Month: February 2023

Are you ready for the changes this year is bringing?

As we talked about last month there are numerous ways to prospect, emails, text, social media even door to door. 

Today’s I will give you The Top 10 things that you need to be on alert for with regards to prospecting in this new economy. 

From the home office in Cool, Texas 

Here are the The Top 10 Ways Prospecting has Changed in 2023

10. Engage Everyone 

Does it have to be the CEO? for us yes, but you have to be prepared to engage management, gatekeepers,because  People are more cautious, which means decision-making typically may take longer. That means you better be prepared to get those relationships in place and start engaging people further down the food chain now.

9. Radio silence

Customers are going to go radio silent and you better be prepared to counter it. Since decisions are being slowed and people are being more cautious, there’s a tendency to go radio silent because they want to check out competition. You’ve got to keep in front of them. One of the best techniques that I love to do is automatically send them some insights, or some information to show to them how beneficial you’re going to be to them as an organization. It’s not just, “Hey, let’s talk.” Instead, it’s showing up with value from the get-go. It’s one of the easiest ways to break that radio silence.

8. Be laser focused

It’s going to be tempting to sit there and chase the shiny object, but right now more than ever you better stay in your sandbox.  You need to be laser focused to understand exactly what’s happening in our industry, with your competitive set and your customers, because your intel is going to keep you at the front of the pack.

7. De-educate the customer

Yes, De- educate, hear me out. Customers are trying to do all this information gathering on their own, and as a result, they’re finding a lot of bad information. It’s your job to come in and be able to verify, and when necessary, de-educate. It’s possible what they think they need doesn’t contribute to the solution they’re looking for. Or perhaps it isn’t going to be the best strategy to help them achieve their outcome. You have to de-educate them first so you can educate them.

6. Your personal reputation

It’s not your company reputation, it’s your personal reputation that matters. Let’s not kid ourselves. There are multiple companies out there that probably sell and provide what we provide. 

What’s going to be the distinguishing difference? You. You better be watching and protecting your personal reputation more than ever right now.

5. LinkedIn and social media

LinkedIn is without a doubt a valuable tool since so many people go there. There are still industries out there where people prefer checking you out on Google.  If they’re checking you out on Google, chances are your LinkedIn profile coming up first. Therefore, you better make sure that you’re engaging and not just a ghost profile out there with no posts. 

4. Bigger network

Of course, this isn’t just a game to see how many people you can get to know, but rather it’s a process of staying engaged with people who are in your circle.  A bigger network helps because more people are going to be challenging more things before they make a decision. Not to mention a larger network means greater opportunities for referrals.

3. More contacts

The bigger your network, the more contacts you’re going to have. This is going to work to your advantage because in dealing with a company, you may normally sell to two or three people. Now it may be four to eight people. You’re going to need more contacts within the organization to complete the same amount of transactions as you did last year.

2. In-person engagement

During COVID, we all learned how to sell online. In-person is worth a lot now because it still hasn’t been done in a long time. It could even be as easy as attending a conference or local referral group. I get it, sometimes your customers are everywhere and you can’t go see them all. However, you may have an in-person relationship with someone who in turn has an in-person relationship with your customer.

And the #1 Top 10 Ways Prospecting has Changed in 2023 is …

1. Referrals

Referrals are without a doubt gold. They’re one of the most effective ways to grow your network and amazing opportunities to increase revenue. 

The trick is:

 How do I ask for a referral? Just ask, during installs, dropping off supplies or just checking on them. Ask and you shall receive. 

When? ALL THE TIME!

Who? Anyone who you feel can give a good referral source. Fun fact – My barber has given me several. 

A great place to start is your own accounts. Ask them for referrals. Offer them a spiff for someone signing up. Also by giving your own referrals; you have to give to get.

Let me know your thoughts on this Top 10 list.

Have a great Weekend,

David

There is no feeling quite like the one a sales professional experiences when they introduce themselves to a new prospect.

It’s exciting and it is also a constant struggle within our guts, because we know that a sincere, confident opening statement will work best, but even your best line is going to be met with a negative response one out of three times at best. As a result, you are hedging emotionally, bracing yourself for the one liner that could make you feel one inch tall on the way out as you leave in defeat.

One thing that helps, is to understand what the merchant is thinking, but not saying.

A prospect who has never met you, has no idea who you are, or what type of person you are, or what value you can offer.

You cannot take it personally, because rejection in sales is not personal. It feels very personal, but it is not.

When a prospect gives you an objection, you must respond as if they said something else. That’s right, you need to ignore what they said and respond to what they are thinking.

The good news for you is that there are only three things a merchant is ever thinking when they respond to a sales professional, so there are only three objections that matter. Get ready, because these may seem a little harsh!

– I am too busy, and this is not worth my time.

– I don’t trust you, so nothing you say can convince me.

– I don’t like you, and I don’t think I want to talk to you.

One of these three things is what every prospect is thinking when they give you an objection.

Very few of them would ever say it like this, because they are trying to get rid of you in a nice way.

The problem is that because they are trying to be nice, they are not telling you the real reason for their lack of interest. Let’s see if you can match up an objection to the correct thought.

Let’s set the scene. You just finished going over the proposal showing  a $200+ in monthly savings and they say, “Let me think about this and get back to you; I don’t want to rush into anything.” (Which thought are they having?)

Imagine if you get interrupted during the opening pitch and the prospect says, “I’m not interested, we are happy with who we have.”

A prospect is alone in their shop, slowly working on paperwork and you introduce yourself while handing them your business card. They respond, “Thanks for stopping by, but today is just not a good day for me.”

Did you figure out which objection goes with which thought process?

It is easy to figure out. The first prospect sees the savings and if they trusted you, they would obviously sign up as fast as possible.

The second prospect shuts you down before you even have time to get a full sentence out because they just don’t want to be bothered with anything.

The last prospect is clearly not that busy, but they are using that as an excuse because they can’t imagine talking to you for another five minutes.

Armed with this new knowledge about what a merchant is thinking, let’s come up with the best rebuttal for the real objection for the three prospects above.

Prospect # 1 – “Let me think about this and get back to you; I don’t want to rush into anything.” (They don’t trust you.)

Rebuttal - “I can certainly understand that. The last thing I want to do is see you make a decision and then second guess yourself. If I was in your shoes, I think I would want to see some letters of reference from other local clients that took advantage of our proposed savings and then saw those savings materialize the next month on their statement. If I was able to provide you with 2 or 3 references that did end up saving significantly with my service, would that make you more comfortable?” (You should always carry three or four letters of recommendation with you, if possible.)

Prospect #2 -  “I’m not interested, we are happy with who we have.” (They are too busy to talk.)

Rebuttal - “I can see that you are really busy right now. I know you believe in keeping your vendors honest. Can I ask you one question and email you a savings proposal so you can double check your current statement and make sure you are getting a good deal?

I promise I will be walking out that door in less than two minutes, fair enough?” (Ask them their total volume, and that’s all you need to create a proposal using  James Shepherd’s Instant Quote Tool. Click Here.

Prospect #3 -  “Thanks for stopping by; today is just not a good day for me.” (They don’t like you.)

Rebuttal - “I’m sorry, I think we got off on the wrong foot, do you mind if I ask you a question? How long has your business been located here?”

(Start a conversation and ask them other questions about their business, to show them that you are a real person and someone they would enjoy getting to know.)

Take the knowledge gained in this article today and leverage it in the field. You will be blown away by the results. Don’t take rejection personally. Listen carefully to the way rejection is provided and then use their words and body language to understand the thought process behind it, so you can overcome the real objection.

Happy Selling,

David

Stop selling your product.  The product training you’ve had is bad.

Who cares what you sell, or how good you or your company thinks it is. Instead, I want you to focus 100% on selling the outcomes you allow your customer to achieve.  That’s what your customer is…

Instead, I want you to focus 100% on selling the outcomes you allow your customer to achieve.  That’s what your customer is looking for, they don’t need another widget, they need a solution.

Focusing on your customer is about listening first to create a level of trust and confidence. 

Your customer is never going to confide in you until they first trust you.  Building trust begins with you by not putting your objectives ahead of the customers.  Instead, it’s about serving the customer, and it starts with listening. How?  It begins with the questions you ask.

When you’re preparing for a sales call, how much time do you spend thinking about what you want to say versus the questions you want to ask? 

I contend we need to spend far more time thinking about the questions we want to ask.

If you fail to have eight questions at minimum to ask a customer anytime you meet with them, then you’re doing both you and the customer a disservice.  Eight is not a magic number, but it is the number I’ve found that requires some serious thinking. Typically on any call there’s little chance you would even get to ask all eight. The key is this, you’re prepared, plus you never want to run out of potential questions you can ask.

Asking questions is a key part of listening–the better your questions the more listening you get to do.

Sadly, many salespeople look upon listening as a passive activity, or the period of time to catch their breath before speaking again. That’s not selling, that’s manipulation!   

Listening is action oriented.

It’s listening to understand, because your job is to take their comment and ask a follow-up question about it. 

The key in building trust is allowing the other person to know you genuinely care about them and their needs.

Don’t go there by jumping into your product pitch. At this point your product is not part of the solution, it’s part of the problem!  

Our goal always has to be focused on understanding the outcomes the customer is looking for. The real prize for the customer is when we are able to help them see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible.  Chew on that last line for a minute and ask yourself what it means.  

It’s at this point where the conversation moves to a deeper level.  

When you and the customer are truly interacting and the questions and comments are flowing freely between both parties, it’s a reflection of trust and confidence as you begin helping them see an outcome they didn’t think was possible.

This is what sales is all about; it’s at this point the customer, because they trust you, is moving themselves into a different mindset.  

In my job I have this happen frequently. A customer may be wanting me to speak at their sales meeting, but through our conversation and the development of trust and confidence the customer sees an even bigger outcome they need help with.  For example, the result may include me doing a keynote at their sales meeting followed by some coaching of their sales managers.  

Sales is not as hard as people make it out to be.

It’s about having a conversation where you put the customer first.  It’s a conversation centered around the questions you ask to help understand the customer’s desired outcome clearly.  

I have a list of the top 10 questions to ask a merchant. Shoot me an email and I will send them to you. Study them, role play with them, use them. 

When you know the desired outcome, you’re now in a position to help them see what’s possible.

Happy Selling,

David

With today being Valentine’s day it seems appropriate to take a fresh look at prospecting.  After all, isn’t it sales and marketing’s constant function to ask others, “Will you be my Valentine?”

The Valentine’s Day-Prospecting love connection light bulb went off in my head a couple weeks ago when I was talking to a 

pharmaceutical sales rep at a meeting. He was using a pharmaceutical sales scenario as a backdrop for describing his thoughts on how we can get prospects interested faster.  

I don’t have any drug firm clients, Pharmacy’s as y’all know can be a headache but I can easily see how his expertise can be applied to what we do selling merchant services.

Here are my takeaways from this conversation,  Think of this as a roadmap to winning the hearts and minds of your prospects.
1. To build trust quicker 
– Open with a negative or a drawback of your offering. Shows you are willing to be truthful and establishes yourself as both trustworthy (giving the straight scoop) and knowledgeable.  You are willing to share data that you understand.
– Frame what your stuff does in terms of what your prospect will miss out on, rather than what they will gain. The idea of losing benefits is more powerful than the idea of gaining the benefit in minds of buyers. People would rather protect what they have than work to achieve a gain.
– Use social proof – your offering’s popularity – to show it’s worthwhile. Below the surface, people actually make judgments based on what they perceive is going on around them. “Our most chosen dessert” attracts even more buyers. This is “social proof” of what constitutes proper conduct. So, if you have popularity – USE IT.
– Feature and benefit selling is important, but it’s old school. Today, science shows that we respond to what we perceive should be a better product based on price/popularity/other externalities. We experience things based on context. Prospects stop critiquing – actually turn off that portion of the brain – when they hear statements backed up by popular assent or experts.
2. People say yes to people they trust and like. So, how do we develop relationships quickly?

• Find similarities.
• Give honest praise, genuine compliments.
• Come to like your customer, first. That’s when people feel safe, when they feel liked. They will feel their interests are protected, so they are more likely to follow your recommendations. 

Don’t try to first try to make someone like you until you’ve tried to like them.

Hmm, seems like good advice for Valentine’s Day, too!

Happy Selling,

David

Over the years, I have watched many, varied professional athletes in person. All athletes who reach the professional level have elite talent, but it’s the winning mentality that makes champions.

This applies to the business world as well. In order to be a winner, you have to think and act like a winner.
People who have a winning mindset believe in their vision, and they are mentally tough. They understand that nothing great or worth having comes easy. In order to win the Super Bowl of life, you first have to believe that you will. You have to be willing to give that 100% commitment to do what it takes to become a champion. Winners understand that they will face obstacles and difficulties, but know these challenges are only going to make them stronger. They are committed to becoming a winner, no matter what.

Talent alone is not enough.

In the business world, I have met so many people with talent, but they never come close to their potential. We are all good at something, but a winning mindset understands that the difference between making it a hobby or a successful business is the hard work and discipline that you put behind it.

Do not rely on your talent alone. Make a commitment to work on your craft. Find out what your weaknesses are and work on improving them.If you truly want to be a winner, you have to work consistently and work smart. It’s important to set a long-term goal and work at it with passion and perseverance. I have learned that it takes 10 years of working hard to be an overnight success. There are no shortcuts. There are no ‘get rich quick schemes’. If you want to become a champion, you have to grind!
Having a winning mentality also requires building momentum. The hardest part is getting started.
This is why it’s important to generate momentum with small steps. In order to ride your momentum wave, you have to build it first. While building and working towards your dreams, you must have small daily goals. Reward yourself along the way and keep charging towards the big dream.
Winners have a vision. The ultimate goal for an NFL player with a winning mentality is to win the Super Bowl. It all starts in training camp. They visualize themselves holding the trophy after winning the Super Bowl. Whatever you want out of life, you must visualize yourself achieving that goal.
You have to stick to that plan and truly believe in your dream and reinforce that belief along the way.

While working towards your dream, I can guarantee you that you will encounter naysayers along the way. A winning mentality does not allow the shortsightedness of others to deter them from being successful.

Remember that people who aren’t in life where you want to be cannot show you how to get there. Even though some feel that they’re looking out for your best interest, you must not give in to any negativity from anyone.

Make a commitment to surround yourself with people who will encourage you and lift you up along the way.

Having the winning mentality is just the first step.

You cannot just THINK your way to becoming a champion. You must take massive action. Not only do you have to take massive action, but you need to do it starting today.

No more procrastinating. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, not next year, not when everything lines up perfectly, do it now!
Make a commitment to develop the winning mentality. I promise you that it will be worth it. Whatever you are doing in life, be the best at it! Become a winner!

Happy Selling,

David

Valentines is just around the corner, and you know what that means: Valentine’s Day, and with it, Valentine’s Day gift shopping, date planning, romantic dinner cooking, and lots of heart-themed crafting. Amid all this hustle and bustle in the name of love, you may be wondering, why exactly do we celebrate Valentine’s Day? Quite possibly followed by, didn’t we just wrap up the holiday season?
Time to take a break from your February 14 to-do list and check out this week’s top 10 fun Valentine’s Day facts and traditions instead, including a little history of the holiday.

So from the Home office in Valentine, Texas Here are the Top 10 Fun Facts about Valentine’s Day

10. A Roman fertility festival was the holiday’s precursor. 

It may be difficult to believe given how innocuous the holiday is nowadays, but the roots of Valentine’s Day stem from a bloody pagan fertility festival dating back to 6th century B.C. Every year, between February 13 and 15, Romans celebrated Lupercalia by sacrificing animals and slapping women with their hides, which was believed to make them more fertile. Later, notes Britannica.com, the women would be paired off with men “by lottery.” Definitely not the most romantic way to find that special someone.

9. One legend about St. Valentine says that, although the emperor had banned his soldiers from marriage, believing it a distraction, the priest secretly wed young couples. Another holds that while Valentine was jailed for helping Christians escape brutal Roman prisons, he wrote to a woman (depending on the version of the story, either to his love

 or to the jailor’s daughter whose blindness he had healed) and that he signed a letter to her, “From Your Valentine,” a sweet endearment we still use today.

8. The earliest known valentine has a sad love story behind it. 

The very first valentine is said to have been a poem sent in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife. Imprisoned in the Tower of London after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, he wrote

, “I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine.” Unfortunately, it would be 20 more long years until the 21-year-old would be released from his cell.

7. Wearing your heart on your sleeve was a real thing.

 But not in a grisly sort of way. Back in the Middle Ages, during a festival honoring the goddess Juno, Roman men would draw the names of women they would be partnered with for the following year. (Remember, Emperor Claudius II didn’t condone marriage, only temporary couplings.) According to Smithsonian.com

, they would then show off the name of their intended by wearing it on their sleeves for the rest of the celebration.

6. Cupid was a Greek god.

Literally. Yep, that cute little chubby baby with the bow and arrow we associate with Valentine’s Day started out way back in 700 B.C. as the Greeks’ handsome, virile god, Eros. Able to make mortals fall in love (or hate) with his magical arrows, he was remade into Cupid by the Romans around 4th century BCE. But, as Time.com reports, it wasn’t until the turn of the 19th century that Cupid became the face of Valentine’s Day for his “love-creating abilities.”

5. Valentine’s Day chocolate was a stroke of marketing genius.

Next time you open a beautiful heart-shaped box of chocolates on February 14, you can thank Richard Cadbury. The son of the manufacturer of Cadbury Chocolate, he created the first known heart-shaped box of chocolates in an effort to drive up sales for the family business. From that first Valentine’s Day box sold in 1861 grew an industry that now counts some 66 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate sold annually.

4. Those little Conversation hearts had humble beginnings.

The iconic little candy hearts emblazoned with Valentine’s Day messages were first created by a machine initially invented to make medical lozenges. But it wasn’t long before the Boston-based pharmacist who originated the gadget’s design decided to switch from making cough drops to crafting candy wafers, rebranding his company as New England Confectionery Company, or Necco.

By 1866, Necco was producing candy printed with messages that included “Married in white you have chosen right” and “How long shall I have to wait? Please be considerate.” Thirty-five years later, that candy took on the familiar heart shape we know and love today. Every day, some 100,000 pounds of the chalky, talkative little candies, which have a shelf life of five years, are made. That adds up to a whopping eight billion conversation hearts annually.

3. The Victorians began the trend of giving flowers for Valentine’s Day.

Red roses as a symbol of romance dates back to ancient Rome—it was the favorite posy of Venus, the Roman goddess of love (and Cupid’s mom). But it wasn’t until the Victorian era that men really began giving the flower to women they were wooing.

2. Valentine’s Day is florists’ busiest day of the year.

That’s according to the Society of American Florists, putting the holiday ahead of even Christmas/Chanukah and Mother’s Day in terms of number of purchases. Most of those flowers are (you guessed it) roses. About 250 million roses are grown for Valentine’s Day, and more than half are red.

And the #1 Top 10 Fun Fact about Valentine’s day is……

1.  Valentine’s Day is expensive.

At least if you go by statistics released by the National Retail Federation, which found that Americans spent more than $23.9 billion (about 175 smackers per consumer) on the holiday in 2022. Much of that money goes toward jewelry (an estimated $6.2 billion!) and that includes a whole lot of diamond rings. As many as six million couples get engaged on Valentine’s Day.

There is this week’s Top 10 list about Valentine’s Day. So if you’re looking for a vertical to go after, candy shops, jewelry stores and flower shops are great to have in your portfolio.

have an awesome weekend, 

David 

If someone is successful, often the reason is attributed to their ability to “think outside the box.”  This adage seems to me to be greatly misunderstood!  What IS the true meaning of this saying?  today article contains three powerful truths to impact the way you think about your merchant services business.  Learn how to build a strong foundation for success.  And live the dream of every business owner – force yourself to make good decisions and protect yourself from making stupid ones. I’ve learned this by making stupid decisions myself.  

Often, I have heard this statement, “Oh, that person is so successful because he/she really thinks outside the box.”  Therefore, we are encouraged to follow that example to ensure our success.

 Are successful people just living a life outside of all boundaries, rules, and constraints?  Is that the meaning of “thinking outside the box?”  

Nothing could be further from the truth!

In reality, the life of no rules or constraints, doing whatever you want whenever you want is the definition of an unsuccessful, frustrated, and unhappy person.  Successful people do not think outside the box. 

Successful people just make a bigger box.  

The most important ingredient to your success is the rules and constraints you place upon yourself.  Those boundaries will force you to make good decisions and protect you from making stupid ones.

 Here are three boundaries which I think are vital for any business to be successful.

#1.  Make a conscious decision that your business is going to be profitable every single month, with one exception.  To be profitable every month means:

>You are going to make profitable decisions and give up a little bit of long-term value to get short-term profit.

>You aren’t going to spend more money than you make.

>You won’t get investors who share your profit because they’re putting in equity.  That will dilute your profit.

>You hire people who are gong to make you money.

>You sell people who are going to be profitable clients.

>Make profitable decisions every single day.

Then you will be profitable every single month.  This is not necessarily the way big businesses are built.  But it is the way you build a profitable business where your personal income is heavy six figures.

We read or hear stories of someone building a billion-dollar business.  The stories relate going into big debt to get capital and investors and money to build the mega-business.  However, the stories often fail to relate that the mega-business owner was making $200,000 a year at his job or built a business making $300,000 a year as a consultant or was in sales making $150,000 a year before building the billion-dollar business.  Most success stories were preceded by somebody making a heavy six-figure income.  That’s why they had the money and connections to build that mega-business.

The one exception I mentioned is borrowing money to spend more than you make IF using that money directly to purchase more recurring revenue with a proven marketing system.  Consider this example:  Reinvest the money into a Facebook marketing campaign.  Pay $1000 to someone like Fiverr or Modeo Media to make a nice video and $300 – $400 on the video.  Then run the math.  Perhaps for every $160 spent, you get a lead.  For every five leads, you get a sale.  Thus, you pay $500 per sale.  Repeat this often enough to be confident with the model.  Then borrow $10,000 so you can buy forty customers.  So, the exception is only if you borrow money to buy customers using a proven marketing system.  In this example, the money will come in right away to pay that debt.  However, don’t borrow money to pay for payroll, some new internet service you want, or new software that is cool.

#2.  Work a certain number of hours every week.  Work on certain things a certain number of hours every week.   This is a constraint that must be in place!  If I ask what hours you work tomorrow or next week, you should be able to answer that right away.  There are times when you may adjust your schedule.  Some need to take that a step further and designate the number of hours spent on each activity which is crucial to your business.  For example, “I work these hours in the field.  I spend this amount of time on the phone prospecting.  I work 25 hours a week walking into businesses I’ve never walked into before.”

Make your box and stay inside it!  To redefine the box is okay.  To get outside the box is NOT okay.  Learn to understand the difference.  The rules and constraints protect you from making stupid decisions, losing tons of money, and ruining your relationships.  Don’t think for a minute that successful people tear down all the walls and constraints in life.  They just make their own rules.  They create their own box.

#3.  Pay yourself as an employee.   Even if you are the only person in your company, create a company and pay yourself as an employee.  You will be amazed what this does to your attitude! 

This is also one key element in knowing if your business is profitable.  Some of you think, “This year I’m going to make $50,000.00 – $100,000.”  That’s a great dream, but make it a goal by deciding how to accomplish it.  Pick an amount of money and make that amount.  Then you can pay yourself a monthly profit distribution if you have extra.  If your business is very profitable, you can make the decision to pay yourself more money!  Talk to your CPA about the best way to structure that for tax advantage.  If you are not an employee of your own company, you are making a huge mistake and are not believing in yourself enough.  Eventually if you want to hire more people and build a larger company, you’ve got to be set up to employ people.  Get a payroll processing service.  Have them pay your taxes.  To be an employee is so nice!

Work a certain number of hours and decide to be profitable every single month.  These are a sample of my rules which may benefit you.  Perhaps you say, “ David, I don’t know about those rules of yours.”  That’s fine; make your own!  Just be sure you have rules, constraints, boundaries.  That, my friends, is the key to your success.

Happy Selling,

David