Four ways to double sales this year
4 ways to double sales
By Chet Holmes
Adviser to more than 60 of the Global 1000, and top producer in every position ever held when he was a salesperson in the trenches.
your sales in the next twelve months. Each of these
concepts separately can double sales, but put them all together and you could be in for a banner year. Let’s get right into it.
Concept one to doubles sales: The Best Buyer Concept
Completely grasp the power of this: There’s always a smaller number of ideal buyers,
rather than all buyers, so ideal buyers are cheaper to market to and yet bring greater rewards.
advertising in the competitor’s magazine (not ours). We
started what I call “The Dream 100 Sell,” a concept where you go after your “Dream” prospects with a vengeance. We sent the 167 (best buyers) a letter every two weeks and called them four times per month.
four months of intensive marketing and selling brought no actual reward. In the
fifth month, only ONE of these Dream clients bought advertising in the magazine. The top management of the magazine became nervous thinking that maybe
this guy Chet Holmes wasn’t the man his reputation said he
was.
In the sixth month 28 of the 167 largest advertisers in the country came into the
magazine all at once. And since these are the biggest advertisers, they don’t take quarter pages and fractionals; they take full pages and full color spreads. These 28 advertisers alone, were enough to double the sales over the
previous year. We went from number 15 in the industry to number one within 15 months.
Lessons for you: Who are your best buyers?
If you sell B2C, chances are your best buyers live in the best
neighborhoods.
If you are a dentist, accountant, chiropractor, R.E. Broker, financial advisor, restaurant, or even an MLM’r, etc., consistently go after the
folks who live in the best neighborhoods. They are the wealthiest buyers who have the money and the greatest sphere of influence. If you send them an offer every single month
without fail, within a year you’ll have a great reputation
among the very wealthy.
If you sell B2B, it’s
usually fairly clear that your best buyers are the biggest companies. So what are you doing, every other week, no matter what, to let these companies know who you are? As I always say,
there’s no one that you can’t get to as long as you constantly market to them, especially after they say they’re not interested. People will not only begin to respect your perseverance, they will actually begin to feel obligated.
This doesn’t happen right away, but even the most hard-bitten and cynical executive or prospect begins to respect you when you just will not give up. The publication I ran for Charlie
Munger, doubled sales two more years in a row, because we constantly marketed to the best buyers and much more aggressively than we did to all buyers.
It took me two years to get my first meeting with Jay Abraham. That
meeting has been worth over $10 million to me. It took me 12 years (off and on) to get an
in-depth meeting with Tony
Robbins. I’ll let you know how
that one works out, but the outcome potential is huge. It took six months of my best work to get Morgan Stanley as a client. Nine intensive days of telemarketing techniques to
get George Zimmer of the Men’s Wearhouse on the phone to talk my way into a
meeting. Got him as a client too.
I have 100 stories like this. And even better ones from folks like you who learned this technique, applied it and watched it double their sales a few years in a row.
Who are your DREAM
prospects? And how committed are you to getting them as
clients?
To see me talk about this live, for free, go to
www.howtodoublesales.com….
But here is yet another idea to double your sales in 2006:
Concept two to double sales:
Educational-based marketing.
In a nutshell: You can attract far more prospects to take a look at what you have to offer by offering education than
you’ll ever get by offering your product or service. For example: I had a client that sold telephone systems. They would call hundreds of
companies per day and ask if they were interested in talking about a new telephone system
(product offer). But when they started calling and asking folks if they wanted to learn: “The nine ways you’re wasting money on your voice and data spending,” they were able to increase their appointment setting ten fold, from three
appointments per week to 30 appointments per week. This tripled their pipeline in the first three months alone.
What kind of a free education could YOU offer that would
make your prospects want to meet with you? Bad offer (using real estate
as an example): “Let me teach you why you should list your house
with me.” Much better offer: “Let me teach you the five mistakes every one
makes when they go to sell their house. – No matter who you list with,
you’ll need to know these things.” This offer will get you a lot more appointments.
They were quickly shut down and shut out.
This client went up $100 million in sales in a single year. If your local newspaper
called you up and offered to teach you the seven things that make all
businesses succeed, you’d probably find that pretty hard to
turn down. They’d still have to talk you into the meeting, but it would be an easier sell
than talking you into a meeting to try and pitch your advertising.
To see me talk about this live, for free, go to www.howtodoublesales.com….
But here is yet another idea to double your sales in 2006:
Concept Three: Superstar strategy.
This is another concept that has brought great success to many a client or student
of my material; Teaching companies how to put star sales talent into their organization. No matter how small you are, you would be surprised to
learn that you can get others to grow your company for you—all you have to be willing to do is share the wealth.
I was 19 years old when I got my first real sales position, selling furniture. They had a quota (this is nearly 30 years ago) where you had to sell
$20,000 worth of furniture per month to get your bonus. I thought to myself that I’d
never be able to sell $20,000 worth of furniture in a month. So I took a week of vacation from my job as a movie theater manager and took that week to see how I would do. I sold $18,000 worth of furniture in a single week.
Within three months, I was out-selling everyone in a chain of six furniture stores,
including guys who had been selling furniture all their life. In fact, I tripled my quota regularly whereas most struggled just to meet theirs.
Obviously, it wasn’t training. Everyone had the same training. It was psychological
profile. I loved working with people. I bonded quickly, was extremely outgoing and expected folks to buy. I remember the sales manager teaching me:
“You’re doing folks a big favor by helping them buy so they can stop looking.
And believe me son, when folks buy, they’re happy. Watch how they can’t wait to get the items in their home.” He was so right. And though he gave every sales rep that speech, why was I the one that closed so many more deals than everyone else?
Psychological profile. Something you really can’t teach. I went on to become the top producer in every job I ever had. Never number two. I also broke every sales record in
every position I ever held; i.e.; Most sold in a week, most sold in a month, most new clients sold, biggest sale ever made, etc… You name it, I broke it.
When I got into a position to hire my own salespeople I swore I’d hire nothing but
top producers. Those who have tried to hire nothing but top producers know what I found out. They are a rare and elusive creature. So much of what I have developed (65 training products now selling in 23 countries) is all out of trial and error trying to build truly fantastic organizations.
We have an entire seminar on how hiring top producers, even for one-person armies, can be one of the best fast-growth strategies you can deploy. And yes, that seminar is truly superb, but here’s the basics of it:
There are 19 year-old future sales stars out there that have not yet discovered that
they can make millions per year. They are very inexpensive to retain when they are young, some even free. I’ve perfected the art of finding these eager
beavers while they are young and inexpensive. One of the keys is the ad.
Here’s a sample ad that has pulled some of these types. Put
the ad under “sales” in your local paper or online help wanted advertising vehicle :
Sales
Superstar wanted:
Must be fantastic at
selling, presenting, bonding with clients and closing. Earn up to $XXXX
per year if you’re a real star. Young or old, if you have the
stuff, we’ll know.
Email resume or letter to:
Obviously, you cannot advertise for young folks. That’s illegal. But you can say what we’ve said here: “young or old, if you have the stuff, we’ll know.” But the reality is that if the person is a REAL star, you probably can’t afford them.
But that statement tells the younger folks that you’ll
recognize their greatness. And make no mistake; the type I’m talking about has a deep feeling
that they can do anything. That “psychological profile” is in fact why they do things others don’t. They BELIEVE, so they ACHIEVE. And ad like the one above CALLS to the type of person I’m talking about. They believe in themselves when
all else doubt them and they are looking for someone who will see their greatness when they maybe not yet have proof.
The next trick to attracting these future superstars is to create a compensation plan that rewards them for great performance. And make
sure you put the range in the ad. I had a client that paid $9 per hour, plus commissions. So he would put “$9 per hour plus
commission” in his ads. He had
one sales rep that was so good at his job that he actually earned close to $100,000 per year counting his commissions. So I asked this client:
“Do you want more $9 per hour folks or would you like someone who can even outsell your top producer?” The answer is obvious. So we put
“earn up to $100K per year for
real star performance.” That changed the entire quality of
candidates.
I had another client who had invented something that needed to be sold to very
large companies, but he personally had no chance of making those sales.
He didn’t have the skills or the psychological profile. The
average sale would be
$1 million and he could easily afford to pay 10% ($100,000 per sale) to the sales rep. Estimating that the sales rep might be able to sell just ten deals per year, we put the following in the ad: “Earn up to $1 million per year.”
What kind of candidates do you think an ad like that would draw? He ended up getting
a retired millionaire (a 50 year-old superstar deciding to get back to work) who didn’t even need a salary. So for nothing, nadda, zip, zero-- money down (except the cost of the ad), this client got himself a serious player with fantastic skills and resources who has already added $6 million in income to his business in just eight months. Both are very happy.
I had another client who worked out a generous commission plan for new sales
reps. His product was something that sold right away. Meaning that a new rep
could start on Monday, and if he was good, by the end of the week, he could actually have earned some commission. So he hired five salespeople on straight commission, following my advice. Not only did they create all kinds of innovations he never thought of, but he grew his business 500% over a two-year period. He used to do all the selling himself. Now he plays a lot and reaps the
rewards of five superstars driving revenue every day.
To see me talk about this live, for free, go to
www.howtodoublesales.com….
But here is yet another idea to double your sales in 2006:
Concept Four: Zero to $100 million learning curve.
that, you are in the top 5% of entrepreneurs and you are rare and to be congratulated. But of those that get that far, 95% won’t ever make it to $5
million. And of those that get that far, 98% won’t get to $10
million. And think of the tiny, tiny percentage of companies that make it to $100 million in
annual revenue. We only have 500 companies in the
corner bank and Wells Fargo Bank(sic)? Or the difference between
Answer:
It’s not the product or service; it’s the SKILLS of the entrepreneur. What kind
of PERSON builds a company? That’s the key question. ....
Recommended by Glen Brink
To study this sales topic start with HowToDoubleSales.
To develop your personal sales ability start with Self
Esteem Confidence Success.
To develop your personal attention abilities start with Eckankar.
To develop your personal intention abilities start with Avatar.
To develop your personal economic value start with a mentor like GlenBrink.
Sponsored by GlenBrink.com
Comments
Post a Comment