Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

I work with CEOs that are afraid of what the current economic environment will do to top line sales revenue.  Certainly they can get more creative with expenses, but eventually that will have a negative impact on leveraging  new opportunities.  It doesn't take talent to cut expenses;  it is a math formula.  However, it does take talent and creativity to drive new business sales when markets are like they are today.  That is where we come in.

At Anthony Cole Training Group,  we use an assessment built and constantly perfected by Objective Management Group.  The assessment and the resulting findings provides information about sales strengths, sales weaknesses and sale skills as they relate to 21 core sales competencies.  My question today, and in 2 additional blog posts, will be:  How are you addressing these core competencies in your sales development program (either individually or corporately?)  If you are reading this as a participant of one or our training programs, then this information will have a tone of familiarity, so you will be able to relate to the content.  However, you may have been more recently focused on technique rather than the core issues that may be hindering your sales success.  I encourage you to read these posts and identify how they can be additive to your current program.  If you are not one of our participants, feel free to go to our website and take the sales grader to find out how you are doing against best practices in sales.  Here are the first 7 core competencies:

1. Has written goals: this is where your courage and passion come from. Without written goals you won't have the passion or commitment necessary to ask the tough questions, continue to prospect when the market is tough and to consistently ask for introductions
2. Follows a written goal plan: Often people have goals that are written, but then fail this next critical step - establish a written goal plan. Without a plan your goals lack clarity and therefore the activity required to accomplish your goals is unclear as well. And when the required activities are unclear then they won't get executed.
3. Positive attitude: This isn't about looking through rose colored glasses. This is about keeping your head about you when all those around you are losing theirs. It is easy to get caught up the water cooler talk and the complaining about the company, economy, or what the competition is doing. Ignore the talk and focus on what you have to do to be successful.
4. Take responsibility: Excuses are like opinions - everyone or most everyone has them and, unfortunately in selling, we use them when we fail to accomplish our goals. The easy thing to do is to blame something or someone for our shortcomings. If you've been in sales long enough you know that something is always going to happen to make selling difficult for you, but if you are committed to your own personal goals, then you won't let anything get in the way.
5. Strong self confidence: This is critical to succeed. You certainly can't expect yourself to perform well if you don't feel fully confident in what you are doing, what you are representing and what you are saying to the market. But what drives all of this is how you feel about yourself. You must have the confidence to maintain your ‘posture' when you are faced with difficult selling situations. Keep in mind that external gimmicks and crutches won't support you when things are tough. You must consider yourself a ‘10' and maintain that assessment of yourself no matter what happens in your roles.
6. Supportive beliefs: What you believe dictates what you do. If you believe that the economy is too tough to sell in, then you'll be right and won't sell anything. If you believe that people don't want to talk about spending additional dollars in a tight budget environment, then you will have trouble scheduling appointments. You get the point?
7. Control emotions: You must focus on executing your sales system and be prepared for curve balls, and ‘tough' questions. If you anticipate ‘what can go wrong' then when something does come at you that ordinarily would be considered unusual then you will be prepared to handle the situation. If you haven't thought through your phone call, or sales call or presentation, then you will be vulnerable to surprises. When these surprises happen, instead of continuing to execute without ‘panic', you will ‘choke' and deviate from your tried and true sales methods and approach. The symptoms of losing control of emotions are during review of a meeting your self-dialog contains words and phrases like: "should have, shouldn't have, could have, why didn't I, I can't believe that". These are indicative of losing control of emotions.

The best thing to do is to pick just one of these that seem to be the area where you need the most work.  Tackle that one first.  Not the one that is easy, but the one that will have the most positive dramatic impact on your business.  And if you need me call me @ 513 791 3458.

Sales lessons come in many disguises.  This one is about hitting sales goals with a ‘no excuse' attitude about doing whatever it takes to execute your required sales activity.

During basketball season when I was in high school, I had to work on our farm on Saturdays from 7:00 AM until basketball practice, which was about 2:00 in the afternoon.  My sister, Tresa, worked with me. We had to build blueberry crates that we used to ship pints of blueberries across the country.  On a normal day, Tresa and I would make about 800 to 1,000 crates.  On a short day, when I had practice, our goal was about 700.

One day, we had a little fight. Tresa got mad, went to the house and told my dad.  He came over to the barn where I was working, reamed me a good one and then, for good measure, told me that if I planned on going to basketball practice that afternoon, I had better plan on still building 700 crates without the help of my sister.  I could have gotten mad at Tresa, but admittedly it was my fault; however, the real issue was that I couldn't miss practice or I wouldn't start in the next game.  So instead of sitting there fuming and playing the blame game and thinking dad was unfair, I started hammering nails into those wooden crates like a machine.

I finished my 700 by 1:30, went to practice and started the game on Tuesday.

You see, it all comes down to what motivates you to do the things you have to do to succeed.  Certainly, my goal wasn't to make the 700 crates.  It was to make practice so I could start and nothing, not even my own stupidity of having a fight with my sister, was going to get in the way.

What have you let get in your way this year?

• 1. Decisions by your company to change pricing, policies or products?
• 2. A competitor going to the low cost provider strategy and doing a land grab?
• 3. The economy blues where you now have an easy excuse not to prospect for new business?
• 4. A sales manager who is taking a bullet for the team by telling the president that she shouldn't expect to hit the sales goals?
• 5. A too understanding spouse who says, ‘that's ok we'll take a nice vacation in 2010?

Whatever the reasons, you have a choice. Buy into the excuse making or ignore it and focus on your commitments.  If you focus on your commitments chances are you'll be the lone ranger because your competition is laying around making excuses, instead of making sales, leaving the market open for you to go and grab.

At the end of the day, all you have is your reputation. Will your reputation be one of an excuse maker or one of a person that fulfills their obligations?  It's your choice.

     I present all of my material, not counting my disaster in ‘Selling Sure Is Funny' post, standing up.  Often, if given the right environment somewhere in my presentation to sell sales training and development, I will find a way to stand up.  Normally this requires either a flip chart or a white board.  Either one works.

     When you blow out the birthday candles, how do you normally do that, sitting or standing?  I have to believe that our family is representative of most other families and, except for my son, Anthony, who is in a wheelchair, we blow out candles standing up. I'm not sure why.  But it did get me thinking about presentations to close a sale.

     You should present standing up.  It is show time.  After all that time of asking questions and listening, now is the time to demonstrate that you are extra-ordinary.  You are in command.  You are the expert.  You know what to do and you will now divulge to your audience, the prospect, why they should buy from you. 

1. Standing gives you the appearance of confidence.  Do you want to buy from someone with confidence?
2. Standing up is different.  Do you want to be judged just like all the others who present or do you want your prospect to think, ‘well now, this one is different'?
3. By standing up your voice will change to a deeper tone which will grab people's attention.  Do you not love listening to James Earl Jones?
4. Standing up changes your posture in the room.  You will no longer be viewed as a potential vendor but more like someone in authority within their own company.  Is that a good thing?
5. And, if you crash and burn, it's easier to run out the door.

     Call to action:  Prior to your next sales presentation, conduct a dry run of the meeting in front of staff or peers.  Ask them to prepare for the meeting as if they were the prospect.  And make sure that, as part of this dry run, you strategically plan when you will stand, why you will stand and what impact that you are hoping to achieve as a result.

     If you truly want to be different and have a significant impact while presenting, stand for what you believe in:  yourself, your product and your company.

 

I attended my Mom and Dad's memorial service in May.  Today I want to talk about Dad.  When I returned home, I had with me a box of some of my Dad's earthly possessions. He wasn't a wealthy man in material things, but quite a rich man when it came to friends and people that he touched in many ways.  He was as they say ‘old school'.  He believed in the flag, honor, hard work, love, God, and providing for his family the best that he could.  He was a high school drop out, but a man of great intellect and knowledge, not taught in traditional school systems.  In my world of developing and assessing sales people, my guess is that Dad would have been a superstar, and he would have had a long career.  This is what he knew how to do:

• Work hard - he told me time and time again - when all else fails, hard work works.
• Develop relationships - Dad didn't just have people that he met, he had friends. He had life long friends, as was evidenced by the number of people that I had never met who attended his memorial service. And the testimonials I heard validated that Dad was constantly meeting new people and making new relationships.
• Get to the point - Dad could sort through the BS in a hurry and he would call someone on it the moment he heard it or sensed it. He didn't have much tolerance for those who tried to snowball him. With Dad, you told him the truth up front and once you had his trust, only you could lose it and once lost, it was very hard to regain.
• He knew how to communicate what he wanted, and what it was going to take to make the relationship work. He was honored as a man that kept his word, promised a lot and delivered more.
• He was committed to his work, his fun and his family. Day in and day out my Dad did everything possible to succeed and achieve the objectives of the farm that we grew up on. He provided the best possible lifestyle for our family, even putting himself in debt to do so, and made sure that we had moments of complete and fulfilling joy through hunting, fishing and being outdoors.
• His passion for excellence was legendary (not always so pleasant an experience when something wasn't done to his expectations)
• Never made excuses. Rain was not a reason for not getting crops in the barn. It was never too early, too late, too dark or too hot. You worked until the work was done and not a minute before.

As I think about my dad and these qualities,  I'd say that he would have been a fine salesman and a great sales leader.  If you think about his ‘old school' qualities, I think you'll agree that they would serve you well today.

Selling to sell is a formula for failure. Selling is fun, and if you are good at it, it can be financially rewarding. However, you must have good reasons to sell if you truly want to have fun and be financially rewarded. There are billboards in Cincinnati that state: "Some people think nursing is a job, they don't work at Childrens' Hospital."

If you approach selling as a job, you might want to consider another job that pays you well and doesn't require that you deal with rejection, get paid on performance, and is subject to the many whims of today's consumer. If, on the other hand, you pursuit sales because you have a passion for successfully accomplishing personal goals, or because you are committed to doing everything possible to help others achieve what they dream about achieving, then you have a chance to really be successful at selling.

Selling requires passion, commitment, and a strong sense of responsibility to yourself, your family, your community and, most importantly, a strong moral obligation to do the right thing for the prospect/client, even when it makes them and you uncomfortable. If you don't have these elements, if you don't have this sense of responsibility, if you are not willing to accept full responsibility to everything that happens, good or bad, then selling isn't your cup of tea. Go find a job.

A glimpse of the future. My son Anthony is 21 years old. When he was 12 he suffered a heart attack and the result is a severe brain injury. Yesterday we went to a goodwill facility that is associated with the Hamilton County MRDD program. We visited their CARE program and got a glimpse of his future. I must tell you it is a shock to the system to realize that your 21 year old son that is completely dependent will be that way into old age. I realized that I've been avoiding that eventual outcome.

What eventual outcome are you avoiding that you need to face today?

I'm not talking about something as severe as a long term disability for a child long after you as a parent have left the world. I'm talking about those 'opportunities' in your pipeline that really aren't pipeline opportunities but really pipe dreams. You know which ones they are. They are the ones that sound like: "think it over", "we'll get back to you", "haven't had a chance to go over", "looking at another option", "could you show me this option". We've all been there, done that, got the goose egg for a sales paycheck.

Face your future today. Go for the no and get on with your sales life. Go prospect.

May I take a moment to poke you in the eye? It may or may not hurt too bad but poking people in the eye is sometimes needed to get their intention. May I take a moment to share a concept in a book that I'm reading? The title at this time is not relevant but what is relavant is that the primary focus is: "The Best Version of Yourself".
The first time I saw something like this was in New York City. I'm walking down Park Avenue and I see a sidwalk billboard for a fitness club. It shows a couple of people with well defined bodies and the question: "How far are you from your ideal self?" I'm thinking two things: 1. Great question and 2. I'm pretty far from my ideal self.
So, may I ask you, how far are you from your ideal self. Not just physically but in all aspects. And because this is considered a business blog, specifically how far are you from your ideal professional self? May I ask you, have you done all that you can and should be doing to improve your skills? May I ask you, have you done all that you can and should do to encourage, motivate and coach your people to be all that they can be? May I ask you have you found yourself making excuses for lack of results i.e. blaming the economy, the company, the competition and the marketplace? May I ask you have you allowed others to wallow in mediocrity?

I don't mean to be mean or so pointed. So, may I ask you one last question? What are you doing today that is reflective of the best version of yourself or what are you doing that is taking you further from your ideal self?