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"!!

 

Something is always brewing if you are in sales.  In our module 'Building Advocates', we describe the clients in your sales world as either: gone, looking, leaving, loyal or advocates.  So, what is brewing in your sales world? 

At Anthony Cole Training Group, we've had a 'brouhaha' over our 'Sales Java' brand. Apparently, Sun Microsystems feels we are a threat to their 'brand' and has ordered our sales training and development company to cease using the name "Sales Java" by May 7th. Well, I knew we were having an impact and thought we were becoming important in the world of sales training, sales management and sales environment development, but not important enough to warrant this challenge from a multi-billion dollar IT company. Funny thing is that we aren't even in the same industry.  Not even close. Sure, they have to 'train' people on how to use 'java', but that's it. Oh well? 

 With that said, you can still expect the same great information, communication and ahead-of-the-curve, outside-of-the-box Sales Java blog, Sales Java newsletter and our world famous Sales Java audio postcard; however, it will be with our new brand  'Sales Brew'.  I see this as exciting as we can now take a different view of performance issues by using 'coffee' terminology. As an example, instead of sales pipeline, we will focus on 'what is brewing?'  Your sales results will either be 'decaffeinated - below full strength', or 'double shot - exceeding goal by 15 to 25%'.

My point here is that something is always brewing in your sales business, or at least it should be.  If not, just like coffee, you get cold and stale and nobody wants that. When something boils over, such as what happened here at world headquarters, you identify the options, make some changes with minimal impact and move on.  Go sell something.

I welcome you to pass this on, continue to use us to help you build your sales team or sales practice, and by all means, occasionally sit back and enjoy a 'hot' or 'cold' brew. 

 The benefits of off-site sales training are clear.

1.  You don't get distracted.  It never fails; if you go to a training session that is held in the same building where you work, you will get distracted.  Either as a sales person or a sales manager, you won't be able to help yourself. 

•  During the break, you will go to your office and see the phone light blinking, and just like Pavlov's dogs, you've been trained to check the message. Inevitably, it will be someone leaving you an urgent and important message that you just MUST attend to now.
• Even when you are not on break, someone will poke their head into the meeting, point over to you and indicate that you have a phone call or that they need to speak with you urgently.

As a result of the interruption, you don't get back into the training session on time and you miss critical conversation or concepts. Not only does that happen, but you've also become distracted mentally, and even though you are now back in the session, you are not fully back 'into' the session.

2.  When you go to an off-site, during the breaks you spend time with your peers instead of going to your office or dealing with staff in the building. Over coffee and a plate of fruit, you get the chance to hear what others are doing that is working as well as hear about their challenges and failures.  These learnings are as important, and in some instances, more important than what is being said as part of the agenda.  This free form conversation carries back into the session and now becomes part of the agenda via questions and open discussion about what others are doing well and what they are facing.  Any well facilitated training program will have an agenda of important items to discuss but the facilitator must customize that content to meet the current needs of the participants.

3.  I am 30,000 feet above Kansas as I post this blog and I have internet connectivity.  That, in itself, is way cool.  I'm heading home from an off-site that I just participated in and facilitated. The 3rd benefit of having an off-site is that you can get the chance to learn Texas Hold'm.  

Post our training for the day, we had a wonderful dinner prepared by Allison and then we started our last learning for the day.  How to negotiate and influence people by subliminal suggestions, body language, asking questions and having fierce conversations about someone's actions and intents.  Certainly, practicing these skills while participating in a game like this has a direct correlation to improving skills in sales negotiation.

So, if you are going to have training sessions, make the investment of time, resources and money to maximize your return on the investment and get out of the office, focus on learning and have some fun.

 

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.

I'm reading the book ‘Who'.  No, the author is not Dr. Seuss it is Geoff Smart and Randy Street of ‘Topgrading' fame and fortune.  The book is about prospecting, evaluating, assessing, interviewing and selecting the right candidate for the job.  The job could be sales, management, finance, or operations; it doesn't matter.  As Jim Collins states in his book ‘Good to Great', "it is about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats."  I'm thinking the same thing applies to you and your sales business.  You need a sales scorecard.

The best way to upgrade your client is to have a preferred customer or client base.  In banking, they identify segments such as business banking, middle market, retail and private banking,  just to name a couple.  Why wouldn't this make sense in all sales?  The short answer is that it does.  I was with a group yesterday, Melink, a company that specializes in helping companies and entities build or retro build ‘green buildings'.  They have sales people that specialize in specific market segments.

If your company doesn't look at marketing and sales that way, it doesn't mean that you can't.  You should have a scorecard of sorts to make sure that the people you are getting introduced to fit the mold of the ‘perfect client' for you.  When you work with your ‘perfect client', you provide greater value because you are more familiar with that particular market segment, you know the solutions they typically need and you have a product that fits their specific needs.  However, the problem is that you don't have a system or process in place to make sure that you are really getting the ‘ideal' client for your ‘book of business'.  You need a sales scorecard.  So here you go.  Feel free to use, edit or reproduce any way you feel is appropriate to your specific business, but keep the concepts in place and make sure that you have some sort of accountability process in place to ensure you adhere to your scorecard.  If you would like further discussion on this feel free to call.

 

How to create a scorecard
Mission	Develop a short statement about why you want this type of client.  To better serve and develop specific products and services for those companies in the ABC industry.  Better serve means that I will become an expert in that field, develop specific products and services for that market segment and to become the dominant player and resource for those in that space
Outcomes	Develop at least 3 specific outcomes that you WILL achieve and no more than 8. These outcomes must be described and reflective ‘extra-ordinary' outcomes.  To do that you must not only describe the outcomes but set standards that you will measure against
Demographics	Identify the demographics of the ideal prospect:  Volume of sales, # of employees, # of power units, # of locations etc.  You should also identify the specific market segment, geographic location, potential revenue volume and soft issues like ‘easy to do business with', has a strong credit history  and has an appreciation for a stewardship versus price approach to doing business.  Willing to partner instead of vendor relationship
Support	You must make sure that you have aligned your support staff and the resources within the company or companies you represent.  You may become an expert in waste hauling but if your support and resources can't provide you the product and service you need and cannot support the backroom requirements then it doesn't matter that you are an expert in the field.

Once completed, share this scorecard with anyone that can potentially interface with your clients to make sure there is synchronization in focus, effort and support for this type of client.

I hate having these discussions because the typically come out the wrong way in writing. When I read articles like the one from Fast Company - The Most Valuable Player in Sports - I can't help but think about sales people, selling and sales results.  Check this out.  In 2006 major league baseball spent $311,000,000 (14% of payroll) on players that didn't play.  I automatically think - hmm, how much money was spent by companies on sales people that didn't play / perform?

I also think how many goals were washed out because the sales professional in charge lacked the desire, commitment, or responsibility to overcome obstacles to executing the game / goal plan to make sure they got the sales results they stated they would get.  And, as a result, failed to achieve some, if not all, the personal goals they had set?

The article goes on to talk about how Dr. Andrews, in addition to his orthopedic wizardry, developed and honed his therapeutic  mastery as well.  He would engage the prospective athlete in dialog that allowed him to identify a multitude of success factors ‘post' operative procedure.  Here are just 6 of his questions ‘translated' into sales talk to assess a sales person's acumen and preparedness for recovery.

1. What exactly is your current sales problem? Where is / are the choke points to successful selling?
2. What happens if you don't fix it?
3. What are your short- term, intermediate and long term sales goals?
4. How committed are you to rehabbing or turbo charging your sales career?
5. What is your appetite for change?
6. What are the other external factors that will help or hinder your success?

Powerful and insightful questions that need to be asked before engaging in any sales training, individual coaching or on-going development plan.    Too often people jump into the fray of training and or self - help only to find themselves light in the checking account, lost investment of time and very little improvement in results. 

My suggestion to you is that you should look at those 6 questions before  you begin to re-invent yourself or re-commit yourself to ‘really getting it done this year'.  Honestly answer those questions and then decide on what your sales goals will be, what your goal plan will look like and how you will hold yourself accountable over the next 12 months.  Oh, and one more question once you've decided that this time you are really going to get it done:

Why should I believe you?

Too many times salespeople fail to close business simply because they didn't muster the courage required in the beginning of the sales cycle - when they were prospecting.  Instead of calling at the top of the organization or as Anthony Parinello describes this person "VITO - Very Important Top Officer" the timid sales person calls somewhere below that level where the only qualifying capabilities of the HR director or Risk Manager is to say ‘no'.

You want to close more business more quickly at higher margins do the following:

1. Always call at the level where the person as the authority to say yes to your proposal. Even if you get shifted down to another level you can always get back to your initial contact
2. In those situations where you do your best to call at the top and can't get there, but the prospect is on your top ten list, then make sure your inside coach will get you to the decision maker before presenting
3. When preparing for your closing meeting make sure you always - ALWAYS - send an ‘as we agreed to letter', follow the letter with a phone call and then, before you present to the decision maker, review everything discussed so far, the purpose of the meeting (make a decision) and close your review by asking, ‘what's changed'.

For more great information on calling on the right people follow this link to Dave Kurlan's blog: sales development blog.

I look at about a dozen blogs and newsletters a week.  That is not a lot of browsing according to standards set by Seth Godin, Verne Harnish, Dave Kurlan or Guy Kawasaki, just to name a few.  It is enough to know that when it comes to selling, sales training, sales coaches and driving sales results, no one person has all the answers and no one person is right or wrong. Therefore, here are a couple of links to blog post that I'm sure you will find helpful:

 

• Marketing: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/waiting-for-the.html
• Selling on price: http://www.sellingtoconsumers.com/art_offering_the_lowest_price_is_overrated.htm
• Quality Selling Activity: http://www.sixsigmaselling.com/six_sigma_selling/2008/04/how-to-avoid-th.html
• Sales training: http://www.omghub.com/salesdevelopmentblog/tabid/5809/bid/6914/10-Types-of-Sales-Advisers-and-How-to-Choose-the-One-That-s-Best-For-You.aspx
• Effective Prospecting: http://www.referralcoach.com/individuals/
• Closing: http://blog.anthonycoletraining.com/Sales-Training-Sales-Java/bid/4767/How-to-Sell-to-Close-the-Business

I just did a search on Google for ‘sales techniques'.  In .19 seconds, I had over 7 million listings for sales techniques.  If prospecting, qualifying or closing seems to be problems for you, it certainly can't be because you can't get information on ‘how to'.  Maybe you haven't taken the time to learn how to, or are comfortable with the position that you've been selling for 20 plus years.  As the song goes, ‘the times they are a changing'.  If you haven't changed, then I'm guessing that in many cases, neither have your results.  Oh, you may be selling as much as you used to, but I'd guess it's not as easy as it used to be.  Come on, take a few minutes every week and brush up those sales skills.  It will make a difference.

 

Effective and successful selling requires excellent technique.  One must excel at asking questions and listening.  One must have skill at telling stories and using metaphors and analogies to make a point,  Certainly, one must be expert at dealing with stalls, questions and objections; however, what drives a sales person's ability to execute these techniques and skills will be hard to find in a traditional sales training setting from traditional sales trainers.  As Curly said in the movie City Slickers:  "One thing, just one thing, you stick to that and the rest...

The one thing that drives consistent execution in sales is courage.  In our sales training classes, we talk about commitment, desire, outlook and taking responsibility.  Those components help drive courage.  If you think about each one of those, you would soon discover that they are not very trainable.  As a salesperson, that is what you have to bring to the dance if you want to get good at dancing, or in this case selling;  I can't teach it here and I don't try to teach courage in my sessions.  What I can do is give you some insight as to what having courage can and will do.  In the end, what matters the most about any discussion around courage is:  Start.  Just start.

1. Start by making the decision that courage has to be part of your make up and that you will be courageous in your thinking, decisions and activities. Become a warrior for what you stand for and what you want to achieve
2. Start by identifying what is it that you really want out of being a sales professional. Did you get into this business to be average? Would you rather be extra-ordinary? Then start thinking that way.
3. Start by stopping. What I mean is decide what you will stop doing. This too takes courage because often we do things because they make us comfortable instead of difficult and uncomfortable sales activities that make us money. Not that you stop providing great service, but do you have to do that? Get your need for approval met by selling to more people, more quickly at higher margins. You'll receive all the reward and recognition that you need.
4. Start by leading others instead of standing in line with those willing to just get along. Don't buy into the bad economy or poor product excuses and stop hanging around the water cooler talking about company decisions. Start taking responsibility for your results and start being the leader on the leader board.
5. Start having fierce conversations. Read the book by Susan Scott, Fierce Conversations. She will tell you that the first fierce conversation is with yourself. Once you get your head straight and get honest with yourself, commit yourself to have fierce and tough discussions with others. Not in-your-face aggressive or mean discussions, just tough discussions about what is or isn't happening, and what has to happen to move a sale forward or to stop where you are.

 

                Courage, as they say, comes in a can.  I CAN.

Two years ago I did a keynote for one of our clients that our company does sales training for.  The company sells commercial insurance and the market was particularly tough at the time.  The message that the CEO wanted to send was:  "We understand, but our objectives are non-negotiable, go sell."

And so here we are agian,in a tough market where people are tightening their belts, cutting back, looking for the 'best' deals, or not buying at all.  I'll tell you the same thing we tell all of our sales people that we train.

1. There are always going to be challenges to hitting targets.  Ignore the problems, focus on the opportunities.
2. Think of one of your competitors that typically is the low cost provider.  Do they own the market?  Probably not.  It is never about low price no matter how tight things are. If low price were always the criteria for buying everyone would buy the cheapest most cost efficient vehicles available.  Doesn't happen
3. When the market is difficult people are always looking for help. Go see all of those people.  If your people want to see you guess what, chances are the competitors clients want to see them or somebody. Call the competitors clients NOW.
4. Nobody owns 100% of the market. You have competitors that have more market share than you do and some with less.  Go steal market share from someone. 

Conclusion:  The market is the market.  You can't do anything about it.  You didn't start it, you won't change it, you won't end it.  All you can do is stick to the fundamentals:  See people, find out what they need or want, sell those that need and want what you have.  Period. End of story.