Marketing And Selling Skills To Help Grow Your Service Business
by Alan Patching
Picture me driving my teenage son to pick up his girlfriend one Saturday morning. Suddenly he sits bolt upright in the car, the colour draining from his face. The expression is one of a young man in deep trouble. "Oh no," he says, "I was supposed to meet Emma yesterday afternoon after school, and I clean forgot."
He dives for his backpack, grabs a pen and paper and begins writing. A few minutes later he is reading me the results of his effort, a sincere sounding apology poem. Impressive.
I said "wouldn't flowers be more appropriate in the circumstances. We can stop off and get some."
His eyes flash. "Dad, you're a genius. Flowers are to go. But don't stop now. I'll send them to her school on Monday. That way, she'll be really impressed, and her cute friends will think I'm mega cool. They'll all want to go out with me when Emma gives me the flick."
Perhaps if service providers adopted the marketing principles young Anthony demonstrated, and practiced a few other simple but effective techniques regularly, they would soon see some very satisfying changes in their bottom lines.
The purpose of this article is to help you sharpen up your marketing skills and to grow your business.
In the story above, my young son firstly demonstrated that he clearly needed a few fatherly words on integrity and the impact of our actions on the feelings of others, and these he duly received. He also demonstrated that he understands one of the first and most important principles of marketing – to stay in business we must continue to make people aware of us and what we do, and preferably in a way that distinguishes us from our competitors right from that initial contact. The best way to so this is to use impact. And by the way, remaining alert for opportunities to use impact right throughout our relationships with existing clients is a proven way to developing those clients into raving fans and strong advocates for our service. Having excited clients promote our service to their friends and contacts sure beats the old cold call. Of course the best place to give impact is in provision of extraordinary services that really do provide outstanding solutions to customer / client needs and problems.
What about achieving impact every time we make first contact with a prospective client? It's not always easy, mainly because what really hits the mark with some people might seem pretty 'ho-hum' to others. In this realisation lies the first doorway to achieving impact.
We need to understand people, really understand them. Give yourself a trial period of reading, observing and absorbing everything you can about human behaviour. From personal experience, I can assure you of a couple of things. Firstly, it will improve your marketing and selling beyond what you thought was possible. Secondly, you will become committed to learning as much as possible about human behaviour, as I did, and your life will be all the richer for the experience.
Begin by committing to spend fifteen minutes or so each day observing others. Note how people inter-relate within the office, or in their dealings with clients. Observe people on trains, in traffic, in restaurants, or simply walking long the street. Next, visit the local bookshop or library, spend time on the internet. Look for good material on business communication, with an emphasis on subjects like listening skills, Transactional Analysis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Ponder ways that you can apply the information you acquire in your own business.
Your objective is to develop an understanding of how you might best adjust your own style to better suit the personalities of those with whom you are seeking to create an impact. Make no mistake about it, personal style is the major impact creator in a huge scope of services marketing, professional services (medicine, architecture, financial services etc) in particular.
It's of paramount importance to become a truly active listener – the type of listener our potential clients love to deal with but seldom have the opportunity.
It will help to understand how Transactional Analysis skills can help us to detect objections very early in our dealings with prospective buyers and from indications we might not even be aware of, and to be sure those objections did not rise as a reaction to our own words or actions triggering emotional response based on the client's previous life experiences. It's very useful to have a basic understanding of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) which addresses the modes in which human beings process information, and learn how we can use this knowledge to create impact in the simplest but most effective manner.
Service providers would do well also to remain current with the science of marketing, and some effective tactics and specifically, to examine how these tactics might be applied in the marketing and selling of their specific service.
Before you panic at the expression, the 'science of marketing' let's take a brief look at some ways you might be able to create impact with new and existing customers.
- If you travel, use the opportunity to send a post card to a dozen or so people each trip. The effort will be all the more impressive if you send them to people who have some link with the place you visit. When in the Greek Isles, for example, send ten cards to friends and clients who are of Greek extraction.
- Another traveling tip. Pick up a couple of local magazines or newspapers for clients from that country or state. Mail them or hand-deliver them on your return.
- This works really well if the journal is in the language of the home country. (It works better if the recipient reads that language, so be sure to check first!).
- Become aware of the areas in which your business possesses 'distinctive competence' relative to your competition, and take the effort to ensure your customers and potential customers are aware of these. Make sure all of your staff are aware of and promote these distinctive competencies at every opportunity. I know a professional who lives in Mount Isa, a mining community, and provides specifically designed insurance services to miners and their families and businesses. A simple postcard proclaiming this fact might be a high-impact way of making contact with prospects for this person.
- Call five existing clients each day, out of the blue, just to see how they are. Record details of your conversation in a data base so you can refer back to the points in the next conversation a few months later.
- Learn the skill of remembering names, and use it whenever you meet people. I once visited the Sydney Boat Show. I visited the Bayliner stand in the morning and Warwick, a salesman on the stand, remembered my name when I returned to the stand that afternoon. I was impressed. Does anyone have reason to write about the way you impress with your ability to remember names in difficult circumstances.
- Never underestimate the power of 'thank you' notes. My friend, Max Hitchins (a marketing whiz) often goes one better and takes pictures of people he meets. He then gets the picture made into a label and sends them a bottle of wine with the picture on it. I'm willing to bet that less than 10% of those bottles have ever been drunk but are kept in prominent places where people talk about Max giving it to them. What a great front of mind awareness aid this is.
- When you meet new prospects, take note of what interests them. You might then get an opportunity to follow up the contact via a short note together with a magazine or newspaper article on the subject of interest. This may assist if you decide to ring to check the chances of a sale at a later date.
I hope I've whetted your appetite for improving your marketing and selling skills, even if only on the margin. Good luck in applying these suggestions in your business. If you would like more information on how to market and sell your services, why not visit the e-books section of www.alan.patching.com.
Good luck growing your business.
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