Sales techniques need to change to reflect the new age buyer!

The world of the modern day buyer has changed!

First understand that the modern-day consumer is within him or herself, a technologically advanced, well educated sales person.

We live in the age of an information explosion. Information technology has seen more advancement in the last few years than at any time in history and for all intents and purposes—today—right now–is the future.

Along with these technological and scientific breakthroughs, comes the easy access to worldwide information. The Internet and its development offers instantaneous access to a global knowledge-base and details on almost any subject matter at any time. What this means to you as a sales person is that your customer has access to anything they wish to know—right at their fingertips.

Your prospective customer can look up, verify, confirm or refute almost anything you say within a few seconds. In the past, consumers were left with the need to have to rely almost solely on the words of the sales person. The sales person was the expert and the customer had no way to verify if the sales person’s advice and assessments were accurate. In the past, when a sales person made a claim as to the effectiveness of their product or the reliability of their service or their company’s position in the market place, the customer had no way to prove otherwise.

Not so, today.

Pick up the telephone today to make a cold call to set an appointment with a prospective customer and that customer can have everything there is to know about you, your company, your competition and your company’s performance history, displayed on their desktop before you even get off of the telephone.

Give a savvy consumer a few more seconds, and they can produce a credit report on your company, they can run off your turnover figures, profit and loss and can find out all about your competitors and what they offer along the same lines as you and play you off against one another!

So my question to you is this: “How well are you preparing yourself to match the requirements of the modern day buyer?”

Watch this space because shortly I will be releasing a revolutionary sales training CD programme that will cover just that!

Happy Selling

Sean Mc

The Curry Lounge was a 110 seater, all glitz and no taste curry house based in Nottingham.

This was the latest installment in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and the restaurant was losing £3k per week.

A “DIY” restaurant - on the face of it a nice customer orientated idea but practically a nightmare! The DIY part was that the customers could “create their own curry”. There were over 100 variations of dishes that they could possibly have - madness!

In the Curry Lounge the customer was truly the king! So much so that they could have whatever the liked! Now, I am all for giving the customer what they need but you can’t sell the business when doing so!

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Raz, the owner and former salesman himself was trying to please everyone with fancy dishes that had lost it’s authenticity by trying to be too smart.

Calling all Sales Directors! Don’t think that just because you are in charge of the sales in your company that you could just drop that and become a successful restaurant owner! Raz, the owner of The Curry lounge was an ex Sales Director but was found wanting.

Many people try to over complicate things - my advice? Keep things simple!

That means…

Simple food.

Simple service.

Simple systems.

Simple concepts.

People are easily confused!

One part made me really laugh when Ramsay made Raz take down their BEST CURRY HOUSE (runner up) sign in the shop window. I came second in the British Business Awards in 2007 as young entrepreneur of the year and I would never dine out on that forever.

There was a lack of teamwork between the kitchen and the front of house - remember this with your salespeople and their admin staff - everyone is important.

Ramsay took a step back and “niched” the offering going back to simple authentic indian cuisine with just 8/9 starters and 10/11 main courses.

The results? Well, they took £3k in one night!

The Curry Lounge has a lot of promise if they keep things simple, work as a team and understand what their customers really want.

These are valid sales lessons for you and your sales teams.

So please keep things simple, listen to your customers, work hard and the results will come.

Sean Mc

The Fish and Anchor - Another Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare.

This was a restaurant based in Lampeter, rural West Wales run by ex-boxer Mike and his wife Caron.

The kitchen was like a war zone and so was the dining room!

The Fish and Anchor was very slow at turning around orders due to the menu - Gordon wanted to turn this around with the emphasis on speed.

Food that can be prepared in advanced and served up quickly.

Caron has a bad attitude for a restaurant owner. She had sloppy standards especially when smoking outside when guests were arriving.

The slanging match between husband and wife outside was comical. The shouting and screaming could be heard by the customers.

Just please tell me that your business is not like the Fish and Anchor!

In any business the customer is always king. I was gobsmacked by the way that they spoke to some of the customers. Having said that I was gobsmacked when Mike wrote bogus reviews on the web!

Unbelievable!

The locals did not have a good word to say about the Fish and Anchor restaurant - bad experiences spread like wildfire! The Fish and Anchor’s reputation was awful.

The first thing to address were the arguments between the owners and to give it a new identity i.e open up as an Italian restaurant

The new menu enabled speed and the food could now fly out of the door - i.e the system was now set up for successful selling.

The dining room staff needed to work on their people skills so they set up some role plays - never be scared to practice like this. Make the service friendlier!

Everything was set. It was now time to drum up business.

Remember, marketing and sales are two different animals but they need to work hand in hand. Marketing generates the leads - sales close them down!

With the new launch and lots of customers - the kitchen at the Fish and Anchor could not cope when the chips were down. Added to a waitress slipping on the floor and collapsing - it turned into a real nightmare.

When Gordon came back to revisit they had painted the outside a clean white colour. Their customers had doubled! Gordon then called up their customers to get some feedback. It is vital that you get feedback from your customers too.

With a bit of passion, planning and refocussing - it can make a huge difference.

Happy selling

Sean Mc

It was another cracker of a Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare last night.

This time it was the turn of The Priory in Haywards Heath - West Sussex.

From a boring and very plastic carvery, The Priory re-invented itself into a Grill to reposition itself to a new and more affluent market.

After Ramsay left, the orders went down and when he revisited them, whilst the food might have been great, they were not getting the footfall that they needed.

Here’s a lesson:

Having a good product is not good enough nowadays. “Build it and they will come” is a load of rubbish!

If you want to have a successful shop or store, you need to market and sell your wares to the public. Get out there and drum up business.

Don’t rely everything on word of mouth marketing, you need to be proactive and bring the business in. Even when you are chockablock full, keep marketing!

Sean Mc

England 2 Croatia 3

Out of the European Championships before a ball is kicked - gutted!

So what are the sales lessons that you can learn from this debacle? Sales Managers and Sales Directors - listen up!

SEAN’S OBSERVATION 1
When you look at the English team on paper we should be competing to win every international tournament not just scraping through the qualifiers!

SALES LESSON 1
It shows you that no matter how good your sales people are if they do not gel as a team and work as a team you are stuffed!

Action - what can you do to gel your sales team together and make them work together more effectively?

SEANS’S OBSERVATION 2
Did McLaren really have the respect of the players? Espeically the big guns? What has he done in the past? Bugger All!

SALES LESSON 2
Get Sales Managers and Sales Directors at the helm with a proven track record of success, results and motivation. They will have instant street cred from their sales teams.

Action - are your Sales Managers like Alex Fergusons or Jose Mourinho? or do you have Peter Reids? (Sorry Peter, as a Coventry City supporter you ruined our club!). Get the best that you can afford as they will bring home the silverware!

SEAN’S OBSERVATION 3
England just did not have a strategy all throughout the tournament. What was the settled formation? What was the strategy?

SALES LESSON 3
Always always always have a sales strategy. You should have a strategy and a plan of how you are going to implement that strategy for each type of client.

Action - what is your approach for a client that likes no fluff and wants you to “get on with it?” what is your strategy for a client that likes the detail?
what is your overall strategy to obtain major accounts? And where is your sales plan to achieve this?

SEAN’S OBSERVATION 4
McLaren had a lot of injuries throughout the qualifiers and this impacted on our results……well welcome to the real world!

SALES LESSON 4
We all have sickness in our teams, people who leave and those that underperform. We should get rid of the excuses and instead have a back up plan if these sort of things occur.

Action - contingency! contingency! contingency! what are your plans and strategies for those unexpected occurances!

SEAN’S OBSERVATION 5
Were we good enough in the first place?

SALES LESSON 5
We always have to ask the question of ourselves. How can we improve? Are we changing the way we sell in line with what the market and the client wants? Are we changing the way we play football to meet with the style that our opposition use? From last night, obviously not.

Action - how are you continually improving and refining your technique? This goes back to the Sales Manager and Director. What can you learn from them? Could you learn more from a Ferguson than a McLaren? What sales coaching methods are being used? What is happening on the sales training pitch?

All of these add to up to produce top performing sales people!

Okay, rant over!

But there are some valuable sales lessons to be had even from watching that debacle last night!

Happy selling!

Sean Mc

Fenwick Arms - A Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare revisited last night!

The Fenwick Arms was a prime of example of potential going down the pan due to lack of motivational leadership and a sales strategy.

Based in Lancaster, the pub had a prime location and from the outside it looked like a Traditional English Pub - the type you’d like to snuggle down to for a Sunday Roast and a pint of Pedigree!

However, the food was too fussy, far too complicated and the owners - Brian and Elaine were working 120 hours per week…….each!

In the Fenwick Arms, “Specials” were called “Additions” - keh? What’s all that about?

Ramsay wanted to get back to basics with rustic, simple English cooking - here here! This was a sound strategy because when I go into a pub I want good old fashioned traditional grub with my pint. He also created a very well thought out PR angle to increase sales. The Fenwick Arms was going to be the safe haven for “REAL GRAVY”.

So, all of this was implemented and the pub started to get back on track and make some money and sales were going up!

Then Ramsay revisited them a year on….

Yes, they were doing 200 covers on a Sunday instead of 50 but the morale of the pub was rock bottom and the owner, Brian, was meddling.

What a shambles! The staff were not being listened to and 30% of them were looking for other jobs. They were serving piping hot meals in the middle of summer!!

Here are some sales and marketing lessons from last night’s Fenwick Arms Kitchen Nightmare:

LESSON 1 - UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT AND EXPECT
When you walk into a pub you expect pub grub. What do your customers expect from you? I’m not only talking about your product and service but what about after-care support? A regular call from their account manager? Make it easy for them to do business with you. Have you even asked them?

LESSON 2 - INVOLVE YOUR TEAM
Involve and encourage your team. Ask them for ideas. Tell them when a job has been done well. Get them involved in the selling, product creation, marketing, customer support. It makes them feel part of the team rather than just a cog in the wheel.

LESSON 3 - MAKE THINGS SIMPLE
Make everything you do easy to understand from your customers and prospects point of view. Don’t overcomplicate brochures, presentations and DON’T try to be too clever with your website. Just MAKE IT EASY!

LESSON 4 - SET UP WINNING SYSTEMS
For a pub it’s about enabling the food to fly out the kitchen door. For the service staff, they need to turn the tables around for 2 or 3 sittings. Everyone needs to know what their job is and WHY. Make it clear as to the importance of having a system and process. The kitchen and service staff need to work as one big team.

The Fenwick Arms was a prime example of people working hard and getting bugger all out of it. Just by working smarter, understanding your customer requirements and setting up your systems to support this will always increase your chances of success.

Happy Selling!

Sean Mc

Piccolo Teatro - the next Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare!

….and what a nightmare it was too!

Bad management can ruin a business and when that bad management comes from the owner then you are really in the crap!

Piccolo Teatro was a vegetarian restaurant in Paris. But the adage of “build it and they will come” does not work!

Gordon and the team went out onto the streets with a little help from some can-can girls to drum up business and create a buzz around the streets of Paris. As a business owner you need to market your services effectively.

The biggest problem with Piccolo Teatro was the owner Rachel - she was lazy, uninterested and did not have any sense of urgency. She was also waiting on the tables but took no pride in the customer service side of things.

In order to make money in a restaurant you need to run it like a business. Now that may sound obvious but you need to think about the systems you operate, customer service, sales opportunities, sales training, marketing, finance - you name it! You can’t just run it like a hobby when you feel like it.

I was actually writing this blog when the show was on and when Gordon went back the restaurant was closed! I was not shocked though!

Set yourself up for success and the success will come. Piccolo Teatro had bags of potential if run in the right way - the owner had a new talented young chef but the owner was lazy and when your head people have no commitment then you are onto a loser.

Sean Mc
PS Good on you Gordon for giving the young chef the opportunity to work with your team in London - at least you can spot talent!

Having watched Gordon Ramsay and restaurateur Allan Love of Ruby Tates (Now known as Love’s Fish Restaurant)at it hammer and tong last night on Kitchen Nightmares I couldn’t help but have a chuckle.

Here was Ramsay trying to help, albeit in his own forceful and “my way or the highway approach”. And then there was Allan Love, desperate to succeed but with his own ideas - which were obviously not working due to the lack of customers and money in the bank.

There were many things covered last night but I want to focus on one thing in-particular and that is the brand.

Love’s restaurant was formerly called Ruby Tates and was selling all kinds of fish from far afield. Problem was, it did not have any identity.

To build a brand you need a “It does what it says on the tin” mentality so Ramsay changed the name to:

Love’s Fish Restaurant

Simply brilliant!

Why is this so?

Well, you know what the restaurant is all about!

You are left in no doubt as to what the restaurant specialises in and then word can spread like wildfire especially as the owner, Allan Love, also has his name as part of the eatery. And Love himself is a big part of the brand too.

Ruby Tates? Sounds like a curry house or some cockney slang! The new name is a lot better.

Having trained hundreds of restaurant managers and other shop owners just like Allan in both sales and marketing, you really do need to appreciate the value of creating a brand and an identity.

What do I mean by this?

Well, with Love’s Fish Restaurant the ultimate aim is for anyone who visits Brighton to take in a meal there because they are “famous for their fish that are all locally caught”

Other restaurants might want to have the “Best Burger In Glasgow” or be known for “The Best Lasagne Outside Of Italy”

It’s always best to have a play on words or be known for a certain speciality that creates a buzz and then watch as word spreads!

Allan - well done for listening to Gordon in the end. I know it wasn’t easy buddy and it took a lot of guts but I think you now have a restaurant to be proud of and one that will make some money.

Rest assured, if I come down to Brighton I’ll look you up and taste the local Pollock!

MTD Sales Training is one of the most visited for sales training on the entire internet so I have great pleasure in providing a link to your web page Allan! I hope it generates a lot of business for you.

Click below:
Love’s Fish Restaurant

Happy Selling!

Sean Mc
PS
For free sales training tips please click here

When you believe in your heart in what you sell, the prospect can tell the difference.

A prospect can tell when a sales person begins to “push” for the sale because of selfish reasons; that is when the prospect gets annoyed and begins to feel pressured. 

However, when you are pushing the prospect and the person can see in your eyes, that you are pushing for their benefit; when the prospect can see that you are pushing from your heart, that is when the customer not only allows you to continue to push, but they thank you after the sale for pushing them and they become your best customers. 

Have you ever noticed how the bigger the organisation, the poorer the sales people are?

Well, I have noticed a growing trend of this over the years. MTD deliver hundreds of courses each year and we find that the standards of salesmanship are a lot poorer in the large companies than they are in the SME’s.

So why is this?

Well, here are my thoughts on this…

In the larger companies they have a lot of brand awareness so people go to the companies to "buy". This means that the salespeople don’t really have to push the product and they become order takers. Now, I am not saying that the following companies have poor salespeople but when did you last get offered an up sell or a cross sell in TESCOS or VIRGIN?

Never I suppose!

Why is this? Well, their brand and advertising does all of the selling for them and their salespeople can become lazy because of the performance of the stores and the company as a whole. Now take a small or medium sized company. Their salespeople have to really sell because they cannot rely on brand awareness or expensive PR campaigns. They have to become masters of the sale because they don’t make as much turnover and profits than the big boys - this makes them hungry!

So, next time you are in a "big company" to purchase products or a sales rep from a reputable "big firm" meets with you to sell you something, pay close attention to their sales skills and see if they are indeed sales people or merely order takers!

Happy Selling!

Sean Mc.