Our friend John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing is doing a fun giveaway each day this week to celebrate Small Business Week. We at RAIN Group are happy to be a part of that today. Our very own Mike Schultz is featured today on the Duct Tape Marketing Blog, and you could win an iPad 2 by just giving his post a read. Thing is, you may not know which post is his. Let me explain.      

Why - a powerful word in uncovering need. "It’s not that they can’t see the solution, it’s that they can’t see the problem." - G.K. Chesterton One day the production line stopped suddenly, and the whole plant shut down. It was horrible! The company lost tens of thousands of dollars an hour by not turning out widgets as the staff stood idly by and waited. The problem was in the ViperAssembly machine. No matter what they tried, they just couldn’t fix it for good. They replaced the McGurnkney nut and it worked for about a day. Then it stopped again. Then they tried realigning the Johnson rod, and that fix only lasted 3 hours.      

Even when people know their value, many find it difficult to describe it. Let’s say someone asks you the simple question, "What do you do?" How do you answer? Of course, you need to get your value across, but as we note here, when communicating your value proposition, you don’t want to deliver the same canned speech for everyone. What you need to do is first craft, then learn to deliver specific nuggets of information you can use to get your value across. Put all these nuggets together, and you have what we call a value proposition positioning statement.       

It's important to build rapport from the initial handshake. Take a look at these 7 tips for building genuine rapport with new prospects. Consider this: a CBS News / New York Times poll asked, "What percent of people in general are trustworthy?" The answer: 30%. Pretty skeptical we all are, right? Not necessarily. At the same time, the CBS News / New York Times poll asked a similar group the same question, but with a slight difference. "What percent of people that you know are trustworthy?" The answer: 70%. That’s a huge difference. Goes to show you: when people get to know you and people get to like you, people begin to trust you. Of course, there’s a lot more to building trust than making a good initial connection with someone, but it’s sure a good start. And making a connection with someone makes them more comfortable sharing with you their aspirations and their afflictions, two things you need to know if you want to succeed in sales. When you build rapport in sales, keep in mind you want to make a sincere connection. All too often chit-chat before a sales call seems contrived…because it is. Assuming you want to build solid and real relationships with people, consider the following...      

A. Green eggs and ham.   John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing asked me and several other sales industry veterans the following question: "I hate selling, so now how do I convert leads?" His readers could then guess which sales author answered the question which way. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I thought I’d share how I answered the question.      

There's money to be made in social media if you sell the right way. There’s this age-old problem with selling: If we could only get more people to pay attention to us, we could build relationships that lead to sales. Fortunately, social media offers an amazing source of business opportunities. If you approach it the right way, you can build many relationships that could be crucial to your business growth and success. This article is about successfully selling (not marketing) with social media. And by selling, I mean the "two people getting to know each other and starting up a conversation that might go somewhere" kind of selling. Here are 8 ways to strike up social media conversations with people you want to meet...      

Is there a silver bullet key to sales success? Wouldn’t it be great if there were a silver bullet that would make you more successful in your sales efforts? One thing you could do to really boost your sales success? I hate to disappoint, but the reality is, there is no silver bullet. Sales success takes hard work and commitment along with skill and savvy. While there is no one thing that will work for you, there are a number of things you can do to help boost your overall success. You can start by following these 10 sales tips...      

Master the 4 types of sales objections, and you'll be on the road to much greater sales success. An objection is not a rejection; it is simply a request for more information. - Bo Bennett Are you the type of person who quickly deals with sales objections, providing answers immediately, trying to overcome them as quickly as possible and move towards the close? If so, you are probably not: Taking the time to fully understand the objection and what’s behind it by asking clarifying questions Dealing with the issue thoroughly enough and to the level of satisfaction the prospect desires Presenting a compelling enough argument to overcome the objection and ultimately win the business Imagine you have a $450,000 deal on the line. You are at the altar. Six months have gone into this deal and uncountable hours. You can see the finish line… you just have to overcome the last few objections. All too many sales fall apart late in the game because sellers are so anxious to rush through this crucial phase in the sales process. I have consistently seen objections mishandled because sellers simply do not understand the basis for the actual objection.      

Only focusing on a prospect's pain? You're missing half the story. Most sales advice suggests that to sell products and services as solutions to needs you must uncover your prospect’s pain. The reasons are simple: If the prospect communicates his business afflictions to you, then it is likely that he will want them to go away if it’s possible, and if it makes sense to invest the time, money, and brainpower to get rid of them. Each affliction you uncover gives you the chance to explore it fully to discover its true business impact.   Uncovering and discussing one affliction can lead to other afflictions, which the prospect may not have been thinking about in the first place. Uncovering your prospect’s afflictions is a crucial step in the business development process. But focusing only on afflictions can do you a disservice because problems and pain are only half the story.      

Use these 3 techniques, and you'll warm up cold prospects and fill your pipeline. Cold prospecting - reaching out to targets you don’t know to generate an initial meeting - is one of the hardest parts of sales. Partly, it’s a numbers game. With decision makers more insulated than ever, it’s getting harder and harder to get past gatekeepers and beyond voicemail.   But what happens when you do get a cold prospect to pay attention - whether it’s because they picked up the phone, or responded to an email or a direct mail piece? Do you feel like you nail it every time? Much prospecting success is determined in this first interaction. Many opportunities die here before you have a chance to engage. What can you do to get cold prospects to shift from "go away" to "sounds good, let’s talk?"