The No. 1 Reason Why Most Sales Managers Fail! by Frank Scott
The most dominate reason for failing, as a sales manager is apparently invisible to most managers.
Most manager’s feel it, see it, experience it… they just don’t recognize it! They can’t see the forest for the trees. By the time you finish this article you will have the reason and the solution to make your business grow.
You may think you already know the reason most managers fail. Just for fun, stop for a moment and come up with what you think is the number one reason (before I share this revelation with you). Please, do not continue until you have the answer that you think is correct.
Now, why do you think I want you to answer the question first? Simple! If you happen to have the wrong answer, then the right answer will have much more impact on you. Kind of like, "AHA!"
OK… have your answer? Then let’s continue.
Understanding: Failure as a sales manager is probably created by the same attributes that made someone successful as a salesperson.
As a salesperson you focus on your personal results, not someone else’s. To be a successful sales manager, you must take off the salesperson hat and put on the Sales Manager’s hat. Your job performance will now be evaluated by the results achieved by someone else.
Some Sales Managers do not instantly recognize this fact. Many good managers were only average as a salesperson. However, their empathy, work ethics, sound judgment, etc. paved the way to promotion. You can be a great manager without being a great salesperson.
Interesting point: Where does the word "Manager" derive from? Man—Ager. Aging of man, or maturing those people under your supervision. No easy task. Especially if the person on the next rung up the organization chart from you, continues to expect you to maintain the same level of personal productivity that you achieved prior to your promotion.
Step One: As a new manager, get things started off on the right foot by making sure that you and your boss (or supervisor) are on the same page. Ask questions to make sure you understand exactly what your boss (or supervisor) expects in the way of results.
Your team’s results, directly impact your job security, especially in today’s environment. Make sure expectations are realistic. Come to a mutual understanding. That completes Step One.
Here is what traditionally happens next. You invest tremendous time and effort in training someone. Just when you have them producing results, they get another job offer, relocate, or simply quit for personal reasons.
Then the whole staffing process starts over again.
- Running an ad.
- Interviewing on the phone.
- Conducting a one-on-one personal interview.
- Classroom training.
- Field training. (And on the smaller steps in between.)
When you add it up, it’s a lot of work. And this brings us to…
The No. 1 Reason why most sales managers’ fail.
It’s called TRAINING PROCESS FATIGUE.
I relate Training Process Fatigue to the childhood experience of cutting weeds. I hated doing it. Not because I was lazy. I just knew those weeds were going to come back. My distaste for the job was in having to do the same thing over, and over, and over. No real, lasting sense of accomplishment. I hated it… so I avoided the task whenever possible.
The same applies to training sales recruits. You get tired of doing the same training over and over. So you either do a substandard job of it, or simply don’t train at all. (Let’s face it… it’s easy to come up with excuses when we don’t want to do something… or at the very least to find something else, less important to do. This helps us overcome the guilt factor.)
You may not have given this much conscious thought up until now but… the perceived futility embedded in your subconscious mind impacts your conscious action (or lack of action).
Training Process Fatigue… This syndrome manifests itself in various ways.
1. You are exhausted.
2. You do not see the value, so you rarely train.
3. You look for ways to avoid training, etc.
It gets a little bit boring doing the same things over repeatedly, with no (or very little) sense of accomplishment.
So why not delegate this work to someone else? Someone that is (possibly) even better at sales training than you are. Someone, who will show complete consistency, every time, without tiring. Sound good? (I’ll show you how in a minute.) In the meantime…
How do you prevent TRAINING PROCESS FATIGUE?
Answer: Retain your people with outstanding training.
If your salespeople are successful you stand a great chance of keeping them. Now, when you train, it is to increase your sales force (and productivity) rather than to replace exiting salespeople.
How do you provide outstanding training?
I’m going to give you a couple of quick, helpful tips, but they aren’t revolutionary. You probably already understand them, even if you don’t use them.
1. Start by taking your training much more serious. Understand that the time and effort you put in to each salesperson, up front, can (if done right) yield long term dividends. Work hard upfront, so you don’t have to work hard long term. It’s really the easiest way to reach your goals.
2. Have a planned training process, and be thorough. Most managers do just the opposite. They spend just enough time to give the new recruit some basics and then expect them to learn the rest at the "School of hard knocks". (These managers are already worn out.)
Inadequate training also promotes a hostile attitude on the part of your new employee. They’re not stupid. They know whether you really made an honest effort to give them the training they needed to be successful. They may not say anything, but they will remember. This feeling, on their part, may come back to haunt you at a later date.
Use common sense. Remember, these people will impact your job security. Gain their respect.
Don’t assume anything in training. Test everything.
- Role-play.
- Ride Along on their appointments.
- Closely monitor their results.
- Keep a pulse on their attitude.
- Listen to your people.
It’s kind of like any other animal. If you pay attention, they will tell you if they are happy or sad. Happy people don’t leave! Unhappy ones do (by their choice or yours). Keep them happy!
Our next understanding, equally important, is that training is an ongoing process.
· You’ll conduct training to increase the size of your sales force.
· When you replace a departing salesperson.
· When you introduce new products. (Etc.)
Training is dynamic, not static because change is a constant.
Herein lies the challenge. There are only so many hours in a day. Training may not be your only responsibility. In fact it usually isn’t. If you are the owner of the business you probably wear many hats. When this happens training can oftentimes be overlooked (or subconsciously avoided). This is where you need to utilize outside sources and…
PUT YOUR TRAINING ON AUTOMATIC PILOT
You should try to use every tool available to make your job easier!
Now, I’m going to provide you with a couple of simple solutions that will save you tons of time every single week and make your experience as a manager much more enjoyable.
Two primary areas of training:
You must train on product (What you sell.)
You must train on activity (How you sell.)
Solution 1 (For Product)
Product training should be easy. Use collateral to leverage your time. Have you designed materials that describe your product(s) and outlines each feature and benefit? You don’t need to take up your time explaining your product again-and-again to new recruits. (But most managers’ do exactly that.)
Why not make up a catalog (or) flip chart (or) brochure (or) audiocassette (or) training film (or) combination?
It’s not that difficult and it will save you a mountain of time. This also allows your training to be consistent throughout the organization. You’re not subject to how you feel on any given day, or forgetting to cover an important topic. It’s relatively inexpensive to prepare materials and offers a big payback.
Make sure you also used pre-designed tests for retention. Inspect what you expect! (A small reward, for high scores, never hurts either.)
Solution 2 (For Activity knowledge)
How do you teach salespeople to create sales?
You may have a unique product or service, but solid sales techniques will generally work with any product or service.
Teaching salespeople how to generate leads and close sales is much more difficult and time consuming than teaching product knowledge.
Be realistic. Maybe your background does not qualify you to teach someone. (Salespeople can spot your shortcomings immediately.)
(Or) maybe you have such a unique method of selling that it is not reproducible
(Or) and this is probably the most common reason for inadequate training… YOU ARE JUST PLAIN WORN OUT!
Let’s face it. There are thousands of small businesses out there, that have elected not to grow, simply because growth would require hiring and training new personnel or employing a full time sales trainer.
Once again, use outside resources. There are more than enough books, tapes, and sales related materials at your fingertips. Determine which materials are the most closely related to your product or service and method of generating business. Outside professional help does not necessarily have to be accompanied by a physical presence. Wouldn’t that save you a lot of time?
In conclusion, training should not be viewed as an interruption to your business. Simply prepare, train thoroughly, expect ongoing training, and let outside resources/tools (whenever possible) do the work for you.
Eliminate Training Process Fatigue forever.
Put your training on autopilot
How to Write an Award-Winning, Sales-Kicking Creative Brief
By Steve McNamara
3/5/2002
A creative brief is like a road map. A good brief leads to imaginative and persuasive ads. And gets you there quickly.
A bad brief starts you off in the wrong direction. So you have to stop, figure out where the heck you’re going, and start again. Or worse, you follow that brief to a town called Bad Adsville.
Most briefs are simply a list of questions. The people writing the brief answer the questions based information about the ad or the campaign to be constructed.
What you want is the flexibility to select questions appropriate to any type of ad or campaign. Direct response or brand building. Integrated campaigns that blend the two. Or questions for highly detailed new business pitches or new product launches. Even quick turn-around newspaper ads.
Therefore, it’s wise to avoid writ-in-stone printed briefs precisely because they limit your flexibility. Better to place the brief — the list of questions — on your computer or the office network. Then, for each new project, select appropriate questions.
At AdCracker.com we recommend you have access to three briefs: A Quick Brief for simple, fast turn-around projects. A Basic Brief for the bulk of ads or campaigns you produce. And an Advanced Brief for new product launches or new business pitches.
And if you’re thinking, "We don’t have time to write a brief." Remember that working from verbal input, without a written brief, is how non-professionals waste time and money.
Here’s a typical Basic Brief.
Background / Overview:
What’s the big picture? What’s going on in the market? Anything happening with the client side we should know about? Can you summarize the entire brief into one sentence, "Who are we talking to, and what do we want to say?"
What is the objective, the purpose of the ad?
A concise statement of the effect the ad should have on consumers. Typically expressed as an action. And frequently focused either on what you want them to think, to feel, or to do.
What do we want to say?
What’s the single most important thing we can say to achieve the objective? This should be a simple sentence (or sentences) expressing a specific idea (or ideas). Avoid generalities because they result in ambiguous communications.
What are the supporting rational and emotional ‘reasons to believe?’
List the rational and emotional reasons to for the target market to believe what we want them to believe, and do what we want them to do. Include all the major copy points, in order of relative importance to the consumer. In other words, ‘What else can we say to achieve the objective?’
Target audience: who are we talking to?
The more precise and detailed the better. Go beyond age and sex to include demographics and psychographics.
Any other important details?
Here’s where you put all other details, such as information about the offer if it’s a direct response ad. Perhaps a description of the brand personality. And any mandatory elements such as the client’s logo, address, phone number and so forth.
What do we need and when do we need it?
Write information about media, size and color. As well as deadlines for 1) initial creative review of rough sketch ideas, 2) review revised creative, 3) final internal creative presentation, 4) client presentation, 5) material delivered to publication.
Client / Account Service Checklist:
Do we have all supporting information: previous ads, brochures, competitor ads — perhaps books or Web sites for reference? This so we can present the creative team a complete package of information.
If this is a long format communication — a Web site, brochure, or video — do we have an outline for the creative team that includes all the important copy points, as well as an indication of visuals, and graphs?
Is it clear from the client what must be in the communication, and what might be in the communication? What are the client mandatories and preferences.
Six Classic Mistakes…Email Newsletters Make
by Mark Brownlow
Email newsletters help build customer and partner relationships, contribute to branding efforts, increase awareness, improve customer service and add value to purchases and registrations.
And those are just the indirect benefits.
But in the rush to the virtual printing presses, marketers are making a lot of mistakes. Eliminate those mistakes and the true potential of newsletters unfolds. Here are six of the best.
1. Confusing newsletters with promotions
Many marketers don’t make the distinction between an email newsletter and email promotions. The latter are action-oriented; designed to provoke some kind of (immediate) response through a click, a sign-up, a purchase, whatever. They’re what most people think of under the term opt-in email marketing.
Email newsletters may contain action-related elements, but their real potential lies in building, over time, a lasting, long-term relationship with the reader. Which means they may not try and induce any kind of immediate action at all. Instead, they create a climate, an environment, a relationship which predisposes the reader to taking such an action at some other time.
You can think of promotions as transaction-oriented, and newsletters as relationship-oriented. An email promotion says, "Buy the new Brownlow Desk Chair 2002", the email newsletter carries an article about avoiding back strain in the office.
If you don’t get the difference clear in your head, then you’re likely to commit mistakes 2 and 3 as well.
2. Being too publisher-centric
Subscriber loyalty depends on a lot of things, but content is at the top of most people’s list. Not just content, but valuable content. Content that is useful, timely and relevant. A successful newsletter delivers useful information, at the right time, and to the right people.
With competition for in-box space growing, even that isn’t always enough though.
You need to be unique, too. Unique in terms of what you say (your content) or how you present it (which is where newsletter personality and style come into the equation).
Many companies produce newsletters filled with announcements about their new premises, staff, products, services, programs, charity work, etc. All fine in the right place, but all assume the reader is as interested in the company as the owners and employees are.
The reader is actually interested in information that addresses a problem or need (for help, humor, marketing intelligence, industry insight etc.). If you can work your products and services into addressing those needs and problems, and avoid sounding like a promotion, fine. But you’ll generally need to be more innovative than that.
3. Using the wrong success metrics
The metrics used to judge email promotions don’t always apply to newsletters. Clickthrough rates are, for example, an unfair measure of emails which may not be designed to stimulate immediate clickthroughs. Using short-term metrics to judge long-term initiatives leads to wrong decisions.
Calculating newsletter ROI is a tough nut to crack, since newsletter costs are immediate and relatively easy to measure, while the benefits are long-term and difficult to measure.
Peter Meyer suggests one approach. Another approach is to measure the revenue produced by subscribers before and after they subscribed, and compare this with a control group of non-subscribers.
4. Ignoring the value of the headers
You hear a lot about subject lines in email marketing. But not a lot about the other email headers, particularly the "to" and "from" headers. Consider a newsletter which arrives thus:
From: server11@somenewsletterservice.com
To: list member
Subject: Brownlow Chairs
Now compare it with this one:
From: mark.brownlow@brownlowchairs.com
To: A.Customer
Subject: [Brownlow Chairs] A desktop health and safety tip…
Use a combination of the three headers to:
- maintain the impression that it’s a one-to-one communication
- to identify a recognizable sender (the relevant brand, person, website or company)
- identify the publication
- give recipients something they can use for filtering their mail (into a "chair newsletters" folder, for example) o encourage the recipients to open and read the mail
5. Making it difficult for people to unsubscribe
Some marketers still believe a disgruntled subscriber is better than no subscriber at all. So they make people jump through hoops to get off an address list, or they wait a few more newsletter issues until the unsubscribe request is properly honored.
At best, the would-be ex-subscriber manages to get unsubscribed and leaves with a bad impression. At worst, they remain trapped in your distribution list. So you pay for mails to go unread, and suffer as the recipient complains to all and sundry about your poor administration. Not to mention the spam accusations.
Trapped subscribers also lower response rates to any advertisements and other offers in your newsletter, skewing the statistics and disappointing any third-party advertisers.
So make your unsubscribe process quick and painless.
6. Not making the most of website traffic or customers for sign-ups
Think of the effort invested in persuading website visitors to become customers. Then compare this with the typical effort expended to persuade them to become newsletter subscribers.
How many times have you seen a subscription box tagged on the bottom of a web page, with no indication of the newsletter’s contents, frequency, privacy policies etc.?
Give people the opportunity to sign-up for a newsletter everywhere: web pages, confirmation messages, thank you pages, receipts, etc. At the least, let people know what will happen when they submit their address – what can they expect in their in-boxes and how often? And what will you do with their email address? (Which means posting a prominent privacy policy).
Avoid these mistakes and potential can start becoming reality.
Fulfilling the Promise: Borrowing from "Usability" for Better Customer Relationships
by Noel Franus
12/11/2001
"Usability" is a concept that’s caught fire in many professional circles lately. Unfortunately, there’s little consensus on what it actually means: maybe you think of "usability" as that last-minute QA test done just before launch, or perhaps you picked up a book on usability, and feel inspired to redesign your home page.
Regardless of what you’ve heard about usability, set it aside for now, because what’s important is the concept’s overarching principle: the goal of usability, or user-centered design, is to build useful products and usable websites by a) researching customer needs and b) building solutions based on those needs.
The objectives of user-centered design are nearly the same as those within an advertising agency’s account planning department, or with most respectable marketing research groups…you’re trying to understand your customers’ behaviors and motivations, and you want to let that knowledge influence the direction of your product and its promise.
Promises Broken are Opportunities Lost
All too often, however, marketing professionals fixate on selling the promise of a product, and skip out on fulfilling that promise. The delivery of a promise is best left to the product designers, the distribution folks, and the customer service people, right? Perhaps so, but if you’re ignoring your customers after you’ve crafted your pitch, you’re missing out on a chance to create a more precise, intimate and alluring pitch to your existing customers – and to convert them from single-shot statistics into long-term relationships.
As an example, let’s say that you’re directing the marketing for an online bank. You’ve got positive press, and your direct mail and online marketing efforts draw incredible response rates. Even the interest rates are low, so you know there’s something to keep customers around once you’ve brought them to the door. Problem is, the website stinks. Nobody knows how to use it. Your customers have a hard time reading their statement, much less buying stocks or applying for a home refinancing. The complaint calls to customer service almost outnumber the total number of visits to your home page.
Your customers, at this point, have two choices: 1) they can leave to sign up with the competition; or 2) they can stick around out of laziness, continue banking with your company, and dislike every minute of it. Neither scenario has a very happy ending: even if they stay, they’ll tell friends about their bad experiences, plus they’ll cost an arm and a leg in customer-service resources.
If you’re not developing a relationship with existing customers – choosing instead to focus on pitching only to new ones – then you’re fighting a losing battle. You’ve heard it before: it’s cheaper to retain existing customers than it is acquire new ones.
Okay, new scenario: the online bank isn’t very hard to use after all. The word from customer service is that people are generally happy with the site and their banking products. And the business is somewhat profitable. Your next challenge, then, is to grow existing customers of one or two banking products into lifelong customers, who look to your bank for all their financial needs.
Borrowing from the Social Sciences
So where does usability fit into all this? The answer is in the ability to provide practical processes for getting in touch with customers. A growing number of "usability people" – or at least practitioners of user-centered design in the online and software world – are tweaking long-standing research processes borrowed from the social sciences in order to fit short timelines and tight budgets.
Where do you start learning more about their needs – and about refining your pitch and your product?
1. Start listening. If your product or website has already been around for a few months, now is a great time to get inside your customers’ heads. You can assess the relevance of what’s been built by starting with contextual inquiry, visiting customers in the actual physical environment where they use your product or service, and asking them about their specific needs, habits and usage. It’s important to be a keen observer as well, because people often say one thing and do/say another.
The advantage of this over, say, a testing lab, is that you get to watch users in their real-world environment; natural environments elicit more natural responses. And this can serve you better than typical satisfaction surveys because you have a chance to ask follow-up questions to dig deep when needed. Don’t be afraid to start small if you’re low on time or money; you can learn a lot from interviews with just 10 to 15 customers.
If you’re just starting out with a brand new product that has yet to be defined, perhaps you’ll need to undertake an ethnographic study. It may help to grab someone from a human-factors background to join you for this, because the goal is to understand your customers’ natural-usage patterns, and to consider defining features and requirements based on these. Ethnographic studies are almost completely about observing – ask little and rarely intervene.
From either of these types of interviews you’ll have a good idea how relevant your existing product or service is in its current state. You’ll also have a first-hand understanding of customer needs, and you’ll be able to gauge them against any new releases that may already be in the works. In the end, you’ll have a root-level understanding of what’s fundamentally important (passions, motivations, etc.) to your customers, and your marketing efforts will benefit because you’ll be able to address these concerns in a language your customers understand.
2. Let your customers drive. If your company’s planning a significant upgrade to a product or service, why not test-run it before getting it out there? Perhaps the most obvious way to test ideas would be in a focus-group setting. Certainly that’s an easy way to get feedback from many people in little time, but group dynamics can run their course and taint your data. Consider creating a prototype and testing that with customers in a one-on-one setting. If you spread your prototype revisions out over a couple of months, you can run repeated tests, and hopefully come a bit closer to perfection with your prototype.
Should you wish to take testing farther, ask your customers to help design your prototype – if you ask them to co-design, you’re essentially asking them to tell you what’s most and least important to them. Card-sorting procedures will provide you with a similar look at how customers categorize features and rank them in terms of relevance to their lives. Again, when time and money are tight, don’t be afraid to test with small samples; 10 to 15 test participants are often enough to get decent results. Be sure to test in multiple markets if your customer base is a national one and regional differences could a factor.
These participatory design techniques may not only tell you what’s important to your customers, but also expose you to individual mental models that you may not have anticipated. Better to learn these things now; shifts in strategy are cheaper to implement sooner rather than later.
3. Get hypothetical. If you don’t have a chance to sit down with real customers, don’t be afraid to make them up. The use of personas is catching on quite a bit in the online world because it’s an affordable way to profile archetypal users and assess their every interaction with your brand and product, even across multiple platforms.
Define a persona, or fictional character, representing your primary customers, secondary customers, and so on, basing them on existing research or interviews with those in your company who have a good idea who your customers are. Give each persona an identity, including a name, background, and so on, getting perhaps as granular as listing their media diet. Once you’ve defined your personas, the people in marketing, product development and design have an opportunity to see the "people" who your efforts are focused on.
After you’ve run each persona through a complete set of scenarios, you’ll have a play-by-play view of how your typical customers interact with your product. You’ll have a clear, detailed picture of your product really means to them. And those in other departments will have a shared mission: everyone will be able to answer the questions "who is our customer," "what do they need" and "what’s the right way to give it to them?"
Of course, none of these techniques are revolutionary, nor are they right for every situation. And they certainly don’t represent the full spectrum of methods available to anyone looking to better understand their customers. But each method has proven its worth for many user-centered designers and the teams they work with. Don’t be afraid to spearhead some of these efforts on your own – usability isn’t just for designers anymore. And it can’t hurt to have those who do the promise-making and the promise-keeping working from the same page.
以下参考译文由
提供
履行承诺：借款，由"可用性" ，为改善与客户的关系
由NOEL值franus
2001年12月11日
"可用性"是一个概念，这就是起火，在许多专业界近来不幸的是，有一点共识是什么，它实际上是指：也许你想到的"可用性" ，因为最后一分钟的QA测试所做的只是在发射前，或许你拿起了一本关于可用性，并感到鼓舞，重新设计您的首页。
不管外界怎么反对，你听说过可用性，可设置预留现在是这样，因为现在最重要的就是观念的首要原则：目标的可用性，或以用户为中心的设计，是要建立有用的产品和实用的网站，由一）研究顾客的需求和B ）的建设方案都基于这些需要。
目标用户为中心的设计几乎一样，因为那些广告公司的帐户规划署，或与最尊贵的市场研究集团…你试着了解你的客户的行为与动机，而你不想让这个知识型的影响方向，你的产品和其诺言。
诺言破碎的机会，失去了
而且，很多时候，不过，市场营销专业人才fixate出售承诺，提出了一个产品，而跳过了履行这个诺言。交付的一个承诺，最好交由产品设计师，分布乡亲，以及客户服务的人，对不对？也许如此，但是如果你忽略你的顾客后，你制作的场地中，你就失去了一个机会，以创造一个更精确的，亲密和诱惑力球场，以你现有的客户-并加以转化，他们从单炮统计转变为长期的合作关系。
作为一个例子，让我们假设您正在指挥营销网上银行。你得到了正面的新闻，和你的直接邮寄和网上营销努力汲取难以置信的回应率。即使利率低，所以你知道有什么东西让客户靠近，一旦你把他们交给了大门。问题是，这个网站发出异味。没有人知道如何使用它。你的客户有一个硬的时间读自己的声明，更遑论买股票或申请一个家再融资。投诉电话客户服务，几乎超过总人数的访问您的主页。
你的客户，在这一点上，有两个选择： 1 ） ，他们可以留下来报名参加同项比赛，或2 ） ，他们能够坚持围绕出于懒惰，银行业继续与你的公司，和不喜欢的每一分钟都非常满意。既不设想有一个非常大团圆结局：即使他们留下来，他们会告诉朋友，对他们不好的经验，再加上他们将花费一只胳膊和一条腿，在客户服务的资源。
如果您还没有制定一个与现有客户-而是选择把重点放在投手只新的-然后你打一场失去仗。你听说过它面前：它的便宜，以留住现有客户比它是获取新的基地。
好了，新的剧本：网上银行是不是很难使用，毕竟。字，从客户服务，是人们普遍乐意与网站和其银行产品。和商界有点盈利。你的下一个挑战，那么，是增长现有客户的一个或两个银行产品成为终身客户，他们期待着您的银行对于其所有财政需求。
借用社会科学
那么，是否可用性融入这一切吗？答案是没有能力提供实际的工艺过程，盼着接触顾客。越来越多的"可用性人" -或者至少是从业人员的以用户为中心的设计，在网上和软件世界-扭捏长期的研究过程中借来的，从社会科学，以适应短时限和预算紧缩。
当你开始学习更多地了解他们的需要-关于精炼你的足球场和你的产品呢？
1 。开始听。如果您的产品或网站已经靠近了数个月，现在是一个伟大的时间里，你的顾客头上。你可以评估的相关性什么的建成，开始与上下文的调查，拜访客户，在实际的物理环境，让他们使用你的产品或服务，并要求他们对他们的具体需求，习惯和用法。它的重要的是要敏锐观察，以及，因为人们常常说一套，做/说。
利用这种以上，也就是说，一个测试实验室，就是你能看用户在他们的真实世界的环境;自然环境中找出更多那种自然的反应。这可以更好地为您服务，比典型的满意度调查，因为你有机会跟进提问深挖需要时。不要害怕，要从小处着手如果你是低收入的时间或金钱，你可以学到很多东西，从采访，仅10至15家客户。
如果你是刚开始以一种崭新的产品，还没有得到确定的，也许你需要进行一次人种学研究。它可以帮助抢到有人从人的因素的背景与你一道，为这个，因为其目标是要了解你的客户自然的使用模式，并考虑界定的特点和要求，并根据这些。人种学的研究，几乎完全遵从-请问很少，而且很少干预。
从上述两种类型的采访，你有一个好主意是如何考虑有关你现有的产品或服务是在其目前的状态。您也有第一手的了解客户的需求，并您将可以了解他们对任何新的新闻稿表示，可能已在开发中。在年底前，你将有一个根级别了解什么的根本大计（情感，动机等） ，你的客户，和你的营销工作，将有利，因为您将可以消除这些疑虑，在一种语言你的顾客明白。
2 。让您的客户机。如果贵公司的规划显着提升，以产品或服务，为什么不试运行，它才出来吗？或许最明显的方式来测试思路，将在一个焦点小组设置。这个当然是一种简单的方法来得到的反馈，很多人在小的时候，但团体动力学可以运行自己的课程，并抱憾您的数据。考虑建立一个原型和测试，与客户在一对一的设置。如果你传播你的原型修改了过去数个月，你可以运行反复试验，并有望却更接近完美与您的原型。
如果您想接测试远，请问您的客户，以帮助您的设计原型-如果你问他们，以联合设计，你就基本上要求他们告诉你什么的，最起码对他们非常重要。卡分拣程序将为你提供一项类似研究，如何在客户分类，特点及职级，他们在相关性，以他们的生命。再次，在时间和金钱都紧张，不要害怕，大胆地试验与小样本; 10日至15日参加考试，往往足以让体面的结果。当然，以测试在多个市场，如果你的客户群是一个国内问题和区域差异可能的一个因素。
这些参与性设计技术不但可能告诉你什么是最重要的，以你的客户，但也暴露了你的个人心智模式，你可能没有预期的。更好地了解这些事情，现在更在战略上是便宜落实早通比晚通好。
3 。获得假设的。如果你不能有机会坐下来与真正的客户，不要害怕，使他们到了。使用persona的正迎头赶上，就有不少在网上世界，因为它的一个负担得起的方式向剖面原型用户，并评估他们的每一次互动与你的品牌和产品，甚至是跨多个平台。
界定一个人，或者虚构的性质，代表了您的主要客户，次要客户等，他们立足于现有的研究或面试与那些在你的公司有一个好主意的人你的用户的身份。给每个人的身份，包括姓名，背景资料等，越来越或许正如颗粒作为上市媒体的饮食习惯。一旦你定义了你的persona的，人们在市场营销，产品开发及设计，有机会看到"以人为本"的人你的努力所关注的。
以后你来说，每个人，通过一套完整的情况下，你将拥有一个发挥逐发挥的看法如何你的典型客户互动，你的产品。您将有一个明确的，详细描述你的产品的真正意义给他们。与其他部门有一个共同的使命：每个人都将能回答这些问题： "谁是我们的客户" ， "需要什么"和"什么是正确的方式给它以" ？
当然，若没有这些技术革命的，也不是他们的权利，对于每一种情况。他们当然不能代表全谱的方法提供给任何人看，以更好地了解他们的客户。但每种方法已经证明了它的价值，对于许多用户为中心的设计人员和车队，他们的工作。不要害怕矛头一些这些努力对你自己-可用性不仅是设计师了。它不能伤害有那些承诺的决策和承诺，保持工作，由同一页上。
12 Common Mistakes in Email Marketing
from Grokdotcom.com
Don’t you simply adore these wonderful lists that spell out the potholes folks typically fall into when they set about accomplishing a task? I do. Especially when I’m about to embark on something as significant as an email campaign. A tidy collection of DON’Ts makes it hugely easier to catch yourself before you take an obvious misstep and tumble down some weird rabbit hole just like Alice. Except Alice landed in an interesting place and learned a few things.
I gotta tell you – when you fall into one of these holes, you don’t wind up in a very interesting place (although you certainly can wind up learning from your mistakes, but who wants to waste that kind of time and money?). So how do you keep your head above ground? Just pay attention to these mistakes of email marketing, and you’ll find yourself smiling like the Cheshire Cat!
Several years ago, my clever friend Roy Williams created a list of the 12 common mistakes advertisers make. With his permission, I’ve taken his sound ideas and recast them to apply to your email campaigns. Email marketing is, after all, a form of advertising. But it goes beyond conventional advertising, because it is also your princial pathway to building a long-lasting relationship with your customers. You really don’t want to mess that up, do you?
I thought not. So let’s look at these mistakes, one by one.
1. The desire for instant gratification
Launching an email campaign is like trying to push a car up a hill get your car rolling from a dead stop. You think you’re going to manage it all in one push? Nope. It takes time to work up some momentum. And before you achieve a decent speed, you’re gonna start wondering if you are even up to the task. Be patient!
Studies have proved the only variable that influences the success of any campaign is the power of your message. So make sure you are saying the right thing. "Uncover the story that is uniquely yours; focus your campaign; commit to your message."i And be prepared to give it time.
Once you get your momentum, it will be hard to stop it! Sure, along the way you’re gonna have to give the occasional push, but with the momentum established, the job becomes much easier.
2. Attempting to reach more people than the budget will allow
This is the reach versus frequency issue. Let’s say you are going to buy inventory or place an ad in an email newsletter. You can afford to make 100,000 impressions. Do you go for 10 placements in one newsletter that goes out to 10,000 people, or do you opt for one placement that goes out to 100,000 people? Same number of impressions, but the first option exposes fewer viewers to multiple impressions.
Think about it this way: Would you rather reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way of them, or reach 10% of the people and convince all of them all the way? When it comes to maximizing your email marketing efforts, this is a useful analogy: Your message is the nail, repetition is the hammer, and a block of wood is the customer. If the nail is sharp and you hammer effectively, you will pierce through the wood and clinch the customer.
For more information on this topic, check out "Email As Advertising," written by my colleague Bryan Eisenberg, which will appear in ClickZ on November 12.
And it doesn’t hurt to remember this: "Retention fades with sleep." Repetition has its rewards.
3. Assuming the business owner knows best
When it comes to stuff in which we you have a huge personal investment (your kids, your homes, your businesses), you risk losing your objectivity. Hey, it’s a human thing. Too much knowledge about your company and what you offer leads you to answer questions nobody is asking. When you’re inside the bottle, it’s hard to read the label. But that’s also when you risk pushing your own interests at the expense of your customers’ interests. Sometimes it helps to bring in an objective outsider to give you some perspective.
4. Unsubstantiated claims
Folks make claims all the time that miss targeting their customers’ needs and simply wind up turning them off. Specifics about yourself, your way of doing business and your products are far more persuasive and cut to the chase far more effectively than generalities. So get credibly specific!!
5. Improper use of passive media
Passive media are sight-based media – newspapers, magazines, billboards, direct mail, and yes, even email – that require the user to sustain focused attention in order to process the message. Intrusive media are sound-based – radio and television. Sound is heads above sight in its ability to get your message lodged into your customers’ brains. The best use of passive media is as a follow-up to intrusive media.
This is a toughie, and there’s not much you can do about it at this stage of the technological game. It is largely one of those obstacles you have to factor into your marketing equation. Trust me, now is not the time to go lining your emails with .wav files – and that misses the point anyway. The huge advantage of email marketing, passive though it may be, is its relative low cost. It’s worth the effort, but be aware of the limitations.
Passive media is an effective way to reach those customers who are actively in the market for your product or service. You’ll improve the effectiveness of your emails if you can use this to your advantage. Exactness is the key attribute of passive media – you can give a lot of specifics that your potential customers can check as many times as they want, simply by revisiting their online mail boxes.
6. Creating individual emails instead of campaigns
Remember the hammer analogy from last time? Good. Now add this: No single ad constitutes a campaign, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and friendship isn’t a first-sight phenomenon. You have more to say and more to accomplish than can be said and accomplished in a single email.
A very important thing to do as you develop your campaign is build upon your previous (successful) efforts. Your individual emails have to be interconnected, with a logical flow and a united presentation – after all, they are all pieces of that big “puzzle” that is your company. In a way, it’s like the old Burma Shave signpost campaign … you want to keep your customers eager and on the lookout for more of what you have to offer.
7. Obedience to unwritten rules
Do you really want to be like everyone else? Do you want to communicate the same message as your competitors? No, of course not. You want to be unique, you want to stand out from the crowd. So don’t follow it! Dare to be different in a believable way. That’s how you get noticed. I’m not suggesting you go overboard (commercial relationship-building requires tact and tends toward the conservative end of the spectrum), but if your emails sound, act and look like everybody else’s emails, what’s the value in doing business with you rather than them?
8. Ignoring timing
It should come as no surprise that you’ve got to think about timing your message. Who is your audience and when are they most likely to read your email? Rebecca Leib presents some very useful information on timing in her article Does Anybody Know What Time It Is? Does Anybody Care?
Your goal is to give your customers the right message and send it when they are apt to take the time to read it. This isn’t the same as suggesting you should time your message to exactly when you think your customer is going to act on it. Seasonal situations aside, an important tenet of advertising is this: "Tell the customer WHY and wait for WHEN. Quit trying to predict the moment of need."i
9. Overtargeting
Be careful to avoid over-segmenting your data base in your efforts to reach your target audience. It’s a myth that you only need to get your message to the decision-makers. Truth is, decisions are seldom made in a vacuum. Don’t neglect the influencers!
10. Event-driven marketing
It’s best to steer clear of designing an email campaign around a single event (unless it’s a major, well-branded event that strengthens your Unique Selling Proposition). When an event is over, folks will immediately forget the marketing pitch behind it, and besides, 99.5% of the people you’ve spent the effort to reach won’t be coming to The Do anyway. Where does your message go when this happens? Up in tendrils of smoke.
11. Great production without great copy
"Slick, clever, funny, creative and different are very poor substitutes for informative, believable, memorable and persuasive." The name of the ecommerce game is persuasion; getting people to take the action you want them to take. Don’t even dream of neglecting those magical words that are going to help you craft your brilliant, perfect message.
12. Confusing "response" with "results"
"Slick, clever, funny, creative and different ads are most likely to generate comment, or response." Buzz doesn’t feed the bulldog and excitement alone won’t bring in the cash. See the problem?
I recently heard a great saying: Intelligent folks learn from their own mistakes; wise folks learn from the mistakes of others. Now you’ve got all 12 of the most frequently made mistakes in email marketing, and you’re in a great position to learn from them. So go, Grasshopper, and be wise!
以下译文由 提供
12个常见错误在电子邮件营销
从grokdotcom.com
你难道不单纯崇拜，这些美好的清单列明坑洞乡亲通常落入时，他们正在着手完成一项任务呢？我做的做。尤其是当我即将展开的东西其意义就像一个电子邮件运动。整齐的收集注意事项使得它非常容易追上自己，然后一个明显的失误，并摔了下来一些怪异的兔子洞，就像爱丽丝。除了爱丽丝降落在一个有趣的地方，学到了几件事。
i的宝贝，告诉你-当你陷入其中的漏洞，你不用风在一个非常有趣的地方（虽然你当然可以关门学习，从你的错，可是谁想做渣滓样的时间和金钱？ ） 。那么你如何保持你的头部在地面上？只是要注意这些错误的电子邮件营销，你会发现你的笑脸像柴郡猫！
几年前，我聪明的朋友罗伊威廉姆斯创造了一个名单，在这12个常见错误，使广告客户。与他的许可，我已经采取了他的良好的思想和重写，他们申请到你的电子邮件运动。电子邮件营销毕竟是一种广告形式。不过，它超越了传统的广告，因为它同时也是您princial途径，以建立长期持久的关系，与客户的需求。你真的不想搞得一团糟，直至，你呢？
我以为不是。那让我们看看这些错误，一个接一个。
1 。渴望追求瞬间的满足
发起一个电子邮件运动，是喜欢尝试，以推动汽车了希尔得到你的车轧从死亡停止。你以为你要去管理它都在同一个推？不会。它需要时间去工作了一些好的势头。之前你达成一个象样的速度，你在哪里也开始怀疑，如果你是连执行这项任务。耐心！
研究证明，唯一的变数是影响成功的任何活动，是权力对你的讯息。因此要确保你说的正确的事情。 "揭开故事，是您独享;专注你的运动;致力于对你的讯息， "我，并准备给它时间。
一旦你把你的发展势头，这将是难以阻挡的！当然，在前进的道路上你在哪里也都给予偶尔推动，但随着势头成立后，工作变得容易得多。
2 。企图达成更多的人，比财政预算案将使
这是达成频率的问题。让我们说你是打算购买存货或地方的广告，在一个电子邮件通讯。你可以负担，使10万人的印象。你去10存放在一个通讯熄灭后，以10000人，还是你选择一个安插熄灭后，以10万人？同样数目的印象，但第一种选择，暴露少观众多重的印象。
想想这样说：我请你，而不是达到100 ％的人，并说服他们10 ％的方式，即要达到10 ％的人，并说服他们全部所有的路？当谈到最大化您的邮件营销工作，这是一个有益的比喻：你的讯息是指甲，留级是锤子和一大块的木料是客户。如果指甲是夏普和你锤有效，你将皮尔斯通过木材和clinch客户。
更多信息，就这个话题，请检查"的电子邮件广告， "写我的同事布赖恩艾森伯格，其中将出现在clickz 11月12日。
，并没有伤害到记住这一点： "保留褪色的睡眠" 。重复有其报酬。
3 。假设该企业主最清楚
当涉及到的东西，使我们大家有一个庞大的个人投资（您的孩子，你的家园，你的企业） ，你就会失去你的客观性。嘿，这就是一个人的事。太多的知识，你的公司和你提供的线索，你解答问题，没有人要求。当您在车厢内瓶，就很难阅读标签。不过，这也是当你的风险推你自己的利益而不惜牺牲的是客户的利益。有时候，它有助于把一个客观外行给你一些观点。
4 。证据不足索赔
乡亲，使债权全部时间，错过针对其客户的需求和干脆结业，把它们赶走。具体的你，你做生意的方式和你的产品是远远更有说服力和捡到宝较目前更有效地笼统。所以获得具体可信！
5 。不当使用被动媒介
被动媒介观光基于媒介-报纸，杂志，广告牌，直接邮件，并是的，甚至连电子邮件-即要求用户保持注意力集中，以便处理好信息。侵扰他人的媒体是健全为本-广播和电视。声音是元首以上的视线在其能力得到你的讯息递交到你的客户开动脑筋。最好使用被动媒介，是作为一项后续行动，以侵扰媒体。
这是一个toughie ，有没有什么你能做的事情，在这一阶段的科技游戏。这是一个大致的这些障碍，你必须考虑到你的营销方程。相信我，现在还不是时候去衬你的电子邮件。 wav文件-并且错过了这一点，无论如何。巨大的优势，电子邮件营销，被动的，虽然它可能是其相对成本较低。但值得一提的努力，但要意识到的局限性。
被动媒介，是一个有效的途径，以达到这些顾客正积极在市场上寻找你的产品或服务。您会改善的成效，你的电子邮件，如果你可以用这个给你的优势。精确度是关键属性的被动媒体-你可以给予了很多具体的，你的潜在客户，可进行对照检查，多次为他们想，纯粹通过重新审视自己的网上邮箱。
6 。创造个人电子邮件，而不是运动
记得锤比喻，从最后一次吗？好的。现在补充一点：没有任何单一的广告构成一项运动，罗马不是一天建成的，和友谊，是不是第一次视距现象。你有更多的话要说，更要完成比，可以说是完成了在一个单一的电子邮件。
一个很重要的事，因为你发展你的运动，是建立在你的前（成功）的努力。你的个人电子邮件，都必须相互联系，以符合逻辑的流动和统一的陈述-毕竟，他们都是件出现如此大的"益智" ，也就是您的公司。在某种意义上，它就像老缅剃路标运动… …你想保住你的顾客渴望和对寻找更多的什么，你必须要提供。
7 。服从不成文的规定
你真的不想被其他人一样吗？你想传达同样的讯息，因为你的竞争对手？不，当然不是。你想成为独一无二的，你想脱颖而出。所以不要遵守！不敢有所不同在一个可信的方式。那你是如何得到察觉。我不是暗示你矫枉过正（商业关系建设需要机智和倾向保守年底频谱） ，但如果你的电子邮件，声音，动作和看其他人一样的电子邮件，有什么价值，在经商与你而非他们呢？
8 。无视时机
它应该不会感到惊讶，你想一想，时间对你的讯息。谁是你的听众时，是他们最有可能阅读你的电子邮件吗？丽贝卡leib提出了一些非常有用的资料，时间在她的文章是否有人知道什么时候，它是什么？是否有人照顾？
你的目标是让你的客户提供正确的信息，并发送它时，他们就很容易抽出宝贵的时间来阅读。这是不一样的，建议你应该时间对你的讯息，以确切的时候，你认为你的顾客将会采取行动。季节性的情况外，一个重要的特尼特的广告是这样的： "告诉顾客为什么等待何时。辞去试图去预测，目前的需要， "我
9 。 overtargeting
要小心避免过度分割你的数据基础，在你的努力，以达到你的目标观众。它的一个神话，你只需要得到你的讯息给决策者。事实是，决定是很少在真空中进行。不要忽视有影响！
10 。事件驱动型营销
它的最佳掌舵清晰设计一个电子邮件运动围绕一个单一的事件（除非它是一个巨大的，良好的品牌活动，以加强你的独特销售主张） 。当一个事件过去后，人们会立刻忘记推销摊位后面，而且， 99.5 ％的人对你花了努力以协商一致方式不会来向总理拉法兰。那么你的信息，去的时候，出现这种情况呢？在tendrils的烟雾。
11 。大生产没有大副本
"滑头，聪明的，有趣的，有创造性的和不同的是非常贫穷的替代翔实，可信，令人难忘的和有说服力的" 。名字的电子商务游戏劝导;让人们采取行动，你想他们采取的。甚至不梦忽视这些神奇的话，将会帮助您手工艺您的光辉，完善的信息。
12 。扑朔迷离的"回应"与"结果"
"滑头，聪明的，有趣的，有创造性的和不同的广告，是最有可能产生的评论或回应" 。分类并不养活牛头犬及兴奋的心情，仅将不会在现金。看这个问题？
最近我听说一个伟大的话说：智能乡亲了解，从自己的错误中;明智的乡亲中汲取到的教训别人。现在您已做好了12条的规定，最常犯的错误电子邮件营销，而且你在一个很好的位置，向他们学习。这么走，蚂蚱，是明智之举！
Never Trust a ‘Silent’ Customer
by Sean D’Souza
Do you have customers that leave suddenly? You’ve been doing this outstanding job for them, lavishing them with truckloads of service and yet they’re gone without a word.
The key operating factor here is ‘without a word.’ That’s the scary part! The silent ones are always the most dangerous. If you would like to learn how to keep your customers, you’ve first got to keep them noisy. Read this article to find out just how you can make complaining clients one of your biggest assets.
Imagine you run a pizza parlour. You have all these neighbourhood families that pop in at least once a week for some pizza, garlic bread and Coke. On an average, one customer spends about $30 per week. But let’s assume they spend just $20. Imagine you did something that bugged this customer, but he or she never told you about it. What would you stand to lose if they left?
Its simple math: You lose $20 x 50 weeks. That’s equivalent to $1000 a year.
If you lost just 10 such customers per month, you’d lose about 100 clients a year.
That’s $100,000 that could be in your back pocket if you were a little complaint-conscious.
That Doesn’t Happen in our Business: The Denial Syndrome
Overtly it won’t. In a Bain & Company survey of major corporations, they found that on average, U.S. Corporations lose half their customers in five years. Notice, it wasn’t ‘one year’ or ’suddenly’. Clients have a tipping point. They get unhappy bit by bit and then its camel-back-breaking time. So if you think that all your customers are happy with you-they aren’t. It’s a basic fact of life.
What’s really weird is that you can’t measure how much business you’re really losing. When a study was done on one bank, they found they had as many accounts as they had a year ago. What they failed to measure was how most of the people had ’silently’ transferred the money out into other banks and the closure of the account was a last measure, somewhere down the line.
The same thing applies to your customer. Like some patient Buddha, they will seemingly appear to put up with everything, till suddenly you find they don’t use you anymore. This is a classic flight of business. You hear nothing of it, till it’s almost gone and it takes a mammoth effort just to hold on to the business.
If you look at it from another perspective, you might even be getting equal to or slightly less business from your customer. Naturally this doesn’t ring any alarm bells. However, if you’ve been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT.
No matter how successful your business is, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have complaining customers. Don’t deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it.
The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers
Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible.
How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn’t want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don’t take complaints on this line. You’ll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to them.
Now why would I bother to go through all that trouble? It’s easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain through the back door because they don’t have a complaint line.
Most companies act precisely in the same manner. For one, they have no real complaint section. If clients are unhappy, they feel embarrassed to complain and because no route has been cleared to vent their feelings, they avoid it completely.
Then they leave.
Obviously, you can’t wait for something to go wrong. Your job is to find ways to get the client to complain. If they complain, you are getting feedback that is extremely valuable and is probably relevant for all your other clients as well. Best of all, empowered with a complaint channel, a well-trained client will complain at every juncture giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and regain their trust.
How Companies React to Complaints
Virgin Airlines CEO, Richard Branson sometimes makes an appearance at the gates when a flight is late, apologising profusely to all passengers as they check out. How mad would you continue to be if you ran into a situation like this?
Yet most companies detest complaints. Living in their ivory towers, they refuse to believe that any of their clients would leave. So they never ask for feedback. On the rare occasion that clients get mad enough to put it in words, it’s too late. Even then, a complaint is treated with nuisance value.
The first step a company takes when dealing with complaints is that they fix it.
Yeah, right!
Because of their crummy service, the plane took off without you, you missed your meeting and lost more than just your temper. Do you think, just replacing something is going to erase all that trouble? It’s going to take much, much more. Simple replacement is never the answer. It has to be heck lot more than just a numb ’sorry’ . You’ve got to woo the customer back like you would with the girl that you had your eye on. Going down on your knees and begging for forgiveness is a start. Then you’ve got to lay it on thick and the thicker the better.
The Problem with Zero Defect
Lots of companies ran themselves into the ground trying to achieve zero defect. In an unpredictable world like ours, that goal is unreal. Even the best of intentions aren’t much use if you run into a flash flood. Clients recognise that. However, it’s upto you to have a disaster recovery plan in place.
When I say that, I don’t mean a grandiose ‘in case of a nuclear attack’ plan.
At Nordstrom stores across the U.S., salespeople are empowered to do whatever it takes to fix a problem, even if it means going across to the store across the street and buying the product at a higher price. It’s called the art of immediate recovery and it assumes that something will go wrong and you will have a Plan B to fix it. The more you prepare yourself for this inevitable event, the less chance the client has to complain.
More often than not, a complaining client is complaining about everything but the product. Ever see people complaining about the food at a restaurant? The principal purpose of the restaurant is food, yet people leave because of loud music, bad service and everything else. Your job is to assume you’re a restaurant and find out what your ‘everything else’ is.
Getting Complaints is Like Winning Lotto!
1) What you need to do to ensure a regular stream of complaints. Dump the feedback form and go out and ask your customer’s face to face. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to, if anything goes wrong. There is no such thing as a silent customer.
2) Complaining customers are always very precise. They eliminate the vagueness of feedback forms. Listen to them, act on their complaints. It’s not that they want to leave. They want to be wooed back. Fix the problem and then let them know how that you fixed it.
3) They’re giving you free feedback that would cost a fortune at a research company, so reward them. They’ve been inconvenienced on top of getting a bad product or service. That inconvenience factor deserves payment in the form of a reward over and above just fixing the problem. Customers who are bought back from the brink are extremely loyal and extremely ‘noisy.’ Treat them like the asset they are.
4) Remember, it costs eight times as much to get a new customer, than it takes to keep an existing one. Keep them at all costs. Atone for your sins.
5) Rule #1:The complaining customer is always right. Rule #2:When in doubt, refer to Rule #1
Selling Is Like Dating
by Wendy Comeau
There’s a lot going on when a sale is made – a lot that happened to get to that magical point where the customer reaches into her Coach bi-fold and hands over her plastic. How did she get to that point? What made her choose your product over all the others she could have purchased? Was it the advertising? The features of the product itself? Her mood? The persuasiveness of your sales staff? The behavior of consumers is complex, but there is a systematic set of steps you can take to help turn browsers into buyers.
Step-By-Step…
Assume you’re at a party and you spot an attractive person hanging out by the hummus and pita tray. Assume further that you’d like to go on a date with them, and that you have at least marginal social skills. The first thing you say to this person is probably not "Hello-my-name-is-Jamie-would-you-like-to-go-out-to-dinner-with-me-next-Tuesday?" (Even if your name is Jamie). Instead, there are a series of intermediate steps you’ll probably take in order to increase your chances of landing the date. Selling is like that, too; it’s a systematic, multi-stage process. There are several systematic processes that are effective, but our focus here will be on a process that is highly customer-focused. The steps are outlined below.
1) Establish Rapport and Credibility
People do business with people they like and feel they can trust. Your job is to make your customer want to do business with you. Your job is not to make your customer think you are smart, rich, handsome, or really good at basketball, though some of these may come in handy. How? It depends on your customer. Let me explain…
Highly effective sales people (and sales messages, for that matter) tend to be highly adaptive to the customer – not the other way around. If your customer is casual and low-key, be casual and low-key. Perhaps use humor and light conversation. If your customer is in a hurry, cut the small talk and get right to addressing their needs. If your customer likes to talk about basketball, indulge him.
Adaptation can take place along two dimensions: 1) pace (fast versus slow) and 2) task or relationship oriented-ness (build-relationship versus get-right-to-business). Below is a quick-reference chart for ideas on how to relate to people along these dimensions.
Want to know which type you are?
ANALYTICAL PERSON
- Establish your credibility
- Give credentials
- Acknowledge their expert status |
DRIVEN PERSON
- Get down to business quickly
- Listen to their objectives
- Be personal, but reserved |
AMIABLE PERSON
- Engage in informal talk
- Show interest in their work
- Reference people they may know |
EXPRESSIVE PERSON
- Talk about people
- Show interest in them as a person
- Let them talk
- Be entertaining |
Pace —> Faster
While you’re involved in this process, now’s a good time to establish credibility as well. Some ways to do this:
- Ask precise questions (it lets people know you’ve done your homework).
- Listen intently and actively.
- Don’t be a know-it-all. That just pisses people off.
- Deliver on your promises.
- Ask confirmation questions that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and that demonstrate you understand where the customer is in the decision process.
An example of a good confirmation question would be "So you’re looking for a color printer that’s good for printing digital photos, but you’re not sure about the value of some of the extra features on the high-end models?"
2) Gather Customer Information
This is potentially a very deep and involved topic, worthy of it’s own article or even tutorial. For now, we’ll stick to an overview of typical areas of information weakness. The first relates to changes and challenges in your customer’s industry. It’s important to know the relevant obstacles they face every day, know their pain points, and try to understand how their landscape may be changing. For example: if you’re selling office furniture, know what the trends are in your target area. Are more businesses moving toward "hoteling" space for their employees? Are they getting away from cubicle farms and moving back to traditional offices? Maybe there are newly publicized environmental concerns with fabric treatments, or an energy crunch that may call for energy-efficient lighting. Know what’s on the horizon for your customers and help them deal with the trends and changes they face.
Another area that can be a potential information void is an understanding of your customer’s true objectives and resource limitations. Fill the void by learning what benefits they care about most in your product. Customers buy based on benefits, so be sure you understand what these are. (For a review of what ‘benefits’ are, read our tutorial "What do Customers Really Buy?")
Also, try to understand what influences their buying decisions and what political and financial factors affect their actual buying procedures. Must they use a purchase order, or will they use a company or personal credit card? Will they be able to make the purchase decision on their own, or will they need compelling facts about the product to bring back to the decision maker at home or work?
Know your competition. This is basic marketing, but cannot be stressed enough. Know where your product lies on a snake plot as compared to your competitors’ product. (Need a review of what a snake plot is? See our tutorial "Snakeplots for Understanding Customer Perceptions.") Be frank when you talk about relative advantages of your product versus that of the competition. You can emphasize the positives of your product, certainly, but lying or exaggerating will only erode the trust and credibility you built up earlier, while you were talking about basketball.
Remember: customers buy for their own reasons, not yours. Don’t jam your perception of how fabulous your product is down their throat. Listen to what they care about most and address those points.
3) Propose Action
Your proposal for action is some sort of proposal to purchase your product. The way to propose action is to tell your story and let the buyer decide. How do you ‘tell your story?’ You suggest a solution and then convince your customer that your solution/product can do what the competition does, only better. The key here is that the customer must perceive a distinction between your product and the competition. The most effective way to demonstrate distinction is to make sure that your proposed solution is:
- Relevant to your customer’s needs, which you discovered through active listening and questioning in the information-gathering stage.
- Different from the actions/solutions/products being offered by the competition.
Help the customer understand how your product provides the benefits that are most important to her. And then explain how it does so better than the competition. You can’t do this unless your product has been positioned firmly and your sales force is intimately familiar with your positioning statement. (Need a review on positioning? You guessed it… check out our tutorial on the subject: "What is a Positioning Statement?").
4) Getting Commitment
Some degree of commitment is important at the end of every sales-related encounter. If you don’t sense that you can close an ideal sale, try to walk away with at least an incremental commitment. For example, if your customer is not ready to place a season’s worth of orders for your Levi’s Super Low Hip-Huggers. Try to land a commitment for a special, short-term promotional order, or even to just set an appointment for her to come to your office and look at more samples and discuss various options.
Side note: before you get to that point, it’s best to have already formulated some potential commitments. I.e.; have an outline in your head of your optimal commitment, your minimal commitment, and a menu of creative options in between.
On the way to a commitment, you may encounter objections. (Gasp!) To help get past these, try the following:
- Before you sell, make a list of foreseeable objections and develop solutions for them.
- Always confirm and demonstrate you understand the objection.
- Understand that obstacles exist because customers perceive that they might ‘lose’ somehow; getting around this will require an assessment of the customer’s attitude.
- Use questions to assess the customer’s attitude, such as "Is there anything about which you’re uncertain?"
Once you understand the objection, you’re better equipped to address it.
Some Final Thoughts
It’s the customer who matters most; the customer whose needs come first. Listen to them. Know what benefits they care about, learn what their concerns are, and focus on those. Be flexible and adapt to your customer, don’t expect her to adapt to you. And remember, if you don’t meet your customers’ needs, someone else will.
以下译文由Google“自动翻译”提供
出售是想约会
由温蒂comeau
有很多正在进行的时候出售了-很多事，以得出这一神奇的地步，客户达到她的教练毕倍，并把手放在她的塑料。怎么她获得过这一点？是什么使她选择你的产品比所有其他国家，她已购买了吗？是不是广告？该产品的特点自打嘴巴？她的心情呢？说服力你的销售人员？该行为对消费者是一个复杂，但有一个有系统的步骤，你可以采取一些措施有助于把浏览器变成了买家。
逐步…
假设你是在一方，并当场你是一个有吸引力的人坠楼由hummus和太平洋岛屿电信协会托盘。假设进一步说，你喜欢去一个日期排列的，那您至少有边际社会技能。第一件事，你说给此人恐怕不是"你好-我的实名-是-杰米-会-你一样到走出去到晚宴-与-我-下周二" ？ （即使你的名字是杰米） 。相反，有一系列的中间步骤，你可能会采取哪些措施来增加你的登陆日期。销售就是这样，太，它是一个有系统的，多阶段的过程。有几个系统的流程，这是有效的，但我们这里的重点将是一个过程，这就是高度以客户为中心。步骤简述如下。
1 ）建立融洽和信誉
人们经商的人，他们喜欢和感觉，他们可以信任的人。你的任务是使你的客户想要做的业务与您合作。你的任务是不要让你的客户觉得你很聪明，富有，英俊，还是真的擅长篮球，虽然有些人对这些可能来得心应手。如何？这要看你的客户。让我解释…
高效的销售人（和销售信息，因为这件事） ，也往往是高适应性给客户-而不是相反。如果你的客户是临时工和低调，以休闲为主，并保持低调。也许用幽默和轻的交谈。如果你的客户是在赶时间，降低小型会谈，并得到正确的，以释除他们的需要。如果你的客户喜欢谈论篮球，沉溺于他。
适应可以考虑的地点，沿着两个方面： 1 ）速度（快与慢）和2 ）任务或关系导向性（建设-关系银两联欢会右至业务） 。下面是一个快速参考图表，对如何与人沿着这些层面。
想知道哪种你吗？点击这里采取快速问答比赛。
分析人
-建立你的信誉
-给予全权证书
-承认自己的专家主导地位的人
-坐下来业务迅速
-听取他们的目标
-无论是个人，但保留
和蔼可亲的人
-进行非正式谈话
-查看兴趣在其工作
-参考人，他们可能也知道表现力的人
-谈谈人
-表现出兴趣，他们作为一个人
-让他们讲
-娱乐
速度— >快
当您参与这一进程，现在是一个很好的时间来建立的公信力，以及。一些方法来做到这一点：
请问确切问题（它可以让人们知道你已经做了你的功课） 。
倾听，并积极。
这样做不会是一个诀窍，这一切。这只是pisses人民的小康。
兑现你的诺言。
请确认问题，可以回答’是’或’不’ ，并表明你了解用户在什么地方，是在决策过程。
这是一个很好的确认问题，将是" ，所以你就找一个彩色打印机的良好印刷的数码照片，但你不能肯定的价值部分的额外功能，对高阶机种" ？
2 ）收集客户资料
这是一个潜在的非常深刻的，涉及到的话题，值得它自己的文章，甚至补习。现在，我们将坚持以概述了典型地区的信息弱点。第一个问题涉及到的变化和挑战，在你的客户的行业。它的重要的是知道有关障碍，他们每天所面临的，知道他们的痛苦点，并设法了解他们如何景观可能正在改变。例如：如果你是销售办公家具，办公知道究竟趋势是在你的目标区。有越来越多的企业逐步走向" hoteling "的空间，他们的员工呢？他们在远离农场的房间，并搬回传统的办公室？也许有新近公布的环境问题与织物处理，或能源危机可能要求的节能照明。知道什么的在地平线上，为您的客户，并帮助他们处理的发展趋势和变化，他们面对的问题。
另一个方面，可以是一个潜在的信息无效，是一个了解你的客户真正的目标和资源的限制。填补这个空档，由学习有什么好处，他们最关心的，在你的产品。顾客购买的基础上的好处，所以，请确保您了解什么，这些都是。 （一检讨什么’好处’ ，看看我们的补习"什么顾客真正购买了吗？ " ）
此外，设法了解什么影响他们的购买决定和什么样的政治和经济的因素影响到他们的实际购买程序。他们必须使用订购单，或将他们使用一间公司或个人的信用咭？它们才能使购买的决定，对自己的，或将他们需要令人信服的事实，关于产品带回决策者在家里或工作吗？
了解你的竞争。这是基本的营销，但怎么强调也不过分。知道你的产品，关键就一条蛇情节相比，你的竞争对手的产品。 （需要检讨的是什么蛇阴谋，是吗？看到我们的补习" snakeplots为了解客户的认知" ） 。坦白说，当你谈论的相对优势，你的产品银两时表示，在该竞争。你可以强调阳性的你的产品，当然，但说谎或夸大，只会削弱信任和信誉，你建立起来的，而你谈论篮球。
记住：顾客购买他们自己的原因，不是你们的。不干扰你的看法如何欣赏你的产品是他们的喉咙。听其言，他们最关心和解决这些问题。
3 ）建议采取行动
你的建议是采取行动的某种形式的建议，购买你的产品。该办法提出的行动是告诉你的故事，让买方自行决定。你怎么’告诉你的故事吗？你提出一个解决方案，然后说服你的客户认为你的解决方案/产品能做什么竞争中，只有更好。这里的关键是，客户一定要区分你的产品和竞争。最有效的方法，以显示区别，是要确保你的建议的解决办法是：
有关你的客户的需求，提供您所发现的，通过主动聆听和询问，在收集资料阶段。
有别于行动/解决方案/产品所提供的各项比赛。
帮助客户了解您的产品提供的好处是最重要的，以她的。然后解释如何，它这样做优于竞争。你不能做到这一点，除非你的产品一直定位于坚决和你的销售队伍，是熟悉你的定位声明。 （需要检讨定位？你猜…检查我们的补习就此事说： "什么是定位声明？ " ） 。
4 ）获得承诺
有某种程度的承诺是重要的在去年底的每一个销售有关的遭遇。如果你不感觉到您可以关闭一个理想的销售，试图走开，与至少一个渐进的承诺。例如，如果你的客户是不是准备把本赛季的有价值的订单，为您利维的超低嘻哈拥抱。尝试以土地承诺，为建立一种特殊的，短期的促销秩序，甚至刚刚成立预约时间，她来你的办公室，并期待在更多的样本，并讨论各种方案。
附注：在您谈到这一点时，最好先已制定了一些潜在的承诺。即;有一个提纲，在你的头你的最佳承诺，你的最起码的承诺，和一个菜单的创造性选项，在两者之间。
就未来路向作出承诺，你可能遇到的反对意见。 （赞叹！ ） ，以帮助这些过去，尝试采用下列方法：
之前，你卖，使名单可预见的反对和开发解决方案给他们。
一直确认和证明您了解异议。
理解的障碍存在，因为顾客感觉到他们可能会’失去’在某种程度上;规避这将需要评估客户的态度。
使用问题，以评估客户的态度，如"有没有什么关于你的代码不确定" ？
一旦你了解了反对意见，你最好配备来解决这个问题。
一些最后的思考
它的顾客，他们最重要;顾客的需要放在第一位。听取他们的意见。知道有什么好处，他们关心，了解他们的忧虑，并着重于这些。具有灵活性和适应你的客户，不要指望她去适应你。记住，如果你不符合您的客户的需求，别人会
9 Tips for E-Marketing to Teens
by Wendy Comeau
I’ve spent the last several days checking out the polls, celebrity gossip, and fashion news at teen websites, only to discover that I am irrevocably un-hip. Turns out I wasn’t even spelling ‘cool’ right. The good news, however, is that the successful teen sites do have some key things in common that even the decrepit and hunched-over can learn from. Ah, you’re feeling smug and secure in your own hipness, are you? Perhaps you’d like to find out for yourself what real teens think of some of your picks in clothing, body piercings, and hairstyles: stop by Bolt.com’s "Coolhunting" section… It’s a riot, and a great example of one feature that appeals to teens.
WHO CARES?
A study by Jupiter Communications claims that online spending by teens will increase to $1.3 billion by 2002. That’s not chump change. To get a little of this action, you’ll need to market to teens a little differently than you do to your adult customers.
Here are a few tips on how…
TEENS CHANGE AND DEVELOP QUICKLY: SEGMENT APPROPRIATELY
Teen years are almost like dog years with regard to the amount of change and development that can be packed into just 12 months. Think about it: though just a few years apart in time, 13-year-olds are very different from 16-year-olds, who in-turn are very different from 19-year-olds. But we often lump them all into an age-defined category called "teens." Be aware of this as you decide who to target and how — you’ll need to specifically identify who you’re marketing to and customize your message and presentation specifically to them. It goes back to basic marketing: don’t segment based on simple demographics – segment based on benefits that customers care about! Every stage offers a huge, receptive market, but you’ve got to carefully identify who they are and what interests them.
GIVE THEM A PLACE TO BE HEARD
Remember when you were a teenager, how strongly you felt about the issues that affected your life, such as your parents and teachers, fashion, and your favorite and least-favorite music? Teens’ opinions are very, very strong and they’re looking for a chance to do two things: express them, and find others who feel the same way. Teen sites that give them a place to be heard, a place to belong, are more likely to be well received. To do this, you might consider putting up a comment board to let them provide feedback to the site and to each other, or you might post an on line poll: ‘Jam it or Can it?’ Don’t try to force products or ideas down their throats as being the next big thing: just be cool and then let them decide. (Bolt.com illustrates this nicely.)
KEEP YOUR BRAND STRONG
In this way, teens don’t differ much from the rest of us. Keep your brand image strong in various media beyond the Internet, and teens will respond by coming back for more. If you’re a traditional brand trying to add a teen focus, consider making a new, more contemporary brand, or hooking up with an existing teen brand for a dual-promotion. Case-in-point: The "Roxy Edition" Toyota Echo.
BE RELEVANT
Once you target a specific segment, be sure that your content is relevant to teens’ lives. Don’t try to start a chat session about dorm life and furnishings if your site is designed around a young teen audience. Know your segment: read their magazines, know which celebrities they love and hate (beware, this changes very rapidly), know what delights and infuriates them, and populate your site with it.
GET THE LANGUAGE RIGHT
You don’t necessarily have to write the copy for your site as if it just rolled off the tongue of an 8th-grader, but you should be aware of what phrases your target audience uses and which ones threaten to be outdated turnoffs. How do you do this? Ask. If you don’t have the funds for a formal study, you might consider talking to a dozen or so kids that you, your family or friends know. Roll your ideas by them – they’ll tell you if they stink. Get the language right, and get the message right so your site doesn’t get the big "L" (for loser).
UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE!
Remember how fleeting your tastes were when you were a teenager? How a best friend can become an ex-friend, and then a best friend again, all in one afternoon? Teens are hungry for the latest, the coolest, and the newest. You must update your site frequently or risk being labeled ‘SO last week.’ This means posting new features, pictures, ads, and offers every day, if possible. It means responding to emails quickly — teens will come back to see the latest developments, and will be pleasantly surprised to receive a prompt, personalized response to their email.
TAP INTO CELEBRITIES
Kids follow the lead of their favorite stars. According to Michael Landau, general merchandise manager at Yahoo! Shopping, "Celebrity fashion is a huge driver of consumer purchasing decisions.." This doesn’t mean you have to hire Justin Timberlake (He’s a member of N’Sync and Brittany Spears’ to-die-for boyfriend – duh!) to plug your product. You can get creative without spending money. For instance, perhaps you could consider linking to a celebrity gossip column, or making fashion recommendations based on what Mandy Moore was wearing in her latest "Seventeen" spread, or listing celebrity birthdays in your horoscope section.
BE HONEST
Don’t try to make your product something it isn’t. This generation of kids has been cleverly marketed to since birth and is too savvy for deception. On the other hand, don’t assume that they are the cynical bunch that the Gen X-ers have been touted to be. Teens don’t mind marketing messages in and of themselves, as long as the messages ring true and the products and issues are relevant to their lives.
HAVE INTEGRITY
Teens are not adults and most do not have the financial savvy and restraint that we come to expect from adults. Use secure payment systems and respect confidentiality when and if you collect information from teens. Your brand will benefit in the long run.
Marketing to teens can be some of the most fun work around – as well as profitable and rewarding – if its done right. And it’s, like, totally not boring.
以下参考译文由Google“自动翻译”提供
九秘诀电子商务营销到十几岁
由温蒂comeau
我已经用了过去数天内检查出来投票，名人，时装新闻青少年网站中，只有发现我不可改变联合国髋关节。原来，我什至没有拼写’酷’的权利。好消息，但问题在于，成功地青少年网站这样做，有一些关键的共性的东西，即使是老朽和hunched接管，可以学习的地方。啊，你感到飘飘然，并保证在自己的hipness ，你在哪？也许你想看看自己有什么真正的十几岁想起你的一些选在衣物，身体穿透，并发型：停止由bolt.com ‘的" coolhunting "一节… …它的发生骚乱，一个伟大的例子，其中一个特点，就是上诉到十几岁。
谁还管？
一项研究木星通讯声称，在网上消费的青少年将增加至13亿美元， 2002年建成。这不是巨大变化。为了得到一点点的这一行动，你需要把市场，以十几岁很少会比你做你的成人顾客。
这里有一些窍门，就如何…
十几岁的变化和迅速发展：部分适度
少年来，几乎像狗来对于金额的变化和发展，可以装在仅仅12个月。想一想：虽然短短数年间，除了在当时， 13岁的学生有很大的不同， 16岁的学生，他们在转有很大的不同， 19岁的青少年。但是，我们经常将他们都成为一个时代的定义类的所谓"十几岁" 。了解这一点，因为你决定谁该为目标，以及如何-你需要把它具体地确定谁将是您的竞争对手，以营销和定制你的信息，并介绍了专门给他们。它可以追溯到基本营销：不要部分基于简单的人口-部分基于好处顾客关心！每一个阶段提供了一个巨大的，接受市场的，但你要仔细找出他们是谁，有什么利益。
给他们一个地方听到
还记得当你少年，是如何强烈，你觉得这件事影响到你的生活中，如你的父母和老师，时装和您最喜爱和最不发达国家最喜爱的音乐吗？十几岁的意见，是非常，非常强大，他们也正在寻找机会做两件事：表达，并找到其他人同样的感觉。青少年网站给他们一个地方被听到，地方所属的，更容易被广泛接受。要做到这一点，你可以考虑设置一个评论局，让他们提供反馈到现场，并到对方，或者你可能是一个职位在网上民调： ‘果酱，它还是可以吗？不要试图以武力产品或想法，他们的喉咙被称为是未来的一大步：刚才冷静，然后让他们自己做出决定。 （ bolt.com说明了这些好话） 。
让您的品牌强
就这样，十几岁并没有很大不同，从我们其余的。让您的品牌形象，强大的在各种媒体上超越了互联网，而十几岁会作出回应，回来更多。如果你是一个传统的品牌尝试添加一个十几岁的孩子为重点，考虑制订新的，更现代的品牌，或连接与现有的青少年品牌，双促进。案件中的一点： " （ Roxy版"丰田回声。
相关
一旦你的目标，具体的部分，肯定的是，你的内容是有关十几岁的生命。不要试图启动一个聊天会议关于宿舍生活和装修，如果你的网站是围绕着一个年轻的青少年观众。了解你的部分：阅读他们的杂志，知道哪些名人，他们的爱与恨（提防，这变化非常迅速） ，知道什么愉悦和愤怒，并填充你的网站而已。
获得语文的权利
你不一定写拷贝为你的站点，因为如果只是轧小康舌头的一个8年级的，但你应该知道什么短语你的目标观众的用途和哪些威胁过时turnoffs 。你怎么这样做呢？问。如果你没有资金进行了正式研究，你可以考虑在交谈十多人，让孩子知道你，你的家人或朋友知道。滚你自己的想法，由他们-他们会告诉你，如果他们一股恶臭。获得语言的权利，而得到消息的权利，让您的网站没有取得大的" L " （失败者） 。
更新，更新，更新！
记得多么短暂你的口味，分别的时候，你十几岁？如何最好的朋友，可以成为当然的朋友，然后变成最好的朋友，都在同一个下午？十几岁是饿了最新，最酷，最新的。您必须更新你的网站经常或可能被标记’ ，所以上星期。这意味着张贴新的特点，图片，广告，并提供每一天，如果可能的。这意味着响应电子邮件迅速-十几岁还会回来看看最新的发展情况，并会惊喜地得到及时，个性化的反应，以他们的电子邮件。
塔成名人
孩子们效法的榜样，他们喜爱的明星。据迈克尔的Landau ，一般商品经理雅虎！购物方面， "名人时尚是一个很大的驱动力，消费者的购买决定.. "这并不意味着你必须聘请贾斯汀（他的一员n’sync和布列塔尼布兰妮以平压给男友-杜昌！ ） ，以堵塞你的产品。你可以得到创新，没有花钱。举例来说，或许你可以考虑连接到一个名人专栏或制作时装的建议基础上，摩尔（ Mandy身穿在她最新的"十七年"的风声，或上市名人生日，在你的占星科。
坦白说
不要试图使你的产品的东西却并非如此。这一代的孩子已被巧妙地销售给自出生就是太精明骗案。在另一方面，不要以为他们是玩世不恭的一群表示，根的X地球资源卫星已吹捧做的。青少年不介意行销讯息，在和自己的，只要把讯息不顺及其产品和有关的问题，以他们的生命。
有诚信
十几岁是不是成年人和最不具备金融知识和克制，我们期望从成年人。使用安全的支付系统，并尊重保密时，如果你收集资料，从十几岁。你的品牌将长远受惠。
营销到十几岁，可一些最有趣的工作，围绕-以及盈利和奖励-如果它这样做的权利。它的，就像是完全不沉闷。
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