Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

During a recent sales meeting that I was in, the sales reps began describing the current status of their sales opportunities. One of the reps, John, decided to tell the group about a deal that he had just 'closed'.

Now, before I finish that story, I must tell you this one.

Last Tuesday, I was talking to my friend, Whitey K., about the trip my wife and I had taken through the Florida Keys.  As part of that discussion, I related to Whitey my tarpon fishing story.

Me: We hired a guide and went tarpon fishing.
Whitey:  Catch anything?
Me: As a matter of fact, I caught a 5 foot, 125 pound tarpon.
Whitey: What was that like?
Me:  It took 20 minutes to 'leader the fish' and I was thinking "this isn't so tough."  Our captain, Captain Dan, said, 'You're not done yet. It'll be at least another ten minutes before you get that fish in the boat."  Just then, the fish took off 300 feet of line and made a couple of big jumps out of the water.  I immediately started trying to reel back in all the line I had just lost.
Whitey:  So how long did it take?
Me:  35 minutes and at least 20 trips around the boat! I nearly fell into the water but I finally got the fish back to the boat.
Whitey: That's cool! Did you get a picture?
Me:  Uhmm, not really.
Whitey: How come? Didn't you have a camera?
Me: No, we had a camera. I, uh, we, uh... never really got the fish in the boat. You see,  tarpons are catch and release.  They're not good to eat. They're considered a sport fish and so it's catch and release.
Whitey: So you got it close to the boat and the captain held it to get a picture and take the hook out?
Me: No, not really. You see, what happened is that I finally got the fish next to the boat and Captain Dan reached for it once but couldn't quite reach it. Then just as we were getting it along side of the boat the second time, it jumped out of the water, snapped its head, broke the line and got away.
Whitey: Then how do you know it was 5 feet long? 
Me:  We were estimating. 
Whitey: And because you didn't get it in the boat, you couldn't weigh it.
Me:  Uhm, that's right.
Whitey: (one full minute of uncontrollable laughter...)
Me: What are you laughing at?
Whitey:  Let me make sure I have this right.  You didn't get the fish in the boat, you didn't measure it, you didn't weigh it and you don't have any pictures.
Me: Uh, yeah, that's about right.  (I start to laugh.)
Whitey:  Well, now that is some fish story!

Now, going back to the first story without going into all the details, here is a summary of John's 'closed deal'.

  - They really liked the presentation.
  - They really liked us.
  - They are certain that, unless the current provider comes in with an
     unexpected great deal, we will get the business.
  - The prospect will certainly recommend that the company go with us.
  - If we show them a contract for 15 months instead of 18 months, that
     would be great.
  - They are going to check with one more reference, but they don't 
    anticipate a problem.
  - I'm supposed to call them next week for final details and to schedule a time
    to get the contract signed.
  - The deal, if sold, is a million dollar sale.
  - The deal, if sold, is supposed to transact on August 1, 2010.
  - No deposit.
  - No contract signed
  - Supposed to talk next week.
  - The decision maker wasn't in the room.

I don't know about you, but to me, this sounds like one heck of a "fish story!"

               *************************************** 

Are you landing your "fish" and closing the deals? Click here for a FREE checklist to help you qualify your prospects and "reel them in"!!

There is great excitement about the NCAA basketball tournament for both the men and the women.  How would you go about creating your own Sales Madness for sales in the month of March?  As Dave Dittman from Dittman Incentive Marketing says:  What motivates and inspires someone is as unique as the individual. But the principles of workplace performance improvements are universal: Communication. Training. Measurement. Recognition. Rewards. Relationships.

1. Create your own pool of fellow sales people - at least 8; they don't even have to be in the same company
2. Identify the sales metrics to use to determine the 'game'
3. Identify what is a 'win'
4. Using the 'pull a name out of the hat' method, create your pairings and bracket
5. Create a reward for winning at each level; allow for a play back in opportunity so that people just don't quit after their first 'loss'
6. Have people vested in the winnings - they put in money, kind of like an ante in a poker game
7. Identify the payout for the top three spots - this must be motivating enough to get people to actually want to win
8. Go play

Now my guess is that, unlike the tournaments being played now, you want to have more than three weeks of competition.  If you have a one call sales cycle, that format will work.  If you have a three month sales cycle, then your tournament would actually start in January and culminate in March.

Sales and selling can get boring.  Contest normally don't work because they aren't created and run by the sales people and too often those that don't 'win' early are eliminated and lose enthusiasm.  Try this and see what happens. By the way, I'm calling this March Madness because it fits for the current event.  You can have Summer Sales Slam, October Fest, Happy New Year or Super Sales Bowl. Don't wait until next year to drive your sales.

Guaranteed?  Only if you execute what is outlined below.  I'm sure you've been asked by a prospect if you can guarantee a product or service that you offer.  In the world of sales, that can be one of the toughest questions to answer.  When I am asked that question, I tell them "yes, if": if they can guarantee that they (the company or sales person) can guarantee that they will do everything that we teach them.  No one makes that guarantee. Here are my steps to guaranteed sales success for next year.  You do these things and you will succeed.

1. Take time to establish personal (not business sales goals) goals that you have to accomplish (non-negotiable). Set time lines for, and share these goals with people that will make sure you are doing everything possible to succeed.
2. Build a success formula (link to our resources) so that you can translate your personal goals and the associated income required into an action plan that, when executed, will allow you to reach your goals. (The key here is that you must know your business to arrive at the various critial converstion ratios from one sales step to the next.)
3. Report your sales activity results weekly (huddles)to someone that cares enough to congratulate you on success or coach you when you are failing.
4. Undertand that missing an activity target by just 1% is still failing.
5. Review your actual sales activity results monthly against your success formula assumptions and make adjustments if your are falling short in effort or execution requirements. 
6. Once you identify gaps in your performance, reach out and get professional coaching help from someone that can help you, not just coddle you.
7. Take responsibility.  Don't blame the economy, the competition or your company for failure.  You are in control of your own outcomes, good or bad.
8. Manage yourself to success.  Do not let yourself get sideways with tasks and activities that make you feel good at the expense of the hard stuff like prospecting.  Prospecting is the job. It is what separates you from account managers.
9. Reward yourself for success and establish consequences for failure.

I have to give credit to Ron Stewart for this phrase- The Tail of The Fail.  Ron is a senior sales management executive for one of our clients and he talks about two things when he addresses his sales people: the tail of the sale and the tail of the fail.

As I analyze my own personal sales fails from the last 12 months, they each have their own story.  But, if I think about my entire history of sales fails, they boil down to these 3 most common errors:

1. Not getting to 'VITO' (very important top officer).  I was talking to a PEO provider this past year.  I had met with my point of contact and with his management team. I had an agreement that we would move forward starting in March.  March came and went, so did April, May and June.  Finally, I got a return phone call and discovered that the senior partner in the firm said "no" to the project.
2. Not getting budget.  A year ago, I was engaged in a discussion with a benefits group.  I had worked with this group before and had a very good relationship with the influencer/decision maker.  I asked about budget and got a budget to work with.  I failed to double check to make sure he was willing to spend that kind of money; he had said that he was.  But the objection to execution was "I just can't spend that kind of money right now."
3. Anemic Pipeline = being desperate - When your pipeline is low, you will have the tendency to propose solutions to people that don't qualify. These people don't qualify because they really don't have a compelling reason to take action or make a change.  Such was the case with a group in NYC.  The initial meeting was a good one, but I failed to ask the question, "Are these problems you are talking about and the associated cost compelling enough to take action?"  Didn't ask the question, made a proposal, didn't get the business.

I promise you that it is not easy to admit my tails of the fails. But that is one of the keys to becoming more successful. Be gutsy enough to say that you screwed up, find out what you need to do differently, and then learn from your mistakes. 

One more thing, though, make sure you work on the right end of the problem.  If you are failing to execute, you need to do a quick self assessment as to ‘why' the problem is happening.  In my case, it wasn't a need for approval issue, nor a money issue, nor a lack of a selling system issue; it was an issue of not effectively having a pre-call session with one of my other experts in-house.  I was not prepared as well as I needed to be. The result- failure to sell.

Like many sales training and development companies that focus on selling and sales management, we had our way of describing the sales process but nothing seemed to stick.  A couple of years ago, Dave Kurlan wrote a book called Baseline Selling.  It is a description of the sales process that Dave had been using a for a couple of years, and as a distributor for the  Objective Management Group, of which Dave is president, I was familiar with his approach.  So, I sought permission to use the diamond and here we are today. Our clients now describe where they are in a sales opportunity by the current base they are on.  Finally, a 'sticky' way to get people to remember the sales process. In this post, I focus on getting to first.  According to answers.com, there are 8 methods a batter can use to arrive at first:

1. Get a hit
2. Get walked
3. Get hit by a pitch
4. Fielder's choice
5. Reach on and error
6. Dropped third strike
7. Catcher's interference
8. Fielders obstruction

This is how I see it:

1. Get a hit - getting referral by a center of influence
2. Walk - you get introduced by a client
3. Hit by a pitch - someone responds to a direct mail piece 
4. Fielder's choice - cold call appointment
5. Reached on an error -get an appointment with a non-decision maker
6. Dropped third strike - You begged for the appointment with something like "I would like to come by for a few minutes to show you the kind of work that I do.
7. Catcher's interference - referred 'down' by the real decision maker
8. Fielder's obstruction - meeting with someone that is open minded, in the process of, looking at, thinking about.

In baseball, a batter usually wants to get onto first base any way possible.  But how about you?  When you look at the list, is there one of the 8 that seems to be the best way to get there?  If so, ask yourself how you are taking advantage of that 'best' way.  Ask yourself if you are taking advantage of your greatest skills and greatest resources to maximize your opportunity to get to first base.

My questions to you are:

If you are not spending most of your time and effort on the best way, why not?

What impact does this have on your effort, your results and your effectiveness?

What do you need to stop doing in order to start doing what would provide you the best and most effective results?

When are you going to start?

One of the most common objections at time of presentation is money.  The prospect has to crunch numbers, look it over, run it past someone, take it to, etc.  All of these objections may be true but underneath all of them is the issue of money.  An objection at time of presentation is a clear indication that during the sales process the sales person failed to discuss budget. The reasons are many and are good for other posts. For today, I want to provide you a suggested 'technique' to make sure that you don't get this objection at time of presentation.  The dialog might sound something like this.

"Multimillion dollar problems are not solved cheaply nor are they solved well by the lowest bidder.  Based on what we've discussed so far today about the problems you have to overcome and the outcomes you are trying to achieve, your solution is normally going to cost you ______ dollars, ________ time and ________ investment of resources.  My guess is that you've thought about this and this investment of money, time and resources is either more than you thought or less than you thought.  My job is to provide you the right solution to your problems and help you make the numbers work.  How do we proceed from here?"

Clearly, this will help you get into the discussion around money, time and resources without feeling like you are putting pressure on someone.  And normally, that is the reason sales people fail to ask about money. It is a record collection.  It makes them feel uncomfortable so they just ignore the conversation until time of presentation.  And then it's too late.  You have to work too hard to recover and now make a solution fit the budget.  This often leads to a 'no sale'.

You've prepared.  You had a great start to the relationship by conducting an amazing first client facing appointment.  Now what?  "Now" is where the weak link normally occurs in every sales organizations execution of an effective sales process. 

"Now" is the follow-up after the appointment and the preparation for the next step.

For purposes of today's post, I will assume that the next step is to present a proposal that meets the clients needs, it's within their budget and you'll be in a position to answer all of their questions once you present.  Having stated that, your follow-up should be a memo or documented communication of some sort that should review what has been discussed and what is expected at the next step. The next step in our example is "presenting a solution".  Sandra Usleman of USI - Austin calls this step the "as we agreed to" letter.

The "as we agreed to" letter would look like and read something like the following:

• Opening, greeting
• Review previous meeting discussions
• "Agreed to" points
• The problem or desired outcome
• The budget of time, money or resources needed to solve the problem or arrive at the desire outcome
• The decision process
• Next step - getting a decision to move forward or stop
• Follow-up phone call to confirm the contents of the letter

As simple as this may sound, it can have significant impact on your ability to close more business. The challenge isn't in completing this step; the challenge is making sure that you cover the critical points in an effective selling system as outlined above.

The start of any undertaking is obviously the most important step.

"Every journey starts with the first step" 

"If you want to run a marathon, you have to start with the first step"

"Putting yourself in a position to win means you have to start competing"

When it comes to building the confident and trusting relationship associated with a strong seller / buyer relationship,  the start is especially true. I'm not just talking about the immediate "bonding and rapport" part of selling.  That is important, but the "start" isn't a 5-minute segment of chitchat talking about the sailfish on the wall or the soccer pictures on the credenza.  No, the start is the entire first contact process.  It doesn't matter if it is a phone call or a meeting at a chamber meeting or the initial meeting after the phone call.  It's the start that will often, if not always, determine your finish. In today's post, I focus on the initial face-to-face meeting with a suspect.

I want to describe this segment via the "HAVE-TOs"

• You have to be prepared (pre-call strategy).  Aside from your internet research, you have to prepare for the sales process.  In other words, you have to know what questions you are going to ask that are going to move the sale forward, not just questions about the technical aspects of their current position or status.  You have to anticipate the suspect's answer to those questions and then be prepared with your follow up dialog.  Too many sales people take this step for granted because "they've been in the business for ... years."  You have to be prepared for their questions and how you will respond to them.  And finally, you have to be prepared for curve balls.  Suspects / prospects always throw them, and when you are unprepared, you will always miss them or certainly never get a clean hit.
• You have to identify clearly what your preferred outcome is.  In the book, Getting to Yes, the authors do a great job of explaining how defining your preferred outcome helps guide you through any meeting that you have.  In selling, and specifically for the initial call, most sales people define the objective of the first call as "to get a second call".  I will change that and suggest that your objective be to make this the only call.  Try to disqualify your suspects instead of trying to qualify them.  I guarantee you will end up with more qualified opportunities.
• You have to demonstrate your credibility, not by what you say, but by how you conduct yourself.  Make yourself different (see first blog in this series). You will do this by the questions you ask, by your focus on the prospect and what is important to them, and by your reluctance to get into a sales pitch and do a data dump in their lap.  You demonstrate your knowledge of the industry by the stories, analogies and metaphors you use about their business.  You demonstrate your professionalism by the way you ask professional penetrating questions and by how you don't look, act or sound like every other sales person that has met with this executive.
• You have to have the courage to ask the tough questions and have fierce / honest discussions.  Everyone reading this probably knows the questions that you are supposed to ask and how you are supposed to ask them and when you are supposed to ask them. Yet, every one of you most likely leaves initial calls having failed to ask the tough questions like, "How will you make this decision?  When do I meet the decision maker?  If you don't have a budget, then how will you pay for this?  If you are shopping for low price, then what happens if I show up and I'm not the low price?  Who wins a tie?  When you told your current provider that you were unhappy with the current situation and you were shopping to replace them, what did they say?"  And finally,  "When I show up to make my presentation, I need for you to be in a position to tell me 'yes' or 'no', what objections do you have to that process?"  You all know that you should ask those questions, but time and time again, you fail to.  How come? 
• You have to leave your need for approval at the door when you leave the house in the morning.  You have to re-write your record collection about how people buy in your industry. (Let your sales manager stew over that one.) You have to leave your personal buy cycle at the car lot where you debated for the last three weeks on which make and model to buy and where you negotiated with the manager for 2 hours.
• You have to qualify suspects / prospects to do business with you rather than you attempting to qualify to do business with them. Too many sales people still go to a meeting feeling like they have to qualify to do business with someone.  No, you don't.  You have to make sure that the person you are meeting with qualifies to do business with you.  Not just from a profile perspective or from an underwriting or credit perspective.  Also, qualifying is more than, "Did you do a needs analysis, discuss the features and benefits, get a budget and agree to a decision making process?"  In our world, in our effective selling system, it means the following:
• Do they have a compelling reason to take action quickly?
• Will they invest the time, money and resources to solve a problem they have or the problem they see coming?  Will they invest that time, that money or those resources in a timely fashion or are they in the "seeking" mode of buying?
• Will they tell you "yes" or "no" when you present?  In order to do this, you MUST have eliminated the current provider.  You MUST have heard them say they want to "fix it", whatever "it" is. And you MUST have a solution that is appropriate for their problem.  You cannot make the mistake that, even though your solution isn't exactly right, you are good enough to sell them on buying something that doesn't fit their exact specs.
• You have to close.  Not close the sale, but close this step and get a clear next step.  There is always a next step even if you are in a "one appointment close" business.  It doesn't matter if your business requires multiple meetings, or one and done.  Always close what you came there to do and then move on.  I promise you that, if you get masterful at this step, you will have fewer meetings and your close ratio will improve.  Ask for closure, ask for a clear next step, ask for the business.

I will not pretend to imply that these are the only "HAVE-TOs" in the start of building your relationship.  I will suggest to you that, if you get these 7 "HAVE-TOs" right, you will close more business, more quickly at higher margins.

Ok, so we are almost through the first month of the New Year; what have you done for yourself lately in sales? Did you move your rocks? Did you do your "to do's"? Did you do what you intend to do?

Over the years, I've discovered that when sales people tell me that they have prospecting on their "to do" list, what they really are saying is that they ‘intend' to prospect.

When sales people tell me that they are going to call a prospect and get a decision, they do call and they intend on getting a decision, but they really aren't committed to the intention.

Finally, when sales people tell me that this is the year that they are going to self manage themselves to extraordinary performance , what they are really telling me is that they are going to get ready to get ready and not move any rocks that are consistent with successful selling.

As harsh as this may seem, I would ask you:  Does this look or sound anything like you've done in the past? If so, then join me and the multitudes of others that struggle with prioritizing their time so that the rocks get moved, the "to do's" get done and the intentions get ignored.  Let me tell you that I will be the first in line this year to correct this problem, because I may be one of the biggest offenders.

Don't get me wrong, I get my work done, but too many times I find myself behind the eight ball and running short on shots when it comes time to completing what I stated I would.

Perfect example: last Tuesday, prospecting was on my rock list.  When did I get to it?  Friday at 2:30; I had success.  I scheduled three appointments and moved the rocks a little further up the hill. But what would I have done if an emergency, a real one, had shown up on Friday?  I would have put myself in a position to make the lame excuse - "I had an emergency and couldn't get it done".  The reality was that I put other stuff first on Tuesday and made myself vulnerable to failure on Friday.

Lesson #1 - Be a slave to the schedule.

Lesson #2 - Rocks are rocks - these are non-negotiable objectives of your business.  When you state something as a rock, then nothing short of an absolute catastrophe gets in the way.

Lessons #3 - "To do" lists are for the most part horse pucks.  How do I know?  Because the stuff on the list doesn't get done.  Make sure you clearly identify "to do" from intention.

Lesson #4 - Intentions are just that, things you intend "to do" and would be nice "to do" and might bring you some self satisfaction, but in reality, have nothing "to do", with moving rocks.  Chances are, if you never do what you intend "to do", your world doesn't change as much as doing your "to do" list.

Lesson #5 - You will continue to screw this up unless you find a way to hold yourself to high standards of accountability.  I am holding huddles with my staff weekly and my COO and co-owner every week to make sure the rocks get moved and the "to do's" get done.

This was one of my "to do's" today, it's done, gotta go.

My nephew, Steven W., is five.  Today, he gave me a hint that he might go into sales.  Why?  Because he knows the key to getting a decision is to ask.  Not just once, twice or three times.  If I counted the number of times he asked, I would guess it was somewhere between 35 - 50 times in the space of about 20 minutes.

From the time Linda and I picked him up from kindergarten late this afternoon, until we walked into Blockbuster to rent a WII game, he just did not stop asking:  Blockbuster, Blockbuster, Blockbuster.  I'm sure many of the readers would have found this annoying, and if I wasn't in the sales training business, I might have.  However, it amazed me that his repeated question of "going to Blockbuster?" was a conscious effort and just did not stop.  He knew exactly what he wanted, and if there was any sign of not getting it, he knew the old guilt trip of a 5-year old would work on Uncle TT and Aunt Winna.  He was bound and determined to not just get a decision, but to make sure the answer was "yes".

I'm not schooled in psychology or anthropology, but I'm sure someone could explain to us at just what point we lose that insistence behavior.  I've often thought that it occurs after the first serious rejection of a request.  Maybe it was a dance, a date, a request to borrow the car keys  or to stay out past normal curfew (maybe I'm shedding some light on my development here).  But, certainly, it happens.

I've heard that a sales person should ask at least 7 times for the order.  When I hear this, a line from the movie Hitch comes to mind. The female lead, Sara, responds "no" to a young man that has approached her and offered to buy her a drink. He tries another tactic, and Sara says, "'No' doesn't mean try harder."  It also doesn't mean "try a different closing technique".

Sara is right.  But, keep in mind that "no" doesn't mean stop.  It simply means that you have not addressed something that the prospect wants answered nor provided anything that satisfied a need.  Don't be a pest and just try harder.  Back off, say thank you for the decision and ask a question or two before you leave.  This alone may get your prospect to open up and tell you what you failed to do and what you need to do to make them a client.