Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Words & Phrases You Should Use to Maintain Rapport With Prospects

By Larry Prevost, Dale Carnegie Training Instructor

As sales executives and account managers, one of the things that we need to be aware of is how our audience is responding to the words that we are using. As one of my mentors told me, we can see the results of our communication through the response that we get from our audience.


For sales executives and account managers, the audience consists of our prospects and clients.

We have talked before about the effect our words can have on our prospects. Here are two more types of words or phrases to use when presenting your solution and favorably impacting the prospect.

Bridges. A bridge is a brief phrase that links a fact about our product or service to a stated benefit and it implies a causal relationship. Think of the bridge as helping your prospect cross over from the hard, real world fact to the more tenuous and desirable benefit. Words and phrases like:

1. Therefore...

2. Which means...

3. So...

4. You will find this helpful, because...

For example, "Our instructors are required to take a refresher program annually, which means..."

The bridge keeps the dialog between you and your prospect conversational, which allows you to maintain rapport with your them.

Cushions. We use cushions primarily when a prospect states an objection. It is a statement that acknowledges that you were listening to the prospect, you heard the objection and you understand its importance. However, the cushion does not agree, disagree or address the objection. When you use a cushion after hearing an objection, you allow yourself to maintain rapport with your prospect while trying to understand their position on the subject at hand.

Most of the time, your cushion will be specific to the objection or point raised. However, some of the more generic phrases that can be used as cushions are:

1. I can appreciate that.

2. I understand what you are saying.

3. I can see where you are coming from.

Examples of words that we commonly use as cushions but are more like staging areas for a verbal ground assault are:

1. ...but...

2. However...

3. Nevertheless...

These words typically are used between two opposing opinions or views, and they have the undesirable effect of putting you and your prospect on uneven ground in the conversation. The perception is that they tend to lessen or negate everything that comes before them and elevating everything that comes after them. Statements like, "I can see your point, but..." or "I feel your pain. However..." don't really build bridges or establish common ground. A good cushion will maintain rapport and keep the channels of communication open so that you can address the concern or determine if the concern is real.

In all of our communication as sales people, we are trying to convey our ideas to our prospects and clients. In order to do that, we need to maintain rapport throughout the sales process. Keep your communication conversational and directed by using bridges and cushions. Your prospects will appreciate the effort and they will show that appreciation by becoming clients.

About the Author: Larry Prevost is an instructor and an IT consultant for Dale Carnegie Training of Ohio and Indiana.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Churn Rate... Do you know what yours is?

...and how it affects your business?

Churn Rate* The phrase is based on the English verb "churn", meaning to agitate or produce violent motion.
Customer base
“Churn rate, when applied to a customer base, refers to the proportion of contractual customers or subscribers who leave a supplier during a given time period. It is a possible indicator of customer dissatisfaction, cheaper and/or better offers from the competition, more successful sales and/or marketing by the competition, or reasons having to do with the customer life cycle. The churn rate can be minimized by creating barriers which discourage customers to change suppliers (contractual binding periods, use of proprietary technology, unique business models, etc.), or through retention activities such as loyalty programs. It is possible to overstate the churn rate, as when a consumer drops the service but then restarts it within the same year. Thus, a clear distinction needs to be made between 'gross churn', the total number of absolute disconnections, and 'net churn', the overall loss of subscribers or members. The difference between the two measures is the number of new subscribers or members that have joined during the same period. Suppliers may find that if they offer a loss-leader "introductory special", it can lead to a higher churn rate and subscriber abuse, as some subscribers will sign on, let the service lapse, then sign on again to take continuous advantage of current specials.” * From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Your Territory
There is churn in every business, with some causes being external, and some being internal. Your territory is no different. Do you know what the average rate of “Churn” is for your territory? Typical green industry figures are in the 20 – 25% range depending on market segment. There is higher than average churn in the landscape segment, and lower than average churn in the garden center segment.
External factors include economy, change of business model, change of personnel, and impact of competition, weather, and government regulation.
Internal factors include customer service, personalities, quality of products, pricing, firing you customer, credit policy, change of market focus, change of product lines, or change of services.
Staying whole (it goes without saying retention is the first golden rule)
A key strategy to maintaining and increasing sales success in your territory is to focus on replacing those customers lost to inevitable (and ugly) churn. The only way to accomplish this is to be constantly seeking new opportunities. If your current territory management plan does not include the objective of adding at least as many accounts as lost, or even better, more accounts, then your territory is destined to shrink.
Ask yourself: “What is your weekly goal for new opportunities?”