Great Sellers Go To Heaven

The Fat Lady Never Stops Singing for the Great Ones

2011-05-07T15:59:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine runs a well known middle market media planning and buying service. This fellow has led companies in both media and technology, always makes sure he understands what he and his clients know and don't know and works hard to forge partnerships that serve his clients.

In his current field, the most serious threat to the continuance of the client relationship, is the appearance of a new marketing "head" at the client.

Now if a marketing executive reaches the CMO level, he's made a few friends along the way who service client marketing needs, and now that he's landed his new job, he "knows" just who can help him make his mark in his new position. Inevitably the contract termination provision is invoked after one or two polite conversations with the existing provider.

So one of my friend's top clients sends him the thirty day notice.

A good executive in a situation like this, gathers the troops and target new customer forays. "We must replace this income!"

My "bud," not a "good," but a Great Seller and Leader also gathered the troops. His message was different.

"You know,we have several really smart new initiatives in the pipeline and no other agency understands this client's opportunities better than we do. We can take their three month "severance" and focus only on new business, or we can earn the three month pay by fine tuning and presenting our ideas. They are making a mistake in terminating us and our hard work these next twelve weeks may help them avoid that mistake."

That's the approach they took and the fat lady never stopped singing.

Share|

Great Sellers Know When to Leave Their Cell Phones Deactivated

2011-04-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

Maybe that goes for parents and spouses as well, but I claim much less expertise in those areas.

If you've the good fortune of a client or potential client giving you a part of his business day because you've convinced him you that believe that you can and would like to help him, what's the message he receives when your cell rings or you check for new messages, across the desk from him. (If you are one of, sadly, the minority of folk out to dinner with the wife and kids and no cell phone in sight on your table, what's your reaction to the guy at the next table celling-away?)

You client deserves your complete and thoughtful attention. You are there intruding on his schedule for his benefit. You are his samurai--at his service--you exist for his well-being, at least for the hour he's given you.

Absent a personal crisis which you must be able to respond to quickly, everything else can and should wait.

Leaving your cell phone in the glove compartment may be harder than stopping smoking, but you can do it. I know you can!

Great Selling!

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

Share|

I Believe I can Help You

2011-04-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

That's a magical phrase, if you do the work to get there, and mean it!

I consult a handful of companies. This activity is one of the most pleasurable of my career. The reasons are different in each case. Diversity of challenges and needs in these varied, mostly start-ups, keeps tedium at bay. The tenacity, vision and brilliance of the entrepreneurs couldn't be more stimulating. And their willingness, perhaps in some cases acknowledged desire, to be mentored by the "been there and done that" guy is, I admit, affirming.

I have also turned down, graciously I hope, other opportunities to consult, and rarely because of time, or the economic constraints of the company. It's always been because I didn't think their particular needs suited what I bring to the table. And that brings us back to the title of this blog.

Don't take anything from anyone. Always give instead. Or at least always think you can, and then try, to give. And how will you know if you can? That is where the work comes in. Who is this potential client? What does he do? What product or service does he provide? What product or service do I provide? What are our respective competitive sets? What is his differentiation from his competitors? Does what I have to provide improve his differentiation, make him more desirable? Or do I at lease believe so; honestly believe so?

That's the work that hopefully gets you too "I believe I can help you"

When you get there: "Hi Mr. Jones, I've been doing considerable researching of your company efforts and I believe that I can help you." He of course responds "blah, blah, blah" none of which means "how quickly can you get over here?" To which you say, "Mr. Jones, the half hour you commit to me (choice close on days and times--call me if you don't know what that means--) may be of real importance to you. I'd like to help. Commit the half hour and if after five minutes you wished you hadn't, I won't be offended by your ending the meeting. Fair enough?"

He'll see you.

Now what if Mr. Jones isn't in your Rolodex? You don't need a Rolodex. Its value is highly overstated. Those with a humongous Rolodex have them populated with a significant percentage of people who hope that they never call. Let Google be your Rolodex. If you do your work, want and are skilled enough to help, you'll get the appointments--and new clients. I do it all the time--and so will you!

Great selling!

Happy to answer questions.

BTW (ask your kid). Have a story to tell or a selling philosophy? Email me and get famous:)

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

-- AddThis Button BEGIN -->

Share|

Commoditization Your Problem?

2011-03-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Do you sell corn, or sweet Jersey corn? Do you sell potatoes or Idaho potatoes?

Has the commoditization of your product or service got you down or is your inability to differentiate it from the pretenders holding you down? A few days ago, WCBS-AM Newsradio in New York, aired a feature by Ray Hoffman of the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Hoffman was reporting the thoughts of the CEO of Priceline about the complaint of commoditization, and its painful effects on profits.

The answer offered...differentiation.

Look, you sell either a piece of meat or sirloin, a bushel of wheat or a bushel of super fine, no toxins Kansas wheat, cars or Cadillacs.

You hit and run, or you are there every step of the way with your client from order to renewal. You sell "as is" or "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back." You make a difference in his success potential or it's "every man for himself."

If your product or service is above the pack, and especially if you own that reputation and it's verifiable, you can't be commoditized. You're different, unique and uncommon and so "Please Mr. Jones, may we discuss the value to you that I bring to the table? Because I promise you, it's very different than those you are comparing me to--like apples and...."

Here's a letter that one of our well trained, genuine and talented managers received just this week from a client:

From: Dawn M Richardson
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 1:06 PM
To: 'Tim Miller'
Subject: RE: Tim Miller Calling

Tim, I must tell you that I do believe that you are on my side. I don’t believe that I’ve just begun working with you but I have made a friend too. I appreciate your sincerity and honesty. I look forward to a long working relationship with you...

My guess is that Tim's price will be discussed, but without reference to another guy's price, because the other guy is not Tim. He's different, not a commodity.

Great Selling!

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

Share|

Great Sellers are Great Forecasters; Great Executives are Great Forecasters too!

2011-03-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

So there you are Mr. Responsible for the P&L Executive at the beginning of March. You take a look at year-to-date 2/28 numbers and you are off your revenue budget. Several totally unpredictable events have cost you revenue. Maybe two sales executives resigned to start their own venture. Maybe a severe weather period slowed down industry activity in your area. Fortunately you are not so far off that the full year budget appears unachievable, but if truth be known, you think good luck will have to play a part. Too bad there aren't EVPs of good luck.

It might have to be luck because in preparing your revenue budget for the year you've identified every potential revenue stream and put a number against it. Let's see, core customer renewals and upgrades, new business targets, additional products and or services, etc. You are an experienced budgeter so your plan is probably all inclusive. Well, prayerfully, now that you're in the hole, you'll be able to think of something new.

And this is where your forecasting acumen comes in. You take a good look at the rest of the quarter's prospects and you pick an absolutely "can do" number. This number can be neither aspirational nor doomsday. Rather it must be borne of a deep look at your sales team's pipeline, one-on-one meetings with your sellers and a thoughtful and realistic review of the past forecasting performance of these sellers. You must apply a rational degree of confidence percentage to their forecasts.

How do you accomplish that? First, you challenge each account in the pipeline. "What have you proposed and to whom at this account? Was the decision maker a participant at the "close?" When did you see him last? Did he agree to the specific price level you are forecasting or did he say he would decide which plan and get back to you? When did he say he would act?...."

And then...the Great Executive Forecaster pulls out each individual sales reps' forecast history sheet (you have them, don't you?) to help gauage the seller's reliability.

You are now in a position to make a professional, informed forecast...and uh, oh.

It's mostly fear of the "uh, oh" that poisons accurate forecasts; fear on the part of average sellers and average managers alike. Here's what happens when that fear is converted to "can do, will do" by the Great Ones.

They come together and help each other get it done! "Joe, among the seven accounts you believe can close this month, two appear to carry the meaningful revenue load. Let's call/see them together ASAP to see if we can close the deal. With respect to client A, if we...do you think that could get him to move today?"

Now the session above does two things: First it gives the Great Ones the best shot at maximizing the short term results. But let's assume your researched, pro-active challenging and helping still leaves your now professional, and therefor probably near perfect forecasting, short for Q1. Now it is "What can we change, add, invent that will drive incremental revenue over the next nine months to cover our projected shortfall?" This is your new, probably top priority exercise. Do it well, and with a little additional luck, you'll crash through your budget.

Great Selling!

Happy to answer questions

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessy
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse time
Teamwork

Share|

Great Sellers are Great Buyers As Well

2011-02-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

If you've done exceptional work to convince a client that you are in his service and that his success is both your goal and your responsibility, you've gone a long way toward ensuring the success of this partnership. There are two more critical pieces to the mosaic that must be undertaken and monitored.

The first of course, is the implementation...the follow-through. Anything less delivered than as promised makes working with you a mistake, and makes you a liability. Needless to say, makes you NOT a great seller. The work really starts when the customer says "yes."

A Great Buyer holds your feet to the fire on your promise, your end of the deal. He metrics the progress against the promise, is involved in strategies and plans that require re-working because of unforseen but inevitable potholes. He paces and races with you from start to the finish line. A Great Buyer is a great partner.

A Great Seller must also "demand" the best from his client. He must monitor and metric the degree of effort that the Buyer expends to maximize the benefits, to the buyer, of the partnership. The Buyer's responsibility is more than to write the check when the invoice is delivered, just as the Seller's responsibility goes way beyond getting a signature on the contract.

"Mr. Jones, we need to...how can we?...what if we?...weren't you going to?...I thought we agreed that you would...etc." Wow, the Seller sounds just like a buyer. Only the great ones.

In an effective partnership, once the deal is made, Buyer and Seller are "in it together" and each hold each other's feet to the fire.

Great Selling!

Any Questions?

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

Share|

When Negotiating: Great Sellers Talk Value

2011-02-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

He asks, "how much is it?"

Undergraduate sales trainers call this a "hot button" and say "it's time to close."

Great Post-Graduate Sellers know that the "sale" hasn't gotten to the "I must have it" stage yet and there's more work to do before it's time for the pricing conversation. "How much is it" is a knowing or unknowing expression on the part of the buyer which implies, "if this stuff is cheap enough, maybe I'll go for it."

The reality is, the presentation has gotten the buyer to "it's a nice doo dad, but I have seven already. If it's cheap, ok."

So you say, "let's make sure we've nailed down the proposition. The idea I've put together to jump start/grow/expand/make more profitable/get more customers for...your business, starts with the notion...makes sense right?"

If he responds, "right"...you follow with, "and then I and my support team will make sure that the implementation is perfect by ensuring...you get that right?"

If he is still enthusiastic in his responses, you offer "well I'm happy to tell you that the project is reasonably priced for both of us at________."

Then he says, "Great," right? Nah. He coughs and says, "that's way too much/unaffordable...how about _______?"

And you respond, "Mr. Jones the value you will receive as a result of this targeted plan and the effort that will be expended to grow your business is very fairly priced for both of us. That will make it a successful partnership."

Smile, shut up, and wait for his "Let's go."

Great Selling!

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

Share|

Don't Guess, Ask!

2011-02-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

There are two basic reasons in our business (and probably personal) lives that we don't ask others what's on their minds. First and foremost is that we likely don't want to hear the answer. We'd prefer to fantasize that the worst case scenario we fear, won't come to pass if we just stay passive/ignorant and don't push the issue.

The second reason is that we think, even though there's no evidence to support it, that we know what's on the other person's mind. In this case presuming to know that, we can strategize how best to make it work out our way. (Heck, you are way ahead of the game if you really know what's on your mind, much less mine--or a prospect's).

How's this for an idea? The next time you are unclear about the client's needs, reaction to your proposal, alternatives, view of the quality or pricing of your proposed service or product...ASK HIM!

The downside is that he might tell you the truth. Then you'd be in a position to write up the order, thank him for his time and consideration with no order and move on to the next client, address his concerns by explaining your proposal further, adjusting your proposal to better meet his needs in a way that's still acceptable to you...Or you could continue addressing whatever your fantasies are about his state of mind and likely as not, blow the opportunity. What's the downside to asking again?

Great sellers ask for as well as tell the truth!

Great Selling!

(Happy to answer your questions)

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

Share|

Great Decision Makers Listen; To You and Their Influencers

2011-02-04T08:11:00.000-08:00

Sales 101 reminds you to make sure that you are dealing with the decision maker to effect a partnership (start thinking and using the word "partnership" instead of "sale," so that you start behaving like a partner instead of a dime a dozen salesman).

I'm hoping that you are reading this because you are determined to "ace" Sales 201. This course requires you to understand that an effective decision maker will not only listen carefully to a "worth listening to" salesman, but also to those working for him that will be affected by his decision.

So for example, the 101 graduate gets himself a Venti Latte after a good job pitching a new marketing program to a CEO decision maker. "Hey, why not a Latte, and expense it at that, I got to the CEO"?

The CEO, in fact, was impressed. Enough so to send the proposal down to the CMO who unfortunately was not in the meeting (CMO? What CMO?), and who happened to have had a latte, and a raspberry scone, just the day before with our "undergraduate's" competitor who was pitching a similar program, that in this CMO's opinion, expressed intelligently and subsequenstly to the CEO, was the preferred solution.

And the CEO? "Hey, of the two guys telling me what to do here, only one of them has my complete trust (that's why he works for me) and after all, marketing is his area of responsibility. Good leadership requires me to take his sensibly expressed advice."

Here's the lesson folks. You must have the decision maker and his influencers in the loop to make it happen. How will you know who the influencers are?

"Mr. Jones. Thanks for the appointment. I know how busy you must be. Who else might have a stake in our discussion that I might invite with your permission?"

A good decision maker won't be offended by your question. He'll be impressed.

(With thanks to "S" for reminding me)

Great Selling!

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

Hey--why not share this with your Friends and Twitter followers--Thanks

!-- AddThis Button BEGIN -->

Share|

Give 'Em a Deal, or Give 'Em an Idea?

2011-02-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

Early this week, a colleague ( an atypically good manager) was complaining that this blustery winter was wreaking havoc with his advertising supported business. The retailers that he relies on to purchase advertising, are finding their stores empty of customers and so they are tightening their belts, and cutting their ad spend.

"Well you've at identified your problem, now what?," I asked.

"I'm going to offer a great pricing package for an immediate long term commitment," was his response. His strategy to get customers who won't advertise because their customers won't shop for non-essentials during a tough snow fall, was to lower his prices. Here's the message that strategy sends to his advertisers: "My business is way off because your business is way off. So I'm going to cut my price to you so my business will get better."

Now if I'm a retailer approached with this proposal, I'm thinking, "Let's see, I'm getting killed because no one is coming in, but I can get less killed per ad if I take advantage of this seller's problem. "Hey, thanks but no thanks."

Make today the first day of the rest of your business life by telling yourself that every client you ever contact will immediately "get it" that it is him, first, last and always that you serve. Not you and not your boss. Him.

Snow? Everyone is holed up in their homes and no one is going out to buy a new suit, car, washing machine? What's the strategy to get them out and over to my haberdashery, dealership or appliance center?

"Mr. Jones, Automotive News, which no doubt you read, reports that 17% of Americans intend to get a new car this year. Clearly weather like we are experiencing today, will not bring them out to execute that intention.

But, what if you made an extraordinary offer good this snow week only and offered to pick folk up at their homes and drive them back--first come, first served (in your weather prepared vehicle) so they could see the new Altima? And what if while in your showroom they could register to win...etc. etc."

" Mr. Jones you will have an enormous share of voice, because every other dealer has cut his ad spending. Second, those responding to the offer will be Intenders and so you will have a more than fair shot at selling them. And finally, your share of sales to Intenders will improve in what otherwise would have been a nothing week."

What happened here? A conversation about the client's interest took place. He probably listened, and your stock with him went way up.

Great Selling!

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

Share|

Do it Now

2010-12-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

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

Share|

Re-building a Bridge is Really Tough Work

2010-12-02T17:35:00.000-08:00

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.

Share|

Great Sellers are Change Agents

2010-11-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

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

Share|

Great Sellers Take the Longer View

2010-11-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

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

Share|

Focus on the Denominator

2010-11-23T17:57:00.000-08:00

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

Share|

Think Process Vs. Content in Client Meetings

2010-11-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

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

Share|

Before "Nice Seeing You."

2010-11-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

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

Great Sellers Sell Value, Not Price

2010-10-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

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

Lessons from the Mountain Top

2010-10-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

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

Great Sellers are Courageous People

2010-10-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

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

Why Should You Network? Maybe and maybe not.

2010-10-12T06:58:00.001-07:00

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

Might Makes Right, or Does it?

2010-10-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

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

"I Understand How You Feel" for Great Sellers

2010-09-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

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

Advanced Appointment Securement 201

2010-09-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

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

Do it For Them

2010-09-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

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

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

2010-09-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

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

Great Sellers are Senior Partners

2010-08-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

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

Sales' Seven Dirty Words

2010-07-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

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

He Means What He Says!

2010-07-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

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

Are You A Good Sales Clerk or a Great Seller?

2010-07-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

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

Got a Light?

2010-06-27T20:10:00.001-07:00

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

On His Way to Super Stardom

2010-06-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

"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.

Great Salesmen Don't Multi-task

2010-06-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

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

Sales: 201

2010-06-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

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

You Be the Final Arbiter of the Value of Your Work

2010-06-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

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

Today Was a Great Day Because….

2010-05-23T13:14:00.001-07:00

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

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

2010-05-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

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

Many Politicians Can Sell, Few Salesmen Can Politic

2010-05-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

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

Honest and Fearless Communication...always

2010-05-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

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

Service Determines Lifetime Value

2010-04-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

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

A Noble Vocation

2010-04-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

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

Did You Sell Out Your Bridal Fair?

2010-04-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

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

Anxiety Trumps Logic

2010-04-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

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

Close! Now or Never! OK. Almost Never!

2010-03-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

"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

That's Why They Call it Work

2010-03-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

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

Why Not Today?

2010-03-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

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

Read This Blog to Your Kids at Bed Time

2010-03-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

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

The Art of Selling 101; Closing the Sale

2010-03-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

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

The Second Best Down to Earth Business Book Ever Written

2010-03-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

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.

The Art Of Selling: Sales 101...The Proposal, and Work Leading to it.

2010-02-23T15:41:00.000-08:00

In the first "class" on the Art of Selling (see immediately preceding post) we "talked" about getting and conducting the first appointment, the "tell me" interview. It's called that because the job of the seller in that meeting is to LISTEN to, and LEARN everything about what the client knows about his business and his perceptions of the opportunities for growth. The objective of the meeting is an agreement between the parties as to what "problem" the sales representative will try to solve at which point he will re-visit and propose his solution (or to be crass, sell).

Next step: That day, or the very next, send a brief letter, email if you like, expressing appreciation, reconfirming your assignment on behalf of the client and your eagerness to have a promising solution when you visit next (insert appointment time and date).

The Work: Use your first meeting notes as bullet points to be researched.
a. What's the market size for his product or service?
b. What are the geographic considerations (where is the market that he can
service?).
c. What is the profile of his consumer?

1. Age
2. Sex
3. Income
4. Education
5. Household size
6. More? (Think)

d. Who are his competitors?
e. Is this a high or low margin business?
f. What is the brand position of your client and those of his competitors?
g. What share of the market does he control?
h. What are the product and price differences between him and his competitors?
i. What is the lifetime value of a new customer?
j. What can he afford per new customer acquisition?
K. More? (Think more).

The Proposal:

A. The executive summary: Re-state the agreed upon problems/opportunities
identified in the first meeting
B. Next, summarize your findings from your "work" and conclude this section
connecting the salient findings to the solution objective.
C. Next, present the specifics of your proposal.

1. Here's what to do.
2. Here's the suggested consumer messaging
3. Here are case histories supporting this approach and their favorable
results.
4. Here are my projections for new sales, the
cost of sales and the profit margins resulting from this program

Shut up! And get ready to HEAR and Respond to questions and objections.

Great Selling!

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

Remember: This "course" is to be good; great is a whole other course.

The Art of Selling: Sales 101

2010-02-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

My fantasy is that at least a few followers of this blog will be inspired to become great sellers. (Wow, can you imagine if I asked you ten years ago what a blog was?). It's hard work to be "great" at anything. It's just as hard to be "good" at anything. However the jump from good to great requires much more commitment, discipline and time than does the jump from beginner to good. Great salesmen bear the gifts of betterment to all with whom they come in contact. But both Good and Great salesmen need to sweep the arena within which they play before each event, if they hope to record a "W". That's because their predecessors didn't clean up after themselves. The Art of Selling will help clean up the predisposed cynicism of the "buyer" and get you the permission to help him.

Here's the truth. You come to sell me and promise me great benefits from a purchase of your wares, and I just don't believe you. I do however believe you will say or do anything to get your fingers inside my wallet and get as much as you can for the least you turn over. Sorry, but that's something you'll need to come to terms with and learn how to overcome in "the work you have chosen."

If you're to have even a shot at selling me, other than for an obviously and ridiculously low price, you are going to need to artfully neutralize my mindset. How to do that, is the subject matter of Sales 101.

THE CONSULTATIVE SELL: Starting with the appointment setting phone call or visit, the correct approach communicates selflessness; "Mr. Jones, I'd like to visit with you because I think I can help you. I AM NOT COMING TO SELL ANYTHING, BUT RATHER TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS. IN THAT WAY WE'LL BOTH BE ABLE TO SEE IF I CAN HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS. I NEED A HALF HOUR OF YOUR TIME. CAN YOU INVEST A HALF HOUR WITH ME? I'D LIKE TO HELP".

Now if you are, or at least sound, sincere you will get one appointment for every 15 - 50 calls you make. (More appointments for fewer calls will happen as you get better at phone work). So the first thing to notice is that it is not easy to get an appointment to sell something. The other thing to take away from the low success ratio between calls and appointments made, is that it has much less to do with your worth than it does with how people feel about sellers in general. It's not a rebuke of you personally, it's a disdain for your profession. (Doesn't that make you feel better?). Don't get discouraged. Instead make long, no, a very long list of prospects. You've heard that sales is a numbers game and Sales 101 supports that proposition.

Preparing for the Appointment: You will want to do the research on your prospect. ("Search" makes that easier than ever). What does he produce or sell? Who is his consumer? What is the size of the market? Who are his main competitors? Where does he rank among his competitors in share of market? Is this a high or low margin business? How important does brand recognition seem to be versus price? In addition to search and after you've done the initial work, ask your manager if he knows anything more about this prospect?

The First Appointment: "TELL ME"--The first appointment is for you to question the prospect all about his business with the research you've accumulated as your outline:

"Mr. Jones, how much money is spent in your marketing area for the product/service you offer?"

He answers and you write it down. Write down his every response. In your questioning and your writing down his responses you are giving very clear signals that you take this meeting seriously and are vitally interested in learning about his business. You want to be of help! Remember, that is how you got the appointment in the first place and now you are demonstrating your sincerity.

"Mr. Jones, how many competitors do you have for the $167,984,305.97 that is spent annually in your marketing area?"

"And where do you rank in share?"

"And what factors seem to control the rankings?" (Could be number of years in business; Could be advertising budgets; Could be perceptions of quality, pricing, number of sales people). If he doesn't volunteer all these factors, you can ask about them. For example, "Mr. Jones, you didn't mention which competitor has been in business the longest. Who has? Do you think that plays a part in market share?"

After your list of questions and others that arise during the course of the conversation are answered, you are ready to ask the key question or two that sets the banquet table.

"Mr. Jones, of the following three competitive issues we've (you are now starting to allude to this as a joint effort, a partnership) uncovered so far today, which do you think, if solved, provides the greatest opportunity?"

He answers and then you say...

"Mr. Jones, I think we've agreed that blah blah blah provides us ("us", get it?) with the greatest opportunity to grow. I'd like to leave off here, go back to my office, think about and review this conversation with my associates, in confidence of course, and see if we think we can come up with ideas to make it happen for you. You'll want to hear about that if we can, right? Why don't we pencil in mid-week to go over the ideas we come up with to help you grow? Would Tuesday or Wednesday morning be better for you? I'll get back to you Monday to either wish you well or excitedly confirm the appointment? OK?"

YOUR OBJECTIVE IN MEETING NUMBER ONE IS TO GET MEETING NUMBER TWO. THAT'S YOUR CLOSE.

And, that also concludes the first lesson in Sales 101; getting and conducting the first meeting. Assign yourself some homework.

Great Selling!

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

P.S. Remember, we're "taking" Sales 101 to learn to be "Good" at sales. "Great" is a whole other course.

Tell Me About the Blog's Title Again

2010-02-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

Frankly, whatever part religion plays in my life has little to do with business, but the title for this blog came to me when I found myself thinking how important an altruistic mindset is to help set the stage for extraordinary performance in sales. So while one's spirituality is nothing to take lightly, I thought it made for a catchy title. If I've transgressed, may I be forgiven.

Great Sellers Go To Heaven because they live by a set of core values that center around honesty in their communications and devoted service to others before self. It seems to me, that these qualities tenaciously adhered to, begin to make a good argument in favor of admission. The other core values that I believe lead to uncommon success are in support of these two so as to ensure the greatest benefit to the greatest number of clients. Here again are the five core values which I propose can guide anyone to remarkable sales performance:

1. LOVE YOUR WORK AND WORK TIRELESSLY
2. COLLAPSE TIME
3. TEAMWORK
4. SERVE, DON'T SELL
5. COMMUNICATE HONESTLY AND FEARLESSLY

Numbers 4 and 5 will be the "evidence" from your business life supporting your "case."

There is a common ground you share with all those upon whom you call. You each want to benefit (in various ways) from your labor. You each want to invest, acquire wisely and benefit those who are counting on you. You are each prepared, or ought to be, to sacrifice to achieve these ends. If you are the one in a given interchange offering to provide the goods or services, your success will be in direct proportion to the degree to which you make paramount the needs of those you would serve.

Behaving this way will fire up the engine of rough justice karma that will ensure your uncommonly substantial payment for services rendered. Aside from logic there is substantial faith based evidence that a life spent this way helps on judgement day. A search of "service to others" in the St. James Bible,
the Old Testament, the Koran and readings on Buddhism reveal the following:

1 Peter 4:10
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."

Exo 24:13;
33:11
"Great leaders are people who have no problem with serving
others if that is their lot in life; indeed, it helps prepare
to them to lead"

Koran: "You are the best people created for the good of mankind." (3:111)
This verse claims that Muslims are the best people and have been raised for the good of others.

Buddism: "Human Dignity in Buddhism," by Ven Dr.K Sri Dhanaranda:
"By being of service to others, we develop great virtues which are inherent in us. By being of service to others we show a spirit of understading, kindness, compassion, honesty, simplicity, gentleness and humility."

Pick a religion or look about you at the stand out performers who month after month and year after year do all, and more, that is expected of them by their bosses and clients. They serve and serve again and are going... you know where.

Great Selling!

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

Spend the Rest of the Week Visiting Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Kia Dealers

2010-02-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

It took way too long but Toyota corporate is finally on the right track with their messaging. In short--they are apologizing to their consumer base, assuring one and all that they are 100% focused on solutions and very mindful of their obligation to communicate openly and honestly and live up, once again, to the heretofore perception of being a top quality auto company. One that we can trust with our safety.

Toyota dealerships should be piggy-backing this marketing strategy locally coupled with an appeal for an appreciation of their years of service to their communities and sincere pledges to double and redouble that good citizenship. A promotion with an obvious and meaningful community service component would likely go a long way to support the sincerity of the message.

Meanwhile, as Toyota pushes uphill with the weight of the negative PR world on their shoulders, Honda, Hyundai and Kia should be attacking frontally and from each flank. Honda's begun to do so taking the high road using "safety" as almost, that is almost, a throwaway word in its national advertising.

Kia, having overcome its original U.S. image as a cheap-only car and graduating to an inexpensive and pretty reliable car, and Hyundai with its ten year/100,000 mile warranty also have only a handful of weeks to seriously and perhaps permanently prevent Toyota from regaining its top imported car market share. Certainly these same weeks provide an unparalleled opportunity to sell cars that might have gone to fill new Toyoda family coffers.

I know that there are dealers who tell media sales people that they are waiting to see how things shake out before they invest. Any great seller who hears that will probably answer with something along the lines of, "Actually Mr. Jones, it seems to me that plan is a little like waiting for the enemy (well, competitor anyway) to resupply its troops with ammunition so as to ensure a fair fight."

Great Selling!

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

Toyota Doesn't Get It

2010-02-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

The Wall Street reporter from FOXNEWS on Imus in the Morning yesterday quoted auto analysts as predicting that Toyota is, and for a while will be, losing $150,000,000 per week in new car sales as a result of the recall due to "pedal sticking problems." (Today there are reports of brake problems with the Prius so that forecast could go way up). Toyota may lose $150,000,000 million or more in sales per week, but not because of the recall or the new Prius brake problem. Rather it'd be because of the way they continue to mishandle the outreach to their customers, present and potential, since discovering the problems.

Toyota manufactures and sells. I think that the skills that individuals employ to generate trust and sales, are not fundamentally different than those that companies should use to sell consumers on their brand. Honesty, good will and excellent service rank right at the top of those necessary sales attributes.

This is hardly the first time a quality product or service faced a disastrous consumer confidence setback. The Tylenol recall comes immediately to mind as does the breakdown in the AOL technical infrastructure after a marketing coup doubled or tripled usage overnight. The folk running and advising those companies at the time got it right. Confront the issue head on. Solve the problem. Communicate immediately, directly and honestly to every constituency. Remind your customer base how much you owe them and how little you won't do for them, including an immediate fix to the problem.

Toyota's misfortunes have been sharing the number one "breaking news spot" with the earthquake in Haiti and mass drug cartel murders in Juarez for more than a week. Yesterday I went to their WEB site (www.toyota.com). Ninety-five per cent of the home page displayed a brand new Toyota Highlander, beautifully shot against a pastoral background. In the very low left corner of the page (any WEB designer worth his salt will tell you that this is the least noticeable spot on any page) was a small bar entitled "recall information." It looked like the bar was placed there almost as an afterthought, rather than to honestly update the world on Toyota's effort to remedy the problem and well serve their customers.

Toyota makes a terrific car. But few folk are of a mind to go out of the way to buy one today. First we want to be assured that the problem has been solved; but we also want to be assured that we are cared about, that Toyota is sorry for the trouble and anxiety it has put so many of us through, and that it is prepared to make good in all cases where it has caused harm. In short, we want to be loved and protected.

Instead on their WEB page Toyota told us how much we ought to love them and their brand new Highlander. Jim Letz, head of Toyota in America, ought to have plastered the home page with his apology, fix and promises for the future. Then maybe he could talk to us about staying with or moving over to him.

Yesterday on NPR, Amy Eddings, reporter for All Things Considered, interviewed Mr. Letz as part of his press tour, and she asked a particularly interesting question: Letz had just explained that new Toyotas would have brand new accelerator "packages" to replace what might be defective ones, and recalled cars would be fitted with an oversight-approved metal "shim" which corrects the defect. Ms. Eddings asked, "what if an owner of a recalled car opted to have the whole package replaced rather than the "shim-fix?" Mr. Lentz replied that "would be a local dealer decision."

Excuse me Mr. Letz. In the face of very serious brand destruction, and with current and future disastrous potential consequences to Toyota owners, you want us to negotiate how well we will be treated by you and yours? And then you show us beautiful pictures of new Toyotas to buy at the same time. Uh, not sure you really get it, Sir.

Hey Toyota, search the case histories on the Tylenol recall and the AOL price change that brought their servers and service down, and see how the heads of those companies and their advisers blunted the adverse effect and grew their companies bigger than ever by communicating honestly and fearlesly with their consumers and demonstrating their respect and appreciation. Maybe you can borrow a page from their playbooks.

Great Selling!

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

"COMMITMENT," THE MAGIC WORD

2010-02-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

In "have a little faith," written by Mitch Albom, the protagonist, a 90 year old dying rabbi laments, "...the word commitment has lost its meaning. I'm old enough to remember," he goes on, "when it used to be a positive. A committed person was someone to be admired. He was loyal and steady. Now a commitment is something you avoid. You don't want to tie yourself down." The rabbi, was referring, of course, to interpersonal relationships, and marriage in particular.

But shifting focus to the world of business, and qualities that separate average sellers from the great ones, I would suggest that "commitment" and the degree to which it is imbued within by a seller, is an accurate measurement to forecast enduring exceptional results. Yet perhaps in business as well as in interpersonal relationships, commitment has lost its glow as a quality attribute. As the world changes at an ever increasing pace, the "winners" keep forcing growth and change upon themselves so as to stay ahead of the curve. In some cases that process of change may be throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Two salesmen come to visit me. The first shakes my hand and tells me breathlessly of a spectacular offer he's able to make me but he'll need an answer right now. The second comes in and asks me my name. So far, I'm more likely to do business with number two. The second guy begins to tell me what made him call on me and then asks a few questions to test out his original perceptions. Now we're in a conversation and at some point he mentions that his primary purpose in this meeting is to ascertain if, as he originally guessed, he might be able to help me with his product or service. (Number one seller meanwhile is sitting in the reception room shaking his right leg up and down, all the while giving my receptionist updates on how many minutes are left to take advantage of his once in a lifetime offer).

Number two finally finishes his visit with a promise to review our talk back at his office and do some research and ideating to see if there's benefit to us working together. He wants to know whether if he has a few questions after he leaves, he can follow up with a call? He wants to get this right if he's going to suggest that we, that's right, we,commit to a partnership.

We do. His servicing of the account is remarkable. My investment with him is safe and rewarding. He's hardworking and creative and I never have any reason to believe that I don't come first with him. This is one committed salesman. And I've never been quite so committed to a vendor as I am to him.

Oh him? He's down the road offering once in a lifetime deals to everyone he meets.

Great Selling!

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

Conan O'Brien Can Sell For Me Anytime

2010-01-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

I probably have never sat through an entire Conan O'Brien hour. I may have never sat through a whole Leno or Letterman show either, but I sure remember watching Carson most nights.

During the last couple of weeks, I've been tuning in to the beginnings of as many Leno at ten and O'Brien at 11:30 shows as I could because it was fun seeing how far they would go against the "suits," having been one for most of my life. They sure were fearless in telling us all how they felt. Friday night was Conan's last show and I caught his "good-bye." He was reassuring his fans that he was "OK." I would think so; A $32+ Million contract settlement and a likely gig at Fox or FX in September. Life is good for Conan O'Brien. And he, without mentioning the money, of course, had the grace to tell his audience in studio and at home that he knew that and was grateful to all that were responsible, especially NBC.

And then, toward the very end of his parting he said, "I have a message for you out there." (I may be paraphasing, but if so, only a tad). "If you work very hard and are kind, amazing things can happen."

Out of the mouths of comedians. Substitute "serve others before self," for "be kind," ... and "love your work and work tirelessly," for "work very hard,"... and you're on the way to identifying some qualities that separate great from average sellers.

O'Brien said, he's loved every minute of his work life.

O'Brien implied he's worked very hard (doesn't feel so hard when you love what you do).

It took him only a couple of weeks to negotiate a $32 million package for himself and a $13 million package for his staff, so he can collapse time.

And negotiating on behalf of his staff indicates to me that he's a pretty good team player.

He'd make a great seller.

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

Everyone Can and Does Sell, But Few Very Well

2010-01-21T08:12:00.000-08:00

You are rarely in a conversation, certainly a professional conversation, where at least one of the participants isn't selling. You can be with the same person, or persons, in subsequent conversations, when the one who is doing the selling changes, but someone will be. The very life force of survival instinct, implies a measure of control, and in business, if not in all human interaction, either force, leverage or salesmanship are at play to ensure survival.

The next time you are with your boss, pay attention to who's doing the selling, you or your boss. Either you will be selling him on your efforts, desire to improve or results, or he will be selling you on the esteem in which he holds you, or what you'll need to do to earn it, or why you should be supportive of him (maybe even to vocalize that support)--or perhaps, even what you'll need to do to keep your job. In virtually all business conversations, at least one of the parties will have an overt agenda and the other, at the least, a covert one.

The very uncommon, and therefore exceptional person (boss or employee, buyer or seller) is much less focused on his own survival than he is on the quality of his time spent. These rare birds tend to look for seed to feed others and trust there will be enough left over for them. They enjoy a special sense of personal value and fulfillment in seeing those with whom they spend time be better off for the contact. If you've worked for someone skilled, and who behaved like that, there was little you didn't try to do to justify his interest in your growth and well being. You were better off and better at the job, for the contact. If you've ever spent time with a "seller" who knew what he was talking about and subjugated his interests to the success of your endeavor, you prayed that he didn't retire before you.

If so many of our professional relationships are connected by complementing or differing agendas, and we each try to make the most of those relationships by furthering our own agendas, shouldn't we do what we can to get better and better at it? Shouldn't we get better at selling?

Rhetoric aside, the first step toward that end, I would assert, is a worthwhile agenda that speaks volumes about your mission and character. Who are you and what do you stand for? What do you value? Why would I want to spent time---or money---with you?

Great Selling!

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

NO SLEEP FOR YOU!

2010-01-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

Most adults try to get a good eight hours of sleep. Great salesmen and their great managers rarely fantasize about that long a stretch. Here's the problem: You've heard forever that sales is a numbers game. It's true, but I think of the "numbers" differently than some others.

The conventional wisdom is that the more people who you see, no matter what your closing ratio, the more you will sell. I believe that the more people who you see, because you've correctly targeted them through research and have something meaningful to talk with them about, the more people to whom you can credibly offer your help, and who will buy what you represent. And those great sellers who have mastered that art, a) don't believe that they've yet mastered it and so keep practicing and b) have much reading, thinking and calling to do, and never enough time.

Here: invite every salesman and manager with whom you are familiar to your online IM contact list. Get a great night's sleep, let's say on a Monday night. On Tuesday, set your alarm for 12 midnight and after it goes off, re-set it for 1:15 A.M. and then again for 2:15 A.M. Each time it goes off, stumble over to your computer and here's what you'll find. The small number of people online will decrease at each interval as will their reputation for greatness. At 2:15, only the superstars will be on. But not all of them. The superstars that have signed off will be fighting the flu, or have passed out from exhaustion.

The other "time eater" is the inherent conflict between the necessity for a tenacious adherence to a well strategized plan for growth, and the need to be remarkably nimble, and thus open to tweaking the plan. Just like our clients, if we don't innovate it is too easy for our competitors to successfully create game changers that work against us. Moreover, our clients need to keep up with and on top of the ever changing landscape they live in, and the more we do that for and with them, the more valuable we are. And the creative process? Well it goes on and on and on. Ask Jerry Della Femina. No Sleep for you!

So what about living a good balanced life you ask? If you love your work, and are making extraordinary contributions to all who are affected by your efforts, I think the balanced life takes care of itself. Would your kid(s) rather have three hours a day with your well rested miserably unhappy self or 1/2 hour with the best of you? Would you rather be fatigued but pleasantly satisfied after a productive day/night at the office, or well rested after 8 undisturbed hours of sleep and walking around all day wondering what happened to your dreams?

Great Selling!

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

Just Who Are You?

2010-01-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

"I'd like to introduce you to Barack, he's the President of the United States and one of the most______I know." So pretend the President was your friend and you were making that introduction. Further, let's suppose that what you know about the President as his friend, is, well, what you know about the President. Fill in the blank.

I believe that a common phenomena among many of our citizenry these days is more confusion about what this man is really about; what he really values, than they had just before he was elected president. Right wing bombastic radio aside, I certainly can understand those that wish the actions and communications emanating from his office better mirrored the seemingly clearer picture he led us to envision before January 20, 2008. For those that find getting a fix on what this man is really about is more troubling than before, the trust they have in his words and for his deeds are diminished.

Now if I'm right about the above, let's bring the conversation to the world of commerce. Buying and selling. Buyer and seller. Just who the heck are you Mr. Seller, and what the heck do you stand for? "Who wants to know?", you ask.

Every new person you call on that is broad minded enough to give you the benefit of the doubt until your actions confirm that you are just another seller out to pick his pocket, is asking. That's who.

So. What's the answer? Chances are you are someone who knows all the features and benefits of the product or service you represent. You're likely to be friendly, engaging and have a good work ethic. You know what a choice close is and know somewhere between 11 and 37 cliches about selling as for example, "Close and then shut up, first one who talks, loses," or "Answer the objection and trial close," or "ABC-Always Be Closing." If I'm right and you know and do all that, you are probably just as good as everyone else out there. Everyone that is, except the Heaven Bound.

Uncommon and remarkable sellers, the great ones who go to heaven, are easily recognized because their words and deeds always travel a highway bounded on each side by a personal set of core values that all but shout out, "I can be trusted. I am here for you. I can, and want to help you grow your business. I will sit by your side and together we will make good things happen."

And then they do it.

Great companies always have common attributes. They have a mission that defines their goal. Everyone in the company understands the mission. And most important, they have cultures that grow out of a set of core values that all employees adhere to or keep trying to do so. And they have more than their fair share of great sellers who tenaciously adhere to the mission and practice the values.

For what they are worth--here are mine:

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell (Heaven's Gateway)
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Great Selling!

P.S. I believe, I really do, that our President will before long make himself very clear and recognizable engendering overwhelming belief and trust, once again. (No-I'm not auditioning for the Huffington-Post).

Time Shares and Used Cars

2010-01-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

What comes to mind? In my case, salesman I don't want to talk to. I've been co-opted. I buy the common negative perception that these fathers, sons, husbands, brothers, veterans and friends must suffer. Why would that be?

Time Shares: The only time share processes I'm familiar with start with either a phone call, mailing or email offering me a free four day vacation with my family (kids only $100 each), usually in some warm and exotic paradise. "But Sir, why are you giving me a free vacation?" I might have asked way back then. "Well, we want you to be among the first to see our wonderful new resort because having heavily researched you Mr. Sharwood, we are sure you will really appreciate it," he might answer. "The name is Sherman, by the way, but in any event no strings attached?" "No, of course not. We would only ask that you attend a brief group meeting of invited guests so that we can explain the amenities of the resort."

Let's see, fly the wife and kids to Ft. Lauderdale where I will commit seppeku midway through a forced four hour hard sell presentation, or just hang up on this guy.

Used Cars: "The car is in great shape, not a thing wrong with it. You have my word." "In writing?" "Unnecessary, my word is my bond." 'Nuff said.

Suffice to say, how we feel about the credibility of the seller; or call it ethics; or call it integrity; or call it reputation, will have an awful lot to do with how the meeting goes. So whether it be an industry, or a particular representative within an industry, a reputation that will stand up to the test of absolute honesty in communication is serious currency for any seller. And it is one of the core values that separates the great from the average sellers.

My father-in-law over a two decade period, with nine children, bought any number of used cars from Kurt, a salesman in a used car business in an adjacent New Jersey town. Les said that Kurt only sold him great cars. That he never misrepresented a car's condition. That he trusted him completely and would never buy a car from anyone else. I'll bet Kurt made a great living and never lost a night's sleep.

Just today, a manager sent me for approval a "teaser" letter asking for a meeting to forge a "partnership," a FREE partnership in a promotion that could make the client's business grow. In our call I wondered how we were going to profit from this free partnership and the manager explained that the use of the word "free" could be defended, but in the meeting it would be explained to the client that for him to benefit from the relationship at all, there would be "some" cost attached. So my thinking was that at the least, the meeting would have been sown on disingenuous soil, and once in bloom there was going to be, at the least, an "aha there's the catch" to overcome, and at the most a quick "let me show you to the door, and then, please forget my address." Why not get perhaps fewer meetings with the truth. "We have an idea that I believe will prove to be a great return on investment for you and help grow your company. Got ten minutes for a great idea?"

Little is of higher value to a seller than a reputation for complete honesty in communication to all his constituencies...customers, colleagues and employers.

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

Weaknesses? Me? Can't Think of Any

2010-01-01T13:30:00.000-08:00

Those of you who believe they are without weaknesses, can stop reading now, because there's little hope for you to be anything more than average. Other than you, the last person who was sure that you were perfect was your NaNa. I know that neither you nor I are without weaknesses and so does every prospective boss. Down deep, maybe not so deep, you know it too. So never tell an interviewer you are weakness-free!

Many years ago, as a rookie sales manager and blessed with as good a mentor as could be found, I learned the following with respect to evaluating sales candidates: "If a person is uncomfortable telling you his weaknesses," Charlie said, "it's because he is really unsure about his strengths." Hundreds of interviews later have proved Charlie right as rain. The candidate insecure about his strengths, likely has good reasons, so a sensible executive takes his word for it, and says, "Thanks for coming in, we'll get back to you."

Conversely, the candidate who might say, "I am disastrously disorganized and always have thirty balls I'm juggling at once, so, how good are the assistants here?", is halfway home to an offer, at least from me. If that concludes his weakness list, he's already set the credibility table for the next conversation which will be about his strengths.

A serious business person, who rationally identifies his weaknesses, will also take the trouble to protect himself and all with whom he deals from the potential effects of them. So for example, Jeanne, the latest in a series of brave executive assistants, emails me every evening the next day's schedule (even after meticulously noting every task and appointment in my online calendar). She follows that with a cell call or IM five minutes before any scheduled event. By 'fessing up to my assistants, and making their protection of me, from me, a requisite part of their job, I've neutered the weakness and can focus on the strengths--juggling for instance.

Now here's the really important news. Every client and prospective client for the rest of your career will also have weaknesses. Because your role is to help them grow their businesses and you are singularly focused on that--you owe it to them to help them both identify their shortfalls that are holding growth back, and partnering to devise ways to corral them, as well as to encourage them to give free rein to their strengths.

The truth is that people with towering strengths may also have towering weaknesses. Rather than kill them off for their weaknesses, great executives assist these folk with creative containment techniques, freeing them to change the world with their towering strengths. Great sellers do the same for their clients.

Your meetings with your clients should always involve discussions meant to identify weaker areas in their business--target market, sales structure, corporate culture, management systems, strategic initiatives, which competitors pose the greatest threats, why---oh yes, marketing and advertising experiences, results and future plans, are all necessary, and fair game. These are discussions great sellers provoke, so as to be indispensable assets to their customers, present and future. How do you get permission to engage like that? By making it clear from the first contact on that you are there for them alone, and believe you can be of real assistance in helping them grow. And then your behavior from that moment on must support that pledge.

Great Selling!

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

Is President Obama a Great Salesman or What?

2009-12-30T10:33:00.000-08:00

I'd argue "no." But before I make the case, permit me to point out that this is in no way meant to be a political piece--rather a convenient way to support a few selling principles.

Okay--so we can agree that our president was the beneficiary of eight tough political years experienced by his predecessor, a disenchanted electorate and a remarkable personal ability to inspire people to believe that upon his election, "change" would be not only possible but imminent, and "hope" would be warranted and timely redeemed for better days. It was a spectacular sale! He got elected because virtually every liberal, every voting ethnic, the preponderance of independents and some conservatives, threw Obama's lack of track record and experience to the wind--He said he would change things for the better--and do it now! And America endowed him with its trust.

His "pitch" was about "us," not him or his desire to be president. He wanted to "help" us and our children. He wanted to enfranchise the disenfranchised, and engage antagonists in a spirit of diplomacy. I don't argue that he was, and probably still is, sincere in his attempts to accomplish all of that, and that he is truly other directed...so why has he "lost" so many of us? Perhaps there are less, rather than more folk who now give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's no different than the rest. Would all of his buyers renew if the schedule ended this month?

My view is that among his deficiencies in the core values that separate the everyday from the great sellers, is his ability to collapse time. Now, he's been adversely judged by others by taking on too much and promising, but not delivering ,the goods in time frames of his own declarations. That certainly has been the case with health reform. But today, a major, liberal New York newspaper, in a page 3. editorial, excoriated the president for giving his security people five days to analyze and report back of the "systemic" security failure after the attempted plane bombing in New York last week.

With nothing but business at stake, much less a military threat to U.S. citizens, our group members in a crisis wouldn't even have to be told by our top partner, "Answers in 24 hours, please." If a salesman is to be great, he must collapse time. The more he does in the shortest amount of time, the more he gets to do. The more he gets to do, the more value he is to others. The more value he is to others the more others rely upon his ability to help them. The more the rely upon him, the more they buy.

Great sellers communicate honestly and fearlessly. They don't say they will. They do. "His handshake is his bond." So old. Such a valuable perception. No Spin. No, "What I really meant was..." Just the truth as you see it. Always. We don't forgive politicians who B.S. us. But it is our expectation that they will. That's why, "they're all the same." Obama got elected, because he wasn't going to be the same. He was going to be uncommon, extraordinary. But today, more than 50% of the population isn't so sure that's true. Today, he looks more like a very, very sharp guy who made one or two great sales. Kind of like the guy in the McMansion down the block. Not like the guy you'd bet will exceed his budget next year and the year after that.

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking
rsherman@pilotgroup.biz
212-486-4446

Lost and Found

2009-12-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't "lost" a sale in twenty-five years, but there are sales, too many to count, that I haven't "found." Okay, semantics play a part in this, but attitude an even bigger part. Great sellers know that sales is not about winning and losing. It's about bringing abundant expertise, ingenuity, honesty, altruism and hard work to all the "across the desk partners" they can find.

I know that many executives responsible for the hiring of sales representatives, have "competitiveness" up near the top of their check list of desirable, maybe necessary, attributes. That's because they believe that an intolerance for coming in second, or "losing," helps one be a "strong" salesman. "Competitive," "strong," "killer instincts," "winners"are all words and phrases that are commonly used by the average executive to admirably describe sellers. I suppose that's why women, not all that long ago, had a tough time breaking into the sales game (except of course, for telephone sales--back when it was thought that "sweet" personalities were the tickets to success over the wires). It's interesting that today, these same executives, if probed, will at some point express the value of the "nourishing" qualities of women in selling. To them, I think the perfect seller, expressed in animal world imagery, might be a breast feeding lioness shortly after a kill.

When I think about and metric closing ratios, I look for commonalities in the meetings that didn't result in new partnerships. What were we trying to get out of the meeting in the first place? What did we know about the customer's business and marketing landscape before we visited? What questions arose from this research? Did we spend our precious meeting time talking about our features and benefits or rather about what the customer knew, and more important, didn't know, about his problems and opportunities? Did we and the customer ultimately agree that whatever the future brought him, would depend in a material way upon doing some things differently than he is now. Remember,if he is maximizing his every opportunity now, and staying the course, for every minute he does so, 11,943 envious competitors are studying his playbook and devising plays to turn the game around.

In each "sale" that didn't happen, it isn't so much that something was lost. Rather one of two things kept one from being found. The first, and this is always the challenge, the seller never "found" the prospect and so never talked with him. Directories, phone books, newspapers, referrals, eyes and ears, etc. will all present more opportunities to find a sale that we can ever take advantage of. How we spend our time and energy locating these prospects will greatly determine how many we find, and therefore how many we help and how profound is our contribution to them, our companies and ourselves.

The second is, once the prospect was identified did we "find," through frank, provocative and honest hard work together, clues to sensible and actionable plans to grow his business? Not your business, his. The growth of your business is a by-product, not a goal of the newly "found" sale.

Great Selling, and a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation and Training
rsherman@pilotgroup.biz
212-486-4446

Check Your Watch. What Time is it?

2009-12-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

If it is any time between let's say, 8 A.M. and, oh, 6 P.M. you are, and this doesn't make you a bad person, a typical seller (executive). Hey, please believe me. I write these blogs solely to give you some things to think about with the hope that they will inform and inspire you so that you can rise above the pack, not to insult you.

I'll bet that long restaurant lunches and movie matinee revenues have steadily declined over the past decade and a half, commensurate with the growth of time spent with emailing (outgoing or incoming). I'm not a shrink but have always been interested in, and an observer of, the qualities that separate the average from the uncommon and remarkable performers, whether they be account executives or CEO's.

Clearly, a key discerning factor is the use of time, a commodity in very short supply.

Have you ever heard anyone comment that what they like about selling is that they are not bound to a desk? I'm pretty sure that for most sellers not being bound to a desk means that they are free to roam about, most of the time surely, to generate sales, but also with the ancillary benefit of their activity not being scrutinized by management in real time. "Hey Charlie, free for lunch today? Let's grab a martini at P.J.'s." Or a quick walk with looks over the shoulder to the noon showing of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Back row, corner seat, of course. Ah, the good old days.

Today, reading and writing emails eliminates the queasy after effects of bygone long liquid lunches and the sheepish feeling associated with movie adventures. Today, you sit at your desk, look, and in fact are, busy. The only issue is whether all of the busy computer work is doing anything more than self medicating a lack of direction, work ethic or motivation? Every email you open during the day that is not URGENT, I mean really URGENT, results in under utilization of your most precious commodity...TIME! What about researching customer issues, you ask? What about customer communications? The test is easy. Can these activities be done at night? After dinner? After helping with homework? After the "How was your day" and "What's on your platter for tomorrow dear?" conversations.

You have eight to ten hours a day to initiate contact with people who can benefit from your services. The more you connect with, the more businesses grow, including yours. Most people would agree that the computer has made life much easier to organize and work much more efficient. It can, and will. But it can also be a substitute for a Manhattan or a flick.

And...it's of no consequence to me whether you read Greatsellersgotoheaven at 10 A.M. or 11 P.M. So don't worry about my feelings.

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking
Rsherman@pilotgroup.biz
212-486-4446

Ann Arbor, MI. No Daily Newspaper. Openings for Great Sellers

2009-12-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

After 174 years, The AnnArbor News announced its shutdown today. A skeletal staff will migrate to AnnArbor.com and attempt to migrate the paper's advertisers as well. Early on in my career, I suppose I thought of myself as a broadcast seller. And I think that if a newspaper in my market went out of business back then, it would have fired my adrenalin furnace and sent me into a victory dance. I was about as competitive as it got. It was all about winning and losing.

I hadn't learned yet what remarkable performers always know--it's actually about winning and winning! To be clear, by winning and winning I don't mean "share and share alike" with other selling competitors (in my case other media outlets). No winning and winning is about me and the client I am serving. I work hard to bring to the relationship as much experience, knowledge, creativity, courage and good will as I can muster so that I can be a meaningful factor in the client's growth and success. I've found that with that as my mission, my rewards are incidental but automatic...and it always feels like a win! And if his business does grow, he is the big winner!

So while my concerns are about the client, other media in my platform, or another, are frequently the beneficiaries of my efforts. Huh? It's real simple, if I'm representing a local cable system and I think the client will benefit from a supplemental radio schedule, I recommend it...Heck, I've suggested, when managing one radio station,that a client also use others at the same time to attain the goal we were shooting for. You see, when I sit with a client I presumptively take on the role of his marketing doctor. I'm going to see that his dreams for his business are fulfilled. AND to do that for a local merchant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as of today, one potential arrow in my quiver is missing. No dance is called for.

Now what about those missing sellers? Okay, I confess that I learned about the AnnArbor News on NPR today. (Look, it's Thursday as I write this. So that's four days this week already, listening to Obama-bashing from Mark, Rush, Joe and Dr. Savage. A few minutes of civility in the car is no sin). A voice cut from a retailer in Ann Arbor caught my attention. He was bemoaning the folding of the newspaper and "didn't know what he was going to do to keep his customers aware of his sales." He wasn't ready to risk DOT COM advertising.

Listen folk, Ann Arbor will offer a very satisfying career to a seller who sits across from a retailer and explains how google, twitter, facebook, the local online newspaper or community events organ, local cable systems, radio stations and diner placemats can help that business grow--and depending upon what stage of development the business is in, any or all of those platforms might make sense. Our extraordinary and uncommon seller and his lust to learn client will figure it out.

How do I know the account will be an avid listener with a lust to learn? Because we've sent an eager to help, honest, well schooled, client focused seller to the meeting.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessy
Serve, Don't sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking
rsherman@pilotgroup.biz
212-486-4446

Who's Got it Better than You?

2009-12-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

If anyone, it could be my friend Jackie. I met her in 2003 when I was appointed president of AOL Worldwide Advertising Sales, and she was number two, as I recall, in the promotion department. I've probably been in her company a couple of hundred times since then and I must admit, I did see her without a smile...once. She was actually crying on that occasion. A senior manager publicly berated her, for no sensible reason, and it so took Jackie by surprise that the tears flowed. I think Jackie presumed everyone was at least as nice as she is, so how could that have happened?

My friend is a VP at an important digital agency today, and probably has more "friends" on Facebook than Steve Case, and they are really are, her friends that is. I got a new form email from her last week under the headline, "Jackie's Job Referrals." She had three opportunities listed. I called and asked her what her arrangements were with the headhunters or companies she was recruiting for. "No arrangement, Bob. A lot of folk are out of work and need help, and many are my friends. So I try to put them together with people with job listings."

If Jackie wanted to sell, I could place her in about 11 seconds, probably at one of our companies. It's impossible not to like, and impossible not to trust her. She's very smart, creative, and absolutely selfless.

This executive loves promotion and she comes up with terrific ideas all the time. Her agency clients, her colleagues at the agency and the army of sellers, her army really, love their interaction with her, seek ideas from, and bring ideas to her. Everybody wins when Jackie's involved. She loves, I mean loves her work. And so she's always working. Keeping up with her is no small trick. When on those rare occasions she calls for help (perhaps a charitable interest for which she needs some support) you wind up grateful for the opportunity to demonstrate your appreciation for her.

I'm sure that Jackie makes a good living and before she is done will have made an extraordinary living. And that will happen naturally as a result of her commitment to the success of others. She loves her work because she loves helping people and has several constituencies she can practice that love on in her line of work.

If you are where you are today, because you've sacrificed satisfaction, and measure your degree of success solely by your paycheck, regardless of its size, Jackie has it better than you, and consequently does her job, better than you do yours.

It's not too late. Take a deep breath and go find something you can love!

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking
rsherman@pilotgroup.biz
212-486-4446

Giants vs. Tall Midgets

2009-12-12T14:52:00.000-08:00

2010 will separate real giants from tall midgets. Sellers and their managers quietly engaged in conspiracies of "relative performance" during 2009 (a strategy honed to perfection by fund PR agents). "Sure we were off 16% from 2008 but, my gosh, the industry was off 27%. Comparatively speaking, our performance was pretty good." That was a reasonably useful internal positioning tactic for a year that saw very few companies and their revenue producers declare or receive outsize dividends and bonuses (Wall St., of course, the exception). And more often than any time in memory, have phrases such as "that's a little like being the tallest midget in the circus" followed such self-aggrandizing comparative analyzes. The year was shocking enough to warrant a half of a high five to the favorable "comp" argument, but even in those cases distance from budgets were wide enough to issue a gentle reminder that "it's still a hit the numbers game."

2010 say most prognosticators will be a relatively flat growth year. In the broadcast world, for example, the bandied about numbers range from -2% to plus 3% revenue growth. Nothing terribly exciting on the plus or minus side, and even the most pessimistic of forecasters have trouble identifying potential events, cataclysmic enough, to bring about a repeat of 2009. There will likely be a lot fewer conversations about comparing "actuals" to 2009 comparable periods. The emphasis will more likely be on comparisons to budget.

For those exceptional performers who adapted early and strategically in viewing 2009 as a year of opportunity while their peers and "competitors" were performing arias of "woe is me," 2010 will be a year of compounded dividends. Their partnerships with their customers will have attained new levels, having actually steered these ship-mates through rough seas at the expense of their competitors and grown their brand positions so that the customers' shares of better times is all but assured. And these uncommon performers will consequently be asked to stand alongside at the helm.

Managers worthy of the responsibility will be looking for signs that last year's troubles educated their sellers in many ways; that they learned how to best serve their constituents and to serve more of them. 2010 will be a year where real growth ought to be expected. The days of fingers in the dikes are swiftly drawing to a close, and recapturing and expanding valuations will be the order of the day. The survivors survived. In 2010 more will be looked for than survival.

This is a good time to sit quietly and ask--"How far have I come? How much do I give...To and for whom?...How deeply am I committed to the success of all the people who count on me? What don't I know? Who can I call upon to teach me? I want to stand out, be different, be a giant in 2010. How?

The answers are there for those that ask.

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking
Rsherman@pilotGroup.biz.
212-486-4446

Note to Self...Let's Catch Up...after work!

2009-12-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

Show me a man who complains, "I'm so busy I don't have a moment for myself," and I'll show you a man who meets a major criteria for an outstanding career in sales. I wouldn't leap to that conclusion if the quote was, "I'm so busy I don't have a moment to spare." The distinction between the two statements is more than semantics. We all know people whose every waking moment is consumed with self-centered interests. They are as busy as anyone. These people, if they are engaged in sales, have only two potential futures; the first is riches resulting from one or a few huge sales where they just plain outfoxed the buyers. The second, best case, is an average career.

Consistently remarkable and truly uncommon sellers spend all of their business time consumed with helping everyone with whom they connect be richer for the experience. They spend their brain power, time and energy in service to others. They don't sell. They serve and are consequently bought. The irrefutable truth is that service to others is the surest route to personal reward (however you prefer to measure reward--from good feelings to economic riches).

I love meeting with, training, sharing experiences and lessons learned with other executives, from sales folk to top managers. Our company has major investments in, and oversight of, a number of portfolio companies. I almost never visit one of these companies without scheduling some time with their sales organizations facilitating conversations about sales philosophies and sales strategies. There has likely never been one of these sessions when I didn't introduce one of my core values; service versus selling; helping prospects or customers figure out how to more profoundly and more quickly grow their businesses. I spend none to very little time talking about how to get to "yes." I know, I mean I know, that "yes" takes care of itself if the seller really understands his role. Often I will ask the group that I am spending time with what they believe my motivation is when I visit with them and join in these "teaching" meetings. Inevitably someone will reply, "to help us become better sellers, so that our company becomes more profitable which is good for you and your partners, right?" As rain!

And here's the best part. I promise it never crosses my mind that I am visiting with them so they can make me and our investors more money. I truly do meet with them to see if I can help. The economic value proposition just seems to take care of itself as an incidental yet automatic by-product of the fact of helping.

Have I helped you?

I'm going to have a beer at the local tavern tonight and tell me all about my day :)

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training, Speaking
rsherman@pilotgroup.biz
212-486-4446

Competition and...or...and/or Teamwork

2009-12-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Clearly our whole economic system is based upon competition. The foundation of a free and open marketplace is based upon the proposition that, subject to appropriate behavior (defined by laws and regulations,) may the best product, company or man win. It's not just the business world that emphasizes competition. Many of our leisure time commitments, whether they be participatory or passive, are based upon our preoccupations with the competitive world of sports, amateur or professional. We are a society that venerates (albeit sometimes are jealous of) winners and, depending upon our upbringing, disdains or commiserates with losers.

I've worked with, and for, extraordinary leaders who pay more than a little attention to how they can best use the inclination of employees to view the business world and their place in it as a giant arena---sometimes a sporting arena and sometimes a more coliseum type (live or die competition); a zero sum game. If he wins, I lose. If he gets a raise or promotion, I don't.

Our firm's leader is a remarkable top executive and I have watched him more that once deliberately set two executives up for each to see their success as dependent upon being "the competitor" that winds up bringing the most to the table. But this chief chef also makes it clear that the entree, if you will, while the cornerstone of the meal, is only a component of all that contributes to the degree of success of the meal. The appetizer, sides, drink, salads, desserts, etc. all contribute to the diner's take-a-way: Hopefully, "Wow, that was great! Let's make sure that we come back here again."

Well now, how does the core value of "teamwork" fit in with all of this?

For this meal to win that accolade, everyone from dishwasher on up will have to perform well and with each other. And the great chief chefs, did much more than get superb educations at culinary institutes. They learned more than to memorize recipes and create new ones. They learned how to get the most out of, by giving the most to, the teams that will have to work together to create a great dining experience.

So, extraordinary executives evaluate individual sales executives based first and foremost upon their individual contributions (is he building my business by bring in new customers who retain us again and again because he effectively partners with them to grow their, and consequently, my business?). And then, in assessing how to maximize the potential contribution from the individual seller, he measures his contribution to the team, his co-workers, employees, and bosses. Does this person work and play well with others so that the sum is truly greater than all the parts because he is one of the parts?

If so, let's keep an eye on him and help get him ready for the next step. If not, let's give him everything he needs to bring the most in himself, and box him in enough so that there's no harm to the team?

Are you fighting side-by-side or to the death with your colleagues?

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking.
Rsherman1776@pilotgroup.biz
212-486-4446

Say it Over and Over Again...It's Not About Me!

2009-12-01T15:42:00.000-08:00

George gets it. He probably gets it better than any one else I know. The other day George was telling me how he works to earn the trust of his accounts, and by doing so becomes more than a vendor, much more. George sees himself as a partner and a key adviser to his clients. The first step he takes is to become expert in the client's business. He told me that in the new "search world'" that goal's attainment isn't much further away than his laptop where he can learn all about his clients' industries; the market sizes, consumer demographics, competition, etc. Part of his learning regimen is to subscribe to his clients' trade organs and to receive RSS feeds and alerts. George jumps all over the alerts and communicates their contents to his clients before they've stirred the sugar in their morning coffee.

But here's what really caught my attention. George is very deliberative about who he calls with the information. He used a car dealership client to illustrate the point. He knows both the owner and the general manager of this dealership well and has entree to each. But George delivers the new information to the general manager so that the GM can look good to his boss. George understands that the measure of his success in business will be how meaningfully and fully he serves everyone with whom he interacts. It's not about him looking good, in this case, it's about helping his client look good. Who thinks like that? Remarkable. Uncommon. Way above average. George has forged a wonderfully satisfying career with service to others as the cornerstone of his credo.

Sellers whose M.O.s are service to others before self, quickly become key assets of their clients and enjoy significant benefits in trade for the trust they engender. Their calls are taken. Their ideas are heard with open minds, momentarily emptied of the cache of cynicism normally stored within as a defense against, ugh, salesmen. Their suggestions are evaluated solely on the basis of the merits of the argument. And why not? They can be trusted.

Chances are pretty good that when GM puts out a new incentive plan George's dealer/client hears about it first from George, along with a suggestion coincidentally about how the program can be successfully advertised and a commitment to have the commercial production ready to go within hours of the "okay."

George and I "one-on-one" every Monday. I'm never surprised when George beats me to "How was your weekend?"

Great Selling!

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

Available for corporate and individual consultation, training and speaking
Rsherman@PilotGroup.biz
212-486-4446

Do Something! or Lessons from a Beet Salad

2009-11-29T13:01:00.000-08:00

"Collapse Time" is one of my personal core values which every day for the past several decades continues to be more deeply a part of who I am, or at least who I keep trying to become. There are several reasons why I believe through experience, reflection and observation, that this is one of the attributes that separates uncommon and remarkable performers from the pack.

First, among the more poignant discoveries of the human maturation cycle is the realization that time is finite. The world's richest folk, even the world's most worthy folk (usually very different concepts) can't buy or bargain for more. (60/24/7/52/365, hopefully to three score and and ten and maybe some more...that's all there is...best case). Applying this fact to our business endeavors, every moment we use, or don't, during our business day is gone...finito...sayonara! So the quicker we accomplish the task of the moment and move immediately on to the next, the more we get done. If we collapse time well and get substantially more done than the average seller, we tend to be uncommon performers.

Hmmm. The quicker we work, the more we get done; Not particularly profound but very elusive for most people. Why would that be? Some are lazy but we'll move right past them because they are small in number and we can't unlazy them in any event. But some who may seem lazy are not, but are actually at a loss as to how to move forward and are therefore experiencing anxiety. These folk get paralyzed by their fears and insecurities.

Many years ago on a beautiful Fall Saturday, very shortly after I awakened, I became "sure" that I had fallen victim to a serious medical problem. I called a specialist who said he'd be delighted to see me on Monday next and suggested that I relax until then. That was about like telling a mosquito not to bite. So for the next couple of hours I mentally went over my will and more or less whined like a baby to my wife. When her attempts to calm me with rational discussion about the myriad possibilities, other than terminal illness accounting for the symptoms at hand were exhausted, she marched me out to the yard, stuck a rake in my hand and said, "DO SOMETHING! RAKE UP THE LEAVES!" I did and within minutes the anxiety and the dead leaves were gone. I did something...anxiety fled...something was accomplished.

Another paralysis generator is fear of failure. "Seven calls in a row with not one, 'Sure, I'd be glad to see you'. I can't go go through that again. Perhaps I'll just sit here and stare at the phone until 5:00 PM." The solution to this "failure is guaranteed course of non-action" is no different than in the prior case. DO SOMETHING! Re-think your phone approach, call a current client with an industry up-date that you came across last night. Go to your new prospect resource(s) and add twenty-eight new names to replace the seven who said, "No thanks." Call back one of the seven and ask for reconsideration because you are "so sure you can be of help to him." Pick one of these or 38,712 other possibilities without a moment's hesitation and get started. Why? Because time is finite. You can't bank it. When the moment is gone, it's gone forever, and because you are determined to fill your moments productively, because you COLLAPSE TIME, and do more and are uncommon and are on the way to becoming a remarkable sales executive.

Great Selling!

P.S. It was the beet salad at dinner the night before.

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking
rsherman@PilotGroup.Biz
212-486-4446

Straight Commission or Decaf?

2009-11-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

Don't ever take a job selling a product or service that you don't believe in. It's improbable that you can be more than an average performer in sales unless you are dedicated to helping folk find solutions to their problems and maximizing their opportunities. Helping others by representing products that you don't believe in are incompatible notions, of course. But assuming that you
have found a worthy enterprise and have been invited to join, it's now time to settle your compensation program. So, what do you want? 1) A significant straight salary deal? 2) A salary that covers your bills and a moderate commission override? 3) A high, really high, commission only deal?

If you choose number one, I wish you well, working for someone other than me. If you choose number two, I have a few more questions, and then I'll get back to you. And if you choose number three and have no felony convictions, welcome aboard!

Sellers who truly believe they've a valuable product that could help a number of people, and, who know that they are blessed with a sincere desire to help others, and core values that keep them customer focused, honest and efficient, know that the only limitations to their economic rewards are the hours in the day and a cap on their earnings.

That's why great sellers don't negotiate salaries; They negotiate commission rates.

P.S. Great sellers drink "regular".

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Motivational Speaking RSherman@PilotGroup.biz
212-486-4446

It's Not WHAT, it's WHO that Makes the Difference

2009-11-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

When I fall, I fall hard. Mrs. Shellings (my third grade teacher), Mandy (guess who) and my first media sales job, are apt examples. That first job was at WINS, a few years after it changed format to all news (prior format, anyone?). At the time it was far and away the number one ranked radio station in New York. It was always underpriced back then as evidenced by the fact that it was always sold out. It was no different the week I started. No inventory was available; before midnight that is. By the end of my second week overnights were sold out as well and a love affair that has only grown over time was begun.

Partnering with a marketing savvy owner of a small ad agency, headquartered in Flushing, New York, above JC's pool hall, we strategized a plan for an association of retailers he represented. We rotated three of their dozen or so member chains three or four times an hour, six hours a day, seven days a week. The association was a household name in short order and the campaign ran for years. I imagine that it worked for the member chains, whose businesses it must have been growing. The feeling of potency that success bred was palpable. My first client was better off for having met me and was vocal in his gratitude. My sales manager was delighted, as was my landlord, and I faced each new day enthralled with the prospects that it held.

Before very long I was approached by the 20th or so ranked station asking me if I'd be interested in talking about a change. My interest was sparked when he answered the question about their account executive commission plan. It was high. I was in. (We'll talk about the concept of loyalty between employers and employees another time).

I have to admit I did that one more time after a brief stint at my second station when I was offered a still higher commission plan. This time I would be joining one of the absolutely lowest ranked stations in New York radio. Here's why I made the move. THE PRODUCT, RADIO, WORKED. It ALWAYS WORKED if it is bought, sold and is used correctly.

So any station can grow businesses if the account executive understands his product and cares enough about his client to struggle to identify the opportunity for the client and a creative approach for solving it.

I decided then and believe with even more conviction today, that it is how much responsibility the salesman is willing to take for identifying prospects that can be helped by his product, and how passionate he is to do all the work that will position him to help, that will determine his degree of success. Neither the ranking of his station (in the case of broadcast) nor the reviews of JD Powers in other sectors, is at play. It's only all about you!

Isn't that wonderful news?

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Speaking
RSherman@PilotGroup.Biz
212-486-4446

Never Waste Anything! Especially Failure!

2009-11-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

I've always believed that, and a true soul mate and four great additional kids were my reward for acting on that belief.

There are any number of reasons for failure and, sadly, average performers repeat their particular failure "drivers" over and over throughout the course of their careers. This behavior pattern exists for any number of reasons as well: Get right back on the horse, pick youself up, dust yourself off and start all over again, are just two of the reasons. These are nice platitudes and history teaches that they can be crafted into nice ditties, but if you get right back on the horse without giving any thought to why you fell off, uh. you might fall off again?

I mean maybe you should have mounted from the other side, for instance.

"Good morning Mr. Jones, I'm Herman Timmer and I represent Nelson's Winter Wear. I'll be in your area next Monday and would like to visit with you. Is morning ok? Oh, you're booked between now an 2016? Bye"

--right back on!

So- "Good morning Mr. Smith, I'm Herman Timmer and I represent Nelson's Winter Wear. I'll be in your area next Monday and would like to visit with you. Is morning ok? Oh, OK. Thanks anyway. Yes, I'll try next year."

--pick your self up, dust yourself off...

"He's a born salesman" is a meritless cliche. I feel a little less strongly about "he's a born average, salesman," but no one says or implies that they mean that. One is no more a born uncommon and remarkable salesman than he is a born bull rider, nuclear physicist, or ballet dancer. Passion, learning and hard work are the only routes that make it happen, and what better way to learn than while sitting flat on your butt, with the wind kicked out of you and covered in dust from head to toe, wondering how that happened? And it's important also that you don't first get up, shower and change and then go to your study with a cup of cocoa. a legal pad and pens to think through what happened; rested, calm, cool and collected. No, sit there dirty and beaten and figure it out. Learn from the failure!

"Why did I call Smith and Jones?"
"Were they prospects that could really benefit from 'Nelson's' ?"
"Did I give them any reason to commit their time to me?"
"Did I give them enough of a reason?"
"Was I confident in my call, over-confident? Friendly, too friendly?"
" What should I do differently on the next call?
"Hey, I have an idea. What if I called Mr. Smith back and 'fess up that I'm disappointed with myself for the last call. That I called him because I really believe my line will be very productive for him and I want to help. Would he please reconsider giving me a few mintues. What if I did that?"

Who knows? We could try it though and perhaps learn something from the first failed call.

Great Selling!

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

Available for corporate and individual consultation, training and speaking.
rsherman@pilotgroup.biz

Maximize the Downtime; the Client's Downtime!

2009-11-17T07:44:00.000-08:00

"Look, there's no point in coming to see me," he says, "I'm not doing any advertising. I'm surviving, until things get better." Of those salesmen who have the courage to try to continue the conversation, 90% of them, either as the result of "training" or their own "creativity," will respond along the lines of, "Well Mr. Jones, we should talk about how we can accelerate things getting better with some smart advertising." Or, "Mr. Jones, this is a great time for you to be advertising because most of your competitors aren't, and you can increase your Brand position." Or, etc. etc. These perfectly predictable "overcoming objection" responses will, if pushed hard enough, get the appointment that will never happen because of its cancellation between the hang-up and appointment date.

Let's face it, all the salesman really said was, "Who cares what you think or how you feel Bozo? I can answer any objection you throw my way." The client's reaction: "I get it, young man. No matter what I say, you will have an answer. So I'll just say 'yes', get you off the phone, and you'll get a call from Shirley tomorrow, cancelling."

The uncommon and remarkable 10% might instead reply to the "no interest now" comment this way. "Then this is a perfect time for us to meet, Mr. Jones. We can use this downtime, in a relaxed frame of mind to think through how I can help you grow your business when conditions warrant you getting back in the game." The resulting appointment, and one likely will be made, can be the first of a long or short series of meetings that earns the seller the respect and trust of this client through the expert and caring partnering he (this can be you) demonstrates in helping to forge strategies and plans that bode well for the account. And this client will let you know, sooner than either of you would have guessed, when the implementation of the resulting plans should begin.

The difference between most sellers and the remarkable achievers are no more dramatic that the difference between up and down, night and day or good and evil. The average seller is usually a well-intentioned, hard working, warrior; trained by less than perfectly-trained trainers. He is out to win! Out to successfully answer objections! Out to demonstrate the superiority and benefits of his product or service! Out to SELL!

"What do you think of this sales guy?" one exec asks. "He's a KILLER," the other responds.

The uncommon, remarkable salesman begins his day prepared to help any number of customers, old and new, grow their businesses. He tenaciously adheres to personal core values which include service to others, honesty, and teamwork, among others. He can be short or tall, fat or skinny, get soup on his shirt at lunch and never play a round of golf. But all with whom he comes in contact know that he is knowledgeable, indefatigable and very well intentioned. He let's his client win, and basks in their victory! He is a superstar!

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation, Training and Motivational Speaking
RSherman@Pilotgroup.biz

Little Ideas Don't Solve Big Problems

2009-11-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

I've been immersed in media for close to forty years and I am astounded at how profoundly sellers of traditional media have transformed their ways of doing business over those years. NOT! These advertiser supported sectors have not only allowed the commoditization of their products, but allowed the training of every generation of sellers, once the memorization of features and benefits of a program or format have been mastered, to master the computing of CPPs and CPMs. Because that is all these industries ask of the representatives, that's about all the professionalism they get with the great majority of their AEs. Now the good news, from a career point of view, is that most folk have little trouble meeting those limited expectations.

Many years ago, I began my broadcast sales career with WINS, all-news radio in New York. "WINS" had a remarkable and uncommon senior AE at the time named Jack McGann. While Jack made sure that he covered all the bases, and made media buyers' hearts flutter over lunch at the Four Seasons and Downing Square, he also had a roll-a-dex which included the 411 on probably one-third of the CMOs of the top Fortune 500 companies. I don't know if Jack played golf, with those CMOs, and I don't know if he took them to fancy lunches, but I do know that he behaved as if he were the right hand man, or partner, or, depending upon the matter at hand, the boss or mentor to each of them.

To Jack, it was all about the business he was trying to help...with his mastery of his medium, with a self-trained marketing mind and with an unquenchable thirst for ferreting out the issues his client was experiencing as obstacles to growth. Jack could CPM with the best of them...but most of his business was done with pricing as a formality that had to be dealt with, rather than the determinant of success or failure. The most interesting message I ever got from Jack was over a martini lunch during the first week of my new career. (We did that then, drank at lunch, that is). He said, "Congratulations on getting the job, Bob. If you show up five days a week, you'll have met all the criteria necessary to make a good living in a fun, and for some, prestigious industry, for the rest of your working life. It's like a union card." My observation over the years is that Jack was right on the money.

Traditional media has a real problem on its' hands now. With the proliferation of new platforms that technology has created to reach consumers, radio and television's share of the total advertising buy is unstable, at best. The sellers of new media have the advantages of both a new story to tell as well as ad agency and marketers insecurities about missing the boat by letting competitors gain a foothold with the new consumer channels. The still unmatchable roles both radio and television play in the marketing of goods and services is now often getting lost in the excitement over the "new." And these traditional industries, whose sellers had already settled for commoditized rather than value based rewards for its work, and goals of in-sector market share improvement over growing the market to be shared, find themselves in a tough place. Needless to say, the extraordinary economic position all industries find themselves in now, greatly exacerbates the problem.

So what are the new solutions being entertained by radio and television sales teams to meet these challenges head-on? What are the cultural changes these industries are adopting that will break through the traditional ties that bind? What are the transformative undertakings that will spotlight the remarkable ability of television and radio to build and enhance brands and encourage on the spot transactions? And thus greatly and appropriately, for the good of the advertiser, increase spending.

Let's start with what won't do it:
Health fares won't do it.
Two for ones won't do it.
Remotes won't do it.
Discounts for long term commitments won't do it.
Anybody have a good promotion for an insurance agency won't do it.

These are little--and very, very old ideas. They are though, the calling cards of most (and therefore average) sales organizations.

What will move the needle, at first slowly but surely, but then profoundly and quickly, is a shift in culture, strategy and planning that focuses on sales teams that work together to build customers businesses. Focus on that, not the competitor, not the CPP, not the share of business.
All of that takes care of itself when you are the sales executive (part of a sales organization) that works in partnership with the clients to help them grow their businesses. When you become the de facto CMOs, ad agencies and partners, working hard to identify opportunities and effectuate routes for their maximization on behalf of the client: When that becomes the reality of the team's work life, it will crack the code and solve its own problems.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work And Work Tirelessy
Serve, Don't Sell
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessy
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation and Training, as well as Motivational Speaking,
RSherman@PilotGroup.biz

"Shine-Em-Up...For Free"

2009-11-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

That was the sign in the American Terminal at LAX a few weeks ago. So I did. It cost me $7.00 and I'm pretty sure that's at or near the top that I've ever paid for a shine. I looked up from the paper I was reading while he was slapping on the polish at one point and asked, why he didn't post a price for the shine? "Well first of all," he began, "the free offer attracts attention, don't you think?" It certainly had gotten mine, I had to admit. "Second, most folks do what you just did, and ask why I say the shine is for free. And I tell 'em what I'll tell you now. If you think I've done a good job when I finish, pay me what it's worth to you."

I then asked this artiste (it was starting to look like this was going to be a killer shine) if he'd ever been stiffed? "Nah, not yet." When he finished he looked up and smiled as I went to the wallet and pulled out all the bills I had smaller than a twenty. That happened to come to $7.00. If I'd had another two singles I probably would have forked that over, as well. How great a businessman/seller is this guy? First he's a magical marketer. He's decided that his USP is free shoe shines. Hmmm. Talk about separating yourself from the competition. He's also figured out that "advertising that USP" would would "stop traffic," literally.

And how about his pricing strategy? The man's a genius! If he tried to lure customers in with under market pricing (a different USP), let's say $3.00, he'd get good traffic, and likely as not, a fair measure of $2.00 tips. Total $5.oo per shine. If he put a $5.00 price out there, it'd be about market for a major city air terminal so he would be undistinguished from his competition. No big deal unless he gets pretty busy in which case arriving passengers might continue walking toward "baggage" while looking for a less crowded shine parlor. Moreover, with a $5.00 cellar price he's probably psychologically capped his "tip" opportunity at $2.00, and more often than not, I suspect, the tip would be a buck.

His zero based pricing leaves the decision entirely in the hands of the customer. And I suspect the decisions made on payment include elements not even in the game in a normal shine transaction. For example, "This guy took a risk but worked hard to give me a great shine, and he did. He should be rewarded for that and even if I pay more than I normally would. What the heck, it's not going to change my retirement date." Or how about the "fun" or the "that was interesting" factors. That's worth a buck or two extra right there. "

So let's take a look at his selling business plan.
1. I will develop a unique selling proposition for my service: free shines
2. I will advertise my services
3. I will give great service and
4. Trust that I will be appropriately rewarded for my customer focus.

Where would you bet he ranked in gross income of his peers at LAX? Me too.

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation and Training
RSherman@PilotGroup.biz
212-486-4446

Learning From Aretha

2009-11-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

"...Find out what it means to me." R-E-S-P-E-C-T. If you are ever to be a rare and remarkable seller, one of your calling cards will be a sincere and obvious respect for the customer you do, or would, serve. A clear communication of respect from seller to buyer goes a long way toward lowering the well-built barrier between buyers and sellers. It says, "I know you have concerns and I am here to help you sort them out and find solutions." It says, "You are a person of value and I am sincerely appreciative of the time you are spending with me and will do everything I can to reward you with valuable service." It says, "My work life is about doing everything I can to make yours even more rewarding."

Think for a moment about the all the obsequious, or disinterested, or arrogant (or pick any other number of distasteful adjectives) sales people you've come across recently. Was there anything in your contact with them that made you feel appreciated; respected; cared about? Of course not. And consequently, were you even interested in their expressions of enthusiasm about their product or service? I'd bet not. If there was any conversation at all with these average and all too typical sellers, it was about price. In fact, buyers are so used to being treated as personified wallets, most of the time they make "price" part of the introduction..."Nice to meet you Bob, how much?" or "What do you have for me today?"

When I meet a new prospect for the first time, I'm often greeted that way and my response is always along the following lines: "Ah, you want to discuss a special. I'll have someone get back to you very quickly on that. I thought you wanted to discuss how I might be able to help you grow your business." It's an honest response. I'm just not an average seller. I really am interested in helping people do and get more. I'm devoted to it. Yes, I have needs; personal interests and a family, dog and cat to support. But I have found over the years that taking care of, and respecting the needs of others will result the Shermans, and their pets, doing OK.

I never think of myself as smarter, more successful, more worthy or more anything than the people with whom I deal. The shop owner who spends ten hours a day, six days a week behind a counter to take care of his family is a worthy person, deserving of my attention and respect. And he gets it, naturally. And I'd like to think that because I communicate that respect with my words and body language, he little by little comes to trust me, and little by little the buyer-seller barrier is lowered. And if our work together results in a strategy and plan that includes my services, I am as devoted to him and the successful implementation of the plan as Charlie is to me. Sorry--Charlie is the dog.

A man that says, "Yes, let's do it. When can we start?" is owed every bit of my thinking and energy and attention. I owe him all of my R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Respectfully submitted.

Great Selling!

Serve Not Sell
Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation and Training
RSherman@PilotGroup.biz

Hurricanes...What are They Good For?

2009-11-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

In revolutionary times colonist-landowners with expanding families prayed for severe storms. That's because it was only when hurricane size winds toppled trees on their property, that the wood was theirs to use for home additions such as new nurseries. With the exception of these acts of nature the wood belonged to the King across the Atlantic. Thus the landowners waited with bated breath for the "windfall." The time honored tradition of waiting for the windfall continues to this very day.

Remarkable sales performers are hardly traditionalists. In some ways they exhibit all but revolutionary behavior and it is likely that it was their very ancestors who got fed up with weather watching and initiated the break with the Mother Country.

Exceptional sellers don't count on or worry about windfalls. They know that their success is a natural by-product of day after day service to others. Their contributions and the riches that come their way as a result of those contributions are not random acts of nature but rather the result of hard but fulfilling work.They love their work and work tirelessly at it. That starts with an appreciation for the product or service they represent, and a canvassing by way of disciplined and methodical prospecting of people or businesses whose growth can be facilitated in partnership with their product or service. They then combine their good will and honest communications with the learned and practiced art of salesmanship to motivate the customer to welcome help.

And then begins the process of struggling together, buyer and seller to find answers to the most important question: "How do we grow this business, together."

So how will you spend your day? With a barometer or the Yellow Pages?

Great Selling!

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

Available for Corporate and Individual Consultation and Training
RSherman@PilotGroup.biz

What's So Special About You?

2009-11-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

The headline above may be the most important professional question that you ask of yourself and your customers (present and prospective). Now you may be better off asking it (at least with your clients) in a more polite way, such as "What's the unique selling proposition your product or service offers?" Or, "What's the pain point that you address?" Or, "Why do people shop here?" Or, "Why don't people shop here?" Or, "Why do people come into your place to transact but often leave without doing so?" Or, "With whom do you compete and why do you win when you do, or lose when you do?" Or, "Where do your customers come from?" Or, "What is their expectation when they call or visit you?" Or, "Which of your products or services are the most sought?" Or, "Which of your line(s) moves the quickest?" Or, "Which has the highest margin?"

Or... If you're really exceptional at what you do, you'll think of many, many more before you get into the "How do you know that?" follow-up question to each of their responses. (At our company, we don't dress in the morning before calling our research partner to find out the weather). By the way, there isn't a business, in business, that wouldn't benefit from you provoking some brainstorming around some of the queries above, and trust me, I've just scratched the surface. And there are any number of businesses in both great and tough economic times that stop being in business because neither their executives nor their "vendors" force them to think about these issues.

I would submit that your customers would be a lot better off and you'd be a lot more successful if you walked into the meeting(s) with a host of provocative questions, rather than your sample bag.

Now here's the truth. Your customer likely doesn't know why he's not doing better because if he did, he would be. The exceptional, uncommon and remarkable salesman comes prepared to encourage a meaningful conversation that delves into all the imaginable elements that, if prioritized and shaped into a mosaic of "to do's" reasonably portend growth.

One new-to- market web site that I am pleased to advise, has a brilliant visionary as it's founding CEO. Yesterday, she and another adviser and I had one of our periodic calls during which she both updated us on her progress and tabled the three issues which she believed were impeding progress. In the course of the twenty minute conversation the three of us asked each other enough questions and follow-up questions to have found a fourth element that we all agreed superceded her other three and most needed to be solved for growth. That kind of focus on the needs of others (in this case how do we best help her?) offers the best shot at growth. In the case of the salesman it offers the answer to the question, "What's so special about you?" And if answered satisfactorily, earns the salesman the trust of the customer and the right to help/sell!

So...what is so special about you?

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

Available for corporate and individual consultancy and training
RSherman1776@PilotGroup.biz

Business Plan for Street Beggars

2009-11-03T11:21:00.000-08:00

I think street beggars would maximize their daily "takes" if they displayed a suggested donation schedule. It might read something like this:

SUGGESTED DONATIONS

When contributing to my bowl if you say the following while making eye contact: $.25 per drop

1. "Have a nice day" or,

2. "I hope this helps" or,

3. anything along the lines of 1. or 2.

Saying 1., 2., or 3, without eye contact: $.50 per drop

Saying nothing with no eye contact while passing by at a leisurely pace: $1.00 per drop

Saying nothing, no eye contact and racing by: $5.00 per drop

I believe that making a personal contribution, rather than a "fly by," indicates a genuine concern for the other person. The not so down on his luck passer-by in this case, cares enough about helping the less fortunate, that he looks for signs that he has helped (like looking the beggar in the eye, for example), as well as recognizing the humanity of the "struggler" by communicating his good wishes. His contribution in this case helps feed the spirit as well as the belly, and so he is entitled to a deep discount. There's less of a discount when the motivations of the giver are a little more cloudy and by the time you get down to the "fly-by" it's clear Mr. Charity is doing this 100% for himself. It makes him feel better. Well, if the beggar has provided the value, it should cost the "giver" more for services received rather than rendered. Get it?

Here's the thing. I will bet you anything that less than one out of ten contributors will make the eye contact and verbally express good thoughts at a leisurely pace, because over 90 per cent of us donate in order to feel better about ourselves (especially in public); so that in that case, we are in our own service.

As for those who only have to fork over $.25, if they are in sales, they are off to heaven.

Great Selling!...and Serve Others!

Serve Don't Sell

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly

Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly

Collapse Time

Teamwork

Available for corporate and individual consultancy and training

Contact: RSherman1776@pilotgroup.biz

Time...Friend or Foe?

2009-11-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

"Ti-i-i ime is on my si-ide, yes it is..." a favorite of legions of average performers. The flip side of that classic, as a few of you know, is the yet to be written, "I Have no Enemy as Dangerous as Time," inspired by the realities of the life experiences of remarkable achievers. Here I am, says the average guy, the super proud representative of a wonderful product or service that can turn this troubled economic environment into the land of milk and honey for a multitude of prospective customers and...

"Tomorrow, I will make a list of them."

There are few things more gratifying that a "yes, I would be glad to meet with you," response from a prospective customer one thinks he can help...and almost a full day before the appointed meeting the average performer promises himself that..

"Tomorrow I'm going to do some research on that guy's industry."

Most sales folk believe in the concept of providing good customer service and most sales people promise that...

"Tomorrow I'm going to call Sherman's Auto Dealership and see how the campaign is working."

I have a friend in a B to B business in Atlanta who has enjoyed, and suffered, through both good and bad years. He's never had a worse year than this, though, and as the only rainmaker for his business, it's been particularly discouraging. He did have a great moment yesterday and he called me within minutes of his exciting event. It seems he'd been researching his lineage via the net for weeks and at 2:30 P.M. yesterday he made the discovery of the date and time his grandfather arrived in this country. He was as high as a kite, and right after he called me with the news he made some new business calls.

I have another friend in Atlanta who is truly an extraordinary salesman and am looking forward to catching up with him next Sunday.

Life's funny--love each of those guys alot but they have very little in common.

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

Available for Corporate and individual consultation and coaching; guest speaking
Contact: RSherman@PilotGroup.biz

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Together

2009-10-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

What's the difference between finger pointing and finger painting? While they each are childish activities, finger painting is not destructive. We all hear and read that one of the understandable reactions to this "temporary" economic reversal is a great deal of angst among those not already "downsized." The "am I next?" syndrome. How executives react to this angst is an excellent metric of their skill and value, and perhaps a pretty good indicator of whether or not the organization will "make it.".

A survival of the fittest (the sharp elbows and finger pointing) culture does much more than make life miserable for everyone (even for the perpetrator, unless he's been waiting in great anticipation for this inning of the game--because he's either nuts or a bad guy). This culture also greatly weakens the company's chances for survival, much less success, during and following the down cycle. If a pretty good I.Q. is, let's say 125, and you have six influential executives, you can have each of them firing away at the others, (in which case they all run a pretty good chance of incurring mortal wounds) or 750 I.Q. points in the aggregate trying to turn problems into opportunities for all.

A partner and I met with an institutional banker yesterday. He manages his firm's media portfolio and you can guess the kind of a year this has been for him. He actually was visiting with us to see if there was opportunity to grow with us. At one point I expressed if not sympathy, a sensitivity to how stressful his work must have been since this time last year.

"Actually," Tim said, "this has been a great year. Our boss preaches that it doesn't matter how we got here, we need to put our heads together to forge where we're going. Our teams have been strategizing and planning; everyone is wearing elbow pads, so no one has to wear body armor, and as a result we have a very sensible path to success."

How'd you like to work for his boss?

Look, it's okay to be concerned. But be concerned about the right stuff. You have clients and prospects who need your help more than ever. Whether it be to get through this period or make hay during this period, they need help. And if you are the one dedicated to providing it, you will, and an automatic by-product of that behavior will be that you have nothing to worry about.

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

I'll Take the Wheat...And Hold the Chaff Please

2009-10-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

You always knew why you were asking someone "out," or why you accepted an invitation, when you were a kid. The reasons changed over the years but without fail, it always had something to do with wanting to spend at least an hour or two with the other person, for one reason or another. Not so in business.

Business lunches are a real gamble. The inviter has a reason to ask for the date. That reason involves an opportunity for him, in a "captive" environment, to push his agenda. In the best scenario for the invitee, the agenda involves helping the guest to more than a good meal and a few hours "away from the office." In that case the "host" (let's call him a "Seller") believes the social setting will allow him the time to make the "guest" (let's call him a "Buyer") comfortable with the notion that he is genuinely interested in helping him further his interests with the product or service that the Seller represents.

An hour or more at a restaurant provides all the time in the world for the Buyer to determine if he's ordered the "Wheat" by accepting the invitation, or gotten the Chaff. It's only Tuesday and I'm one for two.

The differences between the two engagements were somewhat predictable. The tasty lunch was with a professional acquaintance I've known for quite some time, done some business with over the years, and never had the occasion to look back after a transaction and question his intelligence, veracity, motives or ethics. I trust him; if not with my children, certainly with my parakeet. We spent the time at lunch with him posing questions and me responding; about my needs, about my business, about my conclusions about my business, in answer to his "yes, but what about?" challenges to my conclusions. In short, the meeting was about me. The conversation was provocative and helpful.

It was a delicious meal. I'm looking forward to the next. No---my host never got around to his agenda unless it was to use this date to mine for information to form one for a later meeting. I'll hear from him again, if that's the case, but chances are that I will call him before he gets back to me. He can be helpful.

The other host was also very smart and gregarious. I learned alot about his life and career path, he learned little about me and I didn't need the service he offered, nonetheless.

Wanna have lunch?

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

No, It's Not Your Client, It's Ours!

2009-10-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

Most sales guys, not you of course, experience a good deal of anxiety every time their manager says, "Take it to the Client, you'll never get anywhere with the Buyer." That's because one of the unspoken learnings of advertising sales is that a "good relationship" with ad agency buyers, all but assures one of a more than decent living and a nice work environment that includes lunches and golf outings, all "on the company." Not that there's anything wrong with that. And that is, by and large, the career life of the average sales executive; Good relationships borne of a memory for wedding anniversary dates and childrens' birth dates, twice a season golf days and quarterly if not monthly lunches. So when the manager says, "forget the Buyer" (substitute your own familiar directive), the average sales guy says "Great idea Boss" and immediately heads for his desk drawer with the Maalox.

The more subtle cause of the angst is that the visit to a client will be like taking a knife to a gunfight, in the fantasy world of the average seller. ("I know all about CPP's, Ratings and can hold my own with respect to the strengths and weaknesses of competition within and without my media sector, but that client guy is going to want to talk about marketing and stuff, Jeez").

But again, the top of consciousness concern of the Seller is , "this will really piss my Buyer off, and destroy all the hard work I've done to develop a good relationship which mostly gets me my fair share of all his/her buys."

Hey, relax, remember, we're not talking about you. We're talking about the common, average seller.

Now the concern regarding the Buyer's feelings are well placed. After all, this is the Agency's Client, isn't it? Uh, Not Really. Not in my world anyway. Both you and your Buyer are in the business of helping the Client further his business interests. In fact, if the truth be known, the Client has no shot at building his business without you and your other media channel "friends," but if he had to, he could "stumble" along without an agency. However, because the transaction world's practice is for you to bill and and collect from the agency, you understandably mistake it, the Agency, for your client. In truth the Clients' best interests are met if you and the Agency partner are treating them as your mutual beneficiaries, your shared Clients, whose interests you work together toward meeting.

So, if you effectively and honestly communicate to the Buyer, that your only interest is to serve both him and your mutual Client and to help each of them be more successful, and that you would love to have him join you in a brainstorming session with the Client, or in the alternative, if he's unavailable, will make sure to keep him in the loop on all Client interactions--he'd have to be a real (insert your pejorative here) to object.

No?

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Great Buyers Go Too!

2009-10-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

Great Sellers go to heaven because they spend their careers focused on, and therefore helping, everyone with whom they come in contact. They are other-directed and understand that by expending their energy and activity in the service of others, good things will come their way as incidental, but inevitable results of that behavior.

Yesterday, I spent several hours with a top advertising agency executive..a very influential digital media expert. I visited with him because I wanted him to meet some people who represented outstanding advertising supported media vehicles, and knew from prior experience, that this exec would appreciate learning in the one case about a new product, and learning more about the other with which he already had substantial familiarity.

In the ninety minutes consumed by the two meetings, between Seller(s) and Buyer, dozens of questions, answers and goals flew back and forth. Many of the questions came from Sean (the executive/Buyer). When he found something particulary interesting he made a note of which of his clients, or subordinates would benefit from hearing about it. And he collaborated with the two Sellers about how they could be of service to his agency colleagues and clients. The meetings ended when Sean was sure he learned everything new to him about each product, and he orchestrated the next steps, which in this case included making sure that his co-workers and these sellers benefitted, as he did, from learning more about each other. Oh yes, nary a mention of CPPs, or CPAs. It was all about servicing Sean's accounts by learning more, and looking for partnership opportunities. So what did we have here? We had Sellers and a "Buyer" each intensely interested in the other guy and his products and goals. Good things will get done. Everyone will benefit, most especially Sean's clients.

And who would you rather bring a great idea to than this "Buyer?"...who coincidentally is off to you know where. (The only difference "there" is that the Buyers pick up the lunch checks for eternity). Hey, everything always balances out over time.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Collapse Time
Teamwork

"When Can We Start?"... Who said that?

2009-10-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

If it was me, then the client and I hadn't come up with a solution to his problem that involved me and my product or service. In other words, I hadn't sold anything yet. I had failed, so far anyway, to establish my worth.

RatherI was using a shopworn sales technique (trial close) just like any average sales guy, because I hadn't yet successfully sold. So I asked the question and waited for the inevitable "objection" so I could return to objection-answering. This sounds kind of familiar, yes?

Over the years, thankfully, "when can we start?" has much more often been ask of, rather than by me.

An Uncommon Seller skillfully lowers the inherent barrier between himself and the Buyer, so that the Buyer permits him to attempt to help. That's why the Seller made the appointment, prepared for it and showed up. To Help! To Serve! He lowers the barrier by communicating honestly and motivating the Buyer to struggle with him, as true partners, all four sleeves rolled up, empty coffee cups everywhere (25 years ago, filled ashtrays as well) to identify the hurdles to the client's growth, and to innovate solutions. (Get the picture?). That's where the art of selling comes in..to lower the barrier..to get him to let you help. Once that barrier is lowered, "selling" takes a rest and helping and serving take over. That's the remarkable salesman's only goal, to help the client be richer for the experience of the two of them working together. And then the moment comes when this uncommon Seller and his Buyer look up from their legal pads and the Buyer asks..."When can we start?"

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Great Negotiators Give the Other Guy What He Needs...and NOTHING MORE

2009-10-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

The conventional wisdom of Win-Win as the desired result of a negotiation, doesn't mean both parties "share and share alike." Each party to a negotiation has a threshold that needs to be met for there to be any point in doing the deal. If that threshold gets met (that bare minimum) it's a "win." More than that, is a "wow."

Well then, you want to be the party who provides the "win" and gets the "wow."

The uncommonly successful negotiator spends little to no time trying to make a case for the value of his contribution to the deal. He assumes with confidence that the guy across the table appreciates his value, or there would have been no meeting to begin with. Our guy expends his energy probing for his counterpart's threshold.

"What are you trying to accomplish, Mr. Jones and why do you think Sherman Enterprises can help you?"

"What will you need from me, if any thing, after we shake hands, to make this work for you?"

"How and when will you be able to assess the results of our transaction?"

"Where does this deal sit on the priority ladder of your company's issues at this time."

The effort here is to get your potential "partner" to talk, and think, about himself rather than the "price" of the deal. The very process of focusing him on his "need" will reinforce for him why he is in this conversation in the first place and direct his thinking toward a successful conclusion--filling his basic need basket! The overflow becomes yours. He gets what he needed, you get what you needed, AND, the overflow---wow!

Many years ago the executive vice president of a media division of a major communication company called me to "talk about" a high profile management position he needed to fill. "Would I like to talk about it?" "Sure." We met. During the "interview" I spent a lot of time listening to his recitation of his career path and accomplishments. He may not have asked me one question. I was intrigued by his need to impress me. After all, he held the keys to the front door of a pretty high profile position. Mt first thought was, "this guy is letting me know that if we get together on this, he's going to be the boss. Why?"

At some point I asked what he thought the major challenge would be for his new hire. He told me, and off-handedly remarked that Fred (his boss) suggested he reach out to me as a potential "fixer." Translation: Fred "suggested" he check me out. If I wasn't at the command post tent when Fred next visited, this EVP would have failed. His "win" was to have me at the desk. My win was to get the job--but trust me--by learning what his"need" or "win" was, I got the "wow."
It was a nice package.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Collapse Time
Teamwork

Open Wide! Here Comes the Choo Choo!...or the Art Of Selling and Moms

2009-10-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

You don't know a better seller than your mom. First, her major concern has always been for your welfare. She always wanted what's best for you. She's always wanted to help you and until you were a teenager, she was always right as well. Then overnight, she became always wrong. Unfortunately many of the things mom needed to do to help you, met with resistance. You erected a "buyer/seller" wall between you and mom. No baby, or toddler for that matter, likes the taste of mashed green peas. But moms know they are good for you--protein, I think. So she wanted to help you eat healthfully by feeding you green peas and she said--"Open wide, here comes the choo choo." When you did, she shoved the awful stuff down your throat.

Mom skillfully employed the art of selling to help you get the food you need to be healthy. Nurse Ratchit, using the same words would have met with your clenched teeth. Why?
Mom genuinely wanted to help you; you saw that in her smile, you felt it in her warmth. She helped you set aside your distaste for the peas by distracting you with a choo choo game long enough to feed you. You trusted her to care for you because she focused on you and your needs and not on herself. Yes, she used a mild form of trickery. She had to; She had to get you to let her help you. "Help me...help you. H-E-L-P M-E... H-E-L-P YOU!" (Tom Cruise to Cuba Gooding--Jerry McGuire). OPEN WIDE!

Last night I had a Diet Coke with my friend Tom. He just took on a marketing assignment for a new break-through product to identify a heretofore difficult to diagnose disease--Sepsis. Tom was really excited. The job doesn't pay very well (a non-profit foundation is his sponsor) and it will be very challenging to get the word out, he says. But Tom is very excited to have the opportunity to help a lot of people get early treatment which in the case of this medical problem is essential. I know, even if Tom doesn't, that if he is really good at getting the word out (and I'm sure that he will be), everything will take care of itself--economically as well. Someday ask Imus how quickly I tore up his contract after his first "through the roof " rating book.

The more you learn about the art of selling, to help you, help them, the more effective you will be, the more you will lower the buyer/seller barrier, the more people you will help, the better your chances of going...you know where.

Great Selling

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessy
Collapse Time
Team Work
Service to Others

Provocateur or bust! Be one or be one.

2009-10-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Well you may not be a bust but you might raise your family in Ozone Park, Queens. Hey, I love Queens. I grew up there. I'm just making a point, OK? Management has been sending salesmen out to sell with a Customer Needs Analysis sheet since I was "parking" a Spaldeen with my fist in the P.S. 205 playground. In other words, it's out of date. On a food shelf it might read "expired."

Here's how the CNA goes:

The appointment: "Mr. Jones, I'm Strom Lamone and I'd like to visit with you for a half hour to learn about your business. I AM NOT COMING TO SELL YOU ANYTHING."

The visit: After 100 such approaches, some one says 'yes' and there you are; Across the counter, doing your CNA with somewhere between 3 and 17 interruptions for your prospect's customers.

The Questions (right off the CNA sheet):
1. Is there a predictable selling cycle in your business?
2. What is the demographic of your primary target?
3. How about your secondary target?
4. What is your marketing area?
5. Who are your top competitors?
6. Do you advertise?
7. What media do you use?
8. What is your annual budget for advertising?
9.What do you try to accomplish with your advertising?
10. Gulp..How is it working?

11. If you could name your biggest success hurdle, what would it be?

The 1st Visit Close: Not to "sell" anything as promised, but rather to get a second visit (at which time you will sell your buns off).

"Well Mr. Jones, if I understand you correctly, your biggest probem is blah, blah, blah. I'd like to go back to the office and share your information with our in-house marketing genius, my sales manager, my general manager and Dr. Phil. If we come up with something that could fix your problem, you'd want to hear about it, right? OK then, let's pencil in next Tuesday or Wednesday, morning or afternoon, which is better for you (nice "choice close").

So--Does any of this ring a bell?

Can anyone explain to me the rationale for calling this a consultative sales process? This is an idiotic sales process, immediately setting up the only question this line of questioning evokes from a customer, if he asks one at all--"Very interesting Mr. Lamone. What's the deal of the day?"

Let me suggest a more productive line of questioning;

1. When did you open for business?
2. Has the competitive landscape changed over that period of time?
3. Which of those that compete with you has the strongest brand image?
4. How does the business look side by side with your original business plan?
5. Has the consumer need or want for the type of product or service you offered grown or decreased?
6. How do you know?
7. Is your sales volume growing at an acceptable pace?
8. Why? Why not?
9. What's your brand perception?
10. How do you know?
11. What's the public view of your customer service?
12. How do you know?
13. What is your strongest calling card for your target consumer?
14. How do you know?

I could go on and on with this list...and so can you. And so you should, and do I. The only thing I care about when visiting with prospects is making it clear that I can help them. And I do that by showing a sincere and intense interest in them; their successes and failures. And I don't run out of questions until they start developing their own list. That's because until they start questioning everything about their challenges, they will never meet them. And my job is to provoke them to think, and worry and wonder. And I make it clear that I will be right at their side as they go through that uncomfortable, painful but ultimately rewarding process.

And they will insist that I share the fruits of our labor.

Provocateur: A person who provokes problems; causes dissention and...exceeds their revenue goals month after month and year after year.

"Consultative Selling" and... Travolta

2009-10-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Consultative Sell is so "50s." OK..maybe 60s. Picture Travolta sitting across the desk from his customer; Hair all Brylcreamed into a "DA," black T, jeans and boots with a clipboard on his lap and notes to himself reading: "target customer(?), sales cycle(?), budget(?), competition(?)," etc.

"You're the one that I want, one that I want, hoo hoo hoo hoo," playing softly in the background.

If you've been trained at all to sell, chances are that a six inch black plastic comb was, or could have been, your training graduation gift.

And by the way, here's how Travolta got the appointment: "Mr. Jones, I'd like to visit with you. Not to sell you anything, I promise, but to learn about your business." It probably took him 99 "no thank yous" to get this appointment even though the approach was sincere and novel :). In truth, four out of every three calls this subject got since the day he opened his doors, began that way.

My first problem with the consultative sales process (B to B selling), is that it is based on a series of lies. Anyone taught to get appointments this way is being taught to SELL not consult. ("Not that there's anything wrong with that."). However we need to be honest if we want to develop trust. And we need to develop trust, and the reputation for being trustworthy, if we want to build a sustainable career and consistently meet personal and corporate objectives. If we can accomplish that, it will be because we became uncommon and remarkable sales executives.

Real and valuable consultants do much more than gather the information from the customer about his business and what the subject knows about its growth, stumbling blocks and potential. The real articles in the consulting business look and behave much more like Monk, Kojak and Colombo than they do, Fred Sanford. They partner with the customer to learn what he doesn't know. Guess what, if he knew, he'd be there, wherever "there" is to him. It takes courage to behave like a consultant when you are being paid to sell, . That's because inherent in the relationship between consultant and customer is the right to politely insult the hell out of the check signer. In effect the consultant is there because the O level folk with whom he's consulting are stuck. Their needs range from discovery to affirmation. But they are at the "ignorant" or "fork in the road" rest stop on their trip. And they know that and so aren't offended when the consultant reminds them of what they don't know. The work is for the two of them to "what if" everything under the sun.

But picture this: you SELL widgets. You are on your first visit with your prospect and you say, "Look dummy. You don't have a clue how to move your business forward. You are blessed that I am here. Let's get to work!"

You probably need a more elegant intro, but if you are to be a problem solver, a forthright (and fearless) communicator, a trustworthy partner and resource and therefore a remarkable seller, (with eternity spent sitting comfy on a white cloud), that's where it all starts. Takes a little courage, no?

Many years ago I was the VP/GM of a CBS owned radio station in Philadelphia. My initial task was to change the format from Talk to All-News. Within three weeks of beginning the new assignment, I had replaced all department heads, fired most of the DJs and coverted the survivors to "journalists," hired an ad agency, "suggested" the creative approach, bought a heavy television schedule--all in time to coincide with the beginning of a rating period. The ratings came out and we were the number one station in the market. The day of the release of the audience research data, I got a call from the CEO of the largest local advertising agency. He welcomed me to the market, congratulated me on the ratings, and then told me I was screwed and wondered aloud how I would dig myself out of the hole I'd just put myself in? Excuse me?
"Well," he continued. "You have masterfully called to the attention of a vast number of Philadelphia listeners a perfectly dreadful product. You'll be able to fix the product, but how will you ever get back the listeners who recorded truthfully their responsiveness to your advertising but made notes to themselves to never listen again?" I had no idea, but he had a new account.

Hoo hoo hoo hoo.

Have a Good Day, Honey..I'm off to Help

2009-10-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

My wife collects Heinz Silver, Pez and hand carved bunnies. I collect "Thank-Yous." She's a collector, because I am.

The most important question in business is, "Have I helped you?" The most rewarding answer is "Yes, thank you." My wife's ability to indulge in her hobbies is an incidental, yet automatic by-product of my devotion to my collection.

It really doesn't matter what business you are in, or what product or service you represent. Someone thought of, or replicated that product or service because he or she believed it would help someone get something they wanted or needed. It would make the target constituent's life, business, day, minute better in some way. It has value because it enhances an experience of some kind for the customer. How you think about that which you represent, and what its intended purpose is, will be a most important determinant of your degree of success. It's more important than your territory, commission rate, competition or anything else you can think of, except your determination to help others benefit by making use of it. The uncommon achiever leaves his office well prepared and enthused not because it's another day to make sales, but rather because the new day brings fresh opportunities to help other people be more successful in their lives. Helping someone else to the top of the hill, gets you that much closer to it as well.

Human behavior and time have created an apathy, if not hostile barrier, between Buyer and Seller. Long before there were pockets, buyers were keeping their hands over where their pockets would have been to protect their purses (a gender-neutral term in years gone by). Except for remarkable and uncommon sales people, the guy with the sample bag coming through the door is "out to sell something," and everyone on the other side of the door knows it and counts the minutes until the seller leaves.

But there are rare performers as well. They walk through the door with a different purpose and they get different results. If one of these special performers has a product for a retailer to resell, he is attuned to the retailer's need to provide for his family, send his kids to college, and put something aside for retirement. The retailer toils to fulfill his dreams and the uncommon achiever is in the dreams-fulfillment business. "Mr. Jones, I can and want to help you build your business. My challenge is to get you to let me help you do that." Pretty corny, huh? Sure, so don't say it to the retailer but say it over and over to yourself until it becomes muscle memory and you behave accordingly. It's not how many people I can sell today, it's how many people can I help today?

"Emily, what does your daddy do?"
"He helps people make smart decisions about personal transportation."
"Oh, he sells cars?"
"Yep."

What do you collect?

Oh Shut Up and Listen, For God's Sake!

2009-10-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

Man's most recent evolutionary leap is his remarkable ability to appear to be listening to others while he's pretty much tuned out. Think about the people you love, and who love you; The most important people in your life. How often have you said to yourself about each of them, "He didn't hear a word I just said?" For any number of reasons, most of us are pretty self-absorbed. The I-Man (radio personality Don Imus) interrupts his interviewees all the time with, "I'm sorry. My mind strayed after I asked you the last question and I have no idea what you answered and uh, actually what I even asked you; Uh what's your name, again?" I'm not so sure he's always kidding when he does that. Perhaps the survival instinct is so a part of our DNA that we are, at the end of the day, a pretty selfish group. We spend so much of our lives in self-interested thought and action, and expecting little different from others, that we are in awe of truly altruistic behavior. When on those rare occasions we exhibit other-directed behavior ourselves, the reaction can run the gamut from pride and self-respect to, "What was I thinking?"

I believe the people we admire most are the few we are blessed to meet who really care about what others are saying and feeling. That's because most of us have learned to nod intermittently and at appropriate times while others "have the floor, " so as to appear to be focused on them and their needs. All the while our thoughts are running to, "How shall I respond?" or worse, "When will this ever end?"

And so, are you aghast to learn that Buyers believe that you have no real interest in them other, of course, than to sell them something? And honestly, unless you are an uncommon seller, they are probably right. The barrier between you and your prospect was erected long before you got into the game, but it is tall and wide, and grows taller and wider and stronger all the time. In fact, while both buyer and seller revel in the new technologies that allow them to transact electronically (from RFPs to executed contracts), and credit their enthusiasm to the efficiency of it all, the more plausible rationale is the consequence that they don't have to spend any more face time with each other pretending to be listening. It's exhausting.

Friends, Buyers have no expectation that you care one whit about them or what your product or service might do for them. That is why they are wary, non-communicative and non-committal. Most of we sellers go on prattling nonetheless about how our product/service is going to change their lives and, at a fifty per cent discount, if they buy today. The more we prattle, the less we listen. The less we listen the more we meet the Buyers' expectations and the less interested the Buyer is in the discussion.

My first advertising sales job was for a terrific trade publishing company. The newspaper I represented was so much better than me. I was the archetypal hot shot, aggressive New York salesman. I could rattle off the pitch in my sleep and had an answer for any possible objection. My first out-of-town sales trip was to see Bill Stanback, CEO of a powder headache remedy whose brand bore his name. The Stanback Company was in Salisbury, North Carolina. I'd targeted a six issue double truck ad campaign and I was ready. Bill welcomed me into his cavernous office and nearly crushed my hand with his. (Gee, he was really happy to see me, make it 12 issue double truck ads.). I got started. Once the first sentence of my canned pitch escaped my lips there was no stopping me. There could have been a gas leak explosion and I wouldn't have yelled "fire" until I'd finished with "sign here, Bill.").

When I finally came up for air, a giant smile crossed Bill's face as he rose to presumably finish off my last few unbroken metatarsels. "Well, well," he said. "That was terrific. Next time your down this way, make sure that you stop in again, you hear?" He walked me to the door. What a gentleman.

It wasn't until the cab left Stanback's building for the ride to the airport that it crossed my mind that I had sold zero, zilch, nada. How could I have? Our meeting had nothing to do with Stanback. No one in the world could have made that more clear than I. Hell, he might as well have not been in the room. In this case a failure to listen wasn't my flaw. There was nothing to listen to--I never shut up. (Who cared what he had to say? I had a nifty pitch).

Have you ever heard someone comment about another, "He has the gift of gab. He ought to be in sales?" I would argue that if he has the gift of gab, he ought to be in gabbing--not sales!

Do you hear me?

Great Selling!

Make a Cheat Sheet and I'll Tell You a Story

2009-10-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

For you newbies to this blog, and non-note taking returnees, here in one place are the Five Core Values that any of us can adopt to guide our relationships and achieve uncommon, remarkable results. These are the values that have kept me on track and laid the foundation for a personally rewarding career. I've seen them do the same for others, and they will for you. I'm numbering and listing them below to make it easy for you to cut, paste, print and laminate them in two sizes (4x6 for your desk top, framed and business card size for your wallet:).

1. Selling is about service to others; everyone in your business life.
2. Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
3. Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
4. Collapse Time
5. Be a Great Team mate

(Each of these "values" is treated in an earlier blog).

Okay, here's the story: For a very long time my business cards have listed these core values under my contact information. They follow my signature in all emails that I send. It is one way I tell people who I am, or at least who I try to be. At AOL Advertising Sales, these values became the cornerstone for the organization's culture. I never dictated that, it happened organically. I inherited a sales organization that had become dispirited as a result of the Internet implosion after years of historic sales growth when AOL led the charge in the Internet space. But now it seemed overnight the Internet was out of favor and the resulting advertising decline was dramatic. Moreover the ad agency community had a real bone to pick with the AOL ad sales department.

During the period of intense Internet excitement, marketers were speculating, with enthusiastic encouragement from Internet entrepreneurs, that all of commerce was going to move from "bricks and mortars" to the Internet. From a pair of shoes to home mortgages, the world was going to take its business online. Suffice to say, AOL "played" this speculation spectacularly well. But in so doing invested in a lot of face-to-face client time, every once in a great while to the discomfort of the ad agencies. When the Internet (temporarily as it turned out) went out of favor, the downturn in ad sales was precipitous and profound. AOL and its Net competitors went kicking and scratching for advertising dollars. They visited the agencies with hat in hand. But "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." If that woman is a "media queen" the fury is taken to a whole new level.

So I found a bunch of "beaten" folk at AOL. They had been to the mountain top but the winds up there turned unkind. They were now so low they could no longer imagine, much less see the top. They needed to learn how to again believe in AOL, and more importantly in themselves. The core values that I proselytized played a real part in quickly turning around the sales slide. Having something new to believe in, and a guide for behavior what would earn them trust from all with whom they dealt, gave these very bright, talented men and women a new road map to uncommon performance and many of them took the trip. Our first quarter at AOL was the first in many to show growth.

When a sales executive loves his work, there is a transfer of that affection to those for whom he works, to those that work for him and to those for whom he would like to work; The customer.

I am a pretty direct communicator and so if I respect and "love" my co-workers, I tell them. If they know I care about them because they are so important a part of what makes my work pleasurable, they feel safe when I point out opportunities for improvement in their performance.
And I remind them, and now point out to you, that if they (you) really believe the mission is to serve the client, first, last and always, they (you) will earn the liberty to teach, advise, provoke and brainstorm with the client because everything about the interactions say to the client, "I'm safe here. This person can and wants to help me invest wisely in advertising." When that moment arrives you are very special indeed. Your services are a most important asset to the client. You have no competitor. Your product or service is not a commodity. Nature will take its course and you will be incidentally but inevitably rewarded. Get it?

Great Selling!

CORE VALUE: TEAMWORK

2009-09-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

Among the attributes of Great Sellers is their ability to achieve consistently uncommon and remarkable performance. "Hot Shot" sellers have terrific wins, but also fallow periods, because their success usually depends upon taking advantage of the "greater fool" theory. Their BIG sales are personal victories, with an emphasis on "personal." And while the reservoir is well stocked with "fools," there are many other hot shots out fishing with alluring bait.

Great Sellers forge large teams to go about the business of effectively serving their consituencies which includes everyone with whom they deal; Customers, colleagues, bosses and employees. They seek the greatest good for the greatest number without regard for themselves because they know that their success is incidental but automatic as a result of helping others be successful. Their victories are anything but personal; They are team victories.

Great Sellers create great teams. They do what they can to elevate others to a standard of excellence with a view toward continuing to increase the team's "wins."

You've worked with loners. Sometimes people behave as loners because they think they have the secret sauce. They don't want to share it because they think that will level the playing field with their co-workers as they each compete for more responsibility. If these type of sellers work in companies where promotion is truly worthwhile, they are playing their hands poorly. Let's see. I'm the CEO of a company that needs to fill an important VP/Sales job. Should I pick Manny who does everything he can to help everyone beneath, alongside, and on top of him perform more successfully, or Moe who is only happy when he brings in a dollar more than every other salesman in the organization, and pretends to have a hearing problem when asked for help by another salesman? And then, what about the inevitable moment when Mr. Hot Shot is stumped for an idea and wanders down the hall for some input? Chances are it becomes coffee break time for his colleagues. Hmmmm.

CORE VALUE: Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly

2009-09-28T04:56:00.000-07:00

Great sellers always communicate honestly and fearlessly. These uncommon performers don't tell their bosses, employees, co-workers or customers what they think they want to hear. They tell them the truth, as they see it, all the time, every time. They believe that "truth" will earn them trust; And they are right!

That's not to say that fearless communication might not cost the GS ("great seller" :) a customer or even a job one day. But if so, neither was worth keeping. Being known as a scrupulously honest person, will go a long way toward earning you the trust you will need in order to to establish productive relationships so as to be able to perform remarkably.

Many salespeople (and character rather than inexperience is controlling) forecast either aggressively or too conservatively. "Hey Joe," the manager begins. It's the twelfth of the month and you've got a humongous budget and haven't booked one shilling. Have we a problem?" Joe replies, "A problem? Surely you jest. I will hit 120% of my budget this month. Take it to the bank!"

The boss issues a huge sigh of relief and signs $120,000 worth of purchase orders because Joe's a veritable cash cow. When the boss' checks bounce and his superior begins to wonder about his judgement, it becomes clear that Joe's fear about reporting the truth has cost the company, and his boss, dearly. First because they spent money they didn't have and second, because Joe didn't give his management the opportunity to see if they could intervene and help him bolster sales. Joe's insecurity, leading to dishonesty, may have bought him a little time, but probably very little.

Or, Joe replies to the same question this way, "A problem? I'll say we have a problem. Next month will be okay, but I'll be lucky to keep what I have on the books now much less add a dime this month. That'll put me about at roughly 9.76% of budget. Now Joe, who was determined to be a hero this month, knew he would, and evenutally did, come in over budget. He was sandbagging. But instead of breaking open the bubbly at the end of the month when Joe came crashing through his budget, the trained manager says, "Joe, your inability, or unwillingness to forecast accurately, and/or truthfully, has wreaked havoc with my planning and perhaps the growth of the company. More accurate forecasting is a skill you need to develop; Oh yes, and quickly!"

Expect to be questioned about bad news you deliver, and respond truthfully again. Be prepared for the conversation. Communicate it with neither exaggeration nor minimalization. Be prepared with possible solutions and be open to the boss' ideas. The sun doesn't shine all day every day. Things don't go as planned all the time, no matter how well planned, or executed. If you are nimble, are seen as a problem solver and honest, you are a valuable employee--and a valuable seller--an uncommon seller--a remarkable seller--a great seller!

Tell the truth always; Especially to yourself!

Great Selling!

CORE VALUE: Collapse Time.

2009-09-24T08:30:00.001-07:00

A quick refresher. I'm convinced that remarkable and uncommon performers tenaciously adhere to a set of behaviors, moment after moment, day after day that separates them from the vast majority of sales "executives" and earns for them the respect and trust of their customers and prospective customers. In prior postings we talked about the notion of "Service to All Others, Before Self," as a Core Value that can inevitably help make one's performance remarkable, and lead to uncommon rewards (see prior post; "Mother Nature Has Your Back."). We also posited that "Loving Your Work and Working Tirelessly," is another Core Value predisposing one to notable achievement.

A third and important Core Value that portends outstanding results is the ability to Collapse Time. There are some among us who seem to be able to accomplish things in time frames that mere mortals could never match. These extraordinary sales folk don't agonize; They recognize early on when further analysis will reveal little more, and they don't procrastinate. They have a bias for action. Simply put, they get more done! My partners and I have investments in a number of portfolio companies. Almost every week, at least one of those companys' top executives spends a half day with us in whiteboard sessions. We circulate an agenda before the meeting so that all come prepared with thoughts on the issues to be discussed, and then our founding partner facilitates a roundtable brainstorm. My partners and I have been approaching sales, branding, marketing and operational issues in this fashion for over twenty-five years. We are led by the hardest working, fastest thinking discussion facilitator I have ever seen. And we consistently get more work done in these half day sessions than many executive teams could get done in a week of off sites. We are not cowboys but we do understand decision making.

One of our partners is a very well known and skilled researcher. Before we address decisions on the agenda, he's done the research that we need to guide us. But we also understand that a decision is an action you have to take in the absence of clear research leading the way. If the research tells you what to do, there's no decision to make. Follow the research. In the absence of hard data to tell you left from right, pick one. (As Yogi Berra says, "when you get to the fork in the road, take it."). Make a decision. DON'T AGONIZE, which is really an excuse for PROCRASTINATION, which in turn, is a behavior (or non-behavior) in response to FEAR OF FAILURE. "Should I call this prospect or that for a sales appointment? This or that? Or perhaps him, or her? Oh wait a minute. Mom asked me to call today. I'll get back to prospecting later."

Get it?

One of the rules we work under at our firm us "the 24 hour rule." From the point of decision-making, almost everything gets done in 24 hours. Let's not quibble about logical exceptions to the rule. I don't have the time.

Don't "agonize." Don't be afraid to fail. If this guy won't see you, that one will. Make the calls. Many calls. Many more than anyone else can possibly make. The number of people you can help is unending. You are on the way to being uncommon, yes, remarkable, and in a collapsed time frame.

CORE VALUE: Love Your Work & Work Tirelessly

2009-09-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

People who love their work tend to be terrific at it and are great to spend time with. They're always "up." If you love your work you can work tirelessly. And if you work tirelessly, there's precious little you can't accomplish, and, there are few who can effectively compete with you. Some years ago we owned several radio stations in Wichita, KS. While I lived in New York, I spent a lot of time in Wichita and the surrounding towns, riding along with the stations' sales executives and meeting the advertisers. Once outside the city, it was mostly farm land, mile after mile. One beautiful Spring day, late in the afternoon, I asked the salesman to stop the car. I had been struck by the image of a farmer standing next to his tractor in his field just off the road. He was mopping his brow with a red bandana while leaning against his machine. And he was gazing over his land. He looked tired but I imagined it to be a sweet fatigue. There was a hint of a smile on his face and I'd have bet he was satisfied with the work he'd done on this lovely day, in his field. I would have bet my radio stations against a dozen ears of Kansas sweet corn that the last thing on that farmer's mind at that moment was how much cash the crop would bring. I'd have bet rather that he was enjoying the end of a good day's work on the land that he loved. For that farmer, the cash the crop would bring, at least at that moment, was incidental, important but nonetheless incidental, to the love he had for the land and his work. And when you love your work, you work tirelessly. And when you work tirelessly you get a remarkable amount done. And when you love your work, life is very rich indeed, quite apart from its monetary rewards.

I've been blessed. I've worked for CBS, NBC, the old Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, Storer Broadcasting, Time Warner and AOL. I co-founded an advertising agency with the iconic Jerry Della Femina and built, operated and sold four radio station holding companies. I've partnered with friends in a private equity firm. This has been taking place for almost forty-years. And in all of that time, and all of those endeavors, there was only one job I disliked. It was the manager that made work unpleasant and after only six months, I quit.

Do the math. You're going to work eight to ten hours a day (some folks more) and sleep eight hours a day. This leaves you a third or less of your day for most of your adult life; For family, friends and other interests. A third or more of your life will be spent at work. How sad it would be, if you had to, much less chose to spend it at work you didn't love. Just how much would you sell a third of your life for?

My dad made a good living at a job he found unsatisfactory. Towards the end of his career, he went back to college, finished his degree and taught in a New York City Community College at a third of his first-career income. He loved teaching and his life was measurably improved. We never missed a meal in his first, long term career, but we never would have missed a meal had he been teaching all along either. However, he would have lived what would have been in his view, a happier and more productive life. If he had only put it up for a family vote early on, or better still just gone ahead and made the switch, how much happier he, and we, would likely have been. If you don't love the work you are doing now, find something you can love as soon as possible. When you do find that position representing a product or service that you admire and can help people do or get what they need, you will love the busiest third of your life, and have a leg up on being a great salesman and going...you know where.

Each time I began a new executive position, I gathered everyone I had inherited and asked them in a group meeting if they loved working for the company? I suggested that if in their hearts the answer was "no" they think about what changes in the company culture, or their responsibilities, would make them feel differently? I finally suggested, again rhetorically, that if they believed nothing practical would make a difference in their negative feelings about their work, they should think about making a career change. I always finished by inviting them to come and talk with me if changing jobs made sense for them, because, if so, I would try to help make it happen. I always meant that and more than once fulfilled the promise.

Love your work. Next time I see you, I'll know if you do. Be forewarned. I may ask you if I can help?

Mother Nature Has Your Back

2009-09-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

Nature abhors imbalance. Moms, all moms, know that because this law of nature is carried in their DNA. That's why up at the top of the list among Mom's teachings is, "What goes around, comes around." A story or two to make the point.

First, non business related. One March, many years ago, I was on the road for several weeks. I arranged my return flight and car service so that I could reach my home with a half hour to spare for the tip-off of a final four NCAA basketball game. We had three young kids at home that year. Traffic cut it real close. I rushed in the door, gave the wife a peck on the cheek, threw my top coat on the bench inside the front door, started toward my favorite TV room and announced, "I'll talk to you later Dear, gotta catch the game." "Oh really you must watch the game? Well let me tell you this, Mr. World Traveler. The school called about your son Tate." (Uh oh, "my son Tate." This will be bad.). "Tess has been so defiant I could pull my hair out; Your mother called yesterday and is visiting Saturday and you know that I've made plans for the weekend..and..and..and." So how much of that game do you think I saw? Fast forward a couple of years, same scenario. But this time I open the door with "Hi Honey, it's so great to see you. Tell me, how was your week?" She told me and I missed the first quarter. But I saw the rest of the game.

Easy Lesson. Focus on the needs of others; Serve them well and nature will take care of the rest.

One More: This time business related.

Years ago, a young program director working for me at a radio station did great work and went on to cable to program a new genre of television that transformed the music business as well as cable television. Some years later, I had just sold a radio company as he was exiting Time Warner where he was a division president, and we decided to build another radio station holding company together. We quickly raised the money and bought some stations. I was CEO and he, Executive Chairman. Three months after we "closed" on our first station he was named President of the most important Internet company of the time and things got pretty busy for him. At a radio Board meeting, three months into his new responsibilties he announced that he was transferring two-thirds of his interest in our radio company to me because, "Bob is doing all the work." Few would argue against this being generous, and atypical business behavior.

.

A few years later, that generosity took care of my kids' college educations when we sold the company. I asked him years after that, what motivated him that day in the Board room. He answered that early in our business dealings, long before that event, I made what seemed to him a totally altruistic decision by which he benefitted greatly, and that he had filed that gesture and looked forward to returning the favor. I had long forgotten what he considered my selfless service to him. He hadn't. Mother nature stepped in.

Make serving them all your mission. Customers, prospects, bosses, colleagues and employees. Trust the Moms.

CORE VALUES: YOUR GPS TO HEAVEN

2009-09-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

You know, you've got to be somebody. You've got to stand for something. It's okay to be definable and predictable as long as you are defined as respectable, trustworthy, caring, indefatigable and dependable. Tall order? You bet. But a well thought out code of behavior (your personal core values), internalized over time because you tenaciously adhere to them regardless of obstacles, temptations and momentary failure, will get you there. They'll get you there because unlike the vast majority of sales folk, you will approach everyday with a purpose that fires your imagination and energizes every cell in your body. You will be a zealot, but not in the service of a polemic ideology, but rather in the service of the success of others, all others, everyone you interact with. And over time, I promise you will radiate that commitment, and your customers, and prospective customers will lower the buyer/seller barrier, and work with you to solve their problems which will inevitably involve you and your product or service as a meaningful part of the solution. YOUR FIRST CORE VALUE: SERVE DON'T SELL!

I'll bet I can find any number of chapters in any number of text books and "how to sell manuals" about how to get appointments with influentials via the telephone. I am convinced that no phone technique is more effective than a well researched reason to call and an introduction that includes the sincerely delivered phrase, "Mr. Jones, I am calling because I believe I can help you." Your time with Mr. Jones will be in his service.

Did you know that in Feudal Japan, the second richest class of folk were the Samurai. The translation of "Samurai" is "one who serves." And serve they did. By dedicating their lives, quite literally, to service, they grew rich. Now these Samurai weren't punching time clocks, negotiating compensation or attending union meetings. They were too busy serving, parrying and thrusting. They weren't focused on how much commission they would earn each day. Rather they were focused on keeping the Boss alive and filling his coffers. But the Samurai got rich as incidental by-products of serving the master. If the Samurai mused or schemed for his own benefit as he defended his Lord and plundered, he'd likely miss a parry and lose a head. Again, by focusing instead on the service to be performed, he got rich. SUCCESS COMES FROM SERVICE TO OTHERS, FIRST AND WELL.

At AOL, Vice-Chairman Ted Leonsis struck me as having it right. During the post Internet implosion, when the entire sector was on a downward spiral, Leonis was addressing a meeting of some 250 managers. He said, "Listen every one. The Internet is not only still the wave of the future, it continues to change the way people organize their lives and communicate with each other. What we have to get back to," he continued, "is to re-learn how to love and serve our customers." Ted Leonsis understands that selfless service to others reaps the greatest rewards; first a fulfilling satisfaction of work well done for others--and quite incidentally, personal riches.

Great Selling! Uh, Serving.