Transcripts
1. Introduction: Are you one of those
who are dreaming of making a living
off your passion, spending every day
doing what you love, getting paid for doing
what you do best, getting paid to make a
living of your passion, you need to get paid. How do I get paid? Hi there. My name is Michela
Buttignol and I am a surface pattern designer with a special interest in sales. I have always had a dream of running my own
creative business. I have started entrepreneurship and gathered information in working as an account manager, building customer relationships. Today, I have my creative
business where I sell digital pattern
files and printed fabric. But running a creative business is so much more than
just creating art. You need to get the
money coming and by doing that you need to sell. That is why I'm
going to teach you the fundamentals in sales. By that I mean learning
how to approach new customers and building
good customer relations. This is no rocket science and learning just
a little bit will help you a lot in your future meeting
with your customers. In this class, I will cover a fundamental step in
your sales training, writing a sales pitch. To do that, you first need
to define your products, what you're selling, and
then analyze your customer, the one you are targeting. When you have this information, you will gather these
into a sales pitch. You will also learn how
to prepare for objections and I will give you
some tips on how to deliver the pitch
that you made. After this class, you should have written your sales pitch and you're ready to reach
out to new customers. This course is
beginner friendly, so you don't need
to know anything about sales from before. I hope that you are
as excited as I am. Let's jump right into it.
2. Project Video: [MUSIC] I chose this project because it's a fundamental step when learning about sales. You should be able to
pitch your product, and talk about them so the customer really
understand what it is, and what value it can give them. I myself do these steps when
I prepare for a sales talk. By being prepared, I feel more confident when reaching
out to new customers. Confidence is
something that really shines through a
person's appearance. If you do these
steps a few times, you will learn to
speed up the process, and finally, you can do them in your head while you are
talking with the customers. The progress for today's class is to write a sales pitch, and prepare for your sales
talk with the customer. In the first lesson,
you would begin with, defining what you're selling, and what value it can
bring to your customer. In the next lesson, you will learn to analyze the customer group
you're targeting, and figure out their needs. In the third lesson, you will write your
sales pitch by using the information you have gathered from the
previous lessons. In the next lesson,
you will learn how to prepare for objections that
your customers may have. Finally, in the last lesson, I will give you
some tips on how to design a personalized
email for your pitch. You will work on your class
project in each lesson, and I will provide
you examples of my answers as we go along. In this class, you
will do some writing, so you need a pen. In the project resources tab, you can find a
project workbook with all the questions that we will
go through in this class. Make sure to print a copy
of the workbook before these lessons or use paper
or a computer to write them. You should also have some of your products that you're
selling close to you, so you can have a look at
them during the class. After this class, you should have written your sales pitch, and feel ready to reach
out to new customers. Don't forget to post your class in the
class project section. I'm looking forward to
read through your answers. See you in the first lesson. [MUSIC]
3. Define Your Products: In this lesson, we will make a deep dive
into your products, what benefits they
bring to your customer? We do this step to prove what you and your products
are and stand for. Because selling your products is about being confident
about your products. Have a copy of the
workbook close to you. Let's deep dive into
the first question. To begin with, define who you are and what you are
passionate about. My name is Miguel Bouba, and I'm a surface pattern
designer from Sweden. With a love for creating printed heuristic fabric
and patterns for products. Next, choose 1-3 of your main products to
focus on in this class. It's easier if you limit
your options and then do this exercise
multiple times, instead. What you're going to
do now is to define your product properties
and write them down in the left column in
the project workbook. In this project, I will
focus on printed fabric and especially this
one that I made. It's a collection
of some fabrics. To help you to find
your products. We will go through
some categories, but please feel free to add or adjust so it suits
your product better. We begin with the visuals. How does your products
look according to size and shape, colors? Does it have a certain style
or a feeling that it gives? If I will define a product
property for this one, to begin with the colors, they're in monochrome
natural colors. They have playful designs where the fabrics
suits well together. Next, product
property is material. What material is it
in your products? Why did you choose that one? Regarding the quality, it is a very high-quality cotton with a very dense
and smooth feel, and the garment is a
AEKO-tex certified. Another thing that defines your product is your
production process. Define which steps you
take in your production and special decisions
you take along the way. You can also mention
if it is a smaller, large-scale production,
locally produced, or something similar to that. I create my designs by making hand-drawn illustrations
of the elements. Then translate to the computer and create the
repeat pattern file. I then send the pattern file to a company in Europe who
prints it on fabric. Next step is to define how your product properties bring value and benefits
to the customer. Read through what you have
written in the left column and figure out how the customer
will benefit from that. Be creative and jot down anything that comes
up in your head. Let's have a look at
what I have written in my left column and see what value that brings
to my customer. I have written neutral colors. A benefit for that is that
it suits unisex products, which enables a
large customer base. I have written playful motifs and it gives a happy feeling. I think both of
these to inspire to be creative and start
a sewing project. Regarding material selection, I have written
high-quality cotton. AEKO-tex certified with a
smooth feel and a dense fabric. All of these properties is
perfect for sewing projects. Regarding the
AEKO-tex certified, that mean that it contains
no harmful chemicals, which a lot of
customers are aware of. For production step,
I have written hand-drawn illustrations with
inspiration from nature. The value is that it's my own design from paper
to finish it, to print. I have also written that
it's printed in Europe, which means no long transportation
if you live in Europe. And it's a small-scale
production because it's only me printing
my own designs. You can't find these
products in every store. That means that the reseller
becomes very exclusive. That was what I have written. Now it's time for you to
take action and write yours. The key takeaway from this
lesson is to think of your product properties and how they can bring value
to the customer. By doing this step, you have
started to put yourself in the customer's shoes and it violates your products with
a different point of view. In the next lesson, we're going to focus on your
customer and their needs. See you in the next lesson.
4. Analyze Your Customer: [MUSIC] In the first lesson, you defined your products and what value they can
bring to your customer. In this lesson we're
going to focus on your customer and
figure out their needs. First of all, we're
going to figure out what customer group
you are targeting, if you're targeting a business that you are selling
directly to the business, or if you are selling
directly to the consumer. Your customers have
different goals, and depending on what that is, they have different needs. Common goal for company is making profit,
increasing growth, it could be by
increasing revenue, taking more market
shares or expanding their product portfolio or
heading to a different market. I will say these are the most important for most companies. But of course, there are also organizations where
the goal is to give back value to
their customers. When buying a product, the customer value
different needs. First of all, the price. The customer wants
value for their money. A higher price often
indicates high equality. If quality is important
for the customer, they will accept a higher price. However, if the customer wants something as
cheap as possible, they don't care or expect the product to
hold high quality. That leaves us to
the next thing, determine the quality
of your product, which can be the material, the design,
sustainability, etcetera. But it also includes the
customer service and support the customer receives during
the purchase and afterwards. Another category is choice. Customers value the
freedom to choose between different
versions of a product, it could be different
colorways or adjusting the price by adding or
removing extra functionality. Another factor is convenience. If a product makes the
customer's life so much easier, they
would want to have it. Therefore, making the process as convenient as possible for the customer is a good way of feeling good
customer relations, offering fast delivery
or even free delivery. That is something that is very
common in online shopping. Finally, a lot of
customers value design. We buy a lot of things
just because they are beautiful or belong to
a brand that we love. To be successful say, you should focus on your
customer and their needs. A customer experience
problems when some of their needs
are not fulfilled. Therefore, pay attention
to what problems they have and are struggling
with and try to solve that. Right, to dig deep into what your customer wants by answering
the following questions. First of all, choose one
customer to focus on. It could be a large
international company, maybe it's a small local store, or you sell your products
directly to the end-user. Next, you should study a customer by doing
some research. Head over to their
website and study their product portfolio and see what products
they're selling, and if your products
are a good match. What customers are they
targeting in their turn? The customer group I am
focusing on in this project is small local fabric stores for reselling of my products. These stores are typically
selling all kinds of fabrics and sewing accessories
directly to the consumer. What is your customer's goal? Do you think it's
to make profits, increase growth or
to bring value? Maybe you find that it's
something completely different. The customer that I'm targeting
is a small fabric store, and I believe that
their goal is to make profit and bring value
to their customer. What do they value? Is price important
for your customer? Or do they prefer good quality because they
are a dedicated brand? How about choice
and convenience? Or is the design and
brand the most important? The fabric store is
selling to the consumer, and the consumer is
quite price sensitive. Therefore, I believe that my
customer, the fabric store, would like to have a low purchase price for me
so they can make more profit. I also know that they
often have limited storage space so I think that they will value quite
flexible solutions around delivery and
minimum order amount. Now that you have defined
your customers' needs, what problem do you
think they experienced when buying similar
products like yours? As I said before, they don't often have
that much storage space, their customer in
turn are quite price sensitive so they need
to have low prices. How can you help your customer
to solve these problems? How can you help your
customer to reach their goal? By being flexible in
the way that I deliver my products or which amounts
they can buy from me, I believe that the customer would feel special
and appreciate that. The customer wants to
make more profit by selling my products at a
higher price to the consumer. The consumer, in turn, can accept the high price if they're getting more
value of the product. For example, when buying
textiles from a famous brand, or if he gets extra
funds to buy from it. So what I think of is to make it extra fun
to buy my products. What if I can make a flyer that explains me as
a local designer? Or maybe I can give them
a freebie of some sort. Indirect, I'm helping
my customer store to sell my fabrics
to the end user. You might notice that you
may need to add something to your own product range or have a special offer to your customer to fulfill the customer's need. It doesn't need to be much, only one extra small thing will make the customer feels special, and that could be the
whole difference. Now is your time to
define your customers. The takeaway from this lesson, focus on one customer group
and analyze their need. Try to solve their problems. Make them feel special
by giving them extra service or a freebie. That's a great way of building
good customer relations, and your customer might want to buy from
you more than once. In the next lesson, we will combine everything
into a sales pitch. See you in the next lesson. [MUSIC]
5. Write Your Sales Pitch: In the previous lesson, you have defined
your products and what value you can bring
to your customers. You have also defined your
customers and their needs. In this lesson, we will combine the answers into a sales pitch. I will first go through the
theory behind this lesson, and then we will go
through the questions together and I will provide
my answers as we go along. A sales pitch is a short
presentation of your product or services and how it can help the customer
with their problems. It usually starts with
a problem statement, followed by an introduction
of you and how your products can help
the customer with their problems and
bring them value. It should also include some reference examples
with customer stories, which proves your point. A great way to end your sales pitch is to have
an open-ended question. It enables you have
to have a discussion with the customer and leaves
them with a call to action. Let's break it down into each part and go
through it together. Begin with reading
through what you have written in the previous lessons, mark out the worst that
you like the most, or the sentences that you
feel really resembles you. Do you find any obvious
relationships between your products and
what value they can bring and what your
customer needs? The first part of a
sales pitch is to capture your
customers interests. Think of a headline
in a newspaper. Only one sentence can
catch our interests. It usually includes
something that we fear and want to avoid or
something that we desire. What we would like to do in a sales pitch is to start with a problem statement that we think that
customer might have. Choose one of the problems
which you brought in a previous lesson
and then try to write it as a
problem statement or a question that will capture
your customers interests. Some examples that
I can think of is, do you find it difficult to find Swedish design years
of fabric with flexible terms of
purpose and delivery? Next step is to introduce
yourself so that a customer quickly understands who you are and what you are offering. Try to depict yourself as
short and precise as possible. Use what you answered to the question in
the first lesson. My name is Michela [inaudible], and I'm a designer from Sweden, with a heart from creating playful fabrics and
patterns for licensing. My fabrics is of
high-quality cotton that is [inaudible] certified and they have a very dense
and smooth feel. They are perfect for
kids clothing projects. Next part is a value statement where you define how you bring
value to your customers. Use what you have written when defining products and how you can help your customers with the problems from
previous lessons. Some examples that
I can think of is, I sell my designs to
selected retailers and you can become an
exclusive reseller. I also have a very flexible
term of [inaudible] and delivery with no
minimum order amount. To prove your point
and build trust, you should show some
images of your products in action and some other
customers using your products. You can also list
reference customers and include testimonials
from a customer who has tried your product. Previous customers are very satisfied with the
high-quality of my products and their
flexible solutions of [inaudible] and delivery. A great way to end
your sales pitch is to have an
open-ended question. It enables you to have a
discussion with the customer, and leaves them with
a call to action. Think of what is the next step that you
want the customer to take? Some example that
I can think of is, do you want to have a
closer look at my fabrics? I'm happy to book a meeting with you or send you some samples. Until then, head over
to my website and have a look at the inspirational
pictures of my products. Now it's your turn to combine all your sentences
into a sales pitch. Rewrite the sentences so
they work well together. Try to say your pitch out
loud for a few times. Does it feel right? Do you think that it resembles
you in the right way? If not, rewrite some sentences so you get
really satisfied with it. It's important that you feel comfortable with what
you have written. A take away from this lesson. A sales pitch is a short presentation of how you can help the customer
with their problem. It should include how
you can bring value to the customer and some
success stories. It should also have a call to action
for the customer. In the next lesson, you will learn how to prepare
for objections. See you in the next lesson.
6. Prepare for Objections: [MUSIC] At this time, you should have written
your sales pitch and be ready to reach out
to new customers. But before you do that, you should prepare
for objections, and that's exactly what we will go through in this lesson. I believe this is the
most important step in the whole preparation process before reaching out
to new customers, and still this step is usually
nothing that we practice. But by being prepared, at least I feel more confident when reaching out
to new customers. Here's the thing; behind every objection lies an
unanswered question. When a customer
has an objection, they are actually questioning why they should buy from you. By preparing yourself on
these question you will have valid answers to your
customer's objections. This was mind
shifting for me when I first learned
about this theory. Instead of being afraid of the objections and
taking it personally, I now see the need of
being more clear in my presentation and have a reply to their
hidden question. When we get an objection
we often have not succeeded to convince the
value with our products. What you will notice is that the most customers have
the same objections, so by preparing for those you have a valid answer
to reply with. Or at least you will
feel more confident and look more professional
towards your customer. Think of as many objections as possible and write them
down into the workbook. Try to figure out what question that hides under the objection. Then write the answer to that
question to help you use what you have written
in the first lesson about what value you
bring to your customer. I will go through five of the objections that
I could think of. The first one is, "It is too expensive." The question that hides
behind this objection is that the customer ask
why does it cost that much? The customer doesn't understand
the value of the product. Your job now is to
make the customer understand the value so
they understand the price. If the customer still thinks
the price is too high, then negotiation of the
price is due to a point where both you and the
customer are satisfied. A possible answer for
this question would be, "My products hold high quality and are small-scale produced, they are not sold
everywhere so you become a very
exclusive reseller. I also offer you no minimum order amount
for full flexibility." Another objection I
could think of is, "I don't have time for this." This is not really a question that the customer is having but instead the customer doesn't see the value of the products. Try to figure out what part of your presentation the
customer did not understand. A possible answer for
this question would be, "I understand, time's
are busy right now. How about I send you some samples so you can have
a look in peace and quiet, and I will get back
to you next week." Important here is to actually get back
to the customer. I don't like to be pushy so the customer feels threatened. Instead I want to build
trust with the customer so I believe it's better
to be consistent and try to get a
reply another day. A third objection is,
"I'm not interested." Try to figure out why the
customer is not interested. Have the customer really understood the value
of your products? Is it a matter of the
product or the price? By asking a
straightforward question the customer will
respond honestly, and it could be any of the other objections that
you have practiced for. If that's the case, then you know how to
continue the conversation. If you found out that the
customer is not interested, still be polite and thank
them for their time. Be sure to tell them
where they can find more information about you
if they change their mind. Another objection, "Your product doesn't match
our product range." Try to figure out what the true reason is
behind this objection. Depending on what the
customer answers you know if you have any other products that might suit them better. A possible answer for
this question would be, "Can you explain to
me more exactly what you are looking for so I
get a better understanding? I have more products
than those that I've showed here and I'm constantly making more products so I might have something
that suits you better." The last objection, "I
don't like your product." If I hear this I
would like to try to figure out what
the customer doesn't like about the product and see if there is something else
that I can offer them. My answer to this
question would be, "Sad to hear that they
don't like the products. Can you explain to me
exactly what it is that you don't like so I know
what you are looking for?" We have gone through five
common objections but feel free to continue with
as many as you think of. The goal is to get a
better understanding of your customer and what
they are looking for. Even if you find out that your product doesn't
match them at all you still get valuable
information that you can use. Maybe you find out that all of your customers are
having the same problem, then you can focus on solving that problem
and all of a sudden, you have plenty of customers. Take away from this lesson. See objections as
a hidden question that needs to be answered. Listen to a customer, what they are saying
might help you to get the information you need to
produce to next best seller. In the next lesson,
we will go through some tips on how to
deliver the pitch on email and what you can do to personalize the
email so it stands out. See you in the next lesson. [MUSIC]
7. Pitch by Email: In the previous lessons, you have defined your products, customers, and written
your sales page, and now you are
prepared to reach out. In this class, we
will go through some tips on how
to pitch my email. First of all, have a subject line that
captures interests. Think of the headline
in a newspaper again. The effect, we want is, that the customer should read only one sentence and want to read the whole article or
your pitch in this case. The subject line should
not be too long, so try to strip it
down to five words. Next, greet your customer. This one is quite obvious. If you're targeting
a special person, not an informant, write their
name for personalization. Include pictures
of your products. We're also overloaded with
information these days, so we usually don't read
the emails, we scan them. Because of that, it helps
to have pictures of your products so the reader
sees what you want to say. Next thing is to play
with email design. All newsletters and
advertising that you get in your inbox are well-designed so they should capture
your interest. They take advantage of fonts, colors, placement of
each element, and so on. So take an extra look at those advertising emails
in your own inbox. Study how they tried to capture your interest and see if you can learn
anything from that. There are plenty of ways to make beautiful email design and I will not go through
it here because that's an entirely
different topic. But I recommend to search
for another class here on Skillshare that go
through exactly that. Another thing that
isn't that common is to include a
video in your email. Here's the thing,
people buy from people. That's an expression I learned early in
my sales training. We buy things from people
we trust and we are barely trusting people that we
have seen or spoken to. That of course is difficult
when you are pitching by email and not to
the person directly. To speed up this
trust-building process, one can include a video in the email so you speak
directly to the customer. Why not deliver parts of
your pitch on that video. Finally, make it
easy to contact you. Have links that goes directly to your portfolio or
social media channels. So I thought I should
then make an example of how you can include
a video in your email. First of all, you need to have a video and you need to
have it hosted somewhere. I have used YouTube
in this case. If you don't want anyone else to see the video more than the
ones that have got the link, then you can upload
the video as unlisted. Then you just copy the link. Sorry, this is in Swedish. What is good with using
YouTube is that you can create a beautiful picture
like I have here and then the picture
is having the link, so when the people. Now I will design
this picture and I will just take a photo from
the video that I have. I'm just going to [LAUGHTER]
find a nice photo. I think this one
look very beautiful. I'm going head over to Canva, which is free to use software
and very easy to use. So I will just post
this image here, so I'm just going to change
the background, the blue. This is the one that I
have used in this videos. Then I will have a text. I'm thinking something that, so it makes easy to see
what's this video about. I write exclusive fabrics
here and change the font. It gets a little bit
more more spicy. I thinking about handwriting
because I like it, feels personal, but what I see now is the
contrast is really bad. I think I'm going to
change the color a bit. What if I just take a
rectangle and add a suburb. Then I can add the
text above here. Alright, take the text, put it there, position
at the center. Now I can change the color. I like this light green one. What I'm going to do now is to add a Play button so it looks like this image come
from the video. I'm making the
bottom quite large, so it's easy to see. The bottom is the most
important thing here. Positioning it in the center. I'm decreasing the size
of this white rectangle just so it doesn't
hide the Play button. Now I'm finished. Now I take the pitch
that I have written in the last lesson and I
just copy it in here. I think I will remove some parts because I don't want
too much texts. As I said, we are
scanning emails, we are not really reading. Including the picture. What I'm doing now
is that I'm marking the whole picture and clicking
on the Link button here. Now I need the link that
I got from YouTube. When people are
clicking on the image, they will follow the
link into the video. So I'm just going
to write a text, so it's makes it really clear what I want the customer do. Nice. I'm just reading
through what I have written, so the pitch looks really good. Removing that part, I
thought it was unnecessary. Removing some whitespace. I can also make this a
link as well because this is where I want the customer
to visit my website. So I'm just pausing there and this default link
doesn't look that good, so I'm just going to make it
bold and change the color. Something that looks like
the blue in my image. Maybe I should take
the first sentence, make it a little bit
beautiful as well. As I said previously
in this lesson, playing around with email
design is a good way, so some of your sentence
stands out more. Then I would just
change the font on all texts so it looks a little bit more fun
and it stands out. As I said, there
is plenty of ways to play around
with email design, making it look beautiful, but we need a subject
line that stands out. Remember a few
words as possible. I said five. Here it ends
up with six word for me. I think it works good. I think I'm getting ready. Now we just click Send. The takeaway from
this lesson is, have a subject line that
captures interests. Greet your customer
in the email, include pictures of your
products so it's easier for the reader to know what
you are talking about. Play with the size so you
have a good-looking email. Include a video of yourself where you speak directly
to the customer. Finally, make it easy for
the customer to contact you. [MUSIC]
8. Conclusion: In this class we have gone through defining your product and your customer, and we have combined
it into a sales pitch. I hope that you have got a better understanding
of your customers and now feel confident in reaching out and
have a sales sale. As you may have noted, it is much about understanding your customer and listening
to what they have to say. Another important thing
is to be consistent and follow up on your
emails and phone calls. Now, I'm looking
forward to seeing what you have written in
your project workbook.
Mikaela Boberg, Surface Pattern Designer
