14 Secrets of Sales and

Marketing Integration
that Maximise Business
Development

How to Engage More Prospects Successfully & Have the

Best Customers Buy From You.

By Nicholas.S.Windley
B.Eng. Hons

14 rules of low cost, high return marketing led sales which align you with modern buyer trends,
overcomes market scepticism and significantly increases your credibility without wasting time and
money on conventional advertising and cold calling.

Nic Windley & Associates

Lead Generation And Conversion Strategies For Hi-Tech Businesses & Knowledge Led SME’s.

Copyright ©2010 Nic Windley All Rights Reserved Worldwide Page 1 of 17

Copyright ©2010 Nic Windley All Rights Reserved Worldwide Page 2 of 17
Why read this report ? - Today, every business is being forced to operate on new terms of
business whether they like it or not.

This report describes what’s causing this change, referred to as the “triangle of change” and puts
forward a series of powerful ideas that have successfully changed the future of open minded
businesses as well as my own life.

As you read through this report you may find yourself struggling to accept some of these concepts
but please bare with me as these ideas have been proven to be vastly more effective than traditional
strategies. These concepts can be adopted by any business whether it’s web based or a traditional
bricks and mortar operation, it makes no difference.

There are no gimmicks or tricks, instead I am sharing proven rules and ideas that build to formulate
an effective commercial strategy or business development programme for any business operating in
technical or scientific led markets (they are equally applicable to any market), and will work just as
well today and into the future as they did decades ago and have done in the recent past. Your time
and effort invested in this document will be worthwhile.

About Nic Windley – In just under 9 years I went from graduate engineer to international
commercial manager who continually sought and fought for positive, constructive and accountable
change even when the businesses I worked for were at times blind or resistant. This was born out of a
genuine care for the customers I was serving and a belief in the positive power of business. Career
training included Tack Levels I and II, Solution Selling: Selling Complex Products & Services.

Over my career I’ve personally sold millions of pounds worth of products and services in Hi-Tech
markets such as Electronics, Plastics, Internet and Information and Communication Technology
experiencing both the highs, where everything worked and the lows, where nothing worked at all.

As a business owner and consultant, I’ve been involved in directly building a number of businesses,
and made plenty of my own mistakes during the early days, which were the eventual trigger for
conscious recognition and development of these rules.

One such example was a company called Qtable, a promotional merchandise reseller, started in an
established market I had no prior knowledge and from scratch it generated over £70K worth of
business single handed in its first year without having to cold call a single person, in a highly
competitive and commoditised market with almost zero running costs to prove it could be done.

I also worked with Aardvark Engineering to reshape its business from an undervalued general
engineering company into a leading automation specialist which as of January 2010 generated more
in profitable sales in a single month than it had done in the whole of its previous year, which equated
to 150% increase in turnover and better profit margins and won an award nomination with the
British Engineering Excellence Awards (BEEA). All this during the biggest recession of the last 50
years and in the beleaguered UK manufacturing sector. It works.

Today I’ve pulled together these direct experiences and consolidated what I’ve learnt into a replicable
system that even the smallest of companies can use to generate amazing growth and the big boys
could learn a thing or two as well. It’s this knowledge which was painfully and expensively gained
which can help growth conscious businesses with great products and services change and evolve
their sales and marketing strategies to help them achieve outstanding results.

Copyright ©2010 Nic Windley All Rights Reserved Worldwide Page 3 of 17

Contents

What’s Wrong With Conventional Sales And Marketing ................. 7

Buyers Determine the Where, When and How .............................................................................................. 7
Buyers are Informed and Multi Faceted......................................................................................................... 8
Buyers are Busy and Picky .............................................................................................................................. 8
Buyers Dislike Risk .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Buyers Loyalties Change ................................................................................................................................ 9
Buyers Want the Best Value........................................................................................................................... 9
What’s Going on Outside of Your Business Cannot be Changed so Focus on The Cause Not The Symptoms
Where Simple Choices Can Make A Big Difference............................................................................................. 9
“Business As Usual” Is Over............................................................................................................................ 9
A Few Dirty Secrets ...................................................................................................................................... 10
New Channels Evolve and Expand to Fill Growing Gaps Between Suppliers and Customers ........................... 12
A Triangle of Change Has Developed Which Is Holding Your Business Back .................................................... 13
When Things Went Wrong In My Career.......................................................................................................... 14
Start Using The Right Strategy By Cutting Loose From Old School Sales And Marketing Thinking .................. 15

The 14 Secrets ........................................................................................................................... 16

1. Your Guaranteed To Pull A Crowd Outside Your Front Door Using The Power Of Laser Targeted
Positioning Over Shotgun Prospecting ............................................................................................................. 16
Buyers Are More Likely To Buy From A Trusted Source Than From Anywhere Else ..................................... 16
Real Authority and Trust Is Established By Serving Your Market In The Right Way ..................................... 17
Improve Your Status By Offering Expertise Instead Of Just Finding Excuses To Interrupt Prospects For A
Sale............................................................................................................................................................... 18
The Easiest Way To Become An Authority Is To Create The Content Your Audience Craves........................ 18
Why Anybody In Business Can And Must Seek Out Expert Status ................................................................ 19
2. Predictable and Sustainable Business Outcomes are Achievable When You Deploy a System Based on
Proven Formulas ............................................................................................................................................... 19
A Business Can Only Grow Successfully On Formulaic Facts Not Mysterious Factors .................................. 20
Systems Give You Frameworks For Creating Predictable, Repeatable And Scalable Outcomes .................. 20
A System Focuses Your Resources More Effectively Allowing You To Achieve More With Less ................... 21
3. The Sales and Marketing Overlap is Your Opportunity to Integrate and Make Your Selling and
Marketing Activities Far More Effective ........................................................................................................... 21
Advertising And Marketing Is Selling In Words And Selling Is Advertising And Marketing .......................... 22
Where To Go And Learn The Formulas For Selling Remotely In Words........................................................ 22
An Engineer Learns To Write And Present Persuasively ............................................................................... 23

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4. Have Your Marketing Do The Business Development Grunt Work For You ............................................. 24
Your Strategy Should Be To Campaign Not Pitch Or Promote ..................................................................... 25
Effective System Automation Eradicates The Labour Intensive Low Return Repetition Work ..................... 25
You Can Use 99.9999% Of The Time Available In Every Day To Campaign and Sell With A Website .......... 26
Websites Don’t Need To Be Search Engine Optimised To Have People Find Them ...................................... 26
Your Marketing Should Be A Sales Lead Filtering Mechanism ..................................................................... 27
5. Your Prospects And Customers Will Be Instantly Sceptical Of Any Claim You Make Even When Your
Offer Is A Genuine One ..................................................................................................................................... 28
The Core Ideas Of Your Message Must Be Constantly Reinforced ............................................................... 28
Messages Must Remain Consistent Across Every Sales And Marketing Channel Before They Will Be
Accepted ...................................................................................................................................................... 29
Matching Your Actions With Your Words Will Further Reinforce Your Message ......................................... 29
You Have To Prove What You Say Before You’ll Be Believed........................................................................ 29
6. An Expert Status Will Earn You Free Advertising And Multiply Your Credibility ...................................... 30
Ensure Your Voice Is Consistently Heard Above The Market Mayhem ........................................................ 30
The Media Can Help You To Further Prove Your Case .................................................................................. 32
7. The Only Way To Avoid Commoditising Yourself And Your Business Is To Create Value And Opportunity
That You Control ............................................................................................................................................... 34
No Longer Be Forced To Rely On Resellers And Distributors To Bring You Customers ................................. 35
Put A Stop To Supplier Price Wars By Not Starting One In The First Place ................................................... 35
Differentiate Yourself With Offers And Packages That Deliver More Than Your Competition..................... 36
Work With Credible Offers That Need A Voice ............................................................................................. 37
8. Significantly Reduce Your Risk By Using Every Channel That Generates Measureable And Profitable
Results That You Can Quantify And Track ........................................................................................................ 38
Diversify Your Channels To Expand Your Market And Reduce Your Risk ...................................................... 38
Just One Good Sales Letter, Ad, Press Release, Blog Post or Interview Can Make You Consistent Money .. 39
9. You Must Know Your Numbers To Determine A Return From Any Time And Effort Invested .................. 40
10. Always Be Working On Your Relationships With Key Audiences ......................................................... 41
Life and business is far too short to be boring all of the time ...................................................................... 41
More Sales are Made Based on Emotional Responses Than Anything Else ................................................. 41
Tailor Your Communications To Each Prospect And Customer .................................................................... 42
A Well Maintained Database Ensures You Stay Relevant And Personal While You Sell In Bulk ................... 43
The Best Way To Establish, Maintain Or Repair A Relationship Is With Open, Honest Communication ..... 43
11. Its Significantly More Profitable To Service Your Existing Customers ................................................. 44
12. Your Market is an Ongoing Conversation and you Will Earn Far More Credibility by Getting Involved
Openly and as a Contributor of Value Which Can be Easily Understood ......................................................... 44
Buyers Prefer Easy Reading And Listening Over A Great Story Told In A Complicated Way ........................ 45

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 See The World Through Your Customers Eyes.............................................................................................. 45
Match The Language Of Your Market.......................................................................................................... 46
The Conversation Is Your Key To Being Able To Innovate Effectively ........................................................... 46
13. Maintaining Alignment With Current and Potential Buyers Will Keep the Door Open ....................... 47
14. Your Focus Should Always Remain On Helping Your Customers Solve Real Problems ........................ 48
Examples Of Wasteful Sales And Marketing......................................................................................................... 49
The Future Of Sales And Marketing ...................................................................................................................... 53
What to do Next ................................................................................................................................................... 53

Copyright ©2010 Nic Windley All Rights Reserved Worldwide Page 6 of 54

What’s Wrong With Conventional Sales And Marketing
We live in a buyer’s market, where access to information and powerful research tools has put customers and
prospects at an advantage over businesses using ineffective and outdated sales and marketing strategies.

Buyers are changing the rules and your now operating on new terms of business and only those people and
businesses that evolve will survive.

The effectiveness of outbound, push style, prospecting and marketing promotion is diminishing, because
customers have had enough of suppliers that don’t deliver on their promises and now they’re taking a stand.

If your sales and marketing strategies are not aligned with these developments then you have little hope in
getting any profitable results.

Buyers Determine the Where, When and How

Sales teams and marketers all over the world are experiencing increasing difficulty in reaching new prospects
as buyers now dictate the terms of engagement.

Buyers today choose, where, when and how they will interact with suppliers whether its online in the form of an
internet search engine or market place listing, directories, webinars, video conferences, whitepapers, articles,
slide shares, bookmarks, forums and
communities or offline in clubs,
networking events, sales letters, trade
shows, mentoring programmes,
magazines or journals and with you and
your business directly.

They also determine what medium they

prefer to use whether its voice over the
phone or in podcasts, audio downloads
and CD’s, in words by email, letters,
texts, tweets, blogs, or over video in pre-
recorded or live stream formats.

Much of this diversification is a result of

technological developments which can also be used as defences for screening and filtering incoming
communications such as ad blockers, spam filters, call barring, Tivos (digital video recording device that can
bypass advertisements in television programs), security card passes and don’t forget the well trained human
gatekeepers.

People still want to BUY though, it’s just they don’t want to feel “sold to”, so they retreat and diversify away
from what they don’t like or trust. As the years go by head on in your face selling and marketing assaults will
continue to be met with higher levels of resistance.

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 Buyers are Informed and Multi Faceted
Buyers no longer need sellers to tell them what’s new anymore. They review their latest RSS feed, send out a
tweet or run a quick search online and have instant access to information about you and your competitors.

Most buyers have probably led a varied career and know a thing or two about being a seller, marketer and
buyer. They can read the same books you read, watch the same videos and even attend the same courses.
There is nothing they don’t already know or cannot find out about selling and marketing.

With the significant number of investments every company makes the average buyer has a lot of experience
with reading hyped up marketing material and watching boring presentations and seeing every step, tactic and
tricks in the sellers arsenal.

Making your marketing more “professional”, rebranding or just “sexing it up” along with tweaks to
presentations and those killer closing phrases or rapport building tricks make little difference to your results as
they did for me.

Buyers are Busy and Picky

Modern life is packed full of a ton of things to get done, and we’re all bombarded with messages of every kind
from almost every direction.

With so much to think about and do buyers don’t have the time to receive all this unwanted sales and
marketing “noise” so they just tune it out, and with so many interesting and available distractions it’s not hard
to do.

If a prospect or customer does decide to engage with a supplier and later finds out something bad about them
or worse has a directly poor experience you can be sure they won’t forgive easily. They will be seething
especially when there was another supplier just around the corner which they now realise could have done a
better job.

Buyers Dislike Risk

Modern buyers don’t like making mistakes or being taken for a ride, as I’m sure do both you and I.

Most buyers are born with a built in lie detector which becomes more effective over time and with use. Buyers
in business get exposed to a lot of bull and their lie detectors are usually on high alert and probably over
sensitive so at any moment they could go off without warning.

Buyers will forgive honest mistakes but they won’t forgive misleading statements or downright lies.

In a bid to avoid being mislead or buying into the wrong suppliers product or service today’s buyer cannot
afford to make autonomous knee jerk decisions.

Buyers have to balance the short term and long term, current goals and future objectives and blend that with
the needs and priorities of the business and its internal departments.

Decisions therefore become a coordinated effort involving parties at many levels and geographical locations,
from the user to the boardroom. Without real motivation or a pressing need that makes a decision priority,
and the circumstances which allow for the project to proceed buyers will not be buying from you any time soon,
instead sales cycles become extended, investments get stalled or things just go deadly quiet.

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 Buyers Loyalties Change
With jobs at risk and careers on the line buyers will ensure they make the right impression and that means
avoiding making the wrong one.

The decisions that members of staff and business leaders make including purchases or investments have a
direct impact on how they are perceived within an organisation or industry and contributes to their future place
and progression in that world.

Making the wrong decision could bring about disastrous results, so they are instantly polarised from the start
to make a decision that makes them look capable and effective, as well as the company they work for.

This means they will be extremely picky about details such as the price and will not hesitate to compare you
aggressively with your competition where there is little to no differentiation.

Buyers Want the Best Value

Buyers are scrutinising every part of every deal and price is just one part of the reason that a buyer selects a
supplier.

Buyers are keen bargain hunters and risk adverse so they look for packages that help them achieve their
objectives which could be for personal or business reasons and will ultimately make them feel in control and
looking effective.

They want the best return from both time and money spent so you, your business, sales process and end
solution will be considered a part of the total package and a value will be placed on it as a whole.

If the total cost implications of doing business with you don’t stack up then your value diminishes rapidly. A
purchase must also present a tangible financial benefit to the company.

What’s Going on Outside of Your Business Cannot be Changed so Focus on The Cause Not
The Symptoms Where Simple Choices Can Make A Big Difference
If you’re already doing things like running ads, marketing campaigns or making cold calls just because you have
to, or in the hope that somebody will eventually “get” what you do, or will finally decide to “trust” or “listen” to
you then it’s time to take drastic action.

Stop what you’re doing, especially if you don’t know, or you’re just confused about what this effort is actually
generating for you in return.

Spending money and investing time on non-performing or ineffective sales and marketing activities is just like
throwing good money after bad ideas. While doing it for the sake of doing it, or because everybody else is
doing it is no real business justification or strategy at all.

It really is broken this time and needs fixing, so by putting a stop to these time and cost consuming activities
you will have the chance to retrench, save some money and work towards a better way of doing things.

Dressing up the outside of your business will not treat the cause only the symptoms and eventually things will
either revert back to the way they were or just get worse.

“Business As Usual” Is Over

The industrialisation mentality which has ruled the business scene over the last century and led to fences being
erected between buyers and sellers, and raised big businesses to their ivory towers where they plotted to take

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control over our minds and dictate what we would buy, is over. Its extinct just like the Dodo and every other
thing that fails to adapt to a changing world.

Your customers will no longer be told; “You can have any colour you like as long as it’s black” or that “our sizes
are universal and one size fits all”.

Where industrialisation led to ring fencing, hierarchies and ivory towers which separated customers from
suppliers and their markets, new communications channels are breaking down these institutional barriers and
reconnecting our world.

Once upon a time markets were actually markets where traders who travelled around the world returned to
display their wondrous new finds and regale stories to match. People came because the market was an
exchange of ideas, tales, teachings and developments.

Whenever you need a new idea just look into the past, as what was once the past will be reborn again with the
changing times. The market has once again opened up.

This is not the end of business, it’s a new beginning as customers still need industry and organisation, they just
want you to realise that you equally need them. You’re in it together.

A Few Dirty Secrets

A lot of what those sales trainers, marketing companies and ad reps have been telling you for years is a bunch
of porky pies. They’re pandering to egos ensuring you buy into the same old story that’s been spun a thousand
times, which always leaves you questioning what was actually achieved.

There is always an impressive story that can be told to the top officers of the company who lap it up as direct
support for some deeply hidden beliefs. Heck these suppliers must know what they’re doing as they are so big
and well paid and their fairy tale stories seem so impressive. A deal gets done over a hand shake during a game
of squash or golf and things don’t change much and neither do the results. Another day, another supplier
another pile of money down the drain.

They’re feeding you what they want you to hear, not what you really need to hear which is the opposite of
what an expert or consultant would do when they deliver news good or bad along with strategies to deal with
it.

The truth hurts sometimes, but it’s the only way to move forward in the best way possible, and for businesses
to truly generate growth stimulating and profitable outcomes that customers can also enjoy.

Selling by Numbers is Killing off Customers

With every business finding it harder to sell, it’s easy to start becoming needy about selling your products and
services as the numbers are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. This attitude starts to permeate through
everything they do, repelling customers in the long run, especially so with face to face or phone selling.

Aggressive management that hammers staff repeatedly to deliver more numbers without providing effective
support and useful tools pushes staff to the limits, forcing many of the them to cut corners and do anything to
generate numbers irrespective of the consequences.

Based on my research there are few management teams today that seem to actually understand what is going
on, or can provide any real answers or strategies for their people that do not involve more of the same stuff
which is making things difficult in the first place.

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They end up going for the short term gain which only leads to a long term customer drain.

Even taking the opposite approach, and using strategies like soft selling is equally as bad or ineffective as over
selling. In trying not to seem too “salesy” you end up being “sneaky” which is just the same as not being honest
or truthful about the real reason for your communications in the first place. Eventually you will be found out
and it will negatively impact your credibility.

It’s no longer possible to build a real business on these kinds of strategies anymore.

Eventually the sales operation will be questioning the value of the marketing department asking why they don’t
get any useful leads. Your sales team will also be looking at your business, saying to themselves that things
need to change and if they can’t make them they will go elsewhere.

Overly Creative Marketing Creates Market Confusion

With marketing messages no longer reaching customers in the way they used to and increased complexity
creeping into the process, business owners doing their own marketing, as well as marketing departments and
outsourced partners are being forced to come up with ever more creative ways to try and reach new customers.

As a result, those most powerful messages are becoming confused or lost amongst all the fancy, glitzy, whizz
bang marketing gimmicks or the in-depth and detailed product feature sets that are being packed into
marketing campaigns rendering them completely unappealing.

This has led to an avoidance of measuring the effectiveness of marketing, turning it into some creative blue sky
thinking that is not held accountable for any results.

When a marketing channel becomes less effective marketers hop to the latest technological hope only to find
out that the same convoluted messages and complex gimmickry gets similar results.

By now the marketing department is struggling to find new ways of getting your message to connect with
prospects or existing customers and its questioning the value of your product or service and the effectiveness of
the sales department asking why can’t they get customers to buy.

They then start questioning whether the business truly understands them, or whether there is any value in the
products and services they represent causing them to wonder if they shouldn’t go somewhere else where they
will be more appreciated.

Pied Piper Big City Mad Men Are Leading Many Businesses Astray
For the aspiring business looking to grow, it would be easily forgiven for turning to its larger corporate cousin,
who it aspires to be someday, as a good source of effective sales and marketing, but they couldn’t be more
wrong.

The US hit TV show Mad Men follows the lives of ruthlessly competitive men and women in big city advertising
st
in the 60’s while the UK show The Persuasionists set in the 21 century does much the same for modern day
marketing and selling drawing many parallels between the two despite the 40+ year gap, exposing this world
for what it truly is and the lack of any real progress.

All too often what made a large company successful has been lost in corporate policy and the style, swagger
and gloss of mysterious high level sales and marketing strategies. Sales schmoozers, champagne quaffing PR
ego boosters and big city madmen style marketing agencies all of whom are capitalising on the greed and
success of these giants, turning their clients into monsters which customers no longer recognise or understand.

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Due to their size and enormous reach, customers put up with these antics in exchange for the things they need
or want, but they will move at the drop of a hat to a company that truly understands them when the
opportunity arises. Fewer companies today are withstanding the tests of time.

Strategies that made them truly successful are buried in the past or are no longer effective today, so following
them will only lead you further into confusion.

New Channels Evolve and Expand to Fill Growing Gaps Between Suppliers and Customers
In the midst of this confusion channels have opened up to fill gaps larger businesses find uneconomical or
unworthy to spend time developing or creating the kinds of relationships and connections that smaller to
medium sizes businesses and individuals demand.

It’s given rise to resellers and more recently affiliate marketers in the form of organisations or individuals that
build loyal customer bases and followings because of specific knowledge, skills or expertise. They are able to
leverage those positions by either directly selling in the case of a reseller or indirectly selling in the case of an
affiliate marketer to that audience.

As long as what they do remains relevant, adds value and is associated with their core products, services or
knowledge their audience will embrace it. They become an essential relationship bridge or “go to” source.

Social and professional networking have become a marketing phenomenon’s in recent years because of the
convenience and capability of accessing online internet communities.

These networks allow people with similar ideas, views and interests to connect and share them using the
internet from any location.

It’s enabling people to act alone or as part of a much larger and distributed group by assembling together like
minds, harnessing the power of online web based communities to influence and guide the actions and decisions
of others irrespective of whether they are considered a positive or negative force.

These channels don’t take kindly to sales and marketing junk, they want to understand you, what you stand for
first, and how you might be able to help them before they will even entertain what your business can do for
them.

Many facets of market research and marketing are also evolving, such as crowd sourcing where audience
members, including actual customers are invited to contribute or help refine a concept by becoming part of the
creation process.

It may include things like a logo design competition where the audience votes for the one they like the most, or
it could be assembling a team to create, share and combine video or audio into a single project. It’s for the
audience, by the audience and could even involve solving critical problems.

One example of its use is Dell’s project on Idea Storm where customers vote for what products they want Dell to
produce next. This is how Dell’s recent introduction of Linux laptops came about.

The customer wants inside your business and wants to know if you care.

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 A Triangle of Change Has Developed Which Is Holding Your Business Back
Conventional sales and marketing activities are being rendered ineffective and your ability to advance,
innovate and create value will be stagnated.

Things aren’t working the way they used to, and;

1. The more you try and sell by inappropriately pushing your customers the less you end up selling over
time and the fewer long term customers you will have.
2. The more creatively convoluted your marketing gets the less effective, and more confusing and costly
it becomes.
3. The more your customers continue to receive this barrage of commercial waste the more they retreat,
and the more waste you continue to create.

It’s an ongoing cycle that leads to bigger gaps, more confusion and difficult changes ahead. It’s no longer a
question of if things go wrong, but a question of when and how damaging.

1. A wedge is being driven between your sales and marketing operations, turning cash flow and business
planning into a mystic meg crystal ball gazing show.
2. The business is slowly being cut off from good ideas which stimulate innovations that customers want
and need, as your sales and marketing operations are unable to close the loop providing much needed
market feedback for developments.
3. Management teams are confused and departments or individuals who are trying to adapt are
struggling to lead that change as they don’t understand it, see it as risky, or receive little to no
support.

This is happening in some shape or form in businesses both small and large.

Each of these 3 points forms a relationship triangle and is being driven away from its counterpoint causing the
business to become disjointed or disconnected. That’s a real problem when you are trying to take your business
somewhere, as you need everything working together in harmony to make it work effectively.

It’s not a lack of motivation or unwillingness that is holding things back for you because you wouldn’t be
reading this report if it was. It’s the frustration of dealing with ineffective strategies that are doing you more
damage than good, especially when you know things are not working and nobody seems to have any credible
answers.

So what can you do about it ? If you recognise these symptoms and can accept the needs for change then you
are already on the first step to an evolutionary or revolutionary change taking place.

Things have got to change for sales, marketing and the poor customers and prospects on the receiving end. It’s
a change worth making, and if done correctly will reposition you and your business in a game changing way
that will get you out of the price battles and the endless walls of silence.

Not only will you be able to re-engage your customers but it will significantly move you ahead of your
competition.

Copyright ©2010 Nic Windley All Rights Reserved Worldwide Page 13 of 17

 When Things Went Wrong In My Career
I went through some tough times during my career which finally led me to make some big decisions and along
the way and write this white paper and do the other things I am now doing.

As my career developed I sometimes fell into the bigger and dumber money trap and realised that the more I
was being paid, or was being lured by the prospects of big pay, the more painful the whole process seemed to
become. I was told that we were getting paid like this because it was supposed to be painful. At the same time
I was convinced that there were better ways of doing things but wasn’t given the opportunity to spend enough
time investigating and making the necessary changes.

It’s true that being in business is about dealing with problems, but when it becomes a real drain on your
physical, mental and financial resources and nobody seems to have any credible answers apart from that’s the
way we do it, something has to change.

During these periods the truly successful entrepreneurs I turned to for advice were pointing to a different way
and although they were at the top of their game they were certainly not finding it painful at all. So, why was
that?

While the worst companies I worked for did have so called CRM systems, marketing and advertising budgets,
sales training and entertainment expense accounts, they rarely actually helped me to generate any good
quality leads or aid in concluding truly valuable or worthwhile business.

Most, if not all of their marketing was mainly in the business to business (b2b) market and was simply wasteful
noise that was quickly lost. It was done in a specific way because that was how it was “supposed” to be done in
that industry, meaning that everybody was following everybody else and things just seemed to get worse year
after year. It was like recycling the same old piece of toilet paper over and over again.

If a sales lead was generated it was pretty low quality and was usually some student or tyre kicker. When we
were engaged in a sale it became almost like a bare knuckle fight and my employers attitudes at times created
more enemies than we did supporters, chasing away more business in their ignorance.

This only reduced the credibility of the business and sales team even further and made our lives tougher as
each day went by.

We were always prospecting when really we should have been spending time with good quality prospects
helping them make positive buying decisions.

Even the CRM systems were unbelievably cumbersome and only aided in the company poking its noses into
deals instead of actually helping the business create better customer relationships.

We spent far too much time chasing our tails, searching through garbage or being fed junk and there was just
no way that the business was going to achieve what it wanted.

The list goes on and thankfully not all of my experiences were like this. In fact I look back over my career and
see that those companies which didn’t really understand eventually decided to fire all of their management,
sold off the company (or what was left) before things got worse or slowly declined into obscurity.

Even when I first went self employed which was a halfway house as I was part of a franchised operation I was
forced back into using tactics that I knew where more disabling than they were empowering and I had to fight
to get myself back on track once again.

Copyright ©2010 Nic Windley All Rights Reserved Worldwide Page 14 of 17

I soon realised between the ups and downs that a good responsible business development system with
accountable marketing and sales strategies could help more buyers to buy more from you than you could ever
do trying to turn them into customers with old school selling and marketing methods.

Start Using The Right Strategy By Cutting Loose From Old School Sales And Marketing
Thinking
In sales and marketing we are always being told to start with a strong sales pitch or promotion and
unsurprisingly it undermines your credibility and ensures you’re ignored.

Today more than ever, we need to start doing things differently and that first contact should start with a
conversation that opens up a channel of trust between customer and seller.

Your job in the early stages is to discover whether there is a real fit for what you do, not to close down a
meeting or sale at your earliest convenience. Instead spend time establishing whether an opportunity actually
exists before moving on, especially when you consider that statistically most sales are lost right at the
beginning.

It’s possible to side step the gut wrenching rejection of sales and marketing campaigns that achieve little to no
return from all your hard effort and time invested by doing away with unworthy strategies. These are the true
root cause of why prospects and customers are turning you out, or stone walling you.

Stop chasing down prospects that are not a good fit for what you do, instead get down to the truth of whether
a business opportunity really does exists. It’s a probability outcome like all things, so learn to stack the odds in
your favour and spend time where your time is worthwhile spent. Need alone does not reveal the capability and
motivation to proceed further with you as a supplier, so decisions are complex.

Don’t parry objections like they are some kind of obstacle to a sale, instead see them as being valid issues.
Explore and understand them and provide credible ways of addressing them. Always be honest and open in
your approach and respond in exactly the same way that you opened the conversation up in the very beginning.

Stay away from old school defensive get out ploys that try and justify the price of your product or service and
pump up your business credibility as they only aid in creating more sales pressure when you’re not addressing
problems or desires that your customers need to resolve or fulfil now.

Realise that because of these changes prospecting and cold calling is becoming less effective, so you need to
find other ways that allow you to reach your audience more effectively and use prospecting and cold calling
appropriately.

When asked more people have made bad buying decisions based on a cold call than anything else.

Take a look at this blog post called “The Biggest Lie In Sales” which outlines some of the actual statistics.

I struggled with these concepts myself at first but I knew somewhere deep down they were right as the buyer in
me was crying out in agreement. When I cast my mind back to those times in my career where things really
worked well for me it was where I was given the space to be myself, to be natural and to understand my buyers
and how I could help them.

When you pull back from the constant selling barrage and start helping prospects and customers to buy, things
start to change.

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The 14 Secrets
1. Your Guaranteed To Pull A Crowd Outside Your Front Door Using The Power Of
Laser Targeted Positioning Over Shotgun Prospecting
When buyers want or need something important they go looking for it, or turn to trusted sources and
authorities for advice.

These may be found inside existing networks from personal contacts or friends or they may have to go out and
find what they want through research.

If you were considering a face lift you would seek out a plastic surgeon, if you found yourself in a legal situation
you would look for a good lawyer to represent you, and if you were experiencing difficulty with a sports injury
you would seek out a sports therapist.

Not only will you have taken the time to seek out these trusted sources, but once you arrive at that trusted
source you receive advice after a detailed consultation where you may have to divulge secrets that few would
be party too, and at any time you are free to go get a second opinion.

These “trusted sources” didn’t find you, instead you found them knowing that you may have to listen to some
painful truths and pay good money for their services if you decided to proceed any further.

Buyers Are More Likely To Buy From A Trusted Source Than From Anywhere Else
Have you ever wondered why customers don’t respect you in the same way they do a plastic surgeon, lawyer or
therapist ?

Why is it with your level of education and valuable experience giving you the capability to deal with some very
challenging problems, you still don’t receive the same level of respect they do ?

The advice from these trusted suppliers is certainly not always right, nor is it any more superior than your own
which is blindingly obvious when you see the cases of miss diagnosis by doctors, and flunked legal cases. It’s
just not fair!

In a survey conducted by the CCB Fast MAP, a panel of 1,287 people whose demographics mirror those of the
UK population, where asked to give their views on those in different types of profession.

Almost a third found salespeople slightly more irritating (31 per cent) than marketers (27 per cent), while 17
per cent felt marketers were the more boring of the two (sales people, 15 per cent).

Unfortunately, untrustworthiness was considered to be the second strongest trait in both groups - salespeople
28 per cent, marketers 21 per cent.

None of the seven professions researched scored highly for being "entertaining"; marketers topped the bill with
a miserable 6 per cent, trailed by salespeople at 4 per cent - all the rest scored zero.

When panels were asked what the top 10 most hated professions were telemarketers or telesales people and
PR professionals appeared most often in the top 10.

Development Dimensions International in their 2007-2008 Global Sales Perceptions Report found that;

1) "Snake oil" stereotype persisted. 46% of buyers would not be proud to call themselves a salesperson.

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