Alec Baldwin offered Jack Lemmon and several other terrified salesmen some typical selling advice in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross: "The key is ABC, gentlemen. Always ... Be ... Closing."
Baldwin's classic advice may apply to products. But if you are selling the staple of the New Economy -- services -- forget ABC.
Products are things made by someone else; product salespeople merely act as go-betweens. They can gush, "Isn't this a beauty?" or "Isn't this amazing?" without offending the prospect. They are merely gushing over a car made by some gifted Germans.
Now change what the salespeople are selling from a red German convertible to a service -- let's say IT consulting. What if they pitch the same way they pitched the car? What if they say "Our firm is amazing -- the best in the region"?
Raving about a car is acceptable and understandable: many cars, pens, and scarves, to name just three products, are worth raving about. When you gush about your firm's services, however, you are doing something different: you are bragging.
To hard-sell and "always be closing," you must gush and rave. When it's your services you are selling, raving sounds boastful -- and not even braggarts like other braggarts.
Clients prize humility -- reason enough to never hard sell again.
Go softly and slowly.
Related Thought:
Services often sell too hard in their advertising, and leap the fine line between touting and bragging. The University of Pennsylvania's outstanding business school, Wharton, recently waged a campaign to attract students. Its head-line proclaimed, "At Wharton, we don't teach the rules of business. We write them." Among other flaws, the ad manages to make one of America's most prestigious schools sound like an upstart outsider, shouting to be heard.
Sell Soft
-- excerpted from What Clients Love
Krispy Kreme
It's easy to ascribe this company's problems to Dr. Atkins and sneaky accounting. But there is more to this story.
Krispy Kreme once had a position: a delicious doughnut that was hard-to-find. Being rare, the doughnuts increased in value; they had cachet.
They did, and then they didn't. The powers at Krispy Kreme decided that the appeal of their doughnuts was their remarkable taste. And so, with shocking speed -- what seemed like overnight to this observer in Minneapolis -- Krispy Kremes went from being hard-to-find to being everywhere you looked.
Driving down Lake Street, you see a cheaply produced billboard advertising these "special" pastries at, of all places, a SuperAmerica. Walking into the entrance of Target, you find dozens of boxes of the doughnuts on display.
Almost overnight, this rare and special product has become commonplace. It's one of those products you can find in discount gas stations and stores.
Suddenly, Krispy Kreme is a mass-produced, discount, everyday product.
And suddenly, its sales and share prices are falling faster than boiling oil.
We urge politicians to "stay on message," and the successful ones do. We urge companies to find and "stay on position." The failures don't.
Stay with the one that brung you.
On the Lighter Side
Bumper Stickers: "ENCYCLOPEDIAS FOR SALE -- HUSBAND KNOWS EVERYTHING."
Movies: Lots of entertaining films this year, but two of the most engaging are Finding Neverland and Sideways.
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Harry Beckwith is the best-selling author of Selling
the Invisible, which has been named one of the top
ten business books of all time, with over 675,000
copies sold in 14 translations. He is also author of
The Invisible Touch and What Clients Love, which
have sold over 275,000 copies in 13 translations. He has been a keynote speaker for 14 Fortune 200 annual sales meetings and the National Speakers' Association |
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convention, and has made presentations in Europe, South America and Asia. He is
cited regularly in national media including CNN,
The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur,
Crain's New York Business and numerous
American, European and Asian newspapers. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Harry resides in Minneapolis and is the father of six. |
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