Sales Management 2.0 - Featured Blog Posts

Infectious Leadership

2009-10-05T18:20:07.000Z

What kind of infectious agent do you want to be? Infectious like humor or infectious like the plague?

For good or ill the senior leadership of every organization is infectious. By this I mean that leaders’ behaviors tend to be transmitted to their direct reports, who pass them on to the next level, and so on down through their organizations. Over time, they permeate the organization from top to bottom, influencing activity at all levels. Eventually they become embodied in the organizational culture, influencing the types of people who get promoted and hired into the organization, creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop – either positive or negative.

The idea that senior leader behavior is truly viral became clear to me when I was doing organizational change consulting for the CEO of a manufacturing company in the mid-1990s. Facing aggressive competition, the business was in dire need of adopting a new generation of technology and moving to team-based production methods. Doing so required breaking down barriers between functions in manufacturing, as well as retraining the unionized workforce.

Virtually everyone in the company understood that the company’s future was at stake, and that new technology and methods were key to remaining competitive. At the same time, it became evident that the basis of trust necessary to move forward was completely absent. No one trusted anyone and an environment of fear completely permeated the organization. The critically important relationship between union leadership and manufacturing management was as toxic as one could possibly imagine.

As I began to delve into the history of the business I found it had not always been this way. The breakdown in trust and the rise of fear-based management had begun close to a decade earlier when a new head of manufacturing had been brought in from the outside. The company, which until then had enjoyed reasonably cordial labor-management relations, had fallen on some hard times, and the founders had decided they needed a “strong hand” to put things right.

What they got was a micro-managing bully, let’s call him Carl. Carl was able to turn the situation around, but it came at a great cost to the culture of the company. Charming to his boss and peers, he was ruthlessly controlling in his fiefdom. He made virtually every decision regardless of how small and set up what amounted to a spy network to keep an eye on everyone. He was relentlessly critical of the people working for him, and rapidly moved to promote a supporting cast of henchmen and, yes-men. They in, turn, forced the people working for them into defensive crouches, and so on down the line. Relationships with the union degenerated into bitter acrimony, as the union elected ever more adversarial leaders and pushed aside the moderates. The needed change simply wasn’t possible the CEO figured out what was really going on and ousted Carl and his cronies from the organization.

Although arguable less damaging, pyromaniac leaders have the same sort of viral impact on their organizations. As I discussed in a previous post pyromaniacs are leaders who relish fighting fires, sometimes to the point of igniting them. As their attention shifts from crisis to crisis, they force their direct reports into the same mode, forcing them to respond, on short notice, to requests for information or action spawned from the fire-de-jour. Here too, senior leader behavior propagates downward, infecting the entire organization.

Lest you think the news is all bad, the infectious nature of leadership applies as much to good behaviors as to bad. I was reminded of this while recently watching a “60 minutes” segment on Herb Kelleher, the Chairman (and formerly CEO) of Southwest Airlines. Everything he did communicated his genuine passion for the business, commitment to excellence, and respect for the company’s employees. And his enthusiasm was truly infectious.

Of course, the organization also had to have a great strategy and supporting processes and capabilities, but it was Kelleher who breathed life into the place. And he had surrounded himself with people who felt and acting in the same ways. It was firmly rooted in the culture and in the way that people got promoted and hired. It was hard to imagine Southwest getting poisoned by a bad apple the way that Carl had positioned the manufacturing company I had worked with.

To understand just how infectious leaders are, I invite you to try the following experiment on successive days. On the first day enter smiling. Greet everyone cheerfully. Go out of your way to complement people on work well done. Accentuate the positive, even it if hurts. Find the glass to be half-full wherever you go. On the second day enter frowning. Evidence a clear irritability. Go out of your way to focus on the problems and call people to account if they missed even the smallest detail or commitment. Accentuate the negative in every interaction you have.

You are likely to be amazed at the difference in the atmospheres that you engender. On the first day, your people are likely to mirror your positive mood and energy levels will rise. On the second day, it will be like you sucked the oxygen out the room. Your people become increasingly anxious and struggle to figure out what’s wrong. Now imagine what it’s like to live constantly with leaders with these characteristics and the impact it would have on their organizations.

The implication? Every leader needs to think hard about their viral impact on their organization. What kind of infectious agent do you want to be? Infectious like humor or infectious like the plague?

COPYRIGHT 2009 Michael Watkins. Genesis Advisers, PO Box 00083. West Newton, MA 02465. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without prior permission. www.MichaelDWatkins.com

Conducting Corporate Diplomacy

2009-10-05T18:16:40.000Z

The higher you rise in organizations the more you need to be able to practice the corporate equivalent of international diplomacy. Whether you are striving to transform your organization internally or working to shape the rules of the game with government officials externally, the essential challenge is the same: If you want to achieve your objectives, you need to learn how to effectively identify alignment and build alliances in order to get things done.

Failure to master this critical skill can lead to trouble: it’s easy for leaders who are used to wielding authority (and making decisions with their place in the hierarchy in mind) to get frustrated and attempt to impel people to do what they want. Instead of overcoming resistance, these leaders end up catalyzing reactive coalition building; they prompt potential opponents to reflexively close the ranks and build opposing alliances.

Indeed, leaders commonly get caught in a deeply debilitating cycle in which overreliance on authority yields increasing opposition, which then prompts even more inflexibility from the leader, and so on. Left unchecked, the result can be a series of increasingly polarizing conflicts between the leader and important players inside or outside the organization. Leaders recently appointed to new roles are particularly vulnerable in these battles; they understand how the organization works and hasn’t yet established alliances of their own, so these are fights they is unlikely to win.

What does it mean to be an effective corporate diplomat? Great diplomats proceed from the assumption that supportive alliances must be built in order to get anything serious done. They understand that opposition to change is likely, so they anticipate and develop strategies for surmounting it. They don’t expect to win over everyone; instead they focus on creating a critical mass of support. Most important, they devote as much energy to figuring out how to do things as they do to understanding what should be done.

The foundation of effective corporate diplomacy is a deep understanding of agendas and alignments. Leaders put a lot of effort into cultivating relationships in their organizations, believing that these connections will pay off when it comes time to get things done—which is true. It’s wise for leaders to build new relationships in anticipation of future needs. After all, you’d never want to be meeting your neighbors for the first time in the middle of the night while your house is burning down. But this operating philosophy underemphasizes an important point about organizational politics—namely, that there is a difference between building relationships and building alliances

In a nutshell, alliances are explicit or implicit agreements between two or more parties to jointly pursue specific agendas. By contrast, relationships comprise a broader class of social interactions, including personal friendships, which may or may not involve agreements to pursue specific goals.

If relationships don’t necessarily imply alliances, the reverse also is true: effective corporate diplomats often build alliances with people with whom they have no significant ongoing relationships. Some coalitions are founded on shared interests that provide the basis for longer-term, supportive interactions; others are short-term alliances that push specific agendas and then disband. Indeed, you may find yourself cooperating with people you usually disagree with—except, perhaps, when it comes to achieving a narrow goal involving a specific agenda.

When influence matters more than authority, leaders therefore need to focus as much on understanding others’ agendas and identifying potential alignments as they do on diagnosing business situations and defining solutions. It’s all-too-easy to focus on the “technical” side of business: identifying key issues and proposing solutions. The experience of many high-potential leaders doesn’t prepare them to focus on political learning.

There are several techniques leaders can use to quickly gain more insight into these political dynamics. The first approach is to make some reasonable guesses about who the important players will be given the business issues you’re confronting; arrange some meetings; and then listen—actively and attentively. Ask lots of questions, phrased in ways that won’t trigger defensiveness. If you aren’t satisfied with an answer, ask the question two or three different ways during the discussion. Propose what-if scenarios as a way to elicit thoughtful advice from the people with whom you’re speaking.

The second strategy is to constantly scan for subtle signs of status and influence during meetings, hallway chats, and other interactions. Who speaks to whom about what? Who sits and stands where? Who defers to whom when certain topics are being discussed? When an issue is raised, where do people’s eyes track?

Over time, the patterns of influence will become clearer, and you’ll be able to identify those vital individuals who exert disproportionate influence because of their informal authority, expertise, or sheer force of personality. If you can convince these opinion leaders that your priorities and goals have merit, broader acceptance of your ideas is likely to follow. Additionally, you may be able to discern existing alliances—those groups of people who explicitly or implicitly band together to pursue specific goals or protect certain privileges. If these alliances support your agenda, you will gain leverage. If they oppose you, you may have no choice but to break them up or establish new ones.

COPYRIGHT 2009 Michael Watkins. Genesis Advisers, PO Box 00083. West Newton, MA 02465. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without prior permission. www.MichaelDWatkins.com

Dispelling The Salesperson Stereotype: The Key To Being More Effective In Today's Economy

2009-10-03T14:53:22.000Z

As salespeople, we can get very enthusiastic about our business and offerings. As tempered as this enthusiasm may be, we run the risk of being overwhelming, or worse being too “salesy.” This has contributed to the stereotype of the average salesperson as pushy, aggressive, and overly excited.

The result is, invariably, a degradation of the sales process. By virtue of this stereotype, internal feelings of pressure and tension are instantly created within prospects and clients alike. The prospect feels he or she would rather be anywhere else other than speaking with you. The reality is that both parties are bringing to the table inherent pressures and tensions that already exist within the buyer/seller interaction. This pressure and tension will result in the prospect retreating.

The Retreating Effect

So, what is this “retreating effect”?

This retreating effect is defined by the prospect saying things such as, “Sounds interesting …Why don’t you call me later and we can talk about it,” or “Sounds interesting …Why don’t you send some information. I’ll look it over and you can call me say, later next week.” Really the prospect is saying, “You know what? I’m really not interested, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings, so I’ll just brush you off.”

Without realizing it, the chase has begun. Based on this false interest perceived by you as genuine, you proceed to follow up a week later with the prospect by calling, leaving messages, and sending emails. If only you had a more gracious way to get to the truth, you could have saved each other valuable time and a whole lot of stress.
In this instance – and in virtually all instances – the sale or the opportunity to close a sale is not lost in the middle or at the end but at the very beginning!

If we, as sales professionals, don’t change our mindset, our approach, and learn to dispel the stereotype right from the onset, we will continually experience pressure and tension, and our sales will be just as they are right now. The secret toll of frustration, rejection, and discouragement will continue.

So what are we to do?

Dispelling the Stereotype

Simply put, we must dispel the stereotype. In order to do this, we must first change our mindset. This begins by differentiating between the short-term objective and the long-term purpose.

What I mean by this is that if your objective is to make a sale and to close a prospect, then you will fail more times than not – pure and simple. If your objective is to make a lot of money, then you will fail more times than not. If your objective is to maximize your margins and profits only, then you will fail more times than not. These are all important considerations to be sure, but they are all very egocentric.

People who focus exclusively on objectives are pretty easy to pick out of a crowd. The tell-tale sign is the way they sell. They are the ones who love to pitch, present, show and tell, and try to convince and persuade. In short, they love to present their entire offering and how we can benefit from it in the hope that something will spark an interest. Not only is this the least effective way to communicate in sales, but it turns people off immediately.

In contrast, if we focus on our purpose, we will succeed on many levels. By “purpose,” I mean the desire to really help people and organizations overcome their actual issues, pains, and business challenges. We must put the other person’s needs and wants first and foremost. If the solutions we offer do not help solve real business issues and pains, then we can be of little to no value to our clients.

To summarize, where the objective is egocentrically focused on driving to the close, people motivated by purpose naturally strive for the truth in order to be of real service and of real value.

People who focus on objectives will be those who pitch or present, and people who are driven and motivated by a deeper purpose will be those who ask questions to determine needs, wants, values, desires, and whether there is a fit for a collaborative working relationship.

By focusing on your purpose, you will be in a much better mental place regardless of the outcome. You will be more comfortable asking questions, the rapport will be greater, and you will start realizing more positive, longer-lasting results. Oh, and not to mention having people and prospects be attracted to you as opposed to retreating from you — I guarantee it!

Xavier
www.nonlinearselling.com

Building Trust through Empathy: A Practical Guide

2009-10-01T19:00:09.000Z

Trust is the single most important purchasing factor in any sale. Trust is the buyer’s confidence that the seller will do right by them, and becomes more important as the level of vulnerability (risk, significance of the decision) and dependence (technical, knowledge, time) rises. As I am sure you can imagine, the importance of trust is highest in a strategic sale. Buyers will never work with a seller that they don’t trust, and will most likely choose to work with the supplier that they trust the most.

The irony with trust is that most buyers don’t trust sellers. Look at mainstream media and its portrayal of salespeople; they’re dishonest, immoral, manipulative, and will do whatever it takes to meet quota. When I told my college roommate that I took a job in sales his first question was, “How do you know a salesman is lying? Their lips are moving!” Now I’m sure you’re saying “That’s not me”, but studies have overwhelmingly reported that people think others trust them at significantly higher levels than they actually do.

Given the fact that trust is important yet buyers don’t trust sellers, it blows my mind that I have never seen a sales training that focuses around trust! It is a HUGE opportunity to win business. Although there are many ways to build trust (honesty, integrity, etc.), cultivating empathy for your customers and prospects will build trust in a way that will differentiate you from your competitors. Empathy is a fundamental building block of strong relationships and will allow you to build the foundation for a trusting relationship, encourage your customers to surface information that they normally wouldn’t, give you insight into what makes your customers tick, and form a connection with your customer that cannot be broken.

Empathy is the ability to place ourselves in another’s situation, experiencing their emotions and perspective. If you’re worried that you aren’t good at empathizing, don’t. We actually have specific neurons in our brains, called mirror neurons, that help us with empathy. So we all have the tools to empathize, we just need to start working them out.

So here are a couple tips to cultivating empathy within yourself; a fair warning that these things need to be practiced every day, as often as you can. Yes, they are soft and touchy-feely. But after all, you’re selling to people, and people buy with emotion.

Full post can be found at: http://www.executivesalesstrategy.com/2009/09/21/empathy/

Differentiating the IT Services Menu

2009-09-29T02:28:32.000Z

It seems every week we talk to just another IT services shop trying to kick-start their marketing and sales process. We sit down with the founder and ask the same question: “so how are you different from all the other firms out there?”

When we ask that question, we get the same answer: we have a global delivery model, we are client centric, we put people first, we are domain experts and/or we really understand our clients.

Woop do flipping do. Welcome to the club. With those credentials, you are beautiful and unique, just like everyone else. Your competitors have the same answer. They have a global delivery model, they are client centric, they put people first, they are domain experts and they really understand their clients.

So if you are just another IT services shop, what do you do when it comes to answering the question: “so how are you different from all the other firms out there?” How do you differentiate yourself in the undifferentiated world of IT Services?

There are really three interrelated ways to answer that question. All three answers build on each other and are critical to each other. But explaining all of them here would take too long and is beyond the scope of this post.
The first answer is “trusted customer relationships.” We believe this answer is most critical, actionable and more important and therefore will be the basis of this article. The second answer falls into the camp of messaging, positioning, and defensible-niche creation. We’ll discuss that answer in the next article. The third answer comes at the question from the inside-out perspective – company culture, decision making process, and internal trust. Again, this is a topic for another article.

Trusted Relationships and Hunting Big Accounts - the founder’s problem of scale

Say the word “trusted customer relationships” and many definitions and meanings come to mind. Each definition has a different context. In this case, we need to be very specific about context and so we want to talk about a very specific scenario.

In our work with professional services firms in the $1 to $5 million/year revenue range, what we generally see is a founder who has left a senior Fortune 500 IT position to start a company. As a first customer, the new entrepreneur lands his account by selling services back to his former employer - a whale (a large farmable account capable of more than $1M annual billings and a well known brand or reputation).

In this scenario, other than a trusted relationship, there is very little that on the IT services menu that differentiates the IT services shop from the competition. Aside from marginal differences in talent, culture, expertise and methodology, almost every other $1M to $5M competing IT services firm can do a job as well as any other.

So when we talk about trusted customer relationships, we’re talking about founders who are friends with their new clients. They have leveraged a deep pre-existing relationship to become entrepreneurs. This relationship was built over many years through interaction, integrity, success/failure, transparency and consistency.

Because of the relationship, the founder brings speed and nimbleness to problem solving. This is due to the fact that he or she has an intuitive grasp of the project goal (i.e. benefit to the company) AND the culture’s style of generating support for the goal AND the culture’s preferred style of organizing execution toward the goal. Together all this means a relationship that is hard to duplicate.

The problem of scaling this kind of relationship begins when the founder wants to find another major whale sized account that is just as profitable and farmable as the first major account.

The entire problem for finding the second whale is creating what was “second nature” with the founder’s former employer. How do you replicate in the selling and marketing process the relationships that were created over time through interaction, integrity, success/failure, transparency and consistency?

The answer (and the currency by which the trust is established, earned and scaled) is USEFULNESS.

In sales-processes, the conversations, the relationships, the personal network and persuasion have always been the de facto currency. If people buy from people and if a brand is really the sum total of a customer’s interaction with a company, then it follows that in B2B, the personal brand of the founder is really all that matters when it comes to finding the next whale.

And, if you accept the fact that, for IT services firms of this size, the definition of a successful marketing and sales campaign could be the addition of one new whale per year. In this context, the sales and marketing discussion takes on an interesting new perspective.

The web and social media did not create the idea of a personal brand. Leading with value and emphasizing relationship value over a quick-transaction have always been the hallmarks of successful professional services organizations.

The only difference that social media makes is that the technology finally got granular enough and accessible enough and instantiated enough to be useful in facilitating this level of the ageless human dialog of value exchange.
The tendency of people to become known through repeat encounters is as old as walking upright – and establishing a brand of credibility and openness to repeat transaction is earned by being accessible and broadly useful to the challenges prospects face – across the whole lifecycle of the problem solution.

Unfortunately, many founders of professional services organizations somehow got disconnected from this simple truth. You can see this in their marketing departments – day after day churning out me too SharePoint webinars with co-op Microsoft funds. If everyone is using the same campaign materials and selling the same products, then there is no differentiation.

For that and many other reasons, a dedicated emphasis on personal branding may overlap and replace some of the "traditional" tactics in marketing’s tool chest. The highest value of these personal branding activities is how they reach past the product attributes and into the underlying human issues beneath the problem the prospect company is experiencing.

Professional services marketing needs to take the next step to scale personal branding. Marketing’s ability to speak to, or at least package the pitch, to speak to this broad set of human issues feels like the leg up that the sales organization needs in order to stand out, be remembered, and be valued as sources of solid thinking, not just products. Again, before trusted advisor, before regular meeting, even before someone recognized your name comes USEFULNESS – which we believe is the new universal of finding and growing a business through new sales.

At first, this approach is not a substitute for the "core" business building activities. Over time, however, it will replace the shopworn marketing tactics that just aren’t working like they used to. Marketing will soon be measured by its ability to reach into the inner recesses of the decision process around every significant buying decision. The way buying decisions are made is so complex within major accounts that nothing other than pure USEFULNESS could penetrate the dialog.

Great sales people have always done this - communicated the solution when it was time, and then spoken in specific about how it could be sold inside by the champion, and how it would be implemented, and described the benefits that would accrue. Equipping the internal champion to carry the message further and generate some kudos for himself in the process is natural.

Tom Searcy, author of “Hunt Big Sales” says “People only buy what they can safely sell to others, or defend if challenged. Our job as whale hunters is to equip and train the buyers to defend themselves from the attacks that will come later.”

It is in such a discussion where you first get to cross over into the advisor role, almost coaching the internal champion on how to make the case succinctly for your solution. Not only is this valuable, but you quickly pick up other cues about the company’s comfort level with the disruption that comes with change, entrenched interests and some of their agendas, priority of the need against other investments the company is making, etc. These are exactly the kind of things that are “walking around knowledge” for the recently exited employee when he hangs out his shingle and sells services to his former employer.

In transferring this knowledge to new whales, over time, the more useful encounters you have with the prospect/customer, the more quickly you can get to equipping them to defend themselves and eventually co-own your goal. Co-owning a goal is not just implementing the solution, but helping your internal champion adequately share and evolve the problem and its solution.

Co-ownership is an exploration of how the whale’s culture generates appropriately widespread concurrence on this problem. How does it get on the priority list of problems to be attacked? How does the company’s culture establish resources for those sufficiently high-priority problems it decides to attack? What is the current decision-maker’s role in those deliberations about priority and resources?

When these questions are answered, THEN, only THEN can the sales machinery begin sketching a proposal that speaks to prospective solutions AND how to help steer consideration of those solutions through the company’s internal machinery, equipping the current decision-maker to advance the dialog, not just show a product list and price sheet from a vendor.

Trying to short-circuit this natural process is much like getting married on a first date. It only happens to a lucky few.
The sales process must itself be value-add if it is to stand out from the competition’s. As satisfying as it would be to sit in a prospect’s office and take an order, most substantial-dollar transactions cast a 6 to 18 month shadow in front of them. Helping with the decision dynamics of getting your solution chosen is a way to equip your internal champion, to lead with value, and to stand apart from the show-up-and-throw-up types.

In our experience working with IT services organizations, the one true differentiator that separates one IT services firm from another is the relationship it has with clients. Unfortunately, this aggregate concept is tired, shop worn and not even a memorable cliché.

Yet, if the personal relationships of the firm are the true differentiator, then the co-ownership of problems that keep the project on track, on the priority list (to preserve resource allocation) and interim results appropriately socialized to maintain support. These dimensions are what is inside the “relationship” concept and the goal of ever more familiarity is ever faster grasp of the goal of co-ownership.

The ideal scenario for finding the next whale begins with discovery of the client’s pain-points, or challenges, or problems – because then the dialog can begin about possible solutions. All too often, in the rush to “close the deal” we’ve seen too many founders jump straight from this discovery to an internal mapping back to his company’s potential products and services for addressing the prospect’s problems.

Instead of rushing to a solution, co-ownership should begin with fresh perspective about the issues surrounding the problems, the solutions, the challenges, the benefits, untethered to promotional push to sell the products. It's the intellectual property that is related to the solution-provider's area of specialty that can be scattered around like seeds, to find fertile ground wherever they can.

This really is where the payoff is when it comes time for the customer to source his next solution – it shows when the sales person gets the call telling him of the need, it shows in the degree of involvement in helping shape understanding of the need, perhaps even contributing to the internal defense document to secure funding.

This is far beyond “will the prospect know whom to call” when he needs something. In every case, the IT services firm that wins disproportionately is the one that has established trusted relationships with clients, possibly many years in advance of projects.

Recurring features of such a relationship include:

SKIN IN THE GAME. Perhaps this is better framed as alignment. Do you have skin in the game? Are your fees tied to the client achieving their project goals as well as their business goals? How closely is your success tied to the client’s success?

TRANSPARENCY. This is another component of co-ownership. When your profitability is aligned with the client’s goals, there is a level of transparency and trust built into the transaction.

RELATIONSHIPS. Invariably project success will involve interactions beyond just the sales person and the internal champion – to what degree does the sales person have relationships with sources of special knowledge or experience when helping refine a solution?

ACCUMULATED LEARNING. The essence of repeat-interaction is that no one has to start from a blank sheet to establish a baseline understanding of the challenge, the resources, the culture, the goals. The sales person with a trusted relationship is this “on steroids.” Not just having access to previous purchases, but having notes about issues learned while implementing the solution, technical notes, people notes, management hot-buttons, etc that broaden the reach of the internal champion as he navigates the project.

The items listed above, when appropriately investigated, can lead you to the answer of what is different. It can help you help the client mitigate risks (and in some cases share risk) as well as understand your critical thinking abilities.
If product specs, delivery times, rates, and service level guarantees are all very close and can be put on the IT “menu,” where can the differentiation come from? As all veteran sales stars know, the differentiation happens when youhuman beings finally make sense of chaos -- when data becomes information, specs are aligned with goals, project timeline get fleshed out and dollars are allocated.

The IT Menu of services can be neat, clinical and rational; the messy part is in the eating. No one ever gets nourished consuming the menu.

Sales Drill- Objection Handling

2009-09-25T14:35:21.000Z

Objection Handling
Although prospect objections during the sales process are quite common, many sellers are unprepared and uncomfortable in dealing with them. Lack of comfortability in handling objections does not have to be the case, as most objections are quite predictable and will focus on 3 main areas: Product, Price, Support. There are several ways to handle the objections you receive from your prospects (i.e. Feel, Felt, Found, or Identify, Quantify, Relate, Isolate, etc.), and for more information on the different ways to handle objections and how to uncover the prospect’s “true” objection, please visit www.salescoachingresource.ning.com. For purposes of this selling drill, we will assume that you know the basics behind objection handling, and have already generated answers to all possible prospect objections.
What you will need:
• Index cards with prospect objection on one side, and objection answer on the back (you should have several cards completed)
• 1 or more partners with the index cards split evenly among them
The Drill: This drill can be completed while seated or standing. You will sit or stand opposite your partner(s), and they will give you an objection from the prepared index cards. You will then answer that objection while maintaining direct eye contact with the partner who had the objection. Your partner will then check your answer based on the answer-side of the index card. If correct, then the next objection is read by the partner. If you have several partners for this exersize, they will go in order after the last partner in rotation, asking you the objection and checking your answer. Your partner(s) will be checking for eye contact and your body language as well as the proper answer to the objection.
You can only move forward to the next objection if you:
• Maintain direct eye contact while answering the objection
• Do not slouch, shift in your seat, or look down while answering the objection
• Use your hands to while answering the objection
• Answer the objection exactly as it is written on the index card (without assistance)
You should instruct your partner(s) to NOT let you slide with any part of answering the objection. No matter how small the “infraction”, you must not be allowed to move to the next objection, until you have properly completed the previous objection.
Time: 20-45 minutes, depending on the number of objections.
How this helps you sell more: As previously discussed, a prospect should rarely give you any objection about your product, price, or support that you are not well-prepared to confidently answer. If a prospect gives you a basic objection, and you are not able to answer it immediately and confidently, or you appear to be uncomfortable with your own answer, or don’t have one, your chances of selling to that prospect will dramatically decrease. We should always welcome objections, because they help us move the selling process forward and allow us to better understand our prospect’s buying criteria. The time to learn how to handle objections is BEFORE your meeting with your prospect, not during. You only get better at handling objections by consistent practice.

How to identify objections and other obstacles

2009-09-21T15:30:00.000Z

When it comes to selling, what, exactly, is an objection? If we can truly understand what we’re dealing with when a potential client makes an objection, then it will be easier to handle and use to our advantage in the appropriate situation.

Not all objections should be received as a negative blow to your sales presentation. In fact, with the exception of two very specific objections, most others can be dealt with effectively and are actually a positive sign that your client is showing some interest. In other words, if the product or service that you are offering holds no appeal to the client, they will not object and will have no desire to be entertained any further.

Broadly speaking, the following objections may be viewed as an honest indication that your client will not be persuaded into making a purchase:

1. Firstly, if the client does not have the means to pay for the product and there is no prospect of affordability, this financial objection can essentially put an end to your approach.
2. Secondly, if the prospective client truly has no need for the goods on offer, this objection may be considered conclusive to your sales presentation.

If an objection can be removed from the conversation between you and your prospect, the resistance will begin to break down as the proposition automatically becomes more attractive. From this point, a genuine requirement and desire for the product on offer is easily identified, enabling you to make your approach more effective and tailor-made to suit the client’s needs.

However, a clear distinction needs to be made between a genuine objection versus excuses and postponements. These should not be handled as if they were objections because, by doing so, you are effectively creating an obstacle. There are real instances where a client will ask for a postponement or will provide a legitimate excuse – but these are generally easily identifiable. Most other excuses are a polite effort on the prospect’s behalf to end the sales talk and to make an exit.

By accepting the excuse and moving away you have enabled the prospect to accomplish his purpose. There is a natural tendency for a prospective client to become defensive when they realize they are being approached by a potential sales pitch. But if you are able to courteously side-step the excuse or postponement, about 99% of the time a prospect will not pursue his excuse any further, allowing you to present your proposal without any resistance.

When a client makes an honest objection, it is in your best interest to eliminate the objection and use it effectively as an aid in your selling proposal. If a client’s concerns are addressed, their confidence in your knowledge and in the value of the product will grow. In that light, if we can use such objections to our advantage then it must be said that only the real obstacles which may hinder the closing of a sale need to be addressed further.

There really are only three such obstacles that could further prevent a sale:

1. The prospect lacks clear understanding of the product or service on offer
2. The prospect’s current lack of resources available for buying
3. The prospect’s inability to make use of the product to his advantage

If a prospect doesn’t fully comprehend the proposition that you have presented, your efforts to continue to sell him will be fruitless. If you’re able to identify this obstacle, you need to become an educator to your client and clarify any issues surrounding the product or the proposition. Once there is an understanding, you’re able to proceed with your presentation.

If there is a lack of available funding on the prospect’s part your efforts to continue selling would be unfounded, unless you were able to assist or advise in getting the necessary funds. A pause in the sales process in order to address the financial implications is necessary, until the issue is resolved. If the funds have become available you are able to continue your presentation.

If the obstacle presents itself whereby the prospect lacks the capability of using the products to his advantage, you need to see if you can change the prospect’s circumstances and eliminate the obstacle, before being able to proceed with the sale.

For example, if a potential client has poor eyesight and is reluctant to purchase your book because he cannot read, the ideal remedy here is to find a solution to his problem that will create the opportunity to make the sale. In other words, you could suggest that somebody reads the book to the client; or suggest the services of a brilliant optician who could assist with his eyesight problem. If the obstacle can be removed then your path to a potential sale has been reopened.

But if there is genuinely no need for the product (perhaps because the prospect already owns a copy of the book) then continuing the sale is futile. The objective at this point would be to attempt a new sales approach in suggesting, perhaps, the purchase of a copy of the book for a friend. Failing that, any effort to sell should be abandoned and a new prospect sought for a new sales presentation.

An alternative scenario is that the client has not yet recognized his need for the product. If you’re able to identify a need that would make your product useful to the prospect, you should point this out to him in the hope that he realizes the benefits attached to making the purchase.

In handling any objection, always try to draw out the client’s reasoning in order to gain an understanding of his situation. A skilled and well-trained salesperson will be able to gather a certain amount of information about the prospect just by communicating effectively with him. Try to avoid the situation of allowing the client to outwardly state his objection. Rather attempt to decipher his reluctance without being too direct.

In due course, you will become adept at understanding the various scenarios surrounding the objections that you may encounter and, without eliciting a direct statement of objection from your client, you will be able to identify and remove any obstacle that may hinder the closure of your sale.

The First Practice of FIERCE LEADERSHIP

2009-09-09T12:00:00.000Z

The First Practice of FIERCE LEADERSHIP
By Susan Scott, www.FierceLeadership.com

It’s my opinion that today’s “best” practices of leaders not only fail to resolve the problems they’re meant to resolve or achieve the results they’re meant to achieve, they actually escalate problems. I’d like to recommend alternative practices to take their place. After all, reality has shifted and those who cling to old practices that no longer serve them and perhaps never did, will fail to thrive. Seriously. Fail to thrive.
Here, I will touch on the first “best” practice and hope to provoke your thinking, in subsequent entries, regarding all six.
Consider that you are always practicing something. The question is: what are you practicing. And why? Are you emulating practices of well-known, global companies, many of whom are now struggling and, in some cases, bankrupt? It’s time for some original thinking.
“Worst” Best Practice #1: 360 Anonymous Feedback
Which word in “360 Anonymous Feedback” alerts us that a company professing to value openness, honesty and transparency is out of integrity? Anonymous. I expect to take a lot of heat from those who make a living ensuring anonymity, but I believe that, while there is a time and place for anonymity, we only need it in trace amounts.
It starts early in our impressionable lives – this attraction to anonymity. This hiding. So it’s no wonder that, when there are invaluable opportunities for candor, we send in good old underpaid, overworked “anonymous”, slip the feedback over the transom and run like hell. The fact is that 360 anonymous feedback rarely creates real or lasting impetus for change, which is crazy because the whole idea is to encourage professional growth and it most certainly doesn’t connect us with one another; rather, it tends to drive us apart. Here are a few highlights, or lowlights:

• The culture suffers side effects. Commercials for the latest, greatest drugs include the warning that side effects can include loss of vision, muscle spasms, internal bleeding, uncontrolled barking and sudden death. OK, maybe not barking, but you get the drift. The warnings for anonymous feedback should read: “Not to be used within organizations that value honesty, transparency, or openness or by anyone who views “authenticity” as a desirable character trait. Side effects can include a culture of terminal niceness, avoiding or working around problem employees, tolerating mediocrity, beating around the bush, dancing around the subject, skirting the issues. If you experience rapidly deteriorating relationships or have difficulty maintaining eye contact with others, call your doctor immediately as these may indicate a serious problem and could become permanent.”

• Most people hate performance reviews – hardly the response you’d hope for regarding a best practice. Other emotions associated with performance reviews include: dread, anxiety, hopelessness, fear, frustration and a firm conviction that a trip to the bathroom for a surreptitious examination of the boil on your backside would be a far better use of your time.

• Anonymous feedback doesn’t tell us what we really need to know because it is ANONYMOUS, lacking specific examples to support the evaluations and instead, using sanitized phrases and a “score” of some sort, all of which tells the recipient very little about how to improve his or her performance.

• When the feedback comes only once or twice a year, it rarely immediately follows the behavior that generated the evaluations so exactly what we did right or wrong to merit a certain evaluation often remains a mystery. We are embarrassingly clueless about how our behavior affects others anyway, so lacking timely, specific feedback, we are unlikely to change our behavior.

• Most feedback merely affirms what we already know about who we have been since the day we were born. Our reaction is, “Yep, that’s me alright!” Creating real impetus for change requires compelling feedback, delivered in a way that gets our full attention. 360 degree anonymous feedback fails on all counts.

• Even anonymous feedback isn’t honest! This may be the most bizarre, unexpected “tell” of all. When no one will know it was us, you’d think we would tell it like it is, or at least, like we see it. We don’t.

• Triangulation (otherwise known as talking about people behind their backs) is a popular bonding activity. Friendships are formed over person A and person B’s mutual loathing of person C. People don’t talk directly to the persons with whom they have difficulty. Instead, they talk about them behind their backs.

• Employee engagement scores are low. Face it, the formal language of feedback is uninspiring and de-motivating. Does “satisfactory” capture anything specific that we could feel good about? Would it inspire us to work harder, do better? How about “meets expectations”? The colorless language of anonymous feedback, with its numbers, ratings and boxes to check, is soul killing.

• People aren’t told how much they are appreciated. It’s a huge tell if your recognition program occurs every two weeks and is called a paycheck.

• When managers decide to let someone go, they must wait or risk a lawsuit. When we finally reach the end of our rope, we learn that we’ll have to have the conversations we’ve avoided in the past, give the employee another chance, and document the heck out of everything.

• You and others aren’t motivated to do your best work. We get what we tolerate. Without timely, candid feedback, people whose behaviors or attitudes are a problem continue unchanged, blissfully unaware, dragging everyone down, including you. One problem person becomes a rock in everyone’s shoes. Rather than remove the rock, we grow accustomed to limping, while execution is delayed and frustration grows.

• Relationships flat-line and fail. The conversation is the relationship. When the conversation stops because we don’t want to risk a negative reaction or if you and I add our candid assessments of each other’s performance to the list of things we’re unable to talk about, all of the possibilities for our relationships grow smaller.

• There is no joy in Mudville. Employees walk around unhappy, unhealthy, on edge, bored, unengaged. Your company is not happy workplace. Just a workplace.

• The organization’s long-term survival is at risk. Profits are down, customers are fleeing, good employees are leaving. This occurs in part because an organization professing to value honesty and openness while promoting anonymous feedback is out of integrity. Companies in which stated values actually drive behavior and decisions will weather tough times far more successfully than companies whose practices are at odds with their so-called values statement.

• Respect for leaders is waning. Everyone is thinking: How could you, our leader, allow this to continue? Would somebody please bell the cat?!

• You become invisible. If you remain silent in the presence of poor performance or a lousy attitude, you will become increasingly invisible to yourself and to others. Yes, you will safe. You will also be anonymous, undifferentiated, your identity blurred. With mounting unease, you may realize that you are what’s missing.

• People fail to grow professionally and personally. It’s hard to imagine anyone of substance saying, “I’m so glad I’ve remained blissfully unaware of how others feel about me, enjoyed few insights into my character and have experienced zero growth as a human being.”

Anonymity is addictive and contagious. We grow accustomed to it, become anesthetized, barely registering the consistent message our gut has been sending us for years. “Tell the truth.” And we infect others. Ask yourself, where else does anonymity live in the organization and what damage is it doing? At what level in the organization? In what other situations are people withholding what they really think and feel? What are the implications?
My publisher would be displeased if I revealed more prior to publication of Fierce Leadership, but no doubt you can guess correctly at the replacement practice for anonymous feedback. The book will walk you through what to do and how to do it. In the meantime, consider that while most leaders fulfill their basic job descriptions, including conducting performance reviews, filling out surveys, listening politely (with gritted teeth) to anonymous feedback, Fierce leaders do something more interesting, more real. They engage in compelling conversations that translate to stronger relationships and better performance, which translates to personal and professional success and happiness.
Who deserves your praise? Who deserves an apology? Whose behavior or attitude is causing serious problems? What are you waiting for?

Susan Scott is the Founder and CEO of the global training company Fierce, Inc. whose clients include Fortune 1000 companies worldwide. For 13 years, Susan ran think tanks for CEOs and designed and delivered training to peers working with CEOs in 18 countries. In 2002, Fierce Conversations—Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time, was published in four countries and, shortly thereafter, was listed on The Wall Street Journal and UPI best seller lists, and was one of USA TODAY'S top 40 business books of 2002. Her much
anticipated second book—Fierce Leadership: An Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices in Business Today will be published in September 2009. For more info on Susan Scott and Fierce, Inc. please visit

Copyright by Fierce, Inc., 2009. All rights reserved.

How To Quit the Recession

2009-09-17T18:19:12.000Z

OK. Everyone is tired of hearing about the recession, right? So here's my question: why do people look at me sideways or, in some cases, get really irritated with me when I encourage them to just quit the recession? Here's what I think. I think they hear what I'm saying and interpret it to mean that I think we should all just ignore what's going on in the world around us, pretend like everything is wine and roses and think happy thoughts.

If that's the case, I want to make it really clear: that interpretation is incorrect! When I encourage people to quit the recession, what I'm really doing is reminding them of their own power to effect change, not only in their own lives, but in the world as well. For too long, now, we've been relying on the government, the Federal Reserve, the politicians and pundits or our employers to figure it out for us and come up with a solution. WRONG! When has that ever happened in the history of mankind?

Nothing, and I do mean nothing is going to change unless we, individually and collectively, step up to the plate and take some kind of action every day to move toward our personal and professional goals. And if circumstances seem to be holdng us back or getting in our way, keep moving in spite of them! If we give up, we lose.

One of the best ways I know to keep yourself moving forward is to create what Napoleon Hill called a "burning desire" to acheive your goals. I call this knowing WHY you want to do something. In fact, knowing the WHY (the motivation behind your goals, is the first step in actually achieving them. That's why it comes first in my audio program, "Motivation 101: Five Steps to Activate Your Potential In Any Economy".

If you really want to make a difference in your life, you have to start by uncovering why you want to. You have to engage the part of your brain that runs on auto-pilot, and you have to change the programs and limiting beliefs there before you can ever hope to succeed.

If you'd like to know how, click here to download a free audio that will walk you through the process. And by free, I mean absolutely free, no strings attached. I'm not even asking for an email address. Why? Because I want to see us all get to work on changing, not only our own personal situations, but the course of the entire world economy.

Together, we can not only quit the recession, we can kill it!

Jerry Kennedy

Make your SELF Indispensable! Build a Bigger Network and Increase Your Market Value.

2009-09-08T22:46:59.000Z

Every sales leader needs to consider their market value. Not only should sales leaders regularly evaluate and determine areas for growth for their staff, but also for themselves. When I talk about market value, I am referring to the two critical areas that will help you increase your value to your organization and as well as up your personal value. Your market value appreciates as you become a better leader and have a large professional network.

As a former sales executive I was always in a tough spot. Although I cognitively understood the importance of investing in my own development and the advantages of networking, I always found myself to busy to do either. Between meetings, presentations, conferences and emails I rarely had time to even meet with customers. It was lucky for me that the presidents I worked with always insisted that I invest in my own professional development. Left to my own devices, investing in my professional development would have continued to be a low priority. The reality is, that the higher up you go in an organization there is less of an opportunity to network with peers. Most organizations don’t have development programs for their most senior managers, so one needs to look outside the organization for development programs.

Since leaving industry, I have learned that having a well established professional network of executives was critical to building my business and a great way to ensure career security. I strongly advise both friends and clients to plan at least one networking lunch a month. Despite my well-advised suggestion, I know few are actually following it.

Interestingly, if you look at the CEO or Presidents in your organization chances are they have a much better understanding of the importance of on-going leadership development and networking programs. In fact there are many great options open to CEO’s for networking opportunities, for example, TEC (The Executive Committee) in Canada or Vistage around the world. Groups like YPO (Young Presidents Organization) provide CEO’s an opportunity to freely discuss organizational concerns and receive feedback from other CEO’s. YPO is a wonderful network that enables professionals to learn and become better leaders. With membership in the thousands world wide, these forums have a profound impact on decision making, personal and professional growth and reinforce a commitment to action.

Take a look at your marketing counterpart. The marketing industry has many associations, which provide great networking opportunities for marketing executives. Marketers also have agency relationships that allow them opportunities to brainstorm with other marketing experts. As well executives, in the areas of Finance and IT also have their own associations and networking groups readily available.

Why Would Sales Executives Need Networking Groups?

In most B2B organizations, the sales force is the most important and expensive promotional resource. The sales force is the major revenue-generating arm of the company. Outside of the President or CEO, the sales force has the largest concentration of people. The sales organization is a company’s largest promotional expense and the group that brings in revenue. Since this department employs the most people, there is a need for top leadership. So, if there were one group of executives who can benefit the most from improving their leadership and networking skills I would argue that Sales Executive would top that list.

Most sales leaders are hesitant to share their strategies with peers in their own industry. Although you may feel your problems are unique to your business, there are many other sales leaders with similar issues. Here is a top 10 list of sales challenges. I would venture that a majority of these challenges are relevant to all sales executives.

1. Turning your vision into a reality
2. Hiring and retaining top performing sales people
3. Increasing sales productivity and positivity
4. Increasing accountability
5. Executing with marketing plans with excellence
6. Designing sales compensation and recognition programs
7. Turning the sales strategy to organization action
8. Improving sales force effectiveness
9. Developing a great sales management team
10. Measuring performance

What Are Your Options For Effective Leadership Development?

My boss would insist I sign up for an annual leadership course offered by either the AMA or other well known training organizations. I would look for a nice location, like Hilton Head, South Carolina and get away for a few days. What started out as a boss-pleasing activity, in fact became an enjoyable opportunity! What I found was that I got to meet a lot of different people and the time away from the office allowed me to process information and gain a fresh perspective. As part of curriculum you are asked to build an action plan to bring back to your organization. I know my action plans lasted until I got back to my desk and found 400 emails waiting and a packed week of meetings following my training. All too soon I found the excitement and new tools learned from my course slipping away.

How to maximise your investment in training?

If you attend a lecture or a 2-3 day course 90% of what you learn is forgotten within 30 days unless it’s reinforced. That is the inherent problem with leadership courses offered by big name training organizations. I believe that the key to effective learning is a combination of one-to-one coaching, learning by doing and group discussion.

In today’s reality, budget cuts make it increasing difficult to justify the costly $10,000 price tag of a week-long Executive Leadership Training Course. These courses are not only ineffective in terms of knowledge retained but also in time investment.

Is there a solution that enables Sales Leaders to both network and improve their leadership skills?

Examining the needs of the Sales Executive, we developed a networking group called the Sales Executive Leadership Forum. This group is modeled after various successful networking organizations. Our main competitive edge is that we use Sales 2.0 technologies to network people together from the comfort of their work base. Understanding the time pressures that sales executives’ face we have designed a monthly tele-forum-networking group to discuss and learn new approaches to solving key sales challenges.

There are 3 reasons why you should consider joining the Sales Executive Leadership Forum:

1. Both the forum and the one-on-one coaching are all conducted by telephone. There is a relatively small time investment of 2.5 hours per month. No travel costs and time out of the office traveling to meetings. The overall cost of the program is less than $6000/year.

2. You gain access to world class coaches who will help you develop and hold you accountable to building and executing your leadership plan.

3. The small group forums offer many advantages including; getting to know and build relationships with up to 10 other sales executives; a confidential forum to exchange ideas; peer to peer learning and sharing of best practices; and a dynamic learning environment that is personalized to meet your needs.

To build your professional network, improve your leadership skills and increase your market value, invest in your SELF click here

“Harness the Power of Collective Wisdom”

Steven Rosen, MBA is a sales management expert who helps companies transform sales managers into great sales coaches. Steven’s works with sales executives to; hire top performing sales reps and managers, develop their team into top sales managers and achieve greater personal and professional success.

He is the CEO of STAR Results, author of many articles in the areas of sales management coaching and sales management training. He is a member of Top Sales Experts. Steven’s mission is to inspire sales leaders, managers and sales people to achieve their full potential. He can be reached at steven@starresults.com or 905-737-4548.

The Standard in Hiring your Salesperson

2009-09-03T11:00:00.000Z

Back few years ago, I decided to interview a salesperson who even though he relatively few years of prior sales experience, the years he did have were positively stellar. He had achieved top rankings at his previous employers, but was lacking the pre-requisite “five years of direct outside selling experience” that the posting for the position had set as the standard for the company I then worked for. In spite of the lack of pre-requisite years, I scheduled the interview anyway. Something told me this guy would be hungry, ambitious and good. A few days prior, a sales management colleague of mine asked me if I was going to interview this candidate. He was also hiring for a sales position in a similar area, but in a different division of the company. Curiously, the candidate actually matched his product profile better than mine. My colleague said he had passed on him because of his lack of experience. I told him I just had a feeling that he was going to be really good. I was not disappointed.

I remember it to this day, his easy, confident, friendly, yet direct, manner in which he took me in to his past experience. He easily built rapport with me, was self-deprecating, yet extremely self-assured. He spoke to me directly and clear about his past accomplishments and related those accomplishments to what he could achieve in the job he was interviewing for. He effortlessly worked in anecdotes and analogies to what he had accomplished, to what he would accomplish when he was hired by me. He had done his homework and was obviously well-prepared.

I offered him the job by the end of that week.

In his first full sales year with me, he was the number one salesperson in the country, winning the first of two CEO Circle Awards in consecutive years, the award given to the top 5% of the sales force. The following year, he was promoted to a sales management position.

Why am I telling you this story?

For a few different reasons, the first reason is that I when I interview sales candidates, even today, I always compare them to “the best interview I have ever had”, namely this one. The standard had been set and it’s a standard that I always refer back to in times of indecision with candidates. You may have a similar experience from some point in your past and it’s a good idea to keep that experience in the foremost of your mind as “the standard”.

Secondly, it underscores the fact that a sales job interview is at its core, a sales call! For the interviewee, it is the biggest sales call of their life.

Sales Management Mastery
http://www.salesmanagementmastery.com

Scaring Customers Spitless — Does This Build Respect and Trust?

2009-08-30T23:11:38.000Z

Geoffrey James has generated a lot of interesting reactions with his article, To Sell More, Scare Customers Spitless. Last week expressed my opinion about the content of the post in Provocative Selling, “The Shock and Awe” of Selling? I’ve been interested in the reactions and comments to Mr. James post.

Most of the comments focus on the concept of “Scaring Customers Spitless,” and creating “Fear” with customers. To some degree, I share many of the commenters opinions of the words that Mr. James has chosen to use. Use of these types of words is alarming because they may betray underlying attitudes about the customer.

With respect to Mr. James, he may have been writing a Provocative headline (pun intended) to capture people’s attention and to provoke (sorry) discussion. He has succeeded in both areas.

But let’s focus for a moment on words he chose and those we choose to use to describe a customer or their situation. Too often, when I read in various blogs (including Mr. James), or in talking to sales people about their customers, I hear people speaking in words that are negative and disrespectful of customers. They (we — I’ve been guilty as well) laugh at the customer, “They don’t get it!” “They’re stupid!” As I mentioned earlier, these betray our attitudes about the customer and impact our ability to be successful and develop deep relationships.

If we have to resort to fear and scare tactics, then clearly we don’t have much respect for the customers’ abilities to recognize opportunities, problems or challenges. While we may catch their attention, such tactics or words create greater distance between our customers and us. Sometimes, people can’t see past this distance. If we use terrible descriptions about the customer not getting it, or being stupid, we are demonstrating our poor ability to communicate.

I frequently disagree or have a differing opinion from my clients and customers. However, I never lose sight of the fact that everyone I deal with gotten to their role because they have demonstrated success in the past. They are all smart and capable people. The moment I lose sight of this, the moment I show any level of disrespect — particularly how I might speak of them to others or privately — then I am putting a barrier in establishing trust, confidence, and mutual respect.

People hold different opinions and have different experience bases. But in dealing with customers we need to treat them and talk about them with the highest levels of respect. Without this, we will never establish trust.

(By the way, I do wish the commenters would really read Mr. James post, I think too many could not get past his words to really understand Provocative Selling. The key question is, why do we have to introduce Provocative Selling, isn’t it the sales professional’s job to help their customers discover new opportunities and improve their business? Where’s the new news?–Perhaps it’s because too many aren’t doing this.)

Link to original post: Scaring Customers Spitless — Does This Build Respect and Trust?

Provocative Selling — The “Shock And Awe” Of Selling?

2009-08-30T23:09:01.000Z

I just read To Sell More, Scare Customer Spitless by Geoffrey James at BNET. The headline catches your attention–It’s a discussion of Geoffrey Moore’s Provocative Selling.

In case you have missed the discussion, Provocative Selling is the latest gimmick to catch your customer’s attention, making them aware of problems and opportunities to improve their business. In the case made by Moore, you are making the customer aware of things they may not have been aware of in the past. You surface areas of under performance relative to the industry or competition, you surface opportunities for growth or improvement.

While I have the greatest respect for Geoffrey Moore, for months I’ve been trying to figure out what all the hoop-la is about. After all, isn’t it the sales professional’s job to help their customers improve their businesses, to discover new ways to grow, or to discover opportunities to improve performance? So what’s new here?

Using a possibly painful analogy, it strikes me that Provocative Selling is now becoming the “Shock and Awe” of selling. Let’s remember a few things, Shock and Awe doesn’t win the war, it gets things started. We still have to win the war. Shock and Awe comes at tremendous cost–to all involved. Finally, Shock and Awe is usually the last resort, after you have exhausted all other alternatives.

I’ve spent some time trying to understand Provocative Selling and what’s really different. There are some valuable concepts, though not necessarily novel ideas. I have great respect for Mr. Moore, and perhaps, many of his ideas are being twisted by different interpretations of them, but here are some of my thoughts and reactions.

Provocative Selling focuses the sales person on identifying opportunities or problems the customer is unaware of. Too often, sales people respond to a known customer need, pain, problem. If we execute a consultative sales process well, we work with that customer in really understanding the dimensions of that problem, its costs and impacts, and present solutions to that known problem. Sales people need to help their customers identify what they don’t know and understand the impact on the business. Sales people need to help the customer understand problems they have been previously unaware of or new opportunities.

Provocative Selling focuses on creating a crisis. Crises are great for grabbing management attention and sometimes as sales professionals, we need to do this. But should that be the normal course of the relationship? The best sales professionals offer leadership to their customers–on an ongoing basis. They naturally help their customers think about their businesses differently and constantly engage their customers in presenting new ideas, opportunities, and ways to improve and grow their businesses. Sales people who do not do this on an ongoing basis are doing their customers a disservice. We shouldn’t be looking to create an event or crisis, but we should nurture relationships with our customers where we are constantly advising them on improving their business. That is real and sustained value in building the relationship with the customer.

Provocative Selling creates the crisis and captures attention. In all the conversations I have had with people implementing Provocative Selling, the focus is how do we capture the customer’s attention and create a new opportunity. That’s fantastic, but what’s next? The sales process must continue. These are not one call closes (with the carefully orchestrated call that is outlined in the article). These create the opportunity to compete, perhaps in a most favored role, but still you have to compete and manage the process to a successful conclusion.

Provocative Selling is waking complacent companies up. Too many organizations have become complacent in their success. They have strong products, strong brands and reputations, and lots of momentum based on their success. They may have lost their edge. Think back to much of Mr. Moore’s orginal work. It focused on new companies introducing new technologies and trying to grow their success. Provocative Selling is at the core of any entrepreneurial company or those introducing new technologies. They are often solving problems or creating opportunities their target markets have never thought of. Each successful company achieved its success by being Provocative. Somehow, success, size, and inertia cause many organizations to become complacent, not bringing new ideas to their customers. Mr. Moore introduced us to the product life cycle curve and how to be effective at different stages. Part of what he is doing in Provocative Selling is getting both sellers and customers to focus on that mature phase of the life cycle.

In it’s current incarnation, Provocative Selling requires a major expeditionary force. I’ve been talking to a lot of people implementing Provocative Selling. Most of these are very large companies. They make major investments in research and analysis. They make major resource investments in both understanding markets and specific customer issues. While it begs the question, why haven’t they been doing this on an ongoing basis, let me put that to the side. As these companies implement Provocative Selling, they undertake major initiatives and investments, usually focused on their very most important current or potential customers. While these have great short term impact on results and create dramatic case studies, the challenge is, “How do we make this part of the fabric of the business?” Not only in how each and every sales person works with their customers, but how to our organizations continued to innovate in improving our customer’s businesses.

Related to this, the heavy investment in Provocative Selling can preclude many companies from investing in it. We need to remember the pioneers of this approach, the small, underfunded, entrepreneurial organizations introducing new technologies and ideas to the market. We need to capture their focus, intensity, rabid enthusiasm and best practices in achieving a foothold, crossing the chasm, and moving forward.

To the degree Provocative Selling is becoming a “fad,” I’d hate to be a customer! Imagine it, all these companies getting inundated with provocateurs—getting pummeled from all sides. Where were you when I needed you? Why did it take a business slow down to get you to do what you should have been doing all these years? Which of the five provocative opportunities am I going to select? Sorry, my cycnism is showing. I actually think the concept is great, since it is waking us up to do our jobes. I just worry about Provocative Selling being the current “in thing.” I been both at the giving and receiving end of these efforts, sometimes it’s painful.

I’m actually quite excited about the conversaton Provocative Selling is causing in the sales community. I see it as a wake up call for all professional sales people. It is not a new concept, start ups have been doing it for years. Consultants do it all the time. Great sales professionals do this every day. If anything, Provocative Selling reminds us of what we should be doing every day. We need to move it from a “crisis” to standard execution.

More than having sales professionals embrace it, I hope customers embrace it. I hope it becomes the standard expectation that all customers have of their suppliers and vendors. I hope each customer expects the people selling to them should be bringing them ideas and solutions for growing and improving their businesses. It raises the bar on sales perfromance, sets a nes standard. Those sales people that can meet that new standard will separate themselves from all others, creating differentiated and sustained value!

Link to original post: Provocative Selling — The “Shock And Awe” Of Selling?

Get Your Sales Reps To Sell Like “Corky”

2009-09-01T04:43:51.000Z

What is the highest performing stock in terms of total return over the course of the past 40 years?

Its not Microsoft. No, its not Cisco Systems. Its not GE. It’s not even Intel.

You ready?

Its Walgreens Drug Stores.

Walgreens? You gotta be kidding me! The drugstore chain? Yep, its true. How they did it is even cooler than that fact that they did it in the first place.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins investigates how they actually did it. And the answer is very simple. All that Cork Walgreen, the founder of Walgreens did is that he took a long hard look at what his business did really well and then channeled all his energies into that one thing. In essence, he figured out exactly what Walgreens could be the best in the world at and channeled all of their efforts into achieving that one thing.

So what exactly was this “breakthrough” concept? Simply this: to have the best, most convenient drugstores, with a high profit per customer visit. That’s it. That‘s the formula for creating the single most successful company in terms of market return in the past forty years.

When Walgreens first started out, they had businesses in a lot of different areas, and they didn’t do any one of them particularly well. First they had restaurants (named Corky’s after their founder and CEO), which didn’t do so well, but were more of an emotional attachment to those that worked at Walgreens. Founded in the 50’s Corkys was a legendary stop for travelers passing through small towns in the Midwestern United States and along side motels in the deep South. Corky’s consistently pumped out steady profits, selling their hamburgers, shakes and ice creams.

In the 70’s Cork himself realized the future of the company was elsewhere and despite the emotional attachment to the Corkys chain, he sold it all a competitor so he could focus on his drug store business full time. As soon as Cork made this decision, he poured all his efforts into the drug store side to become the #1 drug store chain in all of the United States.

On the other hand, Walgreen’s main competitor, Eckerd Drug did the exact opposite of Walgreens, diversifiying their businesses into video rentals, security services, department stores, candy companies and food service organizations. While Cork Walgreen was divesting businesses that took away from what he could be the best in the world at, his main competitor was diluting their efforts in the drugstore business by acquiring completely unrelated businesses. Eckerd took their eye off the ball and began losing market share to the ever nimble and convenience-centered Walgreens.

Cork knew that if he could buy up real estate that was convenient to consumers, place stores in high traffic spots which with multiple entry and exit directions and add convenient high margin services such as film developing, check cashing, drive-through pharmacies and automatic teller machines, he could get the walk in traffic as well as the high margins that would make his company and its profits soar. He was right.

More convenience led to more customer visits which led to more profit per customer visit and so on and so on.

Meanwhile, Eckerd was ultimately bought out by a private investor group in the mid-80’s. For the next decade Eckerd swung from strategy to strategy, trying desperately to fin that one “home run” strategy to complete against the well-entrenched and highly focused Walgreens chain. They were fully acquired by JC Penny in 1997. Walgreens was the clear winner.

Before you start teaching and coaching your salespeople to sell, you first need to determine whatto sell. In an ever-increasing world of commodity selling, this lesson will focus on determining which products or service of yours will give you the best chance of un-commoditizing yourself.

OK, so you and your competition are virtually the same in so many ways; they provide a good service and so do you. Your internal operations people screw up regularly and so do theirs (or course it’s never the sales guy’s fault!) Their product does what it says it will do and your product does what it says it will do. They have service issues, you have service issues.

However, when you really take a look at what they sell and what you sell, there have to be some small differences. Even an infinitesimal, minor, only is certain circumstances difference has to exist between you and them. Maybe your service plan is slightly better. Maybe your customer care people are open a little bit longer and are more helpful. Or maybe there’s a big difference that you just never thought much about.

You need to find that one or two features of our product or service that beats the competition every time on. It exists.

As a top performing sales manager you need to find your “Walgreens Concept” and teach it to your reps every day – every moment of every day.

Visit the Sales Management Mastery blog at:
http://www.salesmanagementmastery.com

Superior Sales Managers Defined

2009-08-31T11:45:37.000Z

The sales environment, like all aspects of the world around it, has changed drastically over time. Though these changes have occurred, selling, at its core, has basically not. Selling, distilled down to its core, can be described as the transference of value from one party to another. Furthermore, selling enables the influence of one person to affect another, ideally in a positive manner. Successful selling is quite dependent upon the mutual satisfaction of respective needs and desires, in a manner that all parties win.

Historically, salespeople have proved themselves difficult to manage. The very skills and qualities that combine to form a successful salesperson are the same traits that make us inherently difficult to manage. Superior, successful salespeople are independent, self-sustaining, self-directing, self-accountable, self-assured, and self-motivated. These traits are obviously self-evident. Wally Amos, of Famous Amos Cookies, once said "motivation is an inside job." He meant that only an individual can truly motivate himself. So what is a sales manager to do?

The debate over what defines a superior sales manager has been ongoing for years. Despite many varying approaches, methodologies and ideals, I believe that every superior sales manager has at their core, the essence of a superior salesperson. They understand both the strength and nature of self. They desire to transfer to their team what has worked so well for them personally.

My approach to managing salespeople is simple yet highly refined. It consists of three basic elements. Someone once told me that if your management plan is so complex that it cannot be fully explained on the back of a business card, its complexity will eventually ensure its failure. I fully subscribe to that notion. Simple is generally better. The following is my ordered, three-step approach to effective sales management:

1. Inspire

2. Empower

3. Reward

As previously discussed, no one but the salesperson herself can provide her motivation. The sales manager however, can provide both leadership and inspiration. He can project a productive scenario so attractive that the salesperson can imagine herself as an active part of it, striving to create it in her professional life. The sales manager effectively leads via inspiration. Such inspiration may be defined as the "arousal of the mind to special activity or creativity." Effective sales managers communicate what is possible and achievable. They provide clarity of purpose. Salespeople want to succeed and desire to participate in this process because it is in their best interests to do so. They want to win and be part of the winning team.

The superior sales manager empowers his sales team by establishing support systems, training, communication tools, technical support, customer service, product specialists, leads, and a direct line of communication to their firms marketing group. The salespeople know that their manager "has their back" and is their interface to both management and/or ownership of their company. While cognizant of corporate policies and mandates, the superior sales manager purposefully goes to bat for his people. As a result, his salespeople feel empowered like they are "ten-feet tall and bullet-proof." Nothing will stand in their way.

The superior sales manager understands the "carrot and stick" principle. He understands rewards. He designs and implements a compensation plan that excites his salespeople. He crafts a unique recognition program. Recognition, earnings opportunities and increasing commissions are for what salespeople work. Establish quarterly events to recognize top performers. Make a big deal and show appreciation for a job well done. All salespeople need and want an occasional pat-on-the-back. Do it publicly!

Demonstrating an uncanny understanding of human nature, particularly that of his salespeople, he provides a guaranteed base of earnings so that the primary needs of his salespeople are met. Salespeople will be excited and work tirelessly if they do not have to worry about paying the rent or feeding their family.

He provides increased earnings opportunities for performance beyond the expected. He designs an escalating commission program that is open-ended, with real earnings potential and pays it out promptly. When salespeople have paid for themselves through their sales efforts, he rewards them out of the sales revenue "gravy." They more they earn, the harder they will work and the better they will feel about themselves, their sales manager and their employer.

There is no magic at work here. This simple, proven, three-step approach is infinitely practical, easy to implement and easy to monitor. Superior sales managers know how to keep things simple and keep their eye on the ball. A focused sales approach with an inspired, empowered and well-rewarded team is an unstoppable market force. Now that sounds like a plan!

Do Sales Tools Equal Sales Effectiveness?

2009-08-27T12:04:00.000Z

Steve Harper wrote this post for The Inside Sales Experts Blog....enjoy...

With the explosion of "Sales 2.0" mentions, how do we evaluate the tools that are available? Which ones will really drive better effectiveness?

According to CSO Insights, the #1 issue that worries VP Sales and CEOs, behind increasing revenue, is increasing sales effectiveness.

In a different survey, 97% of CEOs interviewed are planning on increasing revenue this year. More interestingly, 67% plan on increasing revenue while REDUCING headcount in the sales department.

Now, I am not a math major, but, if you want to increase sales and decrease sales people, each sales person has to sell more than they were selling. Right? So increasing the productivity of each sales person has to be the utmost priority. The real question is exactly HOW do you do that? Enter Sales 2.0 tools.

First, let's back up and talk about what Sales 2.0 IS... With all the stuff written, you would think that there is a new Facebook that sells the stuff for you. The reality is that selling is just as hard (more so) than ever before. The other reality is that buyers are more informed than ever before, and they EXPECT you to be. Therefore the first 2 sales calls (introduction, learning about the business, etc.) are gone. Sales 2.0 is the acceleration and abrupt deceleration of the sales process. It is also the incredible number of tools and services available.

So what are the tools? Salesforce.com is the most visible tool that sales teams are now using, but InsideView, Connect and Sell, DemandBase, and Kadient are excellent examples of where sales tools are headed. The key is having the information that you need, when you need it, in a place that you need it, so you can ACT ON IT! And this is where things sometimes fall down.

For today, let's start with ConnectAndSell.

(Trish here: ConnectAndSell is a combination of switching technology and virtual sales agents that connect Sales Reps to prospects. They guarantee 5 live connects per hour to each of your Reps and typically average 7-10.)

This is a great tool, technology and service... BUT, for it to work, the team has to be ready and trained to use it. If they just throw up on the individuals that they get on the phone, then all you did was add efficiency to a bad selling experience and process. You will get more conversations, so by simple math you will get more deals, but you haven't really made the sales process an engine. So a few things to make this a success:

1.Have a plan and a VERY TARGETED list. Without a good target list based on a good sales plan, then this is automated "Spray and Pray"

2.Have an Excellent 15 second introduction. Get their attention fast and keep the conversation about them, their issues, and their success.

3.Know what your goal is. 99% of companies are not going to close anything on one call. You are probably just trying to set up a time to have a more detailed conversation. Get their attention, generate some interest, set up a time, get off the phone, move to the next one

4.Stack industries, verticals or product lines. This makes the introduction and the conversation easier for the rep to focus on. If the first call is a bank and the next call is an engineering firm, the mental shift in a few seconds is tough. Make sure that the list is focused every time you use the service.

5.Turn off your cell phone and forward to voicemail your desk phone. Close your email client. FOCUS on the calls and you will be much better.

These tips should help you increase your effectiveness with ConnectAndSell. Good Selling!

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Love and marriage

2009-08-25T14:50:41.000Z

sThink of the hiring process similar to the dating process that led to you choosing your spouse or significant other. If you are a full-fledged member of the institution of marriage, I think you know what I mean. For those of your not yet “institutionalized” then you’ll have to take my word for it.

A sales hiring decision is a decision you should take nearly as seriously as that decision of a spouse was for you. That’s because once you choose to hire an individual, you are now in a full-time marital kind of relationship. You’ll see the good and the bad in them; you’ll see them at their best and most likely at their worst and you’ll need to stick with them through thick and thin. The hard part is that unlike dating your spouse, you typically only have two or three “dates” with this individual before you are forced to pop the question.

This doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to figure out who they truly are, so you had better make the best use of your time with them. This means not only listening to the answers to the questions you ask them, but to also listening to how they answer those questions. Use all and every possible clues available to you, taking into consideration all the subtleties of their personality, both verbal and non-verbal.

Equally important is how you interact with them. They may answer all the questions you pose to them correctly, or in a way so that you feel comfortable with how they would react to similar circumstances on the job, but in the end can you see yourself working with them for long stretches at a time?

“Hire good people, if you do, nothing else will matter, and if you don’t, nothing else will matter.”

-Dick Moley, CEO StrataCom

If you think about that statement, really think about it, truer words were never spoken on hiring.

If you make the right hiring decision, life is so sweet, nothing else will matter.

However, if you rush it, don’t listen to your instincts and make a sloppy hire, without doing all your homework, your professional life could turn into a living nightmare.

Once again, nothing else will matter, but in the exact opposite way.

“Every minute I devote to putting the proper person in the proper slot is worth weeks of time later”

-Colman Mockler, CEO Gilette

Visit the Sales Management Mastery blog at:
http://www.salesmanagementmastery.com

Sales 2.0 – You Have to Walk the Walk

2009-08-19T12:58:21.000Z

I recently had the pleasure of attending a conference where one of the topics was Sales 2.0. As everyone who reads our blog knows, we are proponents of the 2.0 movement and believe that (though a buzzword) if you implement Sales 2.0 correctly you will build a better sales and marketing machine. I wanted to share a story with you about how even Sales 2.0 Evangelists can get the application of this new approach wrong.

Here is our definition of Sales 2.0:

Sales 2.0 is an approach not a sales process. It requires you to transform your business from one that is focused on selling to one that is focused on letting the market buy from you.

Sales 2.0 requires a change in mindset. It requires focus on buyer personas, lead nurturing, content development, social networking, web 2.0 tools, etc.

So my story involves a Marketing executive (and client) who also happened to attend this conference. After the conference, she sent me this email (the names have been changed to protect the innocent).

Trish - This sort of email drives me crazy, and it is from a vendor at the event no less. Seems like the vendors were not very savvy.

I never spoke with this company - and yet they are writing a "personalized" email thanking me for speaking with them.

Lesson learned - make sure I don't make the same mistake.

Here is the copy of the email she received from a vendor at the conference who must have been given all of the attendees contact information as part of their sponsorship package:

Hi NameRemoved,
I wanted to follow up and thank you for attending ABC and speaking with Guy TradeShow. If you recall XYZ automates blah, blah, blah.

Link to Quick Flash Demo
Does it make sense for us to connect and discuss further our xyz solution. If you are not the appropriate person to hold this discussion, would you mind referring me to that contact?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

So, what made her crazy about this email?

1.She never spoke to the vendor. How could they discuss something further if they had never had a conversation in the first place?
2.They included a link to a flash demo. How old fashioned is that?
3.They asked for her time (and if not then a referral) without establishing any credibility.
I thought to myself: OK, so they do not have a flawless process in place. Too bad especially considering the wasted time, effort and energy they put into attending the conference. Then I received the following email...

Hi Trish,

I wanted to follow up on your attendance to the ABC event and touch base to learn where improving and automating your xyz process might stack up in your 2009 priorities.
If you aren't familiar with Xyz, we are the leader in xyz. Xyz provides a cost-effective solution to manage xyz, eliminating the pain-staking process of xyz, therefore composing error-free, real-time visibility of xyz. Our 200+ customers include BigSoftware, BigB2C, BigInternet, BigBiotech and many more.

Please let me know if you have time for a quick conversation this week or next. If there is someone else that I should contact, I greatly appreciate in advance any assistance you can provide.

Check out a quick flash demonstration here

Hmmm....at least they didn't say I had spoken with them at the conference. But where did they go wrong with this one?

1.The foundation of the Sales 2.0 value proposition is based on knowing and understanding your unique buyer personas. In this situation, my client (the Marketing executive) and I (the President of a small professional services organization) are in no way the right target conatcts.

What should the vendor have done? First of all, figure out if we meet your Ideal Customer Profile based on vertical, size of company, size of staff or whatever the right criteria may be. Second, one of the biggest mistakes companies make is in qualifying the contact not the company. They do this with inbound leads all the time and we are ever vigilant with our clients to make sure this doesn't happen.

What the vendor should have done is said...hmmm ABC Company attended this conference. That means they have a potential interest in xyz. I am going to pick up the phone and call (insert relevant buyer title here) and see if they are interested in having a dialogue about this particular problem that we solve. See, attendance at the conference was the trigger event not the lead. See Uncover a New Lead Source: Trigger Events for Sales for more ideas along those lines.

2.The 2nd paragraph goes off the rails for two reasons. First, it is all about them and filled with what David Meerman Scott calls "gobbledygook" (see 09 Resolution: No More Marketing Gobbledygook).

Then it gets even worse by referencing customers that in no way, shape or form even remotely resemble my company or that of my client. As a matter of fact, they serve to make us say "Oh, you don't work with companies like ours so I won't even bother to respond or refer you".

3.Finally, the emails were sent by their Inside Sales Manager. Dude...pick up the phone! The first communication with me is via email and a bad one at that? Pick up the phone, deliver your value proposition, do a bit of qualification and then ask for a referral if not within my company then maybe within my client base.

OK, rant over but you get where I am going. You can't just stick the 2.0 tag at the end of whatever you do or say you are a key player in this revolution and think you are all good. You need to "Walk the Walk".
Does your Sales 2.0 strategy match your tactics? When was the last time you took a peek at the emails going out to your prospects? Makes you want to run right down the hall and do so doesn't it? Thanks for listening!

Why A Sales Manager MUST Evoke “The Law of Reciprocity”

2009-08-19T03:30:00.000Z

For our purposes, the Law of Reciprocity states: If you do something nice for someone, human nature dictates that the recipient will feel compelled to do something nice for you in return.

It is in essence: “you reap what you sow”. This is an irrefutable law and one that you should teach your salespeople. The question of will someone actually act upon it at a given time depends on who asks.

At the precise moment that you do something nice for someone, the other person feels compelled to return the favor. Be careful however not to call it out as in “now that I did that for you, now you need to do this for me”. This thinking destroys the whole concept. The idea is to do something and allow them to feel that they must do something for you in return. Be subtle. Don’t dictate.

The most important part of this law to remember is that reciprocity is IMPLICIT. This just means that you should never mention that you need something in return. When someone does something nice for you, they IMPICITLY expect that when the circumstances are right, you will do something of approximately equal value for them.

In the case of a newly hired salesperson, by you “going the extra mile for them” on their base salary, they will “go the extra mile for you” in return. Always remember that people do expect repayment over time and this is based on the idea of basic social interchange. The whole idea is that by doing the right thing and doing something nice for them, they will return the favor to you at some point.

Think about it – the last time someone did something nice for you, you wanted to return the favor right?

Say your neighbor takes puts your trash barrels on trash day back into your garage for you because you had a late day at work. What do you feel compelled to do on the next “trash day”? That’s right, you want to take in his trash barrels.

So the next time you have a situation where you can do something nice for your salesperson, evoke the “Law of Reciprocity”…it will pay you back tenfold in increased sales productivity. The best part about it is you won’t have to take in any smelly trash barrels…

Also, don’t forget to get more great tips on how to unleash the best from your reps by signing up for your copy of the Top 15 Sales Management Mastery Tips by checking out here: http://www.salesmanagementmastery.com/landing.html

Also, post a comment below and tell me how YOU get the best from your sales reps…and have you ever used the “Law of Reciprocity”?

Visit the Sales Management Mastery blog at:
http://www.salesmanagementmastery.com

HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

2009-08-15T02:51:48.000Z

Motorola, the company that launched the cell phone industry and stood among the world’s most admired companies for decades, is now struggling to survive. How did that happen? Apparently the company missed, underestimated, or ignored a fundamental shift in the industry away from feature-rich cell phones like the Razr, Motorola’s last new product hit in 2004, toward more sophisticated smart phones like the iPhone. A lack of effective leadership and clear vision in Motorola’s handset business over the past few years has obviously dealt the company a devastating blow that will not be easily or quickly overcome. Now the company is preparing to spin-out its handset business to better focus on businesses in the home networking, mobility, and enterprise markets.

This question—“How did that happen?”—is asked all too often in today’s organizations, and whenever or wherever it is asked, you can count on uncovering accountability problems. In our work addressing accountability issues over the past two decades, we have come to believe that no other attribute of individual or organizational life can contribute more to the success (or failure) of individuals, teams, and organizations than true accountability. To be clear, the sort of accountability we’re talking about is positive, principled accountability—accountability that simultaneously produces better results and better morale. True accountability is never about punishment or confession or taking revenge against someone who has failed to meet your expectations. Acknowledging the role we all play in getting things done and achieving results is what accountability is really about. Creating such a mindset in yourself and others is the topic of our newly released book, How Did That Happen: Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way (Portfolio: August 2009).

Assuming accountability for yourself is one thing, but holding other people accountable in a way that delivers beneficial results for everyone is quite another. Every day we see examples of companies that are profoundly affected because someone failed to hold someone else accountable for meeting specific expectations. Almost without fail, we can explain what happened by looking at the situation through what we call the Accountability Sequence composed of four fundamental activities for establishing expectations. These four steps, taken in sequence—forming, communicating, aligning, and inspecting expectations—lay the foundation for effectively holding other people accountable. Stepping out of sequence can produce a negative accountability connection between you and your people, causing them to feel as if they’ve been dealt with unfairly. For example, when you inspect without properly communicating the expectation, people feel ambushed. When you communicate without taking time to completely form the expectation, people get confused. Or when you attempt to create alignment without communicating the expectation in a way that is complete and clear, people feel coerced. Following the sequence helps you establish and maintain a positive accountability connection—a connection that is key to getting things done through others.

If you effectively use the four steps in the sequence to establish expectations, you can minimize the number of key expectations that go unmet. However, even your best efforts will never eliminate the occasional unmet expectation. That’s when you’ll need to engage in what we refer to as the Accountability Conversation to deal with any surprises and disappoints that may come your way. The first order of business in that conversation is to ensure that the problem is not the result of your failing to form, communicate, align or inspect the expectation; that is, exploring your accountability up front. Expectations that have not been carefully established can be a contributing cause to the failure to deliver. After determining that the problem is not related to how you established expectations in the first place, the conversation can turn to the four main causes of missed delivery: poor motivation, inadequate training, too little personal accountability, and an ineffective culture. Understanding the problem is the first step toward defining the solution, and that should be done in the sequence from the easiest to solve to the hardest. Determining if someone is motivated and addressing what is “in it for them” is much easier than changing the culture of an organization—a culture that may be serving as a barrier to getting things done. Filtering the problem of unmet expectations through the sequence of motivation, training, accountability and then culture brings a level of efficiency to your problem solving that accelerates your ability to fulfill expectations. Once you have determined the right solution, the conversation then concludes by using the four steps of forming, communicating, aligning, and inspecting expectations to implement your plan. The Accountability Conversation is a positive and principled way to help your people meet and exceed expectations, while giving them the tools and understanding to do it again and again in the future.

When you grasp the inseparable connection between expectations and account¬ability, you begin to discover the secret to holding others accountable. People can only be held accountable for one thing: the expectations you have of them. Whether the expectation is to get needed information from someone so you can complete an analysis, obtain the promotional materials needed to help you close a sale, or secure the needed supplies from a vendor so you can build a product prototype to certain specifi¬cations, the very pro¬cess of managing such expectations becomes the act of holding others accountable. Performing this act in a positive, principled way will not only deliver results, it will simultaneously raise both individual and organizational morale. By using the Accountability Sequence to establish expectations, and the Accountability Conversation to manage unmet expectations, you can reduce the surprises that come wrapped in bad news and missed results. No more shaking your head in frustra¬tion, wondering “how did that happen?”

If you’d like to learn more about the Accountability Sequence, please visit www.howdidthathappen.com

Roger Connors and Tom Smith are the authors of the bestselling books, The Oz Principle and Journey to the Emerald City and their new book, How Did That Happen? and are Co-Presidents of Partners In Leadership, Inc., the worldwide leader in Accountability Training. ©2009 Partners In Leadership. How Did That Happen? ®, The Accountability Sequence®, Accountability Connection™ and The Accountability Conversation ® are Trademarks of Partners In Leadership.

The Three Forms of Sales Communications: Which One Are You?

2009-08-14T00:41:31.000Z

I have, once again, been recently asked about "Handling Objections" and why I felt that this antiquated approach dedgrades the profession of "Sales".

Once again, it all comes down to the proper mindset which gives way to much more gracious language and a much more professional approach. First off, handling objections is an antiquated idiom which is still being propagated by sales people and sales professionals alike. Let's first assume the position that we are not 'handling objections' as much as we are 'addressing people's concerns' and I think all of us can agree on the basic and subtle, yet striking difference, in approach. If not, please allow me to explain.

There are three forms of communications in sales with each having varying degrees of effectiveness. They are:
1. Presenting or instructing;
2. Debate; and,
3. Dialogue.

"Presenting", as you may have already surmised, is when the sales person pitches, presents, shows and tells in the hope that something will "stick to the wall" in order to close a sale. I call this "hope-ium" the drug! You know the ones...they love to pitch, present, show, and tell all the features and benefits rather than the unique, extrinsic value of the products and services in the "hope" that they will close a sale. They neglect to "map" the unique value of their products and/or services to the prospects' real (not perceived) business issues and pains. This is the least effective form of communication for obvious reasons yet one which is still, to my disbelief, being used. It serves nothing more than to perpetuate the classic stereotype of a "salesperson". Remember the CA commercials that ran a few years back? It had a carboard cutout of a sales person with a recording saying, "So, how much do you want to buy today!?" Another good example is "Vince" from the "ShamWow" infomercials. This style of selling only works well when the value of the product(s) is intrinsic and not extrinsic to the offering. Many reputable studies have been conducted and show an inverse correlation to this approach.

The second form of communication is "Debate" and it is slightly more effective than the first. However, this is a line of communication where your answers assume the form of "...yes, but...". This is yet another classic sales person, stereotypical (and quite predictable I may add) form of communication. Realize that when one uses this "...yes, but.." form two things happen - one, your answers or line of communication fosters an adversarial relationship with your prospect and, second, the objective then becomes to 'win' the line of discussion, or point of contention, causing more stress and tension that already inherently exists within the buyer-seller relationship. A lawyer is a very good example of this main-stay of communication.

The third, but the most effective form of communication, is "Dialogue" or "Socratic Dialogue" as I position in my e-book. This form of communication is a pathway for arriving at the "Truth" yielding ultimately a collaborative approach (with consensus) to move things forward. When implementing this form of communication, one helps the other to define and realize the real consequences of given situational factors or scenarios. However, the payoff with this advanced form of communication is that it ensconces a "solutional" mindset within your prospects and clients! In other words, in helping your prospect to focus and arrive at real solutions to their very real business issues and pains, they start to see you as a trusted advisor and a partner who can bring real value and real solutions to their business.

Socratic Dialogue can be characterized by 4 very important elements:

1. We must engage people in "honest and open conversation" whilst at the same time maintaining our sincerity and desire to help;
2. We must engage the person by posing "provocative questions and/or scenarios" focused on finding solutions;
3. We must "encourage and guide dialogue" by further questions, comments or insights; and,
4. There must be "consensus at the end or agreement to move forward".

To discover a whole new mindset to handling people’s concerns in sales scenarios and for more information on our e-book, please feel free to visit http://www.nonlinearselling.com.

Interesting Strategy: "We inspire sales people…." Didn’t Inspire Me!

2009-08-13T19:00:00.000Z

Yesterday, I got an intriguing tweet. It was from an individual and simply stated, “We inspire sales people. If interested let’s connect.” I have to admit, the pitch caught my interest. I looked at his twitter profile and saw roughly 95% of his 374 updates had one of 3 variants of the same pitch.

It got me to thinking, aren’t many of our initial introductions and value propositions to prospects very similar? Too often, don’t we hear: “Hi, I’m Debbie Smith from XYZ Company. We make the best widgets in the world, if you are interested let’s connect.”

These introductions may be true, but they are ineffective for a number of reasons. Some of these are:

1. Who is the person calling and are they credible? Why should I listen to their opinion? Sometimes, our company name is enough to get someone to listen. In the case of the guy who tweeted me, I may have been interested if I saw a number of insightful tweets, inspirational to sales. Instead, I saw 100’s of the same query—with very few responses/uptakes. I have established many new relationships on Twitter with people who do provide inspirational advice on sales, leadership and business. While I haven’t met them, based on what I have seen, they are credible to me.

2. These generic introductions make me feel like “To Current resident or Occupant.” Particularly when I see I am one of several 100 getting the same message. Take the time to personalize the introduction if you want to produce results. If the guy had said: I liked Sales The Thinking Person’s Profession and would like to share ideas. Would you be interested? (103 characters) The personalized approach and interest in me would have made me very receptive to a discussion. With very little effort, a slightly different approach would have produced profoundly different results. When we meet or call a prospect, are we saying something that personalizes the conversation, demonstrating our interest in them?

3. Tell me a little about yourself and why I should be interested in you. This is somewhat related to the credibility issue, but people buy from people. I like to know a little about the person I’m dealing with. That’s part of the step we call “establishing rapport.” It may be a few second, or it may be part of your twitter profile, but I respond to people.

Would you add anything more? I know I’ve just scratched the surface of this issue.

This tweet was a great example of what too many sales people do in introducing themselves to prospects. It doesn’t take much to change our approach, but the slightest changes can produce profoundly different results.

Link to original post: Interesting Strategy: "We inspire sales people…." Didn’t Inspire Me!

A Rant About Sales Reporting, Bureaucracy, and Paperwork!

2009-08-13T19:00:00.000Z

By now, you probably know that I have a fairly short fuse and tend to get impatient fairly quickly–and sometimes unfairly. However, I couldn’t restrain myself. I’ve been tracking some conversations about sales reporting, CRM systems, and “useless paperwork.”

None of us like paperwork and bureaucracy. Yet management has a justified need to be informed about critical things that impact the business. A part of a salesperson’s job is to provide that information–on a timely basis and efficiently. Many sales people rant “Do you want me calling on a customer or doing paperwork?” Frankly, I believe that’s BS–an excuse. I’ve never seen a salesperson or a manager prioritize paperwork over customer related activity. When a sales person makes that complaint, I am often tempted to stop all their paperwork and see what changes–do the number of customer calls increase? Do sales volumes increase? In some cases that may be true, but I view that as more the exception than the rule. Let’s be honest about it, paperwork (whether physical or electronic) is something we hate doing. It has nothing to do with keeping us from calling on customers.

At the same time, I think many management teams require too much reporting — on things they really don’t monitor or read. If management is asking for reporting, then they should be using it to take action–and they should explain how they are using it to their people so they understand the importance.

Let me tell two stories:

Do you really need the report? In a previous life with a very large technology company, I was part of a “sales simplification task force.” I had the task of looking at some key management reports, trying to reduce the number of reports. These reports took quite a bit of time to generate, they took sales people time, administrative time in consolidating and reporting, and distribution time – yes, this was in the days of paper — some of you may be too young to remember that. Some of the reports had quite wide distribution–over 1000 people in many cases. I did a rigorous job of analysis and went to people to ask them to prioritize reports and identify reports that could be eliminated.

Rather than eliminating reports, we got requests for even more reports. All the current reports were “critical to running the business,” and “we need more information in these areas…” Somehow things were going the wrong direction and I wasn’t simplifying things.

I then took another approach. I identified several of the most complex reports with the widest distribution. In the next publication cycle, I omitted major sections of the reports. Then I waited. Across 5 reports, with total distribution of several 1000, I received 3 complaints and requests for the omitted sections. Except for those 3 people, no one was reading the reports, but somehow having it was a “security blanket.” We quickly eliminated those reports and started a process of eliminating many other reports. The moral of this story: Try arbitrarily stopping some reports and wait for the complaints. If you get none, people aren’t using them–eliminate the report.

Never ask for anything unless you are going to use it: In another previous life, I took over as EVP of Sales for another large company. I wanted to understand the what the sales people were facing and get their views on how we could improve their effectiveness. I asked all the sales people to send me a report answering about 5 questions. I further told them to spend no more than 30 minutes on it and to keep it to about a single page. I gave them 2 weeks to do it. My assistant collected the reports, put them in a binder, and on the weekend I sat down to read them. There were over 1000 responses, so it was a time consuming, but very important for me to get a feel of what was going on. I came upon one report from a sales person. For all intents and purposes, he wrote, “Mary had a little lamb….” The report was meaningless, did not answer my questions, but he had provided a “piece of paper.”

On Monday morning, I called the sales person, introducing myself, “Hi, I’m Dave Brock, the new EVP of Sales. I was reading your report this weekend…..” You could hear the blood draining from the sales person’s face. I went on, “I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things. First, I want to thank you for your report. You taught me something important. It appears that previous management has asked you for a lot of reports, but hasn’t used them—that they wasted your time. That’s important for me to know. Second, I wanted to let you know that I will never ask for reports unless it is important for me in managing the organization and helping improve what we do. I don’t want to waste your time. By the way, would you mind rewriting your report and getting it to me tomorrow, I’m interested in your answers to my questions…..”

I got the report the next day and somehow the word filtered through the sales force about my views of reporting and paperwork (thank goodness for the grapevine). The moral of this story is if you are going to ask your people to invest the time in reporting, make sure you are using the information, let them know how you are using it (sounds a little like the previous moral).

What about CRM?

I’m tackling a small part of this—with trepidation, whatever your position on CRM it seems to generate controversy.

CRM is appropriately maligned by too many people. It is a sales person’s favorite topic to complain about bureaucracy, it’s one of management’s favorite performance issues.

My thoughts:

I cannot imagine running my own territory and sales responsibilities (yes, a major part of my job is selling) without a CRM system. It is a tremendous productivity tool, enabling me to accomplish more than I could without it. I cannot imagine any sales professional who values their time, effectiveness, and relationships with customers not using some sort of CRM tool. In my company, all our people use a CRM system. I don’t require them to use it, each uses it because of the productivity it provides them as individuals. If I took it away from them, they would not be able to accomplish their personal goals.

I think we miss this when we implement CRM systems. The primary objective of a CRM system should be about improving personal productivity! Oh and by the way, if people are using it for personal productivity, management can get some tremendously powerful reporting information—all passively.

Too often, CRM is implemented as a management reporting system, not a personal productivity system. I think we miss the real value of CRM systems in doing this. Also the justification for the system changes, it becomes an expense item rather than an item that can drive revenue growth.

I’m not naive, however. Management has a need for information to manage the business. The degree to which they can extract that passively from a good CRM implementation, the better. However, there are times that management, rightfully, will require sales people to use the CRM system for reporting so management has the information they need to lead the business. My advice to sales people, get over it, it’s part of the job. Do it quickly and efficiently. Leverage the tools to minimize the impact (Oh and don’t complain, at least to me, about how it is keeping you from calling on customers.)

Sales professionals and sales managers are on the same side. We want to spend our time in front of customers, growing the business. At the same time, we need reporting and information. It’s part of the job, let’s just make sure what we ask for and what we provide is used.

I’m finished, I’m off my soap box, I prepared for the deluge of comments, including those that say “Dave, you just don’t understand!” I may not and look forward to learning.

Link to original post: A Rant About Sales Reporting, Bureaucracy, and Paperwork!

If you can tie your shoes...you can do ANYTHING!

2009-08-05T17:24:28.000Z

"If one has the capacity to learn, and the commitment necessary to practice incessantly, one can do anything, as long as they believe they can." -Dame Malone

In order to be good at something, one must practice that thing. But the act of practice is not enough. One must practice the RIGHT WAY, in order achieve the desired results. Let's look at the sport of basketball as an example. There is a right way to shoot a basketball in order give the individual shooting the ball, the best chance of getting the ball in the hoop. This is not to say that there is only ONE way, but there is only one BEST way. Since the objective is to get the ball in the hoop every time it is shot (no one should expect to miss when they shoot it), one must believe that every time they shoot the ball...it is going into the hoop with 100% certainty. In order for that to be the case (that shooting the ball will result in the ball going into the hoop) one MUST believe that if the ball is shot correctly, it will go in the hoop 100% of the time. So the issue becomes shooting the ball correctly, NOT whether or not I can get the ball to go in the hoop...which is a now a forgone conclusion.

Thus I must PRACTICE shooting the ball CORRECTLY, so that it becomes “second-nature” for me to do so. There are certain techniques that are to be followed in order to shoot the ball correctly. One’s feet must be spaced a certain way...knees must bend to a certain degree...the ball must be held a certain way...fingers must be spread a certain way...the shooter must be facing the basket...the elbows must be kept inward to a certain degree...and there must be a certain flex of the wrist (follow through) in order to shoot correctly. When all of these these things are done, and done correctly, there is a 100% chance the ball will go into the hoop if the ball or the shooter is not interfered with (wind, a defender, the crowd, an injury, etc.). And if the ball does not go into the hoop, there is also a 100% chance this is due to incorrect shooting form. Which means that every time a basketball player shoots and misses the hoop, he/she can attribute that failure to either lack of focus or lack of preparedness. Execution is merely a function of preparedness and focus.

With that being said, can we not deduce from the previous statements, that if you can bend your knees, flex your wrists, etc., there is a 100% chance you CAN shoot a basketball in the hoop every time you try? And if you practiced enough, and can practice correctly, you WILL get the ball into the hoop 100% of the time?

If you are still not sure about that, then allow me to pose another question to you.

Do you know how to tie your shoes? I realize this sounds like a silly question, but bear with me for a second. Of course your answer is probably yes, so I will pose another question to you. Why do you know how to tie your shoes? Do you remember when you learned? Think back for a minute. Were you 3 years old? 4 years old? Was it easy or difficult to learn? Do you remember?

Did you learn because you practiced over and over again until you got it right? If you were like most people, you didn’t quite get it right the first time. But you tried and tried...loop here, swing around there...until you got it right. But the next day, you probably forgot a step or two, and it took a while but you figured it out again.

So I have one more question for you. When attempting to tie your shoes now as an adult, how often do you get it wrong? How often is it that when you go to tie your shoes, you just screw it all up? Perhaps one out of one thousand?

And to what do you attribute the anomaly of messing up such a seemingly mundane task....lack of focus?

Most of the time it will be because you perhaps tried to tie them too fast and your coordination was off. But it wouldn’t be because you forgot how to tie them. This is hard wired in your brain. If you slowed down just enough to do it right,you would get it right 1000 out of 1000 times with no problem (fatigue notwithstanding). You really don’t even think about it, do you? You just tie them. Its the same with riding a bike, once you learn, you know. And that’s it. You may get a bit rusty, after some time has passed, but it doesn’t take long to get the handle of riding again. You don’t forget how. So, how is shooting a basketball any different? It isn’t. If you can tie your shoes right 99.999 percent of the time, then you can do the same with shooting a basketball in a hoop. Your mind tells your body whether something is easy or hard. What are you telling your mind when you tie your shoes?

If I told you that it takes as much brain power and body-coordination to tie your shoes as it does to shoot a basketball into a 10-foot goal from 15 feet away would you believe me? You should, because it does. But the more important question is, why you believe shooting a basketball, or doing calculus, playing the piano, speaking in public, running a business, is any more difficult than tying your shoes?

Any task that appears to be difficult can be achieved through the power of repetition. Our brain responds to repetition by hard-wiring the processes learned in our sub-conscious mind. The level of difficulty of a task is no longer a relevant issue to our brain. We have convinced our brain that tying our shoes is a simple, even mundane task, and we don’t give it a second thought. It is through this repetition, that we make and learn from our mistakes. It is through repetition, that we discover new and better ways of doing something. And it is through repetition that we can learn to do just about anything we can imagine.

This is the foundation of coaching on any level. Helping individuals and teams use their ability, capacity and commitment to meet and exceed their goals. It is motivating and inspiring individuals to reach their highest potential, while helping them to understand their own role and responsibility in the process.

Do We Need A Sales Process Or A Sales Methodology?

2009-08-13T19:00:00.000Z

Michael Webb poses the question: Is a Sales Process the same as a Methodology? He provides a thoughtful view (though doesn’t answer the question until his additional comment—make sure you see that).

I thought I’d dive in because it’s a confusing issue. A sales process, in my view, is a road map to guide the sales professional in facilitating their customer’s buying process. A sales process focuses on deals and opportunities. It focuses on helping improve the sales professional’s effectiveness and efficiency. It is a set of steps and critical activities that has been developed based on the organization’s experience. Win-Loss analysis is a great starting point for developing a sales process. Analyzing and modeling customer buying processes is another useful way of defining your selling process. The sales process must be consistent with your company’s business/market strategies and priorities.

In the end, the sales process should outlines the major steps, for example qualification, discovery, proposing…., and critical few activities sales professionals should follow to assure they are pursuing good deals—opportunities that are real and fit the company’s sweet spot. The process outlines the activities critical to achieving success and winning!

Every company has it’s own selling process. At a high level, the steps may be similar, after all we all do qualification. But it’s at the critical activity level that the sales process needs to be unique–after all, these are driven by our company’s strategies and priorities. The process is driven by its strategy for how it wants to work with its customers. The process is driven by the company’s experience in winning or losing deals.

Sales processes need to be SIMPLE! As I said, it’s a road map. It doesn’t define every bump or pothole in the road, it doesn’t outline every twist and turn. It provides general direction and focuses on the critical activities to get you to your destination—winning a deal!

A sales methodology is an artifact of a vendor’s approach to selling. There are many methodologies out there: Solution Selling, Customer Focused Selling, Provocative Selling, and others. Each of those methodologies represent a vendor’s philosophy about selling and most have a generic sales process embedded into their methodology. I won’t editorialize on these methodologies. However, in engaging a vendor and choosing a methodology, make certain they incorporate your sales process into the training they provide you. Think about it, the sales process for selling enterprise software is different from selling semiconductors and is different than selling process control systems. The selling processes for competing enterprise software companies is different—each has its own strategies, priorities, and goals for how it wants to interact with its customers.

One final thing to remember, the “Selling Process” focuses on winning deals and opportunities. However, there are many other processes important to the sales organization. Some of these include the forecasting process, account management, lead management, and so on. Many processes overlap with each other, it’s important to understand these overlaps.

There is a lot of jargon we toss around in sales (and in other functions). Sometimes it serves to make things more complicated and confusing than is needed. In any discussion about process, we should strive for simplicity and clarity. Otherwise it becomes meaningless.

Now back to the issue, do we need a sales process or a sales methodology? No sales professional or sales organization can perform at the highest levels without having a sales process to guide the execution of their sales strategies. A sales process is mandatory for success. Sales methodologies are great, I’ve studied most of them, I’ve gotten value out of each in refining the way I sell, I’ve developed some of my own methodologies. I encourage every sales professional to learn and read. Take the best elements of many sales methodologies to help improve your own performance.

I’d be interested in your views and feedback on my distinctions of Selling Process and Selling Methodology. What do you think?

Link to original post: Do We Need A Sales Process Or A Sales Methodology?

Guerrilla Marketing – When Conventional Thinking is Just Not Sufficient

2009-08-04T16:25:17.000Z

Guerrilla Marketing – When Conventional Thinking is Just Not Sufficient

BUSINESS COACH WARNING!
Please consult your business advisors, board, attorney, stakeholders, industry regulators or trade association prior to attempting any of these tactics as they may cause harm to you, your business, employees, partners, vendors and more importantly, your reputation.

QUESTION: As a business owner, what are some of the more creative, inexpensive activities you have resorted to, in order to market you and your business in this economic climate?

August of this year will mark the second year that we’ve been in this economic decline. The news has been mixed in the small business ranks with many newly minted entrepreneurs joining the army of the self employed or independent contractor, while still many more have decided to call it a day and give up their dreams of owning their destiny.

This article is intended to heighten our awareness of what creative marketing/sales tactics business owners and professionals are currently employing, as well as to provide some old, maybe new, ideas for the survivors.

What is Guerrilla Marketing?
Guerrilla marketing has been around for the past 20 years and has received the attention from the business community most notably due to Jay Conrad Levinson series of books on the subject. Given the current perspective on our economy it seems a perfect time to open the dialogue to learn about and even employ some new attitudes and perspective on marketing and selling.

Guerrilla marketing is defined as unconventional marketing intended to gain maximum results from minimal resources, thereby creating maximum awareness for a product/service with little time and money invested. Sort of like marketing on a shoestring budget while reaching wide spread attention (e.g., viral videos).
It emphasizes collaboration and creativity over spending, which makes it ideal for all those new entrepreneurs or struggling businesses. “Guerrilla marketing is as far-reaching and all-inclusive as you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be “wild” or inconsistent with your business or industry. It just has to be different. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the worst sin one can commit is to be dull. So start to think outside the box. And inside, and alongside, and near side and far side…”

Here are a few of my favorites:
1. Ask clients, network connects, vendors what you can do the help them or their business
2. Find out who your customers do work with and ask for the referral.
3. Start every day with two cold calls.
4. Create your own events and invite your target market to the event. You can suggest that they bring a friend or colleague. Don’t make the event a sales event but an event that you are delivering something of value (e.g., information, technology, networking, etc.) You can utilize Meetup.com, or simply create your own workshop or participate in someone else’s workshop.
5. Ask your network for speaking engagements where you can present information that is relevant and valuable to that audience
6. Conduct your own election “campaign.” Get dressed up and go down to your local train station and buy the first 100 people a cup of coffee while handing out your flyers to local commuters. I would suggest getting balloons and decent sized signage so people will have your company information, your name, phone, email and website. The local coffee vendor will love you if you cut a deal with them to purchase the cups from them…another resource
7. “Hand to Hand.”—Get flyers made up, get dressed and go door to door introducing yourself and your business to the local residents or business owners
8. Establish a MasterMind group-- your own board of advisory, composed of your business partners, colleagues and/or neighboring business owners. You could share ideas and referrals and discuss community issues. Meet frequently at the out set to develop deep relationships then monthly. I would strongly advise individuals could meet one on one outside of the regular meetings to really get to know each other.
9. Hold a monthly marketing meeting with employees or associates to discuss strategy and status and solicit marketing ideas.
10. Hold an “open house” or similar client event just to say Thank You to those who have supported you or done business with you. To help pay for the event, get sponsors who would love to have access to you clientele
11. Build “ambassador” relationships. One of my favorites but requires time to develop. These are people you would offer your services at minimal cost so that they can speak from direct experience when they refer your service
12. Create an electronic signature to be used for all your e-mail messages. It should contain contact details, your blog and web site addresses and key information about your company that will make the reader want to contact you.
13. Use other people’s answering machine or voice mail system to advertise your website or company’s location
14. Record a memorable message or tip of the day on your outgoing answering machine or voice mail message.
15. Collaborate with your business partners to conduct marketing/sales activities to attract attention to your business and spread awareness of you to a wider audience of prospects (e.g., advertising, workshops, events, etc., etc.)
16. Create seminars and workshops for your target audience that occurs on a regular basis—say monthly. This can be a great way to build awareness of you and your services. If you can't teach the class yourself, look for people who love to teach or are looking for experience.
17. Teach a class or seminar at a local college or adult education center.
18. Participate in Q&A groups that may contain prospective clients or referral partners (e.g., yahoo answers, linkedin, etc.) in areas that show your expertise and your willingness to give without expectation of a return.
19. Write a blog, a column for the local newspaper, internet new site local business journal, or trade publication.
20. Create an area on your web site specifically for your customers.
21. Use your network to create your own program or appear on a radio or TV talk show.
22. Follow up a networking connection with a face to face meeting. It’s amazing that so many people don’t do this
23. Follow up on your direct mailings, email messages, and broadcast faxes with a friendly telephone call.
24. Use broadcast fax or email to notify your customers of product service updates.
25. Marketing by walking around: For example, you might have a couple of your friends walking around a mall, a seminar, a convention in an eye-catching t-shirt with a simple question about your business or a need on one side and your website as the answer on the other side
26. (I read this idea somewhere and loved it) Design coupons that grab attention, are easy to read, and provide value to your customer. One store offered a free pizza pie for every competitor’s advertisement they ripped out of the yellow pages and brought in. Talk about eliminating the competition all together!

CONCLUSION:
Your success in business is impacted by the overall economic climate but is also greatly influenced by your attitude, creativity and more importantly, your action! Have your “CEO Moment” each and every week and commit to taking at least, one action that leads you closer to fulfilling your purpose each and every day.

READERS: Please provide your comments, thoughts and ideas so we can all learn new tactics, to strive in this environment.

RJ Lennon,
"The Professional's Business Coach"
MasterMind Coaching & Consulting
Cell: 973.519.0042
WEBSITE: http://www.mastermindconsulting.biz/
e-mail: Rj@MasterMindConsulting.biz

"STEP FORWARD INTO GROWTH
OR STEP BACK INTO SAFETY
THE CHOICE IS YOURS"

A Buy-Product of Your Product

2009-07-26T14:57:55.000Z

Any professional sales person will tell you that they can best sell a product or service that they believe in. We rightly spend time researching our industry and determining the competitive advantages that we have, and detailing the important facts and benefits that we have to offer. Yet, often when the real pressure to prove the value of our product or service we stumble.

So, here’s a quick tip to dramatically increase your ability to promote any product or service you represent: Be a product of the product. Once you are a customer of your own product, it is much more natural and credible to recommend it.

Buy some of what you are selling and you will sell more of it. Done.

New Site Feature: The Lead Engine

2009-08-04T14:04:10.000Z

I am excited to share with you the newest edition to the Sales Management 2.0 Social Network: The Lead Engine

As you all know I am constantly searching for new tools and opportunities to make this site more valuable to it’s members and I found something I think you are going to love! The Lead Engine is a Twitter-Enabled contact manager integrated with social media, that allows you to dynamically profile all of your contacts and generates free sales leads. This simple web-based service allows users to connect to a global network of trusted business people providing you with unlimited qualified leads. It also helps you classify and research your contacts, see their Twitter feeds, and use tags to add other RSS feeds so you can move from sales calls to social calls all in a single application. With The Lead Engine you gain access to contacts across industries and functions, allowing you to immediately break into new accounts, expand your network, collaborate with others, and grow your revenues.

I know your thinking to yourself “Brad there are a hundred social networks out there that will help me generate leads. What makes this different?” So I am going to quickly share just a few of my favorite features:

- Your contacts do not have to join
- No one can see your contacts without YOUR permission
- You can hide contacts from your direct competitors
- It provides tools that help your develop and maintain strategic partnerships and communicate about a contact privately.
- It gives quick easy access to the contacts Twitter and blog feed
- You can assign other RSS feeds like local news, hobbies, or industry news
- You can send a Twitter Direct Message right out of the application
- It allows easy importing of contacts from a variety of sources like Linkedin, Plaxo, webmail, and Outlook

There’s more reasons than that to sign up but the best one is its free to join and free to use!

Expect to see more about this from me... I am in close communication with the developers and have been sharing some thoughts for new features. What I can assure you right now is this tool is GREAT as it is and there are more FANTASTIC features on the way.

The Future Of Selling -- Consultative, Solutions and Customer Focused? Deja Vu All Over Again?

2009-07-21T04:07:40.000Z

I'm frustrated and a little impatient. As a profession, we seem to be doing the same thing over and over, making little progress. Sometimes, I feel like I'm Bill Murray waking up every morning in "Ground Hog Day."

All sorts of sales consultants, guru's, and other self proclaimed experts (probably including me, if I'm honest) make a lot about being consultative, solutions and customer focused, value driven and even provocative in selling. These topics have been fodder for 100's of books, 1000's of articles and $ billions in sales training and other services.

Virtually every self respecting sales professional talks about being solutions, consultative, customer focused, or even provocative.

Buyers are saying the same thing, they want sales people to focus on their (the buyer's) business and problems, presenting business justified solutions.

I'm convinced --- and I think the leading thinkers and practitioners in selling are also convinced that this customer and value creation focus is critical for success in sales.

So why am I frustrated? This afternoon, I blew the dust off a well worn book on my bookshelf: Consultative Selling, 4th Edition, by Mack Hanan, published in 1990. The description on the fly leaf:

"What does a customer want more than anything else? Profits. If you, as a salesperson can shoe your customers how your product or service will improve their profits....you can be sure they will keep coming back for more...."

" This new approach comes directly from market demands, 'Customers in major markets are setting the new ground rules for selling.'"

"Would you like your customer to value you as a friend who can help make their business grow?"

That was in the 1990 edition, I'm sure similar thoughts were expressed in the original 1970 edition. Yet those are the same words we talk about, today, as the "new selling."

My copy of Miller Heiman's Strategic Selling was published in 1987, my copy of Bosworth's Solution Selling was published in 1995, Peter Drucker lectured on these concepts in the 1950-60's. I could go on citing book after book.

So I'm frustrated, why can't we make progress? For decades, we have been talking about this, but we seem to make little progress in execution. Why are our customers letting us get away with the same old thing?

When will we stop talking about solution selling, customer focused selling, and value based selling because it's the norm of practice by sales professionals? When will we move on to talk about the next thing---what is the next thing?

I don't have any answers and would love to get your thoughts. What's holding us back? How do we move on and look at the next new things we should be doing as sales professionals?

Link to original post: The Future Of Selling -- Consultative, Solutions and Customer Focused? Deja Vu All Over Again?

Social Networking and Your Business – Part 2

2009-07-31T11:00:00.000Z

Last week, I outlined 4 approaches businesses can take towards Social Networking. Read Part 1 here. By way of a recap, here is the approach I recommended:
Approach #4 - Aim Before You Fire

You must invest some time and research in understanding your Buyer Personas and how they use Social Networking before you build out your strategy.

Now onto Part 2: Fishing Where Your Buyers Swim (Part2)

Fishing Where Your Buyers Swim (Part2)

View more presentations from mbertuzzi.

Step 1: Know Thy Buyer Personas

People still confuse their Ideal Customer Profile with their Buyer Personas. Your Ideal Customer Profile typically looks something like this:

Verticals: Healthcare, Financial Services
Revenue: Over $1B
Role: Anyone with "security" in their title

Ideal Customer Profiles point you in the right direction and make it easy to purchase lists, size target markets, etc.

Buyer Personas, on the other hand, provide you with the information you need to communicate with your buyers in a way that is meaningful to them. Think The Bachelor - you need to make a "connection" with your buyers and that connection has to be personal, emotional & relevant.

So, how do you do that? Well, you start by fleshing out your Buyer Personas to the point that they are people with faces, names, specific challenges & goals.

Let's walk through a high level example which is a representation of Jennifer, a Director of Marketing.

What do we know about Jennifer?

We know her background
We understand her role and how she is measured
We understand the things that frustrate her
We know how she defines a "win"
We understand her expectations of vendor relationships
If you are like most companies, you will have multiple Buyer Personas and you should execute this exercise for each of them. It will provide you with the language you need to communicate with these buyers. They don't want to hear about how wonderful you are. They want to know how you are going to help them solve the challenges they face on a daily basis.

Step 2: Find the Jennifer's

Now that you know what Jennifer looks like, you can find sample Jennifer's in your customer and prospect base.

Next, go do some research to find out how they are using Social Networking. It has never been easier to conduct this research: Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook - they all provide search capabilities.

The matrix displayed above is all you need to create your Social Networking strategy. That matrix will tell you where to invest your time for your specific Buyer Personas.

In this instance, the strategy is clearly laid out for you. You want to invest significant time on LinkedIn, establish a presence on Facebook and then investigate Twitter to connect with your Jennifers.

Step 3: Find the Conversation

So, now we know who to target and we know what networking sites to target. Next, find the conversations that are meaningful to Jennifer.

We already know our Jennifer's are active in LinkedIn groups so why not start there. Your research on Jennifer's groups will provide you insight into where your Buyer Personas are spending time.

Join those Groups with the goal of engaging in meaningful conversation, not indulging in self promotion. Ask questions, answer questions - establish yourself as a thought leader. This is about sharing information and becoming part of a community with your buyers.

Summary

Ready...Aim...Fire is a great approach to Social Networking. Taking the time to understand your buyer is an investment that will pay off! It takes some planning (and requires some work), but would you trust any Sales & Marketing strategy that didn't?

Agree? Disagree? Please share your thoughts on getting started with Social Networking!