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What’s the one thing starting now that you could start doing,
stop doing, or change that would have a dramatic impact on your
client relationships? It’s an excellent question and I hope you’ll take a
moment to consider your response. It sometimes takes a great deal of effort and an extraordinary amount of energy to close “a big deal.”

Never forget, it may take even more effort and energy, to keep the business after you win it. It takes courage to get the business and creativity and imagination to keep it. Consider the word VERY GOOD and all that means. To be very good is to be grand, impressive, outstanding, excellent, and even remarkable.

Many salespersons don’t think in terms of being VERY GOOD. They walk around doing a great imitation of benign mediocrity. It doesn’t take much to leap from the ordinary to the extraordinary, but it does
take effort. It’s all about leaving a great first impression, not merely a
good one. It’s about delighting your clients, not just satisfying them.

It’s about rising above the crowd, not being lost in it. Here are some
ideas for you on how to be VERY GOOD for your clients.

A - Ask good client questions.

There are two types of questions and you know salespersons consider them to be open and closed questions. Let’s raise the bar on that kind of thinking. While questions can be open and closed, they can also be wide and deep. The wide questions are surface questions i.e. “How’s it going, how’s business,” and “Any other any problems I can help you with today?” A deep question always leaves its mark i.e. “What would have to happen for you to consider us as your best supplier?” Another really inspired question is, “How do you measure success when working with your current supplier?” David Frost, the famous interviewer, once said “you can tell the quality of a question by the quality of the response.” Are you asking quality questions?
If not, why not?

W - Work your priorities and prioritize your work.

Prioritizing will make you enterprising. To be really effective you must be able to distinguish between what is urgent and what is important. Be careful not to start the very fires you’re trying to put out. For example, eliminate the following from your voice mail message, “if it’s really important page me or call me on my cell phone.” The only people who don’t possess a FedEx mentality are the people who work for FedEx. Everybody else thinks everything else is a high priority.

Get a grip, get a life, and begin everyday with the list (prioritized with numbers) of the 6 many important things you want to complete and don’t encourage the distractions. Develop the habit of sticking to your list of priorities and only deviate from your list if a higher priority lands on your desk. The best salespersons and sales managers always take care of the many important stuff first. They are not easily distracted. Set you priorities for the day and focus on them like a laser beam and only take your eyes off them for a higher priority.

E - Energize yourself every day with a positive attitude.

People with positive attitudes live longer, enjoy life more, and tend to be more likable, from their clients perspective. I learned a long time ago, we choose to affect or infect the people we meet every day.

Don’t bring your personal problems to work because they never add value to your clients. If life has dealt you a difficult set of cards right now, deal with them privately and put your troubles on a trouble tree when you leave for your first sales call. Remember, your clients have their own problems, so there’s no need to burden them with yours. People with positive attitudes are enthusiastic, animated, excited, smiling, and always expect the best things to happen. “Your face is your own fault after age 40,” according to Cicero, so check it often with a mirror. How you handle your problems says a lot about you.

S - Style is important.

If you agree, you must feel like a chameleon. Many strained interpersonal relationships are created by different styles. There is the “Driver” who is very assertive, demanding and autocratic. There is also the “Expressive” who is extremely sociable, loves to talk, and lousy with details. Then there is the “Analytical” who is very precise, organized, and extremely neat. Finally, there is the “Amiable” who is generally low-key, trusting, and very innovative. One of the biggest keys to selling success is the art of adapting your selling style to your clients’ buying style. This is easy to say and hard to do. To learn more about behavioral styles, read articles, buy books and listen to audiocassette training tapes on the subject. This is one subject where ignorance is definitely not bliss.

O - Others focused.

Another key to successful selling is the ability to build relationships while taking care of business. Here are some ideas for you: don’t make people feel invisible, always maintain good eye contact, remember, you can’t smile enough on the telephone or in person, to stay connected - ask people who get your voice mail message to leave their e-mail address and telephone number, watch your body language, buy a composition notebook to record all your
relationship-building ideas, only do dog and pony shows if your client needs a dog and pony, add the words “for you” to the end of your sentences, every four months record your end of your telephone calls to improve the quality of your calls, blaming is shaming so don’t do it, always take notes to demonstrate that you care and you are listening, and always take the time to say “Thank you” to everyone who contributes to your success.

M - Master the business basics.

Listen to your voicemail message. If it doesn’t sound up beat, enthusiastic and professional change it. E-mail is a way to communicate. Use creative subject lines and remember less is more if you want your message to be understood. Never call a meeting without first preparing an agenda. Begin all meetings on time. End your meetings on time. Secure commitments for who is going to do what and by when. Form the habit of writing personal handwritten notes using a fountain pen. It’s a great way to be a high-touch person in the high-tech world we live in today. Try being more likable, agreeable, adaptable, and relatable. Maintain your focus on the other person, especially when its a client.

E - Enthusiasm and passion are powerful attributes for professional salespersons to cultivate.

Too many people are dying on the job today and still working. Some people walk into a room and breathe life into it. Other people walk into the same room and do
their best to vent all the oxygen. Get excited about your work. If you don’t like it, change it. Your life is too important and too short, to waste it doing something you hate doing. Be yourself and avoid trying to imitate somebody else. Have an attitude of gratitude. Say “thank you” often. That kind gesture will make someone’s day a better one.

Enthusiasm is contagious and so is the negative stuff. Enthusiasm is an acquired quality and it’s FREE! Go out and get some, if you’re running low. If you want to take, your sales career to the next level learn do the unthinkable. Quit saying “I’ve always done it this way.” Quit following the crowd. Take a new path to solve old client problems. The old way may not be the better way.

If you’re too comfortable, it’s time to change. Always aim higher and
you’ll be rewarded handsomely. Being VERY GOOD is no small task, especially when the client is doing the evaluation. If you dare to be different, strive to be effective, and are attentive to your clients’ needs, you too can be VERY GOOD.

VM Dedhia is a professional executive and marketing man. He has almost 10 years of experience in marketing.

In banking and investing and insurance, many thousands of service-minded people enjoy client loyalty. Yet, most labour under a false basic assumption about why clients are loyal to them or their institution, rather than competitors. What really generates loyalty is warmth.

The dominant view of loyalty in financial services equates loyalty with simple continuity of service. “If they keep on dealing with you, that means they’re loyal.” This makes sense, but it lacks a basic understanding of what motivates people to be loyal.

This view also supposes that people become loyal to whomever best satisfies their service requirements. “If they can read statements that arrive on time, and find good numbers in them, then you just need be nice and keep it up.” This makes sense, too. But does loyalty come simply from satisfying requirements and smiling?

By conventional wisdom, good investment performance and reliable admin are not quite enough from investment advisors or financial planners. Indeed, they strive to have impressive diplomas and professional certifications, to dress for success, and to express clever perspectives. This makes sense, too. Yet, most of their clients simply assume the diplomas and certifications. People want something more.

connectedness the edge

The conventional wisdom lacks edge. Here’s that edge: connectedness - mutual connection with the individual or institution. Some have it and don’t know how or why. Some credit their office décor, and they might be right. Décor has more draw power in a place with heart, though, where people connect.

True loyalty goes both ways. A customer who feels connected goes right past the competitor’s grand opening celebrations to deal with one of their favourite service representatives at their home branch of their bank. The Assistant to the Branch Manager at an investment firm’s local office remembers every client and pronounces their names correctly every time. She deals with them as if they’re loved, respected family members. They’d never go anywhere else.

Connectedness transcends financial services professionals’ polished shoes and marble floors. Connectedness trumps tidy, timely admin, too. Connectedness even out-powers return on investment. In a Gallup Management Journal article, W.J. McEwen and J.H. Fleming write, “Without a strong emotional bond, customer satisfaction is meaningless.” (Customer Satisfaction Doesn’t Count, GMJ, March 13, 2003) So, if one investment advisor’s power suit is less powerful than another’s, it probably doesn’t matter - if her clients feel connected to her. Connectedness outpowers free gifts, as well.

beyond incentive programs

Somewhere in North America today, a financial institution is giving away a nifty gift as an incentive for a certain market segment to sign up for a new account or service. For example, a bank is giving away iPods to young adults who sign up for a new account targeted at young adults. A credit union is giving first-time mortgage borrowers a three-figure discount on home insurance.

When these incentives become actively competitive, some consumers learn to hold out for better. Gallup: “This might not be profitable. That’s because repeated purchase behaviour has been motivated - or bribed - by a company’s offers of gifts, discounts, or other purchase rewards. These customers aren’t really loyal; they’re just customers who haven’t left - yet.” In such promotions, branch managers are generally rewarded on new sign-ups only. Ever wonder how many of those new accounts remain active and profitable?

Some gauge loyalty by frequency or volume of transactions. If these are valid measures, then the loyalty jackpot must include a good measure of profitability. Wouldn’t it be nice if the loyalty grand prize also included mutual liking and trust? If that leads to greater depth-of-relationship or share-of-wallet, then you could make a profit and smile and dispense with trinkets.

let it happen

Enter connectedness. It comes from being real sincerely. It lets clients be real with you, too. In a financial service relationship, that can be rewarding.

Connectedness is not a common concept in financial services. Yet, connectedness is exactly what people seek in trust-based business relationships. It is a feeling of affinity to likable, trustworthy professionals. Gallup studies link this emotional engagement to lower attrition and higher profits. I see it when investment advisors and credit unions show their true colours in brand-aligned newsletters and client events.

When you like and trust your client, and your client likes and trusts you, then you have a good basis to solve their problems and earn their loyalty. If you continue to solve their problems and maintain mutual liking and trust, then you’ll enjoy loyalty that’s resilient.

Glenn Harrington began working in stock trading on Toronto’s Bay Street in 1987. He joined his first credit union in the same year. He continued in working in financial services before founding his own brand-marketing consultancy in 1996. He is Principal Consultant with Harrington Newsletter Company in British Columbia. http://www.newsletterdoctor.ca
doctor@harringtonnewsletter.ca

There are so many metrics surrounding direct marketing. So many facts, figures, test results and other sundry measurements.

It’s tempting to think the only thing that matters with direct marketing copy is to get the tried and tested elements in place.

If that were the case, you would be able to buy DM copywriting software.

You would just enter a few lines of information about your product - price, offer and audience - and the software would draw on a database of thousands of previous, proven DM letters and ads. Press Enter and you would have near-perfect copy delivered to your screen in the blink of an eye.

Sounds cool, eh?

The trouble is, the ‘metrics’ approach to direct response writing - whether written by you or a machine - limits your potential considerably.

One major attribute of every good direct response piece is how it touches its audience at a personal level. Great DM speaks to us as individuals. It touches our hopes, fears and ambitions. It makes us feel, it makes us ‘want’.

And by that, I’m not talking about the ’smack-em-in-mouth’ approach. As in, “If your life isn’t insured, your children could end up on the streets”. Or, “Get out of debt in 30 minutes”. I don’t think our industry is served well by manipulating the fears of decent people. Or over-promising in any way.

>> An example of DM copy that touches the reader

A long time ago I was given the job of beating a control brochure that was selling a book on the subject of US forces in Vietnam.

I changed nothing except the captions under the photos.

I remember one photo that showed an American ‘Tunnel Rat’ about to enter one of the Viet Cong’s tunnel systems. A scary job, to say the least. The existing caption said something like, “At the entrance of a tunnel system”.

There are two things wrong with this caption. First, it is redundant, telling you nothing the photo itself doesn’t already communicate. Second, it fails to ‘touch’ the reader in any way.

It’s a long time ago, but my rewrite was something like this, “Tunnel Rat tenses before plunging into the darkness”.

What I wrote was probably much better than that. I spent a lot of time on that brochure. But hopefully you get the point. What I did was use words that said something the photo alone didn’t express. I also put the reader in the mind of the soldier. To some small degree. I simply wrote in a way that engaged the reader’s emotions.

Good DM writing does that all the time.

And yes, the new brochure beat control.

>> How this applies to the Web

When it comes to touching your reader on a personal level, the web offers more opportunity and potential than any other mass medium. Online, people respond immediately and positively to any sense that a web site has a personal voice. People love that someone is ‘there’.

Where can you add these personal touches? Where can you reach people on an emotional level? Just about anywhere in the text. In headlines, subheads, body text or links.

(By the way, don’t start writing captions for all the images on your site. In a print brochure people generally look at the photos first, and then read the captions second. Not so online. Visitors to web sites look at the text first. They want to know if your site will give them what they are looking for.)

You’ll be most successful with this personal approach if you use a light touch. Put the verbal hammer and exclamation points away. There’s no need to shout. Just make sure the text sounds like it was written by a living, breathing, feeling human being. Don’t just state the facts…write in a way that touches the reader’s emotions. Help them feel it, not just read it.

Things really begin to fly when you combine the proven principles of direct marketing with the personal potential of the web.

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Voice site. You’ll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success site.

You believed that the whispering dude from the movie Field of Dreams was speaking directly to you. “If you build it, they will come”. You wrote, coded, or designed your own product. You created a killer web site and your “Buy Here” button is just ready to take a beating.

So, now here you are staring at your stats, checking on your PayPal account once every 5 minutes. Nothing. “Just give it a few minutes”, you think to yourself…after all, the whispering dude was speaking to me.

Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating a smidge here…but have you felt something like this before? Have you been in a position where you had a product you thought was going to crush the market and you opened your “doors” to an avalanche of nothing?

No sweat kid. You won’t have been the first. And even if you haven’t been in this position before, if you have a product you want to take to market there are some things you need to do to get traffic and sales. We’re going to discuss a few here.

The first thing you should have done is prepared your opt-in list for the upcoming release weeks in advance. These are already folks that you have a relationship with and by communicating with them over the course of several weeks you will build a “buzz” around your product.

Now don’t go emailing them every time you fix a typo but keep them in the loop on major milestones and points of interest.

When it comes time to flip the switch these good customers will come calling. Even if your list is relatively small by most standards, you can leverage the folks that have already said, “Hey, I trust you and look forward to what you have to say”.

Another critical component is to let other people carry you on their backs a little. Doesn’t sound all that enjoyable for them but when you throw a little money their way it makes a difference. You NEED your own affiliate program. By offering folks a percentage of your profits for selling your product you will increase your chances of success dramatically.

If you’re cringing about parting with a piece of the action think about it like this…”What’s better”? 50% of 100 sales or 100% of zero sales? I think you get the gist. And setting up an affiliate program is so easy these days…not like it used to be. There are scripts and software for those die hard do it yourselfers or you can go the subscription route and pay monthly for a provider to host your program for you.

So we agree that having affiliates is a great way to boost traffic and sales. Now let’s take this affiliate concept up about ten notches. Add Super Affiliates and or JV Partners into your arsenal. Supers/JV’s are going to be folks with decent to gargantuan sized lists. To make this palatable to these folks you’re going to have to dig a little deeper into your pocket by offering a larger percentage of the gate.

If you’re short sighted that may sound unappealing, but if your Super/JV partners have massive lists they can make you more money in days (even after their take) then you could have made alone in months. If you don’t have the confidence to approach the Big Boys for this kind of thing then go after many folks with lists of 10-20 thousand opt-ins. Get 10 of those and you have 100-200 thousand targeted prospects getting an eyeful of your product.

Just an FYI on the Big Boys though. If you have a product that is worthwhile don’t be afraid to contact them and make a proposal. These folks are real people just like anyone else and many of them are extremely open to opportunities. It is amazing what you can accomplish in this arena if you actually ask.

There are certainly more ways to ensure you aren’t experiencing zero salesitis after you released your latest and greatest, but these simple strategies will get you a terrific jumpstart.

Prepare your list with enticing emails before you ever launch, set up an affiliate program, and kick it up even further by enlisting the aid of folks with large lists, and rather than worry about getting sales, you’ll find yourself looking for an accountant to prepare for next year’s tax season.

John Hostler, aka the Internet Renegade, has been marketing successfully both online and off for 6 years. He released his widely anticipated book on the subject of Internet Marketing on 02-01-06. To find out more about John or his newest release check out http://www.internetrenegade.com