ToddCohen.com Sales Community~

Here is a question to think about as we enter the last quarter and 2009. How do you leverage the value of your customer relationships, both for yourself and for your customer?   You are in this business relationship together and so you are both actually selling to each other, since both will benefit from the others’ success.  You, yourself, will make it your business to work collaboratively to establish trust and a sense of interdependence between you.

Your customer is the most valuable component of your business, to say the least.  You must, I repeat, must leverage that value to create your own success.  When a customer complains, expresses concerns or dissatisfaction, or even says  “ No” to a proposal, this is an  opportunity for you.  It opens a door for you to better understand his specific needs.  He is indirectly sharing them with you by inviting you to continue the conversation.  Ask that customer for permission to explore further and discover how you can better understand and serve those needs.  This is how you leverage the value of that customer and his initial rejection of your ideas, products, or services.  Interdependence just happens when you approach the customer this way.

Doing this makes your value to your customer so obvious.  He will become your trusted advisor on his own account.  What a situation to have!  Dont forget - your client is your most precious asset!

As always, let me know what you think!

Good Selling!

-Todd

The moment of truth has arrived!  It is time for you to ask yourself the most important question of your sales career?  Who are you?  I dont mean in a human sense but in a professional sense.

Are you a sales rep or a sales professional?  As someone with sales career (and we are all in sales) we need to always ask ourselves which category we fall into.  Do you know the difference?   This topic has been one of intense and interesting debate lately not only with my clients but in the sales community as well. 

How do we know?  Is it easy to tell?  One simple way to think about this is that a sales professional is one who thinks of his or her territory as a complete business and themselves as the business owner.  A business owner is responsible for managing and growing the business and part of that is to know good business when they see it.  A sales professional is probably strategic in nature.  A sales rep is perhaps more tactical with a shorter term view.  Neither is better than the other, just different.  Can a sales rep evolve into a sales professional?

Which are you?   Is one better for the development of a robust sales culture?  Please share your thoughts with the ToddCohen.com Sales Community!  Lets start the conversation and talk about the best qualities and traits of sales professionals and sales reps!

Good Selling!

-Todd 

Your company has announced that it will launch a 6-Sigma program or perhaps it launched such a program a while ago.  So what does this mean for Sales?  How will it be different than the prior alphabet soup of process  and quality improvement programs like QMS, SPC, TQM, …?  Should you get involved in this and how should you participate? 

Fundamentally, 6-Sigma says: Make the business processes effective and efficient by making them reliable, predictable, and focused on customer recognized value. This focus and emphasis ties into several recent topics you have seen in these columns and provides opportunities for you: Sales Culture and Value Proposition. 

Read more in this months article by Geoff Rhine.

Good Selling!

-Todd

As a sales leader we have firmly established your most important role is to develop, coach and mentor your sales team.  Right?  Right.  You will succeed by having well trained and developed sales professionals who deliver revenue.   

Now, the question I want you to think about is this -  do you know what motivates your people? Have you taken the time and really thought about each of your sales people and what is each individuals motivation to be at your company and be successful?  Is it money?  Is it challenge or the opportunity to work for a solid company?  Is it for future advancement?  Do you know what actually gets your people up each and every day, brings them to work and motivates them to be successful?  If you do not know, then I want to suggest to you that you  are accountable  to know that.  This is not a separate thing you have to do or another initiative you have to add to your plate!  

Understanding your peoples motivation and coaching to that motivational force is a central responsibility you own as a sales leader.  It comes from excellent coaching and mentoring-your ongoing responsibility.  For example if a rep is money motivated have you taken the time to ask them “how much money do you want to make”?  Once you get the answer (and using the compensation plan) show them how the numbers actually break out and create the roadmap for attaining that income.  Keep that exercise front and center for the duration.  Or if your rep is motivated by being promoted, have you created a plan that you both agree on are the things they need to do to be considered for promotion?  

Final point-if you dont know, just ASK.  Make that conversation part of your ongoing dialog with your people.  You will earn a greater level of trust and respect. 

Great sales leaders KNOW what motivates each member of their team and they coach to that.  Your results increase over time and your people feel better and more motivated to give it everything if they know you care about what is important to them.  That is sales culture.

Good Coaching!

-Todd

From time to time I am asked to assist in a search for my clients who are building great sales culture. I have a few openings to share with you. They are with a Fortune 500 company in the Staff Augmentation and Professional Services business. They are a solid 1B plus company and we have a need for the following sales professionals:

Atlanta Based Director of Sales. Responsible for the growth and development of one of THREE key hubs for the company. This is a very high profile position with aggressive compensation. You must be Atlanta based and have a knowledge of that local market.

Sales Executives. We have needs in the following cities for hunter type sales professionals. Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Phoenix, Des Moines and Dallas. Great compensation and career potential.

If you are interested and want to be considered for these positions, you must be a member of the ToddCohen.com sales community. Once you join, just send me a message with your resume and cover letter and I will get in touch with you.

Thanks and Good Luck!

Good Selling!

-Todd

Have you ever taken the time to ask yourself this question?  ”How do your clients see you”?  It can be a tough one and one you NEED to ask your clients if you are going to have long term and sustainable relationships that help you create your success.

Much more to the point, this says much about a key part of building a sales culture….“How do my clients see me”?  That question needs to be constantly asked and evaluated by the sales organization. That question is a differentiator and it is worth asking yourself or if you are a sales leader, ask your sales teams (possibly as a workshop exercise) at your next team meeting.  You might be surprised at the answers.  Asking that question also helps you as a sales leader develop the right coaching for the team. As an individual contributor it helps you shape your interactions with your clients so you are serving them as best as you can.

Finally as a sales leader, I know you all know that you need to own some level of relationship with as many clients as possible for many different reasons.  Ask them when you can..“how do you see us…”  This dialog that results can be healthy and allow pathways to develop deeper relationships and lead to more business. You show yourself as rising above the transactional fray.  You demonstrate your (deeper) interest in the client and what is important to them.

As always, let me know what you think!

Good Selling!

-Todd

Ok, I its time to confess my secret.  I see sales people everywhere.  Every time I interact with someone I see some element of selling.  I have always said that “Everyone is in Sales“ and I see it all the time.  Do you see it? The Barista at Starbucks, flight attendants and ticket agents ( including one excellent agent from Northwest Airlines who recently went above and beyond to help me) the locksmith I had to recently use and so on.

So why do I think that these are all sales people in some fashion?  One is that they are all engaged with a client and are trying in some fashion to help and serve.  How they handle there duties leaves an impression on me and will certainly influence whether I will do business with them again.  They are in essence helping to build a sales culture.  Sales culture and client centricity are very closely tied together and I will soon releasing another white paper that will explore this topic much more.

Think about it the next time you are interacting with someone. Are they trying to help you and secure your business or your satisfaction?  Do you “see selling”?   Have they done something to leave you with a positive ( or negative) impression?  Would you do business with them again?  Have they sold their company as being client focused or not?

So, try it out-do you see sales people everywhere?  

As always, let me know what you think!

Good Selling!

-Todd

Q3 is Here……yes, it has snuck up on us and now we have to keep the momentum strong. It is now more important then ever that we each hold ourselves accountable for keeping up the momentum. If we are to leverage what we have started and finish the year at or above plan we need to keep the momentum strong. Great sales leaders leverage the positive and at the same time ratchet things up.

Momentum is KING.
How can we keep up the momentum?

• Increase you field travel where possible and cost effective. You will accelerate more deals by being in the field as much as possible. This is excellent coaching time-in real time. Prioritize your field travel to see more clients at the bottom of the funnel than those at the top. Walk away with orders.
• Drive CRM usage. The need to leverage CRM is increasing. Your plan and review sessions, your coaching and your client conversations will need to be underwritten by the data in the CRM, not exclusive of it. Your job gets easier over time.
• Increased use of your virtual team. Dont do it all by yourself!
• Develop at least one new solutions opportunity per month!
• Ask more questions and dig deeper with your reps and your clients. Dont be invasive-be helpful and create and environment where you help people think critically and discover answers. Ask “why” more.
• Managers-Do your 2nd Half “reviews” NOW.
• Make sure you are demonstrating a sense of urgency in everything you do.
• Do not accept mediocrity.

I am sure that you have good ideas about how to keep the momentum going. Now is a great time to put them into play and give yourself and your sales team all of the momentum you need to go to the end of the year and beyond.

Let me know how I can help.

Good Selling!
-Todd

It time for “Todd’s List of Annoying Sales Talk”….or something like that.  I actually just invented this today after hearing a speech where the presenter answered every question the same way by starting with “I want to be frank with you”  or ” I want to be honest here”.  Seriously folks how many times have we as sales professionals started to answer a question posed to us by a client with something that sounds like ” “Let me be honest” or ” Can I tell you the truth?” ..

We all do it and we are all guilty of using these awful starters when in fact we are not being dishonest or disingenuous at all.  The issue with using these type of phrases is that they cast a doubt in the clients mid that you are actually being truthful.  The rub here is that we all do this as more of a reflex than anything else!  I actually think that using these starters is some sort of infraction of the “Sales Professionals Code of Conduct” and should be banned!

So, what can we sales professionals do?  Well, a little more diligence about what we say is always a good start.  We can make sure that we are listening carefully so that as we answer a question, we actually start with the answer and not this sort of preamble.  Its fairly easy and it just takes practice.  The next time you find yourself saying to a client  ”I want to be honest with you”,  STOP, look at your client and own the fact that you started this way.  Fess up, have a laugh with your client.  You will earn more respect that you don’t sound like everyone else and you are aware of your words!

As always let me know what you think…and of course be honest with me!

Good Selling!

-Todd

Are you thinking about energy management? I bet you are thinking that I am talking about how to conserve gas or reduce your energy bills. Nope. I am not.

I was in a sales meeting with a client today and the topic was one that I have spoken about with you often. The topic I refer to is time management. Great sales professionals are good at managing and getting the most from the hours each day ( and nights we work). Time management s a key part of being successful and feeling good about what we do. OK, now during this meeting, we started talking about time management as a form or our personal energy management! I thought this was a very intriguing spin on this topic and for me an “Ah HA” moment.

So, here is what I took away from that meeting. We are only human. We only have so much energy to give to any given activity at any given time. We want to be the best sales professionals we can and it means that we take care of ourselves and do the things to make sure our energy is always at peak. Now, I am the first to admit that I am guilty of poor energy management. I need to take a vacation. I need to resist the temptation to eat junk in the airports during the many layovers and delays one has to deal with as an air traveler ( in fact as I write this blog, I am sitting in a VERY crowded Atlanta airport with 20 paces of some cheese steak place) and so on. We need to exercise and keep ourselves de-stressed as much as possible. The list goes on. Right? All of this adds up to energy management-our personal energy is a weapon we as sales professionals have to wield to “win the battle” and close the business.

So…..watch your energy levels! Do the things you need to keep them at peak and keep your selling time and skills at their peak as well.

Good Selling!

-Todd