Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams

I’ve decided to start a series of posts on the topic of ‘Video of the Week’, where I will simply embed the best YouTube videos I come across.

Today’s youTube video is of Bryant Simon, Professor of History and Director of the American Studies Program at Temple University. In this speech from the Taste3 Conference, he discuss’ his study of how the desires of daily life are revealed from the comfy coaches of Starbucks.

This is not, however, just a study of just Starbucks, but an exploration of American life both in the states
and abroad in the 21st Century. His research explores the very desires of daily life as they are revealed on the comfy coaches and in the drive-thru of Starbucks. As he looks at what it means to consume Starbucks, he also investigates what Starbucks consumes of us – our labor, our landscapes, and our politics.

One of the comments on YouTube hit the nail on the head: “I often share with my clients that Starbucks is a marketing company that happens to sell coffee to support its machine. This paradigm, this way of doing business is what separates those businesses that completely diminate versus those that exist.”

Technorati Tags: Starbucks, Coffee, Bryant Simon, Bryant, Simon, Temple University, Taste3, Conference, Marketing, Culture, Business, Pete-Williams, Pete, Willams, Preneur

Here is a syndicated copy of an article I recently wrote for the Enlightened Wealth Institute.

There you go, I said it! Most sales environments make selling easy.

Now, if you are in the sales game you are probably going red in the face right now, ready to go to war with me over this, especially if you have a boss like ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’… but, if you consider the parameters in which most sales people work - selling advertising, insurance or soft-drink accounts - it allows for the building of relationships (which makes the sale easier), the ability to continually follow up (which makes the sale easier) and the reassurance of the next sales period (which again makes the sale easier).

How does the game change when you need to sell a project? A project that has a defined and distinct end?

On the surface there’s not much different: it’s all about getting as many hungry and qualified leads into your funnel as quickly as possible and helping them discover that opening their wallets and throwing money at you is in their best interests.

Selling a ‘project,’ however, needs to solicit action immediately… not action later so the sale will fall in the next month’s budget… there is no reassuring ‘next sales period.’

Most sales trainers will preach the adage that ‘it takes 6-7 contacts to make the sale” and, if you have the luxury of time and opportunity for repeat business, these ‘clichéd statements’ actually do have merit.

But, when selling for immediate response, you need to make an offer that moves the prospect to jump NOW. You don’t have time to educate the prospect over 2 long lunches, a chat on the par 5 and 4 direct mail pieces.

It comes down to a powerful offer with a solid and justified ‘end.’ Did you notice the word justified?

Simply adding ‘this offer expires on February 30th’ won’t cut it– you need to explain and justify to the prospect, in their terms, why they must act now and why the offer honestly can’t last. It’s amazing what a candid explanation will do to your bottom line.

Now, did you also notice the term ‘hungry prospect’ above? This is the real key to selling projects (and accounts).

The late Gary Halbert often asked if you were to start a hamburger stand and could be the ‘best’ at one element what would that be?

Having the best hamburgers, a secret sauce, the best location, the best pricing, etc., etc.?

Well, all of that is irrelevant… all you need is THE hungry crowd, as they will eat anything if they are hungry enough.

Technorati Tags: Enlightened, Wealth, Institute, Selling, Sales, Tecnhiques, Gary, Halbert, Pete, Williams, Pete-Williams

My mum has always been a huge chess fan, there was a stage when I was younger where we played together often… That period didn’t last very long though, because she was the one who often got to signify victory with the almighty cry of “Checkmate”, not me - and I hated that with a passion as I am not a good loser.

In business however, checkmate occurs when a customer says YES, opens their wallet and decides to take you, the salesperson, up on an offer.

Traditionally this ‘checkmate position’ would be known as ‘the almighty close’.

However, since any “checkmate decision” actually takes place in the brain of the customer, that buying decision is really outside the salespersons control - and thus makes closing the sale an impossibility…

This is the theory of Newsell (where the customer, not the salesperson, closes the sale) put forth by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, one of the greatest thinkers ever and the man whoco-founded the School of Thinking, with Edward de Bono, in New York in 1979.

Michael defines “checkmate” as occuring when a customer says I’ll buy it and offers her credit card, or when a buyer accepts the deal and signs the purchase order… or in show business, it’s when the director says, “You’re in!” and you get the part you auditioned for.

The main strategic feature of the checkmate situation is: the salesperson (you) CANNOT control checkmate.

In this “newsell” approach all the saleman can control is the check position…

And, the check position signifies any type of customer contact:
– check is a unit of measurement for ‘customer contact’
– check = CUSTOMER CONTACT = check
– check is when your meme enters the customers brain
– check is when one customer WOMs (word-of-mouth) another customer
– check is when it is possible for the customer to say NO or YES
– without check there can be no checkmate– check is the penultimate state, the set-up move for checkmate
– check is the position of the energy switch which makes it possible for checkmate to happen.

Whether you are making offers directly in person, via direct mail, an email auto-responder or even leaving messages on customers voicemail, in business, check is the moment of ANY customer contact.

Check occurs when you have put the prospect in a position that allows them to say YES or NO as a result of an offer made by you. In other words, the customer’s brain has been stimulated by some form of communication (check), so that the customer can/will respond by deciding whether to act or not to act - YES or NO.

Check is when;
– …you ask the customer a buying question
– …you mail the proposal
– …you meet in a boardroom for a presentation
– …you offer a free taste-test in the supermarket
– …you send out a press release to the media
– …you make the follow up call, after an earlier ‘check move’
– …you give an elevator speech; or
– …a hooker asks if you need some company for the night

The fundamental rule of Check Move Theory is that you the salesperson, CAN and must control check… It’s not about trying to “close the sale” with some ‘used-car-salesmann-swindle’, it’s about making as many “check moves” as possible… The more check moves you make, the more opportunities prospects have of saying YES.

On his website, ‘New Sell Coaching’, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson offers a free e-mail course which go’s into much more detail on ‘check move theory’ and covers things like – The UnCheck Position – What An OldSell Check Is – How To Implement A Check X10 Sequence – The T.C.B. – Even More Types of CheckMoves Pardon the punn, but “Check Out” the ‘New Sell Coaching Course’ and sign-up today here.

P.S. The really ironic thing about Michael’s course, is that he doesn’t try and sell a single thing throughout the course… Yep, not even one check is offered during the whole email course.



Download The Audio Version Here (Right Click and download it)

Technorati Tags: new-sell, check-move-theory, check, move, Michael-Hewitt-Gleeson, closing, sales, selling, sale, techniques, pete, williams, preneur

It’s often said, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, but in today’s world of business, that’s easier said than done.

With more and more sales being conducted through direct mail and the internet, plus fierce competition for shelf space in retail stores… consumers often simply don’t have the time to make an informed decision, and will make a choice based entirely on which product has the better packaging.

The right packaging can immediately give the customer a sense that your product is the perfect one for him and can often close a deal just like that. However, it’s not enough to simply have good copy and strong visual design in your packaging; there’s one other thing to keep in mind that might be the most important one of all.

“Product Perception” refers to the way customers identify new products. Their unconscious mind makes links between the new product and old products they’ve bought in the past. Like many of the unconscious processes of the human mind, this isn’t always a logical process, but luckily it is a predictable one.

Take for example a book. No matter the content of that book, a customer who first approaches it will take it for what it is on the surface: a book. What’s more, they’ll associate it with other books they’ve bought in the past and at that point, the main idea of product perception comes into play. If the customer has routinely paid $20-30 for a book in the past, it’s unlikely that he’ll be willing to pay more than that for your book.

If the exact same material covered in that book, however, were recorded onto audio discs and then re-packaged, or if the exact same book were to be bundled with a piece of matching computer software, the customer would approach that type of merchandise with a higher price point in mind from the start. Keeping this in mind, we can anticipate and control a customer’s initial, most basic reaction to our products.

So, now that we know about product perception, how can we make it work to our advantage?

The first step is to talk to your marketing department and have them consider product perception in all their research. Through surveys and other polling tools, you can figure out what the average customer is willing to pay for products that use various types of packaging, which is valuable information indeed. With this at your disposal, you can repackage a lower price-point item such as a can of paint and market it as part of a “home renovator’s kit”, making it seem much more valuable.

What was once an ordinary pair of shoes can have their packaging turned around to focus on the health benefits they provide over the competition, thus making them more of a high-cost medical item instead of just your basic pair of shoes. These are just a few of the many possible ways to repackage and redefine a product to make it seem more “high-end” at a glance.

At first, you might feel disappointed or frustrated that the content of your product is being overlooked in favor of its appearance, but it all comes down to the first impression. Once you master the concept of product perception, there’s no need to worry!

With the right approach, you can truly set yourself apart from the competition and control exactly how the customer views your product, as well as how much they’ll be willing to pay for it.

Technorati Tags: usp, unique, selling, proposition, marketing, perception, packaging, product, pricing, pete, williams