Sales Information |
Sell With KISS, As In Keep It Simple, Stupid
One of the most useful and fundamental communications lessons that has been repeated to me over the years, ever since my earliest days of formal business training, is the fabled, famous, and fabulous "KISS" formula. In my college marketing class we were told "Keep It Simple, Stupid!" When I entered my three-month sales-training orientation at New York Telephone way back in 1968, it was a more refined "Keep It Short and Simple." New York Telephone didn't want us recruits to hear negative words like stupid. In Army OCS we were given a variation of KISS. KIFSS wasn't quite as short and simple, but it left its firm, indelible training mark with a greater sense of, uh, military bearing. Even though he was never in the service, I see from recent news items that Veep Dick Cheney has picked up that same military jargon. However we choose to use it, simple messages have the greatest impact. That is why concept slogans like "Intel Inside" are so successful. Think about how the major players in today's highly successful technology sector apply the KISS formu-la. Microsoft simplifies its message in its definitive product names: Word, Office, At Work, Excel. These are all KISS names that don't require you to think too much to figure out what the products are about. If your product or service is not already a household word in your vertical niche market, rather than rely on words like fast and easy, what you really need to convey is a word that you can brand that tells it all. Which brings us to your message. Here's are four steps for simplifying your marketing message and defining your market position. STEP ONE Think of all the things you do and sell as accommodations to meet customer demands, and then work up a more narrowly defined, focused list of those things you prefer to sell to make money. When you get right down to it, you probably offer a lot more products and ser-vices than you want to, but you have to, in order to meet certain customer expectations. This is fine, but let's face it. Unless you're a distributor like Wal-Mart or Costco, you don't really want to promote everything you sell, do you? I know I don't. Loss leaders are not a part of the value-added service niche that we are comfortable with, although dozens of Internet companies are willing to lose money to buy market share in the hopes of selling, not profitable products, but their own stock on Wall Street. I've been read-ing the red-ink quar-terly financials of the latest of these short-term wonders. STEP TWO Determine who your com-petition is and what makes him/her better. Determine why other people buy from him and not from you. How does a fresh competitive analysis assist you in simpli-fying your message and improve your chance of success? First, it's a reality check to determine if you have chosen the right niche to domi-nate, or if you merely are suffering the after-effects of second-hand smoke from Cheech and Chong's cigarettes. (If you don't understand this, ask your folks and I guess I am older than I think). Second, how can you even con-sider communicating a competitive positioning message unless and until you can verbalize what you are competing against? STEP THREE Now, let's discuss what you bring to the marketplace that's newer, cheaper, stronger, better tasting, less filling, fat free, or otherwise truly unique. Under no cir-cumstances are you allowed to say that you "care more" than the com-petition, or that you are "more service oriented". Everybody says that. You are not all things to all people, but you are all things to some people, sort of like Rush Limbaugh or Ralph Nader. You probably fit the same description. If you take the time to write down what you do that is all things to some people, you can take it all the way to the bank. STEP FOUR You've defined your focus, decided where you can't beat the competition, and determined where you can beat them cold. Now tie it up in a neat verbal bundle. Remember, the point of all this is not to see how cute you can write; that's my job. Instead, just try to communicate simply and directly what you do and what you want the reader to do (like call you). Most importantly, don't forget to test your message on the unsuspecting to see if what they read is the same as what you think you wrote. A winning message is one that can be read on Monday and recalled on Tuesday or, dare we hope it, Wednesday. I test my mate-rial out on friends, relatives and the guy who owns the local diner - people not in the business. I figure that if those outside the business can easily understand what I'm talking about without explanation, then I won't have to worry that my message is too obscure or cryptic. That's the heart and soul of the KISS formula. (From "Smart Marketing - What big companies practice and you should learn about marketing branding and business development" by Stan Rosenzweig). About The Author Stan Rosenzweig is a sales trainer, marketing consultant and author. He creates customized corporate sales training and directs strategic marketing, product development and cost management consulting for large and middle sized companies. For ten years, he was senior contributing editor for a major computer trade publication, writing over 120 articles on sales and marketing management. He has published five books, including "Smart Selling", "Smart Telemarketing", and "Smart Marketing" which can be sampled at http://www.salestipwebsite.com. Rosenzweig has written and collaborated in writing of monographs for clients, including "Engineering a Technologically Superior Building", "Technology Construction Planing - Completing The Project Management Mission", and a series of self-paced training courses for specific clients. This article is copyright 2004, Stan Rosenzweig. Reprint permitted only if in entirety with attribution and web address. For more articles go to his website.
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
10 Important Things To Tell Your Prospects Hello everyone, hope your day is going well! I know this one is short but it is very helpful!1. Tell your prospects that you offer free delivery. Four Easy Steps To Building A Powerful Employee Incentive Program Want to build a successful incentive program for your company? Have you dreamt about finding ways to have more fun at work and still see BIG results? At the heart of every employee incentive program is the ability to motivate and reward your team for excellent performance. In this article, I will show you four easy steps to build an incentive program that allows everyone to win!Setting objectives: For any type of employee incentive program, your team must feel the goals are attainable and realistic. 3 Tips For Getting Through The Voicemail Screen How many times have you heard that you gotta get past the gatekeeper and get to the decision-maker to make the sale? Countless books and sales trainers have talked about this for years. Much of this advice was written for a world without voicemail. Value Based Pricing, Not Price Cutting Special Requirements for Reprint: we ask only that you include Paul's name and resource box, and keep all hyperlinks as live links.Complete Article with Resource Box at end:Value Based Pricing, Not Price CuttingThe oldest tactic in the world to get a sale moving is to cut the price. Web Promotion: 10 Amazing Web Promotion Ways To Jump Start Your Sales Hello, do you have a website and sell something on the internet?If yes, may I offer you 10 amazing web promotion secrets to jump start your salesat your website!1. Find a strategic business partner. Complacency and Fear are Sales Busters Prospecting is the engine that propels anyone in sales. Without consistently initiating contact with prospective customers to talk with, your sales will plummet and everybody loses. A Quick and Simple Tip For Gaining Customers In the course of my career, I've had to deal with a lot of vendors-software companies, sensor manufacturers, electronics distributors and more. Some of them have left lasting impressions on me, whereas others have been eminently forgettable. How to Sell High Tech Solutions Many companies are looking to improve upon the speed, security, and accessibility of business technologies, especially satellite and broadband connections to the internet. While customers are becoming more savvy, many don't speak 'tech-ese,' and they still are baffled by terms such as routers, IPSEC, T-1s, WIFI, and broadband. Voice Mail That Sells As a business owner, I receive my share of sales calls in a given month. More often than not, I'm away from my desk or out of the office which means I end up listening to the messages instead of speaking directly with the sales person. What Successful Sellers Know - Others Dont ... The Subtle Art of Closing Ask any salesperson, "At what point in the selling process does the 'Close' take place?" Eight out of ten will answer, "at the End". To be fair, they are not totally incorrect but they are, nevertheless, more wrong than right proving in principle and in practice, Perado's Law: Twenty percent of the sales force make eighty percent of the sales and profitability. How Improve Conversion Rates Do you know your conversion rates? Conversion rate is the number of visitors to your site that take the desired action against the total number of visitors in a particular period or time. Research has shown that 60% of websites do not know their conversion rates. Successfully Selling Your Professional Services As a professional service provider you face special challenges promoting yourself to potential clients. You may have certain restrictions on how you market or advertise. Dont Let Rattlesnakes Scare You Recently I was out trail running along the South Fork of the Yuba River. The Yuba River is in a beautiful canyon running east-west through the middle of Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Sales Brochures - 9 Steps to Success Even in this day of websites, many customers want to look ata brochure or other form of hard copy. It's importanttherefore that your brochure tells the customer all theyneed to know. Now Is A Great Time To Sell! Its official. The news just came out. Hate Follow-Up Phone Calls To Hot Prospects Who Won't Call You Back? Stop Calling! We all learned in Sales 101 we must follow up with our prospects until they buy. Unfortunately, while we're busy trying to make all these follow-ups, some very fine prospects who are ready to buy now are flying under our radar. Define Your Best Customer To be more effective at developing relationships, one should always take time to describe their best customer. This is the customer that gives you the biggest bang for your buck. Improve Your Sales Closing Ratio Occasionally EGOPOWER readers send me questions or topic suggestions that I feel would be of interest to you. In this issue I give some tips to improve your sales closing ratio in response to a question Rob Smith wrote me from the UK: "I sell IT equipment to schools in the UK over the phone. Asking The Right Questions On an introductory call, how do you gather all of the information that you need from a prospect? An introductory call is usually fairly short, just a few minutes. You generally do not have the time to thoroughly question your prospect and then also move on to your next step, setting that introductory meeting. Whats the Secret to Repeat Business? When you think about ways to gain repeat business from your customers, you probably turn your thoughts to marketing efforts such as advertising, public relations and other means that will allow you to repeatedly be seen. However, without one particular element included in your plan, your efforts to entice customers to buy over and over will fail. |
home | site map | contact us |