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1. Use One Message: A high response rate ad usually conveys a single message. NordicTrack's message of the "World's Best Aerobic Exerciser" was simple and compelling. Your small business advertising needs to quickly communicate its core message in 3 seconds or less. If you are fearful and overwhelmed by technology, which computer book do you buy? "DOS for Dummies" began a best-selling phenomena because its message was easily understood and to the point.
2. Add Credibility: It has become human nature to distrust advertising. Claims need to be real and credible. Roy H. Williams, best-selling author says, "Any claim made in your advertising which your customer does not perceive as the truth is a horrible waste of ad dollars."
NordicTrack added enormous credibility from a University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse research study, ranking the cross-country ski exerciser first in the areas of weight loss, body fat reduction, and cardiovascular fitness. Ivory soap's advertising success was attributed to its credible statement that ivory soap is the 99-44/100% pure.
3. Don't Waste Money: Large businesses have a greater margin to waste capital and resources without testing advertising. Small businesses do not have the luxury. Use coupons, codes, and specials to attract new customers. Test only one item at a time. Testing can be as simple as asking every customer for several weeks how they heard of your business.
4. Be Easy to Contact: Every single item should have full contact information including: website and email address, phone and fax numbers, and company address. It seems simple but is forgotten by most companies.
5. Match Ads to Target: Successful business advertising speaks to one target market only. At NordicTrack, the ads were tailored to each market. An ad in a medical publication preached the cardio-vascular benefits of cross-country skiing to heart patients. Ads in women's magazines discussed the weight-loss and calorie burn from cross-country skiing. Focus the message to the target group.
6. Create Curiosity: Create ads that generate interest and make the customer want more information.
adJango Gives Your Business a Complete ad Campaign Package with out wasting your time or money!Today our phone rang....
I picked it up and said, “Hello, this is April.” The caller said. “Hi, April, my name is Stan, how are you today?”
I knew right away that he was using a structured sales script, and that triggered the negative “salesperson” stereotype in my mind.
I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I let him continue with his pitch for a few minutes. Then I gently said, “Hi, Stan.” He was so startled that he completely stopped speaking. He had no idea how to react to my simple, normal greeting.
Why? Because he was totally focused on his selling script and not on my reaction to it.
If you’ve been selling for a while, chances are you’ve been asked to use sales scripts to make cold calls. And even if you feel scripts are unnatural and impersonal, you’ve probably used them anyway because they were the only way you knew to start a conversation with prospects.
Maybe you’ve even made some sales using scripts.
But here are some questions you need to ask yourself.
Here are 5 ways to throw out your linear selling script and be yourself again:
When you begin your sales script, prospects detect the very subtle change from your natural voice to your unnatural scripted voice within seconds. “Fine,” you might say, “I’ll just work on making myself sound natural.” But that in itself creates a conflict.
The first step is to realize and admit that you can’t “work at” being natural. However, you can let go of your script as a crutch. The idea may sound scary at first because you’ve been programmed to believe you have to have a script to make a successful cold call. It is possible to learn another way to make calls without a linear step-by-step script.
If you’re used to scripts, you’re probably shaking your head and wondering, “How the heck will I know what to say without a script?” You might want to ask yourself why you think you won’t know what to say, because the reason for that is important. It means you’re basing your call on what you have to offer -- and not on what’s important to the prospect, because you haven’t found that out yet.
Pitching your solution as soon as you begin a call is one of the biggest problems with linear sales scripts because you trigger sales pressure and cause prospects to react with defensiveness or even abrupt, immediate rejection.
Here’s another option. Write down 2 or 3 core issues or real problems (not benefits or features) that your product or service solves. Then take that “problem statement,” as I call it, and put it into words your prospect can understand. In fact, the wording should be so familiar to your prospects (because those are the words they use every day in their business) that when you start discussing the issue, they’ll feel a sense of comfort knowing that your mental focus is on helping them solve problems, not on making the sale.
Selling scripts are designed to be linear and step by step so you can move calls in the direction you want them to go. From the traditional selling point of view, that direction is toward a “yes,” because if you don’t get a “yes” at the beginning of the cold call, you’re not “selling.” But that’s the biggest problem with scripts. They give you only one path to follow.
If you can start a conversation that triggers a “What do you mean?” response from your prospect, you’ll find you can explain yourself in a natural way that creates a two-way dialogue, which in turn lets you learn what you need to find out by flowing with the conversation, without feeling you’re getting off-track. Developing your problem statement makes this much easier.
Have you ever heard yourself calling a prospect and reading your script? Probably not. That’s why most people who use scripts think they sound natural. They’ve never heard themselves. But if you do this simple exercise, you’ll hear a big difference.
In our day-to-day personal relationships, we simply want to get to know and communicate with others. But when we go into sales situations using scripts, we have an agenda -- to make the sale. And because scripts trigger the perception that that’s all we want, the people you talk with sense this immediately and put up their guard. Between our hidden agenda and their reaction, there’s no chance to build trust through communication. Also, because we've been taught for so long that we have to control the process, we never stop to think that scripts make it impossible for us to be flexible in how we communicate and build trust.
Does surrendering your use of a script seem scary? Try this alternative and see how it feels. Begin the conversation with “Hi, maybe you can help me out for a moment…” Most people will respond with something like, “Sure, how can I help?” You can say, “I’m just calling to see if (problem statement)…,” which makes it easy for the prospect to reply, “What do you mean?” or “Tell me more.” And after that, the possibilities of your conversation are endless.
What do I mean by this? If you target their issues, create a conversation around the problems or issues you know they’re facing, and explain how your solution solves those problems -- in a conversation that is completely void of sales pressure -- prospects will share their truth with you. They’ll tell you whether solving the issue is a priority, whether they have the resources to commit to it, and everything else you need to know.
When you let go of a linear script, you’ll find that you’ll no longer fumble for words if prospects get “off track” by taking the conversation away from your sales process and into their buying process. In fact, that’s exactly what you hope they’ll do, because that means they’re telling you the truth.
Now that you understand why linear step-by-step scripts create the negative “salesperson” stereotype by making it impossible for you to be your natural self, you can begin learning how to engage total strangers on the phone in ways that feel as comfortable as calling a friend.
Yes, it’s possible, and don’t let anyone tell you it’s not.
