do your clients agree? Understanding your clients’ assessment of your business is crucial to the development of an effective branding strategy. Market research will allow you to gain insight into your clients’ perceptions and to begin to develop a strategy that addresses these views. Take advantage of social media – the use of Facebook, Twitter, and other online social exchange sites can be an excellent method of obtaining customer feedback. Offer incentives to clients who respond to surveys on Facebook and tweet questions about your business to encourage discussion of your business’s strengths and opportunities.
Step 3) Develop a branding strategy. Compare your evaluation of the business to client evaluations. Did you both agree that your business’s employees develop relationships with clients that help the business to understand its clients’ needs and to assist clients in achieving their personal goals? Congratulations – you’ve just found your WOW factor! You have exposed your business’s competitive edge and discovered that your clients are taking notice. Now consider your WOW factor in relation to your overall strategic goals. Create a branding strategy that is aligned with the business’s strategic goals and that enhances your WOW factor. Be sure that the personality of your business and images used in branding are congruent.
Step 4) Communicate your brand. You have already defined your business’s brand, so now it’s time to convey the brand message to your clients. Your brand is communicated to clients through personal contact as well as through media and advertising, and ensuring that the business is portrayed consistently throughout all forms of interaction with clients is the key to successful brand implementation.
By developing a branding strategy centered on consistent representation of the business’s WOW factor, businesses of any size can effectively influence public perception of their brand and become memorable in the marketplace.
If marketing feels like you’re stumbling through this process, you’re not alone! Most business owners are great at their business, but not necessarily great at marketing their businesses. If you’re ready to win the game of marketing once and for all, then take a look at my marketing training program here: http://paramountbusinesscoach.com/business-marketing-training
QUESTION: What does developing a brand mean to you? Please share your comments below.
About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development. Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947.
© Copyright 2016
