Value Added Selling

Christiaan Janssens
Executive Coach
CRO @ Spa Akwa Belgium

What's your definition of value?

Christiaan Janssens
Executive Coach
CRO @ Spa Akwa Belgium

Cross-Selling

Christiaan Janssens
Executive Coach
CRO @ Spa Akwa Belgium

The War between Sales and Marketing

The War between Sales and Marketing (and how to end it).

In too many companies there is a fight between Sales and Marketing. Salespeople accuse marketers of being out of touch with what customers really want or setting prices too high. Marketers insist that salespeople focus too much on individual customers and short-term sales at the expense of longer term profits. The result is poor coordination between the two teams which only raises market-entry costs, lengthens sales cycles, and increases cost of sales.

How to get your sales and marketing teams to start working together? Kotler, Rackham, and Krishnaswamy recommend crafting a new relationship between them, one with the right degree of interconnection to tackle your most pressing business challenges. For example, is your market becoming more commoditized or customized? If so, align Sales and Marketing through frequent, disciplined cross-functional communication and joint projects. Is competition becoming more complex than ever? Then fully integrate the teams, by having them share performance metrics and rewards and embedding marketers deeply in management of key accounts. Create the right relationship between Sales and Marketing, and you reduce squabbling, enabling these former combatants to boost top and bottom line growth, together.

How interconnected should your Sales and Marketing teams be? Determine their existing relationship, then strengthening interconnection if conditions warrant.

Christiaan Janssens
Executive Coach

CRO @ Spa Akwa Belgium

10 Time Management Tips For Sales Professionals

Top 10 Time Management Tips For Sales Professionals

1. ABS – Always Be Scheduling.

Schedule your tasks and block time to complete them. Also, leave yourself some free time at the end of the day to complete unexpected tasks or to complete tasks that took longer than expected earlier in the day.

2. MITF – Most Important Tasks First.

You are more likely to complete challenging tasks early in the day versus the end of the day when your productivity levels and focus have decreased.

3. Focus On One Thing At A Time.

You will get more done and produce higher quality work.

4. Don't Confuse Being Busy With Being Productive.

Focus on what makes the greatest impact on your bottom line sales results.

5. Schedule Mini-Breaks.

Block out 15 minutes multiple times per day for a break. Your focus and productivity will increase.

6. Shut Off All Technology Distractions.

Turn off  your smart phones, IM, chat, and email alerts when you need to focus on a task. This will not always apply, but try it out for certain time blocks and see how much more you get done.

7. Schedule Times To Check Your Email & Voicemail.

This will give you more time in the day to get things done. Remember, you don't have to be available every minute of the day...In fact, that just will slow you down.

8. Determine Where You Are Wasting Time.

Start tracking any activities daily that you find are wasting your time. Then, eliminate one item at a time.

9. Just Say "No"

Learn to say "No" to requests that get you off-track.

10. Set Deadlines For Yourself.

Give yourself a certain amount of time to complete tasks and your work for the day. With a set stop time, you will be forced to get more done before you reach the finish line.

Drs. Christiaan Janssens MBA
Executive Coach CJ Coaching
CRO Akwa Wellness

Cross-selling and up-selling

Cross-selling and up-selling

Cross-selling is the action or practice of selling among or between clients, markets, traders, etc. or the action or practice of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer. This article deals exclusively with the latter meaning. In practice, businesses define cross-selling in many different ways. Elements that might influence the definition might include the size of the business, the industry sector it operates within and the financial motivations of those required to define the term.

The objectives of cross-selling can be either to increase the income derived from the client or clients or to protect the relationship with the client or clients. The approach to the process of cross-selling can be varied.

Up-selling is a sales technique whereby a seller induces the customer to purchase more expensive items, upgrades, or other add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale. Up-selling usually involves marketing more profitable services or products but can also be simply exposing the customer to other options that were perhaps not considered previously. Up-selling implies selling something that is more profitable or otherwise preferable for the seller instead of, or in addition to, the original sale.

The difference between up-selling and cross-selling are fairly nuanced, which is why many sales reps and marketers talk about cross selling and up-selling as a single discipline. Philosophically, when sales reps up sell, they convince your customers to increase the value of their orders (both to you and to them) by:

- Moving up to a more expensive version of what they're already considering purchasing (e.g., the six cylinder vehicle instead of the four cylinder, upgrading from economy to business class for a flight, a 42” TV instead of a 40”)

- Adding to their orders with additional vertically related products or services (e.g., "Would you like fries with that?", extended warranty, DVD player to go with the TV, paper to go with a printer, a hands free car kit to go with a mobile phone)

Vertically related are products or services that enhance or are related to the core or base product. A cross-sell refers to sales of another product/service type horizontally related (i.e., another type of product/service usually orthogonally related if at all) to what you're already considering. For instance, when one purchases a new vehicle and the car salesman encourages the buyer to use the manufacturer's auto financing capabilities... Another cross selling example is when one calls the reservation centre of an airline and at the end of the call the agent asks if buyer needs a rental car at the destination, and if so, he/she would be delighted to connect him/her to one of their car rental partners.

How to up-sell

A little not a lot

Up-sell works better when there’s only a small difference in price between the item that you’re suggesting your customer purchases and the product they’re looking at. Otherwise it can be as successful as convincing someone who’s taken a second hand Toyota Corolla for a test drive that they should purchase a Porsche instead.

Match key features

Up-sell works best when the key features of the product are kept the same.

Be brand aware

For some products, a customer considering a particular brand is more likely to up-sell to products by the same brand. This is relevant for cross sell as well. Sure, that Canon lens does fit the model of Sony camera your customer’s looking at, but they are much more likely to purchase a Sony lens for their Sony camera. If they’re considering a Nokia phone you’ll probably have more luck up-selling them to the next model up also by Nokia.

Benefits count

When trying to persuade your customer to spend more, make sure you clearly spell out the benefits of upgrading from what they were originally considering.

How to cross-sell

Choose carefully

Certain products work better than others for cross-sell. Think like your local supermarket.

Watch the price

Cross-sell works better when the suggested items are half price or lower than the item being purchased.

Relate

Products that naturally go together work better for cross sell.

Higher price

Cross sell tends to be more effective when the original product is higher priced or requires more thought. Cross sell is less successful when trying to convince a customer to spend extra when they were going to buy a lower cost item.

The Triangle of Trust and Respect

Trust and Respect in an Organization

If an organization is lacking trust and respect then leadership, group initiative and creativity suffer. A manager has to provide an environment to develop this through straight talk, listening and making commitments.

The Howard Jackson Model for systematically building trust and respect is a repeatable series of steps that build on from each other in sequence to establish better collaboration.

At the bottom of the pyramid one starts with Straight Talk, and move through the steps of Listening for Understanding, Making Commitments, being Reliable, creating Trust, and then finally earning Respect.

Straight Talk

Open and direct communication is the first building block for trust and respect.

Straight-talk is the product of thoughtful caring relationships built upon trust by people committed to looking out for one another’s success. It entails much more than let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may candor and blunt start-to-finish honesty. And, it’s not brought about by cat-and-mouse, testing-the-waters conversation that evolves into a tell-it-straight, see if you can get the other person to reciprocate discussion. Straight-talk is a caring, other-sensitive, candor-on-demand, loyalty-producing, intimacy-escalating, give-and-take relationship leading to enhanced personal and organizational productivity.

Listening for Understanding

Focus your attention on understanding the meaning behind what people are saying. There is a big difference between waiting for your turn to speak and really listening. Hear, Understand, Interpret, and then Respond.

Organizational Commitment

The concept of organizational commitment refers to a person's affective reactions to

characteristics of his employing organization. It is concerned with feelings of attachment to

the goals and values of the organization, one's role in relation to this, and attachment to the

organization for its own sake rather than for its strictly instrumental value. As a positive

outcome of the quality of work experience, the concept can be regarded as a factor contributing to subjective well-being at work.

Be clear about what you will do. Agree on the What, By When, By Whom, and How steps. Communicate your intentions and stick to them.

Reliability

Do what you say you will do without fail. If circumstances have changed and it no longer makes sense to do what you said you would do, communicate back and explain why, and discuss and agree on the new steps.  Follow through over-and-over, be reliable, unfailing, dependable.

Trust

Trust as a common word in ordinary language retains much of that meaning when

employed as a concept in social science. It refers to the extent to which one is

willing to ascribe good intentions to and have confidence in the words and actions of other

people. This willingness will in turn atffect the way in which one behaves towards others.

Trust between individuals and groups within an organization is a highly important ingredient in the long-term stability of the organization and the well-being of its members.

Trust results from the firm belief that another person can be relied upon. Trust is the result of straight talk, making sure you understand and are understood, and keeping confidences as well as commitments.

Respect

Although there are many levels of respect, the respect that follows trust leads to deep esteem for another person. We value their thoughts and input, and we know we can count on them because they have proven themselves out to us.

"Managing with Respect" is the way people put the company values into action.

It is creating an environment where people feel free to offer suggestions, contribute ideas and make contributions to the organization.

"Managing with Respect" creates an environment where people genuinely care about each other and work well together to reach their full potential.

The "Managing with Respect" principles are:

- Communicate Effectively

- Give and Seek Feedback

- Value Unique Contributions

- Promote Teamwork

- Set the Example

Establishing trust and respect can build tremendous support for goals, and likewise losing trust and respect puts us back at the beginning and the process has to start again.

Christiaan Janssens
Executive Coach
CRO @ Spa Akwa Belgium