Top Communicators Have `Likability’: Ozana Castellano
Overcoming Common Sales Objections
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Kathleen McGinn Spring were prepared for the
April 11, 2001 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Taking the Horror Out of Selling Fiction
After five years of work, Brian Keene is ready
to devote himself full time to horror. “Ghosts and werewolves
were my love since I was a kid,” he says. Now a marketer for a
credit card company by day, and a writer by night, Keene has just
given the two-week notice that will free him to take his writing to
the next level.
Keene speaks to the Garden State Horror Writers on “Guerrilla
marketing for writers,” on Saturday, April 14, at 11 a.m. at the
Monmouth County Library in Manalapan. Free. Call 609-443-3438.
At one point in his life, Keene, a Baltimore resident who drifted
into sales after a four-year hitch in the Navy, thought he was
destined
to be “cursed forever as a traveling salesman, going from job
to job.” His routine was eight or nine hours of selling, followed
by long writing sessions every night and every weekend. “I only
sleep four or five hours a night,” he says.
The fruits of his labor include a book, “No Rest for the
Wicked,”
which will hit bookstores in May, stories that appear on CD-ROM horror
anthologies, audio books, a website (www.briankeene.com), numerous
stories and articles in print publications, and contributions to
horror
genre webzines.
As Keene worked on his writing technique at night, he came to realize
that he was honing equally important skills at his day job. “Any
writer can sit down and write a story,” he says. “The trick
comes in selling the story.” Succeeding at writing, Keene is
convinced,
is “only 50 percent talent.” The rest is skillful — and
relentless — self-promotion. Keene devotes two hours a day, every
day, to marketing. He shares some of the strategies that got him to
the point where he can depend solely on writing income:
Paper the world with business cards. Just a simplebusinesscard, printed with the author’s name, the name of his book, andperhapsits ISBN number, can drive sales. “I go into Borders and put mycard in every best seller there,” says Keene, who cheerfullyadmitsto being tossed from the stores upon occasion. He knows this techniqueworks because a number of his fan letters come from readers who tellhim they were reading another author’s book, saw his card, and boughthis book. He says a friend of his, a webzine publisher, went froma paltry audience to a top 10 ratings in his Internet niche, horrorfiction, within one year by dropping business cards absolutelyeverywherehe went.Movies are an especially productive venue for business card seeding.”I would hit the theaters for movies like Hannibal,” Keenesays. “Put business cards on every seat.” This technique,he says, “exposes you to other than the hardcore fans.”Writersin, say, romance, or Medieval history, or dog breeding, might notreap much benefit from placing business cards at a Hannibal screening,but could be on the lookout for films their target audience wouldenjoy.Hold readings in a forest. Readings are a good way tobuild recognition, and writers should not limit themselves toshowcasingtheir work only at bookstores. Keene has held readings at Halloween”spook nights,” in comic book stores, at shopping centers.”Look for an opportunity outside of the ordinary,” he says.While he has not yet done this himself, he suggests that a horrorreading held at midnight in the Pine Barrens would draw an audience.Get listed with local news services. Keene has let scoresof newspapers, magazines, radio stations, cable networks, and Internetsites know he is available to comment on all things horror-related.”When Stephen King was in the accident, the local paper calledme,” he says. “I had only met him once, but they quoted meas `local author’.” The trick here, he says, is to let the newsoutlets know that you are not just seeking coverage for your latestbook, but rather are happy to give your time to speak on anydevelopmentwithin your genre or area of expertise.Volunteer. For the first three years of his writingcareer,Keene devoted lots of time to working without pay to build up hisname recognition. “For one year, I was associate editor of theMasters of Terror website,” he gives as one example. “Iinvested16 hours a week, and made no money, but I reaped 20 times what I putin.” The website became the “number one horror webzine outthere,” he says, and its visitors saw his name, and bought hisbook.Create a marketing database. “It is extremelyimportant,”Keene says, “to compile a database of people who will buy yourwork.” He now regularly sends press releases to 425 people. Someare press contacts and others are fans, whose E-mail addresses headds to the database as soon as they write saying they enjoyed astory.Still others are editors who have rejected his work. He says the factthat he promotes his own work has earned him a second look by editors.He believes they like the idea that if they publish him, his releasesmay build traffic for their publications or websites.Keene finds writers receptive to his marketing strategies.”Thesedays, writers don’t expect just to write,” he says. For many,it’s either get a day job, or learn to be a publicist as well as anovelist.Top Of PageTop Communicators Have `Likability’: Ozana CastellanoOzana Castellano describes herself as an “ESLchild.”She and her family arrived on Long Island speaking Croatian and”andnot one word of English,” when she was 11 years old. Within sixmonths, she had learned how to communicate in her new language sowell that “no one could tell I wasn’t born here.” NowCastellanohas found her dream job, training employees of area corporations howto succeed in their careers by mastering the language of businesscommunication.Castellano teaches a six-session course on “Communicating withPower and Style” beginning on Monday, April 16, at 7 p.m. atMercerCounty Community College. Cost: $128. Call 609-586-9446. She alsospeaks on the subject on Thursday, April 19, at 6:15 p.m. at a freemeeting of the Association of Women in Science at Wyeth-Ayerst inMonmouth Junction (732-274-4607); and on Friday, April 27, at 8:15a.m. at the Princeton Hyatt for Administrative Professionals Day,co-sponsored by Mercer County Community College, among others. Cost:$129. Call 609-586-9446.A graduate of Hofstra University, Castellano received an MBA fromSt. John’s University, and began her career in retail management.She then taught undergraduate business courses at Adelphi, and starteda career coaching business, through which she prepared clients forjob interviews and helped them write more than 1,500 resumes. Arrivingin New Jersey in 1997, she went to work for Mercer County CommunityCollege, where she teaches in the business and communicationsdivisionsand in the Institute for Training and Development, and does corporatetraining for the Center for Training and Development.A West Windsor resident and the mother of two girls, one an eighthgrader and one a junior in high school, Castellano says her work atMCCC is “the career of my life.” It’s a perfect fit, she says,both for her lifestyle and for her talents.In her courses, Castellano tells students they need to usecommunicationto make people like them. “Likability, that’s the magicbullet,”she says. “When you have that you gain credibility.” Then,”even if you fumble, you’re forgiven.” Here are hersuggestionsfor achieving that happy state:Watch your eyes, and the rest of your body, too. “Youcan lie with words, but non-verbal cues give you away,” saysCastellano,who reports that 93 percent of meaning is derived from non-verbalcommunication. “When verbal and non-verbal cues conflict, peoplebelieve the non-verbal cues,” she says.You can say you’re dying to hear what the boss wants to say, “butif your eyes stray to your watch, you’re saying `I’m not reallyinterested,and I’m not listening’.” Similarly, if you blink too much, youwill be perceived as a liar no matter how strongly you protest tothe contrary. “Nixon blinked excessively during the Watergatehearings,” Castellano says. “It’s normal to blink 10 to 20times a minute. Nixon blinked 30 to 40 times.”While rapid blinking suggests you are toying with the truth,scratchingyour head or biting your lip leads listeners to believe you are notconfident. Ditto with wringing your hands.Perfect your greeting. Upon meeting a person for the firsttime, look him right in the eye, offer a firm — but not too firm— handshake, and include his name in a short greeting. In herclasses, Castellano has students practice a handshake. Few thingsare as off-putting, she says, as a limp handshake. Some men takingher courses confess to using a weak handshake with women. This isno good, she says. The same solid, confident handshake should beextendedto everyone. But avoid a bone crusher, she says. It conveys yourdesireto exert control.Offer up the thing listeners most want to hear.”Nothingis as sweet to a person’s ear as the sound of his own name,”Castellanosays. “Make sure you learn the name correctly, and repeat it rightaway.” In our multi-cultural society, this is not always easy,but it is essential. Saying a name right after you first hear it isthe best way to start to memorize its pronunciation. Then use thename many times during each conversation.Avoid “sprinkler eyes.” Eye contact is what willmake you a star. Castellano has her classes name public figures whoare great communicators. Asked for her own opinion, she hesitatesnot at all. “Bill Clinton,” she says. “His magic bulletis that he can be in a crowd of 100 and make each person feel he ishis favorite. Leaving Monica Lewinsky out of the picture, that ishis charm.” He, and other expert communicators, reel in a crowdthrough expert use of their eyes.Achieving eye contact is fairly simple in a one-on-one situation,but is trickier with a group. Here is how Castellano says it shouldbe done. “Look at someone for three to five seconds, then slowlygo to someone in a different part of the room. At the end everyonefeels connected to you. Everyone thinks `he likes me best.’”Holding the eye contact for a decent period of time is key. Thosewho spray their glance around, darting from person to person tooquicklyhave what Castellano calls “sprinkler eyes.” Rather thanbuildingrapport, they risk being seen as furtive.Become a great communicator and you will succeed in your career,Castellano promises. It will make you likable, and that, she says,is everything. She uses “Fiddler on the Roof” to back up thisassertion. “Tevya,” she says of that play’s hero, “wasa Russian Jew. His youngest daughter was marrying a non-Jew.”All of Tevya’s friends and relatives were horrified that he approvedof the union. “I know,” he said. “I know, but I likehim.”If the prospective son-in-law’s defect had been so much as a hangnailand Tevya did not like him, Castellano is convinced there would havebeen no marriage.Top Of PageOvercoming Common Sales ObjectionsWhen young people who want to break into salesconsultingask Isabel Kersen, an industry veteran, how she got started,she tells them her career path no longer exists. “There’s no moregetting there by doing it,” she says. When she began trainingsalespeople back in the early 1970s, “there were no courses ininstructional design, in human resources management,” says Kersen,who began her work life as a teacher.Kersen runs Performance & Learning Associates in Secaucus and hastrained more than 3,000 salespeople in many industries. “I’vedone them all. There’s nothing left.” Kersen speaks on”HandlingPrice Objections” to the New Jersey Association of Women BusinessOwners on Monday, April 16, at 6 p.m. at the Clarion Hotel in Edison.Cost: $37. Call 732-828-3394.Kersen graduated from the City College of New York in 1955 and earneda master’s degree in English from CCNY. Only after decades of workdid she go back to school to study the discipline she had beenpracticing.She obtained a doctorate in human resources development from GeorgeWashington University, because, she says, “I was curious. Wasthere something I hadn’t picked up?”What she found was “a lot of theory that explained why I did whatI did. I had been going on instinct. I would say `trust me. This iswhat works.’” Armed with a formal education in her discipline,she works the same way, but can now offer complicated rationales forher advice.Kersen got into sales consulting entirely by accident. She had beenteaching English when a fellow teacher recruited her to do somewritingfor Xerox for three days. “I found I loved it,” says Kersen,who worked on the Xerox project for three years. Corporate workfollowed,including stints at Hertz and 14 years as vice president for a U.S.subsidiary of Loreal International. Then, four years ago, she decided,”enough with the corporate nonsense,” and started her ownbusiness.Beyond being irritated that upper management often made decisions”without understanding, or caring, about people in theorganization,about whether the decisions made their jobs harder or easier,”Kersen wanted more freedom to, among other things, manage her owntravel. “That is a horrendous part of corporate life,” shesays. “I am so sick and tired of hotel rooms.” Consultingon her own still requires travel, but Kersen says she can now planit better, avoiding the 75 percent travel that was sometimes requiredwhen she was a corporate employee.As she does travel around training salespeople, they consistentlytell her their biggest problem is handling price objections. Thechallengeof turning this obstacle into a positive cuts across all industries.The strategy Kersen teaches is always the same. Her tenets:Don’t buy it. Often when sales prospects balk over price,”it’s just an opening gambit for negotiations,” Kersen says.In other cases, the objection may cover a prospect’s lack of funds.An initial grumble about price should in no way spell the end of asales pitch.Ask what `No’ really means. “Clarify theobjection,”Kersen says. “Know exactly what the person means when he says`too expensive’.” It could mean he thinks he can get it for less,or that the price doesn’t seem to indicate good value, or that theitem just isn’t in the budget. The salesperson has to ask.Be a friend. “Convert the objection to aquestion,”Kersen says. “Okay, I certainly understand price is a concern.What is it about the price that is a concern?” This leads aprospectinto giving details, and it allows the salesperson to be get furtherinformation without becoming confrontational. Once the specifics areout in the open, the salesperson continues in the same vein, sayingsomething like: “So if I understand correctly, your question is`Can I get the same for less?’ Is that your question?”Answer objections, but don’t gloat. Repeat the questionprocess as often as necessary, using each `No’ as an opportunity topose a new question. A key point, Kersen says, is to refrain fromever — really ever — proving the prospect wrong. You may beable to pull out hard data showing that he is all wet in thinkingXYZ Corp.’s product is cheaper in the long run, but, says Kersen,”he won’t like you.”Top Of PageGuerrilla MarketingB>Jim Lenskold has gotten to know a lot ofentrepreneursin the four years since he started a marketing business catering tothe needs of start-ups. “They’re all the same,” he says.”Theyall think all they have to do is build a great product.” Not so,says Lenskold. He has seen a number of young businesses run out ofmoney before they were able to get the message about their new productout to a market that would bring them some revenue.Lenskold is the founder of Lenskold Marketing Group, a nine-personcompany based in Morristown. He speaks on “Struttin’ Your Stuff:guerrilla marketing techniques for growing companies,” at theVenture Association of New Jersey, on Tuesday, April 17, at 11:30a.m. at the Westin, Morristown. Cost: $45. Call 973-631-5680.Lenskold joined AT&T’s marketing strategy group right after thatcompanybegan operating in a competitive environment. In his nine years withAT&T, he started up the company’s acquisition marketing and retentionmarketing groups, and was responsible for a number of its campaigns,including True Savings and True Rewards. He liked the work becauseit gave him a chance “to be entrepreneurial within a largecompany.”But Lenskold, a 1985 graduate of Rutgers who earned his MBA fromRutgerswhile working for AT&T, wanted even more of an entrepreneurialexperience.He left AT&T to start a systems integration company, and stayed withit for four years before succumbing to the entrepreneurial itch againand starting up his marketing company. “That’s where my strengthand my passion is,” he says of the field. And, what’s more, hislatest venture “is not only a start-up, but works withstart-ups.”From his experience in building companies, and in working with otherstart-ups, Lenskold has come up with five principles for launchingnew initiatives. All take into account that new companies have acriticalneed to win customers, but also have limited budgets. Lenskold’s fiveprinciples:Don’t underestimate barriers to market share. “A lotof time, people say `Conservatively, we’ll get 10 percent of marketshare’,” Lenskold says. Start-ups get these numbers from benchmarkstudies, but forget, he says, that the benchmarks are for establishedcompanies. Start-ups are up against much greater odds. “As a newventure, you’re seen as a risk,” Lenskold says. “You don’thave any real credibility.” Many dot-coms made this mistake, hesays. “They were heavy on awareness, but didn’t get acrossperceivedneed and value.”To minimize a perception of risk, start-ups may need to offer theirproduct for a very low cost. “Practically give it away to getsales,” Lenskold says. Other strategies for making customerscomfortableenough to take a chance include entering into partnerships withestablishedcompanies and picking up credibility through speaking engagements.Understand the customer’s world. Entrepreneurs, one andall, are absolutely sure there will be a tremendous demand for theirproduct. “They’re all convinced all they have to do is open thedoor, wave the product, and people will buy,” Lenskold says. Buteveryone is now so overwhelmed by sales pitches through any numberof media that entrepreneurs have to realize it is not easy to cutthrough the buzz.To do so, entrepreneurs need to think carefully about their prospects,and their prospects’ priorities. “If it’s the top executive, hemay look at profitability,” Lenskold says. “If it’s someonelower down, he may worry about what could go wrong.” Tailor thepitch to customers’ concerns.Go after smaller markets. The entrepreneurs who comethroughLenskold’s door most often start out thinking their product will solveeveryone’s needs. Maybe so, but, he tells them, “You have onlyso many dollars.” He suggests that most new companies conservemarketing dollars by aiming at being a big fish in a little pond,or at most in two or three ponds. Customers can be targeted in anynumber of ways — by age, geography, interests, or perhapsindustry.Once a target is selected, Lenskold says entrepreneurs’ strategy needsto be: “Let me make sure this group hears my message over andover.” Once the message does get through, there will be word ofmouth. Soon, there will be momentum, and the new company has a shotat being a leader in its target group.In choosing the target group, Lenskold suggests it can be a good ideato look at profitability. “Some groups spend more,” he says.”And some require less customer service.” It’s also smartto go for a group where competition is weak.Budget smart. “There is a cost for a learningcurve,”Lenskold says. “Not all marketing works with all groups.”This is especially true in the technology field, or for any companyintroducing a new product. The more revolutionary the product, themore customers have to be educated, the more trial and error willhave to go into marketing. “I’ve seen businesses run out of moneyjust as they’re moving up the learning curve,” Lenskold says.Try test marketing. The natural tendency, Lenskold says,is for companies to go all out on one type of marketing, and then,when that doesn’t work well, start all over in another direction.This is not only expensive, but can be fatal to attempts to attractfurther funding. If investors see a company is not getting results,they hesitate to put more money into the venture.With test marketing, however, a company can try many types ofapproachesall at once, and generally for far less money than would be suckedup by two or three ineffective marketing campaigns. A relatively smallsample population — maybe 50,000 people — can provide insightinto what works well, and what doesn’t. Divide the 50,000 people into10 groups, Lenskold suggests. Five of those groups could be sentdirectmail, and five “something quite different,” maybe onlinemedia.The message sent to each group would be different, giving a companyan opportunity to see which generated the most sales. With 10scenarios,Lenskold says, the chances of finding one that works is pretty good.And, he says, “you only need one to work.”Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
