As a salesperson, you’re trained to ask customers what they want in terms of your product offerings. That’s wise advice. However, if you only ask customers what they want and then give it to them, you’re missing the biggest opportunity that has ever come in front of you.
Realize that clients will always under-ask because they don’t know what is possible. Think about it…No customer ever asked for a fax machine. They didn’t know it was possible to send printed communication via a phone line. No customer ever asked for an iPod. They didn’t know it was possible to listen to music without some sort of CD or spinning device. People don’t ask for things that they don’t know exist.
Technology allows us to do things that were once thought impossible. So for salespeople, while it is important to ask customers what they want and then to give it to them, realize that by doing so you’re merely competing with your competitors. Chances are your competitors are asking customers the same questions, they’re getting the same answers, and they’re providing the same solutions. When that happens, you end up competing on price and not differentiating yourself.
Therefore, the Golden Rule of sales is to give people the ability to do what they currently can’t do but would really want to do if they only knew they could have done it. That’s so much more profitable than simply giving clients what they ask for.
The key is that you have to look a little bit further into your customers’ predictable needs based on where they’re going. Only then you can see unmet needs and new opportunities.
At this point many salespeople might say, “But I don’t create the products; I just sell them. How can I deliver what customers don’t know is possible?” The answer lies in how you can redefine various aspects of your offering. Consider redefining your product. Today, it’s not about high-tech; it’s about higher-tech. In other words, it’s not about your product; it’s about how your clients use it.
Think about the products you sell. Sure, your customers are probably using the product for what it was intended to do. But could the same product help in another department? Could it impact the effectiveness of the company in some other way? Could it do something else or someting more for your customers? Analyze how people have always used your product and think of other creative applications. That’s how you redefine your product so it adds more value and does what no one ever thought to ask.
Next month, I will show you how to redefine your customers and the value you bring to them.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Unified Communications
Competition is continuing to increase in all areas. To become more competitive and profitable is often accomplished by lowering costs and increasing efficiency. It can also be accomplished by creating new products, services and markets.
The vast majority of businesses focus on lowering costs because product and service innovation is often seen as a new expense, and a new risk. From an employee standpoint, they have seen year after year of relentless downsizing, or as it is often called, rightsizing. In other words, far fewer people to do more and more work. That is not a big problem, as long as technology is used to dramatically increase each worker’s productivity.
The problem we often run into is that communication technologies that were meant to help us save time, such as cell phones, e-mail, group ware, audio and video conferencing, and instant messaging, to name a few, can actually take our valuable time as well. Not only that, but electronic gadgets are useless if the person you’re trying to reach is unreachable.
An early attempt to solve this problem was Unified Messaging. The idea was to bring together all types of fixed and mobile communications into a single delivery system. With voice, data, and video traffic all on the same network, users could send any type of message without having to consider how the recipient would receive it. In other words, I might leave someone a voice mail message and they might read it in their e-mail. Getting all of your messages in one place is good, but now we can do even better – getting a fast response from the person we are trying to reach!
Now, thanks to the majority of companies moving over to voice over IP (VoIP), it is possible to combine all forms of communications with “presence.” Presence lets users know who’s reachable where and when. If you have ever used instant messaging, you know when a person is present or away from their computer. This ability to know if the person you are trying to reach is actually there is a powerful business tool. By adding VoIP capabilities such as presence to Unified Messaging, we can now achieve what is being called Unified Communications. Not only are your communications unified with the power of presence, they can also be embedded in your applications. For example, sales people at a client location could reach out to experts for fast answers and get them without leaving their sales software application. Ask yourself: How much time would you save if you could reach key people with one call or e-mail?
The vast majority of businesses focus on lowering costs because product and service innovation is often seen as a new expense, and a new risk. From an employee standpoint, they have seen year after year of relentless downsizing, or as it is often called, rightsizing. In other words, far fewer people to do more and more work. That is not a big problem, as long as technology is used to dramatically increase each worker’s productivity.
The problem we often run into is that communication technologies that were meant to help us save time, such as cell phones, e-mail, group ware, audio and video conferencing, and instant messaging, to name a few, can actually take our valuable time as well. Not only that, but electronic gadgets are useless if the person you’re trying to reach is unreachable.
An early attempt to solve this problem was Unified Messaging. The idea was to bring together all types of fixed and mobile communications into a single delivery system. With voice, data, and video traffic all on the same network, users could send any type of message without having to consider how the recipient would receive it. In other words, I might leave someone a voice mail message and they might read it in their e-mail. Getting all of your messages in one place is good, but now we can do even better – getting a fast response from the person we are trying to reach!
Now, thanks to the majority of companies moving over to voice over IP (VoIP), it is possible to combine all forms of communications with “presence.” Presence lets users know who’s reachable where and when. If you have ever used instant messaging, you know when a person is present or away from their computer. This ability to know if the person you are trying to reach is actually there is a powerful business tool. By adding VoIP capabilities such as presence to Unified Messaging, we can now achieve what is being called Unified Communications. Not only are your communications unified with the power of presence, they can also be embedded in your applications. For example, sales people at a client location could reach out to experts for fast answers and get them without leaving their sales software application. Ask yourself: How much time would you save if you could reach key people with one call or e-mail?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
