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
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
On His Way to Super Stardom
"Dining" alone at Appleby's last night I saw the future of a college age waiter...one he has no idea of yet. (Appleby's because if you sit at the correct table you can watch at least three screens at once--each tuned to a major sporting event). A family of four was at the next table and young CEO-to-be came to take their orders. His waiters' garb was fresh and clean, as was his entire appearance. He squatted so that he was of the height of the youngest child and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Albert, I'll be your waiter tonight, how are you all?"
The Mom, answered, "We're all fine and how are you this evening," to which Albert replied, "I'm well, and thank you very much for asking."
I rest my case. Albert is not only a listener, rather than an Appleby's trained automaton, he is also sincere and feeds back to his consituencies that what they say he hears, and it is important to him. I know, not guess, that Albert will spend his entire adult life listening and feeding back what he hears and its importance to him. He will earn the trust of those he calls upon because he makes it clear that they are important to him and that he will focus on their best interests and how he call help them exceed their goals.
As he begins his career calling on customers (and immediately begins outperforming his peer group and competitors) his interactions with bosses and colleagues will be consistent with his customer interactions. He will look to serve them as well and that will be noted by the executives that will inevitably promote him to management. And on and on.
Albert is a winner. A nice, well bred, well-intentioned, clean cut young man conscious of his ability to enhance the experiences of those he deals with if he shows interest by listening to them and acknowleging the importance of what they say.
One day, years from now, in the business section of the Times, you'll read about CEO Albert__________ and his most recent merger or sale.
Great Selling!
Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork.
The Mom, answered, "We're all fine and how are you this evening," to which Albert replied, "I'm well, and thank you very much for asking."
I rest my case. Albert is not only a listener, rather than an Appleby's trained automaton, he is also sincere and feeds back to his consituencies that what they say he hears, and it is important to him. I know, not guess, that Albert will spend his entire adult life listening and feeding back what he hears and its importance to him. He will earn the trust of those he calls upon because he makes it clear that they are important to him and that he will focus on their best interests and how he call help them exceed their goals.
As he begins his career calling on customers (and immediately begins outperforming his peer group and competitors) his interactions with bosses and colleagues will be consistent with his customer interactions. He will look to serve them as well and that will be noted by the executives that will inevitably promote him to management. And on and on.
Albert is a winner. A nice, well bred, well-intentioned, clean cut young man conscious of his ability to enhance the experiences of those he deals with if he shows interest by listening to them and acknowleging the importance of what they say.
One day, years from now, in the business section of the Times, you'll read about CEO Albert__________ and his most recent merger or sale.
Great Selling!
Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Great Salesmen Don't Multi-task
ADD must be difficult to deal with although all of us have met folk who have made excellent adjustments to it and even extol its virtues. Certainly the emergence of the multi-tasking phenomenon has done much to support the virtuous status of this otherwise neurological disorder. How many meetings have you been in lately where someone wasn't nose-diving to his Blackberry and texting away? None, I'd venture. If called out, the engaged party says, "it's okay, I'm a great multi-tasker." I always want to, but usually am able to keep from responding, "actually you're pretty rude, but obviously whatever you are communicating about on that Blackberry of yours is more interesting than what we're talking about."
Social, much less business grace aside, who's kidding whom? The best work of any kind results at least in part from laser like focus on the task at hand. Not the taskS at hand. Picture this, someone in a white coat has just asked you to count to ten backwards. By the time you get to seven, you're out and Springstein is belting out Born to Run as "White Coat" begins to check his email. What the heck. He's a pro and he's multi-tasking.
I understand that the analogy may not work for some, but tell that to the guy whose business' life or death depends upon your best work. How about this for a good definition of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is the ability to do many more tasks during a set time period than most people because the multi-tasker is incapable of being distracted and is ultra disciplined at focusing on the business at hand. He's therefore able to collapse time and accomplish more, and more effectively than the average performer, and likely a lot more that the Blackberry multi-tasker.
Great Selling!
Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
COLLAPSE TIME
Teamwork
Social, much less business grace aside, who's kidding whom? The best work of any kind results at least in part from laser like focus on the task at hand. Not the taskS at hand. Picture this, someone in a white coat has just asked you to count to ten backwards. By the time you get to seven, you're out and Springstein is belting out Born to Run as "White Coat" begins to check his email. What the heck. He's a pro and he's multi-tasking.
I understand that the analogy may not work for some, but tell that to the guy whose business' life or death depends upon your best work. How about this for a good definition of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is the ability to do many more tasks during a set time period than most people because the multi-tasker is incapable of being distracted and is ultra disciplined at focusing on the business at hand. He's therefore able to collapse time and accomplish more, and more effectively than the average performer, and likely a lot more that the Blackberry multi-tasker.
Great Selling!
Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
COLLAPSE TIME
Teamwork
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sales: 201
The first thing to remember, just to be a good sales executive, much less a great one, is that you must be committed to solving other people's problems. There really are only three reasons to buy anything; first to eat, unless you are a Freegan; second because your purchase will bring you some pleasure; or third, if you are in business, to solve some problem and/or grow your business. So in business-to- business selling you breathe to address number three.
Good sales people ask good questions to get the client to acknowledge what their problems are and then provide creative solutions. Great sales people recognize that clients are pretty much clueless as to what their real problems are, because if not they already would have been solved. So great sales people engage the customer in honest, sometimes brutally honest, partnering excursions to find pathways to success.
Buyers untimately come to respect, and trust, these well intentioned provocateurs. In fact, once the rough road to respect and trust has been successfully traveled, the great salesman is always the visitor of choice, and enjoys the generously offered referrals to other likely prospects.
Here's the challenging news. Just being honest and well intentioned gets you only so far. Making that case effectively is a whole other story because the deck is stacked against you as soon as you call for an appointment. Every good and not so good salesman before you has muddied the waters. The friendly "hello" when the phone line is answered, or the in-person cold caller enters the business establishment, is quickly replaced in tone by the cold, sometimes harsh follow up of "not interested" or any other number of favorite "beat its" employed by that particular prospect once your purpose is stated. Unless of course you are one of the great ones.
Sales 202: "Mr. Jones I'm calling because I believe I can considerably help you and need only fifteen minutes of your time,to confirm that? May I visit this afternoon or will tomorrow be better?" He answers "not interested!" And you say, "Mr. Jones, sometime today for one reason or another fifteen minutes of your time spent will serve no useful purpose in building upon your success. May I have that fifteen minutes? I mean well and have done some homework I'd like to share with you?"
The "Joneses" that say "no" to you with that approach, would have been short term clients anyway because they are too foolish to make a go of it.
Now you are visiting, either in person or on the phone and you have an immediate decision to make based upon whatever you've learned about the business you are calling on and the service you believe you have to offer. And here it is. If this prospect winds up saying "yes" will he have made a rational decision based upon the data and logic, or an irrational decision based up the dream you get him to buy into?
If you've prospected well, and you think about this question before the call, you will have a good feel for the answer.
Once you decide, you want to set the tone of the conversation right from the beginning in the mode that is compatible and leads to the "yes." So, assuming you believe this makes so much sense that a rational person, emotions laid aside, would have to see the benefit: Your first comment or question should be intellectual and data driven. Example: "Mr. Jones, the office of economic opportunity said in its May report that unemployment is actually dropping, but analysts are saying that that is because 18% of the unemployed have given up hope of being employed and thus are not counted. Being in the recruitment business do you agree with that."
You have now begun a non-emotional, rational based conversation. You are directing the play toward the desired result.
Or--You decide that the prevailing wisdom, fueled by all available data suggests that this a time for this recruiter to lay low and do what business may come his way by working hard and being frugal. Only a dollar and a dream (and you think your service reduces the odds way in his favor) would motivate any one in his field to invest today, so you need to foster an emotional (by definition then, irrational plane of conversation).
"Mr. Jones, I may be crazy but my impression is that the government could be doing a lot more low risk investing to drive up employment. What do you think?" We are now off to the races in 100,000 foot rhetoric and emotional talk. Exactly what you were looking for so you can sell "the dream."
Great Selling!
Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork
Good sales people ask good questions to get the client to acknowledge what their problems are and then provide creative solutions. Great sales people recognize that clients are pretty much clueless as to what their real problems are, because if not they already would have been solved. So great sales people engage the customer in honest, sometimes brutally honest, partnering excursions to find pathways to success.
Buyers untimately come to respect, and trust, these well intentioned provocateurs. In fact, once the rough road to respect and trust has been successfully traveled, the great salesman is always the visitor of choice, and enjoys the generously offered referrals to other likely prospects.
Here's the challenging news. Just being honest and well intentioned gets you only so far. Making that case effectively is a whole other story because the deck is stacked against you as soon as you call for an appointment. Every good and not so good salesman before you has muddied the waters. The friendly "hello" when the phone line is answered, or the in-person cold caller enters the business establishment, is quickly replaced in tone by the cold, sometimes harsh follow up of "not interested" or any other number of favorite "beat its" employed by that particular prospect once your purpose is stated. Unless of course you are one of the great ones.
Sales 202: "Mr. Jones I'm calling because I believe I can considerably help you and need only fifteen minutes of your time,to confirm that? May I visit this afternoon or will tomorrow be better?" He answers "not interested!" And you say, "Mr. Jones, sometime today for one reason or another fifteen minutes of your time spent will serve no useful purpose in building upon your success. May I have that fifteen minutes? I mean well and have done some homework I'd like to share with you?"
The "Joneses" that say "no" to you with that approach, would have been short term clients anyway because they are too foolish to make a go of it.
Now you are visiting, either in person or on the phone and you have an immediate decision to make based upon whatever you've learned about the business you are calling on and the service you believe you have to offer. And here it is. If this prospect winds up saying "yes" will he have made a rational decision based upon the data and logic, or an irrational decision based up the dream you get him to buy into?
If you've prospected well, and you think about this question before the call, you will have a good feel for the answer.
Once you decide, you want to set the tone of the conversation right from the beginning in the mode that is compatible and leads to the "yes." So, assuming you believe this makes so much sense that a rational person, emotions laid aside, would have to see the benefit: Your first comment or question should be intellectual and data driven. Example: "Mr. Jones, the office of economic opportunity said in its May report that unemployment is actually dropping, but analysts are saying that that is because 18% of the unemployed have given up hope of being employed and thus are not counted. Being in the recruitment business do you agree with that."
You have now begun a non-emotional, rational based conversation. You are directing the play toward the desired result.
Or--You decide that the prevailing wisdom, fueled by all available data suggests that this a time for this recruiter to lay low and do what business may come his way by working hard and being frugal. Only a dollar and a dream (and you think your service reduces the odds way in his favor) would motivate any one in his field to invest today, so you need to foster an emotional (by definition then, irrational plane of conversation).
"Mr. Jones, I may be crazy but my impression is that the government could be doing a lot more low risk investing to drive up employment. What do you think?" We are now off to the races in 100,000 foot rhetoric and emotional talk. Exactly what you were looking for so you can sell "the dream."
Great Selling!
Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
You Be the Final Arbiter of the Value of Your Work
We're all subject to a greater or lesser degree to the affirmation of others as to our value. Be honest with yourself as to how strong your need is the next time you consider a job change. The nature of the product or service and its quality, ought to be the first prism through which the opportunity is evaluated. That's because your perception of the meaningfulness of the offering you will be bringing to people will heavily weigh into how you feel about yourself and the way you will be spending your time. The environment (culture) of the company you join is the next critical factor because you will either find it neutral, supportive or debilitating, at least to the degree you are other-rewarded. Finally, who will you be working for and what is their management style? Ask! If the answer is, "I am strictly a numbers guy. Bring in the orders everyday and you are my man. Don't, and I will barely be able to look at you," you may want to think about how much you will enjoy and find meaning in the work on a bad day.
And why all this emphasis on the importance of your take on a job's "meaningfulness?" Dan Ariely (Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University) in his book The Upside of Irrationality, makes a great case that the need to find meaning in our work is so powerful, that we often manufacture with the aid of irrational thinking signs of meaning or value to what we do. The tougher the company culture or the boss make that effort, the less happy and productive we tend to be.
Recently, after a few decades I caught up with an ex-colleague for whom I had great respect and affection. In bringing me up to speed about his experiences since we worked together, he told me of the time he got a broker's license and went to work for one of the major financial houses. In a sales meeting, shortly after he joined, a senior sales executive took the floor to give his view on their industry. "Look. I'm in this to get rich. And if I get rich, the company does well. If my clients get rich that's a plus, but if they don't, and I do, that's o.k. too." My friend looked over to the smiling-in-approval sales manager, and resigned right after the meeting. That wasn't a description of an industry or firm that would harness the meaning he needed from his work.
If you find a field you love and a product or service that you believe truly makes life better for those to whom you introduce it, and your mom or dad had unqualified love for you in the first year of your life, at least, you probably can thrive and find meaning in that work even if the company culture and/or manager you represent, is imperfect, because you are the final arbiter of your value.
Great Selling!
LOVE YOUR WORK AND WORK TIRELESSLY
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
