Selling the Invisible: a field Guide to Modern Marketing \(Biz Books to Go\) pdfdrive com

Shoot the Message, Not the Messenger: The Fastest Way to
Improve Your Sales Force
In fifteen seconds, Clifford could talk your children into attending Yale.
Judy could quiet an entire room with her passionate defense of her position
on abortion.
Fred has convinced eleven of his friends to buy Shad Rap fishing lures.
Then I ask the brokerage company executive about these three people—her
fellow partners. Are they pretty good at selling? “Oh, they’re OK.” Are they
selling effectively now? “Not really. Not nearly as well as we’d like.”
What’s the problem?
With few exceptions, the problem is not the sales force. Like most people,
Clifford, Judy, and Fred are extremely adept at selling things they believe in.
This company’s selling problem is actually a marketing problem: The company
has failed to create or identify the distinction that makes a selling message
powerful, and that makes the salespeople true believers.
Sent off to pitch prospects, Clifford, Judy, and Fred start from weakness.
Their message sounds fuzzy; they don’t sound truly convinced and confident.
It’s no wonder. The key to any effective presentation is having a clear point of
view. If you have one you believe in, you are almost certain to be effective in
presenting it.
Does your sales force have that clear point of view? A few people may. But if
your firm has not created or clearly identified its distinction, and the benefits of
that distinction, to people who use the service, most people will not present your
case effectively for one simple reason: You haven’t developed that case.
To fix your messengers, fix your message.

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Personal Investment
Say “risk” to businesspeople, and they hear “money.”
Sometimes, they’re right. But many of the risks that people fail to take—and
the rewards they miss because of it—cost nothing. These risks are personal.
Consider the director of an exceptional service. The service is excellent, but
the sales are merely good. Why? Because the director refuses to take the
personal risks involved in personally selling his product. A big convention of
prospects comes to town. Afraid to risk himself among strangers, the director
“gets sick” on the day of the convention. On another occasion, someone
mentions a good prospect for the director in the same town. The director never
calls the prospect.
Gail Sheehy illuminated the rewards of risk-taking in her book Pathfinders.
Sheehy began her research looking for the secrets of truly contented people. She
wondered what made these people feel such a sense of well-being. Sheehy
learned that “people of high well-being” shared just a few traits, and this was
one:
They all had taken an enormous risk.
Selling a service involves personal risks. You can look too pushy. You can be
rejected. (No, you will be rejected.) People won’t return your calls. You run the
risk of feeling bad when you go home at night.
But the rewards of all those efforts will make you wonder: Why didn’t I do
that in the first place?
Taking risks doesn’t always mean risking your money. Sometimes, it just
means risking yourself.