Did you send another email from your phone with “sent from my iPhone” at the bottom?

If this is you, you’re committing the most basic of all email signature crimes. The crime is missing out on a beautiful opportunity to engage with your customers. Alert them to ways to connect with you. Build a better email signature.

By not taking the time to craft a better email signature, you’re telling your customers you don’t pay attention to detail.

All this is conveyed in an auto-generated four-word phrase. That’s pretty powerful. But, there’s no need to worry. You can remedy this with a few tricks from the marketing department. It will increase your use of technology in your sales strategies.

Why a Better Email Signature

You need an elegant email signature. It’s a simple way to convey legitimacy. An email signature provides ways for you and your customers to connect.

This can be through social media, directing them to a website, or alerting them of all the products you represent.

I am a believer that all contact with a prospect, colleague, or customer is an opportunity to provide value. We can educate them.

This means every email should have a place for a call to action. A resource your customer to use, and a way to track all this information.

What Your Email Should Include

There are some obvious items that an effective email should include. Also, some not so obvious, but very effective ones. A great email signature should have:

• Name
• Job Title
• Company
• Contact Information (phone, email, fax, address, etc.)
• Social Media Profiles
• Websites
• Products of Interest
• Resources

The above list is quite extensive. You don’t need to include every item. You should focus on what is relevant to your customers. If you find that social selling is becoming a large part of your business, then social media profiles are important.

Resources and products of interest are great ways to alert customers of new products. You can provide pertinent industry information. Really, anything you believe could aid them in a purchasing decision.

Email Signature Design Inspiration

Once you have determined what items are relevant to your customers, it’s time to find some inspiration.

You don’t want an email signature that is large and filled with images. A prospects email server may view your email as SPAM. Here are a couple examples for inspiration:

Where To Begin Building

Now that you have some inspiration and have determined what to include in your signature, there are a few places you can build your email signature.

As you build links in your email signature, whether it is for resources, website, or social media profiles, you want to be able to track what is being clicked. A few great resources for link shortening and link tracking are:

Google Link Shortening

Bitly

Next, you will want to have ways for your customers to follow you on social media. This is a great way to stay in touch on a daily basis. You can use the above resources to create a trackable link. Then, you can place that link in an image of the social media platform you would like to direct your customers. The following article has a great detailed process for this.

Add Your Social Media Icons

Now that you have an idea of how to build your email signature, you can take some time to craft a thoughtful email signature for your audience.

Good luck and good selling!

No.

At times the customer wrong.

Sometimes they don’t even know what they want. This is where you have the opportunity to educate.

A great example is airline travel.

The Airline Customer is Wrong

Airline travel is a great example. Despite what customers say, they have spoken with their wallets. What they say with their wallets is very different than what they say with words.

When people fly, it’s inevitable they are going to complain. But let’s be honest, flying is a terrible experience.

Although it is a pretty amazing feat, sitting in a seat in the air, making trips people used to die making (please see Louie C.K. for a hilarious explanation).

But, contrary to popular belief, airlines really listen to their customers. So much so, that they redesign planes for customers based upon what they are telling them with their wallets.

An example of this is passengers are always complaining about leg room. The feeling is that passengers are cattle in the air. So, airlines redesigned planes to give people more leg room. With that increased leg room prices went up. Customers said they were willing to pay more for more leg room.

What was the result?

Customers still went for the lowest price tickets without regard for the leg room. The customer said they wanted more leg room, but what they really wanted was the lowest price.

In this example, the customer was wrong in explaining what they wanted. The customer is not always right, despite what they are telling you.

How do you determine what the customer wants?

A few ways to determine the truth are:

Discovery Period

The discovery period is essential. This is where you have the opportunity to ask questions and determine what the customer thinks they want. If you ask the right questions, then you will get to what will actually get the customer to buy. Asking the right questions is the most efficient way to get the customer to tell you the truth.

Patience Is A Virtue

Exercise patience in the sales cycle. Unfortunately, patience is not in the DNA of most Sales Professionals. It can be developed and is a skill worth developing.

To determine whether your customer knows what they want, you need to spend enough time in conversation to get them to open up.

I know from experience this may not always be possible. But, unless we take control of the conversation and the sales call, we will never have the opportunity to stay in discovery period.

Patience will keep you in the discovery stage long enough to determine the truth.

The Trial Close

Utilizing the trial close is a great way to qualify the potential buyer to see if they have given you the real reason they will be purchasing.

The intent here is to know that you are going to be going back into discovery when you get the no answer. This is the sales conversation game that we all play.

The customer may believe they are always right. But, with the correct discovery questions, patience, and using the trial close, you can determine what the customer really wants.

Good luck and good selling!

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

“Nein, ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.”

Okay, then let’s do this in English.

I often find myself in this exchange, as I have relocated to Germany. Although I am learning the language, people love to speak English to me.

I think this is because it’s easier for the individuals I speak with. Also, they get to practice their English. But, this is not an article about my language learning woes.

This is a look at what learning a language is teaching me about how to better listen to your customers.

Listen to Your Customers

Before learning German, I had only “pretended” to learn Spanish. I took Spanish classes for four and a half years in school, and never gained fluency. I was never even close. In my short time learning German, I am further along than I ever was in Spanish.

This could be the result of need. I never had to use Spanish. As a result, in school we just kind of went through the motions. More important than learning a language to communicate, is what the learning a language is teaching me.

It is teaching me to become a better listener. I now need to listen better when speaking German, as I have to translate and interpret what is being said.

What this has revealed is that I am not a good listener.

In fact, I’m a terrible listener. I continually think of what I am going to say next. Either to one up the person I am speaking with or to tell them how great my product or story is.

This is not a good trait to have in Sales.

Listening becomes the foundation of customer relationships. The only way to find out the customers need is through listening. Listening is how we decipher our prospects black box.

If you listen to your customers, it provides empathy and understanding. It’s the best way to understand their business.

Poor Listening exposed

I have been on many initial sales calls where I probably missed a customer queue. The customer letting me know their problems.

The real problem is not understanding the extent of the problem. I now know I need to continuously practice my listening skills. Engage better in conversations. This means conversations may have awkward pauses while I get my thoughts together. That’s ok.

If I understand and am engaged in the conversation, the awkward pause will be outweighed by the solution I provide.

Moving In The Right Direction

What am I doing now to improve my listening?

For starters, I am speaking to people to practice my new language. You don’t need to learn a language to practice good listening skills. A few tricks that I have come across are:

1. Ask A Recap Question

This is an important concept and provides two benefits.

The first is it helps you clarify the customer’s thoughts. You can ensure you’re both on the same page.

The second is that it will give you a bit of time, with no awkward pause, to gather your thoughts.

You Win!

2. Put Your Phone Away

Having your phone out during a sales call is a recipe for distraction. Not only are you continually looking to see if someone has texted or called, but you portray that your customer is unimportant.

This leads to distraction. To the customer, it seems like you’re not listening.

3. Prepare For A Conversation

Preparation for a call can’t be overstated. This is more than just looking like you want the business. It will help keep you engaged so you can ask insightful questions.

The engagement the questions provide will help you listen to your customers.

For me, becoming a better listener is a work in progress. With better listening, I think I will close more sales and build better relationships. Now if my German would improve I’ll be in great shape.

How do you listen to your customers?

Good luck and good selling!

As I sit in the lobby of an industrial transport company, I can not help but think, why am I sitting here?

I have a meeting with a contact, who, according to my sales reports, has purchased products in the past. To me, it seemed logical to set an appointment with him and introduce myself. The problem is I had no real agenda.

I was merely asking for someone’s time.

When I went through sales training I was taught you needed five confirmed meetings a day. That should be the goal when you start in your territory.

So, this is exactly what I did. Unfortunately, I did not learn why you set a meeting, how to set a meeting, or why someone would want to meet.

Learning Value From Seneca

I reflected upon this situation as I read the philosophical, Seneca – On The Shortness Of Life. I enjoyed the following quote:

“All those who call you to themselves draw you away from yourself. […] I am always surprised to see some people demanding the time of others and meeting a most obliging response. Both sides have in view the reason for which the time is asked and neither regards the time itself — as if nothing there is being asked for and nothing given. They are trifling with life’s most precious commodity, being deceived because it is an intangible thing, not open to inspection and therefore reckoned very cheap — in fact, almost without any value.” – Seneca

I find this applicable to the life of the Sales Professional. We continually ask prospects for their time.

We claim the hardest part of the sales cycle is the close. In reality, the hardest part is asking for that first meeting.

Why?

We are asking for something more valuable than the money it takes to purchase. We asking the prospect to give their time. Possibly for something they know little about. The time we are asking for is their only non-renewable resource. To justify the time we ask for, we need to build a reason.

This is why value is the most important concept in sales.

Value provides you with justification to ask for a meeting. When it comes time to purchase, there should be no doubt in the prospect’s mind.

Value also lets you differentiate from the competition. Sometimes, the features and benefits are not enough to convince a buyer. What you can do for the customer and their business is what drives your value proposition.

So what is value exactly?

Value can be a general concept. It can be as general as whatever aspect of your pitch causes a prospect to buy. Or, as specific as the ROI your product will provide the customer. When I look at value, I believe it is a solution. Value is the customer’s problem you identify and your product can solve. In essence, you make the customer’s life easier.

In looking at the first meeting I scheduled when starting in sales, I had no idea why customers should meet with me. I was lucky the prospect was giving me the time to speak with him. I needed to build my value proposition. This I learned over time.

Building value is important. Everybody has a finite amount of time. This is how you justify meetings at work and build a valuable relationship with a customer.

Seneca On The Shortness Of Life is a great reminder of the value of time. We tend to put more value on our money than time. As Sales Professionals, we need to think of our prospects time. Provide value to justify the time we are asking for in the early stages of the sales cycle.

Good luck and good selling!