How to Anchor During a Negotiation to Close 100% More Sales

Negotiation is a critical skill for anyone and especially for salespeople. Although there's no single perfect approach, it's in your ability to effectively negotiate a deal through being able to read the situation and act accordingly than it is about talking a prospect into doing what you want them to do.

When buyers make a purchase it's natural for them to experience a phenomenon called an anchoring bias which is the tendency to focus heavily on the first price they see in the context of a sale. By understanding how anchoring can impact the decision-making process, salespeople can be better equipped to handle different challenging situations during a negotiation with potential customers.

How anchoring works

Don't dive in without your diving gear. It's important that you determine what information to share with prospects. Keep in mind that the first value they hear has a high likelihood to influence their decision, and after your initial conversations with the prospect you feel you can present a package that is financially feasible for them and profitable for you, you can get ahead of anchoring bias by presenting a mutually beneficial first offer.

Challenges of Anchoring in Negotiation

Anchoring can also create challenges in the negotiation process when there is misalignment between two parties on the value of the offer.

Conclusion

The more experience you have at negotiating the more comfortable you will be working through these scenarios. To hone in your negotiation skills, hop on a video call with a colleague and try an exercise together.

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How to Get Your Sales Back on Track

More sales can mean more revenue and a bigger profit for your business, however, as your sales numbers continue to grow companies pass the point of being able to fulfils every order as soon as it's made. This is a sales backlog. This is often unavoidable, no matter how good your inventory management processes that have been set in place.

This isn't necessarily a bad position to be in. Although it is ideal to fill customer orders as quickly as possible, a healthy backlog shows that your product/service is highly in demand. 

The importance of a sales backlog

This could mean your product is high in demand, or it could mean that your fulfilment techniques are inefficient. Measuring your backlog helps you assess if your company is in a strong position for growth or this will continue to be a problem as you grow.

Best way to calculate your sales backlog

The best way to calculate your backlog is typically expressed as a ratio. Compare a period of time of your total orders with your ordering processing capacity. The rule of thumb is to have a larger number as this would mean that your backlog is larger. Here's an example of what the formula looks like:

Sales backlog = backlog of orders/total sales

For example if you make 110 sales per week but have a 10 order backlog (inability to fulfil sales) you would have a sales backlog of 0.09.

10/110=0.09

What this means is that for every order 0.09 (or 9%) orders are actually backlogged. Check in to see if this trends up over time or if this is repetitive in a cycle.

How to manage your sales backlog

To manage your sales backlog means effectively understanding what the ratio represents and how it actually impacts or effects your business operations. Check in frequently and implement a faster turnaround time for your suppliers or find ways to be able to deliver your service more efficiently.

Conclusion

The best-case management for your backlog means to find a sweet spot between demand and your available capacity, until you are able to solve either side of the issue. There are many tactics which include new physical processing capacities or increasing efficiency with the inclusion of specific processes.

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8 Different Tonal Patterns Which Will Help You Close More Sales

Tonality is broken up into 8 generally different patterns. Which you use will depend on the relationship you've managed to build with the other receiver. Look at it as where they are currently in the sales process and what you hope to gain in that moment of the conversation.

1. Scarcity/Urgency

This is used to convey the need to make a decision quickly.

2. Reasonable

You are on the same side as them, speaking to them as if you're one of them or you can relate from their point of view to build a positive relationship with the buyer.

3. Absolute Certainty

You know you can help them and you want them to understand that as well.

4. I Care

Empathy is important in everything you do including sales. Customers want to know that their problems really matter to you.

5. Using a question to be declarative

Ending your statement with a raised voice suggesting a question mark, to infer an agreement.

6. Series of 3 Up Tones

This micro-agreements can encourage others to agree with you.

7. The Presupposing Tone

You know the outcome they can expect and is especially helpful when emphasising the benefits which can be expected when using your product/service.

8. I really want to know

Customers yearn to be heard. Use this tone to allow you to communicate that you want to hear them and their problems.

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7 Steps on How to Execute Productive Cold Calling in Sales

Two words that strike fear to any salesperson is to "cold call". As challenging as this may be the ability to pick up the phone and create a relationship is a critical skill for any successful salesperson. It's normal for the first few phone calls to cause anxiety but a calling campaign can be incredibly lucrative for those who know how to navigate it and are brave enough to master it.

This task gets even easier when you know how to properly plan and execute a calling campaign for your sales task.

What is a cold calling campaign?

Through the life of sales you are collecting contact information and buyer data from your potential customers. There are companies which will sell you lists of potential customers that fit your desired criteria. A cold calling campaign is a structured plan for contacting these individuals for one-on-one conversations. It's the oldest form of marketing and when done properly can yield unexpected results.

Benefits of a cold calling campaign

• You learn more about your customers. Having a personal connection allows you to learn about their pain points and understand the lengths which they have tried to solve their own problems in the past, and what they are looking for going forward.
• Improving brand awareness in the marketplace.
• Keep your sales database up-to-date.
• Generate leads.
• Close sales.

Outcomes may differ depending on your goals and tactics but this remains to be a great investment for your business.

How to Execute a Productive Calling Campaign

1. Understand your goals

Before taking any action decide what you are looking to get out of this time. Are you reconnecting or announcing a new product or cold calling potential customers?

2. Decide who you will contact

Your database should be solid to be able to provide you with all the information you need to reach out to existing or lapsed customers. If you're cold calling make sure the contact information you have includes people who may need your product and have the ability to buy it.

3. Decide how you will contact people

4. Decide when you'll call

This will be based on who is on your list, if your ideal customers are businesses, make sure to call during business hours.

5. Arm your salespeople or agents properly

You should have your pitch ready and easy to follow, but you'll also want to have answers ready for any questions that may be asked.

6. Record data

Manage your contact database using a CRM system. This information can help you better serve or sell in the future.

7. Evaluate your plan and switch if needed be.

If you find that you are having absolutely no success it may be time to make changes. Know that not all strategies are fixed.

Conclusion

Don't waste your time, energy and money on a jump in first mentality. Identify your goals, have a strong database (purchase one if you don't) and factor in follow-up calls. Be sure to speak to them in the right language, and preparing to answer any questions that they may have.

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5 Questions That Can Identify a Customer's Pain Points

As you're performing sales qualification with a prospect, here are 5 questions to help you discover some of the pains that can create a great conversation with your prospects:

1. What's the biggest hindrance to your customers' growth?

This is a classic. It cuts right to the chase and goes right to the heart of the matter. Every customer is in the customer of growth and the biggest obstacle to it is a serious pain.

Here are some great ways you can get to the meat of the conversation quickly:

1. What's your plan to tackle this?
2. When is your deadline to solve this problem?
3. Do you think it'll be easy or hard to solve this problem?
4. Who is your customer is working to fix this right now?

These questions although simple in its outlook has many layers of complexity to it and will blow any conversation with the prospect wide open.

2. What is your biggest problem?

This is a more fun question. This is a casual question and has its own personality, is funny and creates unusual chaos. It acts to stir up emotion and gets to your prospect's core needs.

3. What does your boss obsess about?

When doing sales you don't always speak to the top and sometimes you will have to manage with someone who is 2 or 3 levels below them.

1. They usually control the budget for B2B
2. A manager usually filters down to her direct reports
3. This signals inexperience. 

4. What takes up the most time in your day?

This focuses on your direct point of contact and you can help them to focus more about the value than the features.

5. What's been repeatedly discussed at company meetings by senior management?

1. This focuses on what keeps the CEO up at night. It has to be addressed for the company for them to continue operating at full capacity. Some examples include:
2. What do senior managers put on their quarterly planning agendas?
3. What do they talk about all the time?
4. What do they send all-company emails about?

These are the customer pains you are looking for and could be life changing for your sales objectives and target.

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4 Ways to Create Customer Focused Content for Growth

This is the million dollar question that all both small and big businesses ask. Is there a way to win brand visibility in an ever crowded market without overspending on resources? For many companies embracing the web, content marketing is, in many ways, the most powerful opportunity to achieve growth and outshine competitors. Also new startups don't have the luxury of being unique anymore. They must be better - not just different - from competitors if they want attention and sales.

The answer is actually straightforward. Focus on customer based content for growth.

Although the concept is straightforward, gaining thought leadership in a crowded market of experts isn't easy. What's more ranking for major keywords can be challenging. For anyone embarking on this journey understand that there needs to be a level of commitment to the craft. With authority, relevance, and warmth everyone can carve their own space in the content space.

Start here.
Your customer should always be the hero of any story that you tell.

Here's how we're practicing the 4 methods during the implementation of a customer focused content.

1. Establish a voice

This is often missed out on, but the voice is everything. All successful brand voices:

• Resonate instantly with the target audience
• Is consistent across all channels

2. The Flywheel Effect

The best way to illustrate this is through an example. Just like a wheel would spin create a repeatable method for success.

Increase traffic to the website > Generated traffic creates demos and trials > Demos and Trials converts to sales > Sales earns brand recognition > Recognition generates more web traffic > And the cycle repeats.

3. Rank-to-Win Strategy

Here's the biggest mistake everyone makes. Don't just strive for the nuances in every blog post, but focus on filling a gap with authority and dedication. Do this knowing that it isn't the uniqueness in the content but rather the thought leadership which is focused on authority and quality content.

4. Content strategy for blog traffic.

Content marketing delivers conversions with persistence and quality - it isn't luck. Going back to the Flywheel Effect, if increasing website traffic was the goal, we knew we had to focus on producing quality and consistent content.

Conclusion

Creating content is the secret to unlocking customer focused growth in saturated markets. These can also be part of your greater marketing strategy as you are able to focus on buyers' needs and make prospects and customers the hero of all of your stories.

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8 Questions That Filter Fake Prospects From Your Pipeline to Close More Sales

The bread and butter of a salesperson is a well-managed pipeline. Poorly managed pipelines affect deal closure and make it challenging to estimate accurate sales forecasts. Poor prospecting ends with prospects in the pipeline which aren't actually prospects to begin with, they're not going anywhere.

When a pipeline is filled with leads that are not ready to buy or will never convert into customers, it's near impossible for salespersons to focus their time on the right leads.

Here we'll explore on how a salesperson can uncover an actual prospect by asking the right 8 questions when interviewing the customer and asking themselves during the sales process to help qualify leads.

Don't be misled, even if a prospect works for a decision-maker who's browsing the market on their behalf, is a decision-maker, or an influencer of the final decision-maker, this may not be an actual prospect for the salesperson.

Even if someone calls you first, but you've had no history of contact with them, and no matter their level of interest, they provide no buying timeline and don't divulge information that would help you guide them down the right path.

A true prospect is someone you've connected with and know their pain points. Also during the conversation they can give you proprietary information that gives insight into their situation and why they're considering your service, along with potential timelines and financial information.

Key Differences Between Suspects and Prospects

Let's summarise the key differences between suspects and prospects; who they may be in relation to your business.

Suspect	Prospect
Match the traits of someone that might buy	Match your ideal customer profile
Doesn't share proprietary information in any conversations	Willing to share personal information about their situation
Only engage with you when it's safe	Engage with you and your business consistently
An everyday person that doesn't have power to make final decisions	A decision maker. Someone who's going to make the purchase

Let's Dive In

Here's 8 Questions you should definitely ask as a salesperson to learn to filter down your pipeline with true prospects.

1. Have they tried to address their pain points?

Understanding how a client has come to be in conversation with you can give you valuable insight into their position as a prospect. When asked this question, a client is more likely to provide you with the information you need to understand more about their situation and will be very willing to go more in-depth when explaining the reasons why their previous search or experience was unsuccessful.

2. Have they shared any proprietary information?

A true prospect is usually willing to share some level of private information with you in confidence that your building relationship and in good faith that there is a real interest in talking substantively about how your product or service would fit into their needs. The sooner a prospect shares this with you the sooner you know that they're beginning to reach a level of confidence with you.

3. Do they have a solution in place?

It'e helpful to know whether your prospect already has a solution in place. This gives you valuable insight into what they've tried before and how your solution compares to their other options. 

4. Are they willing to share a critical need?

Like proprietary information sharing a critical need signals that the prospect is ready to talk seriously, as they are willing to share with you exactly where or what they are currently struggling with and are more likely to want your help.

5. Do you know the timeline involved for them to make a decision?

A single most significant factor responsible for inaccurate pipelines is time. Salespeople should prioritize prospects who are looking to buy sooner rather than later. 

6. What will their day-to-day look like if they don't buy from you?

This question makes it very easy to tell who you're speaking with. Suppose that their day-to-day tasks will be challenging, the likelihood of being a true prospect is higher because their letting you know that they need a serious solution, and timelines are tight.

7. Do you know the prospect's conception of value vs money?

This is the most tricky piece of information to discover because you can't just ask a prospect this question - they probably won't even know how to answer. Here's the million dollar question to get the answer you're looking for.

How have you made purchasing decisions like this in the past?

Be quick to ask this question because if you ask this during the negotiation phase it is going to be about price, but if you ask this early in the prospecting phase the "prospect" will likely be telling you the truth.

8. Are you dealing with the decision maker?

This is one of the most fundamental parts when qualifying a prospect. Sell to someone who's not the decision-maker is like interviewing for a job with someone who's from engineering and not HR. If your contact keeps referring to other people when talking about their company's past decisions, there's a good chance they don't have the final say when it comes to making a purchase. This is the biggest clue that that you are not in a deal with a decision-maker.

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6 Tips on How (Not) to Send a Cold Email for Sales

If you have a targeted lead list and your response rate is less than 10%, your sales approach through email could use some work. Let's dig into what was wrong with their previous approach by touching on some of the reasons why emails actually fail.

1. Too Many Ideas

You might have an amazing product, but if you highlight too many value propositions in your emails, you'll confuse readers. After all, a common sales saying goes, "A confused mind always rejects an idea before even considering it".

Stick to one idea. Simplicity works surprisingly well and all of the copy you write should support that one idea. Whether you're piquing their interest, adding value, making a persuasive claim, or providing proof to support your claims, you should always stick to one idea.

Here's what you need to watch out for and remove if you can:

• Multiple themes in the email
• Claims which are not relevant to your main point
• More than one call to action

2. Too Long

Your readers don't want to read a thesis on email if they already don't know who you are. First, provide them with instant value and establish trust. This is super important because you have to do this first before you can earn their attention.

This to look out for are:

• Irrelevant information
• Boasting or making claims that aren't ground in fact
• Asking the reader to do too many things

Structure your sales email in a way that is clear and concise. Make sure it communicates the following:

• Value you add
• Offer you're making
• Proof which supports it
• The action you want your readers to take

3. Too Self-Centered

Nobody ever likes the person who only talks about "me me me". Don't let your email talk too much about why you're awesome, especially if you're reaching out cold for the first time.

What to watch out for:

• A lack of language around your reader's problems
• Copy that focuses on features rather than benefits which could help your readers solve a problem which they are currently facing.

4. Too Fancy

Overly complicated and fancy email templates can make your emails seem impersonal and spammy. No one thinks they're getting a personal email if it's too pretty.

What to watch out for:

• Time on visual collateral rather than copy
• A generic language that reads as though it could apply to anyone
• A lack of segmentation in the email list

5. Too Soft

This is a fair balance between being assertive and being too soft. If a reader doesn't know you then they know they're probably being sold to. Soft language just beats around the bush and undercuts your message.

Phrases to avoid are:

• You don't know me, but
• Whenever you have a second
• I know your time is valuable, but
• Would it make sense for us to chat?
• Sorry to bother you..

6. Too Robotic

It's a mistake not to include a human element to your emails. Cold, rigid emails that do nothing but harp on generic marketing points is a surefire way to turn readers off.

Watch out for language like:

• To whom it may concern
• Thanks in advance
• I guarantee that this product will...

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Ultimate Guide to Soft Selling for Salespeople

This is the biggest shift in the sales pitch and the role of the salesperson in today's day and age. It's even more so to put yourself in the position of a prospect. If one salesperson sends you a canned email asking for a 5-minute call, compared to someone who actually sends you a personalized email, and, after learning a little more about your business needs, asks for a demo. They take time to work with you to create a pitch that would match your company's goals, and, after due diligence, they work with you to ask for a close that meets your budget and your team needs.

It goes without saying that you would be more likely to choose the later salesperson.

The first salesperson is very familiar to us all, the hard-selling direct selling salesperson. Soft selling is the new sales wave where a salesperson does not just ask for a straightforward sale in an effort to close as quickly as possible but instead prioritizes a different strategy where the focus is on the quality of the relationship with the prospects.

What is Soft Sell

Soft selling is a sales approach focused on the subtle persuasion with the use of casual language, which intentionally intends to create a low-pressure sales experience for the prospect that is less likely to turn them off from excessive pushiness.

It is important to note that soft sell is not "passive" selling. Soft selling still requires a degree of persistency throughout the sales process and knowledgeable about the product or service. Additionally, persistence and product knowledge must be balanced with reliability for the prospect, all while keeping a conversational tone to help buyers feel comfortable and at ease throughout the process.

Here's a walkthrough on the 6 ways you can use to facilitate a soft sell with your prospects.

1. Do your research.

First, learn as much as you can about the prospect's current challenges and point of view. This will help you to determine if the product or service you're offering is a good fit and will enable you to make the best recommendation possible.

2. Be personable.

While you always want to remain professional when working with prospects, you don't want to be stiff or over-the-top in your communication. When making the soft sell approach, personality goes a long way.

For example:

Formal - "Hi Lee, this is Nicholas from EVERWORKS. Today I will be sharing our key product features with you."

Conversational - "Hi Lee, this is Nicholas from EVERWORKS. Before I dive into telling you about our products, can you tell me more about how your company is currently sourcing your office furniture? What is and isn't working about your current setup?"

3. Focus on relationship-building.

This is ever critical to closing the sale and establishing loyalty. When you take the time to get to know your prospects and are seen as a trusted advisor, your prospect will be more primed to purchase.

This could be as simple as remembering to ask how their day was, or following on a personal anecdote they mentioned in a prior meeting. This shows genuine interest in the prospect on a human level.

4. Actively listen.

Improve your active listening skills by engaging in the following steps:

1. Truly listen to what your prospect shares with you.
2. Repeat content back to the prospect.
3. Ensure you are understanding them correctly by asking for clarification and getting verbal agreement from the prospect after repeating content back.

5. Ask thoughtful questions.

When you ask relevant, open-ended questions to your prospect it shows your genuine interest in helping them to solve their problem.

6. Provide value without asking for the sale.

This is the biggest go and is the biggest factor in today's day and age. When you have provided them with a good experience - even if it doesn't immediately result in the sale. Ultimately, you want to show your prospect that they're top of mind.

Effectively salespersons know how to assess what sales approach to use to best engage with their prospects. Salespersons also know the importance of having a reliable online infrastructure to support the tools they need to conduct effective sales. Learn more at everworks.com

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5 Responses to Sales Objection "It's not a good time to buy"

We've all been there where we've been speaking with a prospect for some time and you have a sense of their goals and challenges - it seems like your offering is a great fit for their business, however, this takes a twist for a turn just when you're ready to set a date for a demo or to talk about price, your prospect responds with this:

"Can we talk about this next quarter? Now's just not a good time for us to buy right now."

Shoot. Not only is this a deal you had in your pipeline, but you've also spent a significant amount of time working with the prospect. Through our experience, we've learned that prospects often use this type of timing objection to stall or to silently reject you.

Sometimes these are valid and real obstacles such as limited resources and budget are stopping the prospect from buying, that's why it's important to always maintain a level of empathy in all communication with the prospects.

How can you solve this issue? The answer is to use timing objection responses, to reach the prospect's sense of hesitation.

Common Sales Objections Related to Timing

• This is not a good time
• Call me back next quarter
• I'll get back to you at a better time
• We'll think about it
• I'll have to talk to leadership about this

Examples of how you can respond to a sales rejection

1. If money and resources were no object, would you be willing to start with our product today?

If your prospect responds "no thanks" to your offer you know that they may not be convinced that your product is of value to them. 

2. What's holding you back?

Put yourself in a better position to address their hesitation and work to find a common middle ground that suits both your business and the prospect.

3. When would be a good time to buy?

Maybe your prospect really does have the intention to buy but due to other factors such as budget, resources or other reasons, the decision to buy becomes more complex. Depending on their response to this follow-up question you might be able to adjust your offering to tailor it to their needs now, or follow up in a way that will drive or illicit an intended response such as, "If I call you back next quarter, what circumstances will have changed?"

4. What are your company's other priorities right now?

It's entirely possible that your prospect currently has other pressing projects that need to be completed. If you have the whole picture of how much your offering can really make the difference.

5. How can I help you get the resources you need to sell this to the final decision-maker?

Determine where your prospect is having difficulty gaining traction with the key decision-maker in the team.

Conclusion

It's important to respond to your prospects effectively, tactfully and sympathetically. These days there are an array of reasons why a prospect may try to decide to back out of a deal. Try experimenting with some of the responses above to support these prospects in a way that shows them you're flexible understanding and empathetic. With this winning combination, you are more likely to show your prospects that you care and they will have an increasingly difficult time walking away from the value you provide.

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8 Tips on How to Manage Difficult Customers

Heavy sighs, short replies, reduced patience -- you know when a customer's getting frustrated. Worse the physical signs show that they are losing interest in everything that you are saying and your chance at keeping their business is fading quickly.

Often, difficult or even angry customers are not expressing frustration with you but these emotions are often tied to external situations unrelated to the discussion you are currently having. Often we explain to our salespeople that this is where your great communication skills work the best. Draw on your past experience with people and read the situation tactfully. 

Here's how you can manage difficult customers. 16 tips to help you be the best salesperson.

1. Practice reflective listening.

When you're upset, has someone saying "I understand" ever made you feel any better? Or do you feel "this person doesn't even understand anything!!" instead? 

Alternatively, do this instead. 

Customer: "I'm frustrated because we have a limited budget and you're unwilling to offer us a discount"

Successful salesperson: "So, what I'm hearing is that our pricing is a barrier for your business. Your budget is tight, and I'm not offering a discount that meets your needs. Is that correct?"

If you've understood their frustrations, then move on. If not, say, "Tell me more, so I can better understand." 

Here's a big warning: Never promise you'll fix the situation -- because you might not be able to. Your goal at this moment is to make your customer feel heard and valued.

2. Consider their effect heuristic (mental shortcut)

Effect heuristic is a mental shortcut. Do this to help you make quick. efficient decisions based on how you feel toward the person, place, or situation you're considering. Simply, this means that we are all making decisions and judgments based on each of our own worldviews and experiences. This is our bias.

During these situations, objective facts carry little weight for us instead we rely on the decisions and situations through our own internal beliefs and opinions. This is often influenced based on what we already know.

For example, if your customer consistently asks, "What's the catch?" and delaying the onboarding process with rescheduling and endless due diligence, don't say, "You've already purchased a year's subscription of this software. Can we move forward?"

Instead, ask questions that understand the root cause of their problems. Examples below include:

• I'd like to understand, tell me more about why you're sceptical
• What can I do to relieve your fears?
• How can I help you feel comfortable enough to move forward?

3. Tap into the beginner's mind

Approach every situation as if you were a beginner. Adopting this way of thinking has surprising results. You enter the conversation with the "don't know" mind which keeps you from prejudging a customer or their situation.

This encourages you to instead of saying, "you told me you wanted to increase your inbound lead generation by 20 by end of this month and these delays won't make this possible". This adds to the frustration that the problem has not been solved.

Try saying, "It looks like these delays won't be able to meet our lead generation goal. But let's see what we can do to get the results we're looking for". This approach acknowledges the problem but immediately begins working towards a solution.

4. Let go of fear

First, let go of the idea that you need to fix everything. When sitting down with a difficult customer, your biggest job is to listen, understand and discern what are the next steps -- not to immediately produce a solution.

Instead of apologizing, just jump straight in and say, "It's unfortunate that __ happened. I'm aware of how this is affecting your business and I appreciate your patience as I work to resolve this matter".

5. Chunk the problem

This is the process of taking one big problem and breaking it into several smaller and more manageable parts. These small parts will be easier for you to tackle and will promote everyone involved to be more willing to start dealing with the issues.

6. Anger is only natural

This is only natural. In the heat of the moment, an angry customer can be hard to reason with. Avoid the tendency to justify your position. Instead, understand that they are just feeling undervalued and attempting to control the situation. Take your angry customer's frustration seriously but not personally. The key is to remain calm. Actively listen and confirm that you've understood their frustration and thank them for communicating it and inform them that you will get back to them with a solution. Give them time to cool off, and consult with another senior colleague on the best way forward.

7. Keep calm and carry on

Conflict is part of business, and how you react under this heat impacts your future success and customer relationships.

Do not treat someone with disrespect as this can reflect negatively on you and your company. Ensure that you manage your reputation and that "the customer is always right" still remains true - although to a certain extent. Emotional intelligence can be used to calm the storm, so use these tips for navigating your next conflict:

• Maintain a calm and professional tone while also remaining assertive.
• Refrain from name-calling or finger-pointing.
• Never say or write anything that can be used against you.
• Always resolve disputes in person or over the phone. Email is not an effective tool for having out disagreements. 

8. Use your support resources

Although this should be used on a case-by-case basis, here are a few resources your reps should learn to master.

• Place a customer on a strategic hold to buy time or de-escalate emotion.
• Setting up a screen share or recording troubleshooting steps to explain a complex solution.
• Asking a colleague for additional confirmation when you know your solution will work -- this can build rapport with a customer who's dubious of your advice.

Conclusion

After a minute or two of actively listening, you'd be surprised that difficult customers can be managed with effective strategies and emotional tactfulness.

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8 Ways on How to Deal with Angry Customers

Customers are human as well and they also feel anger and happiness. Although customers can react angrily towards you, your customers aren't expressing frustration with you. These emotions are very often tied to external situations and psychological stimulus that is beyond your control. The trick is to put your great communication skills to work and draw attention to reading the situation to manage angry customers.

Below are 8 ways about how you can manage and solve angry customers to drive more retention and sales.

1. Remain calm

This is so important and is so easy to get wrong. If a customer sends you an agry email, or starts shouting at you on the phone it's hard not to take that personally. You'll likely instinctively feel a bristle of defensiveness as thoughts pop into your head of how wrong that customer can be, how much hard work has been carried out and you'll start to feel angry very quickly.

Instead, take a second to breathe and process what your customer is actually saying. More often than not you'll notice that in between the angry words that the customer is struggling or frustrated with your product or service, and all they need is somewhere to channel their frustrations.

For example, if a customer calls your support team and is upset about their delivery date. Here's how you can respond. Remain calm and ask the 3 what questions to accurately determine the issue:

• What is the problem?
• What is the customer's goals?
• What are your options?

2. Practice active listening

Pay close attention to the words the customer is saying instead of focusing on the anger behind the words.

For example, let's say a customer walks into your store and says, "Your product stopped working a few days after I purchased it. I'm really surprised how poorly it's designed."

You may tempted to to reply with something like, "I understand your frustration". However, notice how this response only escalates the customers frustrations? Instead demonstrate active listening by using the same language your customer is using. Say something like, "That certainly is surprising! Let's see why your product has stopped working unexpectedly." This response acknowledges the customer's feelings without escalating their emotions.

3. Repeat back what your customers say

A key part of active listening is to make sure that you and your customer are on the same page. This is to better determine what is the root cause of the anger.

For example, you can start by saying, "What I'm hearing is ..." as a start to get the conversation going, and like the previous example, repeat their vocabulary back to them and if possible highlight how the problem is preventing from achieving their goal.

4. Thank them for bringing the issue to your attention

When your customer sounds angry and negative about the situation you should thank them for voicing their concerns. You'd be surprised just a simple notion like this can go a long way toward building good rapport with them.

For example, the easiest way to thank your customer is to do it constantly. When the customer begins a service inquiry thank them for reaching out to your team. When you're working on a case and there's a long period of silence thank the customer for "bearing with you as you troubleshoot their case" and when a customer provides you feedback either positive or negative thank them for sharing their perspective and making your support team better.

5. Explain the steps you'll take to solve the problem

Make it clear to the customer what you'll do to get started addressing their concern. Whether it's something simple that you can do over the phone or if you'll need to walk through the process with them. Spell out your next moves. 

6. Set a time to follow-up with them, if needed

Sometimes, problems can't be solved in just one phone call and might require a combined team effort. If this is the case then let the customer know why you can't handle the issue on the phone with them, and give them a timeline of when they can expect to hear from you next.

For example if you need to set up a follow-up time with a customer, the best thing you can do is to explain why the break will benefit them. If the customer is uneasy about this proposal, reassure them by providing a contingency plan. Let them know exactly when you'll reach out next and what information you expect to have by that time.

7. Be sincere

Just as important as remaining calm when dealing with an angry customer, it's important to be since too. Customers can tell when they're being spoken to in a patronizing or equally angry manner. For example, customers will call you with a problem and can sometimes be a user-error and although tempting it is important to remember that this is from the perspective of the customer and it governs the quality and service experience.

8. Highlight the case's priority.

A common frustration for customers is the feeling that their support case isn't important to your business. When your company is dealing with thousands of inquiries each day, some customers feel like their case is expandable and that your team can afford to provide an occasional poor experience. It's important that you remove that feeling by highlighting how important the case is to you. For example, one situation where this is common is when putting customers on hold or asking to follow up with them. 

Conclusion

Often we're forced to put customers on hold or to ask to follow up back with them, and may be interpreted as an excuse for the salesperson driving further anger from customers, but the best way is to justify their actions. All they need to do is to explain how your support process works and why a break is necessary for their case. For example, you can say, "it looks like I need to speak with a product expert about this error. That's going to require me to put you on hold to track them down, but the sooner I do that, the sooner I should have the tools I need to troubleshoot your case."

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Top 5 Questions to Ask a Potential Customers about their Pain Points

It's common practice for us to meet a prospect and to spend time with them only to realize that they just didn't buy. This isn't productive and does not contribute to anyone's bottom line.

In actuality selling to people who can't or won't buy are a big dent to your sales productivity, budget and team. Top two-percenters need to spend time only with prospects who need your help, want your help, and are willing to work with you to solve their problems. The most important distinction that you need to make about your prospects include identifying that they have the authority and money to make those decisions. However, one particular item out trumps even those, and it is business pain. 

Examples of Business Pain Points

If your prospects say they are experiencing some employee dissatisfaction and retention issues that are impacting their productivity and hiring, customer churn is impacting their productivity and hiring. Pain is the first thing that top salespeople look for in their prospects.

1. Positioning Pain Points

what company doesn't need to acquire more or better business? What's holding their marketing and positioning efforts back. Here are some examples of what you might hear from psopects who have positioning pains.

• No one knows who our company is
• Our competitors are outspending us
• The market is changing / leaving us behind
• Until now we haven't considered digital marketing so we're behind

2. Productivity Pain Points

Is there something that is stopping a company and its employees from working efficiently and effectively? Your product or service might be able to help them solve these issues.

3. Financial Pain Points

Money is the biggest topic in business and is the hardest resources to acquire. There is often a lacking of it and the requirement to solve it is also very high. 

• We're not selling enough to keep the lights on
• Revenue is up but profitability is low
• We don't have enough visibility to know if we're making good financial decisions
• We may be overpaying for equipment and tools, but we don't know what to cut.

4. People Pain Points

People are the heart of every business, and often constitutes the largest expense but is also representative of the company's largest asset class.

• Employee morale is low
• We lose our best employees to higher-paying positions elsewhere
• Our lack of diversity leads to a lack of innovative ideas
• We can't trust our middle managers to train and motivate our employees

5. Process Pain Points

Operational problems also plague businesses on a day-to-day basis and your prospects know that the best way to achieve repeatable success is by implementing a repeatable process.

• Our hiring process is unwieldy and we struggle with finding highly qualified candidates
• Customer churn rate is high because our service department is inundated and can't keep up.
• We have no system in place to qualify leads
• There are inconsistencies in each employee's workflow which leads to disorganization and varying performance.

Conclusion

You're losing deals because you often are not addressing the prospect's very specific pain points. Identify these and you will be well on your way to delivering true value to your prospects and closing more sales.

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6 Questions That Will Identify Any Customer's Pain Points

There are many ways to qualify a prospect, however, there are some questions that perform better compared to others. If you want your sales team to be performing at the best of the capacities, 

here are the 8 questions that will help you to unearth some of the business pains which can generate better conversion rates.

1. What's your biggest inhibitor to company (or division) growth?

This cuts straight to the heart of the matter. Every company is in the business of growth so the biggest obstacle to growth is generally a serious pain. Many prospects don't really think about this and your question helps you build credibility and helps you to help your prospects to put this into the frame. Helping prospects talk through their current business situation can increase your understanding of the company while demonstrating your expertise.

• What's your plan to tackle X Pain
• When is your deadline to solve this problem?
• Do you think it'll be easy or hard to solve it?
• Who in your company is working to fixing this right now?

2. What is your biggest hairball?

This is a whimsical question. We like using this because it has personality, and is fun. More importantly, it'll stir up your prospect's emotion and get straight into their core needs.

This helps you make it more personal because you are asking your prospect how this pain actually affects them

3. What doe your boss obsess about?

You won't always be talking directly with the decision-maker more often than not you'll be speaking to someone 2 or 3 levels directly under them

• They usually control the budget for buying decisions.
• A manager's pain usually filters down to her direct reports
• It signals inexperience

4. What takes up the most time in your day

This is another angle to approach business pain that focuses on your point of contact. Salespeople hear over and over again that buyers care more about value than features, and this question reveals the concrete value of your product that could be useful and helpful to your prospects on a personal level.

5. What's been repeatedly discussed at standup or all-company meetings by senior management?

As mentioned above, business pain isn't two employees complaining there isn't enough coffee in the break room, and it's not something that can be fixed easily. This is the pain that keeps business owners up at night.

6. Why are you not closing deals?

Asking this question might uncover positioning pains, process pains or productivity pains in one of a company's most important departments: the sales department. If you can position your product or service as something that enables sales or marketing teams to acquire more business, you can win over those bottom-line-focused decision-makers.

Conclusion

These questions can give you really good insight into how your prospect's business' operates and what challenges they may be facing, and what kinks in the chain may be prohibiting the growth which they desire. Information about any one of these can open up opportunities for you to close more deals and deliver a chance for you to show how and what solutions your expertise can help to solve.

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Top 3 Tips for Addressing Business Pain

Once you identify the pain of your prospect you can determine what are the best ways to solve it for your prospect. This is an incredible tool to leverage on as a salesperson because the minute you can become solution-provider rather than a product-seller your customers will value your service more and closing sales will be very much easier.

Here are the top 3 tips you can implement today to address any of your prospect's business pain.

1. Use your prospect's body language and language when talking and communicating about their pain.

This is a secret technique that can go a long way in building trust with your prospect. Instead of trying to appear impressive by relying on jargon only your colleagues would understand, show your prospect you can take them seriously by using their language and terminology.

2. Find out who's empowered to solve the pain.

Find the economic buyer as quickly as possible. Ask your prospect which budget this purchase would be coming out from and what teams and investments would be needed to be involved in the buying decision. There's little point in spending hours with a person who can't ink a deal.

3. Identify additional key stakeholders as early as possible.

If you're selling to multiple teams and one team has completely differing ideas and priorities than the other you need to know this early so you can mitigate and make the necessary arrangements. Prospects are sometimes worried when they appear less authoritative so the best way to avoid that and to solve this is by asking the following questions:

• Who besides yourself needs to be involved in this decision?
• Who else would want to know that we have had this conversation?

Conclusion

Affirm your prospect's involvement while asking for information and it'll be easier to make your pitch meets everybody's requirements.

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5 Differences Between a Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur

If you work independently and have a great business idea while seeing it through from concept to execution? If you have answered yes to these questions and dream of being your own boss, you may enjoy working as a solopreneur.

Solopreneur job examples include:

1. Freelance writer
2. Virtual assistant
3. Accountant
4. Social media manager
5. Graphic designer
6. Consultant

Career opportunities for solopreneurs are on the rise. Many independent works report feeling fulfilled working solo than they did working for traditional companies. Also, they feel secure working independently as they would in a traditional job. With high job satisfaction and increasing opportunity for independent workers, embarking on a career as a solopreneur is a sought-after flexibility for those who want to create and operate a business around their lifestyle.

However, there is still some confusion between the difference between a solopreneur vs. entrepreneur.

5 differences between Solopreneur vs. Entrepreneur

We will be discussing further on solopreneur if you're wondering how being a solopreneur differs from traditional entrepreneurship. Basically, all solopreneurs are entrepreneurs but not all entrepreneurs are solopreneurs.

1. Solopreneurs are often both the founder and employee.

Someone who is a solopreneur manages every aspect of their business and does not heavily rely on delegating tasks to others to get things done. They are the founder and creator of their business and are solely responsible for producing and delivering the products or services offered to keep their business afloat.

2. Entrepreneurs often hire and manage a team

Separately many entrepreneurs start off running their business solo and eventually end up hiring and managing a team to carry out their business tasks.

3. Solopreneurs have a single business focus

Whoever chooses to pursue a career as a solopreneur are often not pursuing serial entrepreneurship. Solopreneurs tend to start their businesses to offer a specific niche offering and are focused on building a steady customer base.

4. Solopreneurs are not building a business to scale

For many entrepreneurs their goal in building their business to scale their company in an effort to sell or to build substantial profits. This is not the case for all entrepreneurs. For many independent workers, they are looking to create a profitable business they can continue to run, work in, and live off of themselves, and are not looking to grow an empire or to sell to another entity. In some cases, entrepreneurs.

5. Solopreneurs often have minimal workplace requirements

Because many solopreneurs offer a specific set of services that can be performed remotely, their workspace requirements tend to be minimal often only requiring a computer and an internet connection. Entrepreneurs on the other hand may have more complex workplace requirements depending on the nature of their business and size of their team.

Conclusion

As a business working together with solopreneurs vs. young startups have different merits and depend on your requirements and what you are comfortable to hire.

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5 Things Excel Can Solve For Your Small Business for Free

Microsoft Excel is versatile and is available on almost every computer device. Defined Excel is a business software and there's a lot of meaning to what it does. The versatility of the software is wide as there are many use cases and customised builds for different businesses. Here are some great ways for how excel can help your small business for free.

5 Ways You Can Solve Your Small Business Problems Using Excel for Free

1. Accounting

Excel can handle your company's entire accounts and is able to create balance sheets, financial statements, setting budgets, profit and loss statements, ledger entries, expense tracking, forecasting, loan calculation and more.

2. Inventory tracking

Excel can help businesses to track their inventory can keep track of physical items. Although there are complex systems and applications built specifically designed for a better equipped to handle inventory management, Excel is still a reliable, affordable option to facilitate the process. This is a greater option for startups to get off the ground quickly.

3. Compiling mailing and contact lists

Excel extends beyond number crunching as it shows a great way to store and maintain records of prospects' and customers' contact information. It has resources to manage and sort massive quantities of that kind of data for different kinds of projects, promotions or outreach efforts.

4. HR Management

Excel is an incredibly useful resource for HR managers. HR is a wide-reaching field that covers a broad, eclectic range of responsibilities. The people behind the human resources department have a lot to stay on top of. 

5. Time Logs

Excel can be used to track employees' hours is central to maintaining accountability at a company - for both management and employees alike. Excel can be an inexpensive, reliable way to ensure that the process is carried out consistently and properly.

Conclusion

There are a host of templates and models available for download online for free to help small businesses to conduct their day-to-day activities.

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The Ultimate Step by Step Email Marketing Guide (for SMEs)

Email marketing is still the most effective channel to direct your digital marketing efforts. It's direct and effective with lead nurturing and is one of the highest converting marketing channels. Mailchimp covers some great industry statistics on email marketing here.

The biggest benefit of investing in an email marketing funnel is the ability for you to sell once but to many. In this guide, we'll take you step by step in setting up your email marketing funnel so that you can acquire leads and generate sales.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a strategy which uses email as a way to promote your products and services to prospective customers or to keep in touch with purchasing customers. 

Email marketing keeps the conversation going as converted customers are consistently kept in touch with key marketing topics to nurture and drive interest in your business.

Who is this guide for?

This guide is for you if you have the intention to implement email marketing as part of your digital marketing strategy. Also, this guide is for you if you intend to learn about the time and effort required as you plan to implement an email marketing strategy.

Disclaimer

This guide is long and detailed. You'll walk away with results if you implement and consistently apply the teachings here. To ease your ability to reference, this guide is segmented according to different sections.

What you will gain from this guide?

1. How to build an email list full of targeted customers.
2. How to optimise your emails for the highest open rates and click-through rates (CTR).
3. How to automate the process of nurturing your leads and turning your prospects into customers.

Why choose Email Marketing?

Despite the rise of social media and the negative connotation with email and spam. Email still remains the most effective way to nurture leads and to turn them into customers.

Why Email is great for Sales?

1. Email is still the world's #1 communication channel. 
2. You own your customer database. Your Social Media Platform can be suspended at any time without notice.
3. Email converts better. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers.

How to Start?

Although email marketing may seem complicated, in essence, but it just covers a few major sections which can be easily broken down into 2 major sections.

1. Start with your list. 
2. Add an email service provider.

How to grow your email list?

Growing your list does generally involve an opt-in form on your website. However, just placing an opt-in form on your website and hoping for people to sign-up is a strategy that is sure to fail.

To entice people to sign-up for your email list, you need to attract people with a compelling offer. This can be done through a Lead Magnet. A Lead Magnet is something free that you give away in exchange for someone's email address. Some common examples of Lead Magnets include PDFs, MP3 Audio files, or videos that you can create yourself at minimal or no cost.

Some ideas of Lead Magnets are:

• eBooks
• Cheat Sheet with Tips and/or Resources
• White Papers or Case Studies
• A Webinar
• Free Trials or Samples
• A Free Quote or Consultation
• Quizzes or a Self-Assessment
• A Coupon

How to create an Opt-in Form which converts?

An opt-in form isn't just any boring old form. Its main purpose is to convey the big benefit of your Lead Magnet.

Here's how you can create an opt-in form which converts:

1. Enticing Headline: Make sure your headline is attractive and clearly describes the big benefit of your Lead Magnet. 
2. Write a helpful description: A short and brief description is clear and to the point. Use bullet points to help the reader's eye quickly scan what they will get.
3. Attractive visuals.
4. Construct a simple opt-in form.
5. An easy to understand button.

Some places where you can place your opt-in form for maximum results are:

• Floating bar
• Your website's header
• Blog archive page
• Within your blog posts
• Your sidebar
• In a scroll box
• Your footer
• Your about page
• Resource Pages
• Email Signature

Choosing an Email Marketing Service

To email anyone you need their permission. If you started with an opt-in, usually this includes a permission intent. This is what makes opt-in email marketing great. 

OptinMonster

Constant Contact

sendinblue

Drip

AWeber

ConvertKit

Mailchimp

Personalise your marketing with Email List Segmentation

This is done by all marketing experts and is a process of identifying groups of your subscribers based on smaller interest or criteria for the purposes of sending them more personalised and relevant emails. For example, you wouldn't send father's day promotions to a teenager.

Segmenting your email list is proven to increase your email open rates, and decrease your unsubscribe rates. There are many ways to segment your email list into segments, and to get you started here are a few ways you can organise your segments for your email list:

• New subscribers: You can send a welcome email series
• Preferences: Based on what type of content they are interested to receive (eg.: marketing, promotions, etc.)
• Interests: Based on interests (eg.: pop music vs. rock music)
• Location: based on where your subscribers are located to share a local event happening near them.
• Open Rate: Reward customers who are more engaged with a special offer
• Inactivity: A reminder or a new promotion to entice further engagement.
• Lead Magnet: Send targeted emails depending on which Lead Magnet has attracted them.

Take time to spring clean your email list

It is important to email your subscribers on a consistent basis, so your list doesn't go stale. Even then, over time, email subscribers will go stale. This can be for various reasons but the most common reasons are a change of email accounts or they are generally not interested in your brand anymore. To keep your list fresh and active, it is advised to remove inactive subscribers periodically.

Write to Just One Person

When you draft your email subject line and message content, it's natural to think of the many thousands if not millions of people who are about to receive it. However, remember the recipient is only receiving an email from you. Thus, it is far more effective to write as though you are writing to one person with a highly personal subject line and a personalised message. To write this way you'll have to really know your buyer persona. You need to understand their problems, their desires, their values, their likes and their dislikes.

Inject some humour

Humour has a way of making a strong, instant connection with people. It's personal, entertaining and stands out in people's minds. It isn't really that hard, all you need to think outside the box.

Conclusion

You should absolutely be sending emails. Even if it is just an email newsletter. More than 83% of business-to-business marketers send email newsletters as part of their content marketing strategy. Email marketing is a very cost-effective way for brands to communicate with their customers and email is an essential piece in any marketing strategy.

Learn about professional email hosting here.

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8 Ways to Increase Website Traffic

With a global pandemic upon us all, it is even more essential for businesses to implement digital-first initiatives. There have been some great highlights during these difficult times, like restaurants and grocery businesses have led the way for online orders and distanced fulfilment. 

Yes, that means it is more important now than ever to have an online website that can allow you to receive, make and deliver your products or services to your customers.

A website is essentially space for your business on the Internet allowing visitors to learn more about your business and solutions which you can offer to them.

Having a website solves one-half of the puzzle of a digital-first initiative. The other more important half is focusing on obtaining a higher conversion rate.

Let's take a step back here. A higher conversion rate just means new visitors who are looking for your product or service which would be more likely to find your website first and for them to purchase what you have on offer.

You've likely heard that growing a website takes time. Requires consistent sharing of great content for months and months on end. And usually, it takes around 2 years of disciplined committed work for your website to get big.

It's slow. Not very thrilling.

This article isn't about to be boring. It'll cover some great ways to help your website gain spikes in traffic as and when you carry out any of the following suggestions. Read on.

Here's 8 ways you can increase your website traffic:

1. Make use of your email list

There are so many content marketing strategies available today, and it can be confusing. However, email marketing is the simplest, most cost-effective, and effective way to advertise your website.

As it is generally inexpensive email is more likely to drive a favourable ROI while being versatile. Create campaigns which encourage your email subscribers to share your content with their friends and family.

2. Build a presence on social media

Social media is the future. Don't take this lightly, as many businesses are already monetising from their social profiles. Social media worldwide is increasing at a rapid rate, and there hasn't been any sign of a slowdown yet.

Think outside the box. Don't just rely on Facebook. There are plenty of other alternatives such as Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

Do more than just create a profile. Make sure you spend time to curate valuable and useful information or content that encourage engagement as these actions will make it much easier for you to generate new sales opportunities.

3. Start blogging

Make sure you create a blog and treat this as a priority because it doesn't matter what type of business you are in, blogging is one of the best ways to increase your website's traffic and generate new sales opportunities.

When you blog, you're taking steps to improve your SEO. As you continue to consistently add new content to your page, your SEO factor is improved. Yes, the success of this is directly related to the frequency of your posts. Stronger results came from more frequent blog posts.

4. Use influencer marketing to establish digital credibility

A website is only as credible as other people say it is. A fast way to hack this is to leverage your relationships with influencers. There are 2 ways to this (1) established celebrities (2) micro-influencers. 

5. Improve your backend infrastructure for more streamlined search engine optimisation

One of the key elements to discoverability on any search engine is website speed. Make sure you are with a reliable hosting partner to ensure your website loads fast, and is optimised for key target regions. You can find more information about this here.

6. Leverage long-tail SEO

You might have heard a big emphasis on including key search phrases in your SEO strategy. Who doesn't want to rank for terms like "web hosting" and "Kuala Lumpur's Best Web Hosting Company". Although those terms are lucrative they are also very difficult to rank for. Because of a large competitive base tussling for those keywords.

On the other hand, long-tail keywords are much less competitive and could drive the majority of website traffic to your website.

7. Writing a high-quality guest post

One of the hottest and easiest ways to give your traffic a significant bump is to write a guest article for an already popular blog.

Here's how you can do this:

1. Establish and build a relationship with the blog's owner. 
2. Contact them via Twitter, and comment on their postings.
3. Leave high-quality comments on their website.
4. Get introduced by another guest writer.
5. Meet them face-to-face.

Here are some great tips for your guest post:

1. Use simple words
2. Write advanced how-to blog posts
3. Links
4. Create conversations
5. Prove you are the authority
6. Create powerful headlines

8. Create a giveaway worth wanting

There are many free giveaways, but very few take the time to craft a great giveaway that people actually want. Remember people are not signing up to your list because they like you, they're signing up because they believe you can help them with their problem. 

Conclusion

We get really excited just talking about all of these tactics because these are tactics that anybody can use, and some of the tactics that we also use. If you have any other findings that work for you do share them in the comments below.

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