Sales Scripts That Sell, 2nd edition

Authors: Teri Gamble , Michael Gamble
Pub Date: 2007
Your Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0814474217
Format: Hardcover

• Overview
• Sample Chapter
• Table of Contents
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Scene 3: Technology, MEdia, and Sales

In addition to recognizing culture’s influence on sales, equally critical for sales reps of the 21st century is the understanding of how to use technological innovations as sales tools. Like any tool, technology when used appropriately can pave the salesperson’s way, augment face-to-face selling, and facilitate follow-up.

Face Up to the MEdia Revolution

We are convinced that the word media should now be spelled MEdia. Why? Because Generation Me, that cohort born after 1970, is the generation that’s now leading the charge into the future. This generation expects others to be as thrilled with them as they are with themselves. Members of Generation Me grew up using computers as their primary means of interaction. They are also natural media multitaskers. They chat on cellphones, surf the Internet, IM or TM (instant message or text message), read e-mail on their BlackBerries, and listen to podcasts, all while planning their day’s appointments. Generation Me’s members are used to focusing on themselves, and they want you to ­focus on them. They need their daily dose of what media expert Nicolas ­Negroponte calls “The Daily Me.”

Generation Me members also use an array of technological tools to help them express themselves, develop online communities, and personalize their media environments and schedules. If you’re selling to members of this cohort, or if you are a member of this cohort yourself, keep in mind that Generation Me members have huge goals, a yearning for self-fulfillment, pride themselves on their individualism, but may be somewhat sketchy when it comes to execution. The key to reaching Gen Me: They want my media or I media, not mass media. Thus, you need to appeal to their individuality and help them feel good about themselves because they often place themselves at the head of their priority list. Your task is to turn them from passive receiver or consumer of sales information into active creator of sales content. They feel entitled to be in the spotlight and the subject of your attention. When you’re as plugged into iPods, cell phones, and laptops as Gen Me members are, when you love MySpace and YouTube and can ­escape to Second Life, it just gets easier to shut out the rest of the world, doesn’t it? It’s your job to break through and make them happy by soliciting their input and handing them back control. They want their access to information to be immediate. They want their access to you “always on.”

E-Mail: Break Through

If you haven’t used e-mail as a sales tool, now is the time to begin! If you are already using it, there’s always room for improvement. But first a caution:
E-mail is not a replacement for the phone or face-to-face contact. It needs to be perceived as a sales supplement that can add to the power of a sales call or even create one.

If you find yourself repeatedly blocked by the gatekeeper, e-mail can help you break through the barrier. Most often, however, it is not a way to create new relationships, but a backup option for more personal contact. Thus, e-mail is particularly useful in establishing continuing relationships with customers and preventing customer defections. By using e-mail to maintain regular contact and keep clients “warm,” you decrease the chances of their perceiving you as indifferent to them or their needs.

In addition to enabling you to literally be omnipresent by keeping you front and center in the minds of clients, e-mail also lets you communicate with unlimited numbers of existing and potential customers, provides an easy way for you to remind prospects and customers of the benefits that your product or service offers, and serves as an effective means of priming your call for action.

Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when using e-mail:

• Write a compelling subject line that concisely summarizes the e-mail’s central idea or purpose. Keep your company name out of it. Your goal is to create a “must open” mind-set in receivers. Making the subject line talk by including a verb and referencing a problem you may be able to help customers solve increases the likelihood they open and read it.
• Begin with a friendly salutation and be yourself. Introduce yourself and your company in the first paragraph. The primary purpose of e-mailing is to make friends or sustain a friendship. Prospects and customers respond to friends; like you, they remember the old adage about not talking to strangers. Become the un-stranger.
• Frontload your e-mail. By revealing the main idea immediately and directly, you amplify the e-mail’s purpose. Busy receivers want to know immediately why they’re reading your message.
• Write a brief, pressure-free message that is understandable and gets to the point. Most e-mail recipients do not read the messages they receive in their entirety. Instead, they read the first few sentences and make a decision about whether to continue reading. Your message should make them want to continue. Don’t fill the message with abbreviations others might have difficulty understanding. Write out words and phrases. Even FYI or ASAP can be misinterpreted.
• The goal of your e-mail is to spark future phone or face-to-face dialogue. An e-mail message should not be a sales pitch. Instead it should be clear, concise, and contain information or documents your customers need.
• Write flawless messages. The e-mails you send reflect you and either raise or lower your credibility. Show you care. Proofread. Fix run-on sentences, sentence fragments, sloppy punctuation, and typos. Use simple, direct, understandable language. Use readable fonts—not a mix of different ones.
• To keep your message easy on the eye, break up the text with line breaks and white space. Use headings and bullets to make it easy to scan. Also, don’t use all capital letters to make a point. What all caps suggest to others is that the sender is angry. That’s not the message you want to send. Keep the tone friendly.
• Provide flawless service. Give all the information a prospect or customers need to contact you or buy from you should they desire to do so. Have a single call to action—the one thing you want the receiver to do—click to open and view a catalog or express interest in your product or service.
• Sign off positively.

Blogs: Reach Out

Posting information of concern to prospects or customers can be beneficial to sales. A blog (short for weblog) is an interactive online journal, casually written, that can help you share information, promote products, and respond to customer concerns. And since visitors to a blog typically leave public comments, it can also make you more approachable as well as provide you with special insight into your clients.

You can use a blog to discuss new products, show customers how to use new features of an existing product, or answer customer questions. If you give your blog “a great idea just occurred to me” tone, the thinking is it might well become addictive. Reaching out by providing interesting reports on or opinions about products and services, or interviews and articles related to your product or service gives the reader of your blog something they want. You also need to be sure to ask for reader comments or opinions. Ask readers to describe their experiences or ask them to suggest something. Show them you’re open to their suggestions.

To be a good blogger, you need to keep a few things in mind:

• Write about what you think will interest others. You need to keep the reader in mind. If there’s nothing in it for them, they won’t come back.
• Write like you speak and share your personal experiences and opinions.
• Keep all posts short and simple, jazzy, and snazzy. Spoon-feed rather than misfeed readers.
• Solicit reader input.

Before making a post, take the time you need to answer each of the following questions with a "yes":

• Does the post have a headline that clarifies your topic?
• Does the lead paragraph of your post reveal who and what the post is about as well as why the reader should care?
• Is the angle you’ve adopted likely to interest readers?
• Is your writing jargon-free?
• Did you end with a question designed to evoke reader comments?

If you follow the guidelines provided, answer each of the preceding questions affirmatively, always keep your readers in mind, and let your personality and values come through, your blog will bring you closer to your customers. Remember, when blogging, it is important to post regularly, focus on communication, and keep every message clear and concise.

© 2007 Teri Gamble and Michael Gamble.
All rights reserved.
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