The Wendy Weapon

The Attitude Issue

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:08:00 +0000

Are surly young salespeople ruining your business? Is lack of personal service driving your customers to shop on the internet instead of with you?

It seems like you just can’t hire good help these days. A recent Australian study conducted for International Customer Service Professionals* reveals that more than half the population believes that customer service levels have declined over the past five years and they lay the blame firmly at the feet of young retail workers.

The 521 Australian consumers surveyed cited poor staff attitudes, problems with overseas call centres, and a lack of professionalism and product knowledge as the biggest causes of consumer dissatisfaction, with lousy attitudes from young retail workers the standout problem identified by most of those surveyed.

Now those customers might have blamed young retail workers for their poor attitudes but we know better, don’t we? If your staff has attitude problems, then whose problem is it really? I’m not suggesting that management are solely responsible for the attitudes of Gen Y workers, but management are definitely responsible for how they tackle the problem.

Judging from appearances, an awful lot of retail managers have their heads firmly buried in the sand when it comes to addressing the attitude issue and let’s face it, there’s lots to hide from. Attitude is such a personal thing and if there’s one thing this generation is really good at, it’s standing up for their personal rights. How then do you deal with a lousy attitude without falling foul of your worker’s right to feel as surly, lacklustre, bored and altogether uninspired as they want?

You could start by not looking at it as an attitude problem at all, but as a skills shortage. People like to do things they’re good at. It makes them feel good about themselves and when they feel good about themselves, it shows in their attitude. The better they feel, the better the attitude. We’ve talked before about The Success Spiral and this is a classic example of how we can use it for everyone’s benefit.

Young retail workers are often poorly trained if they’re even trained at all, therefore they don’t really know how to sell, immediately putting them at a disadvantage. This then discourages them, making them feel useless and incompetent, which of course manifests itself in poor attitude. Because they lack the skills required to change things for the better, they respond the only way they know, with a lousy attitude and feelings of despondency and hopelessness at their situation. This comes across to their customers as surly, belligerent, uncaring or disinterested and of course, the customer responds accordingly, making the worker feel even more useless and incompetent. This is the downward spiral. It keeps on circling the drain until something comes along to stop it.

In order to succeed in sales, retail or otherwise, you need well developed skills. You need to know with certainty that if you do ‘x’, then ‘y’ will happen. But first you need to know that there even is an ‘x’. Too many young retail workers don’t. One of Wendy’s favourite expressions is “You don’t know what you don’t know.” It stands to reason that you can’t address a problem unless you’re first aware that there is a problem and this is particularly true with sales skills.

Given the choice, most people would prefer to be good at what they do. It feeds their sense of self-worth, which makes them feel good and naturally, the better they feel, the more enthusiastic they are about what they’re doing. This is the Upward Spiral. So how do we make people good at what they do? With skills of course! How to we break that downward spiral? Skills! When salespeople understand what is required of them, when they know with certainty what steps they need to take to get the job done, when they feel assured enough to competently complete their tasks, they’re happier, their customers are happier and it stands to reason that you will be happier too and who wouldn’t want that?

We sell outstanding skills. The skills we sell make positive and lasting changes in people’s lives. They completely change the way people do business, the way they relate to each other and to their customers. We sell amazing skills and we build strong workplace cultures. We know this because our customers thank us for this every single day. If you have an inkling that you or your workforce need skills to break out of their downward spiral, don’t wait until you bottom out, don’t wait until you lose one more customer or have to sack one more unwilling worker. The solution is a lot closer than you think. Contact us today.

*The study was conducted by research consultancy AMR and customer feedback platform Feedback ASAP and is based on a survey of 521 Australian consumers. It was conducted for the International Customer Service Professionals.

One BIG Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:47:00 +0000

If there was One Big Thing that you could do to drastically improve your sales results, what would it be?

Sure, having good product knowledge is helpful but people with no product knowledge can still sell well.

Yes! You’re fabulous and your fantastic positive outlook makes a huge difference, but what if your cat died, or your phone bill blew out to $1,500 this month and your car blew a gasket and the engine seized, or your partner dumped you for someone a lot less attractive than you and your formerly fantastic positive attitude took a nose dive? If you have the One Big Thing, you can at least console yourself with the fact that you can still sell really, really well.

Brilliant customer service is important, but it’s not in the same league as our One Big Thing.

It should come as no surprise to regular readers of our newsletters that I’m talking about your ability to ask questions. I know it comes as no surprise to our latest batch of trainees, because I’ve been watching their figures and very intriguing figures they are too!

They made steady increases in sales through all the modules of our Cert IV course, enough improvement to make their managers (and us) proud. Then they did the questions module and their sales results exploded! 30% increases were commonplace almost passé, 50% increases had salespeople thrilled and amazed at their own abilities to sell so well and those who’d notched up 80% improvements or more had their managers laughing all the way to the bank. The fascinating thing is that the trend has continued long after the lessons ended.

Of course it matters that you ask the right questions in the right order, and to do this effectively you need to learn how, but if you do nothing else today but ask your customers three more questions and actually listen to their answers, you will sell more.

If you’re having trouble coming up with three questions of your own, try using these. Insert them into appropriate places in your conversation with customers.

1. What’s your biggest challenge with that?
2. How does that make you feel?
3. How do you mean?

Try it, and when you succeed, as I’m sure you will, drop us a line and let us know.

We've included a link to our All the Answers About Questions DVD, so you can see for yourself how asking questions works. If you'd like more information on this topic, click here to contact us. If you'd like to find out more about our Government funded sales training programmes, click here.

The Disturb Factor

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 02:05:00 +0000

In sales, much time, money and effort has been spent trying to figure out what makes people buy. Simply put, people buy when they’re disturbed enough by their current situation and they realise a need to change it.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? What this statement really means is that when things are not going the way you want them to, you need to do something to change that. In a sales situation, this means buying something that will help things run smoothly again. Let’s look at an example.

Customer: My printer is broken. I need a new one. (Nothing disturbing about this.)

Salesperson: What’s it doing? (Do they really need a new printer? Let’s find out a bit more…)

Customer: It keeps telling me I have a paper jam when I really don’t. (Slightly disturbing, but printers break down all the time for all sorts of reasons. Let’s find out what’s personal about this situation to this customer….)

Salesperson: Hmmm. That sounds annoying. (Show a little empathy, let them know you understand and relate) How does that make you feel? (Tap into their emotions)

Customer: It’s driving me crazy. (Now we’re getting somewhere…)

Salesperson: How do you mean? (Asks for more information...)

Customer: Well, I have to drag the printer out from under the desk, turn it around, open up the back and then immediately close it again, just to fool the printer that I’ve cleared the non-existent paper jam! I’m sick of it! (Disturbed!)

Why disturb them at all? After all, the customer already knew they needed a new printer when they came into the shop.

Being aware you need a solution is not the same as taking action to get your solution. Before we raised their disturb factor, this customer could have happily browsed all of your printers and then gone next door and browsed theirs. Raising the disturb factor encourages them to take action and buy something right now to fix their problem.

How do you disturb someone enough to make them want to take action? Ask the right disturbing questions! We also call them “Wake-up Call questions” because that’s what they do. The aim is to tap into the customer’s feelings because ultimately their purchase will be based on emotion. “How does that make you feel?” “…..and how did you feel about that?” “What did your boss/wife/partner/colleague think about that?” “What do you think will happen if you don’t fix that?” then follow up with requests for more information…”How do you mean?” “What happened then?”

At this point in the sale, the customer is fully aware of their need to purchase a new printer and because they’re now disturbed enough, they will take action by purchasing from the first person they trust will offer them a satisfactory resolution to their problem. The key word here is “TRUST” and in order to build it, you would continue with more questions to find out exactly what kind of printer will suit their particular situation.

Knowing the right questions to ask and when to ask them is crucial to sales success. No other single factor…. not handling objections, nor closing techniques… has more of an impact on the sale than asking appropriate questions at the right time and in the right sequence. It means the difference between making the sale and losing it. For more help on this vital topic, check out our tutorial DVD, All the Answers About Questions.

Natural Curiosity

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:34:00 +0000

Remember when you were a little kid and you wanted to know everything? Why is grass green? What makes the sky blue? Why does my little sister have freckles? What’s a freckle? Even the most egocentric of us possesses natural curiosity – a desire to know more about things that come into our orbit. Unfortunately for some of us, our natural curiosity is somewhat under-developed and therefore, useless to us as a sales tool. All is not lost though! Natural curiosity, just like a muscle that hasn’t been used for a long time, responds well to exercise and a bit of flexing.

How can curiosity be a sales tool? In order to find out exactly what will be the right solution for your client, you need information and the best way to get that information is to ask the client. Sure, there are standard, one-size-fits-all questions to ask that will elicit some of the information you need, but what about the information that is pertinent only to an individual customer? How are you going to find out about their personal truths and feelings just by asking stock questions?

This is where your natural curiosity will make the difference between a good sales solution and an outstanding one. If a customer tells me they need a new phone, I’d feel compelled to ask what types they’ve had in the past and how did they find them. Eventually, I’d find out that they have broken the last three mobile phones they’ve owned. My natural curiosity would lead me to think, well, that seems odd. I wonder why they’re breaking them.

So then I’d ask what kinds of phones were they? “All different.” OK, so that’s not the source of the problem. Then I might consider how the customer was using them and I’d ask, so what were you doing when the phones broke? “The first one fell out of my pocket into a batch of fresh cement. The second one’s screen broke when I accidentally left it on a pile of bricks and when the bricks were moved, the phone fell and broke. The third one got smashed when a pile of paving tiles were delivered right on top of it.”

Knowing all this, I’d be more inclined to come up with a solution that would work for this customer. Just selling him another phone, even if that’s all he asked for, isn’t going to solve the problem of the chronically damaged phones, but maybe a simple device like a leather pouch that fits onto his belt will help keep his new phone out of harm’s way.

If your natural curiosity could use a little flexing, ask yourself why. No, I don’t mean why does it need flexing, I mean ask yourself WHY about everything you hear. When your customer is telling you something, keep an open mind and ask yourself, WHY did this happen, then try asking your customer the same thing. You’ll find a whole heap of sales opportunities opening up to you just by using that one tiny little word, WHY.

The Balancing Act

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 08:43:00 +0000

Forget Cirque du Soleil and children’s birthday party performers,

far and away the best jugglers I know are all working mothers. It takes skill, daring and tenacity to throw all those balls up in the air; it takes dedication, commitment and outstanding time management to keep them there.

It’s flu season and your youngest has the sniffles. What do you do? You’re giving a major presentation to your company’s biggest client but it means an overnighter on the same night as your daughter’s piano recital. What do you do? Your ex-husband is late with the child support again and this is the third weekend in a row when he’s failed to pick up the kids. What do you do?

The biggest obstacle in attaining a Work-Life balance is guilt. You feel guilty when you’re at work because your kids are in child care and you find yourself worrying about them all day. You feel guilty because you’re at home with the kids and all you want to do is sneak away to your office and finish that report you’ve been working on. Or worse yet, you’ve put in a hard day at work, the kids have been fighting from the moment you got home and you’re too tired to give your husband a goodnight kiss, let alone anything else, so of course you feel guilty about that too.

So where is all this guilt getting you? Exactly nowhere. Unlike other more robust emotions, like anger or jealousy which often prompt us to take action, guilt just sits there festering. It doesn’t compel you to act, there is no hope that guilt will help you make things better. Guilt simply drains your energy so that you feel powerless to change things. So, first on the agenda? Lose the guilt!

You do that by living in the moment, being present in the here and now. When you’re at home with the kids, be there in that moment both physically and mentally. Don’t allow your mind to wander to what you “should” be doing, because the fact of the matter is that you should be exactly where you are. When you’re at work, be there one hundred percent. Worrying about your children will not help them or you; all worry does is make you less effective for the task at hand. “BUT....!” I hear you cry, “what if......” When “what if” actually happens, you deal with it, but until it does, move on.

It helps to have contingency plans for all those “what if” moments. I don’t mean that you should sit down and think up every disaster imaginable and have a plan of action for each one. I mean you should have a general plan of action for predictable problems like your child getting a cold and being unable to go to school or day care, or your boss offering you a big advancement opportunity contingent upon doing work you haven’t scheduled. Knowing what you will do under these circumstances takes the worry out of the equation. You already have it covered, so there’s nothing to worry about.

Make agreements and stick to them. If you need to work for an hour after dinner every day but the kids keep interrupting, or fighting, or crying or generally finding other “kid” ways of getting your attention, make a deal with them. If they leave you in peace and quiet for one hour, then they get your undivided attention for the rest of the night. It’s always tempting to over-compensate and bribe them with food, gifts or outings. Avoid this because it sets a nasty precedent that they will exploit because they’re kids and that’s what kids do. Their reward must be your undivided time and attention. When you’re with them, be WITH them.

Teaching the value of time to your children is a great gift; one that will hold them in good stead for the rest of their lives, so plan your time. With a time management plan in place, everyone knows what’s expected of them. Write up a daily plan on a calendar and put it on the fridge door. Explain how it works and encourage your children and spouse to add their special events to it. If you run into conflicting timetables, negotiate. Aim for win/win outcomes. Teaching them to negotiate for time gives them a sense of priorities.

The most important part of any balancing act is the pivot or central point on which the balance depends. If it’s not strong enough, everything falls apart. If it’s not alert enough, all the balls hit the floor. In this balancing act, you’re the pivot, so look after yourself. Allocate “Me Time” and treat yourself well. Make sure you’re not always sacrificing your personal time to fulfil the needs of others. If you’re not replenishing yourself, giving yourself the luxury of “Me Time”, you’ll run out of resources and will be useless, not only to yourself, but for all those who rely on you to keep juggling. Putting your needs first ensures you’ll remain strong and alert enough to keep all your balls in the air.

The Finishing Touch

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:04:00 +0000

If you’re relying on a piece of paper to do your selling for you, you’re in trouble.

A while ago, I had a tradesman come to my house to give me a quote for an air-conditioning system. He spent a lot of time measuring things and climbing around in the attic testing the depth of my insulation. He even crawled under the house and checked out the insulation down there. When he was done, we sat in my office and chatted, mostly about air-conditioning.

He was a nice guy who seemed to know his stuff and if he’d given me a price on the spot, it’s highly likely I would have said “YES!”…..but he didn’t, so I didn’t. There’s a process they have to go through. I get that, but mix the process with a little common sense and you’ll land more sales. While we were sitting in my office, the tradey noticed a copy of our Big Book workbook sitting on my desk and he asked me about it and that, of course, inevitably led to a discussion on sales, or rather a lack of them.

He told me he was the owner of the company and he and his two salespeople were doing lots of quotes, but they were converting far less than 20% of them. I was surprised at this, because he seemed competent. Research tells us that when looking for a quote, the average person people will get three. That means that if you’re giving quotes, you should expect to get on average, 33% of the business, because you’re only competing against two other companies’ quotes. What on earth could be wrong with his quote, I wondered.

It took a while, but I found out. First, it took three weeks before I set eyes on the quote and that was only because I called the company and reminded them of my existence. The quote arrived and it seemed acceptable to me, the prices weren’t outlandish, the proposed work on topping up my insulation was probably necessary, so I put the quote on top of the pile of things to do and I waited…..and I waited…… and then of course, I gave

up waiting because no-one called.

I still need the air conditioning, but I’m not doing business with people who either don’t care enough about getting my business or are too stupid to pick up the phone and follow-up.

Think about it. This tradesman took an hour out of his day to crawl around the insides of my house and educate me on different types of air-conditioning. He went to the trouble of working out the numbers and putting them in writing. Someone had to take that quote, put it in an envelope, write my name and address on it, stick a stamp on it and go to the post office and send it to me. All of that took far more effort than a simple phone call would have taken. So he faltered at the finish line.

I was beginning to understand exactly why he wasn’t winning his fair share of quotes. How could it have turned out differently for him?

1.) If he’d noticed when we discussed the solutions in my office, he would have recognised that I was eager to buy. He could have worked up the numbers on the spot, given me a ballpark and gained my agreement right then and there. If he had to put it in writing, he could have followed up with a written quote to confirm our agreement.

2.) Or he could have returned to his office late on the day he saw me, worked out his quotes for the day and put them in the post that evening. Had he done this, I would have been impressed. I would have had no hesitation in saying “Yes” to his quote, because I would have felt that he was trustworthy and reliable.

3.) He could then have telephoned me firstly, to ask me if I had received his quote (things do go astray in the mail) and secondly, to ask me for the order.

People buy from people. Not from bits of paper. Of course the number on that bit of paper was important, but it’s always negotiable as long as all the other ducks are lined up. If you’ve built rapport and trust, you have a solution that matches the client’s need and you assertively ask for the order, why wouldn’t you get the business at least 33% of the time?

If you’re not getting your fair share, All the Answers about Questions will point you in the right direction. Check out a snippet of it here.

Make a Difference

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 25 May 2011 09:59:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, disaster struck one of our clients, Make a Difference Office Supplies. In a random act of arson, their stationery business was burned down. Of course they suffered devastation and mayhem. This goes with the territory when your place of business burns and of course, there’s something about seeing your life’s work going up in smoke that can bring you to your knees. I know, because a few years ago, it happened to me.

Make a Difference might have shed a few tears. They may have even experienced a few anxious moments, but what they did next sets them apart. They wrote to all their customers and told them what had happened, they told us that whatever it took, it would be business as usual. Then they made it happen. That takes guts, determination and teamwork, qualities they have in abundance. It also takes a certain kind of attitude.

They didn’t cry “Poor us.” They didn’t fall in a big heap, paralysed by their own misery. They used their own philosophy of helping others to help themselves. They looked forward because to look backward was not helpful. They took pre-emptive action to service their customers, even if it meant steering them towards their competitors in the short term. Most of all, they didn’t ask for or expect help to come running, they took action to help themselves.

The funny thing about this positive attitude thing is that it tends to rub off on people.

It’s like that perpetual smile that travels around the world. I smile at you, you smile at the greengrocer, he smiles at the housewife, she smiles at the lonely old lady down the road who in turn smiles at you. Sooner or later, what you put out comes back to you, sometimes in unexpected ways and curiously often when you need it most. Your attitude makes this happen.

You probably spend quite a bit of time and money making yourself look good. You buy nice clothes, get a good haircut, sport attractive jewellery, invest in a good looking car, a nice house. You spend time each day bathing, combing and brushing all in an effort to make people think well of you. How much time do you spend grooming your attitude?

The one thing that can make the biggest difference in your life and in the lives of those you come in contact with is your attitude. It’s also the one thing we neglect the most. You wouldn’t neglect a health issue if it made such a huge difference to your well being, so why overlook your attitude? Naturally, we have many different tools to help you fine-tune your attitude, starting with a full segment on Attitude in the 14 CrucialDeterminants of Top Performing Salespeople. You can find it here.

Make a Difference is a company with another serious difference. They believe every one of us can make a "Massive Difference" and they prove this with every transaction they make. The most obvious difference with Make a Difference, the one thing that truly sets them apart from their competitors is their attitude. You see it in all the little things they do, you see it in the results they get and you see it in the difference they make not only to the people that are the direct beneficiaries of their help, but in the attitudes of their customers.

It seems weird to think that the simple act of purchasing a commonplace product can help to change the world, but that’s exactly what happens when you shop with these amazing people. Imagine feeling good about buying a pack of envelopes, or a roll of sticky tape or a ream of photocopy paper. That’s the gift that Make a Difference gives to their customers. The knowledge that your simple purchase is truly making a difference in the world is a powerful thing. If you’d like to learn more about them, click on their logo. It will take you to their website.

Do You Speak My Language?

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Sat, 07 May 2011 10:53:00 +0000

A friend of mine, Marie, a no-nonsense type, couldn’t figure out where she was going wrong. She was smart, articulate and direct, yet many of her customers found her abrasive and arrogant and this was not conducive to closing sales. What was it about her that rubbed people up the wrong way and more importantly, how could she fix it?

Marie’s fast/direct personality style was partially to blame. She was a quintessential Director-type; to the point, straight down to business, no chit-chat and let’s get the job done with a minimum of fuss. The rest of the blame lay in the personality styles of her customers. Unfortunately, Marie couldn’t change their personalities; her only option was to modify her own. But how could she do that without sacrificing her own sense of identity?

Each one of us possesses traits in varying degrees of the four basic personality or behavioural styles in our make-up. Director-type Marie might have only a trace of the slow-paced, people oriented Relater-type, but she has enough of it to tap into it and use it to her advantage.

If you think of behavioural styles as different languages, it becomes somewhat easier to grasp. Socialiser-types speak quickly, use their hands expressively and are very people-oriented, so let’s say they’re the Italians of the behavioural style spectrum. Thinker-types are slow, methodical, focussed on the task at hand and revel in details. With their love of perfection and order, we’ll call them the Germans.

Relater-types are people-oriented; slow to make decisions and are fearful of making mistakes that could hurt other people. I think they’d be ideal peace-making Belgians. Then of course, we have types like my friend Marie, fast-paced and direct, their focus is on the job at hand and they don’t suffer fools gladly. They like things to be done their way because they know best. We’ll call them the Americans.

Now imagine that the Belgian-speaking Relater is your customer and you’re the American.

The Relater only speaks Belgian so how do you communicate? Fortunately, you’ve spent some time around other Belgians, so you know a smattering of the language. You know enough to speak slowly, to show your warm empathic side, to gently reassure the Belgian that they’re making the right decision and that everyone concerned will benefit from the choice they have made. But of course, you can only do that if you know your customer is Belgian.

How about if you’re the cool, methodical German and your customer is a hot-blooded Italian, all hand gestures and emotion? How can you possibly speak their language? You don’t have to be fluent, you just have to know key words and gestures that will make the Italian feel that you understand them and are just like them. You’ll speed up your pace, become more animated and talk about the things Italians like to discuss.

In modifying your own behaviour, you’re seeking to speak your customer’s language and they’ll be far more amenable to receiving your message if they can actually understand it in their own native “tongue”. To find out more about behavioural styles or to learn how to 'speak' everyone's language, click the link.

Mind-Reading and Other Spectacular Sales Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 05:42:00 +0000

Tenacity is an admirable quality in any salesperson. If the prospect doesn’t say “Yes” the first time you talk to them, then they might the second or third time, so the tenacious salesperson hangs in there, keeps calling and eventually, their tenacity pays off. Of course it does, otherwise why would they keep trying?

It’s well known, and the despair of Sales Managers the world over, that prospects will usually give you two or three NOs before you get a YES. The despair part kicks in when salespeople let the first NO stop them in their tracks. Why? Because they don’t know what to say, or they take it personally. It’s a rejection and people don’t like being rejected so rather than risk getting another rejection, they walk away.

The NO, or in other words, the objection, which the prospect has sent your way seems reasonable. They don’t want to buy because what you’ve put on offer is the wrong colour, shape, size, or whatever other dismissal they come up with. It’s not exactly what they were looking for. How on earth can you counter this? You can’t know what the customer has in their head so how can you possibly answer their objection? You could take a stab at it, but let’s face it, you’re not a mind-reader. So you rationalise that this lets you off the hook. The prospect has said NO, it sounds like a solid NO and because you can’t read their mind, you walk away from the sale.

There’s something fundamentally wrong with this scenario. Their NO was just a request for more information. Almost all objections are just a customer’s way of saying “You haven’t figured out what I need and so why should I buy from you?” Ask them questions, preferably before they even get to the point of saying NO. If you’re armed with knowledge about what they’re looking to buy, then you have the power to provide it for them. You can amaze them with your powers of deduction, your mind-reading abilities, if you just ask them the right questions.

Questions that lead them to explain things to you, (open-ended questions) are far better than questions that just require a Yes or No answer (closed questions). Yes or No answers don’t fully engage the prospect in the sale. It’s when they start explaining what they want and more importantly why they want it that you know you’re on your way to doing business. Most prospects won’t waste their time telling you what they want unless you first show that you’re interested in what they have to say and you look and act like you can solve their problem.

So, in order to enhance your mind-reading abilities;

Ask plenty of open-ended questions
Listen carefully to the answers, because their answer will determine your next question.
Ask general questions, then funnel them down to more specific questions to hone in on what they really need.
Look forward to the NOs. They just mean the prospect wants to know more.
Get tenacious. Keep asking questions until you’re sure you’re on the same wavelength as the prospect.

Stick to these few pointers and you’ll be well on your way to reading minds in no time.

Naturally, we have a couple of links to help you out if you need more information...

To see a video clip of our Questions Module, All the Answers about Questions, click here

and for more about Handling Objections click here.

How to Kill the Sale in Seven Easy Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 05:03:00 +0000

Winter is approaching so I decided to do something about my outrageous heating bills and get a new heating system. On Saturday morning, I toddled along to my favourite large appliance store in search of my good mate, Brent, who has sold me almost every large appliance I have purchased in the last five years. I had done my homework and knew the brand I wanted and an approximation of the size I needed. There was no doubt in my mind that I was leaving the store that day with a brand-spanking-new heating system in the boot of my car.

A salesperson approached me, “Can I help you?” he asked. Well that was his first mistake, because if you’ve done any of our training, you’d know that “Can I help you?” is just an invitation for the customer to say “No”. I asked for Brent and was told he wasn’t there. Saturday morning, their busiest time? No Brent? Was he sick? Grudgingly, the salesperson told me that Brent was no longer there. He left two weeks ago.

Naturally I asked where he had gone and the salesperson said Brent was no longer working for the company. End of. I got the distinct impression that Brent had screwed up or was persona non grata in some way and I felt a bit disappointed because I had liked and trusted him. I always got a good deal from Brent, he was my friend in the business. I knew he’d never steer me wrong. I found out later that this was mistake number two.

The salesperson registered my look of disappointment and that’s when he made mistake number three. He turned and walked away. I wandered over to the heating systems and started looking at them, occasionally glancing behind me to see what the salesperson was doing. He stood there in the middle of the selling floor with his back to me, gazing around aimlessly. At one point, he spotted a likely prospect and said something to them. They shook their head and walked away. I’d bet money he asked if he could help them. He kept on waiting for some other customer to approach his vicinity so he could give them an opportunity to say “No” to him. Mistake number four.

He was a nice looking young man, if a little timid, so I took pity on him. I walked up to him and said, “If you’d said, “What brings you into ‘Big Brand Appliance Store’ today?” you might have a better chance at making a sale.” He looked at me blankly. I said “I want to buy a heating system.” He cheered right up, or at least I think he did, because a ghost of a smile twitched fleetingly on his lips before being replaced with what I would come to know as his usual downcast expression. Mistake number five.

When we got to the heating systems display, he stood there waiting for me to tell him what I wanted. We stood there for at least a minute, saying nothing. A minute is a long, long time when nobody is speaking. It was definitely uncomfortable. Of course, this was mistake number six. I eventually gave in because I realised if I waited for this guy to ask me one single question about what I needed and why I needed it, I’d still be in that store right now.

I volunteered that I didn’t know much about heating systems, but knew that I wanted one. He didn’t take the bait and ask me why. Perhaps he just assumed that I, a fifty-plus lady with my elderly mother in tow, would know more about heating systems than he did. I asked him questions and he brought out a brochure and started pointing to a page on it and quoted meaningless numbers at me that sounded like a maths fractions test. 3.5 watts up to 6.8 and 20 square metres or perhaps 45 sq metres. I’m not sure exactly what he was talking about, but I confess, I gave up listening. It goes without saying that this was mistake number seven.

My ears pricked up when he mentioned that he could send around a technician who would measure up the house and tell me exactly what I needed. “How much will that cost?” I asked. “Oh, no charge,” he replied obliviously. Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?

I gave him my details and was just about to leave the shop when I was approached by another salesman who knew me. “Hi Jo, good to see you,” he said.
“What happened to Brent?” I asked worriedly.
“Packed up the wife and kids, moved to Christchurch and is going to University.”
“He’s gone back to school to become a property evaluator,” the salesperson who had been ‘helping’ me chimed in, indicating that he’d known all along what had become of Brent. Remember mistake number two?

I left without the heating system and with no intention of returning. I don’t even feel guilty about accepting the free quote from their technician. Call it the cost of doing business with untrained or poorly trained salespeople.

If you have an aversion to killing the sale, here’s a list of steps to avoid mistakes.
1.)   Make your greeting an invitation for information i.e. “What brings you into our store today?”
2.)   Avoid deception, even over little things.
3.)   Walk away only when the customer makes it apparent they don’t need your presence.
4.)   Always look busy.
5.)   Always look cheerful and approachable.
6.)   Ask questions. Have a store of lots and lots of questions you could ask. There’ll be no time for any uncomfortable silences.
7.)   Give little bits of information, just enough to better inform your customers, not enough to send them to sleep or running for the nearest exit.

Usually, I would point you in the direction of one of our DVDs that would help you avoid the pitfalls discussed in our newsletter, but if you or your employees are making mistakes like these, at the very least, you need our first six modules, The Core Series. They start with Module 1 - Understanding the Sales Process and you can find it by clicking on this link.

Big Fish, Little Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 07:03:00 +0000

We can’t all be the best. No matter how hard we try, by definition only one of us can be the best in any given endeavour at any one time. So where does that leave the rest of us? Little fish in a very big pond. We could keep striving and maybe a few of us will make it to the top of the food chain, but that still consigns the rest of us, the middle-of-the-road players, the under-achievers, the not-quite-good-enoughs, to perpetually fighting for food amongst bigger, tougher, meaner, hungrier fish than us.

Or you could change ponds. Find one that’s smaller yet still suits your style and fits in with the business you’re in. In other words, find your niche in a niche market. Let’s say you sell life insurance. That’s a very big pond and it’s tough to fight your way to the top, but if you specialised in selling life insurance to people who are into extreme sports or third world dictators or property developers, the pond shrinks considerably and you’d have a better shot at becoming the numero uno fish.

Another example, if you’re in real estate, how about specialising in selling purpose-built warehouses for Chinese goods importers, or converted loft spaces for IT geeks? Get to know as much as you can about the needs of your niche market, for example, IT geeks need to control the lighting so it doesn’t reflect on their screens. They need extra security because they have a lot of expensive equipment lying around and not a lot of muscle to fight off any bad guys who want to take it away from them. They need reliable, heavy duty electrical wiring and their special requirements around telephone hard wiring makes finding the right property challenging.

I had a geek friend who started an internet company back in the early days, before most people knew what the internet was. He was mildly successful and used the proceeds of his success to buy a new house in a desirable inner city area. He intended to use the lower floors of his new house as a base for his business.

Unfortunately, he found out after he moved in that the phone lines in that area couldn’t cope with the traffic he was generating and it ended up costing him over $100,000 to resolve the problem. A real estate agent who specialised in finding places for IT geeks would have known about his special requirements for phone access and would have checked it out before he bought the place.

To effectively niche market you need to;

1. Decide which market you’re going to focus on and make sure there’s enough existing and/or potential business to sustain you.
2. Make sure there’s a future for your niche. No good specialising in selling wooden cart wheels if nobody has any wooden carts.
3. Learn all you can about the special needs of your market.
4. Find out who the big players are and keep tabs on what they’re up to.
5. Study up on your competition and identify their strengths and weaknesses.
6. Regularly read trade magazines and publications that relate to your niche.
7. Get Google Alerts for the main players and for your competition.
8. Always maintain client confidentiality – word spreads like wild-fire in niche markets and if you betray any client’s trust, all your other potential clients will hear about it and you’ll be hunting for another niche to set yourself up in.

Understand that knowledge is what gives you the edge as a specialist in your niche market. Once you set yourself up as a knowledgeable specialist, clients will seek you out because you’re attuned to their needs. They don’t have to waste time filling in the gaps to a salesperson who doesn’t understand their industry when they can come directly to you, the specialist.

We discuss niche and vertical marketing in our Prospecting DVD. Prospecting? We LOVE it!!!! Check it out here.

I'll Think About It

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:57:00 +0000

How often have you walked into a shop, been accosted by an over-zealous salesperson and used the buyers’ get-out-of-jail-free card....”I’ll think about it.”? Do you ever actually go away and think about it? Generally not.

If your customers are saying “I’ll think about it” to you, it’s time to ask yourself “Why”? The simple answer is that they feel under pressure and you have not given them a good enough reason to stick around and buy from you. And of course, once those dreaded words “I’ll think about it” are out of their mouths, you might as well pack it in and go home. But wait! All is not yet lost! There is still a glimmer of hope.

Think of their “I’ll think about it” as an objection and objections are simply a request for more information. So instead of waving the sale goodbye when you hear “I’ll think about it”, say these exact words....

“Obviously you have a reason for saying that. Do you mind if I ask what it is?”

This prompts your customer to provide you with the information you need to alter the course of the sale. Let’s look at this in a practical scenario.

A customer in your electronics store has just said to you “I’ll think about it.”
You say, “Obviously you have a reason for saying that. Do you mind if I ask what it is?”
They come back with, “Well, I was just looking at TV’s but I don’t see any that I like.”
Naturally, you’ll then ask them what sorts of things they like to watch on TV. You won’t ask them what kind of TV they want because you’re the sales professional and you know your products far better than they do. They’re coming to you for advice. They were ready to walk because they didn’t get what they needed.

You’ll follow up with a few more questions to determine the features they’re looking for; the size of the room the new TV will be in, any sound systems they may wish to attach, the lighting in the room. If there are lots of windows, some plasma TV’s will reflect light making it hard to see the screen properly. Of course, you will offer this advice only if it’s warranted. You will not overload your customer with facts and features that aren’t pertinent to them and their concerns.

The example I cited was from a retail situation, but “I’ll think about it” is not confined solely to the retail sector and the methods for dealing with it in a business to business scenario are exactly the same. Practice the “obviously you...” phrase until it flows automatically and fluently whenever you hear an objection. Consider which questions you might then ask your customers to find out what their needs are and role play them.

“I’ll think about it” needn’t be the kiss of death. If you always treat it as a request for more information, it becomes an opportunity to make a successful sale.

The Great Stock-Take

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:19:00 +0000

There’s something illuminating about stock-taking. Apart from the fact that stock-taking sales abound and there are some seriously good bargains to be had, it’s handy to know how much stuff you have, but there’s a lot more to it than that. By taking stock, you can shine a light on what’s happened in the past, and also get an inkling about what’s likely to happen in the future. You do this by looking for trends. If you sold heaps of one thing and hardly any of another, it makes sense that you would focus your time and attention on the thing that pays dividends. The other stuff is just taking up valuable shelf space.

The same can be said for your life. Taking stock of what has happened in the past, paying close attention to where you’ve come from and where you’re headed just makes good business sense. Are your personal trends headed in the right direction? Are you focussing on the things that will pay you dividends or are you gathering dust on the shelf?

Personally, I tend to get caught up in the moment, paying attention to the issues that scream at me the loudest, devoting attention to the most urgent tasks and working my way through the never-ending to-do list, but what happens if all that work isn’t going to get me where I really want to go?

Every so often, I need to take the time to sit quietly for a while and ask myself, “Where am I likely to get my big payoffs?” What’s just taking up shelf space in my life?” “What are the things that occupy my time but don’t contribute to my overall well-being?” Doing a personal stock-take helps you see the big picture.

In the end it all comes down to one burning question, “Am I happy with the status quo?” If not, do something about it. Make plans, strategise then act. If you like things the way they are, then that raises a whole bunch of other questions. Can you rely on the status quo to continue unchanged? Not likely. Nothing is static. Everything changes, even if just a little bit. Where will it leave you when it does? Is that where you want to be? Can you make contingency plans to cover yourself if the trend you’re on takes a downward turn? What will happen if you become wildly successful? Will you cope with the demands on your time? What can you do now to ease the pressure later?

Astute business people examine their options regularly. They pay attention to their personal trends and make adjustments to their plans accordingly. New Year’s resolutions aside; when was the last time you did a stock-take? For more about taking stock of yourself, check out our website.

The Arrogance of Lateness

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:23:00 +0000

What are you telling people when you show up late? Being a few minutes late seems like such a small thing it's barely worth thinking about, but being late says a lot more about you than you think.

My aunt and uncle were at loose ends on Christmas Day, so not wanting them to feel left out, we invited them to our house for Christmas Dinner. “What time should we come?” they asked.

“Around 12 would be good. We’ll be eating at 1pm.”

They showed up at 1:25.

Friends had visited them and they ‘couldn’t get away’.

The rest of us had already had our appetisers and the roast lamb was being carved as they walked through the door. I could have waited until they’d arrived before we started eating, but here’s my dilemma….

Should I sacrifice the quality of the food and make the majority of guests who had arrived on time wait on these two latecomers or should I do the ‘polite’ thing and wait until they arrived before serving any food?

I chose not to wait on them because I don’t think it’s appropriate to reward unacceptable behaviour. They could have informed their friends that they had a dinner engagement and needed to go. They didn’t. In choosing to stay with their friends, they sent an unmistakeable message to me. It’s the same message delivered loud and clear by every person who is late. “I am more important than you. My time is more valuable than yours, therefore you should wait on me.” The arrogance is astonishing.

Of course there are times when events move beyond your control, but in order for it to be a valid excuse for lateness, the event needs to be very convincing. Earthquakes and tsunamis work. Traffic, other people holding you up or getting a flat tyre don’t.

People who are chronically late always seem to have excuses, sometimes they even sound valid. The truth is, if they wanted to be on time, they would find a way, even if it meant reorganising their life in order to accomplish it. If you’re chronically late, then reorganising your life and priorities is exactly what you should do, because the lateness thing is just not working for you.

Before you dismiss this as a minor issue, think about the last time someone made you wait. How did it make you feel? Annoyed, tense, worried that something had happened to them? Maybe even angry? While you were waiting, did you think about all the other things you could have been doing? Then of course, there’s the knock on effect. Because this one person was late, it’s thrown your own schedule out of whack.

If you’re a victim of the arrogance of lateness, don’t reward unacceptable behaviour. If someone shows up late, postpone or cancel their appointment. If a colleague fails to show up on time, go on without them.

If you’re a perpetrator, by all means keep on being late if you don’t mind conveying the idea that you’re a far more important person than the person who is waiting on you, but don’t expect to do a lot of business with them.

What Do Your Customers Think of You?

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 04:04:00 +0000

My whole neighbourhood has got an ant problem. Five of us got together, negotiated a good price with an ant killing company who arranged for a man to come and kill the ants. He came, he killed, he left. Oops, still got ants. I called and complained and they politely said that they would send a man back to me the next day. Now it could have been a bit embarrassing for that ant guy to come back and kill the rest of the ants, after all, they probably should have been killed off the first time.

I expected an ugly experience. I expected a grumpy taciturn bug killing guy who just wanted to get on with the job, after all he’d had to do it twice for one fee. What I got was a cheerful guy with a beaming smile who made a yucky job fun. Whoever imagined that killing ants would be an uplifting experience? But meeting that ant guy and being bowled over by his great attitude made my day.

In direct contrast is my lawn mower man. He comes, he mows, and if I’m lucky, he leaves. If I need to talk to him, heaven help me, he brings down my whole day. It’s so obvious that he doesn’t like his job. He’s in it for the money and it shows. He doesn’t care about my garden, doesn’t want to spend a minute longer than absolutely necessary and often neglects to finish the job properly. If I dare to mention that the edges are a bit ragged, he grunts, grudgingly agrees with me, does the edges perfectly but leaves the lawn roughly mown or forgets to put the grass clippings in the compost bin. I’m certain he does it on purpose. He punishes me for daring to demand good service.

I used to love going into my garden when the previous lawn mower guy was there. I’d look around and see everything perfectly neat, smell the fresh cut grass and feel good about it all. I didn’t mind parting with the money to pay him, because it was worth it to get that good feeling about my garden. He’d chat about plants and pruning trees. I knew nothing about pruning trees, didn’t even know they had to be pruned, so in educating me, he was creating work for himself, because of course, I got him to prune my trees. But that was then, now is an entirely different story. Why do I keep paying this dreadful man? I’d rather give my money to someone who cares. I’d almost rather use the money as toilet paper than give it to this guy.

There are some surefire things you can do to make sure you always leave a good impression;
1.) Always do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it. If you promise to ring them with a quote on Thursday, ring them on Thursday with the quote.

2.) Under-promise and over-deliver. If they need their delivery sometime this week, promise Friday and if possible have it for them by Thursday. Give them more than they expected. Most of the time it costs you nothing and gains a lot of respect and good feeling in return.

3.) Follow-up. Ask them, “Did your order show up on time?” “How did the installation go?“ “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

4.) Keep in mind that your customers think the most important person in the world is them and treat them like that.

5.) Maintain a positive outlook. Even if you’re feeling miserable, your boyfriend left you, you smashed your car on the way to work, the lunch lady ran out of jelly donuts, fake a smile and before you know it, it will be real.

What do your clients think about you? Do you know? Can you imagine? I wonder what the lawn mower man thinks he’s doing. What kind of impression does he think he leaves? He has a bad attitude so of course he leaves a bad impression, but does he know he has a bad attitude or is it just one of those things that never crosses his mind? If he knew the effect his lousy attitude had on his customers, would he be concerned? He should be.

Customers tolerate poor service for only a couple of reasons. Firstly, they don’t necessarily expect the best service when they’re paying bargain basement prices. (My lawn mower man charges like a wounded bull.) They’ll still expect reasonable civility though.

Secondly, they tolerate poor service if it’s an aberration, a one off and they can put it down to an unusual circumstance. (If my lawn mower man’s cat died, or his house burned down, they would be passable excuses for his demeanour.)

Thirdly, they accept poor service when there’s no alternative. (There are lots of lawn mower men out there looking for work.)

Fourthly and most commonly, they accept poor service when it becomes habitual. The customer becomes complacent, they put up with the poor service because looking for better service is a pain in the neck. It’s more trouble than it’s worth, or so they tell themselves. But there’s always the danger of reaching breaking point as I just did with my lawn mower man. The new lawn mower man starts next Thursday.

Handshakes and Other Pissing Contests

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:53:00 +0000

The rules of engagement are clear….the two protagonists approach each other, right hands outstretched, they clench palms and the battle is on. Whoever emerges with the upper hand wins. That’s where the expression “the upper hand” comes from. No, it’s not arm-wrestling, though you can be forgiven for thinking so.

This battle royal is a simple handshake.

It’s supposed to be just a greeting, a way of setting the other guy at ease, a way of saying, “Look, I come empty-handed, no weapons! You can relax now.” But it seldom works out like that. Why? Because there’s a lot riding on this greeting. It sets the ground rules for how the relationship will continue, or at least that’s what men have thought for years. So just how much can one little handshake convey?

The Power Struggle
With this type of handshake, your aim is to be the person with their hand on top. The problem is the other guy also thinks he should be on top, so it twists back and forth and can get quite nasty, especially when brute strength comes into play. Whoever comes out with their palm facing downward and their opponent’s palm underneath, even just a little bit, is the victor, making the other guy, of course, the loser. If you want your clients to feel like losers the instant you first meet them, then this is the one to use.

The Limp-Wrister
You reach out confidently to shake their hand and from first grasp, they go all weak at the wrist. You’re left doing all the work and they’re grudgingly along for the ride. You may as well be shaking hands with a soft toy for all the input you’re getting. What this handshake is saying, loud and clear, is that the possessor of the limp wrist is weak. They’re not inclined to action and are the sorts of people who cock their pinkie finger even when sipping coffee from a mug. But be careful about jumping to conclusions, because many women, especially older ones, have been taught that this is the polite way to shake hands. They also use it as a defence mechanism against the bone crusher.

The Bone-Crusher
Oh what a manly man! This is the real tough guy of handshakes. This is the guy who made it to the top of the heap in the football team, or the guy you want on your side in a bar-room brawl. You can depend on him to use brute strength as his answer to everything….or at least that’s what he wants you to believe. Your hand is captured in a vice grip and squeezed until you can almost feel your tiny bones snapping one by one. These types of handshakes are often delivered by men of shorter stature who secretly feel inadequate. This is not to say that other people don’t try it on. I’ve even had a woman or two deliver the bone-crusher. They all left me feeling exactly how they set out to make me feel, fearful and intimidated. They also left me feeling resentful and extremely keen to prove that brains beat brawn every time. So far, I win.

The Top Dog
You don’t have a choice with this guy. He extends his hand palm down and you have no option but to submit right from the start. Sneaky little bugger, isn’t he? I playfully slap him on the back of the hand like he’s a naughty schoolboy, but I can get away with that. Closely related to the Humble Servant.

The Humble Servant
Women are very good at this one. They extend their hand as though expecting you to go down on one knee and kiss it as would any humble servant. What options do you have without appearing churlish? You could grasp those delicately extended fingers and draw them to your lips. Yeah, right! Grab their fingertips and shake them instead, not too vigorously though, remember that whichever their gender, this is a Lady you’re dealing with.

The Wet Fish
A primitive part of you wants to feel sorry for the guy who delivers the soppy palm, expecting to shake hands and be taken for an equal, then of course, reality bites and you just feel damp and slightly disgusted. These nervous types inevitably leave a weak and wet impression.

The Two-Fisted Smotherer
You put one hand out, you get two in return. This is an overly generous handshake, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. When they grab your one hand and smother it in their two, they’re saying you need protection. I’ve seen Mafia bosses shake hands like this but never to an equal. Check you still have your wallet before you leave.

The Bear Hug
Beware of the bear. It lulls you into a false sense of security. You think you’re going in for a shake, but you end up wrapped in a hug. Fine if you’re the bear’s best friend, not so nice if you’re not.

The Secret Handshake
Designed as a discreet signal to identify membership in a clandestine organisation, the secret handshake is either a fishing expedition to see if you are indeed a member of such an organisation or it’s a means of appearing “cool”. It’s closely related to….

The Gang Banger
Characterised by convoluted twists and turns, bumps and grinds, this handshake isn’t so much a shake as an entire performance. If you know the routine, it immediately identifies the participating parties as members of the same gang, but begs the question, who wants to be in a gang?

There are myriad other types of handshakes and each of them convey different layers of meaning and intent to the recipients. Is your handshake saying what you want? If any of the above has an overly familiar ring to it, if you have an inkling of identification with it, then either you’re happy to convey an unsavoury first impression or it’s time you learned how to deliver a proper handshake.

1.)   Stand up straight, head erect, shoulders back.
2.)   If palms are damp, surreptitiously wipe on side of trousers or skirt. For extra security, you could keep your right hand in your pocket until shake time then wipe it against clothes as you withdraw it.
3.)   Smile.
4.)   Look the other person in the eye. Friendly-like, don’t glare or stare.
5.)   Hold your hand so the palm is facing to the side and your thumb is precisely on top. Your hand should be perfectly vertical. No wavering.
6.)   Step in towards the person you’re addressing.
7.)   Clasp their hand firmly, don’t squeeze. If you’re prone to not knowing your own strength, practice with a couple of ripe bananas. If you squish the bananas, you’re clasping too hard.
8.)   Give a couple of quick shakes then release.
9.)   Step back.

A handshake like this is businesslike, conveying forthrightness and friendliness. If that’s how you want to appear, use it.

How to Put Out Fires

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 04:11:00 +0000

Stand up if you know how to use a fire extinguisher. OK, sit down all you professional fire-fighters! The rest of you, by far the majority, would have said “No” and let’s face it, it’s not something you’re likely to use every day. The trouble is, when you do need to use it, it’s a bit late to read the instructions because you’ll already be on fire before you get through the first page.

When we set out to make our Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) training module, Wendy didn’t know too much about fire extinguishers either, or CPR, or even choking rescue for that matter. It turns out that even though the Government has guidelines on OHS most people know very little about keeping themselves and their colleagues safe at work. Wendy and I wondered about this, so we made it our business to find out why.

We didn’t have to look far. If you’ve ever snoozed your way through an OHS training session, you’ll know the reason too. They’re so boring that OHS training sessions are usually a good excuse for an afternoon nap. Instead of handouts, they should just issue blankets and pillows. What’s the point of having OHS training that nobody is interested in watching? Sure you comply with Government regs, but does it keep your most valuable asset, your employees safe? Not if they’re busy dozing off in the middle of it! We decided that it didn’t have to be tedious and humdrum to get the message across and I can assure you our OHS training is anything but boring. What it definitely is, though, is effective.

We cover everything you need to keep yourself and your employees safe and we do it in a light-hearted and entertaining way. The message may be about disaster, death and destruction, but it doesn’t have to be grim. There’s plenty of time for grim if disaster ever strikes. In the meantime, do yourself and your business a favour and check out our OHS training module. I promise it won’t be like any other OHS training you’ve ever seen and that’s a good thing!

Why do you need OHS training? Apart from the obvious reason, keeping people safe, you also have to contend with the legal reasons. The Government demands that every business provides OHS training.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 requires employers to provide such training to employees as is necessary to enable the employees to perform their work in a manner that is safe and without risks to health.

Various regulations made under the Act (eg Hazardous Substances Regulations, Plant Regulations) require employers to provide training to employees on:
the nature of hazards
the processes used for hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control
the need for, and proper use, of measures to control risk
safety procedures
the use, fit, testing and storage of personal protective equipment.

Each state has slightly different requirements, but the basics remain the same. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, the only choice you have about OHS training is which training you’re going to use. Once you see it, we’re sure you’ll choose ours.

Our Workplace Safety module is included in our Government accredited sales training packages. If you’d like more information about these and to find out whether you could qualify for free sales training, contact us now. The Wendy Weapon Workplace Safety module and accompanying workbook/s can also be purchased separately.

What do your customers have to do… … to get your attention?

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 02:30:00 +0000

What was that rather large lady doing, standing three paces back from the counter in the middle of the BP shop saying “I’d like to speak to the Manager please” over and over in quite a loud voice? A couple of other customers gave her funny looks, one bloke rolled his eyes, but she didn’t seem to care that she was making a spectacle of herself. It turns out that she’d been overcharged $2 for a car wash. She hadn’t noticed the anomaly when she was served, but spotted it while she was sitting in the middle of the car wash.

She went back to the counter, waited patiently for over five minutes until the cashier who originally served her had finished an obviously private phone call and then explained, in a nice, non-confrontational way, what had happened. The cashier wasn’t interested in refunding her the $2 because she’d already been through the car wash. The lady stuck to her guns and after it became obvious that the matter was not closed, the cashier leaned forward and very quietly said, “OK, I’ll give you the f***ing $2. It will be worth it to get you out of the shop, you f***ing fat bitch.” Probably not an optimal example of conflict resolution.

What do your customers have to do to get your attention?

How easy do you make it for them to complain?

There’s a school of thought out there that if you can make it difficult enough for them to lodge a complaint, customers will give up and go away. It may be true that they go away, but don’t think for one second that they give up. Oh no! They tell their friends and colleagues and if the infringement is bad enough, you not only lose the business of the original disgruntled customer, but also reap the fallout from their circle of acquaintances who now also won’t buy from you.

Here at The Home of The Wendy Weapon, we have a slightly different way of looking at things. We believe that customers who complain are worth their weight in gold. In voicing their complaint a number of things happen that wouldn’t have happened if they’d just shut up and gone away.

1.)    Firstly, we find out that there is a problem. This is helpful because for every one customer who complains, you can bet that there are many others who are dissatisfied and don’t complain. So now that we know about it, we can do something about it.

2.)    Secondly, we have the opportunity to make it right for the complaining customer. If we do a good job fixing their problem, they’ll become our advocate. They’ll tell all their friends about how good we are at sorting things out for them. The story is no longer about their problem, it’s about how happy they are with the solution.

3.)    Thirdly, we gain a loyal customer. We fixed their problem, therefore they’ve learned that we’re trustworthy and because we’re trustworthy, they’ll do business with us again and again. They don’t have to risk going elsewhere because they know if they ever have another problem, we’ll fix it.

So it’s worthwhile considering ways to encourage complaints from your customers, but don’t forget to train yourself and your staff in resolving them, if only to avoid having fat ladies camping out in the middle of your premises, loudly and firmly demanding to speak to the manager.

Dealing With Difficult Customers is the DVD you'll need if you're planning on learning not only how to resolve customer complaints but also how to differentiate between an angry customer and a hostile one and how to deal with both. It's an invaluable tool if you're interested in improving Customer Service in either retail and B2B.

What Your Parents Never Told You

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 04:03:00 +0000

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about learning... how we learn, who chooses what we learn and how what we have learned or not learned affects us throughout our lives. Our first teachers are usually our parents, so where do I stand if they don't know very much? Will I be consigned to perpetual ignorance too?

How will I even know I don't know very much? It would be very limiting to my potential if this were the case, after all, most learning is done before we even get to school. So what if our "teachers".... good ol' Mum and Dad, grannies & granddads, siblings, aunts and uncles, etc. just aren't up to the mark? Just because I was born into a family of under-achievers, am I forever consigned to the same fate? That's an extreme example, but how about just having a lack of understanding in certain fields? Like money.

If Mum and Dad didn't know much about money, how to use it, how to accumulate it, then how am I going to learn? Schools don’t teach this stuff so I guess I’ll just have to muddle through on my own. Will I place the same importance (or lack of it) on money as my parents do? It's very likely I will. I'm guessing that I could educate myself later if I found some compelling reason to do so, but what pits would I have fallen into before I got the message that I needed an education about money?

How much would it cost me in all the failures I'd encounter before I got wise, after all, sometimes it takes more than one disaster before I realise I'm short on knowledge? I might know how to make money, but obtaining it and keeping it are two entirely different things. Then you add in the complications of using it, leveraging it and putting it to work. If you haven't been taught this stuff somewhere along the line, how on earth are you ever going to find out?

The same can be said for sales. My business partner, Wendy Berry is always saying “You don’t know what you don’t know.” It’s almost a mantra of hers. How do you know that you lack skills? If you’re not getting the same good results as your colleagues, are you telling yourself it’s because you’re not as good as they are, maybe you think you’re dumber or lazier, or not as attractive or sociable or all kinds of other personal failings that you can think of!

It’s far more likely that the fault doesn’t lie in your personal short-comings, it lies in your lack of skills. What a relief! Because if you have a personal skill shortage, you simply go out and get some, don’t you?! Aha, but wait a second, how do you know what skills you need? After all, you don’t know what you don’t know.

You could ask your colleagues, but they might be just as unskilled as you are. You could ask your boss, but if they knew how to improve your skills, surely they would have helped you do so before now, after all it’s in their best interest to have you performing at your peak. How about attending sales training seminars? Or buy books on sales and actually read them? You could get yourself a personal coach, but that can get a bit costly, especially for the really good ones. Or you could talk to us.

Sure, you can keep on going the same way you are now and keep on getting the same tired old results and keep on beating yourself up over your failures. Or you could take the time to figure out what’s really going on in your sales career and learn what skills you need to make yourself the best you can be. We can definitely help you with that. So what are you waiting for?

How to Turn $14.00 into $234.99….effortlessly!

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:52:00 +0000

One of my kids was about to have a birthday and a swag of hungry kids was about to descend on my house so I made out my shopping list with all the usual birthday goodies and headed off to the supermarket. On the way, I decided to stop at Claude’s Party Supplies to get a couple of those helium balloons that have Happy Birthday written all over them.

It was a huge store and I was on a mission so I asked one of the staff to point me in the direction of the balloons. I dashed over to the balloon aisle, chose a couple and headed for the cash register. The sales assistant kindly asked me if I wanted them filled with helium, which I did, and then she proceeded to ring up the $14 sale. She handed me the filled balloons and I was just turning to go when another sales assistant approached and commented, “Nice balloons, good choice.” I smiled, agreed with her and nearly got away, but then she said, “So are you having a party?”

"If you can call a houseful of screaming kids running riot a party, then yes, I am.”

“I know what you mean. My sister just threw a “Sweet 16” party for her daughter. Who knew 8 teenage girls could make such a mess?! So you’re having it at your place? Are you having caterers in or are you going to do it all yourself?”

“Yes, I’m doing it all and I’d better get …….”

“It’s a big job. I hate to think of the mess. Are you going to use paper plates and cups?”

“Actually, I was just headed to the supermarket and they were on my list.”

“Good idea. That will make it a lot easier to clean up. Did you know we have paper plates here?. They’re on the back wall along with all the other disposable catering supplies. What about decorations? Have you organised the rest of the decorations for the party?”

“Well, no, I was going to get those from the supermarket too.”

Half an hour later, I left Claude’s laden with party supplies, paper plates and cups and plastic cutlery. My wallet was $234.99 lighter, but I’d saved myself time, got some terrific stuff and still had time to pick up the party pies and sausage rolls from the supermarket. I took a quick run through the party supplies aisle at the supermarket. Not only did I get a better deal at Claude’s, but the selection was much better too.

That sales assistant could have let me just walk out of Claude’s with my two helium balloons, but I’m sure glad she didn’t. All it took was a few simple questions tucked neatly into a general conversation.

Every conversation with a customer is a selling opportunity. It just doesn’t have to seem like it to the customer. You don’t need to put the pressure on them; all it takes is a casual conversation and genuine interest in their answers. Add in a healthy dose of curiosity and you have the perfect salesperson.

Selling Add-ons can make all the difference to your business and to the customer. They feel you really care and it can save them time and money and make their life easier.

Training as Punishment

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:46:00 +0000

I was chatting with a young woman, Felicity, a while ago. She had asked for my help with her Sales Manager who was being a bit too demanding, expecting Felicity to meet targets of at least 50% to budget. Felicity was afraid that she was going to have to do some remedial training because she wasn’t meeting the mean old Sales Manager’s expectations.

This raised a few questions in my mind, firstly why was Felicity’s target 50%? Surely 100% makes more sense. Nobody can feel good with the job only half done. They tend to just give up because they perceive that it’s impossible to reach the goal. 100% to budget should be the starting point. Acceptable performance rates 100%, superior performance rates higher and less than stellar performance rates lower. With 100% as the target, everyone knows where they stand and they also know what they shooting for. So why not have a rethink and set the budgets accordingly? Felicity’s manager could still have the same expectation in terms of dollars, but instead of calling that expectation 50% to budget, rename it 100% instead.

Felicity wasn’t reaching her targets at all, there was obviously something wrong, yet according to her, the Manager was the source of the problem. I suggested to Felicity that if she had met her targets, the Manager would have nothing to moan about and as she grudgingly conceded, the spectre of remedial training hung over her like a big black cloud.

Felicity’s fear of being forced to undergo training rang alarm bells with me. Surely training is a positive thing or am I just a bit biased? If you’re presented with the opportunity to improve yourself, to learn new things and grow in your personal and business life, why wouldn’t you? Well, that was not how Felicity saw it at all. She considered training a punishment inflicted on her by a cruel slave driver of a boss. Training was a chore and a bore and an utter waste of her time.

Her perception of training was not uncommon. Her only experience of it was being held captive in a room for hours or perhaps even days on end while some talking head stood at the top of the room and incessantly preached at her, telling her the error of her ways. She claimed she never learned anything or if she did, it went out of her head within a week. She was probably right because I’ve heard all this before, more than once and not just from Felicity.

In a perfect world, training would be a positive experience with eager fresh-faced young things all lined up breathlessly anticipating every word that falls like pearls from the brilliant trainer’s lips. They would then head out into the world armed with all the knowledge they would ever need, empowered to conquer their budgets and tame their clients. Yeah right! Felicity’s idea of training as punishment is far closer to the truth.

We considered all this when we decided to create The Wendy Weapon - Interactive Training on DVD.

We wanted training that would engage salespeople, not just make their managers feel satisfied that their people were getting a good dose of training.

We wanted training that would enrich people’s lives, get them excited about what they were doing, not just in their work, but in their whole life.

We wanted training that was available when the trainee needed it.

When new people came on board and needed to be quickly brought up to speed, we wanted our training to be ready when they were.

We wanted to make sure that each and every trainee was given the same training, not skipping a bit of crucial information here and there because the trainer went off on a tangent.

Most of all, we wanted training that got the job done, that educated and informed and left the trainee feeling knowledgeable and eager to succeed.

Cue the applause, because we got what we wanted! Clients who’ve tried The Wendy Weapon are raving about it. They’re telling us they love it and why wouldn’t they? It does what we say it does - teaches people to sell well. It’s entertaining, easy-to-digest, covers all the bases…… I could offer pages of superlatives but why am I telling you all this when you can so easily find out for yourselves?! If you’re ready to make knowledge and empowerment a priority with your sales team, if you’re committed to improving your performance, then you simply must take a look at The Wendy Weapon right now, today.

By the way, I put Felicity through the programme and she loves it too. She’s not just meeting budget, she’s exceeding it and her attitude has done a 180⁰. She told me she was starting to believe in herself again. No more moaning about training as punishment. No more blaming the boss for her own shortcomings. Felicity understands accountability, she has set personal and professional goals, is on-track and serious about attaining them and finally gets it that she creates her own reality. I have to say with just a tinge of pride that Felicity’s reality is looking a lot rosier these days.

We’d like to make it easy for you to check out The Wendy Weapon for yourself. We’ve placed snippets from our modules on our website.

Know Your Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:44:00 +0000

Sometimes it helps to learn what other people in the sales industry are doing. Checking out their strategies can help you have those “light-bulb” moments that shine a light on what you’re doing and help you see things in different ways.

This week, we received an email from a client, Kon from iKon Images, who specialises in portrait, modelling and business photography. His is a very competitive industry, so drumming up new business has been a constant challenge for him. This is what he told us,

“2 weeks ago I made 90 prospecting calls in 3 days!!! Never have I made this many calls in one hit, one day I made over 45 calls!! Now I'm in the swing of it and tracking the calls every day and am a lot more diligent in making sure they happen. If it wasn't for your course and the role play and your encouragement I would never had made these calls. Thank you :)”

Kon didn’t say how much business he got out of the 90 prospecting calls he made, but then, he didn’t have to. He and I both know his conversion rates because we worked together on this very issue. If Kon’s making this many calls, I know he’s converting enough of them to keep his business ticking over nicely. So this brings up a question….”Do you know your numbers?”

How many prospecting calls does it take you to get an appointment? How many appointments does it take before you make a sale? How many sales does it take to make budget? How many sales will it take to earn the income you desire? Once you know this, you then also know how many calls you need to make each week to bring in enough new business. If you don’t know your numbers, it’s time you did the exercise to find out. Why? Because knowing where you stand right now helps you chart a course to where you want or need to go.

If you don’t know where you’re coming from, then it’s very difficult to know where you’re going to end up. You’re like a rudderless ship going round in circles in the middle of a very big ocean. It might be nice drifting around out there for a while, but eventually you notice all these luxury yachts hurrying purposefully past you. You can tell they know where they’re going and you can also tell they know how to get there. If you keep on drifting aimlessly, you’ll soon run out of things like food, water, clothing. Keep drifting aimlessly in sales, you'll soon run out of business.

So, what are you going to do about it?

Know your numbers, chart your course and get the results you want and/or need.

If you’d like to learn how to calculate your call rates, etc. naturally we have tools to help you. Check out our Prospecting DVD, part of The Wendy Weapon series of interactive sales training DVDs. It contains some outstanding content on the whys and hows of prospecting and is full of strategies that will help you get the most out of every prospecting call you make.
If you don’t already have one of our books, then now would be an ideal time to get one. “Don’t Stuff Up the Sale” contains a comprehensive chapter on prospecting. It also covers the sales process from start to finish in an easy-to-read style. If you just want the basic facts about prospecting, then the e-chapter would be right for you.
If your needs are a little more difficult to pinpoint, contact us and we’ll steer you in the right direction.

6 Simple Steps to Close Any Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:48:00 +0000

There are all kinds of tips, tricks and techniques for closing the sale, and some of them even work some of the time, so how come you're having so much trouble closing?

This is the single most common question salespeople ask us....and it has the single most simple answer.

If you're having trouble closing the most probable cause, ironically, is your opening.

The sales process needs to be viewed as a whole, with each step just as important as the preceding one. If you miss a step, you'll be standing on shaky ground, miss two and the whole thing collapses.

1. Start by building rapport with your customer, then once they're comfortable with you and you have a level of trust,

2. Ask them lots of brilliant questions to find out what they really want.

3. Match up what they really want with the benefits your products or services will provide to them.

4. Tell them why you’ve made the match and make it personal; “I recommend our flexible backscratcher because it will scratch that itch you’ve been having, Mr Client, and then you won’t need to spend all that money on masseuses with long fingernails. And of course, the real benefit to you is your wife won’t be so annoyed with you for paying so much to get your itch scratched.”

5. Flush out their smokescreens and

6. Deal with their real objections.

Then when the time comes to close, you'll find it's a mere formality. It takes care of itself.

Sure, there are dozens of different types of closes, they even have names, but none of them work more effectively than starting out as you mean to finish.

It sounds simple and it really is, though it takes skill, practice and experience to do it well.

If you need help with any of these steps, check out our website for the many ways we can get you sorted with books, DVDs, live training and echapters. We're sure to have something that will scratch your itch and if you can't find it, drop us an email or give us a call. We'll find something that's the perfect fit for you.

Repeat After Me....

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:50:00 +0000

Have you ever noticed that what you say isn’t always what people hear? How do you clearly convey your message so that the person on the receiving end actually gets it? Just as we all have different personality styles we also have different preferences for taking in and digesting information.

Wendy and I speak on Skype every day. Every once in a while she’ll tell me about a letter she’s received or will read a proposal to me and ask for a comment. It’s a complete and utter waste of her time and mine, because I don’t digest information simply by hearing it. Either I need to take notes while she speaks or read it for myself before I can properly understand it. I’m a visual kinaesthetic learner.

A friend of mine was doing a marketing course and had to do a sample proposal as part of his coursework. He carefully read through the criteria and then set to work creating the most fabulous proposal imaginable. It was sure to get him an “A+”. Quite by chance, he was talking to a colleague who was doing the same course and discovered he’d missed one crucial point that completely changed the direction of the proposal. All the work he’d put in was for nothing. He had to scrap his first proposal and redo everything, all because he’d not properly understood the written instructions. He needed to hear things before he understood them. He is an auditory learner.

You’ve just spent ten minutes on the phone with your mother explaining how to open an email attachment. You’ve been incredibly patient (you think) but she still doesn’t get it.

You later find out that your mother thought you were anything but patient. ‘Bossy’ and ‘overbearing’ were the words she chose when complaining about you to your sister. So that’s the thanks you get for it! You were only trying to help! You should have realised your mother likes to have a set of written instructions which she can follow step-by-step. If you simply tell her what to do, she’ll get confused and annoyed. She’s a visual learner.

Knowing how people learn, how they gather information is helpful when dealing with your clients, because you can deliver your message in ways that will be easily digestible.

Kinaesthetic learners like hands-on stuff. Take them on a tour of your plant, let them handle your product, give them samples, encourage them to take notes.

Visual learners prefer their information in writing or in other visual formats. Delivering information in a video format works for them, especially if you have included charts, graphs and sub-titles. If you need to convey important information to them, don’t do it by phone. Put it in writing.

Auditory learners pick up their information by listening. They prefer spoken presentations and are happy talking all day on the phone. Put the basics in writing and flesh it out with spoken details. When delivering a proposal to them, you’re more likely to get a good reception if you read the proposal to them and verbally expand on it as you go.

It’s not always obvious which learning style a person has so either you ask them how they prefer to get their information or you cover your bets and provide information to them verbally and in writing. When writing to a client, don’t assume that they will understand your flowery language and elegant turn of phrase. Often the words get in the way of the message. Keep it simple and use words in common usage. If you need them to perform a task, write it in step-by-step format, once again keeping it simple.

It’s not condescending to dumb things down, in fact it’s smart. Keep in mind that not everyone has the same learning style, so address your message to the lowest common denominator. If that means writing so that a ten year old would get it, then so be it! You’re ensuring that everyone understands what you’re on about and you don’t have to go back and forth explaining and clarifying everything.

Naturally, we have lots more information about different communication styles and how to appeal to each of them. There’s some great information in our Dealing with Difficult Customers DVD, where you’ll learn about communicating with clients in many different scenarios. Link to a snippet from this DVD. We have a whole chapter in each of our books devoted to the topic of communication, and we also have an e-chapter on the subject.

Trust Me!

noreply@blogger.com (Jo-Anne Cole (she writes) & Wendy Berry (she speaks)) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 06:05:00 +0000

We’ve all had dealings with the slick salesman you just know only wants to get his hands on your hard-earned dosh. You wouldn’t trust him as far as you could underarm bowl him. And if you don’t trust him, how can you be sure that what he’s trying to sell you is as good as he claims? The short answer is; you can’t. But it’s not just slick salesmen who have problems getting and keeping customers’ trust. In fact most of us have encountered this particular obstacle at one time or another, so how do we overcome it?

Building Trust

Don’t rush into your sales pitch as soon as you meet your prospect.

Show them that you’re just like them. People like dealing with people they perceive to be just like themselves. You do this by identifying their personality style and modifying your style to more closely match theirs. Do this discreetly so that you don’t offend them.

Build rapport by giving them your time and attention. They’ll feel you care about them because you’ve taken the time out of your busy day to listen to them.

Have a friendly chat with them. It should not be about your product or service, but about them and their day/life. Eventually you can move the topic of your chat towards their needs.

Ask broad questions and gradually taper down to specific questions.

Raise their awareness of their circumstances and highlight what they have told you by repeating it back to them…”So you said you’ve been having trouble getting a good reception. Why do you think that is?” “You mentioned that your load capacity has not been up to scratch. What do you mean?”

Allow them time to come to their own conclusions, so they don’t feel ‘hustled’.

Know your stuff. Study up about your products or services. As a customer, I always know when a salesperson is faking it or clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about and I immediately distrust them. Remember, your customers perceive you as the ‘expert’ when it comes to the product or service they’re planning to purchase, so you need to be well-equipped to provide them with the information they need and if you don’t know the answer to their question, you better be sure you know where to find out.

Keeping Trust

I recently had dealings with two companies who were interested in developing strategic alliances with us. The way each of these companies dealt with us was remarkable. One of them called when they said they would.

They emailed detailed agendas so that we knew where we stood every step of the way. They provided information in a timely manner and kept us updated whenever circumstances warranted it. In other words they were quintessentially professional.

The other company consistently failed to return phone calls, promised a proposal by a certain date and failed to deliver, set up a meeting and failed to arrive on time and failed to provide accurate information to us. You guessed it, they were quintessential failures. I would have to be completely mad to do business with them, even if they appeared to offer me a better deal. Why? Because it’s not always about the bottom line. I would be certain of constant frustration and petty annoyances in all my dealings with the failures because they’ve already taught me that this is how they do business.

Make small promises and keep them. “I’ll check up on that delivery date and ring you tomorrow morning.” If you don’t keep your word, you’re perceived by the customer as untrustworthy and once this thought enters their mind, you have to work twice as hard to regain their trust. It’s far easier just to do what you said you were going to do, when you said you were going to do it.

Trust is the single most important factor in making a sale. When it comes to a choice between buying from a salesperson perceived as trustworthy and one who isn’t, of course customers will buy from the trustworthy one. Not only that, they’ll keep going back to them.