SUMINISTRO E INSTALACION DE ROLLO DE CONCERTINA GALVANIZADA

Infomercials on television have become a popular and highly effec- tive way for marketers to introduce new products to consumers. They are also a very expensive advertising tool.

If you study the medium, you will notice that only about 20 percent of the air time used focuses on the product being offered. The other 80 percent consists of an endless parade of customers chirping happily about how pleased they have been with their purchase. Infomercial marketers do this because they understand the power of testimonials as an influence tool for driving sales. You should, too.

Potential customers perceive risk in buying from any vendor for the first time. When weighing competitive options, they will gravi- tate to the option that appears to offer the least amount of risk. Being perceived as the safer alternative—the one most likely to deliver as promised—is therefore an important aspect of winning competitive sales. Nothing is more effective in removing risk for your potential customer than the opportunity to examine the experience of your other potential customers. In the competitive selling environment, we don’t need television to get this point across. We need documen- tation. We need letters of recommendation.

Most sellers will have, at most, two or three testimonial letters that they can produce on request. This is woefully inadequate. Is having two or three happy customers really enough documentation to demonstrate conclusively your ability to deliver value? Furthermore, can we safely assume that you competitors also can produce two or three similar letters from their best customers? If so, consider this: If I have two or three letters from your customers saying nice things about you and I have two or three letters from your competitor’s cus- tomers saying nice things about your competitor, where, exactly, have you separated yourself?

To differentiate ourselves from competitors, we need, to use lawyer lingo, a preponderance of the evidence. To stand out, you must provide overwhelming, irrefutable evidence to the buyer that you are the risk- free choice—that you provide consistently outstanding value to your customers.

To meet this standard, you need, at a minimum, 12 to 15 letters of recommendation from satisfied customers. Furthermore, all your letters need to deliver one common message—results, which is the only thing that your customer cares about. Let’s look at how to get to this number—quickly and easily.

Letters of recommendation are most effective when they meet the following three criteria:

• They describe an attained improvement, benefit, or result. • They are signed by the client and are on the client’s letterhead. • They are less than two years old.

When asked, virtually all your satisfied customers will tell you that, yes, they would be delighted to write you a letter of this nature. Then you generally run into a little problem—actually getting the customer to write the letter. You can’t really blame them because, for them, this

is like “working for free”. This is the reason why they rarely get around to doing it.

More important, most customers do not think in the same terms that you do. In other words, they are not likely to include the things in the letter that would matter to a prospective buyer. For example, they are likely to write you a letter that talks about how nice you are and what a fine company you are to deal with while completely over- looking the fact that your recommendations saved them over half a million dollars in the last calendar year.

What follows, then, is a three-step method that is (1) highly effec- tive at getting excellent recommendation letters and (2) ensures that what needs to be said gets said—every time.

First, call your happy clients and “fish for compliments.” Make this a customer-service call. Interview your customer on the telephone. Ask such questions as “What did you like the most about how we handled our most recent project together?” and “What were the net savings to your company?” and “How would you rate the technical expertise of our people against other vendors with whom you do business”?

While you are conducting this discussion, write down your

customer’s comments. The feedback to your questions will form the

backbone of the letter, as you will see in a moment.

After collecting this feedback, ask the customer this question: “Would you be willing to give us a letter of recommendation that states what you just said?”

Remember, this is a satisfied customer; therefore, the vast majority will immediately say, “Of course.”

Now take control of the process. Assume responsibility for getting the letter completed. Say this: “As a convenience to you, why don’t I draft the letter for you? I’ll e-mail it to you as a Word document, and when it is in a format that you like, just put it on your letterhead and send it back. How does that sound?”

Note the use of the word draft in the preceding statement. We didn’t say, “Why don’t I write the letter for you”; the word draft implies that the customer can change your wording. This is an important choice of words that makes a big difference in your success rate. Inci- dentally, satisfied customers almost never change anything in your draft, but it is important to make this offer.

You can expect the response, “That would be wonderful!” Most people will be absolutely delighted that you will take on this task for them because you are willing to do the work involved. Here is a real bonus: You ensure that all those wonderful things that the customer said in your phone interview appear in the letter. And because you are not embellishing or exaggerating, but merely quoting them, the great likelihood is that you will get back a letter that is the exact twin of the letter that you drafted.

Now That I Have Them—How Do