NEWS RELEASE: In case you haven’t noticed, the world has changed! Dramatic advances in technology during the past ten years have created more change faster than any previous period in history and guess what fellow sales-folks…success in selling has changed as well!One thing that stayed the same is the importance of establishing trust and building a strong relationship with our customers. Another thing that stayed the same is the importance of finding the unique, specific and individual needs that our customers have and marrying them to the unique values our firm offers.What has changed is how we do that and what it takes to do it successfully!Whether our customers are retail consumers or professional purchasing agents, the internet has changed everything. With a click, buyers can learn every product specification, every competing product or service available in the marketplace, all about our company and even all about us!That is not necessarily a bad thing but it certainly changes what we have to do to be recognized as original and/or to be recognized as offering some unique value. Like Seth Godin says, “the TV-Industrial complex is over and with it comes the end of interruptive marketing and the advent of permission marketing”. So, other than being really remarkable so you stand out from the crowd of competitors, what does that mean to you as a professional salesperson?Just as traditional says there are five P’s in successful marketing (product, price, place, promotion and people) I believe there are also five U’s that we need to memorize, internalize and practice if our future as sales people is to be a positive and long-term one. The five critical U’s are: Unexpected, Unique, Unconventional, Unobtrusive and Unstoppable. Here are the definitions that stand behind my belief in those six U’s:Unexpected is about being creative in our strategic analysis of every sales opportunity and channel. It is about looking for new and additional customers, sales venues and avenues that our competitors have not even dreamt about!If I am selling industrial tools to manufacturing firms, what retailers am I passing while on my routes that could use or re-sell these products also? If I am selling components and equipment to swimming pool contractors to help them be more effective, what landscapers and deck builders am I passing by who might also profit from my products? If I am selling unique products to drug-stores, are gas stations a viable possibility (vice-versa)? If I am selling high-end jewelry in a retail store, what are the possibilities of doing in-home-jewelry parties? How about educational presentations at private women’s clubs? You get the idea!Looking for unexpected channels and potential new customers is best accomplished by structured brainstorming and/or free-thinking exercises while we plan for the coming year and evaluate where we will focus our selling efforts. To be most effective and to gain the most additional sales volume, creativity in planning is critical. You cannot keep doing what you have been doing in the past and expect anything to change for the better! Looking for unexpected sales channels is particularly critical when we are working in mature markets and or slow economic environments. Thinking about possibilities that our competitors are not addressing is the answer to being unexpected.Unique is about developing the products or services that separate us from the competition and making sure that all of our customers and potential customers are well aware of those differences. Unique is about finding niche products and services that cannot be easily turned into commodities. Sometimes uniqueness doesn’t have anything to do with the products we sell: Do you and your competitors both deliver product to the same customers? If so, can you customize schedules or change the delivery hours to be of help and support to your customers? Can you offer 24/7 ordering capability that your competitors can’t? Can you offer unique financing or different terms than your competitors? Can you customize or private-label a product in ways that your competitor can’t?What can you do to customize your services to meet the unique needs of even one of your customers or potential customers? If we wanted to make up a word to cover this uniqueness, it would be; customerization…the ability to make our services fit our customer’s most challenging requirements. Offering something unique and making sure that our customers and potential customers are well aware of the uniqueness is good for sales and good for increasing margins as well!Unconventional is about being truly remarkable in our advertising and promotional messages. If the normal tools for promoting our product or service are being ignored because they are interruptive or obtrusive, it may be time to try something really out of the ordinary. We have to find something that stirs curiosity and sends a message of gain as opposed to interrupting our potential customer’s time or invading her space. Perhaps offering a portion of our product or service for free is the promo that makes it attractive. Perhaps tying our services to an incentive trip or gift makes the customer more willing to listen. Perhaps offering goods or services in multiple languages offers a new more easily understood perspective. Perhaps a message focused on our client’s kids turns his head. Perhaps accessing through some form of social network, physical or digital opens new interests. Perhaps a challenging puzzle that the customer must solve is interesting.Whatever the unconventional approach is, the goal should be to build a list of e-mail addresses, by interest in specific areas of product and service and then to establish rapport and only promote specific and targeted items in our communications.Unobtrusive is being totally cognizant, respectful and appreciative of our customer’s time. This goes beyond the obvious and normal focus on making appointments in advance, planning the call and having the presentation worked out in advance. Being completely unobtrusive requires knowing our customer’s business so well that we only communicate with her when we know the new product or service could be of additional value. It means knowing her schedule so well that we only try to make appointments that fit that schedule.Unobtrusive is also about tapping into the folks that have given us permission to market to them as a result of some of the unconventional things we did above. Now that we have generated e-mail lists from those folks who are interested in what we are selling, it is time to begin a sophisticated set of messages to them. Have we categorized our e-mail lists based on which products or services best fit into their needs? Sending message and programs that are always applicable to our customer’s specific needs means they will always read what we send. It means we have established credibility based on our ability to be unobtrusive but effective suppliers!Unstoppable is about persistence, closing skills, feedback and follow-up. Moving a sale forward or closing a sale is the step that happens when we get a signal that says, “It’s time to stop talking and start writing.” The “writing” could be as simple as scheduling the next call in the process or scheduling a call with a “specialist” or “expert”. The “writing” could be filling out the order. What makes us unstoppable is what we do from that point on.Being unstoppable is about following up on the details, promises and commitments. Most sales people are not very strong in the follow-up area until they get enough experience and maturity to recognize that this is a more solid stream of opportunities and income than cold-calling will ever be!If you are not proficient with the electronic customer relationship management tools your firm provides, get over it! Spend the time and effort needed to become proficient because this is where the money is. Being unstoppable is about using every tool to make sure that relationship with your customer keeps getting stronger. Remembering important dates and events, following up with every task you are committed to and making sure that you use current successes with existing customers to help uncover new opportunities with new customers. That is how tools and good follow-up habits make you more successful.The new, exciting and challenging world of selling in the 21st century is something to be embraced not avoided. Paying attention to the Five U’s can make all of us unbelievably successful and real winners.Ken Rogner, Corporate Sales Trainer, POOLCORP
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