I like to think introductions as warming or melting the ice rather than breaking it. Networking and meeting new people can be daunting and uncomfortable. We can feel like we are under the scrutiny of the microscope. Shifting the attention to the other person is one way to get the weight off of our shoulders and the best way to make a good impression.

How do you warm someone up?

A simple introduction, “I’m Gary Hart of Sales Du Jour?” is best in my opinion. A firm handshake, warm smile, and eye contact as I read their name tag. If they are not wearing a name tag, I continue with “And you are?” and then shift the conversation to them with something simple like, “Who are you with?”

Everyone has a story, and everyone loves someone who is sincerely interested in them. To find out a little about them, ask questions and listen to their story intently and with curiosity.  My fascination with people and their stories carried me in my early days of sales. To this day, I love learning about people and how they ended up where they are.

Use their name frequently. As Dale Carnegie said, “Remember that a person’s name is to him or her sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Repeating a person’s name is the best way to remember.

What can melt the ice better and simpler than that?

For more answers, visit Focus.com here.

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When I first began selling in 1972, I was not achieving my sales goals. My prospecting results were dismal. And if you can’t get to first base, bringing the sale home is impossible. Prospecting is one of the most challenging stages of the sale. Laborious hours of cold calling, emails, and handshaking at events that result in many no’s and few yeses is frustrating.

Acting on the belief that prospecting is a numbers game, I relentlessly pushed the stone uphill. I was convinced that my optimism, enthusiasm, confidence, determination, and persistence were the keys to my success. While a great attitude is necessary to become a top sales producer, more is needed.

My pitch and presentations were about my products and services, our impeccable values, and promises of successful outcomes. This me-centric sales practice was common. Our manager preached it, and we followed the plan. But I was not getting the desired results. Back then, there was less sales material available than what is currently published on a daily basis. I was in the dark searching for a solution.

Bill, a retired entrepreneur who led me to my career in sales, gave me the answer to my prospecting problems. He went back to the first time we met and showed me how my curiosity, fascination, and sincere interest in his colorful sales stories, inspired him to share with me. Bill explained this is a customer-centric approach, “And this is why I encouraged you to become a sales professional.”

Bill showed me how the company I was working for used a sales-centric approach and helped me understand the difference between the two. Focusing on client’s stories, needs, wants, and problems, the customer-centric method, improved my prospecting dramatically. And my sales skyrocketed. Instead of feeling like a prisoner on a chain gang breaking rocks, prospecting became fun!

Sales-centric selling is a problem that persists today. Just this past month, I have been discussing this issue with a group of top sales and marketing consultants. The vast majority of prospecting calls and emails we all receive are sales-centric filled with “me” statements, “my products, our services, our existing clients…” you get the picture.

An author recently sent me a short announcement for a book launch that concisely illustrates the sales-centric approach. To use it as an example, the title is changed and body modified to protect the author:

“How to Prospect Successfully” – Book Sale by John Doe

My book is available!!! I’m so excited. I hope everyone will support me and enjoy their own copy of my book. Please share with friends and family. I am so passionate about prospecting and I am thrilled to be able to reach out to so many with my book. Proceeds from this month’s sale of the book will support the “Alzheimer’s Foundation of America.” Please help support this worthy cause!! Use this link to order your copy today!! 

Stats for this Sales-Centric Message:

• 7 “Me” words – sales-centric
• 1 “You” word – customer-centric
• 5 of the first 21 words are “Me” words
• Nearly 10% of the entire text is “Me” words

Here is how I would have written this message:

“How to Prospect Successfully” – New Book by John Doe

Are you looking for a prospecting method to help you and your sales team achieve and surpass your revenue targets? Early in my career, prospecting was a struggle for me too. Forty years of my prospecting success is now available in this new book, written, just for you.

Proceeds from your purchases this month will support the “Alzheimer’s Foundation of America.” Please help support this worthy cause and improve your prospecting skills with a purchase at the link below.

Stats for this Customer-Centric Message:

• 7 “You” words
• 3 “Me” words
• 4  of the first 20 words are “You” words
• Nearly 10% of the entire text is “You” words

How do you change from sales-centric to customer-centric prospecting?

If your sales presentations are sales-centric, you’re not alone. But now you know a major road block to prospecting success that is easy to fix.

To create powerful, customer-centric calls and emails you must “Know thy Client.” Learn about their industry, who the decision makers are: their needs, wants, goals, and pains. This is the knowledge you need to create customer-centric messages that will attract your clients to want to do business with you.

 “Me” messages say to your client, “You’re not important, I just want the sale.”

“You” messages say to your client, “You’re important to me, and I’d like to do business with you.”

Which type of message do you think will lead to greater sales success?

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Bob was the president of a manufacturing company in Kansas when we met in 1983. I was selling machine tools from Long Island. Life was geopolitical back then. Because he did not know me yet, being a New York sales guy was a strike against me. My specialty in computer automated manufacturing, flexible manufacturing, and robotics made me somewhat of a necessary evil.

Over the next couple of years, we spoke from time to time about everything from the industry and changes in manufacturing technology to the economy and his corporate needs. He told me his story about how he and his partner began with nothing and developed what became the best machine its class.

Documation Storage Technology, a major manufacturer of hard drives, went belly up in 1986. There were two finance companies involved, one of which was Chase whom I had a relationship with. Chase had me handle two large machining centers. The other bank placed two sister machines in auction with the rest of the facility.

Bob had been searching for one of these machines. After a couple of phone calls and sending him a proposal, Bob called me in a tirade. “You damn New York hustlers. You’re trying to sell me the machines coming up in Stu’s auction.”

“There’s four of them Bob. Do you have the auction brochure handy? Compare the serial numbers on my proposal and the auctioneer’s brochure.”

“You’re right Hart, they’re different. I’m sorry. The newer one in the auction has a feature I’d like, but if I can’t get it a good price, I’ll buy one of yours. Are you going down to Florida for the sale?”

We met in Florida and spent the evening at a reception held at a hotel filled with a bunch of other industry folks. The next day, we bid together and against each other. We had fun and started our friendship. The machine at the auction went higher than he was willing to bid. The following morning, after a stop at the Kennedy Space Center, we went to look at my equipment with his maintenance foreman. We were about to close a $100,000 sale when I was interrupted by a phone call from the auctioneer.

The auction buyer backed out his purchase due to a mistake in the advertised specs. Bob was the second high bidder and the auctioneer wanted to sell Bob their machine. Telling Bob was going to cost me a sale. So would not telling him. We could shake hands on a deal, but the auctioneer would track him down. Bob would back out of our deal and worse, our relationship, along with my reputation would be worthless.

I told Bob what happened and helped him negotiate with the auctioneer right there on the spot. You probably think I’m crazy, but Bob and I did millions of dollars in business together for many years. Not only did he endorse me and make countless referrals, but whenever needed, he gave me a glowing reference to a potential client of mine. My wife and I spent his 50^th birthday with his wife and another couple. After I left the business, we went on a little bird hunting trip together.

This is one of many relationships that happened to turn into good, long term business. I was taught the mechanisms of sales, how to pitch and present, the art of persuasion, and the skill of rhetoric. But I did not sell. My clients made buying decisions that included me, because I brought more to their company than iron, nuts and bolts, better features, or a lower price.

There are many different ways to earn business.  Over four decades of selling and leading sales teams through short and long sales cycles, in industries from advertising to technology, developing quality relationships founded on mutual respect and trust was the method that consistently produced the most sustainable, profitable sales.

Salespeople’s motives are commonly prejudged as self-serving. Let’s face it,  it’s our job is to get business, and buyers anticipate aggressive and shady selling tactics. It is up to you to create an image of trust, and for you to prove you have the values and qualities that mutually beneficial relationships are founded upon.

Your greatest success will be achieved when you stop selling and build quality relationships.

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No

Adversity to buying is the common climate of the sales environment. How we deal with the curve balls and road blocks creates an image of whether or not there is worthwhile opportunity by moving forward with us. Intense focus on questioning our clients to discover their wants and needs often distracts us from our responses to our client’s. While we size up the possibility of making a sale, our customer is determining whether to do business or not do business with us.

Buyers are exceptional at baiting us into responding with a blunt no that makes an easy decision for them to stop fishing with us. Saying no may give us a feeling of power, but it presents us as inflexible. Lowball offers and unreasonable requests that would have us jumping through hoops, can push the most self-controlled sales rep to negative kneejerk reactions. Even in less stressful situations, no is too handy of a retort, but avoiding this is a best sales practice.

As a New Yorker, my tendency to answer quickly is often followed by deeply embedding my foot in my mouth. Diplomacy is not my strength, so I continually work at being discreet and prudent with my tongue.  Buttoning my lip, thinking, and responding thoughtfully, requires diligent effort. After years of reprogramming myself and consistent practice, a little recording plays continuously in my head, “Listen and shut up.” With mentorship and diplomatic reminders from my wife, I have found better ways to say “No.”

Learning shades of gray was challenging for my natural black and white disposition. Holding back on a quick yes, was just as difficult for me. In our eagerness to earn business, freely giving a yes can actually hurt negotiations later, which I’ll address in another post. Finding middle ground improved my sales quantitatively and qualitatively.

Maybe is a power word. Maybe is open ended. Maybe promises possibility and hope. Maybe leaves the door open to opportunity. Creating, cultivating, and nurturing opportunity even in the most adverse situations is what selling is all about. Here are a few ways to phrase maybe:

Let me research your request.

That’s very interesting. Let me see if that is possible.

We have never done that before, I’d love to find out if we can do that.

Postponing a no presents your flexibility, your willingness to try. Stating that you are going to find a solution or compromise requires your legitimate effort. But when “No” is the only answer, put on the “white hat” folks and make your sales managers or sales executives wear the black hat. This is one of the secret values of management. As a sales manager and V.P., I never minded wearing the black hat for my sales team. One president I reported to willingly took the hit for me and taught me the value of taking the hit for my sales team.

Responses like these will put keep your white hat untarnished:

“I don’t’ have the power to make that decision, so I’ll have to take your request to…”

“I have to check with my manager”

“I’ll have to check with the president.”

And when I ran my own company, “The decision is up to my partner” maintained my good guy image.

Salespeople work from behind the 8 ball and buyers try to keep us there. Don’t sacrifice yourself, be the good gal or good guy. You may have the decision making power, and your customer may know that you do, but that does not prevent you from passing the black hat.

With all of the years of training and constant rehearsal, my knee occasionally jerks my mouth and no slips out. This is fixable with a quick sincere “Let me take that no back and look into this.” I’ve watched the demeanor of a client switch to very positive in those instances.

As salespeople, we work against a continuous tide of adversity. We want to say yes whenever we can, but that is not always possible. Our job to convert challenges into opportunities is dependent upon how we respond and resolve difficulties.  No is a dead-end, maybe is a world of possibility.

How do you manage your urge to say no?

What are your favorite escape routes?

Jill Konrath is running a contest to compile the top things “Salespeople Should Never, Ever…” do. My answer prompted a conversation with Jill that inspired this post. Please check out her contest. Your contribution could be included in her upcoming eBook and win you an autographed copy of her renowned book “SNAP Selling!”

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The battles over price are as old as selling. Can you picture the first dirt farmer negotiating for some livestock? Learning how not to flinch when a customer claimed “Your price is too high” took mentoring and practice. When I finally understood that price complaints are to be expected and a sign that the game’s afoot, my reflexes changed.

“High-Profit Selling, Win the Sale Without Compromising On Price” is a book I wish I had in 1980 when I was made general manager over a team of 30 salespeople. Everyone was cutting price – quickly! The sliding scale commission schedule promoted discounting. It was the most challenging leadership position of my career. Having this book would have made the solution infinitely easier.

Mark shares his personal discounting mistakes as a consultant that led to his successful processes and strategies that fill this book. Overcoming price issues and objections is not something that happens towards the end of the sale and in negotiation. Solving the price battle dilemma begins at the start of an opportunity and continues through the entire process. “The Sales Hunter” as Mark is known, takes you on that journey.

In some circles, profit has become a dirty word and many salespeople think their companies make too much profit on their products and services. Mark not only dispels this myth, but shows how the wrong beliefs hurt initial, and more importantly, long-term sales results.

Investing in “High-Profit Selling” will get you Mark’s priceless, hard earned knowledge that will add measurable value to your overall sales process. Here are some teasers on how you will get a huge return on investment from this book.

Did you know that beginning with a discount actually hurts your customer long-term? Your customer’s business plans, operations, and pricing to their customers are based upon their costs. After your discount, the inevitable steep price increase rears its ugly face, and it always does because no organization can maintain selling at heavy discounts, your customer is then stuck holding the bag, usually ending your relationship. That’s a heavy lose-lose loss throughout the entire customer life cycle that can be avoided.

• Avoid the price battle with strategies that minimize and eliminate discounting.
• Assess and leverage the long-term value of a customer.
• Learn why you should cut low profit customers.
• Set high price structures that enhance your offering and increase profit.
• Improve your prospecting and opportunity selection.
• Increase prices successfully.

The section on successful C-Suite prospecting alone is enough to justify owning this book. I could write a plenty more, but then you’d have an abridged version that isn’t worth the bits and bytes on your screen. I highly recommend this book for everyone from the front line sales reps to the CSO and CEO.

Check out his book here on Amazon

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability.  For more information, to receive a free weekly email sales tip, or to read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com

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It got tense. You know the type of tense negotiations I’m talking about. This wasn’t a poker faced, behind the shades, all in Texas old ‘em negotiation. This was an in your face, blood on the wall, last man or woman standing deal.

Finding an opportunity to raise a smile seemed impossible, but Steve finally gave me the opening, “You have it and I want it, so let’s make this deal.”

Without hesitation and a smile I said, “Steve, having is better than wanting, and I have it and you want it.”

He had a hard time catching his breath and nearly laughed himself to tears. I knocked off less than 1% on a six figure sale and we did plenty of business together down the road.

A father and son team tried working me over on $60,000 piece of equipment we were dying to sell. The son offered me $48,235.61 or some hokey number very close to that. Our deals are rounded off to the nearest zero, so this smelled fishy.

“Do you mind if I ask how you came up with that number?”

“My dad told me to offer you that.”

“Do you mind if I speak with your dad?”

“That’s an interesting number” I chortled. “Do you mind telling me how you came up with it?”

“It sounded good to me” he laughed.

“Well, $60,000 sounds better to me.” We laughed. He then explained that he was teaching his son how to buy. We agreed that I would give his son a small discount and a feel-good moment. We settled at $57,000, which I was very happy to get. His son felt like a hero and his father appreciated the discount and my handling the situation with a good sense of humor.

Of all the closing tips, tricks, and manipulations, nothing works better than authentically making someone feel good. And the best way to do that is to put a smile on their face and a laugh in their belly. Joke telling isn’t the only way. Most often, when we’re in tight negotiations, there is something in the situation that is truly funny. Try not to take yourself and selling too seriously. When all else fails, self-deprecation works very well.

When you laugh, the world laughs with you, and so do your customers.

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This is what internet marketing looks like. Marketers view internet analytics and see which landing pages are creating the best results. Marketers trace the navigation paths to see what material is being read and downloaded. But unless a visitor fills out a contact form, they are just an anonymous phantom.

Salespeople are entering the buying process 70% of the way through.

The affordability and wide reach of internet marketing has established passive selling in the B2B world. Digital marketing machines are powerful tools, but will never equal or outperform live networking and prospecting. When I found myself in a new sales opportunity that was at the end of the process, I invested little and hunted fresh opportunities.

Entering the buying process late in the game pits salespeople against each other in feature and discount wars. I believe this is one of the reasons sales reps are complaining about the quality of marketing generated leads.

Before I began using sales and marketing automation in 1982, I called from the yellow pages and Dunn & Bradstreet contact cards. I regularly visited trade shows that potential customers attended. They say I made selling look easy, but it was hard work.

Red Motley said, “Nothing happens until somebody sells something” so I made things happen.

Sales and marketing automation did not make cold calling obsolete for me. It helped me make higher quality calls and deliver better messages. When inbound calls or sales activity waned, I was on the phone or out where my customers were.

What looked easy were my results. Heavy calling and networking developed higher quantities of opportunities, so I could be picky about which opportunities to work on. Because I got in early and established my position with customers, my negotiations were easier.

Early in my career, I found that marketing generated leads were lower quality than the leads I created on my own. This idea was confirmed by the constant complaints by me peers.

In 1982 during the last great recession, while working my way back from California to NY, I worked for a large home improvement company in Colorado for a couple of months. They generated leads for a dozen or so salespeople with a telemarking team. The leads were barely better than going door to door.

They paid telemarketers $7 per hour plus a bonus for any leads converted to sales. I was used to making my own calls as part of my job, so getting paid for qualifying my own leads was gravy. My closing ratio on my own leads was over 80%. I made enough money to move back to NY in 2 months.

Within a couple of weeks, I took a position in NY selling manufacturing automation. They had a sales and marketing automation system that strategically delivered content. They had a telemarketing team for lead development and list cleaning

The economy was horrible. Unemployment was over 10% and interest rates were double digits. Century old manufacturers were closing left and right. Our sales cycles were complex and generally long; 6 months on average. I hit the phones and trade shows. With the odds stacked against me, I closed my first two sales in six weeks.

It was hard work with great rewards and I cold called and networked until I retired. 

There is a widespread myth that cold calling is dead. Well, it is a myth. I know top producers who are still using the telephone successfully and have no intention of giving it up. Cold calling has evolved to what is now being called warm calling. With research, preparation, strategy, determination and persistence, the phones are still the most effective way to create sales opportunities.

There are a lot of no’s to get one yes. I love talking to people, so for me it wasn’t grueling. Cold calling and networking may be laborious, but it beats the heck out of digging ditches and scrubbing toilets. I know, because I’ve done both.

If you want to hit your sales goals, go where your customers are and make something happen. If you wait for customers to come to you, you may just see the faint depressions from their feet in your carpet.

Here are a couple of resources to put some people in those footprints.

Wendy Weiss is an authority on cold calling who leads salespeople to be successful in today’s sales environment. Her site is filled with incredible resources: www.wendyweiss.com

Cold Calling Techniquesy by Alen Mayer http://www.alenmajer.com/2011/11/cold-calling-techniques/

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A few of us were discussing appearance and dress habits. Steve explained to us why one of my habits was so valuable.

In the days of pounding Manhattan streets in a suit, I had a daily ritual. Each morning I dropped off a suit at the cleaners and picked up one freshly pressed with a clean shirt. Riding the train into the city creased
my clothes, so I changed at the office. On my way in, I stopped at Penn Station for my morning shoe shine. Jimmy cleaned and shined everything from my heals to the tip of my sole.

Steve said he polished his shoes multiple times a day in the Air Force. They taught him that your heels are the last thing everyone sees.

Casual dress has become common and accepted over the last few decades in many industries. But that should not diminish the quality of your appearance, especially your shoes. People want to know you are “well-heeled.” It breeds confidence. Worn out shoes breeds the opposite.

What does your customer see when you leave their office?

Are your heels worn or soiled?

Here’s a tip. Have rubber taps placed on your heels. Not only are they less expensive to replace, they protect the original heel, which is never replaced with one of equal quality.

The last impression is a lasting impression.  

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Too many marketing departments are still living in the 1990s with how they feel salespeople should be making presentations. Marketing departments are notorious for making slick presentations that do nothing but extol the virtues of how wonderful their company is.  I call these “capabilities presentations.” Really they should be called “look at me – I think I’m perfect” presentations.

The reason they are lousy is because all they do is waste time and make people angry.

Why should any customer have to sit through a lousy presentation that does nothing but share stupid facts and information about the vendor – especially when it is nothing but old news?   The main reason it’s old news to the customer is because they’ve already had a chance to see the very same information on the internet.

Today’s customer does not wake up in the morning looking forward to having their time wasted by salespeople.   Customers have far more important things to worry about. One of the easiest ways customers are cutting down on the amount of time they spend with salespeople is by using the internet before they even meet with the salesperson.

Customers are using the internet to gather the information they want to know, including specific facts and general knowledge. The reason customers do this is because they feel it’s a better use of their time.  (This alone is a sad comment about the perception customers have of salespeople, but that’s an entirely separate issue.)

If the customer is knowledgeable before the salesperson meets with them, then there’s no reason to waste anyone’s time with the boring presentation from marketing.

I’m not saying salespeople should assume the customer knows everything. On the contrary, the salesperson needs to now verify  everything.  It’s for this reason I’m a strong advocate of what I refer to as the “modular presentation.”

The modular presentation is comprised of many small presentations, with the premise that any single piece can be used by itself. The value of the modular style is it allows complete flexibility on the part of the  salesperson. They’re able to focus on the parts the customer needs to hear, not on what they already know.

To make the modular style of presentation work, the salesperson must be highly skilled at being flexible in asking the customer questions and listening for their responses.  In addition, for the modular style to work, the marketing department needs to be willing to let go and allow the salesperson to know what is best.

This in and of itself is the hardest part of the move, but in the end, it is essential. Failure to move away from the “capabilities presentation” and to the modular style will only result in upset salespeople, upset customers and lost sales.   The choice then is really quite simple.  Either marketing is going to remain in control or sales is going to have the flexibility they need to close sales and maximize profits.

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability.  For more information, to receive a free weekly email sales tip, or to read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com. You can also follow him on www.Facebook.com/TheSalesHunter, www.Twitter.com/TheSalesHunter and www.LinkedIn.com/in/MarkHunter.

Reprinting of this article is welcomed as long as the following is included:

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” www.TheSalesHunter.com, © 2011

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When the best picks are gone, we fish through the bowl and pick the promising nuts. They take a little more work for a little less meat.

Finally, only the tough nuts are left, the airtight sealed nuts that take more work. Out of desperation we may try cracking some to the disappointing hint of pistachio mixed with shell.

Are you working on meaty sales opportunities?

Are you picky about your sales opportunities?

Are spending too much time on tough sales that leave a bad
taste in your mouth?

Want to fill your pipeline with meatier sales opportunities?

Take an objective look at your sales opportunities. If the economy was hot, which ones would you ignore or completely discard? The remaining opportunities, the meatier prospects, are what you should be working on, but there are probably not enough to achieve your goals.

If you don’t want a pipeline laden with tough nuts, here are three guaranteed solutions.

Prospect, prospect, and prospect.  

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