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

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Second Best Down to Earth Business Book Ever Written

The first-best, hasn't been written yet. That accolade goes to Ted Leonsis and his very recently published, The Business of Happiness (Regnery Press).

Two of the most rewarding years of my life, in terms of pure challenge, fun and exhileration were spent as a colleague of Ted's at AOL. When I joined AOL it was just some months after 9/11, and the so-called Internet implosion. Its subscription revenue base was still a very strong revenue stream but advertising revenues were in a free fall and I was asked to head the team that turned it around. We did a reasonably credible job at that task, and in no small part due to the wisdoms, offerings and delivery of real help from a number of the "old guard" at AOL. None of that help and wisdom was more valuable than that gifted by Ted Leonsis. Meeting him, working with him, and having him to this day return my phone calls, have helped to make my career, and life, if the truth be known, richer.

You can, and should meet him too. He's extremely warm, open, revealing, highly motivating and an excellent mentor. That whole package is yours for $27.95 or less if you hit the discounters or print a Border's coupon. Wait a day or two because I might have already sent you a copy.

Ted Leonis. The Business of Happiness.