52 Sales Tips & How to Use Them

By Shavon Jones

In 52 Sales Tips & How to Use Them, you'll learn sales and marketing lessons including: why you shouldn't have an elevator pitch and how to handle chance meetings instead; how to engage with your target market during an economic downturn; what your competitors may be saying about you and how to combat it; how to prevent competitors

• Language: English
• Publisher: RegulatorGuards, LLC
• Release date: May 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9780988639041

Shavon Jones

Shavon is an author, attorney, public speaker, and lover of travel, architecture, scrapbooking, tennis, entertaining and good wine. She writes stories about women finding themselves and being true to that self, whether their truth turns out to be flattering or unflattering. She writes women who evolve into whole, genuine and self-aware beings. It's the common thread in her fiction and nonfiction alike. She writes about a woman's worth.

Book preview

List of Services Covered in this Guide

To demonstrate that these tips work for the sale of any service, I use detailed examples involving various services throughout this book. If you sell any of the services listed below, there is a concrete example of how a sales tip applies to your specific service.

Now, I suspect that you’re going to jump straight to the tip for your service (or the service closest to the service that you provide). You should know that the book is called 52 Sales Tips because each tip is different. I didn’t illustrate how the same pointer works for 52 different occupations. Rather, I have illustrated 52 different sales tips using various occupations to make the advice more memorable. Therefore, if you decide to skip to your tip, it’s probably a good idea to go back and read the rest of them too!

Sale of administrative services (Tip No. 38)

Sale of architectural services (Tip No. 14)

Sale of artistic services (Tip No. 41)

Sale of a pre-owned automobile (Tip No. 24)

Sale of bed & breakfast accommodations (Tip 26)

Sale of career advisory services (Tips No. 36, 37)

Sale of chef and catering services (Tip No. 46)

Sale of dance instruction services (Tips No. 36, 37)

Sale of dental services (Tip No. 29)

Sale of diversity consulting services (Tip No. 42)

Sale of financial advisory services (Tips No. 1, 28)

Sale of floor installation services (Tip No. 31) (note: you can substitute any handyman service for floor installation services)

Sale of foreign language services (Tips No. 9, 10)

Sale of hairstyling services (Tip No. 39)

Sale of healthcare services (Tips No. 23, 28)

Sale of insurance services (Tip No. 52)

Sale of laundry services (Tip No. 22)

Sale of legal services (Tips No. 6, 8, 10, 29)

Sale of magician services (Tips No. 13, 15) (note: you can substitute any performance art for magician services)

Sale of management consulting services (Tip 34)

Sale of moving services (Tip No. 52)

Sale of nonprofit services (Tip No. 23)

Sale of outsourcing services (Tip No. 22)

Sale of personal styling services (Tip No. 49)

Sale of physical fitness services (Tip No. 30)

Sale of plumbing services (Tip No. 20)

Sale of political consulting services (Tip No. 47)

Sale of sales training services (Tips No. 3, 27)

Sale of tailoring services (Tip No. 25)

Sale of tax preparation services (Tips No. 37)

Sale of upholstery services (Tip No. 44) (note: you can substitute any interior design service for upholstery services)

Section I:

But First You



Line

You can’t sell until know what you are selling. Since we are talking about selling services here, you’re as much a part of the package as are the actual services you intend to provide to your prospects. Therefore, this section consists of a number of tips on defining your personal brand and your business identity; tailoring your brand to your consumer even more than you tailor your brand to yourself or your service; and developing a clear strategy for how you intend to go to market.

Even with a service, it’s about the packaging.

I’m thinking of two brands of cosmetics. (Stay with me, gents.) One is Tom Ford and the other is Shu Uemura. Tom Ford is an ultra-premium brand. It practically screams luscious! The lipsticks look wet and creamy (and cost $60 a tube). The wrapping is so beautiful, you almost don’t want to open it to get to the lipstick inside. If you do open the package, you’ll find the Tom Ford logo engraved in the actual product, like bathroom soaps where the name of the soap disappears as you rub the soap bar against your towel. I mean, is this makeup or is it art! I suspect Mr. Ford would respond that it is both.

By contrast, Shu Uemura is more understated. There’s barely any packaging. In fact, the tubing once was a plastic transparent case with lowercase, plain-font, black lettering, which sold for $22. But guess what? The lipstick works better! It actually stains the lips and doesn’t smear or wear off as easily as the creamy luxury brands. I love Shu Uemura so much that after the protruding top of the lipstick has been depleted, I’ve found myself digging down into the clear plastic tubing with a lipstick brush to scoop out the remaining remnants of high-quality makeup. I have many tubes of Shu Uemura. The only tube of Tom Ford I have was a gift from one of my fancier friends who won’t buy a lipstick unless it’s from Ford or Chanel.

What’s my point? These are two brands that know exactly who they are, who their customer is, and how to position themselves in the marketplace. Here are some tips to help you to do the same.

Sales Tip #1

Define yourself and/or your company.

Until you know who you are, you can’t possibly know how to sell because you don’t know whom to target or how to position yourself in the marketplace. In sales and marketing circles, we call this personal or corporate branding.

If you are visible but not really connecting with a particular audience, it may be because you haven’t defined yourself in a way that demonstrates to your prospects that you’re a fit for them. They don’t know that you have designed your offering with them in mind, that your values align, that you just want good lipstick, if that is the case. Or, on the other hand, that you are buying that brand of lipstick to make a statement or because you identify with the brand and perhaps don’t wish to spend time experimenting with lesser-known alternatives.

Once you define yourself:

๏ Your pricing strategy becomes clear (it wouldn't make sense for Tom Ford to release a low-priced lipstick. His customer would think something was amiss).

๏ The lead generation tools you should deploy to reach your ideal customer become evident (e.g., fashion magazines for Tom Ford versus prominent store displays for Shu Uemura versus television ads for the $6 tubes of Maybelline you find at CVS).

๏ The content of your sales conversation, once you’re in a meeting with a prospect, will come to mind easily because you know what this prospect is all about. They are your type of person. They fit your client profile. (I’m sure that matching these pitches to the proper lipstick purveyor will take no more than a few seconds: (a) all we do is makeup and we do it better than anyone else; (b) our brand is luxury, and we have everything you need from clothing and accessories to makeup and perfumes; (c) we've been beautifying the modern woman for generations and that's why you can easily find us anywhere makeup is sold.)

Now, let’s take an example involving a service. Assume that you’re a financial advisor, but you’re just starting out and trying to build a client list. You might be tempted to target professional athletes because you played college football and are a sports junkie. However, the connection between you and your prospect should be around your business, not your prospect’s business.  You’re not selling sports, you’re selling financial products and services, and your youthful appearance coupled with your lack of experience with the types of financial opportunities that athletes normally buy may make it difficult for you to get the agents and business managers of elite athletes to give you a shot.

Thus, it may be wiser to target an audience with fewer gatekeepers and whose financial issues you better understand. For example, rank and file corporate employees⎯those saving for a house, balancing paying off their own student loans with saving for their children’s education, stuffing a few hundred dollars into a 401(k) each month⎯are quite interested in improving their financial condition. That’s why they’re working so hard. Therefore, they’re likely to be open to advice on how to achieve their financial goals.

They can’t pay as much as elite athletes. However, there are many more corporate employees than there are rich athletes. More important, you better understand the financial issues of corporate employees because you’re dealing with similar concerns yourself. Thus, when you meet with them about a multi-year financial plan and engagement to carry it out, you will speak each other’s language because they fit your client profile.

Sales Tip #2

People are comfortable with people who are similar to them. So the first place to sell is within your natural pockets.

Once you have identified your client profile, the first place to sell is within your base or natural pockets, where there is an easy fit. (I, for example, am a woman business owner; therefore, other female entrepreneurs are a natural pocket for me.) I suggest you develop a personal brand that fits your prospect’s culture, because people are comfortable with people who are similar to them.

Eventually, you will exhaust your base and need to look outside your natural pockets for growth. When you no longer can depend on natural similarities, another factor or characteristic that makes others comfortable with you is your comfort with yourself. So, in addition to fitting your prospect’s culture, your personal brand also should fit your personality. If it does, when you are ready to expand outside your natural pockets, you won’t feel the need to try to pretend that you’re something that you’re not. You’ll just be confident that even though you are different, you have something of value to offer. Focus on selling that special insight that you have and that your prospect doesn’t have because of your differences.

You don’t want to be exposed as a phony. So don’t pretend to be like someone if you’re not really like them. When I punch above my weight class (see guys,