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Five ways to use a special offer

Guest post by: Tom Miller

Article Overview: Special offers are the only thing left when you run out of time and still have a hill to climb to reach your sales target. It seems a really dumb thing to do because the people whom you send the offers to are likely to become conditioned to the special offer rates. Worse, they get to know when the end of your measurement period is and wait for the offers! The article gives the five best ways of using special offers.

Five ways to use a special offer

It's no use regretting a lack of prospecting activity at the end of the quarter or month. Sales people are only as good as their last successful measurement period. They might expect to survive the occasional bad result however, two in succession and be sure that questions are being asked. If performance slips in isolation, watch out. Even the most generous employer can ill afford under performing sales people.

Special offers are the only thing left when you run out of time and still have a hill to climb to reach your sales target. It seems a really dumb thing to do because the people whom you send the offers to are likely to become conditioned to the special offer rates. Worse, they get to know when the end of your measurement period is and wait for the offers!

Buying business forward is different from indiscriminate offers. This term refers to slashing the price for those prospects who have already progressed well down the buying process. It is like cannibalising your own commission. The only people who will respond are those who were going to buy anyway. Those who are on the cusp may well be put off by aggressive pricing offers. They make the seller seem desperate.

So what is the solution?


1. Be selective. Only make offers to companies and organisations who are unlikely to buy from you in normal circumstances. Prospect and suspect lists are usually full of them.
2. Use special offers to wrong foot competitors providing that you have a realistic chance of changing the decision. Don't do it just out of spite because this tends to prompt retaliation.
3. Use special offers to bring back lost customers.
4. Grace friends and business partners. Use special offers where they will be considered a favour that is to be returned.
5. If you must use a special offer to buy business forward, accompany it with an acceptable justification that doesn't convey desperation. Find a genuine reason why the customer can take advantage of a reduction. If it sounds like, "the price goes up on Monday", you might win the business at the expense of damaging personal credibility or integrity.


Now that the measurement period is over and the calm has returned, remember the panic , mayhem, chaos, or desperation of the closing days. Then start again. Get going. Get prospecting lest the end of the next measurement period brings an end to your luck.

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Article Tags: business coaching, prospecting, Sales, sales target, sales training



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