Such Tutorial, Many Fun: How to Draw Doge!

by Monika Zagrobelna 

 

What You'll Be Creating

In this tutorial we're going to break the most popular shiba inu down to create a realistic rendering of doge. Whether you like this meme or not, try this tutorial for some educational fun!

1. Define the Head Proportions

Step 1

Start with a circle. And when I say "a circle", I don't mean a perfect shape drawn with calipers (having problems with drawing a circle?). Draw it very lightly—it's just a guide line and we're not going to need it after it's used.

Step 2

Draw a cross inside the circle. Again, do it softly and don't worry about using a ruler.

Step 3

"Rotate" the cross as shown below.

Step 4

Draw another circle, using the cross lines as your guide.

Step 5

Inside the circle you've just drawn, add two identical, overlapping circles.

Step 6

Add a third circle, as shown in the image below. The third circle should be the same size as the two smaller circles, and intersect them both evenly.

Step 7

The base for the snout is done! You can now press your pencil harder and draw the outlines.

Step 8

Add the nose.

Step 9

The nose and mouth are sketched out, so let's start the forehead now. We need to return to sketching very lightly, so that you can remove these lines later. Draw a big circle on the mouth, as if doge tried to balance a ball.

Step 10

Divide the circle into four parts, as shown in the image below.

Step 11

Divide the lower half into two halves.

Step 12

We need to connect the forehead with the snout now.

Step 13

Add some more structured lines.

Step 14

Now we have enough guide lines to place the eyes.

Step 15

Sketch the eyes, but don't darken them yet. We'll add details to them later.

Step 16

Draw panda patches around the eyes.

Step 17

Let's outline the head now.

Step 18

Add pointed ears to doge's head.

Step 19

Add some finishing touches to the shape of doge's face.

Step 20

The sketch is done! If you want, you can stop here and use a thick marker to stress the defined outlines, for a finished sketch. But if you go further, I can show you how to draw a realistic doge!

2. Add the Details

Step 1: Eyes

Eyes of doge should be dark and shiny at the same time, with eyelids that have dark e. Leave a bit of white space for a staring look.

Step 2: Nose

If you want to learn some more about drawing a dog's nose, why not try my "How to Draw Dogs and Wolves" tutorial.

Step 3: Mouth

Doge has black lips, cute thin whiskers and a dark and slightly open mouth.

Step 4: Ears

Add a lot of fluffy fur inside the ear!

Step 5: Shading

Simple, short lines are good to simulate fur. Draw them thickly where you want to add shade.

3. Draw the Body

Step 1

We can now add the rest of the body. Doge looks quite stocky in this perspective, so it's going to be easy to build his body out of simple shapes.
First, attach a big circle to the head. This will be the neck.

Step 2

We need to find out where the paws are going to lay. Draw a simple triangle starting in the center of the circle you drew in the previous step.

Step 3

Let's build the legs out of a few circles.

Step 4

You can now outline the basic shape of the body.

Step 5

Add the paws. Want to know why they look like this?

Step 6

Outline the paws.

Step 7

Doge paws are quite a complicated structure. We need to define "claw covers", for example.

Step 8

Here come the claws!

Step 9

Draw the rest of the body. Don't stress it too much, it's the least important part of the picture.

Step 10

The body is fully sketched now. Just a few more steps for a finished doge!

4. Final Touches

Step 1

Use short, fast lines to draw tiny hairs at the fingers of the paws. Also, draw dark pads under the claws.

Step 2

Define the outlines of the legs with short, messy lines.

Step 3

Shade the legs with simple lines.

Step 4

Time for some final shading!

Step 5

You can stress some of the outlines to make them stand out more.

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Step 6

Use an eraser to carefully clean up the picture. Even if you were drawing digitally, it's good to keep some of the guide lines for a natural, sketchy effect.

Wow! Such Drawing, Very Done

I hope you had a good time following this tutorial. You can now draw doge for your friends or during boring lessons!

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Make Easy Easter Eggs With Mini Party Hats For No-Dye Fun

by Stephanie Gerber 

 

What You'll Be Creating

I love hats but never seem to find the right occasion to wear them. Except on Easter. Growing up, it was a family tradition to buy a new dress and hat each spring to wear proudly on Easter. Now I get to instill the love of Easter finery in my own children. So while we're shopping for new bonnets, we'll also be dressing up Easter eggs in their own personalized party hats.

Supplies

• Eggs
• Small cupcake liners in assorted colors
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Tape
• Black marker

1. Make a Cone

Step 1

Use a cup to trace a semi-circle on construction paper. Use the edge of the paper to create your semi-circle.

Step 2

Cut out the shape.

Step 3

Twist it into a cone shape and secure with tape.

2. Add Cupcake Liners

Step 1

Cut out the rim of a mini cupcake liner.

Step 2

Attach it to the inside of the cone and secure with tape.

3. Decorate Hats

Now that you know how to make the basic party hat for an egg, you can go wild with variations! Add stripes, polka dots or even a feather. Bonus points for making the entire hat with layers of different cupcake liners.

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4. Draw Faces

Use a black marker to give your eggs a face to match their hat.

Set the Table with Party Hat Eggs

This tutorial is a simple, fun way to decorate Easter eggs - without the mess of dyes! Kids (and parents too) can personalize eggs using materials they already have on hand. Who wouldn't want a mohawk egg?

Party hat eggs make a perfect place setting - and not just for the kids table!

Are you a hat lover too? Let us know your favorite way to make your own party hats!

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Trim the Bloat: An Introduction to Keeping WordPress Healthy

by Rian Orie 

 

As site owners or developers, we have a responsibility. Specifically, we're responsible to make sure that our site is usable for our visitors and that our content can be easily consumed. To do this, we rely on an array of plugins and themes that come packed with every option the creator could think of and then some more.
We can do better. We should do better.
Over the past couple of years, it has become much easier to create and deploy themes and plugins for WordPress. The system itself has grown as well, offering more features out of the box and providing hooks and APIs for themes and plugins to expand further on that. But we just keep adding and adding until our sites are bloated and cumbersome to adjust and our sites are starting to suffocate from it.
This series will aim to help you prevent that bloat in the first place, or, at the very least, will cut away some of the bloat that you already have.

The Path to Bloat

The web has been redefined since its conception. It’s size has grown beyond measure and the way we utilize it has changed along with it. We've gone from simple websites to full blown applications, and it's no longer good enough to just have a website. It needs to have at least the same features as the competition and look just as good, if not better.
This wasn't always so. Once the Internet became publicly available, we started with simple websites: An HTML file along with some table elements to keep our text and images in place, maybe a moving GIF somewhere, and if you were feeling particularly adventurous you'd have marquee text scrolling across the site.
Websites were built for the simple goal to get information to the reader. Often times, it was enough to have a website even if it wasn’t particularly appealing.
Fast forward a few years to 2003. News sites and blogs were beginning to appear. Dynamic content had become the default, and the web was already starting to begin being redefined into what we know it to be today. 2003 is also the year the first version of WordPress became available.
More importantly: Compared to the early days already much more data was being transferred. We were still cautious about the amount of bandwidth people had available but it was a far cry from when we started out.
If we move ahead a few years once again, now to 2011, websites are averaging in at 0.7MB which is already incredibly large, but we haven't been doing any better since. In 2014, we hit the 1.68MB mark for average website size. That's an increase of 235% in just three years! Have we stopped caring about how we're offering up our content?
A lot of our users are mobile users and broadband is not a given everywhere on the world, so shouldn't we care more about what we're trying to force down to our readers?
I think so and I hope you do, as well.

What Can We Do

If you're working with WordPress specifically, there are a lot of things we can do. Mainly we need to start spending more time thinking about what we're doing instead of just slapping features and elements onto our websites.
If we write better and cleaner, we'll often need less code. The end result will be a lighter site, and it doesn't have to be any less visually appealing or functional than we're used to either.
We have to be smarter about it.

What to Expect

Throughout this series, I'll help you make the right choices with regard to your themes, plugins and optimizations as well as help you get started with planning out your website. We'll be looking at some basic steps to trim down the bloat from your existing site, and I'll help you avoid it getting to that point.
There will be a lot of examples and references to dig into that will help you apply the information in this series to your own website, I’ll be using some of the excellent series already available on the Tuts+ Network to refer to when you need to get hands on example.
Starting with the next article, we'll be looking at what we can do to ensure we're making the right choices.

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Create the Captain America Shield Icon in Adobe Illustrator

by Andrei Marius

What You'll Be Creating

For starters you will learn how to set-up a simple grid, how to create the main, four circles and how to easily place them in the center of your artboard. Using basic blending and vector shape building techniques you will learn how to add subtle shading and a simple star shape. Next, you will learn how to create a pretty simple gradient mesh. Taking full advantage of the Appearance panel and using some simple Blur effects you will add the extra highlights and textures. Finally, you will learn how to create a simple background, some Drop Shadow effects and a fading long shadow.

1. Create a New Document and Set Up a Grid

Hit Control-N to create a new document. Select Pixels from the Units drop-down menu, enter 600 in the width and height boxes then click on the Advanced button. Select RGB, Screen (72ppi) and make sure that the Align New Objects to Pixel Grid box is unchecked before you click OK.
Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). For starters you will need a grid every 5px, so simply go to Edit > Preferences > Guides > Grid, enter 5 in the Gridline every box and 1 in the Subdivisions box. You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes. Do not forget to set the unit of measurement to pixels from Edit > Preferences > Units > General. All these options will significantly increase your work speed.

2. Create the Main Shapes

Step 1

Pick the Ellipse Tool (L) and focus on your Toolbar. Remove the color from the stroke then select the fill and set its color at R=228 G=23 B=28. Move to your Artboard and simply create a 290px circle.

Step 2

Disable the Grid (View > Hide Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). In this step you need to center your red circle, so open the Align panel (Window > Align). Set the aligning to Artboard (open the fly out menu and go to Show Options if you can't see the Align To section as shown in the following image) then simply click the Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Center buttons. In the end things should look like in the following image.

Step 3

Make sure that your red circle is selected and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -25px Offset and click OK.
Select the resulting shape, replace the existing fill color with white (R=255 G=255 B=255) and go again to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -25px Offset and click OK.
Make sure that the resulting shape is selected, replace the existing fill color with R=228 G=23 B=28 and go one more time to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -25px Offset and click OK. Select the newly created shape and replace the existing fill color with R=22 G=77 B=157.

Step 4

Go to Edit > Preferences > General and make sure that the Keyboard Increment is set at 1px. Select the largest, red circle and make two copies in front (Control-C > Control-F > Control-F). Select the top copy and move it 5px up using the up arrow button from your keyboard. Reselect both copies made in this step, open the Pathfinder panel (Window > Pathfinder) and click the Minus Front button.
Make sure that the resulting shape stays selected and focus on the Appearance panel (Window > Appearance). Set the fill color at black (R=0 G=0 B=0) then simply click on the "Opacity" piece of text to open the Transparency fly-out panel. Focus on the Blending Mode drop-down menu and set it at Soft Light.

Step 5

Reselect the largest, red circle and make another two copies in front (Control-C > Control-F > Control-F). Select the top copy and move it 10px up using that same up arrow button from your keyboard. Reselect both copies made in this step and click the Minus Front button from the Pathfinder panel.
Make sure that the resulting shape stays selected, focus on the Appearance panel and set the Blending Mode at Soft Light.

3. Create the Star Shape

Step 1

Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 130 x 45px shape, set the fill color at white and place it as shown in the first image.
Focus on the bottom side of this new rectangle, pick the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and simply click on the right anchor point to remove it. Keep focusing on the bottom side of your new shape, switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A), select the remaining anchor point and simply drag it 65px to the right. In the end things should look like in the second image.

Step 2

Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create an 80 x 125px shape, set the fill color at white and place it as shown in the first image.
Focus on the top side of this new rectangle, pick the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and simply remove the right anchor point. Keep focusing on the top side of your new, white shape and switch to the Direct Selection Tool (A). Select the remaining anchor point and simply drag it 40px to the right. Reselect the shape made in this step and go to Object > Path > Add Anchor Points.
Make sure that the Direct Selection Tool (A) is still active, select the anchor point highlighted in the third image and simply drag it 30px up. In the end things should look like in the fourth image.

Step 3

Reselect the two, white shapes that make up your star and click the Unite button from the Pathfinder panel.

Step 4

Make sure that your star shape stays selected, focus on the Appearance panel, select the existing stroke and set its color at black.
Keep focusing on your new stroke and simply click on the "Stroke" piece of text to open the Stroke fly-out panel. Set the Weight at 2px and check the Align Stroke to Inside button. Make sure that your stroke is still selected, lower its Opacity to 3%, change the Blending Mode to Multiply and go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -7px Ofset and click OK. Return to the Appearance panel, select the entire path (simply click on the "Path" piece of text from the top of the Appearance panel) and go to Effect > Warp > Fisheye. Enter the properties shown in the following image and click OK.

4. Create a Radial Mesh

Step 1

Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a new 290px circle and center it using the Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Center buttons from the Align panel. Make sure that this new shape stays selected, open the Gradient panel (Window > Gradient) and simply click on the gradient thumbnail to add the default black to white linear gradient.
Keep focusing on your Gradient panel, open the Type drop down menu and select Radial. In the end things should look like in the following image.

Step 2

Make sure that the circle with the radial gradient is still selected and go to Object > Expand. Check the Gradient Mesh box then click OK.
Focus on the Layers panel (Window > Layers), select the newly created group, Ungroup it (Shift-Control-G) then hit Alt-Control-7 (or go to Object > Clipping Mask > Release) to release the existing clipping mask. Return to the Layers panel and simply delete the top 290px circle (the former clipping path).

Step 3

Select your mesh and open the Transform panel (Window > Transform). Check the Constrain Width and Height Proportions button then simply enter 290 in the Width (or the Height) box.

Step 4

Disable the Grid (View > Hide Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Select your mesh, grab the Mesh Tool (U) and add four, new mesh points as shown in the following image.

Step 5

Pick the Direct Selection Tool (A) and focus on your mesh. Select the mesh points one by one and replace the existing colors with the ones shown in the following image.

Step 6

Make sure that your mesh is still selected, focus on the Transparency panel (Window > Transparency) and change the Blending Mode to Multiply.

5. Add Subtle Shading and Texture

Step 1

Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a new 290px circle, set the fill color at black and center it using the Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Center buttons from the Align panel.

Step 2

Make sure that your black circle stays selected and focus on the Appearance panel. Select the existing fill, change the Blending Mode to Overlay and go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -2px Offset, click OK and go to Effect > Artistic > Film Grain. Enter the properties shown in the following image, click OK and go to Effect > Blur > Radial Blur. Enter the attributes shown below and click OK.

Step 3

Reselect your front circle, focus on the Appearance panel and add a second fill using the Add New Fill button (pointed by the blue circle in the following image). Select this new fill, lower its Opacity to 70%, change the Blending Mode to Multiply and add the radial gradient shown in the following image. Keep in mind that the yellow numbers from the Gradient image stand for Opacity percentage while the white numbers stand for Location percentage. This simply means that you have to select each gradient slider, focus on the Opacity & Location boxes from the Gradient panel and enter the numbers pointed below.

Step 4

Reselect your front circle, focus on the Appearance panel and add a 1px, black stroke. Select this subtle stroke, align it to inside, lower the Opacity to 15% and change the Blending Mode to Overlay.
Make sure that your front circle stays selected, keep focusing on the Appearance panel and add a second stroke using the Add New Stroke button (pointed by the blue circle in the following image). Select this new stroke, set the color at white and the Weight at 1px, align it to inside, change the Blending Mode to Soft Light and go to Effect > Path > Offset Path. Enter a -1px Offset and click OK.

Step 5

Enable the Grid (View > Show Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap to Grid). Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a 130 x 60px shape, set the fill color at black and place it as shown in the first image. Make sure that this new shape stays selected, lower its Opacity to 60%, change the Blending Mode to Multiply and go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter a 20px Radius and click OK.

Step 6

Using the Ellipse Tool (L), create a 140 x 75px shape, set the fill color at white and place it as shown in the first image. Make sure that this new shape stays selected, lower its Opacity to 20%, change the Blending Mode to Color Dodge and go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter a 15px Radius and click OK.

6. Add the Background and a Long Shadow

Step 1

Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create a new 610px square, set the fill color at R=50 G=55 B=70 and center it using the Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Center buttons from the Align panel.
Make sure that this new shape stays selected, focus on the Appearance panel and add a second fill using that same Add New Fill button. Select this new fill, set the color at black, lower its Opacity to 10%, change the Blending Mode to Multiply and go to Effect > Artistic > Film Grain. Enter the properties shown in the following image and click OK.

Step 2

Reselect the largest, red circle and go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the properties shown in the top, left window (in the following image), click OK and go again to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the properties shown in the top, right window, click OK and go once again to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the properties shown in the bottom, left window, click OK and go one more time to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow. Enter the properties shown in the bottom, right window and click OK.

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Step 3

Using the Rectangle Tool (M), create a 290 x 305px shape, set the fill color at black and place it as shown in the first image. Make sure that this new shape stays selected and focus on the Appearance panel. Lower its Opacity to 15%, change the Blending Mode to Soft Light and replace the flat color used for the fill with the linear gradient shown in the following image. Don't forget that the white zero from the Gradient image stands for Opacity percentage.

Congratulations! You're Done!

Here is how it should look. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and can apply these techniques in your future projects.

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Play Classic Games on a Mac With OpenEmu

by Alex Arena 

Emulation has been around for practically as long as computers themselves, it's the process of running software designed for one system on another by recreating the proper hardware on a software level.
It sounds pretty complicated, and it was until recently. Thanks to an amazing piece of software called OpenEmu, it's now possible to emulate nearly any classic console, from the NES to the Sega Master System, using your Mac, and in this tutorial, I'll show you how to do just that.

Screencast

The Legal Question

There's some good news and bad news here when it comes the legality of video game emulation. Starting with the good news, ROM's are just files and therefore are not illegal in and of themselves. In fact, the OpenEmu project provides a free ROM Starter Pack which includes homebrew ROMs for consoles ranging from the original NES to the Game Boy Advance.
From there, unfortunately, the water get significantly more murky. Although it's technically legal to have a second copy of games you own for archival purposes, it's still illegal to download ROMs of these commercial games from the internet.
For anyone familiar with the legal issues surrounding ripping DVD's, this should come as no surprise. As with DVD's, owning a copy of the games you're emulating should put you morally, if not 100% legally in the clear.
For a comprehensive overview of the legal and moral issues surrounding emulation from the perspective of the content creators, check out the Intellectual Property Rights guide from Nintendo.

The Hardware

While all the games I've played for this tutorial work just fine with a keyboard and mouse, you'll get the best experience by using some sort of controller. A quick search on Amazon will turn up an ample selection of replica controllers which work via USB.
While these are a great option, if you're looking for an emulation experience that's as authentic as possible, Amazon also stocks a variety of adapters that will allow you to hook up your original classic console controller to your Mac via USB. The adapters alone will run you around the same amount as any of the USB native replicas so this solution is only really cost effective if you already own an original controller.
A final bit of advice when it comes to selecting your controller(s) of choice: if you're looking to save money or simply consolidate the number of cords running from your Mac, aim for a controller with the most buttons.
For example, playing an NES game on a Super Nintendo controller works just fine, but doing the reverse would be nearly impossible as you would be missing the X and Y buttons in addition to both shoulder triggers.
If you're set on using multiple controllers, purchasing a USB hub and a cable management solution like this cable management box, from Ikea, will do wonders when it comes to keeping the controller mess to a minimum.

Getting Started With OpenEmu

While emulating classic consoles on your Mac used to entail installing an individual emulator for each console, an application called OpenEmu has dramatically simplified the process by consolidating around a dozen of these emulators into a single, easy to use package.

Installing OpenEmu

OpenEmu acts as a one-stop hub for everything involving emulation on your Mac, allowing you to emulate a variety of classic consoles, organize your games into collections, map your controllers, and more.

OpenEmu greets you with an easy to use setup process.

• Visit the OpenEmu download page and download the .dmg file.
• Navigate to the Downloads folder and open the OpenEmu .dmg file.
• Drag the OpenEmu Application to your Applications folder.
• Navigate to the Applications folder and launch OpenEmu.
• After passing through the initial welcome screen, you'll be be met with a screen called System Cores Installation, that's geek speak for the consoles you want to play on your Mac. Scroll through the list and check the ones you'd like to install. Then, press Next.
• Now, you'll be prompted to scan your Mac for any ROM files that might be on your Hard Drive. If you're not sure whether or not you have any, just check Allow OpenEmu to Scan for Games and click Next, it'll take care of the heavy lifting for you.

Setting up the Controller

While OpenEmu is working in the background on the final setup process, you can begin to customize the controls to our liking. Whether you're using a USB controller or a keyboard, OpenEmu will automatically configure many of these controllers and includes a default keyboard map familiar to any gamer.
This works as a great starting point, but OpenEmu makes it extremely easy to dive right in and fine tune the controls.

• Navigate to Preferences under OpenEmu in the toolbar.
• Select Controls. Select the console whose controls you wish to customize from the dropdown menu on the right.
• You'll be prompted with a diagram of your selected controller. To the right of that diagram is a list of gameplay buttons. Select any field with your mouse and hit the button on your keyboard or controller you'd like it to correspond to.

Customizing controls is easy in OpenEmu.

To customize the controls for more than one controller, select the dropdown menu labelled Player 1 as the default option and select the player whose controls you'd like to customize. When you're finished, just exit the Preferences window and your changes will be automatically saved.

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Ready Player 1

Now that you've got all the heavy lifting out of the way, it's time to finally play a game. If OpenEmu found any ROMs on your hard drive, they'll now be displayed in the Main Window. If you're still looking for ROMs to use, PDROMS is a wonderful site with downloads of thousands of free and legal home-brew ROMs.

The final product: OpenEmu running Super Mario Bros. 3.

• If OpenEmu wasn't able to find the ROM you wanted to play, simply drag it to main window and it'll be automatically imported.
• You'll notice that ROMs might not display to proper cover art, this can be easily fixed by right clicking on the title in question and selecting Download Cover Art, OpenEmu will then search the internet for the best available artwork.
• Once that's out of the way, playing a game is as simple as double-clicking it's artwork.
• When you've finished playing, OpenEmu supports two ways of saving your game. Firstly, through the game's built in save function, and second, by saving the emulation state at any given point. This incredibly powerful feature can be accessed by pressing Command-S at any time. The next time you open your game, it'll resume to that exact point.

Game Over

OpenEmu is an amazing tool that's made emulation available to those without bachelors degrees in Computer Science. By following the steps in this tutorial, you're now able to relive the experience of almost any classic console right on your Mac.
What games are you most looking forward to (re)playing? Let me know in the comments below.

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How Macaw Helps You Build Responsive Websites

by Adi Purdila

$30 Macaw Discount for Tuts+ Readers!

For one week only we're offering you $30 off Macaw! Simply enter the coupon code TUTS when you make your purchase. Offer ends April 5th.

Macaw's Responsive Features

Fluid layouts have been the biggest challenge for design application developers in recent times, but Team Macaw have done it right. With a small collection of tools and features, Macaw allows you to build fluid, responsive layouts, controlling breakpoints from right within the application.
Handling breakpoints is super-easy with Macaw; just add the breakpoints for whichever viewport widths you feel are necessary, then toggle between them using the Breakpoints Inspector.

Let's take a look at exactly how this works.

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The Five Elements of a High-Quality Sales Technique

by George N Root III

In the business world, everyone should understand the five elements of a good sales technique. Why? Shoddy sales is about using fancy closing techniques and deception just to make a buck, whereas superior sales solves problems.
Quality sales is the foundation of a strong and lucrative relationship between a supplier and its customer. Inadequate sales technique is a sure ticket to a supplier closing its doors before it gets a chance to enjoy one full year in business. When everyone can identify a sales professional with a top-notch sales technique, then it is easier to weed out the scam artists and under-performers.
If you are a company owner and you cannot identify an effective sales strategy from a poor technique, then you will not be in business for very long. A second-rate sales professional can harm your company's reputation. They are the ones on the front lines representing your company and interacting in important deals with your customers.
It's important to help sales professionals understand what they are doing wrong so they can fix it. Once the errors have been repaired, then a sales professional can focus on what is working well and amplify it.
Customers want to work with professional sales representatives, those who have determination, understanding, empathy, can solve their problems, and connect with them emotionally. These are the elements of a good sales technique.

Determination

Sales professionals should not can confuse determination for being a pest.

What is Pestering?

Pestering simply means that you are contacting a client constantly with no new information and without the client asking to be called back.
So if you are constantly calling a client to try and get a sale with the same information that has been rejected several times before, then you are pestering your client. If your client is in a buying mood but has not requested that you call back every day until they cut a purchase order, then you are being a pest.
If you put together a pitch and the client says no, then you did something wrong. Fix what you did wrong with new information before you call the client back. When the client expresses an interest in buying a product, then ask when you can call the client back. If the client invites you to call them back, then you are doing your job and not being a pest.

What is Determination in Sales?

Determination is the undying desire to improve your technique. It is also the strong sense of dedication you have towards supplying your clients with the right information. You should be determined to analyze your own technique constantly and make changes that will make your presentation smoother. You should constantly rewrite your elevator pitch and work on how you handle rejections. Most of a sales professional’s true determination is focused on themselves and not the customer.
The determination a sales professional shows towards a client is a strong need to supply the customer with the information they need to make a buying decision. That could mean that you have to go back and present new information to a client who has already rejected you, but that is all part of being a determined sales professional.
A quality sales professional is also determined to stay up to date on all product information and committed to learning new sales methodologies. You are intent to know everything there is to know about your product and the competitors’ products as well. Information is always the best sales tool available.

Understanding

Does your sales technique center around asking questions to find out what your customer wants, or are you the kind of sales professional who shoves information down a customer’s throat until the customer buys or runs away? There are plenty of sales professionals who believe that the customer will listen to whatever the pitch is and then buy the product based on the pitch. Those are the sales professionals who are struggling to make ends meet and keep sales jobs.
If you do not understand what your client wants and needs, then you cannot sell to that client. You have to ask questions, listen for the answers, and then use that information to create a winning pitch. While many elements of your pitch are rehearsed, you are still creating a customized pitch for every customer you talk to.
Successful sales is based on the personal feelings and needs of each individual customer. If you want to sell a product to a customer that will result in referrals from that customer and glowing reviews, then you have to understand what the customer wants. In order to do that, you have to include your customer in the sales process by asking questions and using that information to craft the ideal pitch.

Customer Empathy

Empathy can help you to make more sales. Remember your past, put yourself in your customer's position, and use that standpoint to sell to the client in front of you.
Recall trying to finance your first major purchase. You remember knowing that you could get the credit to buy that item, but you were unsure if you could afford it or not. Too many sales professionals get to the point of getting the customer to fill out the credit application and then hand the pen to the customer while staring at them. The next time you have a young couple or a person just starting out in their adult life trying to buy their first television from you, use your empathy to make the sale.
Ask the customer if it is their first television. It may even be the first time that the customer has ever filled out a credit application. Think back to how much easier it would have been for you if the sales professional who sold you your first television stopped to explain everything to you.
Now think about your emotional state at that time. Wouldn’t it have been great if the sales professional had put the pen down and just asked if it was your first television? A conversation would have developed that would have put you at ease and resulted in a sale you were confident with.
Not only will showing empathy help close more sales, it will also result in more referrals as well. Customer empathy is an important part of the sales process in any kind of sales. You may not have any experience as a purchasing agent, but you know what it is like trying to keep a boss happy. Always keep your customer’s situation in mind when you are selling and you will develop more lucrative relationships and sell more product.

Problem Solving

Sales people are problem solvers. Your customer has a problem and you use your product to solve that problem. That is the core of the sales process. Upselling and all of the other parts of revenue generation are only effective when you have solved the customer’s problems.
Always remember that the customer is going to be hesitant to tell you the real problems you need to solve, and there will often be more than one problem. Your customer desperately needs a new business suit for upcoming job interviews, but also has a limited budget. Not only do you have to solve the problem of needing a good interview suit, but you also have to worry about price. If you ignore the budget problem, then you won’t make the sale.
Sometimes issues such as budget or time are problems, but only in the respect that the customer has to be given a reason to spend more money or wait a little longer to get a product. You have to spend time talking to the customer and determine what the real problems are before you can make the sale.
Do uncover customer problems, but avoid stating them back to your customer. A common technique used by sales professionals is to say something such as “I’m hearing that you need a business suit, but your budget is limited.” Don’t do that. The last thing you want the customer to think is that you have turned their problems into a game that you are trying to win. Once you know the problems, just set about solving them and getting the customer what they need.

Emotional Leverage

The honest truth is that emotional leverage is extremely dangerous when used improperly. Emotional leverage is:

• Getting information from the customer that can be used to create an emotional desire for the product.
• Getting the customer to trust you.
• Using the information and your status as a trusted advisor to make the sale.

Sales professionals who have no empathy or understanding for a customer’s situation will often abuse emotional leverage and leave the customer feeling cheated. But even sales professionals with good intentions can sometimes misuse emotional leverage and cause problems.
Every sales transaction is an emotional event for the customer. Whenever a customer spends money, even if it is the company’s money, it has an emotional impact on the customer. Utilizing emotional leverage helps to make the buying decision easier for the customer.
The problem is that the word “leverage” has such a negative connotation to it that people misinterpret what emotional leverage really is. When you acquire and use emotional leverage, you are putting yourself in a position to close the sale and solve the customer’s problem without putting the customer under unnecessary financial stress. If you are not really solving the customer’s problem or if you are causing the customer unnecessary financial stress by using emotional leverage to make your sale, then you are using it for the wrong reasons.
You acquire emotional leverage by asking the right questions, listening to the answers you get, and then properly interpreting the customer’s body language. It is a process that takes a few years to perfect, but it is a necessary element in the sales technique.

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Perfect Your Technique

There is no such thing as the perfect script or template you can use to create an ideal sales method. Your technique is the result of practice, refinement, and a comprehensive understanding of the five essential elements of a good sales approach. Take the five elements and use them to create a sales approach that makes you successful.

Resources

Graphic Credit: High Five designed by Luis Prado from the Noun Project

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