Mar/100
Guest Post: Stay Focussed, Boost Productivity & Enjoy What You Do
For sales people, ‘To Do Lists’ are not a useful tool in today’s hectic, information-rich, competitive business environments. Here’s an alternative:
1. Spend 10 minutes every morning planning the day!
We know it makes sense – but we rarely do it properly. Spending just 10 minutes in the morning reviewing our main business objectives and personal goals, then physically writing out a maximum of 3 or 4 results (not tasks!) we want to absolutely achieve by the end of the day, is essential for keeping us focused. Just as important, is the reason WHY we want to achieve the result i.e. what it will mean to us personally (£) as well as professionally – this keeps motivation high when times get challenging.
2. Learn the art of the 80/20 Principle!
According to Pareto’s famous law, most of us spend 80% of our time working on things that will only ever give us 20% of the results we’re looking for. This includes: doing tasks others have passed to us; trying to clear a ‘To Do List’ (because it makes us feel a sense of achievement); and avoiding difficult tasks by distracting ourselves watching news and/or unimportant emails etc. Instead, try prioritizing during the 10 minute planning sessions, batching up similar or related tasks, and delegating or simply deleting more ‘stuff’ – remember simplicity and clarity is power.
3. Spend 10 minutes after work reviewing the day!
It’s easy to get so engrossed in our businesses that we forget to take time out to reflect. By investing just 10 minutes at the end of the day to recap on what we’ve achieved, what we’ve learnt and any great moments we experienced, we stay more motivated. We’re also able to switch off before returning home to connect with family and friends – the basic human need that should be behind why we do what we do in the first place.
Free download: Healthy Habits Guide
For loads of resources check out: www.healthysalesexec.com
Mar/102
Where is the spotlight? If it is on you, you are not selling!
I was sitting in the best burrito place in Budapest one afternoon. At a table near me, I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation in English, My Hungarian is still pretty weak, so the familiar language caught my attention.
In this conversation, an older guy in a business suit was sitting with a young, fresh faced 20-something guy in jeans and a t-shirt. The older guy was peppering with younger one with questions:
- So how long have you known her?
- Where did you guys meet?
- Do you speak any Slovakian?
- What is your current status?
- What does she do for a living?
- Etc.
The kid didn’t seem to mind, but it was eminently clear that the older guy was COMPLETELY controlling the conversation. I am not making any value judgement here, just an observation.
It reminded me of a talk show. Where Johnny or Jay or Connan or Larry fires off well informed questions, directing the celebrity of the moment through the interview until the key moment when the hot issue is approached, exposed and explored – with or without the consent and/or comfort of the interviewee .
What does this have to do with sales and selling? The key concept here is all about what we can call “the spotlight”.
Some non-salespeople (and some salespeople) have the misguided idea that salespeople love the spotlight. They believe that selling is an opportunity to get up on a kind of stage and present the wonders of a product or service in such a dazzling way that prospective customers can’t help but throw money at them, like bras at a Beatles concert in days of old.
These people have it all wrong. If these people are salespeople, then it is probably a hard job for them. The image of the snake oil salesman on his wagon in the old west town is an old story, and it no longer plays in Peoria or anywhere else.
If you aspire to be an effective professional salesperson, then you should remember the concept of “the spotlight”. To help you remember it, perhaps I should tell you what it is:
When you are in a sales conversation, imagine that you and your prospect are on a stage with two chairs. You sit in one, the prospect in the other. The stage is dark, except for a single spotlight. The spotlight shines not on the person talking, but on the person who is the subject of the conversation.
You are selling most effectively when the spotlight is on the other person – the prospect.
How can this be? Don’t you need to tell the prospect all about your great stuff so that they know that they need to buy it? Not necessarily.
In the sales process that I map out in blow-by-blow detail in my book Mastering Your Sales Process, the first four steps (leads, prospecting, qualifying and needs analysis) are designed to allow the salesperson to demonstrate professionalism which generates trust and to gather client information interactively, in such a way that what feels to the client like the gathering of information (spotlight on them) simultaneously and proactively addresses potential objections and informs parameters for the solution option.
In this way, the second half of the sales process (solution, objections and close) can be brief, spot-on, and totally effective without the need for presentations, lengthy proposals, extended negotiation sessions, or any of those other “spotlight on the salespeople” activities that usually do more damage to the opportunity to close than they do help it.
Proposals and presentations have their place, but if you want to be effective, the skills you need to focus on revolve around understanding the compelling reasons that the prospect has for wanting your product or service, and fleshing them out in a dialogue that highlights your understanding of the issue, your ability to fix it, and your character as the kind of person the prospect wants to partner with towards a solution.
Keeping the spotlight on the prospect with great questions, trial solutions, thorough needs analysis, properly timed and complete proposals will help. A lot. When you do it all right, your closing technique can be as simple as something like “well OK then”. It is true that to close, you do need to say or do something, By keeping the spotlight on the prospect the right way as you work towards the close, you can keep it short, and help make it more effective than your best uninformed, spotlight-on-you monologue or power point presentation ever will.
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Mar/102
Prospecting series – The bane of the cold call
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Many subjects in sales elicit a strong, emotional, binary response from salespeople; none more so than the question of cold calling.
Some people swear by them, to this day. Others declare them dead, obsolete, etc. How can both of these be right?
Like most things in life, “is that good” is too simple of a question. Luckily for those of us who relish the beauty to be found in nuance, there is more to the cold calling question than a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. When done poorly, cold calls are painful on both sides of the phone. When done well, they just aren’t so bad. Sure it would be better to lie on a warm beach sipping from a cool drink, but then again you could say that about most things you do at work – that’s why you get paid to do them!
So if we are going to cold call, what should we do to make it work? Here are a few tips:
1 – Know what you are going to say in the first 20-30 seconds
You want to be able to deliver your call with confidence, and you must be sure that you say what you need to say in those precious first seconds when you actually have the attention of the person you called. You may be nervous, which makes it easy to screw this part up – so yes, you should use a script. Not a complex one, but a simple one. Not for the whole call, but for the first 20-30 seconds for sure! Read Stephan Schiffman’s book on cold calling to get some ideas, or send me an e-mail and I’ll send you an excerpt from my book that might help.
2 – Have the right reason for the call
I first started cold calling when I sold promotional products. At first, I told the person I was calling that the reason for my call was to suggest that we should meet in person so that I could demonstrate all of my great ideas. It was not so compelling, or effective. Later, I started calling people with a trade show coming up in the very near future, and I suggested that we meet so that I could help them come up with a good promotion for their upcoming event. Same basic idea, just more targeted and time sensitive. That was much more effective.
Your industry will be different (unless you happen to sell promotional products), but ask yourself – is the reason I am suggesting a meeting compelling to the prospect? If not, find a new one, and build your call script around it.
3 – Don’t sell on the cold call
Unless you sell via a one-call-close-by-phone methodology, the goal of the cold call is probably to secure an opportunity to talk more about the possibility of a sale. That might mean a longer phone conversation, a later phone conversation, or in most cases a personal meeting. Whatever the case, the first thing you need to sell is the idea of a sales conversation before you start selling your product or service. Once you secure agreement for a sales conversation, you are not on a cold call anymore, even if the same phone call continues as a sales call; you are now on a sales call, or on your way to a sales call in person at a time you agreed to met with the prospect.
4 – Be ready to close
Most of the time, the close of a cold call is an agreement for a meeting – so be ready to make that close before you pick up the phone to make the cold call. Have your schedule ready, and if you will meet them in person at their office, know where they are located so that you can schedule a meeting that fits in with the rest of your schedule. Once you are ready to set a meeting, don’t lose momentum by fumbling with your calendar.
You’ll need make a lot of cold calls before you can really measure results. Give it an honest try, and work smart. Then you can weigh in on the debate about whether they work or not, but from a position of knowledge, not opinion. Making five dials, getting one surly receptionist or one grumpy CEO on the other end and giving up is not a reasonable effort upon which to measure the effectiveness of this prospecting method.
If cold calling is impossible for you, there are a LOT of other ways to prospect. However, whatever prospecting method you choose, you’ll probably need to follow that up with a call to set up a meeting – which is a LOT like a cold call. At the end of the day, a cold call, a call to set a meeting, or a call to check in with a client after a long period of inactivity all have the same dynamics. Get comfortable with this kind of call, and find a way to be effective with it, and your career will move forward much more systematically than if you simply complain that this can’t work for you, and avoid trying to make it work for that reason.
Mar/102
Objection Series – “Your Price is Too High!”
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Early in my sales career, I worked for a promotional products importing company in California that was very entrepreneurial. The president of the company would often get distracted from his core business and pursue a good idea, just because he thought it had potential in the market. Because of this, I had the opportunity to work side-by-side with a golf pro, who had a very direct way of handling price objections.
The president of the company had fallen in love with a golf training product, and hired Rod, a golf pro, to help promote it. Rod worked in the office next to mine (this was in the days before cubicles were the norm).
One day, I heard Rod say something into the phone that I later learned was a response to a price objection (i.e. “your price is to high”). In a very direct, almost sarcastic voice, Rod said:
“Compared to what?!?”
I was pretty new to sales, and still a bit on the nervous side when dealing with customers. His approach absolutely stunned me. I asked him about it, and he was very convinced that his approach was correct:
“Listen”, he said, “people pay me 20 times the price of this simple training tool for an hours worth of private golf lessons, and after the hour is gone, I leave. This training tool, on the other hand, is something that people can use anywhere they can swing a club, and they get instant feedback on their swing that is even more accurate than watching how the ball flies or hearing what a golf pro has to say. To object to the low price of this product is to not understand the value it offers. Anyone who objects on price is an idiot, and needs to be told how to value what they get from this thing”.
Now Rod was a pretty crusty old guy, and I am not a big fan of the style with which he delivered this objection response. However, with respect to his logic, he couldn’t be more right!
Too many salespeople hear a price objection from their prospect and agree with it. Then they run back to their company and demand a discount so that they can make a sale. The problem with this behavior, is that the salesperson is functioning as a semi-automated price tag. It is as if there is a basket of apples with a sensor and a digital price display. If a prospects walks up, sees the price and starts walking away, the display emits a signal, and drops the price 10%. This process repeats until the price is just above cost, or the prospect buys – whichever comes first.
In this case, the salesperson has not established sufficient value in the mind of the prospect. This salesperson is not acting as an expert, as we discussed in the blog series about the importance of expertise. This salesperson is not serving himself, his company OR his prospect well. This salesperson can also be easily replaced by another message runner, or when the technology allows, and someone actually builds it, our automated display!
Only the most Neanderthal of prospects shop on price alone. There are fewer of them than you think. The truth is, almost nothing is bought on price alone. No-one in their right mind would buy on price at the expense of quality, reliability, in some cases warranty, packaging, delivery time, etc.
Do you, for example, buy on price? You might think you do, but you probably don’t:
- Do you buy the cheapest shirt in the store, regardless of style, fit and color?
- Do you drive the cheapest car available, or did you pay a bit more for a car you like?
- Do you use the cheapest mobile phone?
- Do you eat at the cheapest restaurant?
- Have you ever had a coffee at Starbucks?
If you said yes to any of the questions, there is something other than price at work here. It is true for your prospects as well. There is some kind of value that is driving your decision. It needs to be in alignment with price, but is not subservient to it!
What prospects typically want from a salesperson – without even knowing that they do – is an EMOTIONAL assurance that their decision to buy from the salesperson is a good decision. They don’t want to make a mistake. They want to make sure that the product they buy matches up with their values (which may include organizational values from their work place). They want to be sure that your product or service comes at a fair price relative to other options, AND to this value that it provides.
A salesperson can help make this happen with a thorough needs analysis to make sure that the problem that the prospect needs to solve is solvable by the product or service that the salesperson offers. Once this assurance has been made, value has been established, and assuming that the price of the product or service is in alignment with the value that has been established, a price objection should not be a major hurdle.
This is not to say that some prospects won’t play the pricing game with you – some people just like the feel of a good haggle. Even in this case, the salesperson who has established value based on a thorough needs analysis and the presentation of a solution that meets as many facets of the prospects needs as possible has more leverage in the negotiation than one who simply offers the lowest price.
Don’t be the low price provider! Before you know it, someone else will have a slightly lower price, and your choices at that stage are limited, and undesirable.
When a prospect argues that the price is too high, it is because the value has not yet been adequately established. Period. Establish value before offering a price, and put yourself and your prospect in the best position to make a deal that everyone will be happy with.
Mar/106
The right sales mindset and success in social media – part 3 of a 3 part series
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This is the final installment in a three-part series about the right sales mindset for social media success. In the first blog post in this series, I talked about the importance of being a subject matter expert. The second installment in the series focused on how to position your expertise to help a prospective customer decide to allow you to influence their buying decision.
In this last installment, we tie it all together with the glue that cements business relationships on and off the web – trust – arguably the currency of social media commerce.
In the 2008 book Jump Point: How Network Culture is Revolutionizing Business by Tom Hayes, the author suggests that trust is the new currency of social media. In the book, Hayes describes an evolving internet business environment that he calls “The Reputation Economy”. This is indeed a double edged sword, as Hayes points out. On the plus side, it is exciting to believe that there are lower barriers to entry and success for even the smallest players. Size is no longer required to grow quickly, and into something significant in this new environment. On the other side of the sword, it can seem a bit scary for buyers. Without traditional entities to mediate and regulate person-to-person transactions on the web, how can there be a guarantee of performance and adequate identification of and punishment of cheaters?
The author Hayes postulates and I agree: the answer is trust. As demonstrated by the success of eBay and Amazon with their user generated systems for rating the reliability of sellers, it seems intuitive that as the online business environment encourages more small players (read: initially unknown and for the most part anonymous even over time), buyers will gravitate towards sellers and interest providers they trust. Trust will be a function of past interactions with the seller, by all buyers or prospects, and mechanisms for displaying this trust will become increasingly demanded and relied upon by buyers.
Today, those mechanisms are mostly content based. Outside of Amazon and eBay, many businesses and business people try to enhance their chances of convincing a prospect to buy from them without the benefit of a formalized seller-reliability rating system. So in these conditions, how do we earn trust? For this, we go right back to the sales mindset that I defined in Mastering Your Sales Process and in the first two installments of this post:
“I am an expert in my field. My job is to help qualified prospects make good decisions about solving problems using my product or service.”
When we embody this mindset in our sales efforts, in social media and elsewhere, we engender trust. People tend to trust those people who seem to know what they are talking about and who can demonstrate that. People trust those who seem to be motivated by the desire to offer assistance in a genuine way. Put these two things together, and you have our definition. Embody this definition, and you will be trusted.
Embodying the definitions means working hard to make yourself and expert in everything that has to do with your product or service, all of the ancillary issues (logistics, finance, etc.), and the business of your prospective clients.
Committing to a business style that focuses on solving real problems in an honest and genuine way means getting past just selling your product, and really working to solve the problems. You will be on your way when you reach the point in a conversation with a prospect at which you KNOW that your product or service is not right for them, and you know what to do next – unequivocally!
This embodiment translates to social media by being the philosophical foundation of your content and aggregation activities. Whether you are posting a blog, answering a question in a forum, or passing on a useful link – come from the place that says “I am an expert who is here to help”, and your content will reflect the right things to lead to trust from those who see your content.
If these embodiments are genuine and well executed, your prospects as well as your connections, followers, friends and whatever else they may be called in the social media lingo du jour will trust you. If they trust you, then you have established the basis for a business relationship.
If this is (all or part of) your goal in using social media, then start every interaction with the idea that:
“I am an expert in my field. My job is to help qualified prospects make good decisions about solving problems using my product or service.”
In this way, you will build the trust you need to take steps in the direction you desire, and your prospective clients will be happy to be along for the ride.
Social Media links
