Thou shalt never present without making sure your prospect is committed to making a decision. Are you certain you're getting the decision-maker to a point of clarity? This video is a part of our new series with Mark Trinkle: The 10 Commandments of Sales Success. Watch Commandment #5 now! 

Watch all of the Commandments Here

Transcript:

Good day everyone. This is Mark Trinkle, Chief Growth Officer for Anthony Cole Training Group. Today it is my privilege to bring you our fifth commandment of a 10-part series that we are calling the 10 Commandments of Sales Success. The fifth commandment is: Thou shalt never present without making sure your prospect is committing to making a decision.

Now, there are a couple of different parts to this. I'm going to assume for today's commandment that you are in front of the decision maker. If you're not, then your sales results are gonna be wildly erratic. You're certainly gonna lose a fair amount of the time. So, again, I'm assuming... and it's dangerous to assume, but I'm assuming that you are in front of the actual decision maker and that you've checked off all the boxes, that you've met with everybody who has a say in making the decision for your presentation.

The second part of this is that you've got to be certain. You've got to be certain that you are getting them to the point of great clarity so that they will make a decision. So, the secret to getting decisions from decision makers is no doubt they have to be fully qualified for the compelling issues. At least compelling enough to them that they'll make a change. You've gotta know why they're gonna make a change. You've gotta know what the problems are. You've gotta know how the problems are impacting them. You need to dollarize or monetize that, and understand what those problems are costing. You've gotta be certain that the prospect has the capacity to invest the appropriate or required amount of time, money, and resources. I mean, you've gotta know that the problem hurts so much that they're willing to go through the process.

They need to understand your process. What are you going to require of them? There has to be complete clarity. I'm gonna call it "beautiful clarity" on the decision-making process. You know that they will make a decision. That's what you're actually closing your prospects on. Don't worry about them picking you, or favoring you, instead focus your time, efforts, and energy on making certain that they are clear, that you are expecting them to make a decision, and that they will commit to making a decision.

I'll end with this. You should close a hundred percent of your qualified business opportunities, but by that I mean sometimes you're gonna get a no. And that's okay. But you know what your greatest frustration should be? That you spent an appreciable amount of time, you went through your sales process, you got your team involved, and you delivered a proposal or a presentation, and they didn't answer with yes or no. They answered with that dreaded TIA. "I need to think it over."

You can do something about that as long as you're willing to plant your feet and walk your prospect through your expectation that they will make a decision, that yes is great, but, but no is OK. Get your prospect to commit to making a decision. Have a great day.

SMA stands for Severe Mental Anguish. Is this something that your salespeople are uncovering in their prospects? This video is a part of our new series with Mark Trinkle: The 10 Commandments of Sales Success. Watch Commandment #4 now! 

Watch all of the Commandments Here

Today we will discuss the fourth commandment of the 10 Commandments for Sales Success. Today's commandment is, thou shalt always remember that a prospect without severe mental anguish is actually not a prospect at all. Now, we use the acronym SMA for Severe Mental Anguish. If you don't have pain, then you don't have a prospect. I'm not saying you don't have somebody that might not eventually be a prospect, but you don't have a prospect today. Maybe you've got someone that you should build a relationship with. You should continue to drip on and nurture that relationship. But let me tell you for the last time what you don't have. You don't have somebody that you ought to be presenting to without a doubt. 

Listen, at some point in your conversations with your prospect (and while we are huge fans of you asking open-ended questions, because those facilitate conversation) there is one close-ended question that you should feel comfortable asking, and that is simply, "Hey, Mr./Mrs. Prospect, do you have to solve this problem? Is your problem just a problem? Or is it a priority that you have to fix? Not one you'd kind of like to fix. Do you have to fix that problem? Is it a top-of-the-pile kind of problem? Is it something maybe you can just wait on while you deal with other priorities?" You need to know that. And of course, it's not that easy. In our track record as a company of over 30 years of working with salespeople and sales organizations, we know that there's always something that gets in the way of salespeople asking that question.

And the answer is, typically, they're either afraid, or they have a really low pipeline, and they're just thankful that they've even got the chance to deliver a presentation. Now, I'm going to guess that in your organization, you don't make much money, if any, delivering presentations to prospects who aren't qualified or even deemed worthy of receiving them. Remember, at the end of the sales process, just like at the end of this road in the beautiful countryside here, your prospect has a decision to make. They can either make a change and deal with the problem, or they can decide, you know what? I'm gonna turn my car to the right. No change from me. We're gonna continue to deal with the status quo.

Here's my last question as I close, when do you want to know their answer to that question? Have a great day, everybody. Take good care.

Get out of the cold-calling business! Share this video with your people who might struggle with getting introductions. This video is a part of our new series with Mark Trinkle: The 10 Commandments of Sales Success. Today we dive into Commandment #3! 

Watch all of the Commandments Here

Hello, this is Mark Trinkle, Chief Growth Officer with Anthony Cole Training Group, and today I am bringing you commandment #3 in our 10 part series that we are calling the 10 Commandments of Sales Success. Now, if you've been following along, you might remember that commandment number one was thou shout always do a pre-call plan, and commandment number two is thou shout always be prospecting.  Commandment number three for today is thou shout always remember to ask for introductions.

I'm sure the most hated part of selling universally is having to make cold calls. And ideally, you'd like to get to the point in your career where you have been able to get out of the cold calling business. Listen, we know cold calls don't work. Here are a couple stats for you. One statistic is the average success rate of a cold call landing you a new piece of business. It has been estimated to be 0.03%, not 3%, not 0.3%, but 0.03%. And several graduate business schools have conducted studies where they've surveyed the C-suite, and the most striking number to me is the number 80%. About 80% of C-suite executives when surveyed said, if they don't know you, if they weren't expecting your call, if no one has referred or introduced you to them, 80% said they're not coming to the phone. They're not calling you back, and they're not replying to your email.

So we use the term introduction instead of referral. And, it's more than just a subtlety. A referral is, "Hey Bob, why don't you call Mary? She runs a business on the other side of town that I think would be a good fit for you. " And introduction, by contrast, is where you have asked someone (a center of influence, a business associate,  or a client) to actually introduce you so that when you call your prospect, they're going to know exactly who you are.

And it's really pretty simple. It's very straightforward. You want the person introducing you to tell the target, your prospect, four things.

1. "I would like to introduce you to Mark from X, Y, Z company, and you should take his call."

2. "Mark is a good person."

3. "He's done great work for me, and his firm is very reputable."

4. "After you've spoken with Dan, if it does not make sense to continue the conversation, it's okay to say no. If now is not the right time for you and your company to move forward, I know he would understand and appreciate that a lot."

Now, number four is important, okay? That is a pressure relief valve. It helps the person that you're calling to understand if they're not interested, if your message doesn't resonate, they can simply get off the phone and tell you they're not interested. And it should also be a pressure relief valve for you, and a reminder that you are not there to sell anything and that you can be a good listener. And if your message doesn't resonate, you'll happily move on down the road. That's it for commandment number three. Have a great day selling.

There is no such thing as “time management.” Here is my take on the myth. It’s a very practical analysis that leads me to my strong conviction.

How many hours in the day do you have? How many minutes in those hours? How many seconds in those hours?  All told the answers are 24 hours, 60 minutes to an hour (1,440 minutes in the day), 60 seconds (86,400 seconds in a day, 31,449,600 seconds in a year)!  I dare you to speed time up, slow it down or stop it!  You can’t.  So how can anyone in their right mind call any program or concept “Time Management?

* I am not the only one in the sales professional development field that believes time management is a myth.  See the resources at the end of this post for more information on debunking the myth of time management.

So, if you can’t manage it, what is the solution to figuring how to avoid having more to do than the time you have to do it?  The obvious solution is this:

Do a better job of managing the time you have

In order to do that, it is helpful to understand what could be causing the lack of self-management that leads to insufficient sales behaviors and prospecting. You might have a substantial revenue flow from the business you already have so therefore lack the motivation. Some salespeople make excuses and blame service or account management for their own lack of self-management. Could also be that you have a fear of rejection.  Let’s face it, none of us like to be told ‘no’. We find that many salespeople lack an effective phone approach, so avoid doing the activity. And finally, many have a need for approval, which is when a salesperson would rather do an activity that is easy and gratifying, than face the difficult job of prospecting and calling sales prospects. Does any of that sound familiar to you?

Here are some Rules to help you manage the time you have:

• Don’t make excuses for your inability to allocate time for prospecting
• Learn to discern the difference between ‘pay’ and ‘no pay’ activities and spend at least 33% of your time on ‘pay activities’.
• Use time blocking to identify your pay activities and then use time blocking in your calendar application. (You should know at least 30 days in advance what activity you will be doing at 2:00 on a Thursday). 
• Be effective with people and efficient with things
  • Stop trying to have ‘quick meetings’
  • Start scheduling the appropriate amount of time with cushion on both sides of EVERY meeting you schedule
  • Embrace technology designed to help you become more efficient at communicating, scheduling, and managing your practice.

Tactics to help you:

• Time blocking: Use your calendar app as a true self management application instead of an appointment placeholder.  If I where to look at your calendar I should see, in addition to appointments, time blocked off for:
  • Your personal time
  • Your planning time
  • Time for pro-active, intentional prospecting
  • Administrative work
  • Internal meetings
  • Lunch meetings – networking activities
  • Sales appointments
  • Appointment preparation; pre calls, post calls, and 1 on 1 coaching for skill improvement
  • Research
  • Putting out fires

This is what it looks like:

• Discernment: To help you discern between the two boxes on the left side of the matrix above, you must ask yourself these three questions every time you are tempted to sacrifice your sales prospecting time in order to get something else done that has popped up in your day to distract you.
• If I don’t do this RIGHT NOW…

1. Will someone die or become seriously injured, ill or be in jeopardy?
2. Will I lose the client?
3. Will I lose my job?

How likely is it that you will answer yes to any of those questions?  Not likely.  So, your challenge then is to be comfortable delaying your response instead of delaying your go to activity – prospecting.

*Additional resources debunking the time management theory.

• The Enterprisers Project.  Need more convincing? Keep reading
• Forbes article 10 myths of time management
• Entrepreneur 5-time management myths that affect your workplace productivity
• Understanding the Sales Force What do Sales Managers Do with Their Time?

I will have to agree to disagree with Richard Carlson, Author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. My view is that the little and or small things do matter and often they matter a great deal.

We have a newborn in our family. Born July 1^st 2022, she came into the world just over 7 pounds. The parents knew in advance that their child would be born with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). With that came the understanding of the complications at birth and the lifelong disease associated with CF. You see, they already have 1 child with CF.

The baby was in the hospital for 5 weeks due to complications with her digestive tract issue, not uncommon with CF patients as they often don’t produce the enzymes to process protein and fat and as a result don’t ‘poop’. That is a problem.

The baby had to gain a defined amount of weight a day for a rolling number of consecutive days before they would release her to go home. That amount is 30 grams a day. I don’t convert easily from the metric system to the decimal system, so I had to look it up.  28.3495 grams equals 1 ounce. 1 ounce is .0003125% of my total body weight (200 lbs). A very small amount I think we would all agree.

So how important is the small stuff? Ask the parents, and they will tell you that day in and day out that while they waited to bring her home from the hospital, it was not such a small thing.

Another example to consider: The diameter of the moon is approximately 2,158 miles.  If the NASA scientist missed the calculation to moon landing site by just 1 degree, the Apollo 11 moon landing would have missed the landing site by: 

What does this have to do with selling? Everything. Understand I am a salesperson that happens to sell sales growth training and development programs to community banks, insurance brokerage agencies and investment advisory firms. I came from a background of recruiting and selling young athletes to come to our campuses at UConn, the University of Cincinnati, and Iowa State University. I sold Nautilus exercise equipment and life insurance.

The lessons of small stuff didn’t hit me until I got into the insurance business and had to track my weekly sales activity in my success manual. I didn’t think it was that important, it was a pain in my backside to report this every week to my manager Bob and when I didn’t hit my numbers, I just made them up to keep Bob off my back. 

If you are reading this and you are an experienced and successful banker, insurance agent or advisor you can relate to this especially if you are one of our clients and have been introduced to the manager’s extraordinary discussion, the success formula, and huddles (video). You probably think it’s a waste of time and why does missing my call number, or my conversion number really matter? The graphic below shows you how much it matters.

The quarterly plan called for approximately 3.38 calls per day over the period of 1 quarter / 65 working days. If you miss that mark by just 10%, assumed conversion rate of outreaches is 18% instead of 20% and, your average size loan is 2,025,000 and finally you don’t renew all of your current 20,000,000 portfolio you end up at 88% of your goal!

So, the little things do matter and if you end up with a couple of little things not adding up, you miss the Big thing. Your personal goal!

(Personal Note: As of this writing the baby continues to grow, their oldest is almost 2 going on 5, you would never know she has CF. Mom and Dad are juggling what life has sent their way. They really do appreciate the small things.)