sales Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

27
Jul 21
-

Drama Stories Create More Action Than Realized

Tags : decision making drama sales story telling

Are you telling drama stories? Do you recognize when you are doing it?

Likely, a story isn’t a story until you add a little drama. Painting the picture might be drama. Exaggerating the moment with body language, sounds, or using props might add a little drama.

Comedians get greater impact and connection by animating the story. Sometimes it is funny without any words. A well-placed moment of silence can add a little drama.

Many stories are a reenactment of sorts.

Then of course there is selling. Selling the product, selling an idea, or even selling yourself in a job interview or as a professional services provider.

A good attorney has stories. A medical doctor might have a story or two.

Drama isn’t just gossip or rumors, sometimes it is factual.

Does the story resonate better with a little spice added?

Drama Stories

People make decisions. Decisions often involve emotion. Even when someone suggests to remove all emotion.

Buying a new car? Your decision might be based on emotion. Otherwise, if it is truly only about transportation you might pick only the most economic means to get from point A to point B.

Perhaps, that is no car at all.

Finding a great hotel, hiring a new employee, or where to have dinner on date night. Much of the activity in your life is bought and sold based on drama.

Do you tell yourself drama stories? You might seek to feel the moment. Moments of success, luxury, or pride. Decisions might be made in favor of short-term, long-term, or that are better for your family.

The truth of it is, there is a lot of drama.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

07
Jul 21
-

Business Story, Are You Telling It?

Tags : audience business customers sales story

What is your business story? Are you being clear, or vague about what you do and what you offer? Is your story worth sharing?

Gaining customers is part of every business. It doesn’t matter if it is a for-profit or a non-profit, people engaging with your work mean that you have something of value. A traditional business grows through revenue, a non-profit might grow or succeed when more people are interested to support the cause.

Services, products, and even ideas can become a movement.

Home repair services needed, see you next month.

The latest iPhone or related product, get in-line, or better yet pre-order.

It is true about any place where lines form and people wait. It might also be true about political movements, causes, and as the pandemic eases, true about rock concerts or outdoor sporting events.

All of these things start with a story. Stories bring in new customers, they also refresh and in best cases, energize existing customers.

What is your business story?

Is it working?

Business Story

Have you asked yourself, “Who is the customer?” And a secondary question, “What does the customer want?”

Any business or organization needs to develop a base. A base of followers, leaders, and those who are eager to share.

It is commonplace to suggest the customer is anyone who buys your product or service. It may be anyone who donates, volunteers, or shares your message.

A definition that is too broad means the story won’t resonate.

A Ferrari, a Lamborghini, or an Aston Martin car may not be for you. It may also be true for the Chevrolet Spark, or a Mitsubishi Mirage.

Louis Vuitton shoes aren’t for everyone.

Yet all of these offerings have their space.

Not every business or non-profit succeeds because they are all things to all people. The most successful are the right things, to the right people, at exactly the right time.

A small but viable audience can be much more powerful than shouting your brand name without a microphone at a sold-out rock concert.

Pokémon, doesn’t matter much to many adults. Likely, only adults with kids or grandkids, and perhaps for Santa Claus.

Tell your story to the audience that matters. Size might be a factor for your success, yet it often starts by appropriately serving the smallest viable audience.

Your story repeated by one customer may create two or three new customers.

People engage with stories.

Have a good story.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

02
Dec 20
-

Emotional Purchases Impact Nearly Every Decision

Tags : customer service emotions purchases sales wants and needs

Will you make some emotional purchases in the next few days? What about across weeks, months, or even years? What you buy is more often connected to emotions than what you may realize.

Do you own a car, a home, or a bunch of really cool tech gadgets? What about collectable items, a bit of candy, or some jewelry?

There is a big difference between what you want and what you actually need.

Wants and Needs

Take an automobile for example, what are your needs? Are your needs transportation or is it the luxury and class of how you get from point A to point B?

If you need transportation, then perhaps the least expensive means of travel will suffice.

You may be able to make a claim that you could walk. Many urban dwellers do not own a car. They may not need one.

Yet, all across America and many other countries, an automobile is a significant purchase considered as a need. It may represent status, comfort, or it may be able to haul eight passengers even when much of the mileage driven is only one or two persons at a time. What is needed?

Do you need jewelry? What about a thousand-dollar pair of shoes, do you need those?

Do you need soda, wine, or sports drinks? What is the real need?

Emotional Purchases

Every day people are making choices that satisfy something beyond need. There is a want or desire that is involved. There are emotional choices connected to status, ego, or lifestyle.

Much of this all appears to be normal. So normal that it almost seems like a stretch of the truth to consider the difference between wants and needs.

Do you have a closet full of some things you barely use? Do you regularly throw out food that you could have consumed if you made different choices?

Many of the things people buy are not needs. They are wants. The purchase satisfies some emotional desire, not necessarily a survival type of need.

Humans are driven by emotions. It is true for the decisions you make about the work that you do, to earn the money that you earn, to buy the things that you want.

While there are some basic life needs, much of those needs are distorted by your wants.

Great marketers and sales teams understand the emotional desire for products and services. It’s is a leadership trait that is commonly underestimated or not fully utilized.

People are often not paying for what they need, they’re paying for something more.

Something that they want.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

01
Dec 20
-

Better Things Are Still The Backbone Of Service

Tags : #Custserv Business growth opportunities sales service quality

Are you doing better things? Better things for the customer or better for the staff? Is it a balancing act?

Better service always sells.

When the customer is in doubt, they’ll remember how they were treated the last time or perhaps, how they were treated by a competitor.

When it is time to recommend a brand or answer a question asked, customers will remember what they felt about the service or how well the product worked when put to the test.

Where is your focus?

Better Things

When you want increase the compensation of the team, is there a direct effect on the customer?

Must there be a price increase? Is that how the budget is adjusted?

Should there be a new territory for sales, a new market segment, or repeat customers joyfully recommending your products or services? Should it be all of these?

Perhaps.

Yet, what is the focus?

Some companies place their number one priority on making things better for the customer. Other companies place their priorities on making things better for themselves.

Who wins this game?

Certainly, it probably requires some of both, but one of those will also likely take care of the other. Except, the reverse isn’t also true.

A focus on the customer will result in more opportunities, customers, and sales. As a result, you can take better care of the company.

A focus on the company first will probably result in short-changing the customer and ultimately making the selling and satisfaction process more difficult.

Better things happen with better service.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

15
Jun 20
-

Brand Experience Impacts and the Unexpected

Tags : brand marketing sales service touch points

At the car wash, the grocery market, and the restaurant you have an experience. What are customers feeling from your brand experience impacts? Are you sure about every touch point?

The valet at the 5-star hotel, the guy sweeping up cigarette butts in the parking lot, and the janitor plunging the clog in the bathroom.

An incredible waitress, a kind flight attendant, and the nurse at the doctor’s office.

A fast-food voice on the intercom, the hardware store clerk, and shipping verification from an eBay purchase.

All of these things, no matter how big or how small they may seem, are part of a brand experience.

Unexpected Experience

Many people believe that your brand sits entirely on the hands of the graphic artist, the photographer, or a clever press release.

Indeed, all of these things matter. They matter a great deal. Yet, often, your brand is about unexpected touch points.

Businesses want to train their sales team, the customer service team, and managers. These are not the only people or places where your brand is exposed.

Where is your brand exposed?

Everywhere.

Brand Experience Impacts

What is the weakest link in your business? It may be a touch point where your brand is exposed.

What employee teams are not customer facing? Who is in the backroom, the warehouse, or on the R&D team? They’re still building your brand.

Who answers the phone, responds to social media, or sends email messages? To the customer, in each of those moments, that is what they know as your business. Not the CEO, not the beauty of your website, and certainly not the marketing speak in your mission statement.

The impacts of your brand are loud and clear.

They’re often developing from human interaction.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

10
Jun 20
-

Customer Hustle, Is That What Sells?

Tags : customer service fast-paced hustle quality sales

Energy is contagious and often inspiring. Business minded people often like the idea of fast-paced, work-hard, play-hard, and win. Is it all about the customer hustle?

The act of hustling generally has a stigma of negativity. It may be perceived as trickery, deception, or even fraud. Largely though, in business circles, it represents a feeling of move fast, solve problems, and achieve goals.

Why is there so much focus on the customer hustle?

Time is a precious resource and when people know what they want, they want it now.

They don’t want to place an order for a car and have it delivered in six or eight weeks. When they want an ice cream treat, they expect to find it, quickly and conveniently. It’s true for getting a pizza and it’s true for an order from Amazon.

Customer Hustle

When a business fulfills a customer need or desire, it wins. It is expected to be replicated, modeled, and the competition works hard to exceed the previous best experience.

The moment anyone clicks anything on-line it starts a reaction. Search engines favor it over others, the word spreads, and action happens.

Speed seems to matter most. Timely means immediate.

The unfortunate other side of the customer hustle is that it is a short-run game.

Short-Run or Long-Run?

Short-run works okay for McDonald’s drive through, or the local pizza shop, but not so well in long-run products or services.

A dentist should be thorough, accurate, and complete, no exceptions. It’s a long-run game.

An expensive automobile or home, same thing, it’s a long-run game.

Yet it is often about the war of clicks. Fueled and offered to the public via a friendly search engine algorithm.

Does the long-run game still sell?

What’s Selling?

People talk about home appliances and suggest that they aren’t built like they once were. The same is often true for heavy equipment, electronics, or a garden tool .

The pressure and force connected with the customer hustle has driven a mind-set of fast and now, instead of good and lasting.

What is connected with the work that you do?

Is it built to last, or built for right now?

We don’t seem to find both.

It’s often a hustle.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

06
Mar 20
-

Desperate Hustle And The Path It Leaves Behind

Tags : consequences desperate hustle outcomes sales

Are you good at hustling? Are you assertive and spring into action conquering sales and navigating corporate environments in a single bound? The desperate hustle may leave behind some unfavorable consequences.

Businesses like people who can make things happen. It is a good trait. Sales and marketing professionals often thrive on the hustle. A good hustle, not a crafty snake oil bait and switch. Just a good hustle.

The hustle often has positive effects. Bringing in revenue, building the brand, and weakening the position of the competition.

Desperate Hustle

Then there is the desperate hustle. This often develops after a period of sleeping, complacency, or internal change where the biggest hustle becomes a version of hustlers, who are hustling for a new job with a new employer.

This desperation or corporate push means that people are in fear of their job, their livelihood, and how they’ll support their family. They become desperate.

The consequences of this behavior can have very negative long-term effects. When the mindset is divide and conquer without worry or concern about what or who is in the way. Watch out.

The mindset may become, as long as I’m winning, I don’t care.

This is dangerous and a sign of faulty leadership.

Future Outcomes

Sometimes the workplace objective is met, yet the path of destruction in its wake is devastating.

Clients get burnt, vendors hosed, and interpersonal workplace relationships may be damaged beyond repair. After the revenue is counted, the future actually becomes bleak.

Being a strong hustler is good. Leaving behind a path of destruction is not.

Find the balance. You’ll do your best work there.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

02
Aug 19
-

Good Deals Should Be For Your Best Customers

Tags : customer service good deals integrity sales selling

How are you treating your best customers? Are they acknowledged through cleverly branded rewards programs? Are they getting good deals?

How are repeat customers treated as compared with the on-boarding of new customers?

Switch your lease from one car brand to a different car brand and you’ll get a discount.

Sign up for cable or satellite television and we’ll give you a lower bill for 12 months.

Why do some businesses feel the need to punish their best and most loyal customers by offering better deals to brand new customers?

About the Data

Data driven analysis and decisions are certainly valuable. Data driven decisions are also sometimes supported by assumptions.

The existing customer base will continue to spend as much this quarter as they did last quarter.

Our best customers can afford to pay a higher margin.

Our high-volume customers will never notice.

While this may seem silly, almost ridiculous, it is a popular path for many businesses. The quest for growth or the quest to stop the bleeding allow assumption-based leadership decisions to punish the best customers.

Who Cares?

There is at least one other assumption. The assumption that the customer doesn’t care.

Just smile and talk really nice, ask about their children, grandchildren, or pets. Chat it up a bit. It isn’t their money.

Have them use their corporate credit card. Remind them that they get personal points on dollars spent.

We could certainly bring up integrity and ethics, but many believe that is just the way corporate America rolls. It all works, until it doesn’t.

Good Deals

Like many things in life and in society, someone is paying. Free stuff or free deals are sometimes good for one party while a different party is paying.

Are you truly appreciating and rewarding your best customers, or are they being punished?

Who is really paying?

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

01
Jul 19
-

Sales Distraction Inhibits Goal Achievement

Tags : distraction sales selling strategy tactics

We all sell. Even those who are not officially in a sales role, sell. What sometimes seems like prospecting may be exactly what is causing a sales distraction.

Movement and motion are important, yet results are what matter the most.

Motion Isn’t Selling or Buying

People browse the internet, watch videos, and search eBay or Amazon. They don’t always buy; the activity of the search is a distraction. It’s window shopping.

In the summer, in suburbs or rural communities, there are often yard sales. People scatter their junk on tables and under canopies. The neighborhood gets involved, often there are cardboard signs, parking problems, and rubberneckers.

People who engage often don’t spend much, but they have some fun browsing. It gets them together with a friend or two, doesn’t cost much, and is more of a distraction rather than buying.

The same is true for many festivals, auctions, and community fairs. More of a distraction than commerce.

Those selling have a different role. Their strategy is to move the product, make a dollar, and improve their situation.

It may be for charity, to remove some clutter, or even a hobby business.

Sales Distraction

In the workplace, when trying to sell people sometimes seek an excuse or a distraction.

They claim they are prospecting, knocking on doors, and making calls. Yet, performance data still illustrates a pattern of coming up short.

There is blame towards a lack of collateral, the outdated website, or unfavorable economic conditions.

Sales tactics can become an activity. Check the box, do the labor, fulfill the role.

Have the goals been met?

Boxes checked are not always the same as goals achieved.

Rocking in a rocking chair gets you moving, yet you really aren’t going anywhere. It’s just motion.

Don’t get distracted.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

23
Apr 19
-

Bad Choices, Good Choices, or No Choice at All

Tags : bad choices decision marketing no choice sales

When someone suggests that you can pick anything you want, what will you pick? Nobody likes making bad choices. Most people really don’t want to be wrong. Do more choices help?

Marketing is a funny thing. Some marketers believe that more choices are better. More options mean that people get exactly what they want.

What is easier, pick one of three items, or pick one of thirty-three items?

Bad Choices

Netflix is popular. Is it easy to pick something to watch? Not usually, not unless someone has told you about something great that they watched. In that case, the recommendation closes the sale.

The next time you go to a restaurant watch how friends or family explore the menu. It is common that people will quickly glance through the menu only to want to know more about the special. It is a helping hand for the decision.

Chances are good your customers are the same. More choices, more options, it causes a stall or the inability to decide. No one wants to make a bad choice. More choices require more consideration.

It seems almost counterintuitive, but it is no secret to the best sales and marketing professionals.

No Choice at All

We are all selling something. Can you use this to improve your future offerings?

How does this logic affect the next conversation with your boss? Will it make a difference in how you manage future projects? Does it matter for your resume?

Remember, no one wants to make bad choices, with too many options the only choice they may make is no choice at all.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Tag Archives: sales

Jul 21

-

Drama Stories

Jul 21

-

Business Story

Dec 20

-

Wants and Needs

Emotional Purchases

Dec 20

-

Better Things

Jun 20

-

Unexpected Experience

Brand Experience Impacts

Jun 20

-

Customer Hustle

Short-Run or Long-Run?

What’s Selling?

Mar 20

-

Desperate Hustle

Future Outcomes

Aug 19

-

About the Data

Who Cares?

Good Deals

Jul 19

-

Motion Isn’t Selling or Buying

Sales Distraction

Apr 19

-

Bad Choices

No Choice at All

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