Back in the early seventies there was a group called The Main Ingredient. At the time, they had a hit song and the lyrics went something like this… “ So you’re heart broken, you’re sitting around moping, crying and crying. You even feel like dyin’. Well, before you do something rash, dig this- everybody plays the fool!”

In our world of selling, maybe everybody doesn't play the fool, but we know this, dealing with rejection in sales is part of the job. Everybody gets rejected. So, the question is when that happens, what happens? Does it take you two minutes, two hours, two days, two weeks to recover, or are you able to get right back into the fight? When we find people have a hard time recovering from rejection, it’s probably one of two reasons. Number one: they're way too emotionally involved in this sale. “If I don't get this sale, I'm in trouble. If I do get this sale, my year is made!”

And the second reason is people don't have the pipeline that they should have. It's not as robust and filled with other good prospects as it could be. So, when those two things happen, maybe we take the rejection a little harder than we should.

Here's a formula that I believe you can use that'll help you get past your fear and help you deal with rejection. The formula is simply this; SW³ N. And that stands for this…

Some will. Some won't. So what. Next!

Keep that mantra chanting in your head! Some of the salespeople I work with even write it down on their desk and refer to it as they’re saying goodbye to one prospect and trying to find their next opportunity. Somebody needs what you do, go find them. And when you do, don't fear rejection.  Remember SW³ N.

If we don’t fully understand the reason for a prospect's statement, the purpose of their question, or dig deeper to find the real problem, we will waste time and miss opportunities.

In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey has a quote… “Seek first to understand. Then to be understood.”  I think that statement is especially true for sales professionals.

When we coach our clients, we try to get them to understand and remember these three tips when in conversation with their prospects and clients:

So, as your prospects talk about their main concerns, your job is to determine the following: Is this a symptom or a problem?  Problems get solved, symptoms are tolerated.  I was working with a prospect and he kept saying he needed to fix his cash flow problem.  The more we talked, the more it became clear that cash flow wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was he missed out on an opportunity to purchase one of his competitors.  The symptom was cash flow, the problem was missing opportunities to acquire market share.  We focused on fixing his true problem.

One of the ways, and really the only way, to bring clarity to the conversation is by asking or saying the following when we hear prospects make statements or ask questions:

We also need to listen to emotionally charged words such as . . .

These are emotionally driven words and emotion drives sales.  Facts and figures justify sales, but emotion drives it.  If we don’t fully understand the reason for the statement, the purpose of the question, or dig deeper to find the real problem, we will waste time and miss opportunities. 

Do you block off time in your calendar specifically to perform the sales activities required to be successful? If not, why?

In this blog, we discuss the importance of creating systems and habits and how implementing them into your everyday life will help you obtain greater success.

The Greek Philosopher, Aristotle, said, “We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I don’t remember reading any accounts of Aristotle conducting sales training, but I believe he would have been pretty good at it.

I have a statement and a question, that tie into Aristotle’s quote on habits:

• The systems you have in place are perfectly designed to produce the results you are getting.
• Do you own, and do you like, the outcome you produced?

Habits + systems = outcomes.  I think I can get agreement that, if both habits and systems are excellent and well-thought-out, the outcome will be what it needs to be.  The problem is, if either habits or systems are bad, the outcome will never be what it could be.  Here’s the good news: you are in control of both the habits you create and the systems you follow.

Let’s take a look at habits.  There are many you can create.  One of the best habits you can develop is setting aside an appointment, each week, to meet with your most important customer.  That most important customer is you and the habit you must form is to never, under any circumstances, break that appointment.  During that appointment with yourself, you plan and set goals for your week, read things to improve your skills and craft, or just spend time organizing yourself.  You will be shocked at how much better you can be by investing 30 minutes each week.

What systems do you have in place that will help you succeed? What are the key factors you need to achieve to succeed in sales?  Are they introductions?  Cold Calls?  Appointments? Presentations, etc.?  What’s your conversion ratio?  How many calls turn into appointments?  How many appointments turn into presentations?  Have a system, measure the activity, find the gaps, do the things necessary to fix them.

Finally, let’s look at outcomes.  Do you own the outcome you’ve created?  Another way to look at it is this: when something doesn’t happen the way you wanted or needed it to, do you look out the window for the reason or do you look in the mirror for the reason?

So, there you go.  A simple formula . . . Habits (good or bad) + Systems (good or bad) = Outcome . . .  If you own the outcome and don’t like it, fix the things on the left side of the equal sign.

In business, especially in sales; delays, misunderstandings, and communication can go awry. Sometimes, even with the influx of technology and communication tools, it is easy to misinterpret what a prospect, or salesperson, says. 

So, how do we make these communication lines more efficient?

“What we have here… is a failure to communicate.”

You may recognize that line from one of my all-time favorite movies, Cool Hand Luke. If you get nothing else out of this blog, do yourself a favor and go rent that movie. You will be glad you did.

Strother Martin’s character in the movie Cool Hand Luke makes that statement when the prisoners don’t do what is expected of them. This same problem can occur during the sales process and it can cause problems with moving the sale to a timely close. It usually manifests itself when something like this occurs—“I think I know what you are going to do" and "You think you know what I’m going to do, but neither one of us knows for sure what the other one wants or needs."

Thus, the need for the AWATE.

The AWATE stands for the As We Agreed To Email. It’s a brief correspondence that the salesperson can send out to clearly indicate what the expectations are (for both parties) in terms of what is needed and expected. It can be used early in the process, throughout the middle, and is extremely effective just before you present your solutions to the prospect.

The AWATE process is pretty simple but can be very effective. It’s a bullet-point letter or email, which spells out the go-forward expectations for both the salesperson and prospect. It also contains date-specific deadlines to make sure the process doesn’t get stalled or delayed. 

Everything works better with deadlines and that is especially true when closing sales. As mentioned, it can be very effective just before your closing presentation. The important elements of the AWATE include:

• The problems that you have uncovered (the ones your prospect needs to be fixed)
• The budget you need to stay within
• All the decision-makers will be present
• Finally, and most importantly, the agreed to and anticipated date when a decision will be made

As sales professionals, you should try to control as many aspects of the sales process as possible.

We believe the AWATE can help you accomplish that goal, or at least help eliminate any misunderstandings that may hinder you from closing more business. 

The most successful salespeople are always challenging and adapting their personal sales process to be more effective and increase sales. However, they don’t challenge the notion of the importance of making prospecting their "A" priority every week.

They know that no matter how successful they are, if they don’t continue to add new relationships, that eventually, their business will decline. If you really want to increase sales this year, you MUST block off time every week for prospecting new clients.

As we think about all of the things as sales professionals that we're supposed to do, it really comes down to three things that actually get us paid: 

1. Find Opportunities
2. Qualify prospects
3. Get a decision

I want to focus on the first thing we get paid to do and that's to find opportunities. There are many ways we can find opportunities⁠—cold calls, drop-ins, direct marketing, social selling (LinkedIn and Twitter), getting introductions, etc. 

Although there are many ways we can prospect, some provide a higher return on the biggest investment we can make, and that’s our time. In a previous blog, I tried to debunk the “time management” problem. It isn’t a time management problem, it’s a priority management problem. 

As we focus on prospecting, the least return on our investment is cold calling. For all the time you invest in cold calling, the actual return (speaking to a decision-maker) is extremely low. We know it’s a necessary evil, but not a permanent problem. On the other hand, it is a proven fact, the highest return on our prospecting time is in getting introductions.  

So here is what I would like you to consider:

• Do you have time set aside each week to prospect? If you don’t, you would be well-served to block time to prospect

Allocate your time within the time block you’ve scheduled

• If you have allocated an hour a day, my recommendation would be:
• If you have allocated 15 minutes to cold call, you should be able to get 15 calls in within that time. If you call 15, you will probably speak with two people. How long does it take to NOT talk to 13 people?  You can make a lot of calls in 15 minutes if you are focused.
• 15 minutes for social selling to find introductions—maybe not sell, but find introduction opportunities.
• LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Blogging—whichever you are allowed to do within your work rules, do it on a regular basis.
• 30 minutes on getting introductions
• Calling people and saying “I’m looking to expand my base of contacts” Or “I’m looking to meet great people such as yourself, when can we get together to determine if we can help each other?”
• Identify your 15 best clients and make it a goal to get three introductions from each of them. How much success would you have with 45 new names to call?

This is just a rough outline on what you can do but the big takeaways are this:

1. Prioritize prospecting—make it a significant part of your week.
2. Prioritize how you are prospecting—get introductions—it will provide the highest return on your time invested.

Someone needs what you do, so go find them and start prospecting today to find more of them!