Written By Pete Nelson

Have you ever sat down to write an article for a blog or magazine and found yourself stuck in creative quicksand? Or perhaps you made an attempt to create new sales copy for your website or marketing campaign that was as inspiring as watching paint dry. For most business owners and even marketing professionals, the writing process tends to give birth to raging headaches more than it does creative euphoria. If you can relate to these experiences, you’re not alone.

Writing is one of the least favorite activities for most people, particularly business owners. That being said, if you want to educate and emotionally connect with your customers the written word is absolutely essential. This obvious truth is not lost upon business owners or marketing professionals. It goes without saying, then, that there is never a better time than right now to explore how you can relieve the stress and frustration normally associated with writing copy.

3 Principles for Emotionally Relevant Copy

To make writing your company’s copy more enjoyable and more profitable, and less about pounding headaches, here are three principles to adhere to for writing emotionally relevant copy that inspires customers to take action.

1. Consistency: Choose a theme that is emotionally relevant to the audience you’re speaking with. Without a theme your copy is lost and so too are your readers. Your theme supports your key message throughout whatever it is you’re writing. Once you choose the theme stick with it. This can be for any type of marketing piece, from email ads, direct mail and sales sheets to articles and your website.

2. Frequency: Reinforce your message throughout. Do not be shy about repeating your theme in all facets of the copy and the medium in which the copy finds itself. Frequency includes, but is not limited to: specific words, sentence structure, headlines, and even visual imagery.

3. Anchoring: Frame your key themes to examples/testimonials/case studies that your audience can relate to. It’s one thing to dazzle people with eloquent prose, but if you are making a point, is it not worth illustrating this in ways that your audience can remember?

If You’re Convinced You Can’t Write, You’re Convincing

Yes, writing is a talent and a skill, and some have more of it in them than others. But everyone can write – and that includes YOU. No matter what kind of project my team and I are involved in it is necessary the client gets the ball rolling with some copy of their own. In just a moment we’ll review a client project that can provide some additional reference points for you in this regard.

Before we look at a real-world case study, let’s first look at two of the key things that stymies all writers, even the professionally talented ones. One is convincing yourself you’re not a talented writer. And two, quieting the mind from negative scenarios.

If you are convinced you cannot write, you are convincing. And let me tell you, I’ve come across some very talented writers who are quite convincing when it comes to their belief that they are not good enough to communicate via the written word. Sure, some people will admit they are good at writing articles, but not books. Others will convince you they are good at writing brief blog posts, but not feature, worthy articles. And the list goes on and on.

While it would be a futile effort to convince them otherwise, (I know, I’ve tried), that doesn’t mean I’m not going to make a valiant effort here to convince YOU that you’re more than capable of writing good copy. When it comes to convincing yourself of anything, the problem and the solution lies in only one place – your mind.

Are You Running Negative Scenarios In Your Mind?

Perhaps the most crucial thing to writing is one’s ability to quiet the mind. Your mind runs scenarios constantly, most of them are very negative and debilitating to the creative writing process. If you can get past the “noise” and settle down to what it is you want to say and you’re clear on who you are saying it to, you’re way ahead of the game.

It’s one thing to quiet the mind long enough to write something, but where many people have the hardest time quieting the mind is in the editing process. Writing is re-writing. This would seem like a no-brainer, but it isn’t. The reason it isn’t so obvious to most people who sit down to write is because they’re too busy convincing themselves their writing sucks. So what happens is they look at what they wrote, fail to see the beauty in it and give up.

Look, I’m the first to admit that the initial words you write will not always be the final words someone reads. The issue with writing isn’t so much that people can’t string together words that are emotionally relevant to a reader. The struggle is in the polishing and structure of the words. And the kind of editing I am speaking of goes way beyond editing for speellling errers or punctuation,.? The editing I am referring to is where the words are brought to life and energized to educate and inspire, as well as structured properly to elicit a positive reaction.

Let’s be clear on one thing. No one is suggesting that something as important as your website copy or writing your company’s next marketing campaign should be left in the hands of a non-professional writer. My point is that before you bring in a professional copywriter  you can give yourself a head start by quieting your mind’s “noise” and convincing yourself that you can write compelling copy.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at an example of how all of this plays out in the real world.

The Quality of Life Theme

When the founder of Rejuvenate Wellness Coaching and popular wellness coach, Lori Barthlow, contacted SK Graphic Design to completely makeover her company’s brand, she was focused on not only the visual imagery but the messaging as well.

The key to Lori’s brand transformation was capturing the essence of her target audience’s buying habits. Once we were certain of these it was essential we anchor them to a consistent theme and emotionally relevant set of messaging through all areas of her business.

A Singular Theme

After spending considerable time with Lori and fully researching all areas of her target audience, the Brand Stylists at SK Graphic Design set out to establish a primary theme to build on throughout Rejuvenate Wellness Coaching’s website and marketing materials.

We learned that Lori’s target audience of moms and women professionals sought different levels of fitness and health related services at different stages of their lives. Despite the uniqueness of their background and individual issues, there was a consistent cause of the problems they sought to overcome. That singular driving force behind each client was a desire to enhance their quality of life. This singular cause was then infused in the different ways and means we communicated Lori’s services.

With this cause identified, our team collaborated closely with Lori to ensure the copy and visual imagery were both harmonically in tune with each of Lori’s target audiences. This was accomplished with images, headlines, taglines and specific words that each level of her audience could personally relate to when it came to enhancing their quality of life.

The primary theme of “Quality of Life” found its way into a series of online and offline campaigns for Lori and Rejuvenate Wellness Coaching. It was prominently positioned on the company’s new website www.rejuvenatecoaching.com. Specifically, Loris’ coaching services and corporate wellness packages are easy to grasp and every area of her company’s brand is anchored to what matters most to her target audience, which is their “Quality of Life”.

Lori and her company, Rejuvenate Wellness Coaching, now enjoy a more professional, visually captivating and emotional relevant website. Her brand now connects with each segment of her audience on a more intimate and personal level than ever before.

“Thanks so much for helping me bring out the vision I had for my business. Your team built more than just a website. My confidence as a business owner has grown ten-fold as a result of the foundation Pete, Steven and the rest of the team at SK Graphic Design built to re-launch and grow my company. Everything your agency developed and delivered exceeded my expectations and they were pretty high to start with. Hiring your agency was the best money I ever invested in my business. I really appreciate your collaboration, guidance and expertise.”

~ Lori Barthlow, Founder – Rejuvenate Wellness Coaching ~

Powerful, Persuasive Words Should Achieve = Behavior Modification

So how did we transform Lori’s copy and brand? We couldn’t have done it without Lori’s passion and commitment. She got the project jump started by sending us some of the copy she had already developed.

Even though a lot of the copy Lori initially sent us was only partially complete, to her credit she was keenly aware it was time to get the brand makeover started sooner than later. She didn’t bother waiting until she felt her copy was perfect. She knew that she needed help and recognized what author Les Brown is famous for saying, “You don’t ask for help because you’re weak. You ask for help to build your strength.”

Once we received Lori’s copy and conducted initial research and due diligence, we initiated the behavior modification process. Many successful copywriters, both online and offline, have said for years that when it comes to emotionally connecting with your target audience the following holds true: Powerful, Persuasive Words Should Achieve Behavior Modification

The same can be said for great marketing and branding, where the goal is to get your target audience to emotionally connect with your message and immediately see the relevance of your solution to their perceived need for it. When this is correctly implemented your sales copy and brand messaging acts as a catalyst for people to contact you about your solution. Behavior modification, through copy, isn’t about manipulation, far from it. This is about making it easy for people to locate solutions that are ideally suited for their given needs at the time they seek it.

When you’re writing, just as it is for when you are verbally speaking to someone in person, it is imperative that you communicate with your audience in the way they want to be spoken to. To do this you will need to not only understand your customer’s communicating and buying preferences, you’ll need to understand how they relate to your service or the topic you’re writing on. And it doesn’t hurt to have a basic understanding of personality styles.

Simplify Your Message

To further clarify your message try not to think about writing to a large, multi-faceted audience unless it is a campaign you’re doing to a specific group. Simplify things and write as if you’re speaking directly to your ideal customer.  This can also work well even when you’re writing a campaign for a highly niched group in your audience.

When you’re writing to one person, rather than attempting to write for many people, the words have an emotional connection and strike a chord for each person reading it. This will force your writing to be less impersonal and create a bond between you and the reader. It also further positions you in their mind as a valuable resource, drawing them closer to doing business with you.

In so doing this, you’re establishing a relationship that is genuine and purposeful. Good, solid writing is a means for expressing genuine gratitude for their interest in you. If you could care less about what others think and you’re not grateful for their business, rest assured, your communication will show this.

Words Carry Energy

No matter what your copy is being put to (company website, personal blog, brochure, article, book or even Facebook) your writing should always be content rich and express a genuine interest in the reader. This means it should be packed with educational, inspiring, easy to grasp and emotionally relevant words.

The key for doing this lies in your intention for writing. It is in the intention that your genuine interest and gratitude for the reader makes its way into the energy of your words. And make no mistake about this – words carry the energy of the intention given to them.

When it comes to your intention for copy it is advisable to stay away from writing with the intention that you will hopefully gain a client from this, even though you are doing it to secure new business. Write from the heart by genuinely respecting the time of the intended reader. This can easily be achieved by aligning your interests with the reader. In doing so your writing will deliver information that is useful, relevant and timely.

When you write from the heart the energy of your words will be felt by the reader and they will respond accordingly. And it’s not only the reader who will feel the energy of the words, you will too. So, isn’t it time to say goodbye to those pesky headaches and time to happily say hello to the inspirational writer that lives in you?

 

Attention Grabbing Sales Copy & Captivating Brand Messaging by SK Graphic Design

What’s the perfect headline or tagline that will emotionally connect with your audience?

How do you communicate what you do is emotionally relevant to your customer’s desired outcomes?

The way your messaging, headlines, taglines and sales copy is written, structured and delivered across your website and marketing material will ultimately determine whether you’re attracting customers or repelling them.

Led by author and marketing strategist, Pete Nelson, our team plays an integral role in helping you grow your business by tuning into your brand’s voice and ensuring it is understood and clearly communicated in a way that energizes, educates and inspires your customers to buy.

Call 815-343-6731 or Email us to set up a FREE 30-minute Strategic Marketing & Copy Session to determine what area of your business can be enhanced through improved messaging, headlines, taglines and sales copy.

Examples of sales and marketing copy we have developed for clients will be provided at the time of your complimentary Strategic Design Session.

Comments or questions are welcome.

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We all grew up hearing the adage, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”  As we settled into our careers or became business owners the importance of making a favorable first impression became even more important. Making a good first impression, however, isn’t relegated to one to one interactions between you and someone else.

A good first impression extends itself through every single marketing and sales piece your company creates. This includes, but is not limited to your website, logo, and business cards as well as your direct mail ads, print ads, email ads, Facebook profile and most definitely, your sales sheets.

Do Your Sales Sheets Make a Good First Impression?

In today’s world, ensuring your customer forms a favorable first opinion of your company’s solution is more of a necessity than it is a luxury. In most cases, all you get nowadays is one shot to make a connection that can lead to a sale. Miss the opportunity to connect on terms that are meaningful to your customer and the likelihood of a second chance is slim at best.

Of all the marketing and sales materials you could use to help you make a good first impression, none is as versatile as a sales sheet. Sales sheets have gone by many names. Flyers, brochures and one sheets are just a few of the many names associated with them. Whatever name you give them the value of a good set of sales sheets is at an all time high.

The Many Uses of Sales Sheets

It is a common misperception that sales sheets are not only expensive to print, but are limited to a select number of applications. Let’s first address the idea they are too expensive to print.

One need only to do a search for online printing to see that printing sales sheets is less expensive today than it’s ever been. Our clients have used many different printers for their materials but the three online printers that have delivered the most consistent results for all sized businesses are: www.overnightprints.com – www.printingforless.com - www.48hourprint.com. Check these online printers out, but also be sure to search other printing options and compare.

Many businesses have ceased to use sales sheets because they do not attend conferences or trade shows, where sales sheets have been most commonly used. This kind of short-sighted thinking only serves to hinder your ability to connect and communicate with a wider audience.

It is true that sales sheets can and have proven to be highly effective at trade shows and conferences. But many of our clients have elected not to spend the money to attend these as they did in years past. As a result, many have taken a more creative approach to using sales sheets that are both cost effective and highly profitable.

With that in mind, here are the top 5 ways our clients have successfully used sales sheets to make a good first impression and eventually secure more sales:

(1) Online Download:  Nearly every client our agency has collaborated with have leveraged their sales sheets as a downloadable PDF. Most common use is allowing website visitors to access your sales sheets right away from your website in an easy to download format. Another way is to attach your sales sheets, as a PDF, to emails. Emailing your sales sheets to customers is a terrific way of getting around printing and mailing costs, while still getting your customers to view your materials right away.

(2) Networking Mixers: Using sales sheets at local business networking events, such as Chamber of Commerce mixers, is one of the most proven methods for achieving a good first impression with potential customers. These mixers are inexpensive to attend and as a Chamber member you are usually given an opportunity to showcase your company’s sales sheets on more than one table.

(3) Public Presentations: Showcasing sales sheets at seminars, workshops or any type of public presentation is an ideal opportunity to make a favorable first impression. These can be used on tables or in folders and handouts.

(4) Sales Presentation: This is where the term “sales sheets” originated from. If you are presenting to a client it is likely you will need some visual aid or a leave behind to help make the sale. This is where sales sheets made their name years ago and their success in helping make the sale has not diminished over the years. 

(5) Direct Mail: Many people think direct mailing campaigns entail a traditional direct mail piece. But in recent years the use of mailing sales sheets, along with a cover letter, have proven to be highly successful. In fact, in 2007 one of our clients secured a six-figure project  with two of the biggest hotel casinos in Las Vegas by sending four new sales sheets and a cover letter to a senior decision maker within the two hotels. Prior to our team writing and designing the four sales sheets our client was unable to secure any meeting or response from the two casinos. It wasn’t until they received the sales sheets that a meeting was set up and our client landed one of her biggest projects.

5 Most Common Type of Sales Sheets

It’s one thing to determine where you are going to use your sales sheets. It’s another thing altogether to determine what you will convey to customers with your sales sheets.

A lot of our agency’s clients are unsure where to start and what to say on their sales sheets. To clarify and make the process easier, here are five of the most common type of sales sheets.

(1) Company Overviews: The type of sales sheet requested more than any other from our clients is an overview of their company. In fact, nearly every single project we have ever collaborated on with clients includes at least one sales sheet that conveys a compelling overview of their company. Although company overviews can and often do include references to products and services, they are not solely focused on them. Because of that a second request is usually made for sales sheets that are centered on a specific product or service.

(2) Product / Service Overview: Whether it’s a new product or an existing solution there are few ways to convey the value of them as cost effectively as sales sheets can. Because of this the second most requested type of sales sheet from our clients has been to highlight one or more of their products and services.

(3) Presentation & Seminar Overview: One of the most successful marketing campaigns we have collaborated with clients on in the last 10 years are public presentations. Whether it’s a seminar, workshop or keynote presentation, if you want people to attend you will need a professionally designed sales sheet that highlights the presentation and what an audience will take away from it. Because of this the third most common type of sales sheet our clients have requested are for presentation overviews.

(4) Testimonials:  A lot of clients have chosen to highlight their customer’s testimonials on a single sales sheet, in addition to placing key testimonials throughout all of their materials. Some of our clients have gone beyond simple testimonials to include brief case studies on their sales sheets.

(5) Team or Individual Bios: Many companies we have collaborated with have utilized sales sheets for highlighting their team’s bios. This may include a brief one or two sentence bio and therefore, allowing multiple people to be showcased on one sheet. In other instances, clients have used entire sales sheets to distinguish each member of their team’s accomplishments. This can prove to be highly effective, particularly when you have someone at your company whose accomplishments help make for a good first impression and add to the value of your brand and solution.

3 Keys to a Successful Sales Sheet

Whatever type of sales sheet you choose to use, it is not worth doing unless you are prepared to produce a high-quality, professional and emotionally relevant sales sheet. The financial pinch most businesses have felt in the last few years has established an environment where the margin for error in creating your marketing and sales materials is razor thin.

No longer are the days where you could get away with writing the sales copy entirely on your own and using a cheap, Word based sales sheet template design. Today, customers have no patience for business owners who do not take the look and feel of their own brand appearance seriously. As a result, if you want to make a good first impression it starts by an creating emotionally relevant sales sheets that displays captivating design and attention grabbing sales copy.

Here are three basic principles for writing great sales copy and emotionally relevant design for sales sheets, no matter the type of sales sheet you choose to use:

(1) Consistency: Choose a theme that is emotionally relevant to your intended audience and stick with it. Sticking with it means your theme is your guide for the sales copy, design layout, visual images and set of colors used. Often times these four elements can be meshed together so haphazardly that a sales sheet can be rendered utterly useless, making for a poor first impression.

To make these elements work with your theme be sure your theme can be directly and clearly linked back to what it is you want your customers to experience. In other words, what is it you want your customer’s first impression to be when they see your sales sheet? If you want them to be visually wowed, cut down on the copy or find a healthy balance between design and copy. If you want to educate, be sure to choose the appropriate words and don’t let the visual images overwhelm the message.

(2) Frequency: Reinforce your theme throughout. This means being absolutely clear on the message your words and design are communicating and be sure they support your theme. The appropriate mix of images, color combinations, design layout and amount of sales copy plays a huge part in mapping the frequency of your theme and message. Above all else, make your sales sheet clean and easy to navigate.

(3) Anchoring: Frame your key themes with timely and emotionally relevant images, statistics, testimonials or case studies that your audience can relate to.  Often times, the amount of space does not allow for a case study, unless you are using an entire sales sheet for this. But statistics take up little space and testimonials can be pared down to one sentence, both of which serve as excellent anchors for reinforcing your key theme and brand value.

Sell to Your Customers In the Way They Want to Buy

At this point it should be clear that it takes a lot more than just a few words and images to create a successful sales sheet. There’s a lot of creative strategy and hours of collaborative preparation that goes into the creation and implementation of a sales sheet that produces a good first impression.

The key thing is to step back for a moment before you create your next sales sheet and really determine what kind of first impression do you want to convey to potential customers.  Once you have this figured out, it’s time to go create a compelling, emotionally relevant sales sheet that does what it’s supposed to: sell to your customers in the way they want to buy.

7 Points of the Sales Process

Written By Pete Nelson

There are a number of selling systems, processes and approaches for mapping a company’s sales cycle. It has been my experience that despite the ever changing names or number of points that have been used, everything can be boiled down to seven simple steps.

While these seven points are pretty easy to map, each individual customer you interact with has their own unique process for digesting information at these points of the sale just as they do for making buying decisions.

This uniqueness is not always easy to uncover and apply toward a win-win outcome for you and the customer. For that reason mapping the sales process with these seven points will serve as a blueprint for better understanding not only how your customers buy but where you and they are in the sales process.

Your Personal Sales Road Map

The 7 Steps of the Sales Process is designed to act as your personal road map through the entire selling process. It can also be used for better understanding and mapping your marketing campaigns, as many of our clients have done.

The seven steps are based on the system I developed over years of practical, real world application. Rest assured nothing in these steps are based solely on theory. This system has been successfully utilized by some of the largest sales forces around the world. There are few industries that the system hasn’t been applied to as they include, but are not limited to: technology, pharmaceutical, education, consumer products, professional B2B services and governmental trade.

By no means is this system relegated to big corporations. The 7 Points of the Sales Process has also been responsible for building and growing hundreds of small businesses.  In fact, it is a proven process our agency, SK Graphic Design, utilizes as a road map for designing and developing the marketing and sales campaigns for our many diverse clients.

1. Pre-Sale Conditioning

A sales manager for a group of outside sales reps I was training once remarked, “Selling is not God’s punishment for you not being born rich.” He went on to point out that if you are not grateful, passionate and excited about what you’re selling and who you are selling to you can guarantee one thing – you won’t be working with too many satisfied clients. The reason for this should be obvious, yet it is often overlooked to the detriment of many people’s careers.

While this sales manager’s quote may have been a little over the top, he’s right in his assessment about gratitude, passion and excitement. But the kind of passion and excitement that plays into your success has little in common  with those stereotypical infomercial salespeople who are hyper excited and overly passionate. As you will come to see, if you desire to be any good at selling you must absolutely love what you do and be genuinely interested in and grateful for those you sell to. It is in your gratitude that your excitement and passion will be ignited.

With that in mind, it’s no accident that the first Primary Point of a Sale is “Pre-Sale Conditioning”. This point is all about possessing a strong, positive and focused mindset. A prepared and well conditioned mindset is the underlying foundation for achieving consistent, long term replicable success in sales as it is in any area of business.

A well conditioned mindset allows you to effectively and comfortably identify, prioritize, gather resources and successfully execute sales strategies. This is particularly true when the pressure is turned up and you need to be at your best when it is needed most.

Reinterpret Pressure

A well conditioned mindset eliminates unnecessary pressure. In your optimum state of mind you have properly seen pressure for what it is and what it is not. You have in essence taken the idea of pressure and reinterpreted it. Removing the negative aspects of pressure puts both you and your customer at ease. Once you’re at ease your ability to maximize your talents and properly convey your solution’s value becomes a smooth and pain-free process.

Getting to this point, however, requires a trust in the planning stages of sales success. You do not want to go out into the field assuming your good looks and charm will work each time. Nor do you you want to go out into the field burdened with a massive action plan that is way too overwhelming to execute properly. We could spend an entire day on proper sales planning techniques and how to develop a successful marketing campaign strategy. For this article, however, let us simply end this point in the sales process with the following:

If you have any desire to succeed in sales on a consistent basis it is absolutely necessary you map out a plan that can work in the real world. And this plan will need to be done with a mindset geared on achieving a win-win outcome for you, your company and your customer. One simple way of looking at it is through the Five P’s of Successful Selling – Proper – Preparation – Prevents – Poor – Performance.

2. Prospecting & Influencing

Armed with the right mindset and your strategy well planned out, this point in the selling process is where you begin executing on your company’s sales and marketing strategy. It is also where you will usually have initial contact with a referral or lead.

This initial contact can be arranged through standard referrals, social media, advertisements, direct marketing, a presentation, a networking event, an article you wrote, search engines or any number of other ways. It’s important not to lose sight of the fact your prospective client may not be inclined to buy something from you at the initial point of contact.

This is why our agency, SK Graphic Design, often refers to this point in the selling process as “Opening Doors Through TOMA”.  TOMA stands for Top of Mind Awareness, which means anytime your prospects are thinking of a challenge or need that your solution helps them overcome, they are thinking of you and your company as a viable and natural option. If you’ve done your job right in all phases of the sales and marketing process it is likely you are seen as the only option.

At this stage of the selling process, your main focus isn’t to get the customer to buy from you. Sure, your goal is to get the sale. And it goes without saying that if they are ready to buy you have an obligation to help move the sales process along much quicker. That being said, the main focus at this point in the sale is to get prospects to see enough value in you and your solution to move you to the next point in the Seven Primary Points of a Sale.

3. Uncovering the Truth

This point in the sales process is where you formally learn about the issues and challenges your prospect is experiencing. This is usually done with a face-to-face meeting or over the phone.  It can also occur with a well laid out online form that people can fill out or download from your website.

The key to uncovering the truth is to remove the temptation to assume you and your company know what the truth is. This means it is not in your best interest to meet with a customer carrying an assumption that you have the right solution for all potential customers. Just because someone could use your type of solution does not mean they are a proper fit for you as a customer at the moment you meet them. This is a huge mistake all salespeople and business owners have made at one time or another.

Assuming you know the truth of your customer’s issues is so common a mistake that undoing this can become quite difficult because you think it is natural to assume your solution is an ideal match for anyone you meet. If you do not learn your lesson quickly, however, it can and will severely hinder your ability to have a more enjoyable and successful career.

Focus On The Customer, Not the Sale

Your primary intention at this stage is to get to the truth and you cannot confuse this truth by inserting your own assumptions before you have enough information to validate them. At the heart of this is a genuine interest and focus on the customer. They’re the star at this point of the sales process.

One of the world’s leading authorities on eliminating pressure and tension from the sales process is the founder of Unlock The Game, Ari Galper. Ari’s a good friend of mine and when I sat down to interview him for my book Success Under Fire, Ari said the first thing to connecting with a prospect at this point in the selling process is diffusing pressure and getting visibility into a prospect or client’s true agenda. As he put it, “A client doesn’t care how much you know, until he knows how much you care.”

Once a prospective customer feels your desire to close them right way is genuinely gone they will not feel so vulnerable or defensive. And guess what – neither will you. At this point they will be much more open to telling you what’s “really going on” inside their organization and therefore, providing you with the information needed to effectively take you to the next point in the sales process.

4. Customizing Your Solutions

John Naisbitt, a former senior executive for IBM and Kodak, once said about this stage of the sales process that, “In selling, as in medicine, prescription before diagnosis is malpractice.” With that in mind, this point in the selling process you will be presenting how your company’s solutions will solve the challenges or issues your prospect wants you to help them with.

If you’ve done your job during Primary Point #3 you will have received the necessary information to appropriately prescribe your solutions for the prospect. This is where it becomes crucial to understand the primary decision making style of those you’re communicating with and have a solid grasp of their buying style.

No matter the type of decision maker you’re dealing with, remember they receive the “STAR” treatment. This means make the solution all about them and their company. It is a very common mistake to make your presentation all about you and your company. If a customer wanted to hear all about your company and its solution they wouldn’t need you for all they would have to do is read your company’s brochure and website.

Build Consensus

A key aspect of ensuring the spotlight is on your customer’s issues is building consensus with them. This means before you present any specific solution your company can offer them always get the customer to agree with the information they provided you during Primary Point of a Sale #2 and #3.  This accomplishes several key things. The two most important are as follows:

(1) You are getting the customer to remember what their issues are rather than getting lost in your presentation. You cannot possibly imagine how much goes through a person’s mind every moment. So to think that your potential customer will automatically remember all that they told you in your previous meetings while also remembering why you are there to present to them is to overlook a major piece to your getting the sale.

(2) Building consensus with your customer at the beginning of a presentation and throughout the presentation also provides you a solid foundation for aligning your selling style and your company’s solutions to your customer’s buying style. In them agreeing to what they told you and possibly even conveying some additional, pertinent information you are reminded of how they are interpreting their own issues. This allows you to properly present your solutions in a way that they can immediately relate to.

Adapting Your Selling Style

Adapting your selling style to someone’s buying style does not mean you act like someone you’re not. It means to be more in tune with how your customer likes to receive information. Being in tune with them allows you to easily deliver information in a way they can grasp.  The more you can customize and personalize your solution for the customer the better chances you have of winning the account. This is a key, fundamental component of being emotionally relevant to those you sell and market to.

Once you’ve presented your customized solution for the client, you will immediately find yourself in the next point of the sales process.

5. Handling Resistance & Pressure

At some point in every sales process you will be faced with objections, concerns and very direct questions about you and your company’s ability to deliver on your promises. The pressure of the sales process has been building to this point. It is usually turned up immediately following Primary Point #4, where you delivered the suggested solutions to your prospect’s perceived problems. Now you await their response. This is pressure, or as many people refer to it, crunch time.

What’s really important to be aware of during this point is that a vast number of people you will sell to have either worked as a salesperson, been trained on closing tactics by their company or they’ve either read, listened to and/or attended programs on selling just as you have. The outcome is that many of the people you will sell to today know all about “closing techniques” and “how to overcome objections”.

Old habits are difficult to break and this is precisely where many well intentioned salespeople and business owners find themselves falling into the trap of employing antiquated and manipulative sales tactics when the pressure is turned up. When this happens it is safe to say one has folded under the pressure.

To buckle under pressure means you are creating unnecessary tension and raising alarms within your prospect rather than creating excitement and raising their interest in doing business with you. This not only won’t accelerate your sales cycle but slows it down considerably.

When your prospective customer is hesitant to move forward at this point in the sales process remember to never take their hesitancy or questions as a personal attack on you. You will want to reinterpret their concerns and see their questions or hesitation as a sign that you may have overlooked a crucial piece of information in the sales process to this point.

More than likely, the questions, objections and hesitancy your prospect is expressing is in direct relation to one or more of the following four things:

(1) They’re responding based on their preferred and natural decision making characteristics.

(2) You did not adequately address their true needs and communicate your solutions in a way they can relate to.

(3) There are agendas and issues you have not yet uncovered that are causing hesitancy in making a decision on your solution.

(4) They simply want to clarify and reinforce your solutions.

Knowing where your prospect is coming from with their questions, objections and/or hesitancy will allow you to be better equipped to eliminate any tension or pressure during this point. Do this effectively and you will have moved to the next point in the sales process.

6. Securing the Sale

There have been thousands of books, audio courses and training programs solely devoted to this point of the sales process. It’s often referred to as “closing”. Contrary to traditional sales methodologies, you do not have to possess some magical, secret closing technique in order to be successful at securing the deal.

If you’re finding your prospective customer isn’t fully ready to commit, it cannot be overstated enough as to how important it is to put your personal needs aside and strictly focus on your prospect’s perceived needs and issues. Trying to force a sale here with a manipulative tactic you read about in a book on “closing” when the prospect isn’t fully ready to say, “YES”, can very easily kill your chances of securing the sale at all.

Listen carefully to their questions, objections or concerns. Build consensus again by clarifying what they have said and getting them to agree with this. From there you anchor your responses to their preferred style of communicating and buying.

Truth is you should never have to force a sale on anyone. If you’ve effectively done your job during the previous five points of the selling process, especially Primary Points #3 – #5, all is required of you here is to simply  facilitate your prospect selling your solution to themselves. In other words, this may very well be the easiest point in the entire selling process – if you want it to be.

7. Follow Up & Follow Through

You’ve made it through point #6 and secured the sale. Your new client is excited, you’re thrilled and everything seems right with the world. So now what? Go on to the next prospect? Yes, but not without first making sure you are consistently following up and following through with the prospect you just turned into a client.

Following up and following through opens up customer interaction and extends customer satisfaction. Yet, so many salespeople and business owners believe that once a contract is signed the work is over. The mentality is that it’s time to move onto the next deal. On the contrary, once a customer is secured this is where the real work begins. This is where you show your gratitude for the business you just secured.

As a consumer yourself, you know exactly what happens when you feel disconnected from someone who sold you something, particularly if that something involved a big purchase. You’re hurt, angry and resentful. These are three things you do not want your clients feeling about you and your company after they have purchased your solution.

In our agency’s experience of working with hundreds of organizations and thousands of professionals, we believe the ability to follow up and follow through is the single most important ingredient for keeping clients, selling more to existing clients and obtaining valuable referrals. Following up and following through builds a loyal and trust worthy brand. And when it comes to the profession of selling, it is loyalty, trust and gratitude that are the means by which success is truly measured.

Comments or questions are welcome.

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5 Steps for Leveraging Your Expertise Through Writing

Written By Pete Nelson

Whether you’re trying to land a client or keep a client, if you sell a service, educating customers on the value of doing business with you is a never-ending process.

A service cannot be seen, felt, touched or experienced until the prospect hires you to perform your service. For instance, unlike a tangible product, which can oftentimes be tested before buying, or comes with a “how-to” manual, a service is intangible and almost never comes with an instruction manual on how to get the most use of it. This makes it quite difficult to get others to tangibly experience the depth of your expertise, let alone fully understanding the value of your service. Thing is, however, getting your prospects to experience and see the value and expertise you have isn’t as hard as it may seem.

So how do you go about leveraging your expertise through the written word to attract, secure and maintain clients? Here are five simple steps for beginning the process.

1. Be Curious: Being curious is one of the fundamental keys to unlocking your creativity. For example, when you go to a bookstore or when you’re searching for something online, if you see something that catches your eye – stop and check it out. If it is something worthwhile and relevant to your business and/or your target audience, you are not wasting your time.

Save it, write it down and place it into a file marked “Ideas For Article” or “Ideas For Book”. I’ve personally generated more ideas through this process than almost anything else. So be curious. It pays – literally and figuratively.

2. Learn What Your Audience Wants: Find out what your target market is interested in learning more about, specifically as it relates to the product/service you sell. You should already know this since you probably started your business to serve a marketplace that needed what you provide. Write an article or a book that would provide value to the readers and help them improve an area of their life or business. Be sure to frame and anchor this with the service or product you offer.

3. Create a Top 10 List: Tap into your own knowledge on the subjects related to your business. What are the top 10 things your client needs to know about getting the most out of your product/service before they purchase it? What are the 10 most profitable or entertaining ways your client can benefit from using your product/service?

People love articles and books that are centered around lists. The first information driven product I developed was based on my knowledge of sales was an eBook titled, The 10 Strategies of Highly Effective Salespeople. The title alone was responsible for most of the initial sales of the book.

To get an even better sense of how lists and numbers play a role in books and articles browse a recent magazine you purchased. Visit your local bookstore’s business section or the bookstore’s section that best pertains to your business. You’ll find a myriad of titles like: 101 Reasons To… – The Top 10 Ways To… – 20 Ways To Increase Your Business In 90-Days or Less, 7 Steps To A Healthier Body, etc.

The point is that what grabs people’s attention is the headline, the title of an article or book. With a list, you immediately capture people’s attention because it is perceived as a simple solution and more times than not, articles and books based on a list are usually quick to read.

4. Think Vertically and Horizontally Your Knowledge & Experience: An early consulting client of mine was Adwire & Wireware, two top Web design firms that are targeting two totally distinct markets. The first is Adwire, which solely focuses on large scale, high-end Web projects. The second is Wireware, which utilized an innovative and easy to use turnkey Web design service and focuses on small businesses and non-profit organizations.

Our first task in getting more visibility for Wendy Nield, the CEO of the two companies, and driving in more leads for them was to get Wendy to write an article that could also be turned into a speech and that would be applicable for both of her company’s respective audiences.

A lot of ideas for possible articles were considered but we decided that the one thing every company, no matter their size, needed to understand to be successful online was how to create a positive customer experience when someone visits their Website.

The article and subsequent speech we developed was titled: “Taking Your Business From Good To Great: The 3 Keys To Creating a Positive Customer Experience Online”. It has since been leveraged for seminars, newsletters, several article placements and has generated a lot of interest in both companies, not to mention it is further positioning the company’s CEO as a leading expert in her field.

Remember, any article you write can be used as a topic for a public presentation. At the same time, any speech or article you deliver can be turned into an effective book or even an audio program.

5. Record & Transcribe: One of the biggest obstacles business owners have when it comes to writing anything is they feel they can easily communicate with customers but believe they can’t write the way they speak.

To that I suggest taking an hour or two away from any distractions and record yourself running through the very same information you use to educate your prospective clients on why they should do business with you.

Let’s say you’re a fitness coach. You could pick the top five or ten things a client needs to know about losing weight and keeping it off. Or you could record yourself talking about eating the foods you love and not feeling guilty about it. You could record yourself talking about these topics and then have someone help you transcribe this. Once it’s transcribed you simply edit and refine the piece and voila, you have yourself an article and you didn’t have to spend time writing it.

You can also record your coaching or consulting sessions with clients. Let them know that you are doing research for an article or book and that you would like to record the meeting. Assure them that the recording will not be used in public and you may want to get them to sign a brief release form.

Attention Grabbing Sales Copy & Captivating Brand Messaging by SK Graphic Design

What’s the perfect headline or tagline that will emotionally connect with your audience?

How do you communicate what you do is emotionally relevant to your customer’s desired outcomes?

Regardless of how you set up your website or what type of marketing materials you choose there is one thing that you cannot avoid when it comes to growing a successful business and that is your messaging and SALES COPY.

The way your messaging, headlines, taglines and sales copy is written, structured and delivered across your website and marketing material will ultimately determine whether you’re attracting customers or repelling them.

Our seasoned copywriting team plays an integral role in helping you grow your business by putting money in your pocket by combining their words with yours along with an acute understanding of how your customers buy.

Call 815-343-6731 or Email us to set up a FREE 30-minute Strategic Marketing & Copy Session to determine what area of your business can be enhanced through improved messaging, headlines, taglines and sales copy.

Examples of sales and marketing copy we have developed for clients will be provided at the time of your complimentary Strategic Design Session.

Comments or questions are welcome.

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Written by Pete Nelson

Have you reached the point in your business where you’ve recognized the need to stop thinking like the company you are and start thinking and acting like the company you want to be? If you have not, you will.

Whether you’re the owner of a business or you work for a company there comes a time in every professional’s career where the road you’ve traveled reaches an impasse. You look in the mirror one morning and you know that the decision you’re about to make on the direction of your career will forever change your life. It’s the same way with your company’s brand and marketing.

Arrogance & Appreciation Do Not Mix

In his groundbreaking book, Leadership Is an Art, Max DePree stated, “In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” This is to say that the road you traveled to arrive where you are today may not be the same road that will take you where you aspire to be tomorrow.

When it comes to the branding of your company and how you market your business, DePree’s point takes on an added degree of importance and relevance to us all. This is most apparent when you contrast the ways and means by which companies brand and market themselves in today’s world compared to how companies did this in years gone by.

This is not to say that specific fundamentals have changed. For instance, the vital importance of being emotionally relevant to customers will never change. What has changed, however, is the means by which you go about branding and marketing your company’s relevance and value.

Regardless of your position in a company or how comfortable you are with branding and marketing, be sure of this one fact: every business brands itself and every company develops and executes marketing campaigns. Some are just better at it than others. But what separates the good ones from the bad ones isn’t necessarily the breadth and depth of financial resources, talent or skill, but intention. There is a monumental difference in a company’s approach to change when the intention of its brand messaging and marketing is done through arrogance as opposed to appreciation. These two intentions do not mix, as you will see with the following examples with Apple, Circuit City and Blockbuster.

Here One Day…Gone The Next

Take Apple for instance. Apple is one of best examples in the history of business for aligning its intention for change with a genuine appreciation for its customer. Few companies are as in tune with their customer’s desire for new product experiences as Apple is. In the last decade they have repeatedly demonstrated their knowledge of how their customers want to buy and what they want to buy.

Apple’s revamped product line and its “Think Different” campaigns got the ball rolling, revitalizing what many felt was a nearly irrelevant brand. This success was parlayed into new products that have included the iconic iPod and iPhones and their latest phenomenon, the iPad. In 2010, with a market cap of $241 billion, Apple officially passed Microsoft as the largest technology company in the world.

On the other end of the branding and marketing spectrum we have recently witnessed the dismantling of some of the most successful businesses in the last 20 to 30 years. Two of the most well known collapses were the world’s largest electronics retailer, Circuit City, and the world’s largest video retailer, Blockbuster.

From revolutionizing their respective industries to all but disappearing from the marketplace, Circuit City and Blockbuster provide two excellent cautionary tales of the effects that come from dismissing the need for aligning company change with consumer change.

In Circuit City’s case they underestimated the impact of removing key products from their stores, chief among them were consumer appliances. But product choices were not their only downfall. The arrogant refusal to accept Best Buy’s more effective branding and marketing as a legitimate threat to its business affected how they marketed and branded themselves, which proved to be a major factor in the company’s demise.

Blockbuster had a similar situation in that they underestimated customer reaction to rental fees and late fee penalties. The company’s choice for how customers could rent videos and from where they can access the videos was another major misstep.

Like Circuit City, Blockbuster’s arrogance of its own importance in the marketplace proved to be its undoing. In this case Blockbuster refused to accept the viability of Netflix’s business model. This prompted the company to completely ignore Netflix’s more customer relevant and timely online marketing efforts as a legitimate threat to its business.

Be Clear On Your Intent for Change

What can you learn from the above examples? First of all, do not let yourself be confused by the big company examples or the effects of their choices as it applies to you and your company. The cause of their problems and successes are the same as it is for you and your business.

In the case of Apple’s success it comes down to a genuine love for what it is they’re doing. Ask Steve Jobs or any Apple employee what it is they enjoy about their business and they will likely tell you it is a love for improving the quality of people’s lives through their innovative products. They are genuinely excited about what they do and who they do it for. This love and excitement is at the center of the intention of all their products, branding and marketing. You can feel it and customers respond favorably to this.

The lessons here are clear. Your brand matters only so long as it is emotionally relevant to your target audience. But keep in mind the key to being emotionally relevant, particularly in a changing world, is being in tune with your customer.

As Apple has so aptly demonstrated, much of this stems from the intent to be genuinely interested in the type of solutions your customers want and how they want to experience them. Apple employees are not immune to the changing tides of customer demand anymore than Circuit City or Blockbuster was. Apple, however, simply learned the lessons and value behind infusing their intent for dealing with change with excitement and a deep seeded appreciation for those customers they serve.

At the end of the day, no matter how you choose to approach your company’s branding and marketing in an ever changing marketplace, one thing to always remember is this: Be absolutely clear on the intent of your choice for change, for in your intention lies the future of your career and business.

3 Perception Exercises

Customers of today have clearly changed in how they buy compared to buying patterns in the past two decades. But has your perception of customers and how you market to them changed? Let’s face it, what you knew about marketing, sales and branding 12 months or even five years ago is not as relevant today as it once was.

It’s not that you should know everything there is that has changed, for no one does. What is important is realizing that you don’t know everything that has changed and understanding what you don’t know can and often does hurt your business. This is where it is imperative to take time to properly prepare yourself and your business for achieving your desired outcomes.

With that in mind, take a moment to review the following three exercises. We utilize these exercises with our clients, along with many others, to ensure our client’s intentions are aligned with their customer’s buying behavior. These exercises will go a long way to helping you successfully adapt to the changing trends and patterns that shape your business now and into the future.

Exercise #1 – Identify When & Where You Need Help

Author Les Brown once remarked that you “ask for help not because you’re weak, but because you want to remain strong.” With that in mind, list three (3) things you try and do yourself when it comes to branding and marketing but could achieve better results if you chose to delegate or involve (internal) or (external) resources for helping you change how your business grows.

1. _______________________________________________

2. _______________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________

Exercise #2 – Identify Critical Patterns With Your Website

List the 3 critical patterns you’ve identified with your website that if changed – right now – will significantly help your company grow in the present and future.

1. _______________________________________________

2. _______________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________

Exercise #3 – Identify Critical Patterns With Your Customers

List the 3 patterns you’ve identified with how your customers buy that if you were to better adapt these patterns to your brand messaging and marketing campaigns – right now – you would significantly help your company grow in the present and future.

1. _______________________________________________

2. _______________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________

Comments or questions are welcome.

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If You’re Not Clear On Them, It Could Be Costing You Much More Than You Think.

Written By Pete Nelson

There are few marketing topics as polarizing as email marketing. Despite the number of email service providers that have popped up in the past few years, and with all of the success stories of email marketing, there remains rampant confusion among many business owners and marketing professionals about the use of email ads.

On one hand you have those who swear by email marketing, and use it frequently to grow their company’s brand, engage their customers and drive in profitable leads and sales. Then you have those who hear the idea of email marketing and immediately conjure up images of evil spammers and therefore won’t have anything to do with it. And finally, you have those who have either used email marketing or are thinking of doing it but are simply confused as to what works and what doesn’t with email marketing.

If you are on the fence about whether you should be developing email campaigns this year, or you have tried but found sporadic results, you may have fallen prey to one or more of the 5 email marketing myths. Yes, there are many more myths than what we have written below. But in our experience of collaborating with businesses over the past decade these are the most consistent myths we come across here at SK Graphic Design.

1. Email marketing identifies me as a spammer and damages my brand.

If all you do is send out useless, tasteless and completely irrelevant email ads you will damage your brand. That being said, you will also damage your brand with inconsistent or zero email communication with your customers. In fact, today’s more tech savvy customer expects to be engaged via email.
It’s in every company’s best interest to take the necessary time to discover what is emotionally relevant to your customers as it relates to your solution. From there the next step is to determine how to go about engaging them with relevant content and compelling offers. This is where the cost effectiveness of email marketing comes in.

The result of this myth is the valuable lesson it teaches about ignoring what is emotionally relevant to your target audience. The key lesson here is how damaging it can be to you brand to ignore what are the most relevant and effective means of communicating with your audience. Take a quick review of the companies who have gone out of business the last few years. You can point to a lot of different factors for their demise but consistent among the scattered remains is an out of control arrogance that filtrated through all forms of brand communication. Companies who felt they were in tune with the pulse of their customers were rudely awakened to the reality they weren’t. Don’t let this happen to you and your business.

2. Free email ad templates are excellent choices for highlighting your brand and value proposition.

With a proliferation of email service providers comes a proliferation of free email ad templates. Sure, some templates are pretty cool, but a free template is not going to accurately capture the essence of your company’s value or brand because it’s a generic template. Its sole purpose is designed for multiple companies to use, therefore making it a challenge to identify any unique value to your brand.

A continual use of generic, uninspired templates is what we refer to as misaligned branding. It’s when a company’s various forms of communicating are out of alignment with each other. This degree of inconsistency is both confusing and offensive to consumers, who expect the companies they buy from to be familiar and consistent in their overall look, feel and messaging.

Many email service providers offer up a full suite of email ad options given the impression that creating email marketing campaigns is as easy as turning on a computer. Truth is that email marketing requires a lot more thought behind it than just clicking on a few buttons. Let’s face it, unless you have a natural talent for marketing, graphic design and sales copy techniques or have been trained in any of these disciplines you can actually harm your brand more than help it by thinking the “do-it-yourself” approach for email marketing works.

The result of this myth is that email service providers are an awesome and highly necessary component for email marketing campaigns. They allow you to send out mass emails and provide lots of cool and useful applications for tracking the results. But if you want to convey a compelling message, maintain consistency with your brand and ensure you’re campaigns are emotionally relevant to your audience you’ll need a lot more than just a template to achieve this. Read the rest of this entry »

SK Graphic Design recently launched a new website for Intentional Acting, located in Hollywood, CA.

http://intentionalacting.com

Intentional Acting is designed to empower actors with the tools to create compelling, natural “Zone” performances. The tools, principles and methodologies taught through Intentional Acting will help the actor to be confident, creative, present and passionate which results in higher success rates for the actor to secure the job and fulfills their dreams.

Intentional Acting not only teaches the art of thorough script analysis, but also utilizes the nine (9) Intentional Acting questions that are at the center of all acting – doing.

SK Graphic Design recently launched a new site for Linked Investigations, located in Orange County, CA.

http://www.linkedinvestigations.com

Linked Investigations, a respected and sought after licensed private investigator and Private Detective company, provides Background Checks, Surveillance, Online Search, Corporate and Cheating Spouse services in San Diego, Newport Beach, Los Angeles and Orange County, CA.