The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
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eISBN: 978-1-90939-586-2
www.newgeneration-publishing.com
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction to Sales
Chapter 2 Preparation
Chapter 3 My Best Sales Lesson Yet
Chapter 4 Motivation
Chapter 5 Building Rapport
Chapter 6 Adapting to different People
Chapter 7 Getting Past the Gatekeepers
Chapter 8 Smart Calling
Chapter 9 Questioning
Chapter 10 Listening
Chapter 11 Selling with NLP
Chapter 12 Handle the Person, Not the Objection
Chapter 13 Positive Words and Language
Chapter 14 Lead Generation
Chapter 15 Gaining Referrals
Chapter 16 FAB Selling
Chapter 17 Cross Selling and Up Selling
Chapter 18 Handling Rejection
Chapter 19 6 Components of Success
Chapter 20 Negotiations
Chapter 21 Retail Selling
Chapter 22 Time Management
Chapter 23 Gaining Commitment and Closing
Chapter 24 Howlers
Chapter 25 Conclusion
Chapter 26 Free Resources
Chapter 27 About the Sales Doctor
This book is dedicated to my Dad, Ray. For being my inspiration, for teaching me right from wrong and showing me how to be the best sales person in the world for just being me.
I would like to thank my gorgeous wife Shana for being a continuous support to me and spurring me on every day to succeed. Most importantly for giving me the best gift in the world, my adorable children Harry and Poppy. The three of you are my entire world and every day I think about you all it quickly reminds me of why I work as hard as I do. I am truly blessed!
A big thank you to my business partner, my father in law and my friend. You provided me with the best opportunity in the world for which I am forever grateful. Now stop reading this and get back to work, who told you you could have a break!
A final thank you to my wonderful sister Lucy, for doing such a fantastic job designing my book cover.
And I must mention my amazing mum Ros and mother in law Tina, I love you both dearly.
Foreword
Tony (Bones) Morris contacted me, ‘out of the blue’, to let me know he intended to write a book. He swiftly followed this up with a request that I write the foreword, and without pausing for breath told me how much he admired me as a successful entrepreneur, and is my biggest fan on ‘The Apprentice’.
By way of introduction, I appear in the penultimate episode and put the final candidates through an interview from which they rarely emerge unscathed.
Anyway, I told Tony that I would write the foreword. This was an easy response, as I never expected him to write a book. In truth, I did not even know what a foreword entailed, and I did not expect I would need to.
Shortly after, my son Alex, who had met Tony Bones at University and become best friends, told me how pleased Tony was that I had agreed to write the foreword. I was unconcerned, and chuckled to myself.
A few weeks later, I was having lunch with a friend, and he mentioned that his daughter had told him I was writing the foreword to Tony's book. Yes, I replied, but he is not really writing a book. I was unfazed.
Then, my wife came back from shopping to tell me that she had bumped into a friend who had told her that Tony was writing a book on Selling, and that he was so delighted that I had agreed to write the foreword. Yes, I replied, but he is not really doing it…is he?
On my return from holiday, I received an email from Tony, proudly announcing that he was halfway through the book. He stated that he would complete it by the beginning of September. I emailed Tony and asked him to put a stop to this joking around. He responded immediately and attached his first 100 pages on Sales Training.
Some time went by without any contact from Tony, and then at the end of August, I opened up my email to find the completed draft. What had I let myself in for!
And, I guess that is typical Tony Bones! He has a unique way about him, exceeds expectations and actually does what he says he will do. A fine quality in life and business, and a rarity, in my experience, amongst sales people.
Furthermore, his book on Sales Training is a perfect reflection of the man himself. He is a real character, hard working, resourceful, ambitious and
very funny, and those traits jump out from every page. He tracks his career from painful start, full of setbacks, matched only by an obstinate passion to succeed and learn from his mistakes. He shares his business experiences, successes and early failures, and the lessons he has learned each time, and the techniques he employs to circumvent roadblocks, create opportunities and improve his ‘strike rate’.
Tony has what it takes, shows common sense, determination and down to earth initiatives that everyone can benefit from, particularly helpful to sales people, striving to achieve, or exceed their targets. His style is straightforward, believable and is just as though he is in the room with you, just telling you how to do it!
So, who should read this book?
Well, if you are just starting out, you will enjoy Tony's story telling and his natural style. When you encounter obstacles in your career, you may find it easier to take them in your stride. You will find it helpful to reflect on some of the techniques used to overcome objections and achieve the objective. You are on a steep learning curve and may feel inspired to achieve more and do it with fewer bumps along the way.
For the seasoned sales professional, you will enjoy this book because it is funny and genuine. You will fully appreciate some of the pitfalls, having made them yourself or just avoided them, and by the end of the book, you will enjoy a ‘feel good’ factor, however your neck will hurt as you will have nodded through the pages in agreement.
Now I am not going to say that this is the best book on Sales Training I have read, because it would be as meaningless as telling you how experienced I am at writing forewords!
I can say that I have been around a very long time. My business career spans over 40 years and I have been involved in running numerous businesses, over diverse industries, as well as managing some awkward characters and complex business situations. I am certainly no push over!
However, just look at the ease with which Tony Bones lured me, completely unsuspecting, into writing this foreword, and you will appreciate that he has a way about him, and his book is a good read on so many levels, and I feel good about having been asked to write this foreword. As Tony Bones would say, ‘That's hilarious’!
Claude Littner – Entrepreneur, Trouble shooter and star of the show ‘The Apprentice’.
About the Author
Tony Morris was married in 2006 to his beautiful wife Shana and now has two gorgeous children Harry and Poppy.
Tony gained a 2:1 Honours degree in Business and Marketing from Manchester University before travelling the World for a year.
Tony has over 15 years experience in sales both business to business and business to consumer and has trained over 3,000 sales professionals in a variety of industries. Tony started his career as a telesales consultant for the largest outsourced call centre, where he was involved in selling business to consumer for one of the UK's biggest utility providers. He was awarded sales person of the month for six consecutive months and was then moved into a training role where he wrote scripts and rebuttals and trained every new consultant before they went on the phone.
Tony then moved into a business to business environment selling address management solutions. He started by cold calling and generating appointments at Director Level and then sold in the field. He then progressed within a year, training a team of fourteen telesales executives how to make appointments from cold calling and focusing his time on blue chip clients. In his four years at the company he sold the highest value order of £725,000 over a three year contract.
Alongside his business partner, Boyd Mayover, Tony's father-in-law, they set up a sales training company in May 2006. He started by cold calling to generate appointments for both himself and his partner Boyd. Within the first year they had 56 clients and this has continued to grow year on year. In six and a half years it has accumulated over 280 clients across 75 different industries. The company recently rebranded and is now called the Sales Doctor.
Tony's ethos is you can sell any product or service with the right attitude and a well planned call structure.
Tony grew up in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire and now lives in Shenley, Hertfordshire. He enjoys spending time with his family, watching films, reading and shopping.
Many sales books you will read will be written by many successful multi-millionaires or who claim to be anyway. I am not one of those, YET. I would love to sit here and say I have a different Ferrari for each day of the week and I play basket ball on my heli-pad but that simply would be a lie.
What I can say is “I'm working on it.” I earn a decent salary and have a very nice life style and for once I can now see the light at the end of tunnel and know it is possible to achieve what you set your heart on. To me the most satisfying realisation is ‘what you put in is what you get out’ is now becoming a reality. It's taken many years to see that and there have been numerous bumps along the way and will be many more to come, but I've grown to realise and understand that it's all part of the wonderful game of sales.
Preface
After reading over sixty sales books and listening to about forty five audio cd's it became frustratingly apparent that there were no answers to everyday sales challenges. There were some good techniques and interesting ideas; however I personally struggled to put them into practice in my everyday life as a salesman.
The authors like Brian Tracey, Zig Ziglar, Anthony Robbins, et al are very quick to talk at length about how they were penniless in their early twenties and by mid twenties they made their first million. To some degree this is incredibly inspirational and allows your mind to wander and give you the hope and belief that anything is possible, on the flip side comes the frustration and unanswered questions of how is it possible? The latter part is never really divulged, not in detail anyway.
This is where the motivation for my book was born. I wanted to write a book that not only shared lots of innovative and easy to understand techniques, however it was imperative that these could be implemented into a sales professional's daily role. I am not a millionaire, yet, although I am on my way to being one. I do not have a single doubt that I will achieve this and more, and I hope that doesn't come across as arrogant; the reason for my confidence and belief is at the age of 21 when I had been in sales for a couple of years the thought of earning a six figure salary seemed a dream. The thought of writing a sales book did not even cross my mind as I would have immediately dismissed it as ludicrous. If someone told me I'd be able to afford a four bedroom house, drive a lovely sports car and buy my wife her dream car (for our two children) I would have imagined I'd chosen six lucky numbers. However I have achieved all of the above, and I like to think I am a good husband and dad, which has cemented my beliefs that if you put your mind to it and work really hard you can achieve what you want.
I have made numerous mistakes along the way and I know I have many more to come, however I have developed my knowledge and abilities on the back of these failings. In a bizarre way I am looking forward to my inevitable errors as there are no greater lessons. My Dad used to say to me “what you put in is what you get out” and I never believed this for a second. Now I graft harder than ever before and always give it my all and when you start to see wonderful things happening around you, only then can you start
to believe. I appreciate there is an element of luck on the way, however, as the golfer Gary Player once said, “the harder you work the luckier you get”.
At 34 years old I have so many more deals waiting to happen, hundreds of new experiences to learn from and enjoy, and I genuinely wake up each day excited at what the day will bring. Many of the sales books I've read and continue to read come across like a text book and remind me of being back at school. I wanted to write something that educated sales people, yet in a very light hearted and humorous manner. Don't get me wrong, it's no Michael McIntyre autobiography; however there are plenty of stories that will make you laugh and are more memorable than a case study.
One of the great things about being in sales is you never stop learning, the same applies to life, I guess. Every book I read, every audio CD I listen to and every training course I attend, I always take away at least three things that contribute to my performance in the wonderful game of sales. I am not a writer; I am a performer, so I ask you to bear with me if my grammar isn't perfect. The syntax (I lifted that from another book by the way) could be better and my punctuation could have been done by a four year old. I'm learning and the truth is, we all are every day.
So with no further ado, please read on and enjoy and kindly email me on tony@wedosalestraining.com to share your success.
Chapter 1 – Introduction to Sales
“Success is the ability to move from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”
Winston Churchill
I was born with what people say “the gift of the gab”. I had to be the class clown and centre of attention and my goal at school was to make people laugh. I knew I had a great day when I had everyone in stitches. I was over the moon when my parents returned from parents evening and my Dad had that expression plastered all over his face which translated as he has lots of potential, but just doesn't use it. He's a very likeable and popular boy though and really makes people laugh all day long. To me that was the best report you could get; how naive I was! My parent's friends’ always used to say to me, “you'll be a great salesman, as you've got an answer for everything and can talk the talk.”
It wasn't until my first boss in software sales taught me one of the most important lessons in sales that I have never forgotten; you have two ears and one mouth, use them accordingly. This is backed up by the Italian Economist named Vilfredo Pareto who created the principle known as Pareto Law – the 80/20 rule. It's a rule that can be applied to many scenarios such as in retail they say 80% of your profit come from 20% of your products. When applied to sales if you are on the phone to a prospect for approx. 10 minutes you should be speaking 20% and listening 80%. People love to talk, its human nature, so let them. If people talk they are comfortable, if they're comfortable they like you and if they like you, they are more likely to buy from you. Remember we do NOT sell to anyone, we simply help them buy.
I had plenty of sales jobs growing up as a kid from working in a call centre selling utilities, selling double glazing over the phone, door to door selling newspaper subscriptions. Looking back I consider these roles part of my career in sales, it's from these positions that I was able to grow a real backbone and deal with the daily rejection that you learn is the nature of the beast as a salesman. It's not until you have heard the following abuse: “if you call me again I will come round to your house and kill your dog” or “can I have your home number? “No” I replied, “I don't want people calling me at home. Neither do I, so p*** off and go to hell,” do you start to realise
not to take things to seriously or to heart. It's only then that you realise this is all part of the fun game of sales and you need to become quicker and smarter to play the game and begin to win.
This is not like any normal sales book you have read or are likely to read again. I am telling you the way it is, not discussing the theory that is like listening to your Grandma's story for the 82nd time about how she used to go to tea dances as a teenager. I will give you real life examples of both mine and my client's sales experiences and the things that I have seen and learned over the last twelve years as a sales trainer. I will be discussing the best sales professionals I have had the good fortune to be closed by and the sales people that you get apologising to you over the phone when you reply to their initial question “now is not a good time to speak”.
Many people often ask me, “What are the key things you need to be a successful sales person?” There are so many factors to selling which I will go into in this book, ranging from your tone of voice (tonality), your questioning skills, your ability to listen, and closing techniques. However to answer the question regarding the key things you need to be a successful sales person, I feel there are two things that stand head and shoulders above everything; the first is a positive attitude. This is echoed in many quotes and one I love is from Winston Churchill; “Success is the ability to move from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”. The second is tenacity. One rule that has stood me in good stead throughout my career is to never ever ever give up until the prospect gives me a damn good reason as to why they feel my product or service is not right for them or their business. Only once I feel that is a fair justification I will then keep going, just changing my angle to create new opportunities.
Many people often say, “sales is a numbers game.” That could not be further from the truth. I am one of the worst footballers you could ever meet and if I took 100 penalties against an average keeper I may score 3 by pure luck alone. If you took a footballer that had some ability, who practiced on a regular basis, developed their penalty taking skills and then shot 100 penalties against an average keeper, do you think they might score more than 3 goals? So it's a smart numbers game, meaning the better you are, and the more you do, the better results you will achieve, however you need both to achieve great success.
When I'm cold calling on the phone and crunching those numbers I apply a similar approach and mind set to the smart numbers game as above. I
often think back to a time when I was travelling in Sydney, Australia. I was eight months into my travels and had almost run out of money and had to get my head round the frightening reality of having to return home and enter back into normal life and find a job. I was chatting to an Ozzie guy on Bondi Beach who looked the spitting image of Mick Jagger in his younger years. I was moaning about my financial situation when he said “I have been running a direct sales operation for the past 6 years selling encyclopaedias and I have 130 sales reps selling door to door. Why don't you come and work for me?” he says. Intrigued I asked him, “how does it work?” and he took me back to his house, which I can only describe as the most beautiful castle I had ever laid eyes on. In his office he showed me a giant map of Sydney and the surrounding areas all highlighted in different colours, which marked the different sales rep's territories. He showed me what would be my territory and handed me this 2,800 page book and a ruck sack and said, “you need to go door knocking and have to close on the day. Every encyclopaedia you sell you will earn $150 Australian dollars cash in hand.” I was out the door before he said, “hand” and on I went. I started the following morning and left my hostel at 08:30 to walk to my first road in 79 degrees heat. I was so keen and had already spent my new earned commission in my head. I arrived at the start of my first road and excitedly knocked on my first door. After 8 knocks I realised this was what they describe in sales as time wasting. I knocked on my second, then my third, my fourth and by my fifth no answer I started to think were these houses actually inhabited! It wasn't until my 8th door where a cute older lady aged around 110 answered the door and she had to go and fetch her hearing aid to hear my pitch – great start I thought to myself, the first person I actually get to pitch is deaf. After 25 minutes of screaming at her and watching patiently as she fiddled with her hearing aid I made the executive decision I was barking up the wrong tree and on I went. I kept on knocking, and on my 34th door a young guy opened the door and I thought this is my opportunity. As soon as I uttered the words “Hi, my name is Tony”, BANG and I am now pitching a door! I started having second thoughts and looked at my watch to realise I'd been walking a total of 33 minutes and I was already considering quitting. I remembered my Dad's words “in sales you never quit” and on I went. I must have knocked on about 75 doors and spoken to one person who allowed me to get my pitch out to which he replied quite politely “never come here again.” When I
realised he was the nicest person I'd spoken to all day I realised I chose the wrong area and back to the hostel it was.
The following day my alarm went off at 07:55am and I jumped in the shower and got out on the road, full of the same level of enthusiasm as yesterday morning, as I chanted to myself ‘new day, new opportunities.’ By 16:45 and now the 12 people I spoke to had all told me where to go my chant home was very different.
When I woke up the following day I thought I'm going to give it my final go as maybe sales just isn't for me. I went on my way and got an answer at my first door, and the lady actually let me get my 2 minute pitch out to which she replied “how much?” in a shocked intake of breath. I explained the encyclopaedias normally retailed at 499 Australian dollars, however we are running an amazing promotion and selling them for ONLY 399 dollars (word for word what my script said) and she invited me in. I almost high fived her but thought that may show a sign of desperation so high fived myself in my head. She kindly made me a cold drink and started to look through this huge book that I had been carrying round on my back for the past 48 hours which was starting to create an imprint on my skin. It wasn't until her husband came down the stairs to join us, and within a matter of seconds kindly asked me to leave, and I left to him shouting at her to not invite strangers in. The rest of my day was pretty much déjà vu and by 3pm when the final door was slammed in my face I thought going back to the UK was more appealing than this and I accepted defeat graciously! I went straight back to Mr Jagger's castle to return this stupid unsellable big book. With sweat on my brow and big sweat rings under my arms he looked at me like some vagrant and said “you look a mess let me get you a drink”. My 2nd invitation in 3 days although I was pretty confident he wouldn't listen to my pitch either. I said “it's impossible; I simply don't believe anyone sells these things.” He laughed and said “I have one question for you, how many doors did you knock on a day?” Surprised by his question I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I didn't really count but I guess around 70 a day.” He replied “I chose not to share this with you as I wanted you to learn for yourself however all my reps. measure their figures. They have proven that you must knock on a minimum of 100 doors per day. Only nine people will listen to you pitch and six of them will tell you where to go, some politely and some not, three however will invite you in. Two of these will politely SELL TO YOU a reason why they can't buy today such
as I need to think about it, I don't have the money, I'm not sure I'll use it etc. However one will buy – GUARANTEED”; he said “the numbers never lie.” To say I was sceptical was an understatement and I remember saying “I knocked on at least 200 doors throughout the three days”, he interrupted me and reiterated 100 per day minimum. He said “you have 2 days left of this week and surely its worth trying or maybe sales is not your bag and you should get a cleaners job” and with that I grabbed my book back and went on my way.
14 no answer, 15 no answer, 16 no...... And the door opened. Hi my name is Tony Morris and I have an incredible promotion available for today only.... and he listened to my pitch and then slammed the door in my face. Before screaming obscenities through his letter box I took a deep breath and thought about what Mr Jagger had said, “nine will listen and six will tell you where to go,” so I had eight to go according to him. I kept on knocking and number 31 invited me in. She sat me down and listened intently and then dropped the bomb shell “I need to think about it” and on the outside I was smiling although I am pretty sure she could see me grinding my teeth in anger. However keeping the tally I continued my walk.
Lucky number 67 was what I named Mr Peterson and to this day I remember that feeling as he pulled out his cheque book. I called Mr Jagger to organise an encyclopaedia to be delivered to the door and restraining myself from screaming down the phone I calmly switched my mobile off and continued grinning. As he shook my hand I went in for the man hug, to which he stood there still as a mannequin as I hugged him, until I felt I was invading his personal space. I skipped out of his house and did one of those jumps where you click your heels together and almost tripped over his front garden. I carried on knocking as I was convinced I am on a lucky streak. 33 rejections later I went back to the hostel with the biggest smile on my face and a feeling I will never forget.
No word of a lie, I continued this job for the next 6 weeks and my feelings towards having the door slammed in my face took a full 360 degrees. When door no. 24 was slammed hard in my face I clenched a fist of delight and muttered to myself another 66 to go until I get somewhere. Mr Jagger was right, the figures never lied. People thought I was actually insane when they shouted at me “I never want to see your face again” and I replied with a big grin plastered across my face “good you are the 59th person to say that to me today, so I need 31 more of them.” This was one of
my first, yet most vital lessons in sales, it's a numbers game as long as you learn your pitch well and give it the same level of enthusiasm and passion every opportunity you obtain you cannot fail.
Chapter 2 – Preparation
“My team the Green Bay Packers never lost a football game; they just ran out of time”
Vince Lombardi
Why are some people more successful than others? Why does Roger Federer either win every tennis tournament he enters, or gets into the final on a bad day? Surely he's just naturally gifted you might think. The guy is the closest thing there is to a robot and by far the best tennis player ever to have graced the courts. However he still has a coach, he still practices every single day, and he still has a routine that he sticks to religiously before every game he plays. He watches more games of his opponents than any other player in the circuit. He knows his opponents strengths and weakness, as well as his own. How many times have you phoned your direct competitors acting as a fake customer to see how they deal with you? This is great way of learning their line of questioning that you could bring into your sales patter. How many proposals have you obtained from your competitors? Again this will enable you to take the best bits from each, and amalgamate them into the best proposal. This will surely put you in the strongest position to be successful in a proposal only situation where the prospect wishes to see something before they commit to a meeting.
How would you describe Roger Federer in one word? Champion, Winner, Rich, Successful, Ambitious – there are many more adjectives to illustrate the genius; however the word PROFESSIONAL encapsulates them all.
As a professional sales person preparation is part of the course. Imagine this scenario: person A is about to smart call a prospect (this is cold calling done smartly) as they feel they can help them. They have been on their website for three minutes and have an idea about what the company does and therefore can start to create an angle in terms of what they can do for them. They think of companies similar to the prospect that they have helped, so they are ready to build immediate credibility and value. Person B picks up the phone and makes a call. Who do you think is the most likely to be successful? If you were the only person calling these prospective customers then maybe homework isn't required, however in this
competitive and forever changing marketplace you always need to be one step ahead of your competition.
Do you ever have those conversations where you return from work and your partner or your family say to you “how was your day?” and you think to yourself the same as yesterday and the same the day before. Those conversations used to bore me and I thought how do you avoid this demotivating feeling? I realised if I apply the same mind set in the gym as to when I'm in the office it becomes more fun and competitive. I remember starting the gym at the age of 21 and the trainer showing me all the equipment and setting me a programme to help me achieve my goals of getting fitter and toning up. I recall benching 35 kilos, which at the time seemed a great achievement, except when the beef cake after me put a further 100 kilos on each side of the bar and began his warm up! By the time I reached 23 I was benching 65 kilos and attempted a further ½ kilo on the bar every time I went. When I finally achieved it the feeling was euphoric and I literally could not wait to get back to the gym and beat 65½ kilos. I began to apply the same logic to work. I set myself specific goals every day I was in the office making sales calls. To begin I would strive to make more calls than the day before. I would monitor how many pitches I made and set myself goals to the number of qualified meetings I could generate. To begin with I was delighted at making 1 appointment a day, however as my techniques developed and my confidence grew I was disappointed at only achieving 3 qualified meetings in a day of calling. This system which I still use today, and on which I train others, enables you to monitor your conversions and watch your progression day by day. This is both motivational and identifies which areas need further development. Below is an example of a worksheet I use to monitor my performance on the phone:
As you can see from the table above, on making 100 calls in a day I only managed to get hold of 10 people I identified as the key decision makers, who would be worth meeting. 2 of them were busy and 8 of them I engaged
and had a good conversation and got my pitch across. My end result was 2 qualified meetings and no quotes.
Now many sales people would look at those figures and think they were converting at 2% – they make 100 calls and only achieve 2 meetings and can become quite de-motivated. However the true conversion rate is 25%; 8 pitches and 2 meetings, so clearly a lot of room for improvement, yet much better than 2%. These figures give the sales person a lot of information; why were only 10% of your calls speaking to decision makers? This makes you look closer at the leads you were using and target more effectively. Why did you only manage to convert 25% of your pitches into a qualified meeting? What happened to the other 75%? Out of the 6 decision makers who sold you the reason why they won't meet you, what were the reasons you were unable to create an opportunity to quote them?
To monitor your development I would suggest keeping a record of your daily figures in an excel spreadsheet which can highlight many trends.
To date I have worked with over three hundred clients and I normally work with groups of ten people per client. So when I analyse the 3,000 people and look at what the top 1% in terms of sales performance have in common there is a clear distinction of two things. These factors appear in others that I have trained, however these 30 people have them to an extreme; positive mind set and tenacity.
Part of preparation is getting yourself in the right positive mind set every day. Every one of us has personal issues going on out of work, some more serious than others. However if you bring these into work it will have a negative impact on your performance and your personal problems will worsen as you'll then create work problems as well. Some people like to look at a problem and moan about it. Others like to view it as a challenge and take pleasure coming up with a solution. Which person are you?
There are some people who really like negative people, they are called negative people. You will always find negative people talking and moaning to other negative people about how unfair everything is or how many
problems there are at work, and you can guarantee they'll be bitching about the successful people and how easy they have things. They say, “who you associate yourself with is who you become,” so if you hang around with negative or lazy people all day long your chances of success become much more unachievable; as they'll drain all your positive energy. I have a great friend who is very intelligent, very talented at what he does, yet at 36 years old he has never progressed at work. It baffled me as he seems driven, he's clearly good at what he does, he's well qualified and he wants to earn a good living, yet he had never seemed to make it. It then occurred to me the friends he has grown up with all his life you would label as ‘bums’. Some are unemployed and are not looking for work, most of them take drugs, and none of them have any goals or real aspirations. Unfortunately, by continuing to hang out with them, it has clearly held him back as it's all he sees and knows. Don't get me wrong, to break away from your lifelong friends is not an easy task, but is leaving a partner who physically abuses you an easy task? It depends what you want out of life and what your priorities are.
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb was interviewed many years ago. The interviewer said to him “you have tried to make this light bulb 10,000 times and failed, how can you possibly carry on?” Mr Edison laughed at the interviewer and said “you are both naive and ignorant; I have learnt 10,000 ways not to do it.” A fine example of how your situation can be viewed very differently.
One of the wonderful things about sales is, “there's no such thing as failure, it's all feedback.” What I mean by that is we can all learn from our successes as well as our failures. One example was where I lost a massive deal once, by answering a simple question the wrong way, and it taught me that one of the best lessons in sales was this: an estate agent with over two hundred branches made an enquiry on my website and we had a good twenty minute chat about exactly what he was looking for and the challenges the majority of his negotiators were experiencing. He then said “he'd been looking at four other sales training companies and why should he choose the Sales Doctor over everybody else?” I remember confidently replying “all our trainers are young so will relate well to your negotiators,” I said “we focus predominantly in the property market” (which was not entirely accurate as we train in over 75 industries, yet I was confident this comment would impress him as we have genuinely trained over 30 different
estate agents). I finally replied “all our training is 100% bespoke,” which I thought would be the icing on the cake. After some silent thought he replied “what a shame, this doesn't work for us, but thank you for all your time.” Shocked and confused I said, “I don't understand what have I missed?” He replied, “I like the fact your trainers are young, as I do agree they will be able to relate better to my team, as most my negotiators are aged between 19 and 25. However I was looking for something off the shelf, just a generic sales course giving my team all the basics in sales.” I was thinking to myself we do that, however, it was too late to go from 100% bespoke to 40% are generic. He finally said, “I'm looking for a training company that has experience in a wide range of industries enabling them to share their wealth of experience with my guys.” I started to back track and say “when I mentioned we work predominately in the property market we do also train 70 other industries,” however by this point he had clearly lost interest. What this costly lesson taught me was before I puke all over the customer and tell them what I think they want to hear, I should state, there are many reasons clients choose the Sales Doctor over all our competition, more importantly what are the key things to you? and zip up. This would have allowed the prospect to share his 3 key priorities and I could then clearly demonstrate how we excel in those areas and back them up with real life case studies. Now, although this could have been one of the biggest clients I'd ever won and I could have gone into a state of depression and ready to quit sales, I chose to learn from it instead. This situation has arisen a further four times and I'm pleased to say I've won three of them, so overall I have gained more business on the back of losing that opportunity than winning it. Would you label that as failure?
People say in sales you need to be ‘money hungry.’ I disagree with this theory, I feel you need to be driven, tenacious and have a hunger to succeed, however, people have different motivations. My wife was in sales and very successful, however commission was irrelevant to her, unfortunately may I add! If she got a well done pat on the back by her boss at the end of her week it meant the world to her. After three consecutive months of being the top sales performer she was given a hand written letter by the MD of the company. I am not exaggerating when I say she came home skipping with a smile on her face like a Cheshire cat so that I thought she'd won the lottery.
We have a client which has an inbound call centre with 65 operatives taking calls. One of the areas that the client wanted help with was to
improve the morale. We bought a trophy that couldn't have cost more than a tenner but the boss had the top performer of the week knocking at his door on a Friday night demanding the trophy before going home. This clearly shows different things motivate different people, and as a manager it's part of your job to know what motivate each member of your team.
Scientists said it was physically impossible to run the mile within 4 minutes. They said the way the human body was designed and developed it was an ‘impossibility’. In 1954, Roger Bannister was the first person ever to run the mile in 3:59:58 minutes. What was so incredible was within 3 weeks John Landes beat Bannister and ran the mile in 3:57:59. Within the next year a further 8 people had beaten that record. What did Roger Bannister have that no one else possessed? Pure self believe and a sheer desire, with a ‘can do’ attitude that overcame the so called ‘impossible’. To be fully prepared for any situation if you think you'll fail, it will be almost impossible to succeed. However if you truly believe you'll succeed then you will be in a far stronger position to succeed. What was so incredible about this is it took just one man to prove it's not impossible and then very quickly nine people followed suit. As human beings, if we believe something to be impossible, then it will become impossible, and most of the time we won't even attempt it, so we can therefore avoid the disappointment. Next time you go to do something and that inner voice starts saying to you “that's impossible”, think about Roger Bannister and think to yourself what would he have done?
Chapter 3 – My Best Sales Lesson Yet
“Winners never quit, quitters never win” Vince
Lombardi
One of my best lessons in my sales career to date that taught me so much was when I was selling address management software. This is the software that when you enter your postcode on a website it populates your full address. It also cleansed millions of data records and was used in all the major call centres and other big businesses all over the UK.
I was driving home from a day of meetings and my mobile rang about 16:30 from my office. It was our receptionist called Karen who said, “I have a PA on the phone from a company who wants some ‘information’ on our data capture software, it sounds like a complete waster, shall I just take a message” she said? If I'm honest I couldn't be bothered to take the call and was inclined to agree with Karen. I thought it's a PA so not a decision maker or an influencer, they are simply looking for ‘information’, I had software to sell, and if they want information they should look at our website or visit the library. I had never heard of the company before so clearly a tin pot Mickey Mouse operation. But I reluctantly told Karen “to keep her on hold;” I pulled over into an Esso petrol station in Highgate, got out my notebook, a pen and my diary and was as ready as I'd ever be. The call went something like this:
PA: Hi there, my name is Louise and I'm calling on behalf of Ian Higgins, the Global IT Director of XXX and we need some data capture and data cleansing software for our three hundred seat call centre in Bracknell and was wondering if you could help?
ME: As I was busy calculating how much money this deal could actually be worth I managed to get the words out, “of course I can help”. I would recommend I come and see you and Ian and find out much more about your set up and your specific requirements.
PA: That would be ideal, could you come tomorrow? as I know Ian wants to get on with this pretty sharpish. The meeting was organized for 10am the following day.
Lesson 1: Never EVER EVER EVER prejudge a situation as you never know how big an opportunity could be. I now treat every single call the same no matter from which company they are calling or for what they are asking. Remember they may be looking to spend £50 with you, which in commission will earn you tuppence, but who do they know? You treat them well and you could get the referral of a lifetime.
Lesson 2: Never listen to Karen.
I awoke at 6:15am as by looking at route planner it was 68 miles to Bracknell and said it would take an hour to get there, so I gave myself 2 hours. I wanted to spend a good hour looking through XXX website and familiarising myself with the various parts of their business and exactly what they do. My previous knowledge was I believe they are a bank and are French, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. After looking through about 20 pages on their site and writing out about 8 questions in my meeting book I checked I had everything in my work case; the software itself, my laptop and adapter, business cards and a working pen. I had printed out a copy of their home page which would be visible when I opened my notebook to show I had done my homework. I put on my best suit, shirt and tie, as they say, ‘how you look on the outside is an exact reflection of how you feel on the inside.’ I polished my shoes and was ready for action.
I remember vividly the first meeting was with Louise and Ian. Ian was a real ‘techie’ and asked loads of complex questions about how the software would integrate with their system and what code it was built in, Linux or blah blah blah and what flavour of Linux. Just to clarify my technical expertise, I am very good at turning on a laptop and I like looking at pictures and I can send emails, that's as far as it goes. My manager at that time, a guy called Greg said “to impress the prospective customer about your technical knowledge ask the following questions: “on what platform of Windows do you operate?” “What API's would you use to integrate into your system?” However when I asked Ian these two questions his eyes lit up and he replied Windows NT version 8.2 and uses Linux language. I almost crapped myself and rude words were going through my mind about Greg as Ian began to fire these technical questions at me. I had to explain that I am almost Amish in my technical knowledge and my objective of the meeting was to gain an understanding of his specific requirements and then I would bring along my technical director to go through the finer detail about the actual software.
Lesson 3: If you are lacking knowledge in a certain area, do not expose that weakness by asking questions regarding that area.
Lesson 4: Never listen to Greg.
In the meeting I managed to ascertain a lot of information about their set up and the issues that were arising in the call centre, regarding down time and speed of response. By doing this, not only was I highlighting the need, but by asking problem questions it was helping me make the issues worse than Ian first thought. This naturally built the value of my offering and developed the need even further. These problem questions were taught to me from a fantastic sales book called ‘Spin Selling’ by Neil Rackham which I would strongly recommend if you sell any type of IT solution.
I noticed Louise was making notes in the meeting yet remaining very quiet. So I got her involved and asked about her background and her remit at XXX. She said, “I'm Ian's PA and pretty much run his work life, organise his meetings etc.” She also mentioned she helps the call centre manager on occasions with purchasing equipment and dealing with any problems etc. After about an hour and a half we wrapped up the meeting and I said “I would go away and put a proposal together and come back with my technical director to go through the techie stuff and run through the proposal face to face.” We got out our diaries and the second meeting was made. If you know a follow up meeting is needed rather than a phone call, always arrange that when you are with the prospect. This clearly shows a level of commitment from their end and you don't have to worry about chasing them afterwards.
Lesson 5: If there is more than one person in a meeting, make sure to include them in the conversation somehow or other.
I lost a very big deal with my training company because there were three directors, a senior sales manager and a PA in the meeting. I didn't completely ignore the PA, but I probably didn't say more than ten words to her in the meeting, as I didn't feel she played any real relevance to the discussions. When I got the email to say I'd lost the business they said, “Sam, the PA, didn't warm to me and she was unsure if I would have fitted in with the sales team.” Apparently after meeting three other training companies they all had an equal part in recommending which one to choose. An expensive lesson to learn, but a good one none the less!
After my second and third meeting with Ian, the call centre manager and their IT Director, we started to make real progress with XXX. They told me all along I was up against our biggest competitor who I knew were similarly priced to ours and had a very similar offering. Both solutions had the same capabilities at the end of the day; we may have just wrapped it up slightly differently. We were about four months into the sales cycle and the final test was the software trial. I went back to Basingstoke with my technical director whose first language was “techie talk”. By this I mean you couldn't let him speak to the customer because not only would he scare them, but he would 100% lose the opportunity for me. I had to brief him very strictly that he could only speak when spoken to and was to answer their technical questions only. He wasn't a personable guy so anything that came out his mouth sounding condescending, rude and obnoxious. To give you some idea he was 47 years old, still lived at home with his mum and I would hazard a guess probably still took baths with his mum; not in a sexual way, in a weird way if that makes sense. We set them up for a thirty day trial of the software and I had arranged to return for my fourth and final meeting to gain their feedback and hopefully do the business. I knew what their expectation of the trial was, I knew they were testing it against our competition, and in my knowledge I had done everything I could to get the business. We had set key criteria to trial the software against, in terms of speed, outcome, volumes of data it could handle etc.
Over the next month I had gone through our pricing structure with Ian for the software licences, as they required a server licence to cover all three hundred users of our solution. This was the most expensive licence we offered and we were looking at approx £250,000 over a five year licensing agreement. Although this sounds a huge amount and for me at the age of 23 it was the biggest deal I had been involved in, I only earn commission on the year one licence. The MD of the company made a commercial decision to not pay the sales team on retaining their client, which as you can imagine caused numerous sales meeting debates, but it led to the same inevitable outcome; like it or lump it.
I returned a month later to their Head Office in Basingstoke on my own to get feedback on the trial and to potentially do the deal. I had the contract in my case and I was ready to do business. As I entered the building there were six sales people sitting patiently in reception with their badges on clearly displaying the name of my competition. They all stared at me and
