The Winner's Sales Strategy Blog

Small gestures can add up to a lot

Those of you who've read "Selling Sucks" know that I'm a big Rush fan - in the beginning of the book, when I explain the differences between buying and selling, I mention that when Rush tickets go on sale, nobody has to sell them to because I'm rabid to buy them!!

At one of the shows I brought a copy along and asked "Gump," the band's drum technician, to pass it along to drummer Neil Peart for me, as I thought they'd get a kick out of seeing them mentioned in the book.

Well, yesterday I checked my mail and found a hand-written thank you note from Neil Peart himself!!

I was so excited and happy to receive that - and still am - and it made me realize how far small gestures can go. It only took him a minute to write that and drop it in the mail but it made my day. It's even got me ordering thank you cards because I realized I can make someone's day when I return a reader's gesture with a note from me.

Don't forget that the little things go a long way. It's something you come to realize when you stop chasing the immediate sale, and start thinking about what you can do for people instead, whether it's solving problems in their business or just putting a smile on someone's face!

I need your vote!

I've just learned that my latest book, "Selling Sucks: How to Stop Selling and Start Getting Prospects to Buy," has been nominated for Business Book of the Year! I'd hugely appreciate your vote -

Click Here to Vote

You'll find "Selling Sucks" in the right-hand column about halfway down.

Thank you!

Pre-Paid Legal and Market Dilution

Once in a while, a great idea comes along. And, sometimes, a great idea becomes so well-accepted and even overused that it becomes totally ineffective.

Take Pre-Paid Legal for example. It is a fantastic idea - a low monthly fee to cover basic legal expenses, including the writing of attorney letters in the event of disputes or other issues with another party.

The problem, though, is how overused and abused the letter-writing service has become.

I used to get an attorney letter maybe once a year, if that. Now it's become a weekly event and sometimes even more frequent than that. And guess what I do the instant I receive an attorney letter? You guessed it - I Google the law firm, and if Pre-Paid Legal comes up, I ignore the letter and throw it in the trash.

I know full well that those letters come from people who pay the $25/month membership fee and who do not have the resources or the intent to pursue a lawsuit against me (Pre-Paid Legal does not cover the filing of lawsuits, only defense in the event you are sued).

And, to make matters worse, people are firing off those letters over anything and everything. I've even had customers who had a problem downloading an e-book, just as an example, who, instead of contacting my helpdesk to get the issue resolved in a matter of minutes, instead had a threatening Pre-Paid Legal letter sent to me.

How ridiculous.

This is what happens when a good idea becomes too accessible to the masses. Perhaps it's time for Pre-Paid Legal to raise their fees, or curb or even eliminate the letter-writing service, which has now become totally ineffective because it's become so overused and because people like me now ignore them entirely. It's an easy selling point because petty argumentative people salivate at the prospect of having an attorney threaten people on their behalf for $25/month, but come on, let's use the service for what it was originally intended for - coverage of legitimate legal expenses.

Remember, exclusivity is one of the most powerful marketing tactics in existence. Dilution and overuse destroy exclusivity. Having an attorney write a letter on your behalf used to be the private province of the affluent, but now that the common masses have access to it, it just doesn't work anymore.

My members-only website is live!

You can find all the details here:

Double Your Numbers

Hurry, the introductory price of $19.97 - which gets you almost SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS in products - is only good for the first 1,000 people who sign up!

Double Your Numbers

Do you suffer from the "looter" mentality?

When I worked in sales, the 80/20 rule was definitely in effect - less than 20% of the salespeople produced more than 80% of the sales. In many cases it was more like 90/10, or 95/5.

When I work with salespeople now, the #1 problem I see is the "Something for Nothing" mentality, or as I like to call it, the "looter" mentality (thanks to Ayn Rand for that one), holding them back. Over 80% of the salespeople I hear from want to get the easy sales, but they're not willing to do the work and get the education they need to make that happen. A good example is when I release a product for, say, $97, and small business owners and marketers will review it and tell me it's so great I'm crazy to sell it for less than $500. Most salespeople, on the other hand, will balk at spending even $97 and will demand the information for free.

To make matters worse, many let this looter mentality contaminate the rest of their lives.

Here's an example: Back in March, a customer bought our Insurance Selling Secrets product for $497. It was stated right on the web page, and it's also printed on our return policy web page, that all products priced over $100 carry a 60-day return policy. Well, this particular customer returned it after about 90 days. When we refused to give her a refund, she disputed the credit card charge. Her bank sided with us and agreed she didn't deserve a refund. Then she re-disputed, and again her bank agreed with us. Then she filed a BBB complaint against us, and had an attorney mail us a threatening letter (although it was from PrePaid Legal which, as a policy, we ignore).

Now, think about this: How much money and how many sales could this person have made if she'd spent all that time working, instead of wasting her time trying to get money from us that she wasn't entitled to in the first place?

Here's a person who is basically trying to steal from us, while at the same time failing to work at her job.

No wonder she's not selling enough insurance. In fact, she didn't need our course. What she needed was to learn to focus on getting results, and not on chasing negativity and trying to get things she's not entitled to.

If you haven't read it, Brian Tracy's book "Something For Nothing" is a fantastic read on this subject, and why people like this are destroying America.

Prince is an idiot

Yesterday I posted about Radiohead's potential brilliance in giving away their new CD, free.

Prince, on the other hand, has just sued several fan sites (yes, his own fans!) for using his images and lyrics without permission and royalties.

You know, the very same fan sites that promote him and help sell his albums and concert tickets, at no cost to him.

What a genius.

My thoughts on spam filters and customer service

When I email people, friends, colleagues, you name it, I increasingly get responses back from SpamAssasin and BoxTrapper and other anti-spam mechanisms, asking me to validate myself as a real person before my email will be delivered.

This is effective in theory, but it's causing major headaches on the customer service side of things.

For starters:

- Customers who buy e-book products never receive download links
- Customers never receive important announcements and updates
- Customers never receive our helpdesk contact info, return policies, and so on
- Customers complain that they no longer receive our newsletters
- Customers do not receive receipt emails

...and on, and on.

(In case you're wondering, these types of emails are automatically generated and no one is there to validate each and every one ... exactly the type of email the filters are intended to block.)

My advice: Don't use these spam filters. I don't. I stopped when I began missing important emails, such as requests for me to come out and speak, interview requests from media, and more.

It's nice to not receive unwanted junk mail, but not at the cost of missing far more important emails as a result. It's not that big of a deal for me to spend a minute or two each day deleting spam from my inbox.

If you're a customer of online products, don't use these filters - keep at least one mailbox open and use that for online ordering, or for important contacts, or both. If you're an online merchant, be sure to remind customers to use a non-protected email address when ordering from you. Otherwise your helpdesk will be overwhelmed and hijacked by people who accuse you of not contacting them, when in reality it was their spam filter causing the problems all along.

Radiohead: Marketing Geniuses?

The band Radiohead shook up the recording industry by making their latest album available for free on their website, instead of selling it in stores.

Actually, they put it online for whatever donation people were willing to give to download it, but as expected, most people downloaded it for free.

This has really shaken up the recording industry which is already reeling from falling CD and other media sales.

There is a school of thought in marketing that says if you stop selling your product for money and start distributing it for free, you will make a killing on back-end sales and upsells, much more so than if you just tried to sell the entry-level product.

Interesting theory ... I think there may be some truth to it, and I'm waiting to see how this plays out in terms of other revenue streams for Radiohead like increased concert ticket sales.