Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a ten-part series identifying the best sales techniques for 2016. To view the rest of the series, click here.
70. Clarity breeds success.
"Marketing is about values. It's a complicated and noisy world, and we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us."
— Steve Jobs, co-founder, former chairman and CEO of Apple, Inc.
69. Dive into the data.
"Analyze the heck out of what you do and see what is working," Conner says. Use the following criteria to assess each strategy you consider or deploy:
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Ensure the strategy really will get new prospects' attention.
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Ask what it will cost you to come in contact with each new prospect; think in marginal terms.
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Ask how long it will take you to develop a prospect, once you have met them.
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Ask yourself whether you can systemize each strategy you deploy."
— Randy Conner, president of Churchill Management Group
68. Examine your faults.
"This one is simple: Ask your customers what they want from your brand and how you could do better. Here's the prickly part: Ask for brutal honesty. Positive comments are fantastic, but they don't help you grow your brand into what your market wants. Critiques point out where there's an issue in your service pipeline. This is a large part of how new products and services are born."
— Tabitha Naylor, owner of TabithaNaylor.com
67. How to say the right thing first.
To help yourself think in terms of benefits, rather than product features, "write down each feature, the advantage that feature creates, and the benefit that results from the advantage."
— Joel Zobits, a speaker at the Life Communicators Association annual meeting, in the Oct. 26, 1992, issue of National Underwriter Life & Health
66. Gather information preemptively.
"If you can get a picture of what your clients need before they come into your office, you have an advantage that many advisors don't. Your financial marketing can be targeted exclusively based on what they have showed interest in in the past.
Track activity on your site and interaction with your digital marketing. Keep your fingers on the pulse of your digital presence, and then put faces to names. Start to populate your contact list with clients who have their activities attached to their file.
This should show you things like where they visit most, what they've looked at and other things like that. You'll build a complete map of where each prospect was and when.
By looking at where they spend the most time, and what links they click on most, you can get a general idea of what your pitch might sound like. For example, if a young professional is viewing your retirement strategies most often, you might want to start by talking about what they want to do with their adult life now that it's started and when they want to retire.
For a family who routinely checks your debt management page, you may begin by discussing the benefits of a debt-free lifestyle and how possible it is to achieve. By gathering preemptive information it becomes much easier to create customer-centric marketing."
— Ryan Cook, assistant agent manager, SimplyCast
