Sales/Marketing Strategies
Written by Jim Meisenheimer
on 04/2003 - Word Count: 546
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Are you selling what’s “Hot” about your products/services or are you focusing on what’s not hot? You may be surprised to learn you may not know.
I recently read an Article by Jeff Tobe, the author of a great book, called “Coloring Outside The Lines.” In the article Jeff was in a Bagel shop. He spent a total of 45 minutes watching people buy Bagels. Whenever they brought out a new tray of Bagels the staff placed a “Hot” sign in front of the new bagels. Customers seemed to order from the bin of Bagels with the “Hot” sign. The “Hot” sign had a very noticeable impact on sales.
What a brilliant strategy – Jeff thought so and so do I. Sales and marketing doesn’t have to be bland and boring. Instead it should be fun, exciting, and focus on what’s different and unique.
From my vantage point, the key to selling what’s “Hot” should be developed from the customer’s perspective not yours. This perspective should not be based on any assumptions but rather developed and rationalized from strong questioning.
Here are several areas you should understand completely before you even think about selling what’s “Hot.”
Find out what your customers’ challenges are.
Find out what their priorities are – never assume you know them – you have to ask.
Find out what qualities they’re looking for in a particular product/service.
Find out what they’re going to base their buying decision on.
Find out how they will measure success if they started using your product/service.
You can find out all of these things and much more when you ask intelligent and provoking questions.
Here’s a confession – I, like most salespeople, used to believe the purpose of asking questions was to uncover customer needs. While understanding customer needs is important there’s something else that’s even more important in my humble opinion. I believe it’s more important to find out what makes one customer different from another.
Once I find out what’s different about customer A and what’s different about customer B I can then focus my selling effort on those differences. Too often we put labels on too many customers and assume they’re all the same – when they’re really very different.
Imagine a sales strategy that first determines what makes your prospects/customers different from each other and then shows these prospects/customers what make’s you and your products/service unique and different from your competition.
Once you truly understand your customers/prospects you can start thinking about those “Hot signs.”
Here are two questions to ponder to get your creative juices flowing.
1. How can you put little and big “Hot “ signs on your products/services?
2. What do you “Got” that’s “Hot?”
If you sell what’s “Hot” your prospects and customers will buy what you “Got!”
Jim Meisenheimer, CSP, is a professional speaker, sales trainer, and personal coach. He shows salespeople and sales managers how to increase sales, earn more money, have more fun and how to do it all in less time. His newest and fourth book is The 12 Best Questions To Ask Customers. For information about Jim’s Keynote presentations and consulting services,
