Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Do it Now

To be clear: I am not suggesting that every crazy thought that pops into your head should be acted upon immediately. I am suggesting, quite strongly in fact, that every crazy, and not so crazy, thought that pops into your head be very quickly examined and then, if validated, acted upon immediately. That's what the exceptional ones do. They act. They act thoughtfully and immediately. They table neither thought and research nor action.

Picture the mother lioness on a hunt. She doesn't go roaring after the first gazelle she sees no matter the distance. She measures the distance, vs. relative speeds; hers and the gazelle's. Once calibrated she creeps silently to close the gap...and then...she pounces! She makes her move. She determinedly acts to achieve her objectives, to serve her cubs. What she doesn't do because it's dinner time and her job is to provide it, say to herself, "you know, this is going to be a toughie. That gazelle looks quick. Maybe I'll go get my nails sharpened first and go after the next one." An average lioness might do that, but not a great one.

There are four homes on our street. Two of the four got their mail yesterday. The two that didn't hadn't shoveled a path to their mailbox after the "blizzard." The other guy is a top go-getter executive.

There's nothing great sellers would rather do than help as many people further their goals as possible. Procrastination, distraction and a lack of serious intent are maladies they don't suffer. Idea > Action. Prospect > Action.

They Do it Now!

Great Selling!

Happy to answer questions.

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
COLLAPSE TIME
Serve, Don't Sell
Teamwork

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Re-building a Bridge is Really Tough Work

So...great sellers don't burn any.

The more sales calls you make today, the more people will tick you off. It's math. If you make ten sales calls a day and on average three of the clients (or target clients) get your goat; were you to up the number of calls to fifteen, one point five more (or the owner and his receptionist, to whom you are forbidden to show this post) will get Billy. The "tell" of an average seller after an unpleasant sales call is his exit speech and or posture by way of which he believes he is retaining his dignity. "The failure is all yours Mr. Buyer," is the communication. "No skin off my back!"

"You certainly are right young man, I'm so sorry. Come back real soon," says the buyer to himself.

Not! As my kids say.

Alternatively, the great seller says to himself, even better to his buyer, "I wish I had been more effective at getting you to try and let me help you. I know I can. I'll give us both a chance to reflect and try it again soon. You have a great day." Now when this sales star tries again, the call for the appointment goes something like this:

"Mr. Jones, remember me, the guy that bored you to death two Thursdays ago when we talked about..blah, blah? Well, I think I know how I failed you by so poorly communicating how I may help you. Can you risk another ten minutes? I'll bring the coffee. Tomorrow at nine OK?"

"Nine's tough. Can you do 8:30? And forget the coffee. We always have a fresh pot going."

Hey you can keep crossing the bridges to greater and greater success, or burn them. Your call.

Great Selling!

Love your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork


Let me know if you need help.









Monday, November 29, 2010

Great Sellers are Change Agents

The best sellers are constantly auditing their own and their clients' thinking. They continually search for ways to grow the clients' brands; to roadblock competitive incursions; to increase traffic, margins and consumer satisfaction. They know and motivate the clients to understand that they must continually grow, because it's an immutable law of nature that that which doesn't grow, dies. They urge their clients to join them in these examinations and forge continually aggressive action plans.

They promise the clients that an attitude that says, "business is great, let's not mess with it," portends potential disaster for their business. They war with complacency and encourage the client to be energetic, enthusiastic, yet wary, and always open to taking reasonable risk that has the opportunity for favorably disproportionate reward.

Great sellers never stand in place; never show up to "renew an order," never hide with fingers crossed during the term of an agreement.

Remember when the authority adults in your life advised you not to look for trouble? Uncommonly adept sellers are always looking for trouble because if not found early trouble can grow faster than the most dread disease.

"How's business Mr. Jones?"

"Awful? Then we better get right to work."

Or, "How's business Mr. Jones?"

"Great? Then we better get right to work."

Great sellers change business for the better...or for the better.

Great Selling!

Happy to answer any questions.

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Great Sellers Take the Longer View

Great sellers are not immune to lousy meetings. They sometimes miss a cue, get distracted, make decisions to abort the effort to soon, or too late. Sometimes they mis-target, short change the research effort or just come across a prospect who's there to win the session, which usually means to lose the opportunity.

So great sellers experience what the rest of us do as well, episodic failure. The difference between the remarkable sellers and the rest of the pack is that the exceptional performer doesn't judge himself by an unfortunate outcome. That is to say, he doesn't become that failed visit. That's just not who he is.

The great seller takes a much longer view. The bad call was an occurrence; an event, rather than an inevitable outcome in the absence of sheer luck. He sees it for what it is; a moment in time...a short moment over a long time period. So, he doesn't get down. His self image doesn't take a "hit." He either has an immediate take on what fell through or makes an artful analysis. If no answer satisfies in either case, he moves on, comfortable in the knowledge that, "hey stuff happens." It's not a defining moment. There are lots of folk out there to meet with and help. Tomorrow's another day, as is the day after.

Great sellers don't get down and lose time. They get challenged. They never stop learning and growing and trying to make life/business better for all with whom they come in contact.

They take a longer view.

Great Selling!

Happy to answer any questions.

Love your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Focus on the Denominator

Enough is never enough for the great seller!

If he/she opened up eight new accounts last month, why wasn't it twelve? If twelve, why not fourteen. If the closing ratio was 50% during the month of eight new accounts, he/she wonders why only 16 presentations were made. "Holy Myrtle, I made only 16 presentations in an entire month? Am I spending time on what I like to do, or on what I have to do? What's the flaw in my prospecting? Am I using the telephone too much, or too little? How did I get the first visits on the accounts that closed; on the telephone or via walk-in cold calls?"

Now the other few salesmen who also sold eight new accounts found themselves hoisting a few on the last Friday of the month. The only question on their minds was how soon the eagle would fly. The great seller might have joined in the party, but to help them celebrate their victory, not his.

Think of it this way. The great seller says to himself that for every account he sells in his marketing area there are dozens who would benefit from his product or service that haven't yet been seen.

You see, her sales are the numerator (yes, political rectitude), but she worries about the denominator, all those folks who could have been helped, but were never gotten to.

One day I'll get the book done. And when it sells one million copies, I'll go to the party but my smile will be forced because all I'll be thinking is "why didn't all those other people buy it?"

Nah, at one million I'll forget about the denominator. But not until then.

Great Selling!

Happy to answer your questions.

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork
'

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Think Process Vs. Content in Client Meetings

If you have the best product and the lowest price and your boss will reward you for bringing in a lot of business trading on that, just make a ton of calls and a ton of money. Of course, when someone comes up with a better product, and he will, or another with a lower price, and he will, you'll have built zero equity with your customer base and probably a like amount of selling skill.

The true mark of a Samurai Seller, one who lives to serve others, is the patience, discipline and courage to forge a partnering relationship with the customer in which together they question every shibboleth with which the client is saddled. A great seller understands that his customer knows a great deal about his or her business, but not nearly as much as he or she doesn't know about it. (Look, the smartest person in the world knows a thimble full of what there is to know, all in).

So, you get the visit and you've been taught to start with the "tell me," and you do. The remarkable seller doesn't. He or she starts the meeting with, "Mr. Jones, as I mentioned when I asked for this meeting, my intitial research tells me that my company and I can help you. The purpose of this meeting is to work together to examine all of your learnings through your experience and what they suggest for growing your business. I want to set that table by promising you that I will likely challenge some of your assumptions; not to change your mind, but to persuade you to work with me to see what may be missing or improved upon. Okay?"

And so you begin. You ask about the competitive landscape, the resources of he and his competitors, their respective market shares, the quality and pricing of his goods (services) versus others, the rung he stands on in the brand recognition ladder, his growth curve, his margin, etc.

And periodically you ask, "how do you know that?". You do so rather than suggesting he's "wrong about that." The great seller doesn't set up an intellectual or power of persuasion battleground on which he and his client can duke it out. Clearly the client will win that war and in so doing, both will lose.

No, you (a great seller in the making) help the client go to war with himself, by getting him to question whether or not the paths he has taken ankd intends to take going forward, have been chosen as a result clear thinking research and analysis, or lazy living. So you encourage the client to examine his thinking by encouraging him to examine the content he places on the table.

You push the process while he debates his content.


I'm happy to answer your questions.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Collapse Time
Serve, Don't Sell
Teamwork

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Before "Nice Seeing You."

At the end of most meetings between buyers and the AVERAGE seller, both parties are really happy; the buyer because "it's finally over" and the seller because he wasn't told absolutely "no," if in fact, he wasn't.

GREAT sellers' meetings end with the word "Great," exclaimed by the buyer, and he means it.

There are only four reasons the uncommonly professional salesman leaves a meeting:
1) Because it results in a sale.
2) Because it becomes clear to his experienced "eye" that this just will not happen.
3) Because the buyer has security show him out.
4) Because he has expertly set the stage and gotten the commitment for the next meeting and EXACTLY what needs to be accomplished at that time to result in a close.

Number 4 goes something like this: "Mr. Jones, I hope you agree that this has been a meaningful session. I certainly found your insights terrific and am gratified that my research on your company and industry were reasonably on target. I have the following three 'to dos'_______________, and you are going to meet with your operations and strategy teams to review our thoughts. I think together we've discovered some potentially productive paths you might take to collapse the time it would otherwise take to grow and stave off competition. I'll call you next Tuesday afternoon to confirm our Wednesday, ten A.M. appointment. How does that sound?"

"Great!"


Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Great Sellers Sell Value, Not Price

Does anyone know if Jack McGann is still around, or Lou Krone?

Way back when W-I-N-S became the first all-news radio station in the world, these fellows had to transition from selling the huge Pulse (bigger than Arbitron back then) numbers associated with Murray the K and his dancing girls (who were they?) to the non-numbers of "You Give Us Twenty-Two Minutes and We'll Give You the World." Jack and Lou had about five other selling colleagues at "1010 WINS" during the transition, but five different ones several months later, and roughly those kind of changes until the ratings said, "wow!"

You see, back then most broadcast sales executives relied upon their ratings, pricing and relationships (lunches and golfing) to get "their fair share" of business. Amazing how much we have evolved as sellers, no?

The truth is that broadcasting has always favored experience over talent to sell its wares. A "list" opens and the raiding party attacks a neighboring tribe. And so the industry recycles "experienced" if unremarkable sellers, over and over again. So decade after decade the RFP goes out; "we have $25,000/week to spend and our CPP is $0.18, please tell us what you can do?" And the seller comes back at $.20 and they settle at $.19. The only piece of selling left is to the manager and his manager that "we got our fair share."

What Jack McGann and Lou Krone were able to do was sit with the buyer, more often than not, the real buyer (the business owner), and explain that the audience for this new format (all-news) was an engaged audience. That research showed it was a better educated and higher socio-economic audience. They effectively made the case that the format was of no value to any listener unless he or she truly listened. And because extraordinary attention was paid to the newscasters, the business' message would be heard. Moreover they produced research that substantiated that there was a transfer of credibility from the broadcasting of news, to a commercial aired within that programming. And finally that if together they paid attention to the offering and the "creative," the products being offered would sell, and therefore the client would grow his business.

Now I'm pretty sure Jack or Lou (and some others), were they working for Discovery, National Geographic, BBC, Weather Channel, FOX News, CNBC, etc. would outsell the NBC Television Network to many, many accounts. And it would have nothing to do with golf, lunches or cheap spots.

"And the CPP is irrelevant don't you think, Mr. Jones? Aren't you really interested in return on investment?"

Oh, what if the conversation was at a media buyer's desk you ask? Well it started the same way, but when it bogged down, as it inevitably did, Jack or Lou would invite the buyer to join them in a meeting they would be having with the client.

You can do this. Become who you are, not what convention says you should be.

Feel free to call or write, if you'd like to talk more about this.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Collapse Time
Serve, Don't Sell
Teamwork

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Lessons from the Mountain Top

For twenty-six years, from early middle age, until early old age, he fought his courageous battle imprisoned. His ultimate victory brought freedom to the people of half a continent.

He waged his "war" with a conviction that his cause was right; that all would benefit if they could break through their biases, their habits and ingrained cultures and "buy" into his vision.

He adopted a direct, honest, yet respectful mode of communication to friend and foe alike, helping to create a continuing discourse which would not exacerbate existing distrust and hostility.

He never allowed himself to be distracted or shied from the difficulty of success.

Nelson Mandela, in his new release Nelson Mandela, Conversations with Myself, tells of " a man whose house was haunted by evil spirits." He decided to leave his rural home, packed all his belongings in a wagon to settle elsewhere. A friend stopped and asked him where he was off to? Before he answered a voice came out of the wagon. "We are leaving here," it said. It was the voice of one of the evil spirits. The moral is, "Don't run away from your problems. Face them. Because if you don't deal with them, they will always be with you. Deal with a problem which arises; face it courageously."

Here's the takeaway, at least for me.

Greatness at any level, toward any end and in any endeavor requires uncommon thoughtfulness, tenacity, courage and honesty. And that applies to both Seller and Buyer. But the responsibility for clearing the playing field of dead leaves and fallen branches, much less the leavings of all who preceded us, lies with the Seller. His courage, his honesty and his indefatigable will define the outcome.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Great Sellers are Courageous People

How early in your last sales presentation did the subject of price come up? And please tell me that you were not the one to start that part of the conversation. How soon in your next sales presentation will you and your buyer get around to a discussion of price?

Here's the deal. The decision should never be about price. It's about what? It's about why? It's about when and who?

When all the above questions are answered after a forensic look by a partnering buyer and seller, it's time to negotiate the equities. Before then, for both of the parties, it's a pig in a poke. That's because before the work neither have a reality based clue about what the maximum opportunity to further the buyer's interest might be. So without serious examination, it's clear what the risk is to the buyer. And the seller? A one time sale, a disappointed buyer, another one who "tried it and it doesn't work."

So, what do courageous sellers do? They suggest at the beginning of the conversation that their intention is to help the buyer probe all of his critical assumptions regarding pathways to success. Together they need to compare experience, learning's and be willing, each of them, to bow to greater wisdom's or logic. "Mr. Jones, these are tough and confusing times. The information flow is all but overwhelming. There used to be a time when I felt I was completely on top of the marketing of goods and services. Now I'm convinced that no one is. Not me, and not you--even about your own business." Do you dare? "Together, Mr. Jones," you continue, "we have a shot."

A friend of mine who manages several billion dollars of institutional investment funds, and whose intelligence and wisdom is beyond question, said to me recently, that he believes most thoughtful people feel guilty these days about their inability to stay on top of everything. That's a real change for many and how could it be otherwise? Today there's almost nothing we can't get answered within minutes using "search." And yet, there isn't nearly the time available to search all the new bits of information that pop up every ten minutes of every day.

"Don't you think that's true Mr. Jones? Shouldn't we get started digging in and prioritizing what you believe are the obstacles to continued or renewed growth? Will you remember when I challenge you and question your assumptions that I'm here to help?""

"The real question is, how much truth can I stand."--Nietzsche

You can do this work.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Why Should You Network? Maybe and maybe not.

You are likely a member of Linkedin. There's almost no chance you don't have a Facebook account. A few of you, and many more later, will spend time with Gen.Connect.com (a nascent "expert" and "community" sight) and others.

All of you have a roll-a dex of one thickness or another. Many use Salesforce.com and/or Constant Contact. Why do "we" commit to those activities? Some do it out of fear or loneliness. Most do it to seek out opportunities; a job, a better job or perhaps a consultancy. Most, when offered the opportunity to "connect" with someone new, check out the requester profile first, to ascertain what potential benefit might accrue with an acceptance.

So what do we have here? It appears that the prism through which any professional "networking" activity must pass through is "what's in it for me?".

There's another way to think about this. The more people with whom you intereact, the more people may benefit from their association with you. If your true mindset is "what can I do to help?" and your behavior reflects that, what do you think that says about you? You hit the "accept" button and in your reply, the message you send is along the lines of, "I'm delighted you reached out to me. I look forward to connecting with you and seeing how I may be of service." Corny? Only if you don't mean it.

Think about the reputation you acquire by relating this way. You become the default person, when the question comes up, "who might be a good source of work, advice, counsel," etc. for this unique work, I need to fill.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Monday, October 4, 2010

Might Makes Right, or Does it?

I'd have to say "no!" I am convinced that great sellers know that "right makes might."

"What am I missing here," you might ask. "Do you mean to tell me that the person who can write the check doesn't have the ultimate power in a sales interaction?" Yes, that's what I mean to tell you unless the potential check writer is the sole owner-proprietor (and often, not even then).

If you have astutely targeted a customer who you "know" can meaningfully benefit from your product or service, and you are practised enough to be able to clearly articulate that benefit, then you have a powerful, other-directed mandate to sell it through. To some degree, the health, welfare and growth of that customer will hinge on a favorable decision by the check writer to take pen in hand.

Let's take a few scenarios:

1) He/she won't take your first or second call: In this case you call his/her boss and ask them for meeting and when you are directed back to "he/she" you say, "I'm happy to do that but notwithstanding the potential importance to your company, "he/she" wouldn't take my call. May I see you or would you like me to try them again and let you know how I make out?"

Either way, you get the meeting. At the very least, the "boss" will tell the check writer to see you and get you off "his/her" back, at which point you do and make your case. Of course, if by some chance that doesn't work, you go up another rung in the hierarchical ladder.

2) Here's a more interesting scenario: This time you've had a meeting or two. The issue is still in doubt, and each party agrees there are remaining questions to be answered that require thought or research and agree on a follow-up meeting. When you are prepared to present your findings, after a sensible number of attempts to make contact without any luck, it's clear you are being ducked.

At that juncture you write, the following: "Hi, Mr. Jones notwithstanding what seemed to be a productive first meeting at the conclusion of which we agreed to meet again, I haven't been able to get through. Out of respect, and appreciation for your time last month, I want to tell you that I believe our services to be of such importance to your company, that I will be reaching out to meet with someone up the corporate ladder."

You'll be called back by the end of the day, for meeting number two.

3) Sole Proprietor: You did the research. You got the meeting. It convinced you that you were not only right in the value you bring to the table, it's thrice what you imagined and THE ONLY CHECK WRITER SAYS "No can/won't do."

Now because you are so sure you can help; You are so sure that you can be impactful for his business; You are so sure "you're RIGHT," you say, "Mr. Jones, I too have been afraid to pull the trigger on opportunities in the past and passage of time made me wish that I'd been a little more rational and courageous. The operative word of course was "too" and there's a pretty good chance you'll have reopened the conversation.

Being other-directed and RIGHT gives you all the power you need to be Great!

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Thursday, September 23, 2010

"I Understand How You Feel" for Great Sellers

Back in the sixties and to this day, most sales training has focused on the "consultative" approach, features to benefits transitions and the memorization of objections and how to o------- them. (Right, "overcome"). Most sellers learn how to deal with these interactions within weeks of starting their careers. And all buyers have had hundreds of these conversations per year times the number of years they've been buying. The outcomes for all are average. Sellers get average shares, buyers make average buys and clients get average results.

A small percentage of sales people would just as soon play Russian roulette as this game. Rather they are in the business of expending all of their energy and creativity toward developing enough credibility (trust) from their customers, to be able to partner with them in throwing conventional wisdom to the wind and struggling to identify opportunities for growth and gauging the risk and reward attendant to their discoveries.

They do that by learning what they can about the customer before any contact is made, rather than, "Hi, I'm here. Can you teach me all about what you've learned in the past couple of decades that you have been in business so that I can see if I can help you?".

They do that by telling the customer the truth as they see it about what challenges they suspect lurk, and those as yet undiscovered by them and perhaps even by the client.

They sincerely express their desire to help!

They suggest they and the client should get started partnering together the sooner the better so that the rewards of their work are enjoyed sooner than later.

Phew! How do they do all that?

The answer is they are committed to the above and disciplined to tenaciously adhere to those pathways...and they learn more than a little about selling. One of the tenets the great ones learn early is the importance of empathy. "Mr. Jones, I don't understand why you are struggling. Your business isn't brain surgery and everyone else seems to be doing just fine," is probably not going to be received all that well. Now the seller might be correct in his assessment of the situation, but the approach may fall short in its attempt to forge a trusting relationship which might otherwise open the door to meaningful work together.

Another very tired and unfruitful tact is the all too popular "Yes, But"..." (You know, I've had other customers say the same thing, but I have found)..

Likewise, The attempt to demonstrate empathy by employing the tried and untrue, "I understand how you feel Mr. Jones but," has almost no value in demonstrating empathy.

Here's what does work:

A CONFESSION.

Mr. Jones says, "I cannot bring myself to spend money this month on marketing. Business stinks and if it does't pick up I might not make rent in two months."

You say, "I too have made irrational and disastrous decisions because I was afraid to take a risk."

Here's what that does. By saying "I too" you have implicated your buyer with the same irrational and potentially disastrous outcome as you say you have experienced by being too cautious. You just served an ace. And, you've demonstrated Empathy.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Advanced Appointment Securement 201

First permit me to posit that you are not a cold caller using the phone book from A to Z as your prospecting tool. That's because, if so, none of what follows applies. That's another course entirely. Having set that stage, the only possible description of the recipient of this first call, that is if you are at least on the way to becoming a Great Seller, is that of a well researched prospect, who unless proven otherwise, could benefit meaningfully from interacting with you, much less buying or subscribing to your product or service.

You've only one goal then on this call. That is to receive a commitment for a meeting at a set day, time and place. Remember, you've taken the effort to qualify the prospect as well as possible without an in-depth first exploratory meeting.

The Advanced Seller has already internalized the fact that no matter what time of day or day of the week he makes the call, his will be the nine hundred thousandth call for an appointment in the preceding hour. Ninety-four point three per cent of those calls sounded exactly alike to Mr. Buyer, and consequently failed to result in a committed appointment. (The Advanced Seller Congregation is small and the Great Seller Congregation is tiny). That’s because non-graduates of the course don’t understand that the telephone is not the communication vehicle best utilized for further qualification much less to close anything.

Left to its own devices the telephone is actually an enemy that is unfriendly, impersonal, and unreliable and can be used deceptively. You must neuter it. How can you do that?

Here's what the Advanced to Great Sellers do: In addition to communicating honestly and fearlessly, they are friendly, rational, not didactic and honest. In short, everything the telephone is not--and more.

Here's how the Advanced Appointment Seller thinks: Whether or not this prospect that I have chosen to serve takes advantage of my offering, will depend solely on how effectively my first communication sets me apart from the preceding supplicants and fires my "target's" imagination that help is on the way. So at the beginning of what is hoped to be a productive relationship, this seller tackles his introductory objective (a commitment for a meeting) without creating pressure points or ingrained resistance. Often a light hearted or whimsical approach serves to mitigate what would otherwise seem like a "make or break" point.

“Mr. Jones, I’m Joe Blow and I’m associated with XYZ. I’ve been doing a good deal of homework on you and your company. Call me crazy but in a half hour I truly believe you and I would agree I can help you grow your business. Can we have a quick cuppa at your place next Tuesday morning, or would afternoon be better? I’m buying.”

No Challenges. No proclamations. Just a tease that there is information that may be new and you'd love to share it and help him. And you are nice, you really are!

Folks, you still won’t get them all. But after a while, you’ll be surprised when you don’t.

(With thanks to Great Seller Dave Nelson for suggesting the topic).

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve,Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Monday, September 13, 2010

Do it For Them

Clients, that's who!

How many clients have you talked with over your career? How many of them share similar obstacles and growth opportunities? How many of them have complementary skills and don't really compete with each other? Or, how many of them with complementary skills and competitive products or services, could grow their respective businesses if they could get a third player (LEGALLY) out of the way?

How many of them would cause you anxiety if they knew, as you do, that they are missing a terrific marketing opportunity, that wouldn't involve buying from you?

How much Respect, Gratitude and Credibility would you earn from those among these clients that you put together to help them each grow? What's the value of that RGC to you?

Today, I wrote two quick emails suggesting to people who had never worked together that they make contact and explore situations where they each might benefit from strategizing opportunities together. I've known the parties for years and enjoy a good relationship with each, so my guess is that they will follow this up.

Oh, you wonder what's in this for me? I haven't the foggiest; never even wondered about it. That's because I know that working for the benefit of other people is the first step in forging a sustainable, successful career.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for a client or prospective client is to step aside when you put them together with other people who you know can do them some good. When you do, who gets the credit? Whose reputation is enhanced? Who gets the call?

How many people this day will you have been in contact with by 6:00 P.M.? That's how many people drew their first impression of you or added some additional data to their perception of you; that is to say, your reputation with them.

Great Sellers Spend All of Their Time and Energy Doing it for Them.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly

SERVE, DON'T SELL
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

"All You Need is Love...da da da da da"

When you are really in love, there's no limit to what you won't do for, or give to, your love object. Isn't that true? "...do for...or give to..." In other words, devoted service to others is a clear symptom of respect and even love. For many years I have proselytized that loving one's work allows him to work tirelessly and accomplish so much more than if one spends his day begging the time God to move the clock along until five P.M. Bosses, customers, co-workers and employees alike, can't help but be impressed by, and responsive to the energy, good will and preparedness exhibited by sellers in love with their work.

As a seller, loving your work implies a belief based upon experience that the product or service you offer is of meaningful value to a number of thoughtfully targeted customers. You have something important to give; something that can change for the better the course of the buyer's day, week, month or year. You exalt in the "OK, I'll try it," not because you've made another sale, but rather because yet again you have helped (served) another.

Accordingly a second core value that uncommonly effective sales people and their mentors share is "Serve, Don't Sell." John Hope Bryant, the founder of Operation Hope, and advisor to the past two U.S.presidents, in his book "Love Leadership" makes the case that the best way to get ahead is to figure out what you have to give to a world seemingly obsessed with: "What's in it for me?"

As you grow your career, I would suggest this book is a must read. There are a handful of very successful top executives whose leadership styles are fear based. But only a handful. The great preponderance of high performing O level folk are supportive, encouraging and yes, loving. The comfort they provide creates an atmosphere and culture in which people are encouraged to and can learn; in which they are not terrified to take reasonable risks and in which they are encouraged to spend their days looking for ways to serve others. I promise you, that a seller who goes out to make ten sales tomorrow will make far fewer that one who goes out to help ten people.

John Hope Bryant suggests, and he couldn't be more on the money, that "Love makes money: The expression of love in business--creating long term relationships with customers and employees based on caring for others and doing good--makes everyone wealthy."

Fisherman and salesman have war stories. I am both so here goes. Today at lunch I was catching up with a friend I met through business when I was head of sales at AOL and he was a top e-commerce executive at one of our clients. We had two business meetings during the course of our respective stays at those companies, and that was eight years ago. We've done no business since then but have probably talked fifty times over the years, perhaps twenty-five of them at lunches or dinners. I've advised him when asked about his career pathing and helped his brother think through an opportunity. And I did all this frankly because David is my friend. There's little I wouldn't do to help him. Among the companies I consult, and with which I have a stake, is one that his professional experiences and contacts can all but ensure the success of the company. I suggested at lunch today that he permit me to suggest to the "board" that he join in an advisory role, for which I was sure I could arrange an economic incentive. He responded, "for you, my friend, I'd do it for nothing." I won't take him up on that but I believe him because I would do the same for him. From the first meeting, David and I have only looked to do what we could to make life better for each other. Business aside, it's a nice way to live.

Great Selling!

LOVE YOUR WORK AND WORK TIRELESSLY
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
SERVE,DON'T SELL
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Monday, August 16, 2010

Great Sellers are Senior Partners

I read a column in a beach community newspaper last week written by a local columnist who covers home based businesses. In this particular piece she was reporting the lamentations of a small local web site developer who was very creative and agile but whose business model's success depended upon the cooperation and attention of his clients, because quick turnovers of projects are critical to his revenue stream. All to often, revealed the complainant, the jobs got stretched out because the clients were late in delivering materials or approvals.

I found myself thinking that this marketing guru was probably more savvy about how goods and services can be marketed than he was about how to motivate clients to get the best out of him.

Great sellers assume the senior role in the "partnership." That's because their selfless and courageous work to provoke the client to identify flaws and opportunities in the business plan, requires a relentless management of the process in pursuit of successful implementation.

So what's the message? Great sellers aren't supplicants. Great sellers aren't in the commodities business. They offer their experience, will and indefatigably provide their clients with new pathways to success. And nothing will hold them back in that mission. Not even the client. "I'm here for you Mr. Jones, and here's what WE need to do. I will...by Thursday and you must...Remember, WE have a plan. Let's execute!

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Sales' Seven Dirty Words

1. Package: Fed Ex and UPS have consumer stores and they sell packages there. Go apply if you're passionate about selling packages.

2. Added Value (counts as one word): If the Buyer asks for it, you say, "Mr. Jones, every idea we come up with has only one purpose, to further your interests because it has value. Do you mean you want a gift? Okay, let's exchange birthdates, and gifts on those occasions.

Here's what you sound like when you introduce "added value": "You say that's not enough? You say you want more? Okay."(Clap your hands together). "Tell you what I'm gonna do..."

3. I'll be honest with you: "Phew, and here I thought you were going to try and sell me something no matter how you had to get me to do it." This expression costs you any shot at credibility.

4. Special: As in "I have a special for you today." I believe that's effective at Border's. (Unless of course their plan is to get me in the store with a 40% coupon for one book and hope that I will buy others at full price). I won't. I just wait for a day or two until there's another 40% off deal. They've trained me to buy cheap, as you will be training your buyers with periodic "specials."

5. Cost: Cars cost, tangerines cost, pedicures cost, etc. Marketing dollars are investments. Train yourself and your customers to think that way

6. Me/I: Think and say "you."

7. Sign here: That's a really personal and threatening directive. "Make sense?" with the offered contract is not.

Remember always that a truly customer focused, well prepared, honest, creative and supportive selling/partner becomes the representative of choice and that perception supercedes all product and pricing differences with competitors. Is a great customer focused idea at an investment of $100 less appealing than a self-serving dumb one that costs $50?

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

He Means What He Says!

Who means what he says? Ted Leonsis, Bob Pittman, Jerry Della Femina, and other performers extraordinaire. These gentlemen in particular are very different people, but two things they share in common are remarkable success and reputations for absolute credibility. If they say they will do something, they do it. If they say they believe something, they believe it. They always tell the truth, as they see it. Doesn't meant that they are always right, just that they will never purposely mislead.

Imagine you being able to say to a prospective client, "if you take my advice, you will be making an important investment in the growth of your company and I will be there every step of the way with you to ensure that what I've promised gets implemented and that the results will mirror what I've suggested they would." Now imagine that the great majority of people you say that to believes your every word because they have been told, or heard, that your word can be taken to the bank.

That is the professional life that Leonsis, Pittman and Della Femina are living, and deserve to be living. Yes, all three are very smart and all three work hard. So do many, many less successful people. None of these three inherited their fathers' business or wealth (not that there's anything wrong with that :). Their careers were forged by their own hard work, intelligence, daring and honesty.

Can you think of a more valuable currency than a reputation for honesty?

How, in addition to a silent vow, do you win that reputation? One sentence and one task at a time. Before you make that initial phone call in which you ask for an appointment because you "think you can help," you will have researched the prospect's business, and found a fit for the product or service you represent. In the first meeting, you demonstrate the knowledge gained through that research and how it implicitly supports the original purpose of the call, "you think you can help." It turns out that wasn't just a line, you had done some work and, right or wrong, came to believe that you had something to offer. It was an honest communication, and that will have been noticed.

As you and your new prospect together probe his strengths, weaknesses, competition, resources, options, opportunities and how your offering may minimize the weaknesses, enhance the strengths and outmaneuver his competition, you continue to express your honest interpretations of your discoveries and challenge viewpoints with which you don't agree. Always you convey the best and most honest of your thinking. It won't take very long for your new account to express, at least to himself, "where have you been all my life?"

You'll have joined the ranks of the great sellers!


Good Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
COMMUNICATE HONESTLY AND FEARLESSLY
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Are You A Good Sales Clerk or a Great Seller?

Thirty-three across, in a syndicated crossword puzzle I struggled with yesterday had "sales person" (5 letters) as the clue. The answer, which took me way too long to answer was "C-L-E-R-K." Hey, there's nothing wrong with being a clerk, or post man or neurosurgeon. But after more than a few decades in and around sales, clerk just wouldn't come to mind if somebody asked, "and what do you do for a living, Bob?"

After all, what does a clerk do? He tells you what products he has for sale. He'll be able to answer most questions about their features and benefits. He knows the prices; for just one and the discounts, if any, for bulk. He probably can even tell you why his stuff is better than the other brands he doesn't carry, and he'll be happy to process your order (take your cash and give you the merchandise). Hmmm. OK, I get it. The difference between a sales "clerk" and a real seller has more meaning to remarkable sellers than to most of those on the other side of the transaction. If you accept that proposition, and you'd like the view of your skills and productivity to be more profound, you have the mindset to make it happen.

Great sellers do much more than present their products for sale. They first insist upon learning all that the prospective customer knows, and doesn't know about what works and doesn't in his business plan. He joins his new "partner" in canvassing the marketplace and how the product or service they represent fits the consumer (or "business customer" ) needs. They examine the competition and the respective brand positions. They review what's worked in the past and what fell short. And then, after that work, all orchestrated by the seller (the Great Seller) they plan and execute the strategy and plan.

The answer to a crossword clue of "Great Seller" just couldn't be clerk.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Got a Light?

Great outdoors men probably make great salespeople, or surgeons, or aerial stunt pilots for that matter. That's because a skilled outdoors man a) would rather be no place else nor doing anything else and b) knows that if his excursion is to be successful, there can be no shortcuts.

Now suppose it's dinner time in the woods and our Daniel Boone is going to roast today's catch over an open fire. No matches and no lighter. So it's the old rubbing two sticks together trick. He rubs and rubs and and just when the sticks are getting warm, he gets tired and decides to take a short break and resume in a few minutes, right? Wrong! Even we non-Boy Scouts know that if you stop before you get a flame, you go back to square one. There's no picking up where you left off.

Or---let's go back a few hours to the stream where he's fly casting for dinner. He throws out four or five Orvis three-day-course casts and---nothing. So he decides to take a break for a while, right? Wrong! No fish, no dinner and so it's cast after cast, with breaks only to try new flies, until he lands one. But because outdoors men are in love with what they do and tenacious in their efforts, they get more skilled over time.

So do great sellers!

My guess is that you will convert more calls to appointments the more calls you make in concentrated time periods. No breaks (other than for brief "what went wrong, or right" re-plays). Call after call after call. However, if you wait an appreciable time between each call you will be no better at getting appointments after the 500th call than you were after the first. That's because no learning from previous calls stick unless they are made in successive, collapsed time frames. It's learning theory, that's all. We need multiple impressions in successive and brief interludes to learn.

First visit, information gathering sessions? Same. Proposals? Same. Closing skills? Same. Average or good--to great? Same.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

On His Way to Super Stardom

"Dining" alone at Appleby's last night I saw the future of a college age waiter...one he has no idea of yet. (Appleby's because if you sit at the correct table you can watch at least three screens at once--each tuned to a major sporting event). A family of four was at the next table and young CEO-to-be came to take their orders. His waiters' garb was fresh and clean, as was his entire appearance. He squatted so that he was of the height of the youngest child and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Albert, I'll be your waiter tonight, how are you all?"

The Mom, answered, "We're all fine and how are you this evening," to which Albert replied, "I'm well, and thank you very much for asking."

I rest my case. Albert is not only a listener, rather than an Appleby's trained automaton, he is also sincere and feeds back to his consituencies that what they say he hears, and it is important to him. I know, not guess, that Albert will spend his entire adult life listening and feeding back what he hears and its importance to him. He will earn the trust of those he calls upon because he makes it clear that they are important to him and that he will focus on their best interests and how he call help them exceed their goals.

As he begins his career calling on customers (and immediately begins outperforming his peer group and competitors) his interactions with bosses and colleagues will be consistent with his customer interactions. He will look to serve them as well and that will be noted by the executives that will inevitably promote him to management. And on and on.

Albert is a winner. A nice, well bred, well-intentioned, clean cut young man conscious of his ability to enhance the experiences of those he deals with if he shows interest by listening to them and acknowleging the importance of what they say.

One day, years from now, in the business section of the Times, you'll read about CEO Albert__________ and his most recent merger or sale.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Great Salesmen Don't Multi-task

ADD must be difficult to deal with although all of us have met folk who have made excellent adjustments to it and even extol its virtues. Certainly the emergence of the multi-tasking phenomenon has done much to support the virtuous status of this otherwise neurological disorder. How many meetings have you been in lately where someone wasn't nose-diving to his Blackberry and texting away? None, I'd venture. If called out, the engaged party says, "it's okay, I'm a great multi-tasker." I always want to, but usually am able to keep from responding, "actually you're pretty rude, but obviously whatever you are communicating about on that Blackberry of yours is more interesting than what we're talking about."

Social, much less business grace aside, who's kidding whom? The best work of any kind results at least in part from laser like focus on the task at hand. Not the taskS at hand. Picture this, someone in a white coat has just asked you to count to ten backwards. By the time you get to seven, you're out and Springstein is belting out Born to Run as "White Coat" begins to check his email. What the heck. He's a pro and he's multi-tasking.

I understand that the analogy may not work for some, but tell that to the guy whose business' life or death depends upon your best work. How about this for a good definition of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is the ability to do many more tasks during a set time period than most people because the multi-tasker is incapable of being distracted and is ultra disciplined at focusing on the business at hand. He's therefore able to collapse time and accomplish more, and more effectively than the average performer, and likely a lot more that the Blackberry multi-tasker.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
COLLAPSE TIME
Teamwork

Monday, June 7, 2010

Sales: 201

The first thing to remember, just to be a good sales executive, much less a great one, is that you must be committed to solving other people's problems. There really are only three reasons to buy anything; first to eat, unless you are a Freegan; second because your purchase will bring you some pleasure; or third, if you are in business, to solve some problem and/or grow your business. So in business-to- business selling you breathe to address number three.

Good sales people ask good questions to get the client to acknowledge what their problems are and then provide creative solutions. Great sales people recognize that clients are pretty much clueless as to what their real problems are, because if not they already would have been solved. So great sales people engage the customer in honest, sometimes brutally honest, partnering excursions to find pathways to success.

Buyers untimately come to respect, and trust, these well intentioned provocateurs. In fact, once the rough road to respect and trust has been successfully traveled, the great salesman is always the visitor of choice, and enjoys the generously offered referrals to other likely prospects.

Here's the challenging news. Just being honest and well intentioned gets you only so far. Making that case effectively is a whole other story because the deck is stacked against you as soon as you call for an appointment. Every good and not so good salesman before you has muddied the waters. The friendly "hello" when the phone line is answered, or the in-person cold caller enters the business establishment, is quickly replaced in tone by the cold, sometimes harsh follow up of "not interested" or any other number of favorite "beat its" employed by that particular prospect once your purpose is stated. Unless of course you are one of the great ones.

Sales 202: "Mr. Jones I'm calling because I believe I can considerably help you and need only fifteen minutes of your time,to confirm that? May I visit this afternoon or will tomorrow be better?" He answers "not interested!" And you say, "Mr. Jones, sometime today for one reason or another fifteen minutes of your time spent will serve no useful purpose in building upon your success. May I have that fifteen minutes? I mean well and have done some homework I'd like to share with you?"

The "Joneses" that say "no" to you with that approach, would have been short term clients anyway because they are too foolish to make a go of it.

Now you are visiting, either in person or on the phone and you have an immediate decision to make based upon whatever you've learned about the business you are calling on and the service you believe you have to offer. And here it is. If this prospect winds up saying "yes" will he have made a rational decision based upon the data and logic, or an irrational decision based up the dream you get him to buy into?
If you've prospected well, and you think about this question before the call, you will have a good feel for the answer.

Once you decide, you want to set the tone of the conversation right from the beginning in the mode that is compatible and leads to the "yes." So, assuming you believe this makes so much sense that a rational person, emotions laid aside, would have to see the benefit: Your first comment or question should be intellectual and data driven. Example: "Mr. Jones, the office of economic opportunity said in its May report that unemployment is actually dropping, but analysts are saying that that is because 18% of the unemployed have given up hope of being employed and thus are not counted. Being in the recruitment business do you agree with that."

You have now begun a non-emotional, rational based conversation. You are directing the play toward the desired result.

Or--You decide that the prevailing wisdom, fueled by all available data suggests that this a time for this recruiter to lay low and do what business may come his way by working hard and being frugal. Only a dollar and a dream (and you think your service reduces the odds way in his favor) would motivate any one in his field to invest today, so you need to foster an emotional (by definition then, irrational plane of conversation).

"Mr. Jones, I may be crazy but my impression is that the government could be doing a lot more low risk investing to drive up employment. What do you think?" We are now off to the races in 100,000 foot rhetoric and emotional talk. Exactly what you were looking for so you can sell "the dream."

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

You Be the Final Arbiter of the Value of Your Work

We're all subject to a greater or lesser degree to the affirmation of others as to our value. Be honest with yourself as to how strong your need is the next time you consider a job change. The nature of the product or service and its quality, ought to be the first prism through which the opportunity is evaluated. That's because your perception of the meaningfulness of the offering you will be bringing to people will heavily weigh into how you feel about yourself and the way you will be spending your time. The environment (culture) of the company you join is the next critical factor because you will either find it neutral, supportive or debilitating, at least to the degree you are other-rewarded. Finally, who will you be working for and what is their management style? Ask! If the answer is, "I am strictly a numbers guy. Bring in the orders everyday and you are my man. Don't, and I will barely be able to look at you," you may want to think about how much you will enjoy and find meaning in the work on a bad day.

And why all this emphasis on the importance of your take on a job's "meaningfulness?" Dan Ariely (Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University) in his book The Upside of Irrationality, makes a great case that the need to find meaning in our work is so powerful, that we often manufacture with the aid of irrational thinking signs of meaning or value to what we do. The tougher the company culture or the boss make that effort, the less happy and productive we tend to be.

Recently, after a few decades I caught up with an ex-colleague for whom I had great respect and affection. In bringing me up to speed about his experiences since we worked together, he told me of the time he got a broker's license and went to work for one of the major financial houses. In a sales meeting, shortly after he joined, a senior sales executive took the floor to give his view on their industry. "Look. I'm in this to get rich. And if I get rich, the company does well. If my clients get rich that's a plus, but if they don't, and I do, that's o.k. too." My friend looked over to the smiling-in-approval sales manager, and resigned right after the meeting. That wasn't a description of an industry or firm that would harness the meaning he needed from his work.

If you find a field you love and a product or service that you believe truly makes life better for those to whom you introduce it, and your mom or dad had unqualified love for you in the first year of your life, at least, you probably can thrive and find meaning in that work even if the company culture and/or manager you represent, is imperfect, because you are the final arbiter of your value.

Great Selling!

LOVE YOUR WORK AND WORK TIRELESSLY
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Today Was a Great Day Because….

If you can’t complete the sentence without much thought, think about changing what you do for a living. Look, I know that we all have responsibilities, not the least of which is providing, at least for ourselves and in most cases for others as well. But I would argue that if that fact is the sole motivator for staying where you are, you are probably performing less well than you could and sooner or later that will dawn on your employer. If we don’t enjoy what we are doing, and don’t find meaning in what we are doing, we tend to perform just well enough to keep the position at the current rate of pay. That is to say the boss probably figures, “He isn’t the best but the return on his cost to me is acceptable, even if no big deal." That being the case, when someone else becomes available with more promise in the boss’ eyes than you, your job will be in jeopardy anyway.

My message is that you can do, and be, better than that; much better. Among the differences between outstanding performers and average performers, are their respective feelings about the meaningfulness of their work. A Harvard Medical School graduate with a specialty in thoracic surgery, performing two surgeries per day over fifteen years and getting wealthy doing it, is probably no better than average in his surgical skills if each day at the operating table he wishes instead that he was spending his time in medical research and leading the charge in ending the very diseases that are now making him rich. In order to be great at what we do, it’s important that we find meaning in, and love it as well.

As Malcolm Gladwell points out in his terrific book, Outliers, The Story of Success, “…it is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five, it’s whether our work fulfills us.”

Without getting overly philosophical, and at the risk of stating the oft repeated and obvious, life's a short run. So much of it is spent at work. Wasting a moment of time, much less eight plus hours per day, five days a week, at what for you is meaningless work, squanders the gift, limits your contribution to others and your chance to be great.

Great Selling!

LOVE YOUR WORK AND WORK TIRELESSLY
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Great Salesmen Don't Sell the USP, They Are the USP

Character is the key differentiator between the great majority of average sellers and the uncommon and remarkable seller. "Hotshots" are skilled openers and closers and are at the middle-upper right side of the bell shaped curve of sales proficiency. Grunts who never stop knocking on doors, picking up lunch tabs, and sending anniversary and birthday cards fall somewhere in the middle. Movie goers flitting from job to job relying on their dancin' shoes to keep a shuffle ahead of their next dismissal, are located bottom left.

Way at the right upper end are the one in ten, maybe twenty who really are the "goods."

These great sellers live to serve. They come to each client and prospect bearing gifts of self-abnegating work to solve problems and grasp opportunities for their "partners." They bring their creativity, knowledge, open mind, indefatigability and sincere concern for their constituent's well being on every call. When they ask, "how can I help you?" they mean just that. When they say, "I need a half hour of your time because I am sure that I can help you," they mean that too.

These remarkable sellers represent products and services of value (or they wouldn't be representing them) but they don't visit to sell their wares. They come to improve the business of those they visit. These sellers invest their time as if it was the capital set aside for their kids' educations. The intensity and energy they expend on behalf of their clients is selfless in nature, and meaningful in outcome. They are the ones the clients want, even need to deal with. They are the most valuable commodity the client spends their cash on.

They are their companys' unique selling proposition.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
SERVE, DON'T SELL
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Many Politicians Can Sell, Few Salesmen Can Politic

To be a great salesman, you need to have only ONE agenda: How can I help this client, and then that client and then the next? The only "which way is the wind blowing" agonizing you need to suffer is the competitive field, brand position and product value of your current and next customer. If you become really good at that suffering, the process will morph to pure joy and your clients' businesses will grow and you will become rich and famous. OK, maybe just rich.

I was reminded of the waste of time and potentially destructive results of politicking today by a very smart partner who pointed out that a recent "strategic" communication of mine ("politically" motivated) was likely a "misfire." He was right, but more importantly it surprised me that I needed to be reminded of who I am and what I do. And what I do not, is run for, or occupy, public office. I am not a politician and have never learned the art either academically or experiencially. The good news is to accomplish what I am charged with, has nothing to do with politics. And that's probably true for you as well.

So--don't buy the sales manager a strawberry donut with sprinkles on it unless you would if he were a school crossing guard and not your boss. Likewise, the potential customer. "Oh wow, a donut. Thanks so much. Here's a $50,000 order." Put all your energy and creativity to work solving as many people's problems as you can. Make as many lives better for their contact with you as you possibly can. That's the only agenda that will make you what I hope you want to be. Special.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Honest and Fearless Communication...always

In 1990, 73 of 148 passengers died aboard an Avianca Columbian Airline Flight on an approach to John F. Kennedy Airport, in New York. They died, as documented by Malcolm Gladwell in his remarkable new book, "The Outliers," because of the culturally inherited reticence on the part of the co-Pilot to fearlessly and honestly communicate to his superior, the Pilot/Captain. According to Gladwell, a lower social or professional status in Columbian society calls for subservient carriage including what linguists call "mitigated communication." A practioner of mitigated communication, in effect offers sugar coated pronouncements, even in time of peril, to another of a higher status. It's as if the co-pilot might say within seconds of a potentially calamitous crash landing, "excuse me, sorry to disturb Captain, but if you've a mind to, you may want to consider pulling up, and starting our approach over." There's more to this particular story and it's a fascinating book, well worth pushing up near the top of your "to read" list, but suffice to repeat that many people died for lack of a fearless and honest communication from the first officer to the captain of that flight.

At the risk of appearing to trivialize this horrific event, most businesses, careers and sellers fail to maximize the opportunities before them for the same reason. Absolute honesty and the average seller are perfect strangers. The average sales executive is highly focused on closing the sale, every sale of everything he represents to anyone that can pay for it. Ergo, the necessity for the dictum, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. And he is!

Because the number of average sellers by definition is multitudinous most buyers walk around "caveating" all the time. They are trained to smell polished, slick closers, and if the odor is strong enough, they are going to "pass" much more often than not.

Among the key attributes however, of the extraordinary seller, manager, COO and CEO is a core value of "the truth as I see it come H--- or high water". The uncommon and remarkable seller labors to connect his product or service to the suspected needs of well researched, targeted customers. In his early meeting(s) with the customer he seeks to affirm to himself, well before he attempts to make the case to the customer that his need-assumption was correct. When that is found to be the case he uses every artful technique he's developed to lower the buyer-seller barrier and to serve that new customer well. The cornerstone of the relationship becomes the trust, based upon his commitment and honesty, accorded to him by his new partner.

The crown jewel of the fearless and honest communicator is bestowed by customers, colleagues and employers, and in business, there's no more valuable a jewel.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
COMMUNICATE HONESTLY AND FEARLESSLY
Collapse Time
Serve, Don't Sell
Teamwork

Monday, April 26, 2010

Service Determines Lifetime Value

I have six kids (all drivers) and haven't had less than 4 cars for years (usually at least two clunkers among them). From the beginning I used the same outlet for tires and often other service. Safe to say, I am a good customer. Sometimes I wondered if I really needed the brake pads changed, after all I am not a particularly naive consumer, but I would write off that cynicism in favor of the congeniality of the center's manager as well as his demonstrated attention to getting my work done in a timely way, or squeezing me in on very short notice. I have been willing to trade some pricing for convenience (service).

One of my sons departs for a cross country adventure this week. He'll drive to New Mexico and so we brought his car in for a tire check-up. One thing led to another and new tires became brakes, brake pads, rotors and axles..$1,300.00. Well, no cost too dear for his safety. Lucky we brought the car in.

Upon leaving the shop my son was startled by a vibration, he correctly, it turned out, believed was the engine. Before a city block passed he returned the car and described the feeling to my friend the manager, who then put the car on the lift and while everyone waited spent the better part of an an hour investigating. He announced "it's coincidental, and I really am not sure why it is happening but nothing we did could have caused it." I don't know a crank shaft from a chocolate eclair but I pointed out that logic dictated "no vibration when we bring it in, vibration when we pick it up," it happened in the tinkering.

The manager says "can't be, stranger things have happened, and besides which if I go to a dentist for a problem in one tooth which he works on and while doing so another flares up in the other side of the mouth, does that mean he's to blame?" I finally posit to my friend the manager, that we can philosophise about this until the cows come home or he can take full responsibility for fixing the problem, no matter what he finds it to be. He decided he'd pay half the cost of repair and that my half would be about another $400.00. O.K.

Now let's say over the years, before this visit, I'd spent $5000.00 at his place; now an additional $1,300.00 for the required service this time. For another $400.00 you know he's lost my business forever. I'd say this was a very short-sighted decision and really bad service.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
SERVE, DON'T SELL
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

A Noble Vocation

There are few gaps as wide as reality and the general perception of salesmen. Unfortunately too many sales executives, well intentioned as they might be, contribute to the stereotype of the profession; "Oily sellers of ice to the Eskimos." The well intentioned, but poorly trained representative focuses his/her attention on closing, closing and closing, too often without regard to the real value of his product or services to the person he is cajoling to "sign here."

Consistently great sellers are intimately aware of, and passionate believers in, the unique attributes of their product to a well targeted prospect. They spend all their vocational energy looking for the right people to help, are tenacious about making contact with them and skilled well enough to overcome the inherent distrust of customers to any sales person. In so doing they gain the trust and the open mind of the buyer. They come offering a genuine path to growth, pleasure and satisfaction, and the buyer "sees" it.

I have a friend, a serial entrepreneur, who has a debilitating disease which over the past fifteen years has robbed him of mobility and fine motor coordination. The experience has re-focused his interest in how he earns his living. He still is an entrepreneur and is still interested in the economic rewards of successful business endeavors, but in addition is only interested in creating businesses which help make life "more livable" for disabled people. Because he has always been a media professional, his attentions are now directed at making Internet experience just as efficient for the impaired as for the non-impaired population. Brad serves. He spends very little time focused on selling. He talks to companies about availing themselves of his services so that they can grow their businesses while feeling very good about themselves by providing much needed services to others.

Brad in my view spends his work life in every bit as noble a profession as any doctor, lawyer or fireman.

Read AOL Co-founder Ted Leonsis' book "The Business of Happiness" and learn how to give so much and get so much more in return.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
SERVE, DON'T SELL!
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Did You Sell Out Your Bridal Fair?

In the last two decades there have been 23,612 radio and TV station-sponsored bridal fairs, 18,915 New Car Shows in shopping mall parking lots and 196,219 "Register to Win" contests at participating retail sponsors. 82,000 "free" vacations have been given to Q1 spenders and 91,000 free golf rounds to buyers of media. (If you don't believe me, you could look it up, as Yogi Berra used to say). Notwithstanding all of that ingenuity and generosity a few broadcast properties apparently still felt the negative effects of a troubled economy during the past several years.

The last time a "Media Marketing Consultant" (that would be a funny title if it wasn't so sad) proposed a thoughtful program to a retailer that took advantage of all the new touch points to consumers that have evolved and changed the way we all spend our time over the past dozen years was...probably, never.

It's hard to keep hearing from otherwise bright and committed people that sales are off because of the economy. Really? Do you mean that when the consumer contracts his spending, and fewer people visit stores and showrooms, and less cash hits the register, retailers get nervous and cut back on their spending? Oh my. Well how have we approached that problem? Ah, you lowered the price of a remote and added a Big Boy Toy Show. Super! So where are we versus the budget now?

Look, your customers don't have the solution, other than a sale to try and lure their consumers to spend. Sadly, neither do you on their behalf. Absent that solution and an advertising strategy, in the face of declining resources, not to spend dollars on advertising is a perfectly rational decision. On the other hand, absent effective advertising a protracted tough economy will occasion a "for rent" sign where there used to be a sporting goods store.

But what if your customer had a great product or service, and you and your production department really knew what they were doing in bringing that product creatively to market? And what if you understood all the new ways people, of every age group, are spending their leisure time with new technolgies? And what if you really understood that these transformative life style changes in time spent on cell phones, community sites (on the phone via apps or directly online) such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, etc., are all new distribution channels that accommodate marketers and have a "spread the word" effect as well? What if you asked for a meeting to help bring the customer up to speed on consumer behavior? And what if you came back after your initial meeting with a well thought out program featuring your asset as the perfect quarterback to direct traffic to all these channels (as well as taking on branding and transacting functions itself?) Who in your market would be able to compete with you? And how long before you crush your budget?

Or, you could have your customer sponsor July in your new listener calendar.


Great Selling!

Love your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Friday, April 9, 2010

Anxiety Trumps Logic

Anxiety is the Ace of Spades and is always the buyer’s hole card. Great Sellers turn over their hole cards as soon as dealt, showing a pair of Aces (hearts and diamonds—logic and sincerity--). Inevitably the buyer, seeing the pair, checks throughout the hand and then asks the seller to borrow his pen when the last card is dealt. Had this seller only the Ace of Hearts, he’d have an average hand just like the rest of us, and the game would be a draw:

“Let me think about it, I’ll get back to you.”

After hearing that we all have to play out the hand.

Because angst is so deeply rooted, having been nourished all along by average sellers who are afflicted with the “somewhats” (preparedness, honesty, sincerity, follow-up, work ethic, caring, etc.), don’t be too hard on yourself for his first response not being, “Oh my G-d, I am so happy you chose me to help. When can we start?”

The fact is that cynicism and fear of loss are very strong emotions and overpower logic every time. So we begin to play out the hand which means we engage in closing.

The buyer said when you concluded the pitch and asked for the order , “Well let me think about this,” or “I need to discuss this with my partner, pastor, parents or pet ,” or “I need to see if I can afford this, “or “I’m not sure if this is the right time to risk this,” or… Then, as mentioned, he promises a phone call with a decision soon.

That call is not coming. And the decision, if not already made is pre-ordained. So, do not cheerily respond, “That’s great Mr. Jones. I’m looking forward to your call. Have a great day.” Instead you begin:

“Mr. Jones, I understand your hesitancy. This is an important decision because the health and welfare of your business may depend upon it. I must tell you that my experience tells me that deferring this kind of action, inevitably kills it. Should that happen very little will change in my life, or yours… and that can mean an important lost opportunity for you.

I have a no-risk proposal for you. Let’s spend fifteen more minutes together now. Let’s partner in probing your every concern. You work hard to honestly articulate them and I promise to listen very closely and give you honest feedback. While I don’t think so, it may be that I’ve missed something very important and if so, I will acknowledge that because my only objective is to help you grow your business. At the end of those fifteen minutes, we’ll have traded anxiety for real issues. And that’s the best way to make a decision. Don't you agree?”

This approach will get you the fifteen minutes during which you work to elicit every objection, the answers to which are at your finger tips and after each answer, you extend the pen.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Close! Now or Never! OK. Almost Never!

"Mr. Jones, my work is about doing my best to bring helpful services to business people like yourself. My greatest reward is the "thank you" I often receive from clients. I also review each visit that doesn't conclude with a new relationship, and here's one of the things I've found. If we are unable to get together today, the probability is that we never will."

Now I don't know if you can picture yourself saying that to a client. But it is the truth. And the truth is an important arrow in your sales quiver.

To help you consider the value of this approach (while keeping in mind that my goal is to help you improve your closing ratio), here's the follow-up comment:

"So Mr.Jones, let's make this promise to each other so that you are sure you've made the right decision, whatever that may be. Let's agree to explore your every question now, address your every doubt and anxiety about making this investment in the growth of you business now. I will work with you right now to probe it all and will take your concerns seriously. After you and I address your every concern, you will be absolutely confident in your decision and you'll go forward or pass, in which case I will respect your decision and move on. What do you say?"

I believe, and have found, that this is a difficult offer to refuse. If your experience becomes the same, what will have transpired? You will likely have asked for and received Mr. Jones' every objection and, assuming you've prepared for the meeting and are sure of his need for what you offer, will have been able to answer and overcome his every objection.

Or, you can "let him think it over and get back to you." When he doesn't, you can make the two or three phone calls which he never takes, and move on to the next prospect.

One excellent seller I know refers to sleep as the "great eraser." The prospect says, "let me sleep on it," does and disappears from your life forever. Sleep has not only erased the benefits of your offering, it's erased you from his world.

So take your pending list to a factor and if he gives you 15% on it's face value...take it.

Great Selling!

Love your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Thursday, March 25, 2010

That's Why They Call it Work

Shame on me! Yesterday I had an unnecessary bad moment in a business meeting because I didn't do the all work I should have to prepare for the meeting. I visited with a top level executive at a major corporation to discuss a "unique" service only to find that while what I was there to discuss may have been the top of shelf service in its category, it wasn't the only. I lacked a complete knowledge set, because I accepted a glibly offered piece of data and didn't take the time and trouble to verify it.

Bob Pittman, creator of MTV and so much more, one of the most persuasive people I've ever met, told me recently that he never advocates a position that he hasn't researched and doesn't understand thoroughly. He doesn't wing it. The only exception to that well practiced M.O. is a purely creative decision (kids are going to watch music videos 24/7? Are you nuts?).

Ted Leonsis, co-Founder of AOL and owner of the Washington Capitols, tells the story of his first competitive "win." It was a contest at Georgetown University where he and other juniors had to orally defend a written thesis before a group of "professor-judges." Ted says the learning for him was, "Because I did the arduous research, I knew the subject matter cold, better than anyone in the room, and I was prepared for anything in that meeting...and, because that helped me win, I have been prepared for every important meeting ever since."

Great salesmanship requires an encyclopaedic knowledge of the needs and solutions currently known and employed. After all that is accumulated and internalized, begins the process of discovery of what isn't known, and that's accomplished in partnership with the client. And all of this is work. If you are blessed with a puzzle solving mentality and a love of learning, the work is nothing but fun. But it's still work.


If you love selling, and I hope that you do if that's how you earn your living, your degree of success will in large measure depend upon how much you love all the elements that make up a sales situation. Among the most critical of them is preparedness. Your credibility, and ability to handle questions and objections depend upon it. There's no uglier feeling in a sales meeting than when the thought hits you, "how in the heck didn't I know that."

Any relevant endeavor whose outcome is in doubt, requires more than luck, charm and preexisting relationships to elevate the success prospects. The preparation required will involve research, study and planning. Don't get me wrong. You can't know everything. But you can know everything that you can know. And that takes work. Learn to love that part too.

Hey, when you left the house this morning, you probably didn't say, "Bye Honey, I'm off to fun."


Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Monday, March 15, 2010

Why Not Today?

All that stuff you are going to do tomorrow, should have been done today. Planning is an absolutely necessary activity and skill, when used for the purpose intended. The average performer however, uses planning not much differently than he uses a call to his mom, as a distraction.

Selling can be a very painful way to make a living. A salesman's days are filled with rejection. I can argue, of course, that the more rejections you get, the better your prospects for success. But we are not naturally built to thrive on rejection, are we? We thrive on love or its acceptable substitutes: acceptance, praise and acknowledgement.

Because we get many more doors slammed (at least figuratively) than opened, most sellers practice avoidance. They find any number of reasons to delay the experience, like planning the day away. ("At least that's a necessary function," we subconsciously tell ourselves.)

Here's a planning plan: Plan all day long. On the way to a call. In between calls. On the call. Every thing that pops to mind during the course of the day gets written down in an Office Expert wire bound pocket memo pad which is always on your person. Little hand drawn boxes down the left side of the page. "To Dos" right next to them.

Check marks in the boxes when each note is accomplished. At the very end of your business day (read: just before sleep) you spend time reviewing your memo paid and making your list for tomorrow.

Doing your planning this way 1) will elevate the favorable results of planning by some multiple and 2) earn you many more satisfied clients and bosses. Collapse Time! Do it today!

Oh yes. Every time a door gets slammed. Tell yourself, "it's not me, it's the work that I do." Onward to help someone else.

Great Selling.

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Read This Blog to Your Kids at Bed Time

How early is too early to begin to teach your kids what they will need to know to make their way in this world? Some mothers read to their pre-natal offspring. I think it's never too early to let your kids know that at any time two or more people get together and engage in conversation, there's at least one, and sometimes more than one agenda at play. Communication serves the purpose of letting others know how we think, feel, or what we need.

In the most recent interchange you had, you said "yes" or "no" or "maybe" or "perhaps" or "you're right" or "you're wrong." If the conversation occurred at home you said "yes dear" or "no dear" or "I'm sorry" or "apology accepted."

"I want you to like me, think I'm smart, think I'm worth caring about, want to see me again, want to buy something from me, want to hire me, want to invite me to your next party, want you to come work for me or want me to come work for you," or you want me to do the same for you.

If I tell you I love you, I want you to believe me.

In short, we spend much, much of our time trying to bring people to our side of the table. To put it crassly, we are all selling. All the time. Does that mean we are flim-flamming each other? No. Does that mean we are insincere, inauthentic? No. What it does mean is that for virtually all of us, a good life is one shared in various types of relationships with others. Having the opportunity to do so in some measure depends upon our ability to be favorably received and perceived. So we present ourselves as well as we know how. Some do that better than others, and a few blessed and/or well schooled do it remarkably well, and go to heaven.

So you decide the bedtime story. "The Princess and the Pea" or "Great Sellers Go To Heaven."

Great Selling (and parenting)

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Art of Selling 101; Closing the Sale

For you regulars to this blog, I want to remind you that this is "101," and if you absorb and practice the advice offered, it won't be long before you are a good sales executive which generally speaking will place you among the vast majority of average sellers. If that doesn't sound like much of a big deal, you have to start somewhere. The title of the blog site, "greatsellersgotoheaven.com" implies bigger aspirations for you. I have, and will continue to share with you my observations garnered over a lifetime of running companies as to the characteristics, habits and values that are commonly shared by uncommon, or extraordinary sales executives. To become extraordinary takes some field work as well as classroom time, and so "101" is intended to help you stay in the game long enough to get the field work in.

In our two previous "Art of Selling" posts we talked about getting and conducting the first "Tell Me" meeting, step one in the Consultative Sales approach. In a nut shell, that selling strategy has you as the interviewer seeking out what the buyer can tell you all about his business, market, competitors, resources, etc., as well as the most profound obstacles to the growth of his business. Once you have agreement on that, you and the buyer "contract" that you will ponder your notes, and try to find solutions to his hurdles. Once accomplished, the two of you will visit again for you to present your findings. (Read that: for you to sell him the solution.)

In the next visit you 1) re-state the prior agreement: "Mr. Jones in our last meeting we agreed that your most significant hurdle to be cleared for you to grow your business is blah blah blah," 2) present your research findings on his "problem," 3) offer your proposal to grasp the opportunity as well as the case histories to support your proposition and then take him through the investment and the return you believe it will provide (ROI). And then you...

SHUT UP!

If you do, and you can, so do, one of two things will happen. First he may swipe the contract out of your hand, sign it, grab you by the shoulders and pull you in for a big hug, and with tears of gratitude in his eyes, plant a kiss on your cheek. Or two, he may tell you one to seventeen hundred reasons why that sale will never happen. (I'd short number one.)

What you need to do next, when number "2" arrives will not be a natural reaction. The natural reactions would be to beg or attack. The begging will untimately humiliate you, and the attack will make you feel better for only a very short while but will subsequently take up a lot of your time at the unemployment office.

What you do next is to EMPATHIZE.
Let's posit that his negative response (objection) is the cost of the program. You respond after locking your sympathetic eyes on him, "Mr. Jones I certainly understand how concerned you are about increasing what you see as operating costs, especially now, when revenues have slowed."

"I understand," "I know how you feel," "I wish I had a dollar for every smart business man I've met who expressed the same concern," "I would feel exactly as you do in the same circumstances," and on and on. These are all expressions of empathy.
And EMPATHY must be the first communication in response to the objection. And by the way, the fact that you are on automatic pilot in your response, does not imply that his concern (objection) is not worthy of your true empathy. After all, this guy is worried about meeting payroll and you are suggesting he spend more money.

After empathy comes COMFORT and it starts with the word "BUT". "I understand how you feel Mr. Jones. Many of my customers have faced the same situation. Business is slow, how can I risk investing? (Use that word--it moves from "cost," a purely negative thought to a word with some reason for optimism.) "But Mr. Jones what others have found, and what I believe we must acknowledge , is that the greater risk is paralysis in a down market. That too often brings out the "For Sale" sign. The proposal I have crafted for you carefully targets your opportunity and drills home to your potential customers that you are the solution to their problem. Your risk in investment is far outweighed by the potential for success. Agreed?

SHUT UP AND WAIT FOR THE NEXT OBJECTION.

Let's posit that the next objection is along this line: "Well Bob, your thoughts certainly make some sense but I just can't bring myself to come up with that large a commitment." And you say...

"I understand how daunting that kind of a commitment can be Mr. Jones. (EMPATHY) I'm hearing you say that the investment amount, rather that the approach itself is worrying. So let's do this. (BUT) Let's commit to a week on, week off program. I'll compress the schedule so that we'll message intensely a few days of the week which will magnify the effect of each message, and carefully choose alternating days of week to insure maximum reach. The effect will be 1) that you still get to tell your story to a great number of people, 2) you've lowered your investment risk by 50% and we will be able to build on the program after you see that it returns along the lines I've suggested. OK?"

SHUT UP!

You haven't asked so I'll tell you. After a trial close ("OK?" is a trial close), the adage is "first one who speaks loses." Really what you are looking for is the buyer to fully express all of his objections so that you can deal with them. If you do all the blabbing, you get to hear the wonderful sound of your voice, but you don't get the business.

Now I have an offer you can't refuse. We could go on and on about basic art of selling techniques that will get you in the game. But I'd rather we take a shot at making you great. There are hundreds of "How To" sell books at your favorite FOX BOOKS outlet. (And these are all good for the average seller). So I'm going to do my best to get back to the basic raison d'etre of this blog and get you into heaven. But, if you email me questions about "101," and please do so without any embarrassment, I'll be happy to try to answer as quickly as I can via a personal email.

Because, that's why.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork