How can you put on a great open house?

I received a great question from a client last week, and although I first thought about answering it in “Hot Question” format, it demanded a longer answer.  I think many of you might be able to learn from it as well.  The question was, “Troy, my company is considering hosting an open house for our customers. An Open House as an employee morale booster or for client appreciation has undoubted value, but my question to you is whether or not you’ve ever heard of Open House events being worthwhile in a sales aspect?”

That’s an excellent question, and worthy of a HotSheet article.  An event for customers like an open house, or a customer appreciation party, can be a great way to build stronger customer relationships and employee morale and esprit de corps.  It can also be an expensive failure that leads to employees standing around, looking at each other, and eating expensive catered food while wondering when the customers are going to show up.  The difference between the two lies in understanding the two “wins” that must happen.

For a successful customer event to happen, two “wins” must be designed in prior to the event, and two questions answered:

First, how does the customer win by showing up?  Once upon a time, it was enough to put out free food and free booze to get people to show.  Yes, you can still get people to show up with those promises – but fewer and fewer people, and they are unlikely to be the C-level and V-level contacts that my client was targeting.   There has to be a ‘win’ or a gain for those contacts to show up – particularly if you’re trying to bring in prospects as well as clients.  We’ll get to some of those wins in a moment, but first, let’s address the next question.

Second, how does the company win by investing in the open house?  Open houses are fun, and it’s nice to show off your facility – especially if you’ve moved into new digs.  But to really win, there needs to be  a strategy behind the open house that helps customers enter into, or advance through, their own buying processes.  When it’s over, you need to either have new prospects, deeper relationships with current customers, or (ideally) both.

The order of those questions is no accident – if you’ve not answered the first question well, the second question doesn’t matter, because you won’t win without people showing up.
Here are some possible “wins” that will entice your customers to show up:

• Create an experience that they can’t get anywhere else.  Some of the best open houses I’ve seen have been “experience based,” where there are activities that encourage attendee participation and involvement.
• Give stuff away.  When I say “give stuff away,” I don’t mean promotional products, nor do I mean your products.  I mean have some door prizes that are well worth winning.
• Educate and inform.  Some successful open houses will have educational events that show how to use your products or services better.  For instance, if you’re selling industrial boilers, you might have a workshop on boiler maintenance.
• Bring in a great speaker.  Alternatively, a noted speaker and seminar can be an excellent draw, particularly for those C- and V-level people that my client was targeting.

Now that you have them there, it’s time for you to “win” as well.  Again, these are “wins” that should be articulated BEFORE the event.

• Key employees can meet your customers.  This can be especially important when the key employees are not necessarily involved with the customer contact.  For instance, if the only people meeting your customers are your sales and service people, it’s good to have your plant manager, general manager, etc. meet your customers.
• Demonstrate your products.  Product demos can be an excellent reason to have an open house, particularly if it’s difficult to demonstrate your products in the field (for instance, heavy machine tools, copiers, etc.).
• Plant tours.  This can work really well if your plant is particularly clean or innovative; customers enjoy seeing where their products are made or serviced, and a look ‘behind the curtain’ can be very enjoyable and build more identity with you.
• Close a sale.  Yes, it’s perfectly OK to sell at an open house.  Why not?  All the facilities to complete the sale are in one place, so don’t be afraid to allow customers to express interest and to buy.
• Meet new prospects.  If the “wins” above are solid, you may get prospects to come to your facility – even when they won’t take a sales call.

A well planned open house can be a great way to build stronger customer relationships, but it depends on the two wins.  Make sure both are solid, and it’s a good investment.

When I started out in selling, I thought that it was all about presenting.  I’d get up in front of my customers, give a great speech, and they’d be reaching for their checkbooks before I even finished.  Well, suffice it to say that I learned.  In fact, I’ve learned a lot since then.  When I speak, one of the most commonly requested topics is on giving great sales presentations – but I’m always a bit reluctant to speak on that topic.

You see, a sales presentation is only as good as the discovery and information gathering that preceded it.  That’s why much of my writing and teaching is dedicated to understanding your customers.  Still, there is a place for understanding how to give a great presentation, and as long as you promise to keep it in context, I’ll give you five great ways to optimize your sales presentations.  You promise?  Great!  Let’s get started.

Have the Right Content:  One of the reasons that so many sales presentations fail is that they have too much junk in them.  By “junk,” I mean “Anything that the buyer doesn’t care about.”  If you’ve done a good discovery, your buyer has already told you what they care about, and that’s where your presentation centers.  The best presentations simply have three elements:

1. The Observation of the current situation.  Recap the customer’s situation, needs, and desired result.
2. Your Plan of Action to address the customer’s desired result.  This should be your recommendation of products, services, and other actions.
3. The Advantages of adopting your plan.  Let the buyer ‘see’ the result of adopting the plan.  Use Achievement Statements and other verbiage to paint the picture.

Be Present:  One of my speaking mentors, Darren LaCroix, says that he always asks himself this question right before he speaks:  “Am I present?”  What Darren means by that is, “Am I in the moment and focused?”  If you want to use a presentation to persuade, your mind needs to be on what is being said and communicated, not on your weekend plans, your dog’s trip to the vet, picking up your dry cleaning, or anything else that isn’t presenting and selling.  If you are not in the moment, your customer will know – and they won’t be in the moment either.

Test Your Demos:  True story.  Yesterday I was interviewing a candidate who was anxious to demonstrate his marketing skills, and he indicated that he had designed a website (which, he said, was ‘pretty awesome’) for a small business he owned on the side.  He said, “Here’s the Web address; go see for yourself.” So I did.  And what I saw was, “This page is currently parked by GoDaddy.”  I looked at him, and he just chuckled and said, “Well, I guess I need to pay GoDaddy.”  Really?  Nothing looks worse than having a demonstration of any type that doesn’t work.  He’d have been far better off had he never mentioned the website – or if he’d cared enough to check its functionality before he came upstairs.  Full disclosure – I once drove 180 miles to try a demo with a failed piece of equipment that I hadn’t tried.  But I learned from it.

Use Visuals Appropriately:  I like PowerPoint.  I like it a lot.  I use it a lot.  I also like videos, pictures, and other visuals.  HOWEVER – when it comes to a presentation, it’s important to know what to use and what not to.  As a general rule, when you are one-on-one, limit your visuals; use them when you are presenting to larger groups.  In a one-on-one environment, the premium is on the conversation you are having, and any visuals you present can distract.  However, in a larger environment, visuals can help keep everyone up to speed and pace, and illustrate your points.

Give It the “So What” test:  When I was 16, I stood up in front of my speaking class for my first practice of the Original Oratory that I planned to give at a tournament that weekend.  About two minutes in, my coach shouted, “So what?”  Startled, I looked up at him, open mouthed.  He continued, “Who cares?”  By this time, I was dumbfounded – and speechless (for those of you who know me, that probably comes as a shock).  He finished, “What’s in it for me?  It’s all about me!”  He then explained that these four questions were likely what was in the judge’s mind (or the audience’s).  “Anytime you’re presenting a point,” he said, “Imagine your audience saying, ‘So what?  Who cares?  What’s in it for me?  It’s all about me!’”  Too often, sales presentations are about the salesperson and not the customer.  Hint:  the salesperson shouldn’t be doing the buying.  Give your presentation points the “So what” test, and you’ll be a lot more powerful.

Remember – it’s important to keep these points in perspective. Without a great discovery preceding the presentation, your presentation will fall flat.  It’s possible to ‘win’ the presentation and lose the sale, but it’s not possible to ‘lose’ the presentation and win the sale.

Can you deal with today’s more educated buyers?

The Internet can be many things to business and to salespeople; it can be the enemy (in the case of the Internet replacing salespeople), it can be a crutch (for salespeople who substitute research for actual selling) and it can be a valuable lead generator and a tool.  But what if the tools used to generate leads end up costing you business?

It’s possible to use the Internet to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and I’ve just seen it.  I’m looking for a specific car –  a 1996 Chevy Impala SS in good condition.  I found one on a local dealer’s website, and the note on the listing said that it was in the body shop for paint.  I used the contact form to e-mail the dealer, and in it I said specifically which car I am interested in (including the stock number), and asking them to let me know when it would be out of the body shop.  That’s when my trouble started.

In the half-day since e-mailing, I’ve received two e-mails from salespeople and three calls (all from different salespeople, none of whom seemed aware of others calling me).  None were able to answer my question; in fact, none even seemed to be aware of my specific interest or my e-mail comments.  However, all were anxious to get me to “come in and have a look around.” I recognize that tactic; I used it in the early 90s when I sold cars.  The trouble is that it doesn’t work with today’s customer, particularly when the customer has already used your internet site to zero in on a particular product they are seeking.

When a new customer calls you, he or she has probably done their research before contacting you.  They know what you sell, they know what they are specifically interested in, and they probably have a general idea of the market price.  I thought I was the perfect buyer for this dealership – I’m paying cash, I know specifically what car I want, I know that I like those cars, and if the actual car represents acceptable value, I’d planned on buying.  But the experience of dealing with the salespeople has put me off.  Today’s buyer demands more.  Here’s what today’s more educated buyer expects:

• Be professional.  The ultimate in unprofessionalism is to have a prospect bombarded with calls from different salespeople who are racing to get them into the dealer (the same goes for salespeople who fight for the next “up” at the showroom door).  I see this particular issue in many industries – sales managers figure they’ll put the same lead out to everyone and whoever is ‘most aggressive’ will get the lead.  Don’t do that.  One lead – one salesperson is the rule.  If you have salespeople whom you don’t trust with a lead, you shouldn’t have them.

• Be respectful of the customer’s time.  These salespeople wasted my time by not acknowledging my specific needs.  Whether that is the fault of whoever passed the lead on or the salespeople not reading the e-mail, I have no idea.  And this illustrates an important concept – the internet places a greater value and importance on every member of the company, and every part of the process, working in concert.  When I filled out that Internet form, my simple expectation was that whoever received the form would read it, see my specific interest, and respond directly to my question.  When this didn’t happen, I became frustrated.  Why did I spend the time to fill out that form completely if all they were going to do was to grab my number?

• Listen to the customer.  Again, today’s customer is far more knowledgeable and specific than the ones I sold to in the 90s.  Listen to them.  Once upon a time, the philosophy was, “the customer doesn’t know what they don’t know.”  Today, that’s not true.  Whether B2B or B2C, the customer has knowledge.  Now, it’s perfectly permissible to probe their knowledge and to ask why.  In some cases, it’s the best thing; customers can reach wrong conclusions through the Net.  But, without understanding, listening, and acknowledging, the salesperson doesn’t have the right to probe.  Had any of those salespeople asked me why I was focused on this specific car, I’d have told them willingly – but without even knowing of my interest, all they did was upset me.

• Answer the darned questions!  None of these salespeople answered or even acknowledged my questions.  That’s amazingly disrespectful.  When each salesperson contacted me, I repeated my question.  I still don’t know when that car will be out of the body shop, because each of the salespeople promised to get me the answer – and three days later, none have.  After the salespeople found out that I wasn’t going to just “come into the lot,” they lost interest.

Today’s customer expects more, and that means that today’s salespeople need to be trained in dealing with a more knowledgeable customer.  Far too many salespeople aren’t.
The conclusion of my story is this:  I will buy an Impala SS – but I won’t buy the one at the local dealer, period. In fact, I’ll probably buy one that’s 500 miles from me.  I refuse to deal with people who can’t simply have a straight conversation.  Your customers feel the same way.

It seems like I spend most of my time these days working on the difference between the old and the new in selling.  Yesterday was no exception.  I was speaking with a veteran salesperson and he said, “Troy, my biggest problem is that I just can’t get control over my sales calls anymore!  I’m calling on customers, and they’re watching their computer screen, they’re fiddling with a phone, and I’m presenting the whole time and they’re not paying attention.  What can I do?”

My initial reply was, “You really didn’t ever have control.  You just thought you did.”  Seeing the look of confusion on his face, I explained, “Salespeople have flattered themselves for years that they somehow ‘controlled’ their customers.  They really didn’t; it’s just that customers had fewer options for how they invested their time and their money. Today, it’s different.”  And then, I gave him the new rules concerning “control” in selling.

Rule 1 – Never Fool Yourself Into Thinking That You Have Control:  As I told the salesperson, salespeople have tried to convince themselve for years that they had “control” over the customer.  They didn’t invent this on their own; after all, the very first sales training I underwent in the car business was called “Control Selling.”  But it was all built on the myth that the customer couldn’t end the sales process anytime THEY wanted to.  Of course, the customer could – and did.

Rule 2 – Recognize that Customers Have More Alternatives:  Today’s customer has far more alternatives – for their money, even for their attention – than yesterday’s customer did.  In many industries, customers of fifteen or even ten years ago pretty much had to buy using personal service.  When I sold bearings and power transmission products in the mid-90’s, my customers basically had to buy from me, or from a competitor’s salesperson.  Now, those same customers can just as easily pull up any number of websites that sell those products and completely fill their stockrooms without the intervention of a salesperson.  By the same token, the various devices and communication mediums now mean that you have more competition for the customer’s interest.  You have to be more interesting than their smartphone.

Rule 3 – An Unengaged Customer Won’t Buy:  When the salesperson described his call, notice that he said he was “presenting all the time.”  That’s part of the problem.  Yes, once upon a time, I did that too; I’d go into my customers with my new product flyers and present away.  And my customers would listen because I was a pretty good presenter, because they had good relationships with me, and because there was less competition for their attention.  Today, that doesn’t work.  Today’s salesperson must ENGAGE their customers.  We do that by having conversations instead of presenting all the time.  The sales callmust feel and be a focused conversation. Conversations have interaction and back-and-forth.  This, too, goes against “control.”

Rule 4 – Instead of Control, Seek Influence:  We cannot control our customers.  However, we caninfluence them and persuade them.  Gaining influence over your customer isn’t easy.  It requires showing and demonstrating that you have their best interests at heart.  It requires working to make their buying experience pleasant, productive, and more beneficial than tapping computer keys.  It requires asking a lot of questions, and listening to the answers.  And it requires getting rid of all the old sales tactics that were designed to manipulate and seek control.

Rule 5 – Take Risks:  Years ago, I remember being “taught” that one of the best rules of selling was, “Never ask a question if you don’t already know the answer.”  That was a “safe” approach to selling, because the customer couldn’t (or usually didn’t) introduce variables into the call that the salesperson wasn’t prepared to deal with.  Safe selling (or defensive selling) is dead.  Today, you have to take the risks of asking a lot of open ended questions and learning real information about your customers.  Customer information is the one thing that can be yours, and yours alone, to possess – but it depends greatly on your willingness to ask tough and deeply probing questions.  It also means that sometimes you must interrupt the process.  Several years ago, I was on a sales call for a potential training client, and the contact wouldn’t look away from his monitor or give me more than a two-word answer.  Finally, I asked him, “Why am I here?”  Startled, he looked at me and then gave me some significant information that allowed me not only to turn the call into a productive one, but in fact to walk out with a training agreement.  Don’t be afraid to take those risks if the call isn’t going anywhere – what do you have to lose?

I hope the salesperson that I was speaking to will take my advice.  Control is dead in sales.  Long liveinfluence.

I could see the storm building.  It was during a training session, and the salesperson who was role-playing was not doing a good job.  And, by “not doing a good job,” I mean that he wasn’t following the format of the sales call that was being taught.  I should also point out that I wasn’t the trainer in this instance; rather, I was there to offer insights and coaching as necessary.  Therefore, I probably had the best view of the growing frustration on the face of the salesperson.

Eventually, his team switched him out with another salesperson who followed the format and did a very nice job of it – which frustrated the original salesperson even more.  What had happened was simple – the first salesperson had let his ego get in the way of his learning a technique that could have been beneficial.  Instead of learning and implementing, he chose to instead stick to his old methods – and when the trainer called him on it, he looked bad in front of the group.  This is all too common, but it doesn’t have to be that way; training can be an incredibly beneficial experience.  Here are  five ways to make sure that it is:

1. Leave your ego at the door.  Training isn’t about demonstrating how good you already are; it’s about learning and becoming better.  So, park your ego.  Or, as Ed Tate (from whom I have learned  much) likes to say, “Seek Education, not Validation.”  If you approach a training or coaching session with the mindset that you already are performing at peak, and you’re simply going to show off for the instructors, you won’t gain anything.  Ask me how I know this.  On second thought, don’t – this was a hard lesson for me to learn, but I learned it over 20 years ago.
2. Be open to new ideas.  Just because you’ve done things a certain way for years doesn’t mean that those ways are the best.  Maybe times have changed and you need to change with them; sometimes your ways never were the right ways.  Several years ago in a training program in Oklahoma, one salesperson piped up during a program on questioning and said, “Troy, I’ve been selling to the same customer base for 25 years and I’ve never asked these questions.  Why should I now?”  I responded, “Would you rather that your competitor asked them and you didn’t?”  Two weeks later he e-mailed me and told me how well some of those questions were working; he had in fact captured two new pieces of business with them.Training isn’t about defending what you’re doing now.  It’s about trying new ideas and techniques in a safe environment.  I approach training the same way that I approach suit shopping – I’ll try on a lot of suits. Some will fit and look good on me and some won’t – even though they might fit and look good on someone else.  Take what works for you and use it.
3. Put away the distractions.  I’m not just talking about turning off cell phones here (although, for the love of God, please don’t have them where they can ring during training!).  I’m talking about other things that clutter up your head and your desk and get in the way of a learning experience.  Had a problem with a customer?  It’ll still be there after training – but who knows, you might learn a new way to deal with it.
4. No playing under protest.  Maybe it wasn’t exactly your choice to be a part of the program.  Maybe the boss is making you do it, or the program has just been scheduled and you’ve been told that you need to be there.  And yes, maybe that’s not exactly how you wanted to spend your day.  Still….you’re there.  You can either be the guy who has a bad attitude and shows it to everyone (which eliminates your ability to learn; worse, it hurts the ability of others to learn), or you can make the best of it and try to learn something that makes you money.  Which do you think is the best way to go?
5. Be open to simple ideas.  As Ed likes to say, “Not all ideas are new and complicated.”  Yes, you may have heard this technique a dozen times.  You may recognize that it could be beneficial – but are you USING it?  If you’re not using it – or if you haven’t tried it out – “I’ve heard it before” isn’t a valid excuse for not trying it now.

And, just because I’m in a generous mood, here’s one bonus way to maximize your training experience:

Implement immediately.  This might be the most important; many great training techniques become lost because the trainee waits to implement and use the lessons taught.  Then life gets in the way, the lessons become less fresh, and before you know it, they’ve been forgotten – and the time and money spent is wasted.  Don’t be that salesperson.  Once you learn a new technique that you want to use, put it to work immediately so you don’t lose it.  Do these things, and there will be real return on your training investment of time and dollars.