Selling - Sales Performance - Learning

Universal Employment Skills

2012-01-24T17:03:00.002Z

Is having a job or reliable income dependent on luck of the draw or the skills a person equips him or herself with?

I suppose that each person's response may be dependent on their circumstances. Those currently without a job who have qualifications, experience, and a history of success would argue for luck.

It's a hard thought to swallow - the idea that ones diligently developed skills and expertise has become obsolete.

There are some generic, horizontally valuable life skills that equip people to adapt, such as ability to predict the future with a modest degree of accuracy.

Most of the skills that contribute to sales success, help people succeed in almost any endeavour.

Consider the seventeen aspects of sales competence in the SalesSense model:

1. Answering Common Customer Questions
2. Market and Industry Understanding
3. Customer and Prospect Understanding
4. Company Understanding

Even if you never speak with customers, ability to understand and succinctly articulate your employer's reason for being, it's position in the market, it's stake holder imperatives, and the company road map increases the likelihood that others will perceive you as a high performer.

5. Writing Skills

Those who don't know you may only have what you write to judge you by.

6. Understanding and Articulation of Value

In sales this refers to the value a business can create for customers however, the same skills can be employed to communicate the value that individuals and teams contribute towards the success of an organisation.

7. Proactive Prospecting
8. Networking for New Sales Opportunities

Only sales people are expected to pro-actively seek new customers although, those none sales people who support the process, in any way, increase their perceived value.

9. Opportunity Qualification

While this phrase is linked to sales qualification, doing things right is a waste of time if people don't first choose the right things to do. All work involves some degree of intelligent choice. Better choices lead to better results and increased value.

10. Forecast Accuracy

Anticipating change gives employees the opportunity to prepare in advance by developing more of the anticipated skills the organisation will need in the future.

11. Organisation and Time Management

It can't be said enough. Doing things right is a waste of time if you don't first choose the right things to do.

12. Sales Methods Used

Those who take it upon themselves to identify and adopt the most efficient ways to complete their tasks and fulfil their role, increase their value and the marketability of their skills.

13. Interpersonal Communication Skills

See this post on the SalesSense blog.

14. Objections, Closing, and Negotiation

Everyone who has a preference for anything can benefit from ability to overcome objections, negotiate the variables, and secure agreements.

15. Self-Development

Nothing stays the same. Time and events flow through our point of consciousness, driven by the unfolding of nature and the developing thoughts of others. It takes a lot of effort to ignore the current.

16. Sales Mindset

Altitude is a function of attitude rather than aptitude.

17. Sales Motivators

Suitability for any particular role depends heavily on alignment with intrinsic motivators.

Expanded explanations of these sales competence headings are available here.

Debt Crisis Sales Impact

2011-10-07T13:05:00.000+01:00

"Tell the truth and get others to tell the truth" said Norman Swartzkoff in his public speaking engagements after the first Iraq war. Current day politicians might be accused of failing in this respect.

As our total debt according to http://www.debtbombshell.com/ approaches £1 Trillion and Greece limps from one hand out to the next, it seems likely we are in for a rough five to ten years.

Looking back at UK debt history, all the way to 1693, it seems we have been worse off, a lot worse off:

Excerpt and Graph from http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html

The National Debt began when William III engaged a syndicate of City merchants to market an issue of government debt. The syndicate became the Bank of England, and HM government debt began a century-long climb, financing Marlborough’s wars, wars against the French, against the North American colonial rebels, and peaking in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars at over 200 percent of GDP. Government debt exploded in World War I and World War II and then equalled the level of 1815 reaching over 200 percent of GDP. Debt declined below 50 percent of GDP by the 1970s.

Assuming the current government manages to stop adding to our burgeoning debt mountain and starts paying it off, judging by the graph above, we might expect it to take some time before it subsides ordinary levels. The last time we carried 60% of GDP as debt was 1970. It took nearly four years to get it back below 50%. The lowest it has been in my lifetime was about 30% around 1992.

I am no economist. Until I began research for this I was firmly in the double dip camp. Taking into account ageing European populations and declining birth rates it seems likely that we will be less able to depend on growth to pay off our debts looking forward. This seems to be reflected in the continued sovereign debt crisis repeatedly referred to in the news.

Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst seems the most appropriate response for businesses and individuals.

As the credit crunch of 2008 and 2009 took hold, we began writing about the practical steps businesses and sales teams could take to fend off the worst affects of the downturn. We also built a course specifically designed to help customers and sales people facing a falling market. Now seems a good time to refresh this work and represent it.

Selling in a Falling Market
8 Emergency Steps for Selling in Difficult Times
Marketing in a Downturn
Develop Creative Thinking to Solve Sales Challenges
Business Survival Sales Training

Telephone Sales Conversion Statistics - Nonsense or Reality?

2011-06-18T14:57:00.000+01:00

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a lot of scepticism about claims that telephone sales people calling new prospects for the first time (cold calling?) can achieve high conversion rates. If you want to start a popular discussion in an online forum, just advocate this issue in either direction.

Some people claim they can make fifteen or twenty sales appointments a week through telephone cold calling!

My data, drawn from client observation, team member statistics, and personal experience suggests that it takes about 20 dials for each decision maker conversation.

This doesn't seem to vary much. It's not necessarily people being evasive although some of this does go on. The majority of the dials end at the voice mail option.

Gurus will say this is no barrier and I agree that it is possible to have people call back, or at least increase their interest in a conversation, however, the 1:20 number seems resilient, at least in my UK B2B world.

This means 100 dials for five decision maker conversations. In reality, only battery hen style calling with automated dialling yields such numbers. I don't doubt that people can make a 100 dials in a day however, if the day includes any research and follow up at all, 60 to 70 dials is much more realistic. This gives us three to four decision maker conversations in a full days calling. With this in mind, a 25% to 40% conversion, for an appointment, next step, or sale becomes essential.

The biggest issue that telephone sales people have to grapple with is follow up tasks. After just a couple of hundred dials, the CRM or contact management tool is stuffed with follow up reminders. Filtering and Qualifying then takes up much more time.

I am very much an advocate of the old phrase, "less is more".

Those who make a short list by profiling existing 'best customers' and selecting new prospects who are similar, then design effective contact campaigns and executing their plans diligently, are soon so buried in so many real opportunities that they cannot finish calling their list.

These days software has the potential to automatically turn data from a telephone directory, database, and even web site visits into suspects and then prospects and then, through an interface with the CRM system, prompt sales people to initiate a contact campaign.

I have at least one client already doing this.

Where marketing automation selects appropriate prospects and presents them to the sales person, some truly astonishing conversion rates are possible.

Are Sales People More Motivated by Fear or Reward?

2011-06-12T13:33:00.000+01:00

A variation on this question came up in a discussion group recently. From a sales management and a sales training perspective, this is an important question. How can sales managers help people to invest their best efforts to achieve optimum sales performance? How can sales trainers best motivate learning?

Fear is a feeling associated with the body reconfiguring its self in preparation for flight or fight. Constant floods of adrenalin and other chemicals that increase our capacity to draw on emergency power are claimed to be unhealthy although what happens is like everything we do repeatedly. The body adjusts. Emerson put it elegantly:

"Face the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain."

Adrenalin junkies get high on fearful situations. They tell of the necessity to keep upping the ante to keep getting the high that extreme risk generates.

Low level fear or stress as it is otherwise known, is one of the body's mechanism for getting us to take action. It is the anticipation of bad consequences. The other is anticipation of good consequences.

Both are effective although most people are more motivated by one or the other. There are people for whom danger is a more significant call the action than reward and visa versa.

So my answer to the question in the discussion, 'does fear motivate' was 'yes'.

For the question posed as the title of this blog, 'Are Sales People More Motivated by Fear or Reward?', my answer would be, it depends on the individual.

Best practice for sales management and sales training is to adjust according to individual need. Self motivation can be activated in the same way.

"I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my destiny" wrote Henry Ford.

Sales Training Needed for the Online Equivalent of Body Language

2011-05-08T16:48:00.001+01:00

Selling has to take account of the way people buy and all the evidence suggests the way we buy, both as an individual and on behalf of a company, is rapidly shifting.

A group I was in front of last week were mostly quick to acknowledge that they had or would buy a car online. This might seem OK if you were buying a new car with manufacturers warranty however, several of the group confessed to having bought second hand cars online and had a satisfying experience.

This is just an illustration of what is happening on the wider stage. People are changing how they buy. They are doing their research and due diligence online. By the time a few sales people are invited to the party, it is all over. Sales people have to find a way to engage with customers indirectly, where they are doing their research or resign themselves to being little more than quote or proposal producers.

Certainly those with good prospecting skills can still reach potential buyers and interest them in a product, service, or idea. This hasn't changed much, although in larger companies, the array of defences are becoming increasingly sophisticated. The difficulty for a competent prospector is that the interested prospect is typing their name into Google as they listen. Whatever the prospector says needs to have instant corroboration easily accessible online.

Returning to the car example, how could someone come to trust a used car seller online, and buy something without kicking the tyres?

Just as there is non verbal communication and observation of subtle supporting signs that facilitate trust in face to face situations, there is an unacknowledged covert language online.

More recent generations, those who were born after 1985, have grown up with the web. These people may not even be aware they have developed an instinct for what is and isn't trustworthy online.

Future prospector's need to take this into account from both a personal perspective, and that of the company they represent. Judgement of integrity and trustworthiness has moved online.

There are clever digital tricksters. This is no different to the corporeal world. People are becoming just as good at spotting a con online as they are face to face. Sales people need to learn the online equivalent of non verbal language.

Sales Training for Story Telling

2011-04-21T16:21:00.001+01:00

You might think that sales people don't need to be taught to tell stories, especially if you interpret the term to mean being economical with the truth.

In this case I want to emphasises that sales people need the ability to tell true stories about past and existing customers in a convincing and authentic manner.

In a recent interview conducted by Geoffrey James, John Burke - Group VP of Global Sales for Oracle - talked about having his staff attend story telling sales training courses.

I was delighted to learn that the likes of Oracle are investing in learning how to tell stories more effectively. At SalesSense we have been teaching the principles of story telling in sales training and presentation skills courses since 1998.

In the interview, John said that many sales people aren't familiar enough with their own case studies to use them as a base for a story.

It is easy to think of stories as narrations that take a few minutes or longer to put across. In reality, with a little rehearsal, a story can be told in seconds rather than minutes. All we need is a beginning, middle, and end. The circumstance framing what happened, what happened, and how if changed things.

In our sales training courses we encourage participants to develop factual answers to the six customer questions. Short stories based on customer case studies present facts in an ideal way. Answers that tell people what to think just create resistance. Answers should always leave people free to make up their own minds what to think about the facts.

Most, if not all of the top six customer questions can be answered using fact based stories. Knowing six to ten customer stories is all that a sales person needs to provide convincing responses to the most difficult of the question in most circumstances.

The first of these two narrated presentations reveals the top six questions.

Towards the end of the first presentation is a brilliant story told to me by Anu Garg of: http://www.wordsmith.org

Anu's story, which teaches how to hit any target, is featured as a guest article here.

The New Sales Sense is Digital – Sales Training Must Keep In Step

2011-04-05T09:42:00.002+01:00

Shortly after listening to Joe Navarro’s narration of his book, The Power of Body Language, someone in an online discussion expressed horror at the risks of being misled online. This made me ponder the subtleties of winning trust and trusting in a digital world.

Well we have all heard the horror stories and perhaps experienced a few of our own. It was acknowledgement of the opposite that prompted the written outburst. I and others posting in the discussion were acknowledging how it has become commonplace to get substantial new business assignments from people we haven’t met in person and in some cases, have never spoken with.

It may have gone unnoticed by many. There is a digital body language. Not literally of course. There are many subtle signals that we use to assess the trustworthiness of both organisations and individuals and we use this information to make decisions.

Woe betide those who can’t or won’t read the subtle signs. In the corporeal world, most people have learnt to recognise the scams and the fraudsters who perpetrate them. Some level of such activity is bound to exist in all societies. In the same way that people become corporeal ‘street wise’, we need a similar sense to protect us in the digital world. Since this new ability does not yet have a convenient name, I shall dare to create one and see if it sticks. Let’s call this new ability digital sense or ‘digisense’. Then we can use this new word like a noun such as empathy. We can say people have or don’t have digisense.

There is a buyer’s paradigm shift taking place. It is sweeping away many sales preconceptions and norms. The furore over the social media opportunity is merely a forewarning of greater change. The Retail world is already grappling with the early effects of what will be looked back on as a titanic revolutionary shift in the way people make decisions and the part sales people play in the buying process.

Just as there have been thousands of studies and hundreds of books written about non verbal communication and body language, It seems certain their will soon be a swathe of material explaining digisense. In fact there already is although it is well disguised under a blanket of techno speak. I can’t hope to touch the sides in this short article. I will just make a start.

In interpersonal communication, we make an informal almost instantaneous assessment of every new person we meet. This is an instinctive response probably based on some primal necessity left over from our early evolution.

If you give credit to the research on which Malcolm Gladwell based his outstanding book, ‘Blink’, then we are likely to apply the same principles to online assessment of companies, organisations, and people. That is, use our relevant experience to instantly assess the information in front of us. So let’s pause to consider what that may mean.

Customers are likely to search Google for information about sales people as well as their organisation.

First the organisation – what comes up on the first page of Google search results when someone types in your company name?

One would hope that links to your company dominate the first page. This is true for my Company, SalesSense however; there is still plenty of confusion. When I first posted Company information online in 1997, it turned out there was a Sales Sense PTY, a similar firm in Australia. Since then, one Irish and two American companies have called themselves SalesSense so now there are five of us vying for pole position. To complicate things further, the term ‘sales sense’ is being used as a noun in the same way that I have proposed we use the term digisense.

It might seem pointless to worry about this because there may not be much that an individual can do to address any shortcomings in this area. Yet people will judge what they find. There are a host of steps that organisations and individuals can do to take more control of their Company’s online persona beginning with creating clarity and consistency across all online information that is within direct control or influence.

Staying with the company’s online persona, next append ‘review’ and then separately, ‘feedback’ to the company name. These searches should bring up any independent reviews of the company that have been posted online and any feedback to do with products or services provided. The volume of relevant links tends to relate to the size of the organisation being researched. There may be none or lots of references. Reviews may be both positive or negative and genuine or bogus.

Potential customers will draw conclusions from whatever they are presented with.
As for controlling what appears when a prospective customer searches using your Company name, there is much that can be done to change the results that appear when they search for independent feedback. Rogue traders beware! As the majority become more active online, it will become increasingly difficult to survive a bad reputation.

The web has a long memory. The other day, I found pages from our 1999 web site, stored perfectly on the Alexa portal.

Turning to your personal profile, since sales people are in the habit of researching the individual they will be visiting, it seems likely that those individuals will increasingly return the favour and look you up before you arrive.
If you are a private person who avoids leaving digital evidence lying around and you have a common name, fear not. It is unlikely that a prospect will uncover your skeletons. On the other hand, what do you think about a person who seems not to exist? Does it send a shiver down your spine? Rightly or wrongly you might leap to the conclusion that such a person was at best, secretive and at worst . . . well you pain the picture.

If you have an obscure or rare name and a relaxed attitude to digital litter, you may be shocked by what pops up on the first page or two when you enter your own name.

My name is quite common. There are 16 Clive Miller profiles on LinkedIn and 149 Clive Miller’s listed on 192.com. I know this because these were two of the first page Google UK results for the search term, ‘Clive Miller’ at the time of writing this. I have been posting stuff online since 1996 so it isn’t surprising that I do have a page one listing for the real Clive Miller however, I share the front page with two butchers, two photographers, a heating engineer and a firm of town planners who are all called Clive Miller. Perhaps what is most surprising is that on first look you wouldn’t credit any of us as being internet experts.

Buyers are increasingly turning to the internet to carry out their research and due diligence. Sales people are being left out of the loop. Gone are the days when prospects would call on sales people because they were knowledgeable about the options. Sales people may still have the knowledge but the customers don’t need them to provide it any-more. This squashes the opportunity to start up and nurture a relationship before the closing phase. Now sales people are often left with little more than a quote or proposal to prepare. The cheese has moved, to use Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson’s metaphor from their excellent book, ‘Who Moved my Cheese’.

Buyers are increasingly relying on online research and digital sense or digisense to make informed decisions.

Is the age of the sales person over?

There is a new breed of sales person rising, phoenix like, from the ashes. Those who aspire to be amongst their ranks have a new language to learn.

Keeping Sales People Where They Prefer to Be

2011-03-16T14:20:00.000Z

The debate about the value of customer relationship marketing systems rages on in forums and discussions the world over.

Sales people should know their process and reporting criteria well enough to operate it without the support of software. Efficient contact management is valuable. Easy ways to add and update contacts helps. Ways to associate notes with contacts and set reminders add value. Integrated small scale email marketing, adds value. I can imagine that integrated social media could be useful. There are many potential innovations in this area that should make sales people more efficient.

Forecasting is important. Sales people should be prepared to provide a periodic, realistic update on expected business and pipeline health. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours a month, or twenty minutes a week.

Sales managers should aim to protect sales people from unnecessary administration overheads. Their value is derived from the amount of time they can be engaged communicating with interested customers.

As it is, most sales people spend less than 15% of their time, actually engaged in a dialogue with people who are in a position to buy their stuff. We should be trying to increase this number, not decrease it. For those who think otherwise, keep a log for a week to find out, if you dare.

At the risk of introducing other contentious issues, this is the same problem faced by the police, the NHS, and all manner of other roles. The people with the skills to get the results, need to be employed doing just that.

We can never completely achieve this ideal yet the scope get for getting better remains as large as it ever was. The average contribution per sales person in real terms remains about the same as it was when I got my first sales job, in 1979. Draw your own conclusions.

Some details of my sales targets going back over thirty years together with their inflation adjusted modern day equivalents are detailed in this article:

http://www.salessense.co.uk/killer_app_revived

CRM can only give managers the illusion of being in control and where it is used for this purpose, it can never make sales people more efficient. It simply provides a crutch for management and sales managers.

Why CRM Will Not Save You

What Makes an Extraordinary Business Consultant

2011-03-08T11:55:00.002Z

Just like beauty, we know a good consultant when we meet one. Your perfect consultant may not be mine. Personalities and needs do come into it so perhaps the main things that universally good sales or business consultants need are a highly tuned sales sense, extraordinary interpersonal communication skills, and the right face.

Being Credible as an Expert

If I had to identify one thing as a prerequisite of a good consultant, it would be credibility. Clearly, credibility is fundamental for selling a consulting service. It is also essential in delivery. If clients are to act on a business consultant's advice, they need absolute confidence that the proposed solution will lead to the desired results. Responsibility for demonstrating credibility continues throughout an engagement. Once lost, it is very hard to regain. A lot of consultants have the necessary knowledge, experience, and technical skills yet fail to pass on a sense of unshakable certainty that makes clients feel entirely at ease.

Ability to Read Minds

Mind reading is probably the second most valuable asset for a sales or business consultant. Success depends on ability to persuade clients to take the right course of action.

Quite often, consultants are engaged simply to rubber stamp or add credibility to a plan that the client has already decided to implement. Sometimes the consultant's role is merely to be the fall guy if things go wrong.

Consultants can make a living by doing the clients bidding, regardless of their better judgement yet this 'don't rock the boat' approach doesn't lead to bankable reputation.

Good consultants are able to see through attempts to miss use their credibility and then use their understanding to make things better, or bow out gracefully and avoid the fallout.

Interpersonal Communication Skills

Mind reading skills aren't much use without very good interpersonal communication skills to match them. People do things for their own reasons. It is always better to make it their idea, a feat that is eminently achievable with a little patience, subtlety, good questioning skills, and above all persuasive listening skills.

Business Writing Skills

Less is more yet too little leaves people confused. There is art in business writing. Apart from observing the grammar and spelling rules, business writing needs to be just long enough to make a message clear, just colourful enough to maintain interest, and always compelling. Writers should use facts instead of superlatives, explain benefits rather than list features, and always allow the reader the latitude to draw his or her own conclusions.

Problem Solving Skills

Having prior experience of dealing with particular problems is both an advantage and a curse. It spawns confidence in ability to solve the problem and sows the seeds of an assumption that what worked previously will work now. Good problem solvers apply an effective problem solving methodology to avoid falling foul of the 'assumption' pitfall.

Presentation Skills

There is something about presenting to groups that makes it a more effective than winning over individuals. It's more than simple efficiency. Everyone wants to be with the group.

Imagine perfection. Sway with knowledge and understanding, captivate with personality and vigour, hold attention with enthusiasm and creativity, entertain with humour and spirit, motivate with sincerity and persuasiveness, and end with resolution and certainty.

A powerful speaker can pacify naysayers, strengthen the resolve of supporters, and win consensus in a single presentation.

I have said little about know-how. There are some circumstances where extraordinary brilliance alone is enough, where superior thinking is automatically recognised and any communication shortcomings are tolerated or even ignored. Where such consultants lack comparable interpersonal skills, they do better if they have a buddy, protector, or interpreter who provides an interface with the world.

Misuse of a Sales Pipeline

2011-03-05T15:27:00.002Z

A LinkedIn thread in the Modern Selling group reminded me of a successful strategy that I used early in my sales career.

My sales manager at the time operated an A and B sheet approach to forecasting. The 'A' sheet represented everything that the sales person felt had a better than 50% chance of happening within three months. The 'B' sheet was everything else.

I used the 'B' sheet to identify semi qualified suspects. When I had done what needed to be done for 'A' sheet prospects, I would work on 'B' sheet suspects to either move them forward or qualify them out.

Unlike most of my peers, I always had two or three pages of 'B' sheet prospects, I never worried about closing anything. Instead I concentrated on maintaining a flow of opportunities that were moving forward in the sales process. I almost always topped the league tables.

Discussion in the thread centred on a sales managers perspective and the vulnerability of a miss leading stagnant pipeline.

Sales managers need pipeline visibility to sleep at nights. Sales people can have peace of mind when they have an endless supply of worthwhile leads or suspects to pursue.

We can fool our managers or worse, fool ourselves however, there are numerous other ways to spot miss use of a pipeline.

Finding and processing suspects, leads and opportunities seemed more important to me than having an outstanding presentation or closing strategy. I concentrated on filling the funnel and let the closing take care of itself.

It's not that closing isn't important. It's just secondary. If you don't have a flow of new opportunities, closing skills are no use at all.

The Lies Customers Tell Sales People and What we Say about them in Sales Training

2011-02-22T23:47:00.001Z

Once again, professional writer and blogger Geoffrey James prompted me to shadow his Bnet piece on the lies customers tell sales people. Almost all of them come up in sales training. Geoffrey offers his own answers here.

These solutions offer some alternatives.

1. We cant afford it.

Aiming to have the customer talk about the measurable aspects of the thing in respect to their business, i.e. how many business miles do you clock up each year? What are your costs per mile? How much do you think it aught to cost? What would be the value of the difference on an annual basis?

This approach offers another way to bypass the affordability of a thing, providing the issue being measured is important.

Applying the three rules helps

2. You are told he or she isn't available

If you sense this is a 'fob off' just to get rid of you, try asking the question, Say, "I don't want to make a nuisance of myself. I may be miss reading your tone. If he/she is not taking my call, can you help me by saying if it is just a bad time or if I'm wasting my time?" If you can say this while applying appropriate charm, you will learn the degree of resistance.

3. We really would like you to participate in this procurement

Without serious competitors, competing a requirement is a waste of time and money. The competition may be about keeping the incumbent supplier on the their toes. If you think the incumbent has an unfair advantage, say so! Say, "Your current supplier, XXX, they have a good reputation. Why do you want to change?" If they cant give you an entirely convincing answer say, "It still seems more advantageous for you to stick with your existing supplier. What would you have to hear from us to at least make it a difficult choice?"

Make the customer sell you on participating in the procurement competition. If you aren't convinced, don't bid. Competing is always expensive if you don't win.

4. It's cheaper down the street

First, never agree that your stuff is the same as the stuff they are comparing it with, even if it is. There are always differences even if they are simply down to the who provides the customer service.

Secondly, waste some of their time.

If they keep talking, either they are lying about it being cheaper down the street, or they would prefer to buy it from you, or they have some other reason why they can't buy it from them.

Quite often, 'cheaper down the street' is nothing more than a negotiation ploy.

More on Negotiation

5. I'm the decision maker

Even if the person who says this is the official decision maker who can commit the company, he or she is unlikely to make an important decision without making sure the decision is politically sound. In other words, it has the support of his or her boss, the technical assessors, and the users. There might even be customers or suppliers opinions to consider.

Better to ask, who is affected by this decision and how does it affect them?

6. We always get a discount

This is like number 4. except that it is a blatant negotiation ploy. If you hear this you are either the only game left in town, or you are in pole position, or one of the last two competitors. Figure out which and act accordingly.

Geoffrey talks about some other lies like, 'I'm not at my desk right now' and 'I will read your brochure' however, these six are the ones that most often come up in sales training.

Only Half of All Sales People Make Target - why it's true and what to do about it

2011-02-18T22:04:00.001Z

Many sales people work very hard yet apparently less than 50% achieve their sales target. Some might say this is testament to the failure of sales training. This is patently not the case and here are the reasons why.

Employers set sales targets at or even just beyond what they consider to be possible. Companies are not in business to make sales people rich, they are in business to meet or exceed their stake holder expectations. Sales targets are usually difficult to achieve and always will be. Every time a sales person exceeds what his or her employer considered the limit, the boundary of the possible is pushed back a little further.

The point is that selling is competitive. There are winners and losers. Sales people are always in competition with themselves. Those who succeed, continually raise the bar.

The bar only plateaus or is lowered when a definite majority fail to make their target. There comes a point where belief falters. Self interested employers, whether they think these thoughts or not, watch closely with the aim of keeping sales targets at or near the limit of what’s possible. It is not in their interest to push a sales target too far. As long as at least half a sales team can achieve it, the other half can be persuaded that it is possible.

So what has this to do with classroom sales training?

Well have you heard the joke about to trekking companions who disturb a Grizzly Bear? One starts to run and the other stops to change his shoes. His friend exclaims in a superior voice, “you will never outrun a bear” to which his friend retorts, “I don’t have to. I only have to outrun you”.

If you want to make your target, you have to be better than 50% of your peers in the same market!

Now, you could invest in some books but you know you will never read them. Recorded titles are better especially if you travel a lot. Yet while you are travelling; it is hard to act on learning and easy to let those good ideas slip away.

Can sales people develop their soft skills and sales techniques through online courses?

Sales people are renowned for having a short attention span. Online learning works for product knowledge, particularly if you are required to obtain an accreditation. Can it improve ability to sell? Even if you put in the time and answer the quiz correctly, it doesn’t mean you will use this dry knowledge in the field.

Some can and do learn selling this way. Judging by the responses to questions I ask in classroom sales training sessions, about one in fourteen sales people keep themselves ahead of the game this way.

What about virtual classrooms? This is where everyone dials into a conference and watches a slide show. You think no one can see you catching up with your email, or writing that report? You can even mute the sound and take telephone calls while you are supposedly present in the virtual classroom.

With a good video conferencing set up and all of the learners in the same room with just the trainer beamed in over the fibre, with good discipline and better 360 microphones, these set ups can work. Yet this is classroom sales training by any other name.

So if you want to be in the 50% that make their sales target, you need to hone your sales skills and techniques, regularly. The most talented athlete in the world, who doesn’t practice, is no match for mediocre athletes who do.

You could take time off from selling as holiday and pay for training or a sales coach out of your own pocket. This makes a lot of fiscal sense. To make money on the investment, you only need to increase your sales results by about 2%.

Why take the risk when you can persuade your boss to pay for it?

Your boss is smart. How else would he or she have got the job? Since hiring a coach for you would mean hiring a coach for everyone, you are stuck with the next best thing – classroom sales training.

Use the Sales Win Predictor for free. Just subscribe for the Sales Drive Journal at http://www.salessense.co.uk.

The Crux of a Sales People's Integrity

2011-02-15T08:46:00.001Z

Should sales people's loyalty and priority lie with the customer or their employer? This was the thrust of a question that Kevin Holland asked in Neil Warren's Modern Selling group on LinkedIn recently.

It's a question that all sales people have to grapple with, consciously or otherwise. The discussion reminded me of an old joke.

How can you tell if a sales person is lying?

I know you all know the answer. This gets a laugh every time I tell it in sales training classes let alone in front of those who don't think of themselves as sales people!

Oh, the punchline. You must know it. You can tell sales people are lying when their lips are moving.

Why is it funny?

A sales person's first task is to win trust for without it, he or she cannot hope to have any influence.

Herein lies the quandary. Winning trust usually depends on putting the customer first. If this happens to coincide with the interests of the company, and it should, their is no conflict. Otherwise, the sales person must decide.

Five Ways to Develop Trust Fast

Why should the answer be the same on every occasion? Navigating a satisfactory path through conflicting opinions, feelings, objectives, and choices to achieve an outcome that meets the needs of many is the heart of a business to business sales person's daily work.

Good sales people are adept at dealing with ambiguity and this is something that most companies selection process completely overlooks.

No More Hiring Mistakes

How to Attract and Hire the Right Sales People

What to do About Stress in a Sales Role

2011-02-04T16:08:00.000Z

Stress is a function of how a person thinks, nothing more. The body is not reacting to external stimuli like heat or cold. It is reacting to conscious and unconscious thought processes. In some respects this is good news for those who suffer because the solution is entirely within their control.

Feeling stressed is good up to a certain point because it motivates us to take action. Once a person is taking maximum action, it is of no further use so the choice is to turn it off.

If you think your sales job is under threat, you are in a position to do something about it. You can make more calls, work harder, create new ways to find more business. When the stress gets too intense, turn it off! Keep working, just choose not to feel stressed about it.

Easy to say . . .

Doing so requires the adoption of the right mind set. Belief is necessary. If you don't believe any of this, for you at least, it isn't true! If you don't believe you can make your sales target you are indulging in self sabotage.

OK, some sales targets are unfair. I'll blog about this another time. Nevertheless, if you think you can't, you are unlikely to recognise the opportunities that come your way.

Meditation is good for stress relief. It is the art of being for no reason. Practising meditation helps people to relax. Through the process of meditation, it becomes easier to have a dialogue with one's unconscious mind.

I once likened the unconscious mind to a wild horse. When you are feeling stressed, it is because your wild horse is panicking. Take the bridle. Take the reins. Become the horse whisperer.

http://www.salessense.co.uk/sales_brains

Sales Buzz Words, Selling in a Digital World and Strategy

2011-01-27T15:42:00.000Z

In one of the LinkedIn groups I frequent, someone used the term Sales 2.0 in the context of Web 2.0. It prompted me to test my understanding of yet another pointless piece of jargon. Web 2.0 isn't any sort of revolution unless you are a web developer or programmer. It is what has made the interactivity and functionality of sites like Face book and even the SalesSense site possible however, from a user perspective it is meaningless. The web continues to become more usable in a gradual process of competitive innovation.

A lot of buzz words are adopted or invented invented just to make an author seem the owner of new knowledge. The thing that kicks me off is when an author derides a past guru's best work in order to proclaim a new revolution.

In real life, most new things arise out of circumstances. While great inventions are usually attributed to a single person, looking deeper we find that several, and sometimes hundreds of people developed similar ideas or came to similar conclusions at roughly the same time.

As Newton said, "If I have seen further than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants. We all stand on the shoulders of past giants.

Sales 2.0 is used to describe a transition. Buyers used to rely on sales people to explain complex choices. No more or at least, not as much. Today's web savvy buyers do all their research online and only call on a sales person towards the end of their buying process.

This means that sales people who don't find a way to engage customers online, prior to any message exchange, telephone conversation, or meeting find themselves consigned to the role of quote or proposal jockey because they have lost the opportunity to build a relationship with customers over the course of their buying process.

Their are two strategies to deal with this. The first is to learn the ropes of online engagement - creating a presence, locating the online places frequented by the prospective customers, and getting their attention indirectly. This is supported by our new one day course - Selling in a Digital World.

The second is to learn how to build relationships much much faster. This means acquiring Derren Brown like interpersonal skills. We do spend some time on this area in many of our sales courses. It's easy to point out how to improve, through a few exercises however, improving soft communication skills takes diligence and application.

The generic advice that goes with the strategy manual is, 'pursue just one strategy at a time' however, this idea relates to a battle situation where strategy directs the actions of field commanders. Two strategies results in confusion. In this case it might not apply.

Strategy is only of any use if it tells those who want to use it, what they should do next. Since the term was originally used to guide actions in battle, much of the wisdom built around the idea of using strategy assumes a competition for territory between opponents with certain resources.

Since competitive sales situations are very similar, the military wisdom associated with the strategy of winning battles, has a lot to offer in relation to a specific sales opportunity. In our Enterprise Selling course, we have participants use military strategy to defeat a competitors strategy. Competitors are almost always using strategy, whether they label it so or not.

Sell to the Customer Buying Process

2011-01-11T09:26:00.002Z

Step into the shoes or a prospect and consider the customer buying process. Be specific about the shoes you step into. What is this person responsible for and what are the challenges he or she is facing right now? The more you know about a persons circumstances, environment, and perspective, the easier it is to accurately anticipate thinking.

Imagine you are a sales director responsible for a team of less than 20 sales people who sell technology, software, or know-how based solutions to businesses and organisations.

Most of your sales are won by a small proportion of your sales team. You have a difficult sales target and want to increase the performance of some individuals in your team so that you are less reliant on the small group of superstars. You decide to investigate sales training.

There is no money set aside however, you persuade the MD to divert some of the marketing funds. Being smart, you ask if your boss knows anyone or has any strong opinions.
If your boss doesn't solve the choice problem for you, or if you really cant live with his or her suggestion, you ponder past experience and remind yourself of the good and bad events you have attended.
You consider who you know who might do the job well. If you have had a good experience with someone in the past and you can track him or her down, you leap directly to GO, without pausing on any of the other sales training real estate.
If you can't think of anyone who inspires confidence, you ask contacts directly. You avoid posting in online forums because it is likely to invite too many sales calls.
If you don't get a strong recommendation from someone who you trust to be a good judge of sales training for your team, you do some online research to try and find a company with expertise in your niche. It is getting too time consuming. You delegate the research to a marketing assistant or sales secretary.
With input from contacts, your research, the firms found by the marketing assistant, you take another look at the candidates, whittle the list down based on the look and feel of their web sites.
You contact the most promising based on unexamined intuition. If they respond promptly and someone gets in touch who listens, understands, and presses the right buttons, you carry on and engage them. Those who are slow to respond or who make an early mistake, qualify themselves out.
If you happen to have more than one provider who you believe can do the job, you might run a simple competition to see how they respond. On the other hand, it is just too much trouble and takes too long to spend time assessing alternatives. Your decisions have got you this far so you choose, or toss a coin.

If this were the buying process you were selling to, would it give you a better idea how to mesh your sales process with it?

Everyone does things a little differently yet there are many commonalities. With greater understanding of each individual prospect and the people who are in a position to influence or make buying decisions, comes greater intuition and ability to anticipate their buying process.

Sales Sand Bagging

2010-12-23T14:05:00.000Z

At this time of year, those in sales roles are tempted to think about 'Sand Bagging'. This is the art of saving some business for the next measurement period. The practice is loudly discouraged, particularly when others, further up the feeding chain have yet to reach their target and quietly condoned when the reverse is true.

When a sales person has no hope of reaching a remuneration threshold it becomes worthwhile to hold some business back to ensure a good next month or quarter.

Those who over perform and have no need or incentive to keep going can gain advantage by holding some business back to bolster results in the next period.

Sand bagging becomes complicated in large organisations where different controlling managers have different motivations or agendas. For instance, if the manufacturing people have made their quota and bonuses already, you may as well cold call the Queen of England as hope to get your last minute order shipped!

Sales trainers could be accused of beleaguering sales people to identify the customers real motive, raison d'etre, compelling pain, or gripping opportunity. Who would think that the decisions of ones own peers and colleagues might be based on similar fundamental stimulation.

Merry Christmas

Here are 27 common sales demons to demolish in 2011:
http://www.salessense.co.uk/sales_seminar

Sales people can learn from Politicians Mistakes

2010-12-15T08:10:00.002Z

All politicians are in the sales game. They must sell ideas, often in the presence of doubters and opposition. Equally, politicians must make themselves outstanding negotiators.

Sales people could learn a lot from mistakes that politicians make.

The most obvious and significant is rubbishing the competition. There are few business to business sales people who haven't herd that undermining competitors does more harm than good. You tar yourself with the same brush. Running down a competing firm or their products simply raises doubts about the speaker in the customers mind.

Instead, draw attention to positive differences. Emphasise the areas where you have a clear advantage. Speak not at all or in a minimal way on areas of weakness to decrease significance. If a weakness is perceived to compromise function, acknowledge it and address it, or seek alternative ways of solving the problen.

Never, ever knock competitors, their ideas, products, or solutions. Alow the customer just the right space to do this for themselves.

Another thing that makes politicians seem untrustworthy is their penchant for avoiding a question. There are many traps set by journalists to make politicians say provocative things or make unwise commitments. This aspect of politics is reflected in sales situations when a sales person is tempted to adapt the truth or exaggerate the facts in order to sound more convincing.

Instead, by abandoning truth and authenticity, both politicians and sales people manage to undermine trust. Telling the truth, especially truth that isn't in one's best interests or doesn't support the thrust of an argument, increases credibility and plants the roots of integrity.

Sales people and politicians can learn a lot from each other.

Getting to the Top in a Sales Career without Killing Yourself

2010-12-08T09:29:00.000Z

Selling through Partners

A similarly titled piece by William B Taylor, a BNET contributor, inspired me to pen a few paragraphs from the sales perspective.

There are two important abilities for anyone who wants to reach the top in any career, managing stress and getting things done through others.

It is easy to make the statement that stress is all in the mind yet it can be very difficult to deal with the intense pressure one can feel in elevated, exposed positions.

Elevated - the appointed leader, where the buck stops, the profit whom everyone else relies on for their future well being.

Exposed - The higher you get, the further you have to fall. Those in senior visible roles become the focus of gossip, other peoples strategies, and journalists.

Some people prefer to hold themselves down a few levels, where they are buffered from the ravages of events and other peoples agendas.

Those who aspire to lead, need the ability to manage stress. Managing stress is not so hard for those who have self mastery. Mental stress is entirely dependent on how a person thinks about what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. IN this respect, feeling stressed is voluntary and can be switched of instantly by simply choosing to think differently.

Stress is a means of self motivation. It is entirely helpful, up to a point. The skill of stress management lies in setting the right point, the threshold that triggers stress relief strategies.

Just as those driven to reach the top of Everest, reach deep into their reserves because above 18,000 feet there is not enough oxygen to sustain the body and you cannot carry enough to completely offset the problem.

Those who set their sites on top positions, may need to drive themselves beyond normal endurance using stress - the self imposed goal of achievement and fear of failure - to reach a career pinnacle and remain there.

This is where the ability to get things done through others, gains importance. Personal productivity can only take a person so far. Without the multiplication factor of the extra investment, effort, and persistence of others, no strength or depth of reserves is enough.

Yet with the collective extra pull of people inspired by great leadership and assisted by effective management, individuals can be perceived to have achieved astonishing results.

From a sales perspective, those who rely entirely on their own efforts can only produce limited results. Those who can get things done through others, through their managers, peers, business partners, suppliers, and even customers, create enormous momentum and deliver extraordinary results without killing themselves.

Sales Glass Ceiling

2010-11-30T23:22:00.000Z

In sales there is a phenomena known as a glass ceiling. People can see through it but they can't break through it. It's as if a sales person needs to have appropriate self respect or self belief to be able to sell at a higher level.

The projection of confidence is difficult to fake. It can be read by anyone who pays attention to the subtle signals. Power is written on the outside. It's like a skin that comes from an inner certainty.

The energy seems to have many sources. Knowledge and ability confer power and anyone can access these two sources through hard work and practice - The effort required.

A consistent history of getting results grants power. This too is usually the result of diligence and effort.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell makes a solid case for dedication and hard work. The facts say that no amount of natural ability negates the need for effort. It takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything.

The power rubs off. Knowing influential people isn't enough yet being respected by them is. Effective use of modern digital networking tools opens this door to anyone with the will and persistence to develop a powerful network. Now anyone can invest in strategic relationship building.

What is 'Privacy'. It seems the vestiges of being private, diminish daily. All data seems to find it's way into the public domain, no matter how critical it's secrecy.

We are in need of a whole new set of strategies that aid and augment human intelligence in an online digital world.

Follow this blog or subscribe for news of the upcoming SalesSense release, Selling Online, for the latest thinking for dealing with the rapidly changing digital landscape.

Sales Assessments - Do they work? The debate cycles on

2010-11-30T10:27:00.000Z

Scepticism is good when it comes to hiring sales people. A hiring mistake costs a lot more than anyone cares to think about. In a previous role, I was involved in calculating the number.

A single sales hiring mistake cost a horrifying £508k off the bottom line!

Not every hiring mistake costs quite this much yet the number is always ugly. I still have the template we used to work out the number. I'll send it to anyone who asks for a copy.

Psychometric assessments aren't perfect. They contain the seeds of fear - fear of being miss represented. Psychometric assessments have often failed to prevent sales hiring mistakes. As pronounced by their vendors, they should be used with appropriate due diligence.

At SalesSense we created our own set of non psychometric assessments, partly so that we had an independent tool for evaluating sales teams and conducting training needs analysis. The tools have proved effective in predicting behaviour as well as evaluating skills. This has been possible where customers have been willing to invest in the necessary due diligence.

Assessment vendors won't give guarantees however, our sales and sales operation assessment tools have helped us meet our business improvement guarantees on many occasions.

See the Sales Exam here.

Don't Panic - Slash the Price

2010-11-17T16:36:00.006Z

A Bnet post by Geoffrey James about closing inspired me to defend the 'jackass close' as labelled. The 'jackass close' being to offer the customer a discount in return for the order.

In Geoffrey's post, almost everyone correctly identified the 'jackass close' from four choices. Why? Because it is the one most used!

Oh I know it is usually wrapped in some excuse or another however, when the chips are down and you still need a few sales to make your numbers, buying business forward seems to be the preferred option.

I call it buying business forward because in a B2B world, it only works on people who were going to buy anyway.

Despite this, my business email is inundated with last minute offers.

It must work in some sort of fashion or people would stop doing it!

If I were to say you could book a place on a course for a quarter of the going rate, and your wanted to go on a course like the one I happened to be promoting, and your boss had previously said no on the basis of cost, you might be persuaded to have another try!

There are good arguments for loss leaders. If what you are selling is worth it's price, getting a customer started at a low price, pays back over time. Few B2B suppliers can exist without repeat purchase.

There are many sound reasons for constructing an attractive loss leader. Consider the mobile phone. It is the lifetime value of the customer that counts.

So, providing that a special offer is based on appropriate forethought, planning, and preparation, I can't see anything wrong with it.

A popular alternative is to pile a cart high with bonuses. For example, those who book a place on our Selling Consulting Services course on December 13th and 14th at Wokefield Park near Reading (blatant and unashamed plug) can expect £550 worth of extra goodies, detailed here.

Complimentary goodies here.

How to Kill a Sale

2010-11-12T16:01:00.001Z

Samson killed a thousand men with the jaw bone of an ass.

That many sales are killed every day with the same weapon.

Can a Sales Manager be a Sales Coach?

2010-11-10T08:13:00.000Z

Sales managers seem to be expected to coach their people yet coaching is as distinct from management as management is distinct from leadership.

Consider your own experiences where a manager has also fulfilled the role of coach. Was there potential for conflict between the ideal objectives of a coach - to improve ability, and the imperative of being a manager - to ensure performance?

Coaching isn't something done to people. It is a set of skills that help one person support another's purpose. A coach is a servant of the player.

Can a coach who has won a players trust, at the same time be an equal servant of the organisation? Sooner or later conflict between these to priorities will arise.

People are moulded by their grandparents through genetics, their parents through nurture, and their childhood teachers out of necessity. As adults we get to choose or at least influence our circumstances. In normal employment, adults can't be moulded by others without their consent.

Some people choose their own way.

Sales people are selected for their power to shape the world by influencing others. Much of the time they will choose their own path regardless of a managers design.

Managers can be successful without having coaching skills. There are other ways for managers to foster or even impose learning. Self development can be influenced through incentives, like anything else.

I'm not suggesting that managers shouldn't coach. I learned a great deal from many of my managers despite there being no formal coaching involved.

The New Sales Hill and the New Sales Skill Set

2010-11-07T21:18:00.000Z

Today's sales people have a new hill to climb.

Customers are in a position to know so much more before they arrive on the scene. Customers no-longer need to rely on sales presentations to learn about new solutions. By the time a sales person is involved, the customers are 90% of the way through their thinking process. The opportunity to build a relationship and leverage liking is condensed to almost nothing.

Sales people have to raise their game and become influential before meeting the prospect.

This is not as mad as it sounds.

With a significant online presence and excellent online networking skills, sales people can get themselves noticed as subject matter experts and become known as a person of influence to their prospects, before approaching them.

This is the new game. Sales people who want to rise above the average, need the skills to position themselves in their prospects path.

Perhaps there is yet more life left in the old 'hunter' analogy!

Leaders - Managers - Sales People

2010-10-31T20:51:00.000Z

Leaders climb the tallest tree, gaze out over the jungle, and yell down to those below the direction they should take. Not everyone has the courage to climb the tree.

In the jungle below, managers organise machete wielders. They check the direction, organise schedules to maximise efficiency, look after machete wielder well being, and arrange training to maximise machete wielder effectiveness. Not everyone has the tenacity to fight fires all day long, day in, day out.

When Machete wielders aren't doing the work, they seek ways to make their life more bearable, more fun, and more fulfilling. Not all are ambitious. Those who know they have enough are wealthy beyond the imaginings of the climbers. Not everyone has the fortitude to do the work.

Adapted from a story told by Stephen Covey, and a line from the Tao Teh Ching.

Email Marketing - Build your Own List and Guard it Well

2010-10-31T20:27:00.000Z

Someone was looking for a way to send out an email message to 400 contacts recently. While it is easy to use Outlook or some other email client, this won't track open rates or clicks on embedded URLs.

We use Mail Chimp - http://www.mailchimp.com. It s free for up to 500 contacts.

You have to abide by US anti SPAM rules. Personally, I find the extra effort is worthwhile. The rules keep you honest and make you concentrate on the important aspects of list development, segregation, and use.

In my view, it is a waste of time and energy to send messages to people who don't want to receive them. People think that it doesn't matter because the email doesn't cost anything. It does. It screws your statistics. Open rates are falling if one is to believe the pundits. Not mine.

If you only send messages to people who want to receive them and then, only messages that you know will interest them, you can encourage subscribers to open more of your emails, read more of your messages, and buy more often.

If you send inappropriate messages, people filter them out, one way or another. They don't have to unsubscribe. Every uninvited off topic message reduces the receivers receptiveness to your particular approach. Response data becomes diluted to the point where it tells you nothing, hampers list management, misdirects content improvement, and diminishes the value of targeting.

Commercial lists deteriorate rapidly both in deliverable count, open rate, click through rate, and conversions. It is the inevitable consequence of repeated, indiscriminate use.

The best solution is to invest in developing, nurturing, maintaining, and protecting your own list.

Offer people a worthwhile bonus or gift for subscribing and then take great care to add value when ever you send subscribers a message.

See the SalesSense subscriber gifts at http://www.salessense.co.uk/free_sales_help.

When Sales People Lie to Their Manager, Who is at Fault?

2010-10-29T08:37:00.001+01:00

A recent article on B-Net by Geoffrey James list the ten most common lies that sales people tell their managers. The list is basically drawn from responses to qualification questions asked by sales managers.

Most people are reluctant to acknowledge fault. Lack of an answer is particularly embarrassing if people feel they ought to know. An evasive response is almost inevitable in some circumstances.

A sales manager can do a lot to improve the situation. Asking domino questions reveals the uncertainty. Asked skilfully, secondary and tertiary questions focus attention on obtaining the missing information.

Sales people whose managers use this technique regularly, soon become accustomed to being thorough in their qualification of sales opportunities. Exchanges with their manager become more truthful and productive.

My favourite domino questions for a sales opportunity discussion are:

1. What makes you think so?
2. How did you get the information?
3. Who at the customer confirmed it?

Using a sales opportunity qualification system consistently is another way of improving sales predictability, efficiency, and results.

Subscribers at www.salessense.co.uk get free access to the Sales Win Predictor. A questionnaire containing the top eighteen qualification questions. Completing the questionnaire generates a win prediction score and a single glance radar chart that indicates vulnerabilities and prompts action.

For more information:

http://www.salessense.co.uk/free_sales_help

Musings on Leadership

2010-10-20T20:42:00.000+01:00

Leadership happens everywhere, all the time. People don't need to be leaders to practice leadership. Vast numbers of leadership instances occur in every moment, often without the people instigating them even being aware that they have fulfilled a leadership need.

Providing leadership deliberately and consistently requires an altogether different level of awareness, selflessness, and courage.

There is leadership in the large - macro leadership that entails inspiring multitudes of people with a vision of what they the followers want.

There is leadership in the small - micro leadership, where success depends on hundreds or thousands of tiny, mostly imperceptible, interventions that combine to great affect.

Mangers must practice leadership in the small. Successful management depends on bringing out the best in people, without them being aware of deliberate intervention.

As John D. Rockefeller Jr put it, "The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun."

There have been more words spoken and a greater volume of advice given on leadership than anything else. Perhaps this reflects the difficulty of creating frameworks to teach it or even define it. So much of leadership effectiveness depends on momentary perception, decisions, nuances, and timing.

Success in sales depends on leadership in the small.

Is a Sales Person Born or can the Skills be Learnt?

2010-10-06T15:23:00.000+01:00

This debate is set to run and run in the Sales Best Practice forum on LinkedIn.

Someone made the point that people who suffer extreme anxiety when in front senior people may not be cut out for a sales career. I thought it worth commenting:

Surely we should not discount someone simply because he or she suffers a fear reaction when first tackling something new. If people were put off by initial failure, most of us would never do anything.

My internal sales support person in a past life suffered exactly such a reaction when first in a field sales role.

He went on to achieve sales success and eventually built his own business.

"Face the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain" wrote Emerson.

Sales Training is a Waste of Time

2010-10-04T16:30:00.000+01:00

The Great Sales Training Debacle

Picking up on this great title on Mark McCarthy's blog, I had to go along and read.

Mark's right to make a reverse pitch. People don't take change seriously enough at all levels. Changing behaviour, either procedural or behavioural is a serious business for sales people and sales managers alike.

Change can make things worse in the short term.

Relying on training alone to achieve change is a risky strategy. Particularly when the circumstances, abilities, and motivation of the people who will attend are not taken into account.

Learning depends on motivation. Those who have been involved in the process of change are much more motivated to embrace it.

There are many ways to help sales people make positive changes in what they do. It's customer pressure that causes trainers to try and deliver change through short course. We could say no and let someone else say yes, or do what we can with the budget/time available. That's the challenge faced by experts and educators every day.

Training shouldn't be abandoned simply because it is a less than perfect solution. There are always a few amongst the audience for whom the time is right, who are primed to make some use of what they learn. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear!

How to Make Sales Training Work

Does a Sales Coach have to be a Domain Expert

2010-10-02T15:07:00.000+01:00

An article by Jeremy Ulmer prompted me to consider the question, does a coach have to be a domain expert? Jeremy's article listed ten questions that someone might ask a would be sales coach to explore their sales pedigree. In brief, the ten questions were:

1. What's your sales experience and record of achievement?
2. Is your coaching customised for particular needs?
3. What is your sales philosophy?
4. What are your coaching qualifications?
5. What is the minimum number of sessions I can take?
6. What sales management experience do you have?
7. How did you end up becoming a coach?
8. Are their other ways that you can help me achieve my goals?
9. Can you teach me new innovative ways to increase sales?
10. Do you have a coach?

I wrote the following in response:

Jeremy, you make some great points and I agree that people considering hiring a coach should invest some time in finding someone who meets their need however, there are some coaches out their who know how to get the best out of people without being domain experts. The important thing is that having a coach makes a difference.

As it happens, I and all of our sales coaches pass muster on all of the ten questions. We are a firm of sales professionals who have learnt how to coach.

Coaching does not necessarily include teaching. In a classroom full of sales people, the person delivering the training had better have some sales experience because anyone who has done the job can tell if they havn't. It is difficult for sales people to cede credibility to the a practice if the person advocating it, hasn't done it.

Yet coaching can be effective without teaching new methods or techniques. Just as having an exercise buddy increases the time one spends exercising and adds an element of competition, having a sales coach increases one's focus on the important aspects of sales success.

Our research indicates that having regular coaching sessions increases sales performance by an average of 13%.

Thanks for writing your article and prompting me to respond.

Jeremy's top ten questions are on his web site here:

The Challenges Faced by Those Who Would Coach Sales People

2010-10-01T07:49:00.000+01:00

The idea that sales managers should do more coaching seems to hold a lot of sway amongst trainers, executives, and learning professionals. The reality of doing a good job as a sales manager depends on other things. I think otherwise and posted this response in a LinkedIn discussion on the topic in which many contributors argue that sales managers should make coaching a priority.

The No. 1 priority of all managers is results. They must deal with the issues relating to bookings and billings first. Coaching always takes a back seat to achieving results. It might sound like a chicken and egg point however, if there is piece of business due that is not happening as expected, the manager must sort it first and in most sales environments their are always numerous booking and billing issues demanding attention. There are three things that keep a sales manager in his or her job - results, results, and results.

From the other perspective, many sales people don't take to being coached, especially if they think they know better than the coach. Self direction and confidence are important sales characteristics. Such people are more difficult to coach, even for professionals. As Churchill put it, "Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught".

The Ambiguity of Justifying Sales Training

2010-09-30T21:01:00.000+01:00

Reading an article about convincing a CFO to fund sales training prompted me to write a response because the article simply laid out the basics of creating a business proposition for the training. In other words, make a case for the investment based on increased sales.

As a sales manager or director, you don't have to be the sharpest pencil in box to realise that you would also be making a case for a sales quota increase. This was my response:

The CFOs that I know would take whatever improvement was proposed and add it to the target for the next period. There is no doubt that regular sales workshops improve sales results however, sales managers and directors must negotiate any necessary budget as part of the each periods sales quota negotiations. Trying to obtain additional funds part way through a period/year invites CFOs to reclaim the cost by increasing the quota.

If a sales manager or director is refused budget for sales training during the quota assignment negotiation, he or she has a basis for putting it forward as a remedy if sales are behind plan.

Without this level of forethought and planning by managers and executives, sales training is only provided when sales are on or above plane. As soon as things get difficult, sales training is the first casualty. This is like burning the food in a time of famine.

If this prompts you to do some planning, you may find some of the ideas on this page helpful: Sales Training Return on Investment

Happy Hunting

The age old question, can anyone learn how to sell successfully?

2010-09-24T16:10:00.001+01:00

In one of the LinkedIn groups I follow, another member posed this age old question, "are people born into the sales profession or can it be learnt. I couldn't help responding at length. It prompted me to dredge up some evidence which I think worth repeating here.

Some years ago we built a sales competence model to underpin sales assessments. Over the years, thousands of people have used our sales skills assessment and several hundred have completed a superset of assessments that we call the 'Sales Exam'.

In the process, we have been able to correlate some results with performance.

Customers often ask which aspects of the competence model are the most important. Perhaps surprisingly, there are no statistically significant lumps in our data. The fundamental observations are that:

1. Successful sales people are usually outstanding in only a few of the 17 aspects we measure.

2. There are no obvious clusters in our data. In other words, there seems to be no particular advantage in having any specific abilities. Some successful sales people are outstanding organisers. For others, traditional sales skills are prominent. Some appear to succeed through extraordinary networking skills and so on.

3. Some of our data reflects performance improvement over time. This has been drawn from engagements where the same people have completed the same assessments more than once, separated by a period a year or more. Regardless of their starting scores, beginners have shown significantly greater improvement then their more experienced peers.

4. Part of the Sales Exam involves assessing intrinsic motivators. The most successful sales people appear to be those who are best suited to the type of sales role they are fulfilling. As with most things, when you take a close look different sales roles are distinguishable from both sales 'best practice' and customer preference perspectives.

Based on the evidence we have gathered, it seems to me that the obstacles faced by aspiring sales people are more to do with motivation and alignment than they are with innate abilities. Given sufficient determination and a normal range of natural abilities, anyone can make a living helping others do what they want to do (aka selling).

Sales Assessment

2010-09-17T14:54:00.001+01:00

Sales training without a trainer. Learning through assessment.

http://ping.fm/XhtJx

Sales Drive Journal - August 2010

2010-08-25T12:01:00.001+01:00

Sales Drive Journal - sales opportunity and lead generation focus. http://ping.fm/SMZPW

Sales Forecasting and Qualification

2010-08-23T12:33:00.001+01:00

Free sales win predictor. Increase your score to increase your chances.

Just subscribe at http://salessense.co.uk for access.

Rules for Sales Performance

2010-08-02T14:37:00.001+01:00

Clear rules govern sales success.

1. Make no assumptions.
2. Declare your intent.
3. Don't talk about the solution

http://ping.fm/iPB5j

Increase Sales Success

2010-07-21T10:42:00.001+01:00

Three simple simple rules govern sales success. Here are the rules:

http://ping.fm/MfNs7

Sales Leads

2010-07-20T14:24:00.001+01:00

Now is the time to review and renew new business sales generation, while you have the initiative:

http://ping.fm/dBqQX

Sales Team Health

2010-07-20T11:17:00.001+01:00

Twelve ways to evaluate business and sales team health.

http://ping.fm/HeokQ

More Time

2010-07-19T09:02:00.001+01:00

Nine things to do that will save you time. Sweeping strategies rather than old tactics.

http://ping.fm/UXYpZ

Channel Management

2010-06-28T09:57:00.001+01:00

What you don't know you don't know about selling through partners. Sales training for channel account managers. http://ping.fm/Sdztz

Vanishing Freewill

2010-06-28T09:36:00.001+01:00

What more could have been done? It's easy to spot deficiencies with 20:20 hindsight. Use hindsight as foresight:

http://ping.fm/5mB6S

Sales Win Predictor

2010-06-22T07:05:00.001+01:00

Choice is a temporary luxury. Choose while you can. Sales people change the world by choosing what to do. http://ping.fm/mOHMx

Unfair Advantage

2010-06-11T12:07:00.001+01:00

"The secret of business is to focus relentlessly on your unfair advantage - the thing you do that others don't." John Rollwagen

24 Peaks over 2400 feet in 24 hours of walking

2010-06-03T13:36:00.025+01:00

At 6 am on Saturday May 29th, our shrunken and somewhat better prepared group consisting of Dominic, Brett, Matt, Jacqui, and I begin our second attempt at the 24 peaks challenge. It involves cresting 24 Lake District mountains that are over 2400 ft (731.52m) in hight in 24 hours of walking over two days.

The Saturday peaks included Red Pike, High Stile, High Crag, Haystacks (which doesn’t count because it is under 2400 ft), Green Gable, GreatGable, Lingmell, Sca Fell Pike, Great End, Esk Pike, and Bow Fell.

We set off in fine spirits and then I realised that I had left my coat behind at the hostel! Brett volunteered Dom to fetch it. This might seem strange however, Dominic is a fireman and much fitter than the rest of us. He seemed pleased to jog back the mile we had walked to fetch my coat. I was very grateful for not having to go myself.

Red Pike (802m) is a mammoth climb however we were all fresh and we completed the ascent ahead of schedule and in good order.

The next two peaks, High Stile (807m) and High Crag (744m), are along the ridge and don't involve much climbing. Then we descend from to a saddle before climbing Haystacks. At 597m it doesn't count towards our 24 peaks.

In the picture above you are looking down from High Crag at Haystacks. You can see Brandreth (715m) and our next two peaks, Green Gable (801m) and Great Gable (899m) in the distance.

By the time we reached Great Gable the cloud base had descended. From then until our final descent we were navigating in hill fog with visibility down to 50 meters.

Jacqui kept our supporters and followers updated via texts and Face Book throughout the two days.

Great view!

From Great Gable we descend to Sty Head Pass and then begin our ascent of Lingmell (800m). During a practice ascent at the beginning of May, we came across a rescue in progress. About half way there is a very steep 5m scramble. Someone had fallen from it. A Royal Navy helicopter was in the process of lifting the injured walker.

From the top of Lingmell the summit of Scafell Pike (978m) would be easy to see, on a clear day. We couldn't see more than 50 yards however, having covered the same ground in the same conditions a month before, we knew which way to go, at least as far as Broad Crag (930m).

Despite being over 2400 ft by a wide margin and directly on our path to the next peak, Great End (910m), Broad Crag isn't on our list and doesn't count towards the 24 peaks.

The terrain between Broad Crag and Great End is a boulder field and there are no distinct paths. In the end, Jacqui had to lead us to it using her satellite navigation gadget.

With visibility so low and our energy levels waning, we made several further navigation errors along the way to Esk Pike (885m) and Bow Fell (902m), our last peak for the day.

Completing the first ten peaks took us fourteen hours. We finished Saturday's hike at Stool End Farm near Little Langdale after a six mile hike down from Bow Fell. Completing the challenge seemed a very remote prospect at this point.

The first day was a real test of resolve and stamina. Hearts and minds on the way up, knees and ankles on the way down not to mention the blisters. After nursing our aching and badly worn bodies, we finally fell into our bunks at around midnight.

On Sunday morning it was clear that some of our party were unable to continue. Wear and tear incapacitated all but two of our team.

The fourteen peaks for the second day are Red Screes, Dove Crag, Hart Crag, Fairfield, Seat Sandal, Dollywagon Pike, Nethermost Pike, Helvellyn, Lower Man, White Side, Raise, Stybarrow Dodd, Watson Dodd, and Great Dodd.

The Sun was well up on Sunday May 30th when Jacqui and I arrived at Kirkstone Pass to begin our ascent of the remaining peaks. Since the kitchen at the hostel didn't open until 7.15 and all of our food for the hike was in the fridge in the kitchen, we were forced to have a lie in and start later than intended.

Eventually, we begin our climb of Red Screes (776m) at 8.25 am. It was very steep all the way up however, we had a big advantage. The start at Kirkstone Pass is already at 457m.

The broken clouds were well above the peaks so we could see where we were going. This made navigation much easier. As if to counter this advantage, a chilling north west wind gusted to 45 knots throughout the day.

Next was a long walk and gentle ascent (compared with Red Screes) to the top of Dove Crag (792m). Hart Crag (822m) was mostly a pleasant stroll along a ridge. We had a minor descent of about 150m before climbing up to Fairfield (873m) along the same ridge.

Fairfield to Seat Sandal (736m) involves a very steep and taxing descent down a scree slope. The views were breathtaking however, my feet complained all the way down

Ascending the steep grass hill of Seat Sandal was very hard work. We took a few minutes for lunch at the top and surveyed our next challenge - Dollywagon Pike (858m) which can be seen on the left on the picture above.

Coming down Fairfield and climbing Seat Sandal, tested our resolve. After the long slog up the never ending stone steps of Dollywagon Pike, completing the eight remaining peaks within the 24 hour target seemed as unlikely as ever.

Then things began to get easier.

We almost missed Nethermost Pike (891m) because we could see Helvellyn (950m) about a kilometre ahead. Both lie along the ridge from Dollywaggon Pike. The path widens and the climbs became sedate compared with those we had already made.

Being fleeced by a Lamb in the shelter at the summit of Helvellyn provided a welcome distraction. It's mother was teaching it how to share in the tourist bounty.

Walking along the ridge granted our tender feet and aching muscles some welcome respite. Our 24 hour deadline was 6.25 pm. We still had six peaks to bag and only about three and a half hours to do it. It seemed just possible as we headed away from Helvellyn towards Lower Man (925m).

The remaining peaks - White Side (863m), Raise (883m), Stybarrow Dodd (843m), Watson Dodd (789m), and Great Dodd (857m) were increasingly closer together. What's more, the paths transitions from stomes to spongy grass, allowing our feet a measure of relief.

From Stybarrow Dodd, we could see the remaining peaks. With over an hour and a half left, it suddenly seemed certain that we would achieve our goal. We were astonished and delighted to arrive at the summit of Great Dodd after 8 hours and 58 minutes to complete the 24 peaks challenge in 22 hours and 58 minutes.

We chose an unmarked route down the mountain towards Legburthwaite. It was the shortest distance back to a road. It turned out to be a difficult descent. It wasn't so much not having a path to follow or the steepness of route. It had more to do with telling ourselves that we had finished when we reached the summit of Great Dodd. It was a psychological blunder. Once I had told my feet we were finished, they refused to go any further. I had to use both walking poles as crutches to hobble down the mountain.

Thanks and congratulations to all of our supporters, particularly Roland who ferried us about. Thanks to those who kept us going throughout the preparation hikes and those who made it through the gruelling first day.

Meeting the challenge and getting some much needed exercise was only part of the plan. Raising money for Cancer Research was the other part. If you think our cause worthwhile, please make a donation. Any amount will help. It is easy to donate via my Just Giving site. Simply follow this link.

http://www.justgiving.com/242424

Stretching the journey and challenge metaphor a little, the 24 peaks challenge could be likened to achieving a challenging sales target. All of the elements of forethought, planning, and preparation are involved. Effort, persistence, hard work, team work, and above all, determination are necessary aspects of success.

If you are looking for something out of the ordinary to inspire and stretch a team of high performers, consider the 24 peaks challenge. I'd be pleased to share more of what I have learnt along the way.

Persuasive Listening

2010-05-18T07:57:00.001+01:00

To speak only when the words would be better than silence would have been. This is the greatest sales challenge.

Sales Drive Journal - May 2010

2010-05-13T20:54:00.001+01:00

Latest crop of best sales practice and new business development ideas in our May newsletter here: http://ping.fm/fviTN

Keeping Up

2010-05-12T08:46:00.001+01:00

"We must take change by the hand or rest assuredly, change will take us by the throat."

Winston Churchill

Sales Success Formula

2010-05-10T08:47:00.001+01:00

Have you seen the sales success formula? It works for teams as well as individual sales people.

Details here:
http://ping.fm/4VqkA

Sales Enquiry

2010-05-08T21:34:00.001+01:00

Help people do what they want to do. It's easy to sell people what they want. Discovery is the hard part.

http://ping.fm/MK3a0

Risk more Failure

2010-05-06T07:09:00.002+01:00

If you want more success, risk more failure. "Fail forward faster", as Tom Peters put it. In sales this might mean do more prospecting.

Get that Sales Job

2010-03-21T21:28:00.000Z

This article has proved to be very popular. Perhaps it is not surprising. Businesses in many sectors remain cautious. Those finding it difficult to follow other careers may be considering a move into sales.

Take a different approach to stand out from the crowd.

Read 'Get that Sales Job' here.

Selling Consulting Services

2010-03-17T21:08:00.001Z

Delivering Selling Consulting Services as a public course this week, I will be sharing the results of our sales efficiency index review. This is something we first measured in 2002. Listing all the ways that we find new business and ranking them according to the resources used to obtain each lead. This helps us to focus our attention on the most effective route to market.

Comparing our 2002 results with our 2009 results revealed increases in business from referrals and the web site of 8% and 4% respectively however, the most significant increase came from email marketing. In 2002 our email marketing was generally directed at existing customers and most response measured as repeat business. Over the intervening 7 years we have built a much larger permission based list. In 2009 email marketing contributed four times as much of our total business as it did in 2002.

Our business source efficiency index results (% business contribution divided by % of resources used) for 2009 were as follows:

(Higher is better)
Repeat Business           2.5
Referrals                      1.4
Web Site                     1.3
Email Marketing           0.5
Consultant Approach   0.36
Networking                 0.36
Publicity                      0.33

These are our results. The numbers reflect our approach to lead generation and business development. Their are no particular reasons why other companies should have similar numbers however, we think that collecting and analysing business source data is relatively easy to do and it provides a useful indication of where resources might be invested more effectively.

If you would like to know more about the way we gathered the data or if you would like help to collect and analyse data for your organisation, I'll be pleased to explain what we did or provide the necessary support.

The Power to Speak

2010-03-14T21:24:00.000Z

Almost everyone can speak yet so many messages fail to have the desired effect. The disciplines of good presentations and persuasive public speaking can be applied to everyday communications.

"Speak so that your words are better than your silence would have been" wrote Gustav Kaser.

Register at www.salessense.co.uk for a free copy of my e-guide - the Power to Speak.

Never make another cold call again

2010-03-06T14:45:00.000Z

These days there is a realistic alternative to making cold telephone calls to find new sales prospects. It involves leveraging the latest online services to identify and woo potential customers before making a call or arranging to be introduced.

Embracing these new methods and learning how to leverage them may already be more important than learning how to prospect using the telephone. The new methods depend on applied intelligence. Those who learn how to use them effectively will have much more to offer prospective employers.

The new methods depend on skilful personal marketing. The fruits are a continuously strengthening network of warm contacts in selected markets.

Top sales people half a century ago relied on their ability to create positive relationships with a wide network of customers, suppliers, business partners, and others. Then, the most industrious sales person might have maintained a network numbering hundreds. Today’s top sales performers need to maintain networks containing thousands of professional contacts who are pre disposed to engage with them.

Answer these three questions to assess your use of a professional network to aid sales prospecting:

How many professional contacts do you maintain current contact information for including, telephone numbers, email address, company, and role?

Of these contacts, how many do you communicate with at least once every three months?

Of these remaining contacts, how many would be willing to introduce you to one of their contacts?

Your net number provides an indication of your professional network’s effectiveness as a sales prospecting resource. If more than a thousand people would willingly introduce you to a contact of their s for business purposes, your network is amongst the most developed. If your net number is less than 100, then it is amongst the least developed.

Before you congratulate or lambast yourself, contact networks are worthless as a business resource unless they are used to generate referrals and obtain introductions to prospective customers.

Judging from the casual enquires I make in the course of delivering sales training and fulfilling business development assignments, most sales people have yet to learn the necessary skills and habits to develop productive professional networks.

Wealth Creation

2010-02-26T15:38:00.000Z

"If the rich get richer, the poor get poorer." This seems a nonsense idea to me. Evidence of wealth creation is obvious. Across the march of decades, the collective value of companies continues rises, as indicated by stock market indices.
On the basis that to get something out, we must put something in, what is it that we put in to create wealth? What is the fundamental wealth creation ingredient? In answer, one might suppose work creates wealth.

The more work we do, the more wealth we create. While this holds some truth, like me you have probably observed people who work extremely hard for meagre returns and others who seem to create wealth as naturally as weeds seed a lawn in spring. Most people are looking to reduce their working hours these days rather than increase them. In any case we cannot increase the hours in a day.

‘Doing things better than they have been done before’ is a more promising idea. Successful companies continuously strive to provide better products and services. The competitive nature of business ties success to continuous improvement. One can observe the best companies acting to compete with their own success.

Companies are made up of people, in particular people who lead. Individuals who strain against the frontiers of possibility and harness the energy of their people to do the same are most likely to leverage wealth creation principles.
This idea is easy to absorb in the context of new products and services. How comfortably does it sit in relation to personal skill and knowledge? Is our individual capacity to innovate, linked to wealth creation? If you agree, it follows that increasing wealth requires increased personal ability.

Knowing that we can develop our personal wealth creation capacity is little help when every day, urgent and important tasks swallow our time. How can we find time for self-development in an over full schedule? It’s a ‘Catch 22’ situation (authors note: Catch 22 was popular book published over thirty years ago. Younger readers have probably missed it).
What is more important - getting things done or increasing our capacity to get things done? Free will is a frustrating concept. Our freedom of choice competes with our will. Recall the last time you resolved to rise early for the purpose of self-development, perhaps to exercise your body. Imagine yourself waking to your alarm call earlier than usual.

From the sound of the rain and wind outside your window, you know it is cold and wet. You feel sleepy and comfortable where you are. It is all too easy to roll over for thirty minutes more sleep. It is a hard discipline to match your resolve of the previous evening. Our state of mind changes according to our circumstance and affects our actions. How can we influence our state of mind?

Increasing capacity to create wealth demands that we put a high priority on learning and self-development. Immediate income tends to be a higher priority for most people. The phrase ‘Catch 22’ springs to mind again. It seems having freedom of choice is not the same thing as exercising it. In the same way that muscles are strengthened by use, so is choice.

The more we make hard choices, the easier they become. You will draw your own conclusions. My instincts tell me that wealth, in all its forms, is created by choice. The future belongs to those who get better at getting better.

Emotion Rules

2010-02-25T08:19:00.001Z

ad hominem - pronounced (ad HO-mi-nuhm, HOM-uh-nuhm) is todays word from A.Word.A.Day - http://wordsmith.org/words/ad_hominem.html. The word has Latin roots and means:

Appealing to one's prejudices, emotions, or other personal considerations rather than to intellect or reason.
Attacking an opponent personally instead of answering the argument.

There is a lot of this going on in UK politics. It has long been claimed that people buy on emotion first and logic second. Many studies back up this tenet yet if you ask anyone how they make important decisions, almost everyone claims that the opposite is true for them!

Making Changes

2010-02-24T11:21:00.002Z

Changing how you behave is like stretching an elastic band. As soon as you relax, the band returns to it's original shape. Permanent changes depend on changing who you are in some minor or sometimes major way.

Do you really need to change?

Playing to strengths is much easier than eliminating weaknesses.

OK, so you sill want to change. Three articles in our site user article directory at the SalesSense web site can help. You need to be a user to access them. Registration takes about 30 seconds.

The articles are:

Keeping Self Promises

Upgrading yourself

Change Behaviour the Easy Way

Clear Rules

2009-08-06T00:01:00.001+01:00

One of the reasons that I and many others I know are attracted to selling as a profession, is the freedom that most sales jobs offer. Rules are restrictions that many sales people resent, ignore, or break, just because they can. I mean the kind of rules that seem to restrict freedom rather than those that provide a foundation for civilisation. Rules such as, “we only buy from people on our approved suppliers list”, “you must speak to a nominated contact and can’t speak with the people who are involved in the decision”, and “It’s our policy not to divulge budget details”.

Despite having a well developed dislike for any rules that seem unnecessary, I have three rules that I do my best to obey in a sales process. Having broken them on numerous occasions and suffered the consequences of unexpected lost sales, I have concluded that these particular three rules are important. So much so that we now teach them in many of our sales training courses. Here are the rules:

1. Make no assumptions

On the surface, this first rule seems like common sense. While this may be so, it isn’t common practice. When you consider a sales conversation, the first opportunity for assumptions is in the language. Despite having a common language, people develop their own independent interpretation of the words and phrases they use. For instance, the term, ‘a communication problem’ even in the context of telephone use, could have dozens of different meanings. Therefore, if you think you know what a customer means when they use a particular term, acronym, phrase, or piece of jargon, you are in danger of breaking the first rule.

If you could listen in on a sales conversation and were to adopt a devils advocate perspective, you would find it easy to list the assumptions made when the participants begin to talk about the reasons for the meeting. People often begin by discussing the product or service that might provide a solution. This presumes a lot about the nature of the problem or opportunity. In many cases, the parties never get around to discussing the real reasons for buying something. Before you laugh and think, “it wouldn’t be me falling into this trap”, ask yourself how often you have found it difficult to persuade a manager that your sales forecast was realistic?

It is easy to say, “I’ll make no assumptions” and surprisingly difficult to adhere to the commitment.

In thousands of sales meetings, training courses, and sales simulations, we have observed how difficult it is for sales people to avoid making assumptions. Even experienced people leap to conclusions capable of leading to a disastrous result. To help people minimise the amount of guesswork, we developed a sales process labelled ‘CLEAR’. First, you will need to understand the other two rules.

2. Declare your intent to no assumptions

If you make an agreement with a customer at the beginning of a meeting to try to eliminate assumptions, you double your chances of getting the customer’s co-operation when you press for a better understanding of their need or requirement.

At the beginning of a meeting, it is easy to gain agreement on this point. No one wants to make guesses. It is a trivial thing and easy to forget. If you don’t make a point of doing it and haven’t prepared a way to ask smoothly, you are likely to overlook or consciously discard this step.

3. Don’t talk about your products, services, or solutions

The third rule is harder to observe than the first. After all, what are you there to do if it is not to talk about what you have to sell! Even if you have learnt that a seller’s first need is to understand the reasons for the customer’s interest, most often the customer prefers to talk about what they want to buy. It is the easy path. It doesn’t involve the pain of considering what isn’t known and what must be uncovered to guarantee a good outcome for both buyer and seller.

Once a need has been identified and the value of satisfying it qualified, the sales process should prove to the customer that what is being sold would deliver the promised results. At the same time, the buying process is about customers satisfying themselves that what they buy will deliver the required results. In financial and legal terms it is know as ‘due diligence’. It is in the interests of both parties to get this part right. Failure will lead to unpleasant or even catastrophic consequences for buyer and seller alike. Business to business sellers cannot afford unhappy customers. In most cases, buyers will blame sellers for performance failure whether it is deserved or not.

CLEAR is a guide to help sales people manage this process in a way that adds value for the customer and almost always leads to a better result for both parties. CLEAR stands for Circumstances, Leverage, Expand, Advantage, and Requirement.

A number of barriers are often thrown up when a sales person tries to obey the three rules and follow the CLEAR process. They are the same barriers that sales people run into when using other methods.

1. The customer won’t reveal the underlying reasons for their interest or requirement.

This may be because the person tasked with speaking to sales people, doesn’t know the reasons. Sometimes the customer thinks that it is not in their interests to tell outsiders. Another reason is a lack of trust in a particular seller or all sellers in general.

2. The customer will disclose the reasons but can’t or won’t reveal the extent of the affect on their business.

In many cases, the customer hasn’t measured the impact and doesn’t have a good assessment of the business value that might result from buying.

3. The customer won’t reveal how much they are willing to spend to get the results they want.

This may be because they don’t know or because they think it is not in their interests to tell the seller. As for No.2, it is common for buyers to involve sellers before they have a clear understanding of the issues they want to address and the results they want to achieve.

4. The customer won’t allow access to the people with influence over the decision.

Sometimes this is an imagined problem arising from a sales person’s reluctance to go around an established contact or to press for access. Sometimes it is a declared policy designed to protect staff from sales people. In other situations, vulnerable individuals try to prevent access. Reasons include fear about losing control, appearing weak, and exposing previous poor decisions.

5. The customer is vague about the decision making process.

Sometimes this is because their decision making process is ill defined. Sometimes the person being asked, doesn’t know their process. Sometimes it has yet to be defined. While less common, some customer’s think it is in their interests to keep it a secret.

6. The customer resists attempts to establish a sales process agreement (SPA).

More often, sales people either never consider the possibility or think it unnecessary. Once a sale is qualified, agreeing a step-by-step time bound process leading to either a yes or no decision is valuable to both parties.

7. The customer stops taking calls after the seller delivers the presentation or proposal.

I call this the post proposal black hole. It doesn’t happen in every situation and being in one, doesn’t necessarily mean that the sale is lost. A firm SPA will usually prevent a post proposal black hole forming.

The ‘CLEAR’ guide provides solutions for each of these seven obstacles. It defines a sales process that makes a substantial contribution to the customer’s thinking and differentiates the seller. The process allows the seller to demonstrate integrity. The diligence observed in the sales process infers trust in the seller and their proposed solution.

Selling is a process that should help customers achieve their objectives. If it does anything else, such as persuade buyers to do things that aren’t in their best interests, then the process is broken and all sales people are suspect. Those who find themselves fighting a broken process have an opportunity to repair it. Doing so creates value for the customer, sets the seller apart from competitors, and raises the value of all sales people. “All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them.” Walt Disney said so.

Vanishing Freewill

2009-04-06T22:40:00.001+01:00

In the moment, time for thought is gone. Reaction and instinct are all. Free will depends on forethought, planning, and preparation.

Pause only for moment

2009-04-06T22:35:00.003+01:00

Keep on learning to keep on earning. Whatever set us apart yesterday is common knowledge today and will be in common use tomorrow.

Micro Articles

2009-02-11T21:58:00.002Z

Less than 30 seconds is the target read time for micro articles that communicate meaningful messages in less than 120 words.

Raising productivity demands more of communication as well as . . .

Each wave of a new generation evolves and adopts new tools. Email, yesterday’s killer application, lies abandoned as the young favour instant messaging and twitter.

Say more with fewer words to keep up. Respect another’s attention span as you would their voicemail.

In response to a question on finding serious commission only sales people

2008-11-13T17:55:00.002Z

The best recruiters are extraordinary networkers. I imagine that you are already leveraging this avenue. If not, networking is not an instant solution. It used to take half a lifetime to develop a powerful network of professional contacts willing to help. These days it can be done in a couple of years by intelligently utilising email and online professional networking tools such as LinkedIn and Plaxo.

The next best way is to use job boards and web sites to capture those searching for the kind of opportunities you offer. Explaining how to do this would take more time than I have and in any case, there others who know it better than I. My advice would be to dedicate some Google time to finding subject experts. If what they know works, it will be worth paying for.

Double your money

2007-07-06T07:41:00.000+01:00

In my last post, I made an unscientific observation about cold calling results, concluding that one hit in twenty dials was some sort of universal constant. Suppose it were two hits in twenty. Would you double your money?

It seems likely. It may depend on what you define as a hit. It might be an appointment, or discovering an opportunity, or closing an order, or something else. It depends on what you are selling.

Since claiming that one hit in twenty was a common average, I have achieved two hits in twenty, twice! I don't mean to brag. Being inquisitive, I compared those I called to achieve a 1:20 result with those I called to achieve a 2:20 result. There was a difference. The better result came from better selection of the people I called.

Sell by Telephone

Cold Calling Constant

2007-07-04T07:55:00.000+01:00

Having recently renewed my own prospecting activity, I have come to notice a common cold calling ratio. My experience seems to be consistent with the ratio's achieved by clients.

I divide call results into seven categories. They are a hit (objective achieved), a call returned (during the session), new information, email or post follow up, fobbed off (when I get through but have to call back), and declined (a definite no). each dial can only be recorded in one category.

In a typical, 20-dial session, my results are similar to those of client telephone sales people. About half the dials result in no contact, five will involve gathering new information, two or three will be worth a written follow up, one will be a hit, and the remaining one or two will be split randomly between an outright 'no' (declined), a call back during the session, and being fended off with an excuse.

Why so few refusals? The main reason is that I only call prospects that are well matched with our target group and I help clients to do the same.

The critical observation here is that I'd better not screw up the one hit.

Sell by Telephone

So many answers in a simple facial expression

2007-06-26T09:01:00.000+01:00

Excerpt

Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence, Bantam, 2006, 18-19.

"One way moods differ from the grosser feelings of emotions, psychologists tell us, has to do with the ineffability of their causes: while we typically know what has caused an outright emotion, we often find ourselves in one or another mood without knowing its source. [Experiments] suggest, though, that our world may be filled with mood triggers that we fail to notice--everything from the saccharine Muzak in an elevator to the sour tone in someone's voice.

"For instance, take the expressions we see on other people's faces. As Swedish researchers found, merely seeing a picture of a happy face elicits fleeting activity in the muscles that pull the mouth into a smile. Indeed, whenever we gaze at a photograph of someone whose face displays a strong emotion, like sadness, disgust, or joy, our facial muscles automatically start to mirror the other's facial expression. ...

"We mimic the happiness of a smiling face, pulling our own muscles into a subtle grin, even though we may be unaware that we have seen the smile. That mimicked slight smile might not be obvious to the naked eye, but scientists monitoring facial muscles track such emotional mirroring clearly. It's as though our face were being preset, getting ready to display the full emotion. This mimicry has a bit of a biological consequence, since our facial expressions trigger within us the feelings we display. We can stir any emotion by intentionally setting our facial muscles for that feeling: just clench a pencil in your teeth, and you will force your face into a smile, which subtly evokes a positive feeling.

"Edgar Allan Poe had an intuitive grasp of this principle. He wrote: 'When I wish to find out how good or how wicked anyone is, or what his thoughts are at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my own mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' "

Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence, Bantam, 2006, 18-19.

Sales Training - Have your team teach themselves

2007-06-25T22:21:00.000+01:00

Disaster recipes and schemes to do myself out of business are not what I have in mind. Just consider the idea and how it could be made to work.

If your sales people could be motivated to teach themselves and each other; if they could be persuaded to take such a task seriously, sales meetings could be a lot more fun.

If a sales manager were to simply assign a topic to one sales person each month, and insist he or she prepares a 30-minute session including exercises and presentation, for delivery in the sales meeting, the sales person concerned would have to do some preparation or risk ridicule from colleagues.

I have used a similar idea using audio tapes as the subject matter. It certainly worked for me, the sales people in the team that I was responsible for managing, and the organisation.

Here is a way to ensure it works for you. Have a sales coach spend an hour helping each sales person prepare for his or her sales meeting slot. This would provide focus for their preparation and ensure that they have some good material. The sales person delivering the session is highly likely to learn from the experience and there is a good chance that other in the team will too.

The sessions might even include some friendly rivalry to see who delivers the best session. The competition would be an excuse for some fun and serious prizes at the annual bash!

Impact of forethought, planning, and preparation

2007-06-18T08:02:00.001+01:00

Think about it, make a plan, and prepare yourself to act on the plan. I bang on and on about this in my articles and probably in this blog. Here is an every day example. Like many, I am amongst the group of people who tend to have a glass or two of wine to relax in an evening. Also like many, I know that drinking every day is not good for my health. Every so often, I have applied a bit of will power and given it up for a few weeks. I feel better and by and by slip back into the same habit. My experience of applying will power to break the habit has been an uncomfortable one. I don’t like denying myself the pleasure I have associated with drinking the wine.

Stop. That doesn’t make sense. How can I live with the conflict? How can I get pleasure from drinking something that I know is killing me?

I have to break this association. It is, after all, just that - an association that I have formed at some unconscious level. There is nothing intrinsically pleasurable about drinking old juice that is well past it’s ‘sell by’ date. Imagine eating eggs that were twelve months old, or more.

That’s it, the solution is to use forethought, planning, and preparation to break the erroneous mental association. It is well worth taking twenty minutes to use introspection and tease out the buried associations. Then when you study them in the light of day, they evaporate. It is that easy to eliminate the pain of withdrawal. Will power works but it’s hard to inflict pain on yourself, especially after a tough day or some other crisis or intrusion. Taking the time to destroy the useless associations that accidentally form in ones head destroys the pain of giving up an unworthy habit.

Try it. What have you got to lose?

Doing it now

2007-06-17T15:10:00.002+01:00

There is no reason for being poor, accept choice. Someone recently reminded me of this idea. It may seem a bit outrageous, particularly if you live in a part of the world where scarcity dominates people’s attention. This can’t be said for most of the western world. Abundance is obvious to all, even to those who have yet to share it. Is it an accident?

The idea expressed in the first line reminds me of a quote from Gustav Kaiser who wrote, “Success is voluntary”.

Just thinking about abundance won’t help much. You have to add some other ingredients - namely, action and persistence. High intelligence or even education is not necessary if you simply find out how someone else has achieved the results you want. Pick someone who started in a similar circumstance and with similar resources then find out what they did.

Modeling is something that we all did as children. We were very good at it. Learning how to walk and talk depended on it. Somewhere along the way, many of us, me included, seem to forget this innate ability.

When you know you don't know

2007-06-06T21:33:00.000+01:00

So they won’t tell you what other options are under consideration
So they won’t give you access to all of the people involved
So they won’t reveal their true reasons for acting
So they won’t share their budget calculations

Seems like a broken sales process. Fix it with CLEAR – revealed in Selling Consulting Services in Reading on June 21st.

Snowdon Trek

2007-06-06T00:57:00.001+01:00

From Pen Y Pass you can take a skateboard. I’m not kidding. You could ride some sections of the Pig and Miners tracks. Despite this, we (several friends and family members) found it a breeze. About a 100 mile an hour breeze in places. Sunday May 27th 2007 dawned grey, wet, and cold. Just like traditional English Bank holidays. Then it got wetter. As we neared the top, the rain turned to horizontal Snow. Personally, I blame Andrew, the member of our party who said we needed a bad weather practice!

If you really want to see the pics go to www.bigtrek.org. If you would like to support our efforts to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis research, go to www.justgiving.com/clivemiller.

Support MS Research

2007-06-06T00:47:00.000+01:00

Raising money for Multiple Sclerosis research is the aim of my attempt at the Three Peaks Challenge in August. If you would like to support the cause, visit www.justgiving.com/clivemiller. I'll be publishing a diary for all contributors, and offering free writing services for anyone who makes a donation of £300 or more.

Unblock your Sales Genius

2007-02-21T08:20:00.000Z

Being the best you can be might not inspire you. Whether it is having enough money to choose your work and life style, or the kind of success that wins influence and status, or gaining the recognition you deserve, or feeling the excitement of competition, or simply securing your future, tapping into your personal genius is bound to get you more of what you want.

The secret of genius is no secret at all. It is simply a matter of developing strengths until they become extraordinary. Unless weaknesses are a threat, people can ignore them or compensate for them. Developing self-awareness and self-knowledge may be the greater challenge. Some people seem to find their niche easily - a circumstance where they can do what they love and stretch their abilities at the same time. The majority of people seem to be unsure of the best way to tap their inner brilliance. A few people abandon hope by refusing to believe that they have any talent at all.

What are your strengths? This common interview question invites people to make something up. Even the few, who have a clear self-image and can put their sense into words, can benefit from an objective, independent assessment that crystallises perception of their best abilities and most compelling motives.

Genius emerges when people combine their talents and passions to achieve something worthwhile. Discovering talents, recognising passions, and choosing a worthwhile purpose are the aims of a worthy quest. For sales people, competency frameworks like the Sales Exam provide a map.

Attitude and motivation hold the key to deliverance. Connecting the right mind set and intrinsic motivation to the necessary outcome, via daily actions, is the key to outstanding results in sales, or any other endeavour.

If you are interested in what you sell, learning enough to be considered an expert ought to be easy. Product knowledge is widely considered an important aspect of sales success. Caring about the products and services you sell connects what you do with your latent genius.

Consider how much you know about the following. Score yourself on a scale of one to five for each topic. If you know all there is to know, score a five. If your knowledge represents a fifth or less of what you estimate is knowable, score a one.

Product names, service descriptions, part numbers and pricing
Features of each product or service
Benefits of each feature
Differences compared with competitive products or services
Unique selling benefits – things your stuff does that nothing else will
Applications – what your customers do with your products or services
Product and service development –the people who are doing it and where it is headed

If your score is below 17, your lack of product knowledge is likely to be holding you back. If you scored 24 or more, you are probably very interested in the products and services you sell. You are also likely to be considered an expert by your customers and peers.

Those who cannot find inspiration in the products and services they represent, have some other options for acquiring guru status. In-depth expertise in anything that customers are interested in will be valued both inside and outside the organisation. You can be an expert in business management instead of products. This causes people to seek your help with marketing, business development, financing, organisation or other business management issues. To become an expert, specialise in something you are passionate about.

Instead of becoming a product or business expert, consider becoming a customer expert. Answer these questions, taken from our B2B Sales Exam, to assess your customer expertise.
Precisely how does your product or service contribute to customer success?

Specifically, how much does your product or service contribute to your best customer's profits?

What does your customer do for its customers to justify making a profit or receiving their support?

How well can you express your best customer's business goals and objectives?

If the job of selling excites you, become a sales expert. What would a sales expert know?

The names, accomplishments, and methods of leading sales people in the field. Someone with intimate knowledge of sales skills and methods, who could speak of them with confidence and conviction, is likely to be considered an expert. Knowing the work of respected authors on the subject of selling and sales practices is another sign. Ability to solve difficult sales problems such as gaining access to senior executives or defeating superior competitors would be evidence of specialist skills. Those who can teach others how to sell, demonstrate valuable expertise.

Unblocking the sales genius you harbour is simply a matter of playing to your strengths. It is safe to ignore weaknesses unless they deny you opportunities to use your strengths. If you are not sure what your strengths and motivators are or if you find it difficult to articulate them clearly, take the trouble to investigate them. In common sense terms, know what you are good at and most like doing, then find opportunities to develop and use your best abilities.

The Sales Exam competency framework provides a map. These sixteen aspects of sales effectiveness offer a starting point for identifying your strengths. Follow this link for expanded descriptions.

Answering common customer questions
Market and industry understanding
Customer and prospect understanding
Company understanding
Understanding and articulation of value
Proactive telephone prospecting
Networking for new sales opportunities
Opportunity qualification
Forecast accuracy
Organisation and time management
Sales methods used
Interpersonal communication skills
Objection handling, closing, and negotiation
Self-development
Attitude towards the job
Motivation to do the job

Whatever your strengths and inspirations, the diversity of opportunities available in a sales role offer you the chance to realise your potential and use your unique combination of interests and abilities in pursuit of a worthwhile purpose. Selling is about helping people and organisations do what they want to do. Those who succeed deserve rich rewards. Genius is using what you have, to achieve extraordinary results. George Bernard Shaw said, “Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.”

When you can't afford to lose a sale

2006-04-06T12:31:00.000+01:00

When you can't afford to lose a sale, take the time to understand the politics in the customer's organisation. Blaming a lost sale on the politics is no compensation for the unrecoverable investment of time and money. Identify all of the people who will care about the outcome before the sale is concluded. This will include those who join from outside to fill vacant or new positions, those from inside who are promoted or reassigned, and those working for outside organisations who's opinion is valued. Next, find out what they think. Then decide if you need to do anything about it.

If you would like to know how these things are achieved, this is an open invitation to arrange a conversation or meeting to discuss how to win more high value sales opportunities. For general information about relevant sales training courses, please follow either of these links: Enterprise Selling or Advanced Account Management. Look below for more pointers on this topic.

Developing a deeper customer and sales opportunity understanding

1. Create an accurate organisation chart.

2. For the amount of money concerned, learn the sign off procedure; who is involved in each step and how they decide whether or not to agree if the money should be spent.

3. Find out who each interested person prefers to win.

Think and Grow Rich

2006-02-15T19:35:00.000Z

I like to listen to books. In particular, books of a professional interest. These days there is no time to keep up a good professional reading habit. It is my good fortune that books are increasingly available as audio titles. The downloadable variety are often no more expensive than buying a paper version.

Availability of inexpensive audio players makes it easy to use travel and exercise time more productively. This habit has led me to acquire audio versions of books that have rested on my bookshelves unread. I have even bought audio books that I have read, and gained even more from them by listening. I recently found an mp3 version of Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ offered for $8. It has been a pleasure to reacquaint myself with this landmark work.

I first read Hill’s life’s work in 1984. Looking back, I can recognise the influence it had on my views and outlook. As you may know, encouraged by Dales Carnegie, Napoleon Hill set out to identify the natural principles by which a person, almost any person, can make themselves rich. When he finished the book in the nineteen thirties, money or the lack of it was very important to Americans. It seems to me that the thirteen principles that Hill defined are perfectly applicable and relevant to the success of any endeavour to which people truly commit themselves. And further, this is as true today, seventy years on, as it was in the years leading up to the Second World War.

Filled with a Terrible Resolve

2006-01-13T19:21:00.000Z

It is easy to make resolutions. Compliance is often relegated into second place, behind the perceived needs of the moment. First check your leverage. How important is the personal change you are considering. Will it improve your life and if so, how exactly? What will happen if you never get around to this change, exactly?

Below are three of seventeen ways to help make a personal change happen. All seventeen are in the sales archive, accessible from your private area on the web site. Follow this link to login. If you don't already have access, follow this link to register, free of charge.

First three of seventeen ways to leverage personal change:

1. Make a list of all the things you will end up with, or have to cope with if you don't change. Extend your imagination into the future and experience how you will feel when these things come about.

2. Make a list of all the things you will gain or experience if you do change. Extend your imagination into the future and experience the joy of your accomplishment.

3. With regard to the change you are contemplating, which motivates you more, the prospect of success or the fear of failure. Do you mostly think about things going wrong or things going right? Are you better at avoiding danger or do you like a little risk in your life? If you favour caution, use the negative list in suggestion 1. It will help you more than the positive list. If you like to be on the frontier, make more use of the positive list in suggestion 2.

Follow this link to log in and read the other fourteen suggestions.
If you haven't got an account, register here. It's free and gives you access to a range of other resources.

Fantastic quote

2006-01-06T14:26:00.000Z

I just came across this fantastic quote and had to share it.

"Yesterday is dead. Tomorrow hasn't arrived yet.
I have just one day and I'm going to be happy in it"

Groucho Marx

Find business in your own back yard

2005-12-29T16:45:00.000Z

First look in your own back yard. If you need more business, chances are that you can find some opportunities amongst your existing and previous customers. It is always easier to communicate with people who know you. Remember the 'Acres of Diamonds' story where a South African farmer sells his farm to go diamond prospecting only to discover that the farm he sold was littered with them.

Simple steps for searching in your own back yard:

1. Send all of your old customers an invitation to update their contact information. Include an incentive for responding to your request.

2. Send all of your customers a survey asking about anticipated needs for the coming year. Include an incentive for completing the survey. For more complete results, telephone them.

3. Send all of your customers a survey asking about satisfaction with the services provided. For more complete results, telephone them.

4. Manually review old customer records to check contact details and update e-mail addresses.

5. Hold an internal competition for your sales team based on how much business they can get from customers who haven't bought in the last year.

Tell me a about a new idea, method, or technique that has worked or you. I will send a free gift for every submission and supply a free place on a one day self led course for submissions I publish.

On the ice, it’s too late to adjust your speed

2005-11-21T08:17:00.001Z

I often bang on about forethought, planning, and preparation. It may be obvious that success in anything largely depends on thinking about it in advance, organising one’s thoughts, and practising what will need to be done. Once you arrive on the scene, it’s too late to do anything but react to the circumstances as instinct dictates. When you are on the ice, it is too late to adjust your speed.

For instance, here are just a few things to do before visiting a potential customer for a sales meeting:

Review the customer information. Usually this is easily done by visiting their web site.
Prepare an agenda. Decide in advance what you want to discuss.
Give the customer an opportunity to add any additional items to the agenda and prepare for the meeting.
Confirm the appointment and agenda a few days before the meeting. It will be a waste of time if they have forgotten or there has been a miss communication.
Prepare any materials you will need. If you leave it until the last minute, you may have to compromise.
Check journey times and arrangements. If you leave it until the last minute, you may be frustrated by foreseeable problems.

The elusive heart of living

2005-11-16T21:58:00.000Z

Consumed with purpose, existence, desire, goals, presence, and passion
What purpose is the design of life, striving written in to every breath?
Caught between the chaos of possession and the bliss of selfless expression

Release without destruction, joy without encumbrance
Such is hope that no depths can endure her light
Simple to recline, engulfed in her embrace

From fear I come to appreciate security
From neglect I come to appreciate attention
From despair I come to appreciate hope
From love I come to appreciate devotion

Bitter sweat is contrast
Perfect peace is nirvana
One cannot be known without the other

Don’t ask me what this has to do with selling. The mood took me!

Light side versus the dark side

2005-11-14T21:21:00.000Z

“Has him the dark side does!” In a recent training course we spent some time discussing sales ethics. In sales you have to adopt one of two uncomfortable attitudes if you want to use your inner power to persuade.

If the customer wants what you think is right, there is no persuasion to be done unless you have a penchant for self sabotage through over selling.

Otherwise, you must attempt to persuade them of the right solution or walk away. If you truly believe that your solution is best for the customer, then you can free your inner power to support your efforts to persuade. This attitude is uncomfortable to many people because it is a bit like playing god. You have to believe that you know better than customers, what they need.

The other way to leverage your inner power is to decide that your job is to persuade customers to buy your solution regardless of whether it is the right for them. After all, it is up to the customer to carry out their own due diligence. This is the ‘I don’t care if you get what you need’ attitude. This perspective is at least as unpalatable as the ‘I know better’ attitude yet it is just as effective for releasing natural ability to influence an outcome in one’s favour.

The most successful sales people have learnt how to release the full force of their power to influence and persuade. To use another Star Wars quote, ‘The force is strong with this one”!

Utter Blindness

2005-11-04T16:01:00.000Z

It seems we really cannot see what is in front of our nose! It’s nothing to do with vision or observation. To cope with the overwhelming amount of information available, the human brain must (or does) filter out much of what we can gather via our five senses.

Every time I re-examine one of our products or services, I find obvious ways to improve it and cannot understand why I had not seen them before. What was perfect before is now flawed and I feel compelled to immediately correct the imperfection.

In a similar way, when revisiting books or other learning sources, there are always new ideas that had eluded me before. It seems that ceasing to continually refresh knowledge and understanding inevitably leads to stagnation and declining effectiveness.

Forgotten Joy

2005-10-31T08:07:00.000Z

In the constant cycle of seeking new customers, it is easy for salesmen and women to forget the joy of meeting new people. One of the reasons I love to sell is the joy of making new acquaintances and sometimes, new friends. Pressure to perform clouds the simple pleasure of learning about another’s world, purpose, and ambitions. The great thing about being in a sales role is that we are paid to help people get more of what they want. This may seem an odd statement. Many think of sales staff as people who are trying to get them to do something they don’t want to do. While there are those who act this way, it is a futile approach to selling. If you are trying to get people to do what they don’t want to do, your only hope is to mislead them. On the other hand, if you set about helping people do more of what they want to do, or get more of what they want to get, then you can be truly on their side.

Visibility recovered

2005-10-25T14:42:00.000+01:00

Having recovered the number eight position for our web site when someone uses the search term ‘sales training’ in Google (from the UK), I am tempted to imagine that we could turn our hand to professional search engine optimisation. In case readers are interested, I’ll try to share how we recovered from the fall to number fifty four mentioned in the previous post.

Stay with me, this does have some sales relevance. The answer is through taking the trouble to understand more about the way Google works out how to rank results. In short, it is through a combination of several factors including how the words are arranged on the page, how many pages of a site are indexed, which sites the page links to, and which sites link to the page. If this seems complicated it is because, it is!

So is selling when many people are involved in the decision making process.

The more trouble you take to really understand the customers situation from the perspective of everyone involved, the more clearly you will know if you can win and what you still have to do.

Developing new sales ideas and techniques

2005-10-19T15:40:00.000+01:00

If it isn't broken, don't fix it. Resist the urge to meddle with things that are working well. In an effort to push our web site visibility further up the first page for a Google search on the term, 'sales training' we inadvertently dumped it from position 8 to 54. Contradicting this advice is the idea that you should always try to compete with your best - best methods, techniques, and habits - to improve on them. If you don't, someone else will, causing you unexplained losses. The minor catastrophe with our web search visibility has forced us to learn rapidly and understand how we came to have top ten visibility in the first place.

How to out compete with yourself without risk

1. Change only one thing at a time. Otherwise it won't be clear what caused the different result, good or bad.
2. Prepare your idea fully. Follow the carpenters first rule - measure twice, cut once.
3. Test your new idea, method, or technique in-house first. Try it out on colleagues and managers in your company or possibly friendly customers.
4. Test small. Use it in carefully selected customer situations.
5. Test with a representative sub group of customers or prospects. Don't discard a promising idea on the first failure.
6. Write down your test observations immediately, while they are still fresh in your mind.
7. When you find a new way that works, have the courage to apply it, the conviction to defend it, and the resilience to persevere.
Tell us a about a new idea, method, or technique that has worked for you. I will send you a gift if I publish it on our web site - www.salessense.co.uk. Send it to blogresponse@salessense.co.uk or post it here.

'Measurement matters' reminder

2005-10-06T17:11:00.000+01:00

Earlier this year I received an exciting birthday present – a GPS based gadget for runners. It tells you how far you have run, how long you have been running, and what your present pace is. For some years I have been pounding the foot paths to take a break from the computer screen and to keep the belly under control! Many years ago, pace was much more important to me. As I run on my own and vary my route for interest, I had not been paying much attention to how fast I ran.

The new gadget is like running with a partner who is setting a brisk pace. Because I can see how fast I am running at any moment, I find myself automatically trying harder. The distance readout ensures that I have no way to kid myself that I am running further or faster. The gadget holds me up to my own standards and makes me put in more effort.

I need the help, Belly is gradually winning.

There is an old saying - “People do what you measure”. For me, this unexpected new experience shines a spotlight on the truth in the saying. It reminds me of something else we often say in sales training – “If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. Maybe there are some neglected measurements that could help you reach higher levels of performance.

Under my nose

2005-10-01T11:28:00.000+01:00

“Use the force Luke”. This line from Star Wars, when Darth Vader is chasing Luke Skywalker down the alleys of the Death Star, echoes in my head. The disembodied voice of Ben Canobi speaks words of encouragement in Luke’s ear. I have tried to make it work for me on the golf course many times, always with disastrous results. The other day, I realised that my lazy brain was using this as an excuse to disengage from the task. I am not Luke! I changed the words and heard the cultured voice of Alec Guinness say, “Use your brain Clive” and struck the ball. Twenty feet later it sank into the hole. So it seems I can instruct my brain to perform. If I want to be brilliant, I have to remember to turn the spotlight on. I will experiment with this idea, further. Perhaps this note will persuade you to do the same. Post your thoughts or results.

During the same game, I found myself repeatedly reminding myself to keep my eye on the ball. Everyone knows the meaning of the words, ‘keep your eye on the ball’. Yet after another wayward shot down the fairway, as I rewound my memory to try and notice what I did wrong, I realised that in the moment of striking the ball, my eye was not on it! Instead I was concentrating on my swing or beginning to look where I wanted the ball to go. In this case I blame my lazy thinking. Concentration on the moment is everything. Thinking about where the club head is moving from; or were the ball is moving to, destroys the integrity of my stroke. So to learn from this, to increase concentration, I must exclude past and future moments from my thinking and somehow, only pay attention to the ‘now’.

If you play golf you might relate to this. If not, just use your imagination. If you have never been on a golf course, you have probably played crazy golf, so you should have some reference memories.

When I have clarity of thought, certainty of purpose, and concentrate in the moment, I seem to be more successful in anything I do.