It’s funny how so many people are fooled into thinking that marketing and sales don’t influence them.

In the movie, The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly (played brilliantly by Meryl Streep) and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. New hire Andy (Anne Hathaway) snickers because she thinks they look exactly the same.

Miranda: Something funny?
Andy: No, no, nothing. Y’know, it’s just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y’know, I’m still learning about all this stuff.

Miranda: “ This… ’stuff’? Oh… ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean.

You’re also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.”

Marketing is so prevalent in our society we don’t even realize it anymore.

Marketing lays the groundwork for sales. It makes selling a lot easier. But companies that don’t have a huge marketing budget often rely on personal selling to close the deal. Salespeople have to sell themselves before they sell their product. Often the larger the price of the product, the more of a factor personal selling is. Laundry detergent is mostly sold before you enter the store. But automobiles, on the other hand, are sold at the point of display. Customers want their hands held when they make a big purchasing decision.

Customer Service

I once asked a clerk in Nordstroms where the Cold Stone Creamery was in the mall I was in. She not only told me but, seeing how directionally challenged I was, walked me down to it, pointed at it and said “There it is.” Granted, I had been shopping in Nordstroms, but I thought she went above and beyond the call of duty.

In the book, The Nordstrom Way, the authors, Robert Spector and Patrick D. McCarthy, write “What makes Nordstrom unique? The chain is geared toward middle-to-upper-income women and men. It offers these customers attractive stores with a large, varied and competitively priced inventory of shoes, apparel, accessories and cosmetics and a liberal return policy. But a lot of stores do that. What separates Nordstrom from its competitors is its army of highly motivated, self-empowered people who have an entrepreneurial spirit, who feel that they’re in this to make more money and to be successful.”

New employees are given a copy of the famous Nordstrom’s employee manual- a single 5 x 8 inch gray card containing 75 words. A copy of it follows:

WELCOME TO NORDSTROM

We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me.

Telephone Skills

I stopped calling directory assistance years ago because I got fed up with it. First there were surly operators who wouldn’t even give you the time of day, let alone a phone number. Their attitude shrieked “You’re bothering me.” Then they limited the number of listings they could give you to two. Okay, I can live with that. But they’d often give you the recorded voice of the first number before you could tell them you had another number.

After that, it all became automated. You no longer got to speak with a person. Or, if you did, they’d ask you the same questions that the automated voice had already asked you and that you had enunciated very well, thank you. The “voice” would say “City and State,” then “Name,” you’d provide that and then a human being would come on the line and ask you again as if you hadn’t given it to begin with.

Then they started charging you ridiculous amounts of money for directory assistance. And it was never real clear to me what the difference between 411 and 555-1212 was. With the latter, sometimes they wanted the 1 and other times they didn’t.

Now, with voice recognition hitting its stride, there’s free directory assistance again. Google provides it for local businesses. You call 1-800-GOOG-411 and say, for example, “restaurant” and the location and within a few seconds an automated voice will list the top 8 choices and also give you the option of receiving a text message or being connected to one of the restaurants.

In April, Microsoft acquired Tellme Networks Inc., a leading provider of voice services. Start-up Jingle Networks Inc., one of the first companies to offer a free directory assistance service, has been doing so since 2005.

For now, the free search services are experimenting with simple ad techniques. Jingle Networks runs a general ad before users state their request. After the request is made, the Jingle service plays an ad that’s more related to the query. Only then is the information dispersed. Microsoft’s Tellme service runs the ad after the number is provided. Google’s automated-search service is in testing mode and is still free from ads.

The access number for Microsoft’s Tellme, which provides information regarding business, stock quotes, news, sports, entertainment and travel, is 1-800-555-TELL. Jingle Networks, which offers business and residential listings, is 1-800-FREE-411.

Outside Sales Reps

How do we identify needs? How do we find out what prospects and customers’ needs are? We don’t walk up to someone on the street and say, “What are your needs?” or, give them suggestions such as, “You need to shave” or “You need to lose weight.”

One of the ways to best determine people’s needs is to ask questions. Because prospects and customers don’t like salespeople selling (or telling) them, it’s better to ask good questions, rather than instruct them on what to do.

Questions come in many shapes and sizes. They are often broken down into either closed probes or open probes. An open probe a car salesman might use is “What are you looking for?” A closed probe would come later in the sales interview and might be something like “Do you have a color in mind?” Closed probes give the respondent a choice between or among alternatives. Open probes allow people to respond freely. I’ve heard open probes and closed probes referred to as Sigmund Freud questions (e.g., “Tell me about that”) and Joe Friday (“just the facts, maam”) questions, respectively.

For more information on questioning techniques, I highly recommend Secrets of Question-Based Selling by Tom Freese. By the way, Neil Rackham, in Spin Selling, says that the most important part of the sales process in large sales is NOT the close, it’s the investigative stage.

Telephone Sales Reps

Some people think cold calling is dead. It’s not. It’s just that a lot of people wish it were.

The truth is, a lot of people are inundated with email these days. It can take an inordinate amount of time to respond to an email, when often a phone call could “git-er-done” a lot faster (and more accurately). And uncertainty would be reduced by listening to one’s tone of voice rather than having to read between the lines and go back and forth replying to email.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “Cold Calls Have Yet to Breathe Their Last Gasp,” Chuck Van Groniger of A.G. Edwards said, “It certainly isn’t anybody’s favorite activity of the day. But it really can and does work.”

I often ask people “How many emails did you get today? Replies range from 15 to 200. Then I ask them “How many of them did you answer?” They often say something like “about 3.” Then I ask them “How many phone calls did you get today?” and often get “around 3”. Then “How many of them did you answer?” “All of them” is the reply I usually get. The truth is, a lot of people have stopped calling. Yet the response rate is much better than it is via email!

The competition really thins out in the cold calling arena. I tell people “Cold calling is like performing Shakespeare. It’s brutal. But, when it’s done well, it’s a thing of beauty.”

Customer Service Reps

Some companies are using Emotion Detection, which tracks volume and pitch of a caller’s voice. It tells people who monitor calls (when they do so), the anxiety level of the caller and is used randomly. It has grown out of voice verification technology.

For example, FedEx Corp is able to search calls from customers for the word “Wow” to glean really good, as well as really bad customer experiences.

Wisconsin Physician Service, a health insurance provider, searched calls for the word “Medicare” and “confused” to find callers who were having trouble understanding the new Medicare prescription plans.

Some programs combine word searches with emotion detection. Nice Systems, Ltd., spent tens of millions of dollars developing algorithms that measure a baseline of emotion at the opening of a call. If the customer’s voice deviates from that baseline, a supervisor is alerted.

One simple way speech analytics can help consumers is by making it easier for companies to figure out if a complaint is isolated or part of a systemic problem. For example, if a company starts getting a lot of calls about a defective product, the company knows it has a problem.

Speaking of rising gas prices, it’s no secret that airfares have increased and security has tightened. As a result, companies are cutting back on travel. Once again, the telephone is being seen as an exceptional sales tool. Not only does it save companies money, it’s also a time-saver. And with people getting inundated with emails these days, calling someone on the phone is an excellent way to cut through the clutter.

Outside Sales Reps

If you’re familiar with sales methodologies, you know that Spin Selling is still very relevant. There are two other approaches I’ve found worthwhile: 1) Question Based Selling (based on the book by Tom Freese, Secrets of Question Based Selling), and 2) Baseline Selling (based on the book of the same name by Dave Kurlan), which uses baseball as a metaphor for selling. I’ve found Baseline Selling to be an especially good read, with some very salient points.

My training comprises all three of these methods, plus the added component of listening. Sure, questioning is important. I call it the science of selling. But listening is paramount. It’s the art of selling.

And those of you who don’t know a walk from a balk could no doubt learn "Listening Based Selling" without having a background in statistics.

Telephone Sales Reps

Which is the best Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program on the market? Salesforce.com? Salesnet (which is now owned by Right Now)? Or insidesales.com?

My experience has been that Salesforce.com is the best. Not surprisingly, it’s also the most expensive ($65/month vs. $60/month for Salesnet and $45/month for Insidesales.com). These programs are internet based, so they don’t bog down your computer the way software programs like Act and Goldmine do.

Customer Service Reps

Some of you may’ve heard the story about the customer service representative at the megastore who knew the value of upselling. One day, he had only one sale. But it was for a staggering $158,762. Flabbergasted by such a massive sale, the manager asked him to explain.

"First, I sold the man a fishhook," the employee said. "Then I sold him a rod and reel. When I found out he was planning on fishing down the coast, I suggested he’d need a boat. Then I took him to the automotive department and sold him our biggest SUV to pull the boat."

"You sold all that to a guy who came in for a fishhook?" asked the boss incredulously.

"Actually," said the representative, "he came in for a bottle of aspirin for his wife’s migraine. I told him, ‘Your weekend’s shot. Might as well go fishing.’"

This is just one more example of the truism that everyone is in sales.

Why is this? In my opinion, it’s because their name never really registers with us to begin with.

Remembering, according to memory expert Harry Lorayne, is a process of association. Pictures are remembered better than corresponding verbal labels.

If, when we meet someone and get their name, we associate it with someone else with that name or conjure up a mental image, it will be much easier to remember. If it’s an unusual name, and there are certainly plenty of them around these days, I suggest you play around with it until you get it. Ask them to spell it. Write it down if need be. We remember things in our own handwriting better than off the top of our heads.

Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People said “remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” People with difficult names to pronounce or spell often say they don’t mind when the pronunciation or the spelling gets butchered. But often, deep down, they really do. Imagine how much they’ll appreciate you if you pronounce or spell their name correctly! They’ll sit up and take notice of your thoughtfulness. They’ll feel appreciated a whole lot more than if you continue to bungle their name.

Outside Sales Reps

Mark McCormack, the late agent to Tiger Woods said about listening, "In selling, there is no greater asset."

An acquaintance of mine recently wrote me that "I still remember when we were looking for a house, and the realtor showed us many (many) wrong homes — simply because she was not hearing what it is that my wife and I were looking for. Needless to say, we engaged a different realtor!"

Telephone Sales Reps

I used to sell safety products over the phone. A fellow salesperson wasn’t listening on a call when the prospect brought up a fatality! Obviously, he didn’t get the sale. He probably would have if he had listened and empathized with the safety director he was speaking with. People want to be heard. It makes us feel important.

I recently spoke with James Pratt, the executive director of the International Listening Association. When the conversation got around to selling, he said "Listening is what sales is all about. It’s the primary communication skill. You usually think that making sales pitches is the (key) skill but if you don’t listen, they don’t do any good."

Customer Service Reps

Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. When dealing with irate callers, be professional. Listen and empathize. Respond to customers and prospects with positive language to meet their needs. Demonstrate commitment to solving their concerns. Determine the best solution for the customer and your company. Express your appreciation of the customer, even when they are dissatisfied.

With a focus on practicing these skills, this will enable you to decrease customer dissatisfaction through your ability to help them find a solution. If you frequently handle callers that are angry or disgruntled, perhaps your company is not communicating effectively in their marketing efforts. Is your company selling "vaporware," annoying customers? If so, you might want to see about finding another company to represent.