NZ Sales Manager Issue 13

ocT 29TH 2008 / Issue 13

Closing Versus Consulting Do closing techniques still have a place in the consultative sale?

Overcoming The Fear Of Failure

No Pain, No Gain!

A Gen Y shares some old school sales advice

OCT 29 th / Issue 13

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CLOSING VERSUS CONSULTING Do closing techniques still have a place in the consultative sale?

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THIS WEEKS MUST READ

Successful People Aren’t Afraid Of Failure

Timely Reminders For

When Things Don’t Work Out

7

9 TWO MINUTE TOP-UP

No Pain, No Gain!

A Gen Y shares some old

school sales advice 10 NZSM CALENDAR 13 BOOK REVIEW THE HANDBOOK FOR LEADERS

24 lessons in

extraordinary leadership

by Jack Zenger and

Joseph Folkman.

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13 SALES TRAINING DIRECTORY

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14 THE CLOSE

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ABOUT /

re you a leader in your field?

To continue providing readers with the best value possible, NZ Sales Manager will be introducing a new column called “Sales Focus” focusing on sales and sales management advice for specific industries.

Specifically we’re looking for leaders with sales or sales management expertise in the following industries:

• IT • Telecommunications • Advertising & Media • FMCG • Real Estate • Finance • Business Services

So if you have sales knowledge and experience in any of the above field’s and would like the chance to give something back to New Zealand’s sales profession while building your reputation at the same time, you can download an information sheet here for more details on what’s involved and a list of suggested questions to get you started.

This is your chance to help out aspiring sales professionals in your industry!

And if you have any ideas for other industries you’d like to see included in our Focus column, feel free to email me your suggestions.

Short and sharp, New Zealand Sales Manager is a free fortnightly e-magazine delivering thought provoking and enlightening articles, and industry news and information to forward-thinking sales managers, business owners and sales professionals.

EDITOR / Richard Liew DESIGNER / Jodi Olsson ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES / +64-9-361 1375 or email richardl@nzsalesmanager.co.nz CONTENT ENQUIRIES / +64-9-361 1375 or email richardl@nzsalesmanager.co.nz ADDRESS / NZ Sales Manager Magazine,127a Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby, Auckland, NZ. +64-9-361 1375 WEBSITE / www.nzsalesmanager.co.nz

Richard Got any thoughts on this topic or articles in this week’s issue? We’d love to know what you think. Email your comments to richardl@nzsalesmanager.co.nz and we’ll share the best ones in future issues.

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Closing Versus \\ Consulting

Do Closing Techniques Still Have A Place In The Consultative Sale?

By Liam Venter

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raditional sales training used to include a focus on teaching sales people a number of different closing techniques. You have all heard of closing techniques with names like: The “George Washington Close” The “Alternative Close” The “Standing Room Only close” Etc Yes, I believe that these types of closing techniques may statistically improve your sales rate when you are retailing fruit and vegetables or simple low cost widgets. Many training programmes go further than this, suggesting that you should adopt an “ABC” (Always Be Closing) mentality.

sales environment is the erroneous assumption that the sale will be won or lost on what you do at the very end of the sales process.

Sure you could blow it at this point, but if the customer has already made up their mind not to buy, some devilishly brilliant close (that will momentarily make the customer lose their reasoning) will cause the customer to give you to the order, is unlikely. The exception to this may be the, “I have got a gun to your Mothers head” close.

What is implied by ABC to me is that you are expected to be so far out of step with your customer that you have no idea when they will be ready to place their order, and so you attempt to secure it at every possible opportunity in case you miss the golden moment!

Unfortunately, people who would disagree with me on this have immediate feedback and perfect logic to support their belief. “I used this closing technique and I got the order” so therefore closing techniques work. Or “my closing technique was weak and I lost the sale at the last minute, therefore I need to close harder/better/ more often”. Their ‘close’ is the most immediate event prior to receiving (or not) the order and so it easy to assume there is a direct correlation between the close and the success of the sale.

My problem with all closing techniques in a consultative

The reality is that what you do during the sales

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development, such as discovering and prioritising compelling issues, building value and creating a return on investment proposition with the customer has far

order. Instead I found at the end of the sales process I was typically making a confident recommendation to the customer to purchase the solution I proposed, and in placing their order they were directly responding to this direction. I also discovered that this approach is very common with other sales people in consultative selling situations.

Research in retail selling has shown that customers put off purchasing decisions when faced with the uncertainty that choices present. And I think the same factors makes customers more comfortable to place orders when sales people confidently direct them to do so.

A consultative sale is a step by step process.

Receiving the order at the end of the process should not be a hurdle that you and the client suddenly have to jump over.

My thinking on this is that the client has engaged with us in the process because we add value (specific environment and product expertise) to the sales process and therefore our recommendation to them, when it comes to decision time is highly valued and influential.

Research in retail selling has shown that customers put off purchasing decisions when faced with the uncertainty that choices present.

While I have never thought closing techniques were important I used to think that yes, you needed to ask for the order. I believed how and what words you used to ask for the order were not important. Anyway, one day I decided to analyse how I asked for the order and surprisingly I discovered I was never asking for the

And I think the same factors makes customers more comfortable to place orders when sales people confidently direct them to do so. Of course this would be a very silly approach if you hadn’t already worked with them to analyse their requirements and evaluate possible solutions.

more determination on the successful outcome of the sale than any last ditch efforts at the end of the sale.

Liam Venter is an Auckland based sales trainer and author of The Consultative Sales Professional.

Visit his website at www.salesfish.co.nz.

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Successful People Aren’t Afraid Of Failure //

Timely Reminders For When Things Don’t Work Out

By Jeff Mayer

Successful people know that nothing ever goes exactly as planned.

As Frank Sinatra sang: “You pick yourself up and get back in the race. That’s life...”

And no matter how hard you work, sooner or later you must face the reality that you failed. You tried to do something and weren’t successful. You didn’t get the result you wanted. You didn’t get the job you hoped for.

You didn’t get the raise you deserved. You didn’t close the big order. Your largest account just walked out the door.

You struck out with the bases loaded. You missed the winning shot at the buzzer. There was a fly in the ointment.

There was a glitch somewhere. You failed. SO WHAT! You don’t close every sale. You don’t win every game. You aren’t going to hit a home run every time you’re up to bat.

You don’t always get what you want. Failure is OK. It’s part of life. It should be expected.

You don’t feel sorry for yourself. You don’t mope around.

You pick yourself up and do it again and again and again until you get it right!

Failure is as much a part of life as success. Losing is as much a part of life as winning. The most important thing to think about is how you can ensure that you won’t fail in the same way a second time.

The bigger question is: What do you do next? What do you do after you’ve failed?

REMEMBER: You just can’t fail the last time you try.

Life is a series of trial-and-error experiences. We are taught something by a teacher, and then we try to do it ourselves. The first time we do it we probably don’t get the results we want. So we try again, and again, and again.

With practice we get better.

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Then we push ourselves as we try to do something that’s a little bit more difficult. As we succeed, our expectations increase, and so does the satisfaction that comes from the feeling of a job well done. So we set our sights a bit higher-to improve our results as compared to what we’ve done before and in relation to the results of those with whom we are competing-and we try again. We continue to push ourselves to new heights.

When we succeed, we once again raise the bar. And when we don’t, we go back to work to improve our skills and talents, and try again. That is why I feel that the subjects of success and failure are so intertwined: because it is through failure that we grow and develop as individuals. We learn through our failures. Failures show us our flaws, our imperfections, the areas in which we need improvement.

In order to achieve your goals, to fulfill your desires, to make your dreams come true, you’re going to have to work. It is hard work that makes you better at what you do, and failing from time to time is just a part of life.

REMEMBER: If you’re not experiencing failure, you’re not working hard enough.

// Overcome The Fear Of Failure Failure is trying to do something and not getting the desired results. Fear of failure is something else. Fear of failure causes paralysis. It’s unfortunate, but many people go through life with a fear of failure. They’re so afraid that they’re going to make a mistake, that they won’t do something right, that it won’t be perfect, that they don’t try to do anything at all.

So what happens? They become paralyzed and don’t do anything. And with this paralysis they lose the ability to have a rewarding, meaningful, and enjoyable life.

It’s just physically impossible for someone who has a fear of failure to achieve anything, because that person has never tried. She never gave herself the opportunity to succeed.

It is in doing, trying, and experiencing things you never did before that you grow and develop. Through practice you get better and better at the things you do.

// Learn From Your Failures When you experience failure, take some time to reflect upon what happened. Pull out a pad of paper and start

writing down the answers to these questions: Why did this happen?

What could I have done differently?

How can I do it better next time?

What changes should I make in my strategies?

What can I do to improve my planning and preparation?

Study these answers. Analyse them. Then go out and do it better the next time.

One day when I was playing tennis my instructor and I had a conversation about strategies. He said that if you’re losing, change your game. And if that doesn’t work, change your game again. You may still lose, but lose as many different ways as you can.

// Overcome The Six Symptoms Of Fear Fear is being afraid. It is being anxious. It is feeling that you are in danger. In life, fear can be real and it can be imagined.

But fear is actually nothing more than a state of mind that is subject to your control and direction. You can run away, or you can face the thing that is causing you to feel fearful. It is in facing the thing that is causing you to feel afraid that you grow as a person.

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These are the Six Symptoms of Fear:

1 2

INDIFFERENCE: You write things off because you feel they aren’t important. They’re beneath you.

You don’t want to be bothered with them.

OVER CAUTIOUSNESS: You’re excessively or overly cautious. You check everything over and over and over again. You want to make sure everything’s right.

INDECISION: You can’t make up your mind. You don’t know if you should or shouldn’t do something. Or you can’t decide if you should do A instead of B. So you do nothing!

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4 5

WORRY: You feel anxious. You’re uneasy. You’re not sure you made the right decision. You don’t feel confident.

DOUBT: You’re not certain as to what you should do. You can’t make up your mind. You’re apprehensive.

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PROCRASTINATION: You put things off till later.

You defer action. You wait so long to do something that the window of opportunity has opened and closed.

Don’t allow these six symptoms of fear to keep you from achieving your goals.

Jeffrey Mayer is the author of best sellng book Time Management For Dummies, Success is a Journey and Winning The Fight Between You and Your Desk, all available on Amazon.com.

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NZSM / OCt 29TH 2008 / 9

No Pain, No Gain

A Gen-Y Salesman Passes On Lessons From An Old Bugger

By Alastair Noble

E

verywhere you look lately it all seems to be about the pain.

Endless “doom and gloom about retail spending” pain, “finance company” pain, “business confidence” pain.

To a young optimist like me, 2008 is characterised by the transformation of “emo” from a condition afflicting surly teenagers with bad taste in music, to a condition for journalists and anyone with a soap box to stand on to succumb to en masse.

To me this emotional obsession with economic pain is talked about so much, it’s impossible for even the deafest and most stubborn young salesperson to not be lead up the garden path of doom and gloom.

I remember having a rather elderly sales manager in one of my first sales jobs. He had some wisdom for times like this.

“Toughen up, yah blouse!” was Murray’s favourite phrase.

Whether we were complaining about sales, or stubbing our toes, it was all the same to Murray. The universal antidote for the world’s woes as prescribed by Murray…

“Toughen up...!”

For all his gruffness Murray was quite sage. Like many in his generation he didn’t say much but he was a deep thinker. Murray was to communication what a machete is to a samurai sword - that is to say blunt and forceful but very intimidating. When we were moaning about deals going south and Murray told us to “toughen up” what he really meant was “smarten up”.

See, what Murray was saying in his old fashioned blunt Kiwi manner was, “Look son, you have structured the deal all wrong. You’re trying to sell them on price without understanding the motivating factors on their behalf. Like

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the inexperienced young Muppet you are, you’ve ballsed the whole thing up and need to be a lot smarter!”

them more is certainty of supply, or quality guarantees, or supply scalability.

It took a few years until I learnt the lesson myself, selling wasn’t so much about price, or even features, it was all about the benefits baby, and not just the ones connected to the features!

So here is a tip from Murray about Sales 101. Listen and question, qualify and quantify the size of the problem you’re fixing, and figure out in dollar terms the value you are adding. In times of economic difficulty try to use your business acumen to fully quantify the value of your solution and show your client the return on their investment.

It was about the financial cost of the problem my solution was fixing. It was about the synergy created between divisions by using my solutions, the indirect production capacity gain from overall efficiency, the saving from making two positions redundant and automating the functions much more reliably!

So here is a tip from Murray about Sales 101. Listen and question, qualify and quantify the size of the problem you’re fixing, and figure out in dollar terms the value you are adding.

Talking to a lot of sales managers or business owners, this is a common trait they see lacking in their younger sales staff. Many old pro’s see it when they are being sold to by their suppliers who keep turning the conversation to price, when what interests

So there you go salespeople, young or old, let’s stop moaning about the pain and toughen up, I mean smarten up…!

Alastair Noble started his sales career in retail before joining an international radio communications company as an account manager and progressing up to national operations manager. He is now a consultant and operations manager at the Rev Sales Network.

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NZSM CALENDAR SAT 1 NOV

SUN 2 NOV FRI 7 NOV

MON 3 NOV

WED 29 OCT

Sales Skills Level 3 EMA Tauranga

TUE 4 NOV

Sales Development David Forman Auckland

Sales Development David Forman Auckland

Key Account Management David Forman Auckland

Key Account Management David Forman Auckland

Prospecting & New Business Development David Forman Christchurch

Fundamentals of Selling Workshop Top Achievers Sales Training Auckland – East

SAT 8 NOV

Negotiation Skills Pro-Formance Driven Auckland

FRI 31 OCT

THU 30 OCT

MON 10 NOV Presentation Skills David Forman Wellington

WED 5 NOV

THU 6 NOV

Sales Development David Forman Auckland

Sales Development David Forman Auckland Negotiation Skills Pro-Formance Driven Auckland Hit The Ground Running Sales Seminar Top Achievers Sales Training Auckland

WED 12 NOV

TUE 11 NOV Presentation Skills David Forman Wellington Fundamentals of Selling Workshop Top Achievers Sales Training Auckland – West Sales Skills Level 2 EMA Rotorua

SUN 9 NOV THU 13 NOV The Executive Healthcare Representative (Healthcare only) Pro-Formance Driven Auckland Advanced Serous Selling Geewiz Wellington Motivation & Attitude Geewiz Wellington Hit The Ground Running Sales Seminar Top Achievers Sales Training Hamilton

WED 19 NOV Developing & Managing Business Relationships NZIM Auckland Sales F.U.E.L EMA Auckland Sales Development David Forman Christchurch

TUE 25 NOV Presentation Skills David Forman Auckland Hit The Ground Running Sales Seminar Top Achievers Sales Training Wellington Sales Basics Geewiz Christchurch

FRI 14 NOV The Executive Healthcare Representative (Healthcare only) Pro-Formance Driven Auckland

SAT 15 NOV

MON 17 NOV

Presentation Skills David Forman Wellington The Executive Healthcare Representative (Healthcare only) Pro-Formance Driven Auckland Sales Managing – Outstandingly Successful Sales Teams Geewiz Christchurch

TUE 18 NOV Developing & Managing Business Relationships NZIM Auckland Fundamentals of Selling Workshop Top Achievers Sales Training Auckland – North Sales Development David Forman Christchurch

Sales Development David Forman Christchurch

Prospecting for New Business Geewiz Christchurch

SUN 16 NOV THU 20 NOV Sales Development David Forman Christchurch Sales Basics Geewiz Auckland Fundamentals of Selling Workshop Top Achievers Sales Training Auckland – South Hit The Ground Running Sales Seminar Top Achievers Sales Training Christchurch

WED 26 NOV Presentation Skills David Forman Auckland Sales Prospecting NZIM Auckland Sales Skills Level 1 EMA Auckland

FRI 21 NOV

SAT 22 NOV

MON 24 NOV

Sales F.U.E.L EMA Auckland (20, 21 Nov)

Presentation Skills David Forman Auckland

SUN 23 NOV THU 27 NOV Sales Basics Geewiz Christchurch

FRI 28 NOV

SAT 29 NOV

SUN NOV NZSM / OCt 29TH30 2008 / 12

BOOK REVIEW

The Handbook For Leaders 24 Lessons For Extraordinary Leadership

By Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman Published by McGraw-Hill “The Handbook for Leaders” contains 24 lessons for extraordinary leadership.

‘What makes a great leader?’ Thousands of workers were asked that one simple question.

Their top responses are compiled in “The Handbook for Leaders”.

This precise, no-nonsense rulebook lists the 24 competencies and guidelines identified time and again as essential for becoming an effective and extraordinary leader, including: focus on results; cultivate interpersonal skills; lead organizational change; learn from mistakes; develop your people; be open to new ideas; take initiative; build strengths; fix fatal flaws; take a non-linear approach; and, be accountable.

The ability to lead is far more than just a natural gift. Study after study shows that leadership is a concrete and learnable skill, one that can be acquired and honed by studying and applying specific proficiencies, attitudes, and habits.

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“The Handbook for Leaders” introduces you to the requirements for effective leadership, then provides you with a systematic program for attaining, developing, and implementing those skills.

NZSM / OCt 29TH 2008 / 13

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I hated every minute of training, but I said, Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.

Muhammad AlI

NZSM / OCt 29TH 2008 / 15