What an Andy Warhol Painting Taught Me About Marketing

I loved visiting The British Museum in London a few weeks ago. Other than the original Rosetta Stone, this painting caught my eye the most. It's Andy Warhol's painting called $9. (It stuck out among the 500+ year old artifacts in the museum). The obvious name is why it is so memorable to me.

Focusing on the obvious will make your business memorable. You'd think it would be easy to focus on the obvious because...it's so obvious. But it's easier said than done. You don't always need slicked out über clever strategies.  Here are 3 ways to focus on the obvious:

1. Let  your customers tell  you how to market to them.  Ask your customers how they found you, who referred you and why they called you. Invite them to tell you what they think of your product/business using social media campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Customers love to tell you what they think and if you listen - they'll tell you the best way to attract them.
2. Let your customers market for you. My previous blog on this topic outlines how you can use your vendors and suppliers to market for you. Treat them like customers because they are good referral sources. Also, encourage your customers to blog, tweet and post on social media sites about your business. Respond to them online - both their good and bad comments.  Reward them for their posts by providing an offer or link to a coupon on your website.  Your customers are likely to post unique ways of using your product/service that others haven't discovered.
3. Make it simple. Can you explain your product or service in a sentence or two? Simplifying a complex issue makes it easier for people to make a decision. There was a time 10 years ago when constructing a complex proposal would justify charging a higher price. But customers, even the savvy ones, have shorter attention spans now and won't weed through complex rhetoric.  Simplify the problem your product or service solves. And simplify the product/service you provide.

Strive for authenticity and simplicity and you will be focusing on the obvious.

The Brown Shirt Marketing Lesson - Part 2

In my last blog post called The Brown Shirt Marketing Lesson I revealed a recent "run-in" I'd had at my dry cleaners. I thought it only appropriate to tell you how the situation was resolved.

When I arrived at the dry cleaners to pick up my brown shirt - it wasn't there! (This was after I had received a phone call 2 days prior telling me to come pick up my shirt by Friday or they were going to donate it to charity).   Apparently my dry cleaner transports clothing drop-offs to another location for cleaning and then transports them back to my location. My shirt was at this other store location.

Imagine how smug you feel when you find out someone who has admonished you for something is actually wrong. When I went back a day later to finally pick up my brown shirt, guess what?? No charge! I was told, "Ms. Jones, we are so sorry for your inconvenience. We didn't handle this properly and the person who called you to come get your shirt was rude. No charge for this." Way to go for handling this correctly!!!

I'm sure you know what happened here - a supervisor told an employee to get rid of the excess dry cleaning  and the employee picked up the phone and started calling people.  The supervisor probably mentioned that left over items would be donated to charity but didn't take think about coaching the employee on the best way to handle the phone calls with customers.

This brings up the most cliche of all business lessons: Never lose touch with your customers.   People who have money to pay you take priority over cleaning out inventory, filing paperwork, building a display, or any other pressing business matters (no pun intended!).

The Brown Shirt Marketing Lesson

My old dry cleaners called me to today. I think it was their version of a courtesy call. Here's how it went:

     "Ms. Jones, we have a brown shirt
      here and you need to pick it up by
      Friday or we are donating it to charity."

What I said with every ounce of sarcasm I could muster:

      "Wow, that is so GENEROUS of you
        to hold on to my shirt until Friday.
        Thank you SO much."

I'm not proud of being sarcastic but the call really made me mad.  It solidified my decision not to use this dry cleaners again.

I'll call the dry cleaners "B." After being a 15-year loyal "B" customer I recently decided to try another dry cleaners because "B" removed the standing 20% discount they had been giving me for the entire 15 years.  And less than 2 weeks later I receive this "courtesy call."

All they had to say is:

      "Ms. Jones, you still have a brown shirt here.  We think we missed giving it
       to you last time you were here. Do you think you can pick it up this week?" 

If the person had worded the call this way I would've been sincerely grateful for her call.  And I wouldn't be as irritated about the 48 hour notice to pick up my shirt.

However, I had been wondering where my brown shirt was...

How to Boost Sales Fast

During the holiday season I get overcommitted, overtired and overwhelmed with all that needs to be done. It's the same feeling you have when your sales are down and you are trying get them up - fast!  You feel the urge to make cold calls, take customers to lunch, ask for more referrals, create email campaigns, order promotional products, print more brochures, start a new social media campaign, advertise in the newspaper... and you feel the need do these all at once!

What I've learned from helping people market their businesses for the last 8 years is that to recover from a sales slump or help to avoid one you must choose 1 or 2 marketing initiatives and do them really well, consistently, over a long period of time.  Marketing is a marathon not a sprint.  Spending your time exhausting every marketing channel will leave you tired and burned out after a few months. Timing and consistency are more important.

However, Christmas shopping for me tends to be a sprint! :)

Honesty Can Cost You a Sale

I used to love Flu season...especially a really bad one!

When I worked for a medical diagnostic company one of the diagnostic tests I sold was for the Flu. Every September the company would have a big promotion for customers on Flu test kits where they could prepurchase tests prior to the Flu season hitting and receive a substantial discount.  This promotion was also a contest for the sales reps.  The reps who sold the most Flu test kits were highlighted every week and received a nice bonus at the end of the promotion.

One of my best accounts had a new lab manager and placed a huge order.  I knew it was too large of an order based on the prior Flu season. Even though the order would've made me a "shoe-in" winner of the sales contest I talked the lab manager out of his order. I convinced him to order fewer Flu tests because he could end up having unused product left over at the end of the Flu season.  This was a counterproductive move in the world for most salespeople (and even my boss). But, the lab manager appreciated my honesty and subsequently refused to talk to any of my competitors about their products.

Customers appreciate honesty. Being honest with your customers can cost you business - but only temporarily.  Dishonesty will cost you business - permanently.

Here's to a bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) Flu season!

3 Ways to Know When You Are Being Used & What to Do About It

Quick note: This blog post may sound cynical - which I am not. :)

Customers use sales people. They use you to educate them about your product/service, they use you to help them get the best deal and they use you to help solve their problem. All are understandable reasons to be used. Proceed with caution if you are being used for reasons that aren't so justifiable such as:

1. A prospect asks you to bid work/provide a proposal  but refuses to meet with you in person to allow you to present your proposal. You can be tipped off to this type of "using" because when you ask the prospect questions up front about his needs he is vague or short with his answers.  In this case, the prospect has already decided to work with your competitor.  You are being used to provide an additional bid to help your prospect negotiate a better deal with your competitor. Or, the company may have a requirement to get 3 bids before awarding a contract and they are only trying to satisfy that requirement.
   
   What to do:  Tell the prospect you need to hand deliver the proposal and meet with him.  Most salespeople hold out hope that we can persuade the prospect in favor of our proposal. If you know you are being used, it is acceptable to decline to bid. You might say, "Thank you for inviting us to provide a proposal but we feel that what we provide isn't a good fit for your needs."


2. A prospect (who is not a customer) calls and asks you for tickets that your company gives out to customers for a professional sporting event, like a Dallas Cowboys football game.
   
   What to do: Invite the prospect to go with you as your guest (include spouses if appropriate). This will give you a chance to develop a relationship with the prospect.  Just giving the tickets away won't help you gain business in the future.


3. A prospect requests a quote with a detailed proposal because he isn't sure what he needs. In this case you are being used for free consulting. The  prospect will take your proposal, mark out your price and give it to other companies to bid the same work.
   
   What to do: Give the prospect the benefit of the doubt. Sell your capability and benefits by providing a really good proposal - and, if possible, include requirements you offer that you know your competition isn't capable of providing.

When getting used in these ways, customers are taking advantage of you, wasting your time and don't have legitimate intentions. It happens to all salespeople. Use these experiences to help you determine the most effective way to spend your time to boost your own sales.  Work twice as hard to keep your existing customers satisfied as you do to attract new business.

What Marketing Is Not

Marketing is the science behind growing your business. Many business owners think marketing is advertising and brochures.  If they designate money for newspaper or TV ads and design a nice brochure then marketing is complete - right? Well...not really.

I majored in Marketing in college and never took one advertising class. Then I worked in sales for over 15 years and never reported to anyone in the Marketing Department. And no on in the Marketing Department ever closed a deal.

Many business owners think you have to be creative to work in Marketing. Interestingly, the highest percentage of my Marketing college courses were based in statistical analysis with considerable quantitative measurements (i.e. lots of math!).

After 20+ years of working in what most people would call "Marketing" I can tell you what marketing is not:

• Marketing is not sales calls.  The objective of a sales call is to convince a buyer to give you money for what you provide.  Marketing is what supports you on your call - brochures, name recognition and a decent product or service to sell.


• Marketing is not free stuff with your logo on it. Promotional products provide name recognition, are fun to hand out and everyone is glad to take them  from you - this doesn't mean they like your product or that they will ever buy anything from you.


• Marketing is not a project you finish. It's a long term, systematic, intentional effort.  Don't confuse true marketing with short-term campaigns that focus on certain product offerings.


• Marketing is not just for creative types. Consistency is more important than creativity in marketing.


• Marketing is not what you do when you aren't busy. I've heard business owners say that they never have time to do "marketing" and that they will start doing it when business slows down. This is precisely the wrong time because marketing is a long-term process. If marketing is done correctly and consistently, you can prevent the peaks and valleys in your business cycle. 

What Not to Say on a Sales Call

A sales representative from a very popular social networking website recently called me selling advertising.  I work as a marketing and booking manager for professional speakers and I'm frequently the first point of contact for sales people who are marketing to my clients.  I also help my clients figure out the best ways to market themselves.

This particular sales person gave me her spiel and I listened patiently. After all, I can empathize with her.  I asked a few questions and she gave me vague answers. So I asked what sales people hate - I asked for the cost right up front so that I could get a straight answer.  Her response was, "Are you the decision maker? Do you have the final say?"

 Riipppppp - I could hear the needle ripping off a record player and my defenses immediately went up. This is a question all sales people want to know the answer to - but how you learn the answer takes skill. My answer, through gritted teeth, was, "No. My. Client. Makes. The. Final. Decision. But I will be the one learning about what you are selling and I'll be the one you end up working with on this." 

The sales person had made a mistake - she insulted the influencer. She insinuated that I might not be worth her time or that I didn't have authority in the buying decision. I immediately (and amateurishly) thought, "I'll show you."

Actually, I plan on finding out more from this salesperson so that I can advise my client accordingly. However, it was a lesson to me, as one who frequently makes sales calls, about what NOT to say.

Do Funny People Sell More?

This Jordin Sparks commercial cracks me up:
 

I love funny TV commercials and even though I can recite the commercial later - I don't always remember what the ad was selling. However, the goal is for the product to be memorable - not just the ad.

Does humor really increase your sales? The stereotypical salesperson is usually funny, wouldn't you agree? He/she has a good personality, is outgoing and knows how to get a laugh and when to laugh. But I believe there are certain businesses where humor can decrease sales such as:

• Financial services
• Accounting services
• Medical facilities
• Physicians (except maybe a pediatrician!)
• Mental health services
• Banking institutions

The above businesses are dealing with serious or confidential issues. Customers may interpret humor as too casual or informal for the the private nature of the services being provided.

While humor is a way of creating common ground with others and diffusing conflict, it has to be used properly. Stay away from:

• Off color language
• Racial or politically charged humor
• Gender-biased humor

At the root of why funny people sell more is that to be funny - you have to be smart, quick-witted and able to process information quickly which are qualities of successful salespeople. Good salespeople understand the importance of timing, which is also a key element of being funny. But mainly, funny people sell more because they are better looking which causes more people to buy from them. (Did you catch my humor? Bloggers can be funny too!)

A Nail Salon that Missed the Point

Who do you think this sign is advertising? Yep - Kroger! And the nail salon directly behind the sign is missing a nice advertising opportunity.

Marketing research shows that any mention of your name or product, whether positive or negative, can increase brand awareness and sales.

One of the largest neuromarketing research studies ever conducted studied the effect of tobacco warning labels and warning ads on the behavior of smokers. Even though most smokers checked "yes" when asked if tobacco warning labels worked, brain scan results (using the fMRI) showed that cigarette warning labels activated the nucleus accumbens in the brain, also known as the "craving spot," and encouraged people to light up. One of the largest anti-smoking campaigns ever actually caused an increase in cigarette sales.

In the case of the parking lot sign, I argue that this is a subliminal ad for Kroger. Kind of like when an actor pops a Coke can in a movie and you suddenly feel the need to run to the snack bar. And kind of like this sign in Florida made me want to do the opposite of what it said. But it also makes the nail salon look a little bitter. Do you really think a women going to her nail appointment is not going to come in because the parking space directly in front of the salon is taken?

Instead the sign should say, "Not Nail Salon Advertising."

Don't Call Me, I'll Call You

...Isn't the motto of the local Ulta store. I called them recently asking for a certain type of mascara and the store employee told me, "I don't know if we have it. Call me back in 10 minutes." Unbelievable.

It was almost like I was calling to see if a friend can come over and play. Remember when you were 8 and you'd call a friend and they'd say, "Let me ask my mom. Call me back in 10 minutes."

I chalked up this experience to lack of employee training at the store. Certainly if the owner (or someone who felt ownership) answered they would have said, "Let me check and call you back. What's your number?"

It brings up a point about being in sales - your customers are doing YOU the favor, not the reverse. No matter how hard you work to provide your customer with what he/she needs, how much you have to go out of your way for them or how many strings you have to pull - they are still doing you a favor. Keep that in mind.

Pride Goeth Before a Fall & Other Ways to Increase Sales

As a business owner you have pride in what you do, right? Maybe not the boastful, in your face, "talk to the hand" kind of pride - but strong confidence in your work and products.

And I know we struggle with infusing the same pride into our employees. To them, it's "just a job" but to us it's our life. There's a gazillion management books (and I love reading them) on ways to create engaged employees who take pride in their work.

Have you ever thought about how to instill the same pride in your customers? Wouldn't it be great if your customers were proud to say they worked with you? Or proud that they used your product? And bragged about it or flaunted it!

Some companies market themselves on this very principle - to evoke status and pride within their customers. Rolex, BMW, and David Yurman are a few examples of high end products that people are proud to have. Recently I was interviewed for a SmartMoney article about the Martha Stewart brand being sold in J.C. Penney stores. Experts argue that if customers have confidence in what they are buying then they don't need a brand name.

Here are products and services I'm proud to use and why:

• My dentist and physician. (They are different people!). I've been going to both of them for 15 years. Both have had the same hygienist/nurse the entire time. Both doctors are involved in the community and I read about the philanthropic things they do in local publications. This makes me proud.
  


• Kwik Kar Oil Change. One time I went in for a State Inspection and I didn't have my current insurance card. It was because I had been in a car accident and just gotten my car back without replacing all my glove box contents. The mechanic called my insurance company and verified my insurance was current and then proceed to inspect my car. This saved me tons of time and made me proud.
  


• Scott Tissue. I can always find a coupon to use when buying it to save $.50 - $1.00 plus they participate in Box Tops for Education, which means they donate $.10 for every package I buy to my kids' school. This makes me proud.
  

Instill pride in your customers by:

• Being involved in your community


• Going way out of your way for them


• Providing a good deal on price


• Showing social responsibility

How You Can Make Customers Feel Like It's Black Friday Every Day of the Week

1. Be too busy to greet your customers when they enter your place of business.
2. Make sure customers have to wait to make their purchase or talk to you about their needs.
3. Let your phone ring 5 or 6 times - don't be in a hurry to answer it. Better yet, let calls go to voicemail so you can listen to them later.
4. Make sure people feel anxious and in a hurry when they arrive at your place of business. Let them know that you have other things to do.
5. Put off training new employees on how to help customers or how to make customer needs a priority. After all, your employees have a particular job to do and don't need to be sidetracked by helping customers or clients.
6. Be rigid with your product or service offerings. You really don't have time to accommodate any special client needs.

I'm glad Black Friday is only one day a year. Make sure it doesn't last any longer than one day at your business.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sales Formula that Will Work

We all want to know "THE" formula to boost sales. There are so many formula options with combinations of Facebook pages, twitter, advertising, direct mail, brochures, event sponsorships, phone calls, promotional products, blogging, websites...and the list goes on.

If you just knew the right formula to invest your time and money then life would be good!

Here's the only formula that I know will work: consistency. Select 2 or 3 ways to market (or more if you can) and do them consistently over time. Quantity of your messages is just as important as the quality of your messages. Don't blow your entire marketing budget on one big campaign. Instead, do several smaller campaigns consistently over time.

So...

If you use Facebook to market your business, use it consistently.
If you do direct mail mail outs to market your business, do it consistently.
If you advertise to increase your sales, do it consistently.

And don't forget, you must do a good job and/or produce a good product - consistently.

Why You Need Mad Customers

Today my family ate lunch at one of our favorite after-church restaurants and I ordered "the usual." This time it wasn't cooked properly. It's a fish dish and initially I thought the fish was bad. Then I realized that the fish wasn't bad -it was still raw (and it's not a sushi restaurant!). Without going into the details, I didn't like the way the restaurant handled my complaint. They handled it poorly. I could have caused a big scene and made demands on the manager and wait staff. Instead I'm choosing to do what will affect the restaurant's bottom line the most - I won't ever go back.

Just because you don't have customers complaining doesn't mean you have happy customers. If customers are yelling at you, at least they are still talking to you and you might have an opportunity to win them back over. And they may even have valid complaints that your "silent but deadly" customers never told you.

Keep this in mind the next time one of your customers gets angry with you.

How Not Feeding the Seagulls Can Increase Sales

On a recent trip to Panama City Beach in Florida I saw this sign, "Please...Don't Feed The Seagulls." It was posted near our restaurant table where we had a beautiful ocean view.

Guess what this sign made me think about? Yep- feeding the seagulls. I probably wouldn't have thought about throwing food out to the birds, but seeing the sign all of a sudden gave me the idea of feeding them!

And come to find out, I'm probably not the only one.

In his book, Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Martin Lindstrom introduces the concept of neuromarketing. Using brain scans scientists monitor brain responses to certain products and ads. In an extensive 3 year study he researched the effects of cigarette warning labels and anti-smoking ads on smokers' behavior. While smokers claimed that warning labels were effective in curbing their smoking habits, it was discovered that anti-smoking ads stimulated an area of the smokers' brains called the nucleus accumbens, also known as the "craving spot." In other words, cigarette warning labels didn't deter smoking. Instead the labels actually increased a smoker's physical craving to smoke and encouraged them to light up.

As a business trying to jazz up your sales Lindstrom's study tells me this:

• What customers say they want isn't always what they really want.


• A suggestion you make to a customer can have the opposite effect of what you intended.


• Your customer may not truly know why he/she bought from you.


• Focus groups and customer surveys may be a waste of time (gasp!)

Be mindful of what you are selling. Your customers do have choices - they can buy from you or someone else. However, it's up to you to decide what your services include and what your product offerings are. Allowing your customers to totally dictate how your product works or service is delivered can actually decrease your sales.

What Shopping Malls Won't Tell You

I enjoyed being interviewed by Jonnelle Marte about my recent mall shopping experience a few weeks ago. The article is called 10 Things Shopping Malls Won't Tell You and was published in SmartMoney.

After reading her article it's hard to figure out what a shopping mall can do to generate more traffic. I've found that many times retail employees don't know much about the products in the store and sometimes don't really care to help me. So it's better for me to do my research online about what I'm buying and then take the next easiest step and just buy what I need online.

But I do feel nostalgic for the shopping malls of the 80's. It was fun to get dressed up with my girlfriends and go hang out for the day or take a mother/daughter trip to a mall a little out of the way.

My first job was at a retail store in the mall. I worked there all through high school and one summer during college. The mall was always busy and I took my job seriously. It was tiring being on your feet all day, dealing with customers of all types, having a boss that was burned out and then getting up the next day and doing the exact same thing. Seems like that may be how malls feel now - tired and worn out.

What Tennis and Sales Have in Common

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, England. While on a family vacation we had a free day and decided to take the Tube (our version of the subway) to the tennis grounds just to walk around. Much to our surprise we were able to see players warming up and were able to watch a few junior matches and women's matches. Here's a picture of Andy Murray warming up that I snapped (just to prove I was really there!).

What impressed me the most was the intense focus the players had on what they were doing.
-- Making a sale takes focus and keeping your eye on the ball.

The players made every shot their best shot possible.
-- Making a sale requires knowing your product & what you have to offer so that every customer conversation helps to advance your position.

You can have all the tools to be a good tennis player (shoes, racquet, etc.) plus skill and athletic ability but no player can predict where each ball hit will go.
-- Making a sale requires preparing for the unexpected.

Players study their opponents strengths and weaknesses.
-- Making a sale is dependent on you knowing what you have to offer versus your competition.

If a player breaks the rules or is unsportsmanlike he loses the point.
-- Making a sale has unwritten rules of integrity and honesty. Break this rule and you'll pay the price in the form of unhappy customers, a bad public image and lost business.

The 5th P of Marketing: Planet

I know not all small business owners are Marketing geeks like me, but if you've studied Marketing you've heard of the 4 P's: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. About 20 years ago I majored in Marketing in college and the 4 P's were ingrained in every paper I wrote and every project I completed.

I recently read a thought-provoking article in the Spring 2011 edition of @Mays published by the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University called "Marketing 3.0." In this article, author Philip Kotler discusses value-driven marketing that focuses on profits, people and planet.

And that's when the 5th P occurred to me: Planet. This is how your business strives to make the world a better place. It takes "Cause Marketing," which I blogged on a few years ago, a step further. Cause Marketing is aligning your company with a nonprofit cause, like a health food store and the American Diabetes Association, so that your company can enjoy additional PR and exposure from contributing to the cause.

According to Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsico “Many companies focus on the financial performance and have forgotten the fact that they owe every society that they operate in a duty of care." Marketers today must consider how their product, service, brand, company and employees impact the planet in the following ways:

1. Sustainability. "How can we design and build a world in which the Earth thrives and people can pursue flourishing lives," is how the MIT Sloan Management Review defines sustainability. When the notion of sustainability first began hitting corporate America the focus was on regenerative byproducts, carbon footprints and the environment. For example, Kimberly-Clark recently revealed their 2015 Sustainability Goals as follows:
   
   • 25% reduction in water use and maintain quality of discharge
   • 100% certified fiber
   • 5% absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
   • Zero manufacturing waste to landfill
   
   Furniture store IKEA recently developed a Sustainability Product Score Card so they can stock the greenest shelves, couches, chairs, and tables possible. It doesn't rate suppliers but instead rates products.


2. Going green. Greener offices, work spaces and supplies are ways non-manufacturing businesses focus on the planet. A few examples are:
   
• Carpooling
• Recycling and placing recycle bins in high traffic office areas
• Going paperless when possible
• Work from home days
• Energy efficient lights and light fixtures
• Turning off lights and computers at the end of the day
• Making 2-sided copies
• Using non-toxic, "green" cleaning products or requiring your janitorial vendor to use them


3. Philanthropreneurship: With "Cause Marketing" corporations partner with a nonprofit to help build both brands. Philanthropreneurship, also known as sustainable philanthropy, builds social responsibility into the brand. (I first saw the term in this article in the Spring 2011 edition of @Mays.)
   
   Think TOMS Shoes - who for every pair you purchase will donate a pair of shoes to a child in need "One for One." Social responsibility is integrated into the TOMS business model. And it pays off. According to the Edelman "Goodpurpose" survey of 6,000 consumers, aged 18-64, across 61 percent in the United States, buyers have a better opinion of corporations that integrate good causes into their business, regardless of the reasons why they do so.

Why is the 5th P so important? People want to feel good about their purchases. Protecting the planet is more economical in the long run. It connects people to your product or service by sharing values. And it boosts another P: Profit!

The Power of the Stall - What I Learned from Burning my Eyelashes Off

I burned my eyelashes off! It happened so fast.

I was cooking on the gas stove while wearing a terry cloth robe when my left sleeve brushed across a flame and caught the sleeve on fire. To put it out I began brushing the fire with my right hand which then caught my right sleeve on fire. Realizing that was dumb, I calmly ran outside, threw my robe on the ground and watched the flames die out. Then I returned to the kitchen and finished cooking breakfast. The event was, in fact, completely uneventful. But my daughter did ask, "Mom, what's that smell?"

Later that morning, when applying mascara, I realized something wasn't right. My eyelashes weren't just extra short - they were gone. I had burned my eyelashes off. It was then I freaked out. A delayed reaction set in where I began to panic with what might have happened. My heart started to race as I went through the possible scenarios and horrific outcomes of catching myself on fire!

Thankfully I was able to stall my panic until the fire was out which helped me manage the situation better. This leads me to a concept I call the Power of the Stall. To increase sales stalling can be an important tactic. It's true that sales people want to speed up the sale and buyers tend to stall the sale. But here's how to use the Power of the Stall to jazz up your sales:

• To make a sale you need to be a quick thinker. But sometimes in our haste to "cut a deal" we make a decision with costly ramifications. Be careful about making quick pricing decisions especially. I once sold a product below cost because I thought the customer would buy other full priced products from me. They never did.


• Knee jerk reactions can be costly and hard to undo. When a traumatic event occurs in your business, the knee jerk reaction can be to overreact. I once worked for a company where a driver had a car accident in a company vehicle and so they took away all the company vehicles. The backlash from this was costly - valuable employees quit and went to work for the competitor and morale was the pits for years.


• Stalling gives you a chance to think through the best way to respond. Use the excuse that you need to check with your boss or your operations manager before committing to a sale. This is a legitimate reason to stall in the customer's eyes and it will give you time to think about what is best for your business.