ARE YOU “PREPARED” TO WIN? Professional athletes make winning look so easy! When they take the shot or make the kick that wins, it seems they do so . . . effortlessly. What most of the spectators don’t realize is that professional athletes prepare and practice about 100 hours before they play in a big game or match. And remember, these are people who have enormous natural talent and years or decades of training behind them.
Still they practice. Seems like preparation and practice are pretty important if you want to win and become a champion. And in the profession of selling, we all know that holds true. One of the primary goals of SOLD Magazine it is to produce a publication that delivers practical content, so the process of preparation and practice is simplified and accelerated for sales professionals.
. . . especially in the hard times. And one of the most common hard times is when a salesperson falls into a “sales slump”. This month’s issue takes a look at the dreaded “sales slump” and examines how you can get out of a sales slump if you happen to be stuck in one and how you can avoid getting into a sales slump in the first place. And, like always, SOLD is full of ideas, tools, strategies and tactics that will help you improve other aspects or your sales process and sales skills as well. It is our hope you will find this month’s content useful, practical and valuable.
And don’t forget SOLDLAB.COM Just a reminder, each week, we post new articles, videos, podcasts and audio programs on the SOLDLAB.com site that are not included in SOLD Magazine. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Keep on Closing! www.soldlab.com
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07 4 Steps to Busting Your Sales Slump 11 5 Ways to Visualize Your Goals More Powerfully 14 How To Reduce Stress At Work To Increase Your Sales Results 16 How To Survive Outside Your Comfort Zone When Making Sales NETWORKING
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25 7 Ways to Cut Loose from Old Sales Thinking 28 How to Get Customers Buying in the New Economy 30 The Lies Buyers (Accidentally) Tell You
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PRESENTATION
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Presentations That Move Right to the Sale Value Selling Warren Buffett Style 4 Most Common Presentation Mistakes Six Business Presentation Tips That Your Customers Will Love
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43 The Confirmation Step: The Missing Link In Your Sales Process 47 Negotiating and the Three Ts: Trust, Time and Tactics 48 Using Success Stories to Close Sales
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51 3 Steps to Getting High Quality Referrals From Your Clients 55 5 Ways To Love Your Customer 57 Treat Your Customers Like Royalty to Gain Loyalty
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Do You Have What It Takes to Be in Sales –Take the Quiz
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ave you ever walked into a retail store where the salesperson was extremely rude and sounded annoyed when you asked about a product their store was selling? Or you received a cold call from a salesperson trying to sell you something over the phone and he/she was just rambling in your ear not allowing you to get in a word edge wise? Or you wanted to return or exchange something and the salesperson gave you a hard time even though you had a legitimate complaint? Many salespeople are inexperienced, not qualified to be in sales or are simply in the wrong profession. So what does it take to be a great salesperson? In part, it starts with some fundamental traits. To quickly determine if you have the qualities or personality traits to become a great salesperson, answer Yes or No to the following questions:
YES ? NO
OR
01 Are you goal-oriented? 02 Do you act on what you say you will do? 03 Do you genuinely care about your customers & their needs? 04 Are you a good listener? 05 Are you good with people? 06 Are you confident & have a desire to succeed? 07 Do you have a willingness to learn from failure and move past it? 08 Are you generally an optimistic & enthusiastic person? 09 Do you take responsibility in the face of problems? 10 Are you persistent? SCORING: Give yourself a 1 for each question you answer with a Yes. EVALUATION: Score of 10 – You definitely have the qualities to become a great salesperson. Score of 7–9 – You could become a great salesperson with some modifications. Remember, you can’t change someone who doesn’t want to be changed. You have to want to change yourself. Score of 5–6 – You need to evaluate whether sales is a good career choice for you as you definitely will be challenged with the personality traits you currently possess. This is not to say that you couldn’t become a good salesperson but the lack of these traits will hold you back from realizing your full sales potential. Score of 4 and below – Just pointing out the obvious. Why are you in sales OR even considering a career in sales? It’s time to reconsider another career. | — by Eleanor Kwan
Eleanor Kwan , CSP, is a Toronto-based consultant who provides expertise in the areas of business development, sales and service to help companies increase revenues and client satisfaction. For more business related information, visit http://shapeyourvisionbusinessblog.blogspot.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eleanor_Kwan
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4 Steps to
Busting Your Sales Slump
It amazes me the number of salespeople, business owners and even sales leaders that I talk to who complain that their or their sales team’s sales are hurting and when asked what they are going to do about it respond with “I (we) have to increase my (our) prospecting and marketing activity.” www.soldlab.com
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Ah, it sounds like they have a grasp on the situation – at least until the next question is asked: what activity? Inevitably the answer is some version of “what I’m (we’re) doing now.” Let’s see, here . . . They are currently doing certain prospecting and marketing activities that aren’t bringing in the business they need, so their solution is to increase the time and energy they are investing in doing the things that aren’t working in order to get them to work. It sounds to me like they need to invest in a really good psychiatrist.
Simply increasing our activity won’t get us out of the slump
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We tend to think that a sales slump is simply the result of a lack of activity and consequently, simply increasing our activity will correct it. That’s not the case. Simply increasing our activity won’t get us out of the slump
The Anatomy of a Sales Slump Sales slumps are generally caused by a combination of factors, any one of which could have been the original tailspin creating catalyst: Negative Expectations: In sales attitude is second only to activity. We tend to get what we expect if for no other reason than our prospects can read our expectations through our voice and body language and if we expect to fail, why should our prospect believe in us? Once negative expectations begin to weasel their way into our thinking, it’s hard to keep them from destroying our self-confidence. Once our self-confidence is shot, for all intents and purposes we’re shot—our activity level falls off dramatically, we expect our prospecting strategies to fail, we “know” that it’s fruitless to try, so even when we do force ourselves to prospect we do so in a half assed manner. Insufficient Activity: Although activity isn’t everything in sales, it is the single most important factor in success. Intense activity can make up for a multitude of other sales sins. Yet when activity seems pointless it becomes almost impossible to act. Once the downward spiral begins we tend to get lost in our self-pity and we focus our attention on feeling sorry for ourselves instead of investing that energy in forcing ourselves to act. Wrong Strategies: The prospecting and marketing strategies we have been using are no longer effective—either because we no longer believe in them or because they are wrong for our market.
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2 We Can’t Bust Our Sales Slump Because We’re Insane We’re all familiar with the old saying that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. We laughed when we first heard it—and we agreed. We thought it such a silly idea that anyone would see that something isn’t working and then believe that the solution was to do more of it. Ha, ha. What idiot would be that dumb? Us idiots, of course. No, we’re not idiots and we’re not dumb. But just as others have gotten so wrapped up in something that they failed to see the illogic in increasing the amount of time and energy they were investing in activities that weren’t producing the results they wanted, we also get wrapped up in trying to break out of our sales tailspins that we don’t see the folly of investing more time and energy in just doing more of what isn’t working.
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Busting Your Slump So, if these are the three factors in a sales slump, the solution should be easy right? Just change the negative expectations to positive ones, increase activity, and change up the prospecting strategies, and voila, presto-chango, you’re out of the slump.
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If only it were that easy. Busting out of a slump—or beginning to generate business if you are a new salesperson—is difficult. It takes a great deal of resolve. It takes dedication. It takes learning long-term strategies to put your sales career on solid footing. Here are four steps to getting yourself back on track (or on track if you’re new to sales): Begin Creating Your Winning Sales Attitude: Changing your attitude from negative to positive isn’t an overnight process. It takes time. It takes effort. And although you can’t wait to begin to bust your slump until your attitude has changed, you must be actively working to change your attitude while you’re digging yourself out of your slump. A great place to start is Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. ACT: This is the most difficult to do, but you must force yourself to act. Fortunately if you’re working on your attitude and changing your prospecting strategies at the same time, forcing yourself to act will be a bit easier. Action by itself will help clear your head and will begin to slowly bring in the business you so desperately need. Yes, at first it will literally be forcing yourself to act. There is no easy way. Change Your Prospecting Strategies: Whether your strategies are failing because you no longer believe in them or because they are wrong for your market is immaterial. Finding and implementing new proven strategies will help your confidence, will take
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some of the feeling of hopelessness off, and will give you a new focus. Just as a change of scenery can revitalize you, a change in prospecting strategy can also. The problem is what strategies can you use that will actually produce the results you want? Fortunately there are a number of possible strategies that can generate business quickly. Let me mention a couple here: Orphans. If you work in an established office you probably have dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of orphan files at your fingertips. When was the last time anyone in your office
You must be actively working to change your attitude while you’re digging yourself out of your slump
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worked those files? If you work in the typical office the answer is “it’s been so long ago that no one even knows.” But you know what? There’s a fortune in those files just waiting for some industrious seller to mine it. Now you can’t just start taking files at random. There’s typically a great deal of
You have to attack the attitude and activity issues that are there and then go beyond that to creating or recreating your sales foundation
information in old files that can help guide you to business. Look for files that have been orphaned long enough that they might need to place another order or files that indicate they could be prospects for additional products or services. Since you’re in the file, look for positive financial information—concentrate on those who may need and can afford you.
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Eat Your Way to Success. You probably take a coffee break and/or go to lunch every workday. Most of us do. Most of us waste that time by spending it alone or with officemates. Instead of wasting that time, turn it into business development time. Take a client who is a great candidate for add on sales or a prospect—or a great referral partner prospect–to lunch or meet one for coffee every workday. If you take a potential sale or referral to lunch every day, it won’t be long before your pipeline will be full. ‘For more detail on these two strategies as well as ten more proven, effective slump busting strategies pick up a copy of my newest book, Bust Your Slump: A Dozen Slump Busting Strategies to Fill Your Pipeline in 30 Days, available at Amazon as both a paperback and as a Kindle book. Learn Long-term Success Strategies and Skills. Most of the strategies in Bust Your Slump won’t work for you long-term. They are strategies that will increase your business quickly but they have a limited shelf life—how many orphan or dead files can you find? While these short-term strategies increase your sales and your income, you must take advantage of that reprieve to learn and implement the long-term skills and strategies that will keep you from suffering another slump—or to get your new sales career on solid ground so you never suffer a slump. You can overcome a career slump. You don’t have to suffer with crappy sales. You must, however, take the steps necessary to truly bust out of your slump or to put your new sales career on a solid foundation. Just getting a spurt of new business isn’t good enough. You have to attack the attitude and activity issues that are there and then go beyond that to creating or recreating your sales foundation. If you’re not willing to do that you may as well go ahead and get out of sales right now since there’s really no use in prolonging the agony. | — by Paul McCord
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Paul McCord , founder of McCord Training, works with sales teams and sales leaders to help them increase sales and profits by instituting effective strategies to find and connect with high quality prospects in ways prospects accept, respect and respond to. Author, speaker, trainer and consultant, Paul’s clients range from giants such as UBS, New York Life, Siemens, and GE, to small and mid-size firms, as well as individual sales leaders. Visit his website: http://www.dynamicsalesgrowth.com
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5 WAYS
to Visualize Your Goals More Powerfully Y
ou’ve got your goals set. You’re excited about them and the prospects of achieving them. Whether those are true statements for you personally, for your team/organization or both, congratulations! They’re both necessary and important steps. And, they aren’t enough. I’m guessing you’ve heard about visualizing your goals. Many tell me it seems silly, others think it doesn’t help. Most don’t understand how or why they should do it. By the end of this article I’ll show you how to visualize in practical, and even in some fun, ways. And, you’ll know why visualization is so important. It’s simple really. If you want to improve the chances of achieving your goal and if you want to achieve it faster, then you need to visualize your
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success. I could give you tons of technical reasons why this is true, but for now, this should be reason enough: You are more likely to get your goals (and get them faster) with visualization. With that in mind, here are five specific ways you can visualize your goals individually or as a group (if it’s a group goal).
Apply the as-if principle This is partly about how you write the goal, stating it in present tense as if it has already occurred (i.e. “On February 15, 2011 I weigh xxx pounds”). It goes beyond that too. By writing the goal in that way, and thinking about it that way (more on that in a minute), you are actually helping your subconscious brain implant an image of you successfully completing the goal in your mind.
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Make it (literally) visual You’ve probably heard if you want a new car to put a picture of that car where you can see it. That’s a good start. Better: if the picture is of the exact model in the perfect color with you in the driver’s seat. Best: if that picture was taken in your drive way (any dealer will happily help you make that happen). If you have team goals have a specific picture of what success is and post or place it where everyone can see it.
Close your eyes and imagine everything you will be seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing and tasting when you have achieved your goal
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would describe the results of your successful goal attainment. Write it with quotes from you and others. Like any great story remember to include the facts and details of your success.
Review, remind and re-energize This is the turbo charger for the other four. Doing each (or all) of the other four strategies is great. But doing them once will have limited value. Every time you review or re-read your “as-if” goals you are further implanting that vision (reread them often). When you have the pictures, place them where you can see them often – a digital image on your phone or computer, on your bathroom mirror, on your refrigerator, etc. Once you have created your mental rehearsal, replay it in the theater of your mind often – for your most prized goals, do it every day. Making this a habit is an incredibly powerful strategy. Once you have written the story, read it again. And again. And again. Make it more vivid like a good editor would. Read it until you can almost recite it.
• • • •
These strategies may seem strange or unusual. The reality is that they are unusual to most people – but not to the most effective goal achievers. If you want to achieve more – faster, these five strategies will help you. Open your eyes and look at the bright future you can create! | — by Kevin Eikenberry
Do a complete mental rehearsal World class performers in all realms do this – because it works. And you can too. Close your eyes and imagine everything you will be seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing and tasting when you have achieved your goal. The more vivid you can make it and the more sensory details you include, the more it will help you implant the vision in your mind. While this might seem a bit challenging at first, with practice you will find it both fun and valuable.
Kevin Eikenberry is an expert in developing organizational and individual potential who lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. Kevin holds a B.S. with honors from Purdue University. Upon graduation from Purdue, Kevin began his professional career with Chevron Chemical Company, where he held a number of sales, marketing, training, and consulting positions. In 1993, he formed his own training and consulting organization, now known as The Kevin
Write a story When compared to the complete mental rehearsal, the idea of a story might seem easier. The best answer? Do both! Write your story like a journalist
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Eikenberry Group. The Kevin Eikenberry Group is a learning consulting company that provides a wide range of services, including training delivery and
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design, facilitation, performance coaching, or-
Powerquotes Plus, a fee-based daily publication
ganizational consulting, and speaking servic-
that adds personal coaching to the Powerquotes
es. They have worked with Fortune 500 com-
offering; and Vantagepoints, a monthly email
panies, smaller firms, universities, government
essay of learning from everyday events and ac-
agencies and more. His client list include: vari-
tivities, distributed to over 5,900 subscribers
ous Chevron companies, John Deere, Purdue
worldwide.
University , the Red Cross, Southwest Airlines, the U.S. Marine Corp, and the U.S. Mint.
Kevin is the developer of the Million Dollar Skills Learning System, a top flight learning sys-
Kevin has spent the last 12 years helping or-
tem on valuable life skills delivered in bite-sized
ganizations all across North America reach their
pieces that create powerful and productive
potential. His specialties include: teams and
habits. He hosted an internet radio program for
teamwork, creativity, developing organization-
two and a half years, Magical Movies with Kevin
al and individual potential, facilitation, training
Eikenberry, on the leading internet-radio site,
trainers, presentation skills, consulting and the
VoiceAmerica.com. A former weekly contribut-
consulting process and more. Kevin’s students
ing editor to the TechRepublic web site, his ar-
and clients consistently rave about his effec-
ticles have been published in over 50 internet
tiveness, many calling him “the best trainer I’ve
newsletters and featured on many web sites.
ever experienced.”
Kevin has served two terms as Chair of
As a speaker, Kevin gives keynotes for or-
the NASAGA Board and as that organization’s
ganizations and non-profit groups on life-long
President. He is the current President of the
learning, developing human potential, teams
Purdue Agricultural Alumni Association. He is
and teamwork, creativity and more. He has pre-
a member of many other professional organi-
sented to the National Speaker’s Association
zations, including, NSA, ASTD, ISPI, IAF (In-
(NSA), to international conventions of the North
ternational Association of Facilitators), and
American Simulation and Gaming Association
IAL (International Alliance for Learning). He
(NASAGA), the International Society for Perfor-
serves on the Board of Directors for two other
mance Improvement, the Association of Internal
organizations as well.
Management Consultants, and the National As-
In 2004 Kevin received Distinguished Agri-
sociation for Experiential Learning. He has also
cultural Alumni award from Purdue University.
presented at regional meetings of the American
He was named an Outstanding Alumnus of Pur-
Society for Training and Development, and the
due University in 2002, and serves on the Dean’s
International Society for Performance Improve-
Advisory Council at Purdue. He has been recog-
ment. Other clients for his speaking services
nized in the Who’s Who in the Midwest and Who’s
include Jaycees, Indiana Farm Bureau, Purdue
Who Worldwide.
University, The Red Cross and MECA.
Kevin’s goal is to reach organizations and
Kevin is a contributing author of the best-
individuals who believe in the power of action –
selling book, Walking with the Wise (Mentors
organizations and individuals who are passion-
Press 2003) and has been a contributor to
ate about succeeding at their highest level.
eleven Training and Development Sourcebooks
If Kevin can help you in any way, call him at
since 1997. He is also a contributor to Pfeiffer
317.387.1424 / 888.LEARNER (toll free in the
and Company’s 20 Active Training Programs,
US) or via email at Kevin@KevinEikenberry.com.
Volume 2. He publishes four email-based publi-
Contact Information:
cations: Unleash Your Potential, a weekly pub-
The Kevin Eikenberry Group
lication, to assist organizations and individuals
7035 Bluffridge Way Indianapolis, IN 46278
in turning their potential into desired results;
phone: 888.LEARNER or (317) 387-1424
Powerquotes, a weekly publication, read by
fax: (317) 387-1921
more than 90,000 people worldwide, featur-
website: www.kevineikenberry.com
ing a quote along with questions to reflect on;
email: info@kevineikenberry.com
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How To Reduce Stress At Work To Increase Your
Sales Results
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Stress is the trash of modern life – we all generate it but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life.
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Terri Guillemets
Identify Your Work Stress.
Stop Multitasking.
Before you can eliminate or reduce stress, you must know what you are dealing with. Write down all the stresses that you deal with on a daily and weekly basis. Then create a top 10 list of all the things that cause you stress and determine which items you can eliminate from your list.
Doing multiple tasks at the same time might seem productive, but in reality it slows us down from completing tasks, reduces the quality of work, and creates stress. Learn to single-task and get more done.
Shorten Your Scheduled Meetings. Consider cutting many of your 60 minute meetings to 30 minutes and your 30 minute meetings to 15. With a shorter time frame to work in, you will be forced to be more productive.
Cut Out Negative People. You know who they are. They can drag you down and create more stress. Surround yourself with other positive minded people and you will feel less stress.
Simplify Your Work. Look for ways to make your tasks more streamlined and simple.
Stop Procrastinating.
Give Back & Help Others.
Allowing work to pile up will stress you out. Plan time to get things done and off your desk.
Whether you volunteer for a charity or just make an effort to be more compassionate to those around you, you will notice it lowers your own stress levels. Try it out for a day and see how you feel.
Get Organized. Disorganization can cause a significant amount of workplace stress. Block time to get things organized.
Always Be On Time. Being late will cause a lot of stress at work or in your life. Learn the habit of being early, and this type of stress will disappear.
Stop Trying To Control Everything. Trying to control situations and people does not work. In fact, when we are in the state of trying to control, it just creates more stress at work and in our lives. Learn to let go of situations that are out of your control. The only thing you can control is yourself.
Take Mini Breaks. Studies have shown that concentration levels decrease 25 to 30 minutes into a task. If you don’t take any breaks, your focus and productivity will drop. Plan and enjoy mini-breaks during your work day.
Exercise! This is hands down #1 in my book and it works like magic. Exercise reduces stress and helps prevent it. Also, a healthier and fitter person is better equipped to handle stress. The key here is to be consistent and make working out a habit, just like brushing your teeth. | — by Jeremy J. Ulmer
Jeremy Ulmer is one of the most dynamic and requested sales experts in the country. His company specializes in working with sales management, individual sales performers, and sales organizations to transform their sales results. They deliver customized sales coaching programs and corporate sales training. Sign up for free Sales Tips and free sales webinars at: http://www.SalesCoachingHabits.com
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From one friend to another, here
is the poem…
Comfon)rt Zone (Author Unknow
I use to have a Comfort Zone Where I knew I couldn’t fail The same four walls of busy work Were really more like jail. I longed so much to do the things I’d never done before, But I stayed inside my Comfort Zone And paced the same old floor
How To Survive Outside Your Comfort Zone When Making Sales Being a salesperson is never easy. To sell effectively, you must to be willing to do things that challenge you. No top producer has ever reached the upper ranks without first moving outside their comfort zone. Someone recently sent me this poem and I wanted to share it with you. I hope it inspires you to keep challenging yourself and be willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. No one ever said that sales was easy, but a little bit of inspiration never hurt either! | — by Rob Lawrence
Rob Lawrence is ranked one of top national trainers in the mortgage industry. He is the currently the CEO of Battlecall.com, coaching, tools and resources to turn mortgage professionals into mortgage warriors. Visit http://www.battlecall.com for his free “Sink Or Swim” weekly newsletter, mortgage training, marketing advice and more! Jumpstart your career in the mortgage business, starting today.
I said it didn’t matter, That I wasn’t doing much I said I didn’t care for things Like diamonds, furs and such
I claimed to be so With the things insibusy But deep inside I lo de my zone, Something special ofnged for my own. I couldn’t let my Just watching othelife go by, I held my breath an rs win. And let the change d stepped outside begin. I took a step and w I’d never felt beforeith new strength I kissed my Comfo , And closed and lockrt Zone “goodbye” ed the door. If you are in a Com Afraid to venture oufort Zone, Remember that all t, At one time filled wwinners were ith doubt. A step or two and Can make your drea words of praise, Greet your future ms come true. Success is there fowith a smile, r you!
Article Source: http://www.ArticleCity.com/ p // y /
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NETWORKING
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FAINT
The New Definition of a Qualified Prospect It’s 2011. You work for a new company in the search engine space. Let’s call this company Shmoogle. Shmoogle has this huge new idea–businesses are starting to grow based on getting found on the Internet. Why not have businesses pay per click to get found? Brilliant! You’re a sales person at Shmoogle, and you know pay per click will be huge. You start prospecting on the phone. www.soldlab.com
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NETWORKING
N ETWORKING You: Hello Ms. VP of Marketing. This is Lamont Sanford with Shmoogle. I’d like to speak with you for a few minutes about our marketing program that’s helping companies like yours generate a lot of leads and new business on the Internet. Ms. VP (who pleasantly accepts cold calls): Sure. Let’s talk. (FIVE minutes go by. Conversation goes great.) You: OK, then, I think pay per click search engine marketing is perfect for you. How much budget do you have set aside for this? Ms. VP: I don’t have a budget for pay per click marketing – or a budget for marketing at all right now. You: (Thinking to yourself: darn, not a qualified buyer.) Well, give me a call when you have one. Of course, only a complete loon would finish a call like that. The wrong turn was the salesperson’s fault, though, for asking the question about budget in the first place. Would-be buyers stymie many salespeople when they say, “We don’t have a budget for this” or “Our
People with authority to make decisions in their organizations find money all the time for things that were not on their radar screens during business planning time
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budget is spent for this year already.” Sellers too often just accept that “no budget” means no sale. People with authority to make decisions in their organizations find money all the time for things that were not on their radar screens during business planning time, and so they can capitalize on opportunities as they arise. But why do sellers always ask about budget, even when it’s not appropriate? The problem is the definition of a qualified sale. The definition of a qualified sale is almost universally accepted as BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeframe to buy. No budget, not qualified. Sales people are thus conditioned by this definition to seek budget and to move on when they meet someone who has no budget. As Jill Konrath points out in her article The One Question that Can Kill Any Sales Conversation, the budget question is silly in some situations (like that above) and can put buyers back on their heels. The first step in overcoming the “no budget” hurdle: don’t ask about budget when you shouldn’t. If you want to change the tendency to ask about budget in the wrong situations, you need a new definition of a qualified buyer. A definition that won’t drive you as a seller to ask inappropriately about budget and that can help you capitalize on the hidden opportunities all around you. Thus we give you FAINT.
FAINT—The New Definition of a Qualified Prospect As we know, BANT is the definition of a qualified prospect that professionals and sales managers use universally. BANT is fine when a buyer: ● Knows they’re going to buy something ● Knows what they’ve paid for it in the past, or
knows “what it goes for” ● Can define for themselves what needs to happen to produce the outcome they want But many purchases in business don’t happen like that. Think Shmoogle. Unplanned purchases, including most demanddriving products and services, won’t have a budget allocated.
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FA I N T THE NEW DEFINITION OF A QUALIFIED BUYER STANDS FOR:
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UNDS: Focus initially on organizations and buyers that have the financial capacity or funds to buy from you. They may not have a budget, but they have the overall financial wherewithal to spend. Sell where the money is. UTHORITY: Focus on finding the individuals who have the authority to make decisions on how to use funds. If the organization has the financial capacity to spend if they found something to be worthwhile, you must deal with the people who have the authority to allocate said funds. NTEREST: Generate interest from the buyer in learning what’s possible and how to achieve a new and better reality than the one they have today. EED: Uncover specific needs that you can solve. They’re likely to be latent—hidden beneath the surface—but they’re there if you can uncover them. IMING: Establish purchase intent and a specific timeframe for doing so. This can, of course, take a number of conversations, might involve a number of decision makers and influencers, and may take some time to do. Once you do it, however, you now have a qualified prospect and a real opportunity in your pipeline.
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N ETWORKING This is why we like FAINT better than BANT. Follow BANT only, and you can shoot yourself in the foot with budget questions, and by disqualifying buyers that don’t have a budget set aside just waiting for you. If you’re selling a value-added service, one that presents a compelling business case to a buyer to engage, what should you ask instead of the budget question? After you’ve captured their attention, generated interest, and uncovered need, you should have a good sense of what the business impact of moving forward will be. When you find yourself here, ask something like this: Here’s what seems to be going on. You have situation A, B, and C happening, and that’s causing X, Y, and Z problems. If we were to move forward with
Unplanned purchases, including most demand-driving products and services, won’t have a budget allocated
Mike Schultz
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our solution, we would probably save you about $600,000 a year. I don’t have enough details yet, but it will probably require between $50,000 and $75,000 to realize those savings. If we got to the point that you were confident in us and that what we’re offering will work, would you have the ability to move forward? If they say no, that “it’s just too much, even if we were completely certain it would work,” then a) they’re crazy (If they’re so certain it will work, they should borrow the money to realize the better than 500% return.) and b) you can now move on to new opportunities. Assuming you’re dealing with a decision maker and you’re working with an organization of the right size and type, it’s likely they’ll say yes to your question. (Take note: the person in this example might not have the ability to pull the trigger on the $50,000, but the organization might. If you think that is the case, work your way to a higher level decision maker) It’s not that budget is never a consideration. You could indeed find someone with a budget and the authority to spend it. But if you just think about BANT, you will miss the majority of opportunities that are actually out there for you and your company. So many sales people tell us something like this all the time, “Our clients buy what they’ve always bought from us, but we have so many valueadded products and services that would definitely make a difference…and they’re not even considering them! How do we change that? We’ve brought them up before, our clients seem interested, and when we ask what their budgets are, there never is one.” They never should have asked the budget question in the first place. | — by Mike Schultz
is President of RAIN Group, a sales training, assessment, and sales performance
improvement firm, and world-renowned as a consultant and sales expert. He is co-author of the books Professional Services Marketing (Wiley, 2009) and Rainmaking Conversations: How to Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation (Wiley, 2011). Mike is also Publisher of RainToday.com, the world’s largest publication (over 100,000 subscribers) for selling and marketing professional services. RainToday was recently recognized as the Top Sales Resource globally in 2010 by the Top Sales Awards. Mike can be reached at mschultz@raingroup.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @mike schultz.
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Sales Skills Capturing the Prospect’s Attention and Interest at the Start of Your Face-To-Face
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ales skills, your key strategy: In the important opening moments as you begin the face-toface sales meeting, echo the hot-button that worked on the phone. Why? In your earlier phone contact with the prospect or Decision Maker, you had only a few seconds to trigger interest, and convince her to invest time in meeting with you. But you can’t take for granted that this interest will carry over from that phone conversation until today’s meeting. In the days since then, she may have fielded hundreds of other calls, and now may have only a vague memory of who you are, and why it seemed a good idea to invest time in meeting with you. Pressed now with other concerns, she may be looking for a reason to end it quickly and get on to what seem to be more important matters. For that reason, it’s a good idea to spend a few moments at the start recapturing her previous interest, and setting the stage for a successful call. Here’s how:
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SALES SKILLS, OPENING TIP #1: Review the interest-generating statement you used during the phone conversation. What you say now should not be a word-for-word repeat of your phone message, but rather should echo the essence of that conversation as a brief reminder of the hot buttons that captured interest earlier. But be brief. This should normally not take more than a couple of sentences: “As I mentioned in our phone conversation last week...”
SALES SKILLS, OPENING TIP #2: Be prepared to cite a BRIEF success story to heighten interest. Here’s a model you can adapt to fit your situation: “We have recently been able to help a number of other engineering firms in this area. For example, we saved Brown and Hennessey nearly a thousand dollars per month in clerical costs. Stone and Feeney were about to hire an additional secretary,
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N ETWORKING but the productivity gains we developed made that unnecessary – again, a very large savings in direct salary, benefits, and even office space. “That’s why I believe we can be equally helpful to you, so I’d like to begin by asking a few questions to determine where we might best be able to help your organization.”
SALES SKILLS, OPENING TIP #3: Be prepared for possible last-minute hesitations and objections. Sometimes, around the start of the call, the prospect may raise objections like these: — “You’d be wasting your time.” — “I’ve decided I’m not interested.” — “My job is to practice law, and I leave decisions about systems to my office manager.” — “We already investigated this idea, and decided it’s not right for us.” — “We don’t have the money.” Keep in mind that these are NOT call-killers, they are simply objections, or even alternate ways of asking questions. Respond to last-minute hesitations like these as you do other objections. Most importantly, don’t assume that you understand just what
APRIL | 2011
that objection means. Does “We don’t have the money” really mean the firm is broke, or does it mean they don’t want to spend on something they’re not yet excited about? Never take an objection for granted.
SALES SKILLS, OPENING TIP #4: Generally avoid “Ice-Breakers” The approach recommended here is direct and downto-business: First, introduce yourself. Second, refresh the Decision Maker’s recollection of why she agreed to see you. Third, if appropriate, briefly cite a relevant success story. But you should be aware that there is another school of thought on sales skills training on opening the sales call. That is, some sales managers and trainers prefer to open with “ice-breakers,” hoping to build rapport before getting down to business. Thus they might first spend some time chatting about the weather or traffic, or about the golf or fishing trophies they see on the wall. But if you project yourself into the mind of the prospect, I think you’ll understand why I’m convinced that ice-breakers are not a good idea. The prospect invited you for a business purpose, not a social call. Given today’s pace of work, few have time to kill on small-talk with strangers. Besides, if you open the call by talking about golf or trivia, you come across as someone who’s not very serious about business. Even worse, you may be perceived as manipulative. The prospect knows why you are there, and will appreciate your getting on with things, and not wasting valuable business time. Still, there are some circumstances, and some parts of the country, where ice-breakers are appropriate. For example, if you already know the prospect from another context – perhaps from a church, civic, or professional organization, or from passing on the golf course – a few words may be in order. Similarly, in some locales, (especially smaller towns where the pace is slower and people tend to be more interested in others), a little socializing may be appropriate at the start of the call. If you do choose to open with ice-breakers, be alert to signals that the prospect is now ready to move on and get to business. These signals are often non-verbal, by movements, and facial expressions.
Never take an objection for granted
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Often a shift in the chair from a relaxed to an upright position indicates the prospect’s shift in interest. Another signal: a change in expression as the welcoming smile segues into a more formal expression. | — by Michael McGaulley
Michael McGaulley http://www.SellingFacetoFace.com . Books include How to Sell Face-to-Face Survival Guide; Sales Training Tutorials; Sales Presentations and Demonstrations; and Selling 101. Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Increase Prospecting Results By Integrating Your Touches
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onnecting with prospects for the first meeting requires persistence, consistency – and simply wearing them down. You can speed your access time by integrating your communication strategy with multiple connection methods without frustrating prospects. We’ve spent many hours working with clients on ways they can refine their prospect touch points,
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and improve their overall prospecting results. Touch points include phone calls, emails, direct mail, and any other forms of communication. Most sales people I’ve worked with have a solid cold calling strategy to gain access to their prospects. They cold call once every 2-3 days, and send follow-up emails every week or so. This approach gives the sales person a chance to project their
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N ETWORKING professionalism and their interest in working with the prospect, by voice over the phone, while also providing the prospect with the opportunity to respond easily via email. This thorough approach helps get a more immediate response, letting the sales rep know if they have a real opportunity or if they should move on. While this successful communication strategy is very effective, there are several ways to enhance it and speed access to new prospects. FIRST, rather than periodically following a call with an email, integrate email into your cold call strategy. Send an email following every 2 calls, or in place of every other call. The prospect is still hearing from you, knows you are interested in connecting, and has an easy way of responding. A reminder tip: remember to email no more than every 3 days.
The more you integrate your touches, the easier it will be for your prospect to respond
SECOND, consider integrating events, articles, or other marketing news that may be of interest to a prospect into your strategy. As you spot information that may be useful to a prospect, pass it along with a quick note. This will grab the prospect’s attention
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in a more personalized way, further demonstrating your interest in meeting, and helping you to standout from your competitors. Some items you might want to pass along to a prospect include: A newspaper or trade publication article with information impacting their industry. This shows that you are paying attention to their business, and have solutions for their needs. If you are a member of a city chamber, industry organization, or other relevant organization, consider events a prospect might be interested in attending and invite them. Newsletters or news releases from your own company - sharing information that would be important to a prospect - should be sent with a personal note keeping the prospect current on the options available to them. THIRD, let the message you use for voicemail and email evolve. Begin with your initial value proposition, and integrate in new knowledge you have gained from gatekeepers, voicemail and email messages, events you are aware of, and information you have sent or read. Your prospect will become immune to the same tired message no matter how many times you reach out, so let it evolve just as you will during the sales process. The more frequently - within reason - your contact hears from you, the more he will recognize you are not going away and are serious about meeting. The more you integrate your touches, the easier it will be for your prospect to respond. To gain speedy access to new prospects, treat them more personally while staying in front of them. Finding ways to demonstrate you understand their potential needs, and communicate in a more personalized manner, will grab attention and yield the prospecting results you desire. | — by Kendra Lee
Kendra Lee is a top IT Seller, Prospect Attraction Expert and author of the award winning book “Selling Against the Goal” and president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group works with companies to break in and exceed revenue objectives in the Small and Midmarket Business (SMB) segment. Ms. Lee is a frequent speaker at national sales meetings and association events. To find out more about the author, read her latest articles, or to subscribe to her newsletter visit www.klagroup.com or call +1 303.741.6636.
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How to Get
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We hear it all the time: What are customers actually buying? Thanks to tough worldwide economic conditions, money is tight, sales have never been tougher, and qualified leads are much harder to procure. Is there a way to get prospects to buy? In our research, we’ve found that companies still want and need what you’re selling. They’re looking for ways to improve business efficiencies and reduce costs, but there’s a key difference: They need your help to make purchasing easier and to reduce their risk.
Overcoming Your Prospect’s Aversion to Risk Selling in today’s down economy is a two-stage process. The first stage is the same as it has always been: Uncover your prospect’s needs and find ways that your product/service assists in fulfilling them— simple enough. But the second step is the new, critical one that separates many winners from losers right now: You must make your solution easy to buy. Even those companies doing well in this market and with discretionary funds available are highly riskaverse. They simply don’t want to take any chances, so you’ve got to think in terms of how you can reduce their sense of risk as much as possible. To do this, many of the fastest growing innovative companies
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have started offering risk-free trials, money-back guarantees, try-before-you-buy offers, pay based on the value received, and detailed ROI analysis that removes any sense of risk from a purchase. They promote cost savings heavily in their value proposition, and they’re finding ways for many customers to realize savings before payment is due. Find ways for the customers to realize savings before payment is due One company we’ve worked with started offering leasing services that defer payments for anywhere from three to six months—enough
Find ways for the customers to realize savings before payment is due www.soldlab.com
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time to realize a substantial ROI that will more than compensate for the cost. Another has switched from a one-time upfront purchase of its solution to offering smaller segments over the course of a year and beyond. This tactic has proven successful and has helped remove the “all or nothing” mindset that predominated before. Now this company’s clients feel a much greater sense of control over the scope and cost of their purchases, and its revenues have started climbing as a result.
How Can I Make It Easier for Prospects to Buy My Solution? What options can you offer? As with so many questions, the answer is “it depends”. The possibilities will vary depending on your product, your industry, your competition, your client demographics, and more, but you can start by doing the following: ● Ask yourself, If I were my prospect, what are some new/different ways of purchasing this solution that would feel “safer”? Get creative. ● Do your homework. Find out what your competitors now offer in terms of buying options. Figure out ways to match or improve upon those. ● Call into your existing client base. Ask customers how their purchasing process has changed and what it would now take for them to buy your product. Also ask for ROI testimonials. Poll them for ideas on ways they might be willing to pay for your solution if they were to buy it now. ● If you work with resellers or distributors, encourage them to provide suggestions on how to make your solution easier to buy. ● Look for new ways to segment your product, service, or pricing that could lower any sense of perceived risk. In times like these, thriving—or even just surviving—requires that you offer extreme value with little or no perceived risk. Adding to that, you’ve got to do so at the very outset of the sales cycle, since any further in is often too late. Seek creative, inno-
In times like these, thriving-or even just surviving-requires that you offer extreme value with little or no perceived risk vative options that are above and beyond what you now offer. Don’t wait for your prospects to pull the trigger and buy. Instead, show them how to pull it. | — by Errol Greene
Errol Greene is Principal and founder of Verity Insight Partners, a company that specializes in sales and marketing research and demand creation for businesses in a variety of industries. After a career in sales and sales management, most recently at Psion Teklogix, Errol founded Verity Insight Partners in 2009, where his vision is to provide companies with insight into their prospect and customer database that can be used to dramatically improve their sales and marketing efforts. For more information contact egreene@verityinsightpartners.com or call 800-599-8740, ext 101.
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7 Ways to Cut Loose from Old Sales Thinking 1 Stop the sales pitch. Start a conversation.
When you call someone, never start out with a minipresentation about yourself, your company and what you have to offer. Instead, start with a conversational phrase that focuses on a specific problem that your product or service solves. For example, you might say, “I’m just calling to see if you are open to some different ideas related to preventing downtime accross your computer network?” Notice that you are not pitching your solution with this opening phrase. Instead, you’re addressing a problem that, based on your experience in your field, you believe they might be having. If you don’t know what problems your product or service solves, do a little research by asking your current customers why they purchased your solution.
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Your goal is always to discover whether you and your prospect are a good fit. If you let go of trying to close the sale or get the appointment, you’ll discover that you don’t have to take responsibility for moving the sales process forward. By simply focusing your conversation on problems that you can help prospects solve, and by not jumping the gun by trying to move the sales process forward, you’ll discover that prospects will give you the direction you need.
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When you lose a sale, it’s usually at the beginning of the sales process.
If you think you’re losing sales due to mistakes you make at the end of the process, review how you began the relationship. Did you start with a pitch?
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Did you use traditional sales language like, “We have a solution that you really need,” or “others in your industry have bought our solution, you should consider it as well”? Traditional sales language leads prospects to label you with the negative stereotype of “salesperson.” This makes it almost impossible for them to relate to you with trust or to have an honest, open conversation about problems they’re trying to solve and how you might be able to help them.
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Eliminate sales pressure and you’ll never experience rejection. Prospects don’t trigger rejection, you do. When something you say and it could be very subtle, triggers a defensive reaction from your prospect. Yes, something you say. You can eliminate rejection forever simply by giving up the hidden agenda of hoping to make a sale. Instead, be sure that everything you say and do stems from the basic mindset that you’re there to help prospects identify and solve their issues.
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Never chase prospects. Instead, get to the truth of whether there’s a fit or not.
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When prospects offer objections, validate them and reopen the conversation. Most traditional sales programs spend a lot of time focusing on “overcoming” objections, but these tactics only create more sales pressure. They also keep you from exploring or learning the truth behind what your prospects are saying. You know that “we don’t have the budget,” “send me information,” or “call me back in a few months,” are polite evasions designed to get you off the
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By simply focusing your conversation on problems that you can help prospects solve, and by not jumping the gun by trying to move the sales process forward, you’ll discover that prospects will give you the direction you need
Hidden sales pressure causes rejection.
Chasing prospects has always been considered normal and necessary, but it’s rooted in the macho selling image that “if you don’t keep chasing, you’re giving up, which means you’re a failure.” This is dead wrong. Instead, ask your prospects if they’d be open to connecting again at a certain time and date so you can both avoid the phone tag game.
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phone. Stop trying to counter objections. Instead, shift to uncovering the truth by replying, “that’s not a problem.” No matter what the objection, use gentle, dignified language that invites prospects to tell you the truth about their situation without feeling you’ll use it to press for a sale.
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Never defend yourself or what you have to offer. This only creates more sales pressure.
When prospects say, “Why should I choose you over your competition?” your instinctive reaction is to defend your product or service because you believe that you are the best choice and you want
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to convince them of that. But what goes through their minds at that point? Something like, “This ‘salesperson’ is trying to sell me and I hate feeling as if I’m being sold.” Stop defending yourself. In fact, come right out and tell them that you aren’t going to try to convince them of anything because that only creates sales pressure. Instead, ask them again about key problems they’re trying to solve. Then explore how your product or service might solve those problems. Give up trying to persuade. Let prospects feel they can choose you without feeling sold. The sooner you can let go of the traditional sales beliefs that we’ve all been exposed to, the more quickly you’ll feel good about selling again and start seeing better results. | — by Ari Galper
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he has become the foremost authority on selling around the globe. As a sought-after international speaker, Ari presents at sold-out sales seminars and various corporate training events where he demonstrates his ground-breaking methods, making live sales calls in front of audiences. He has shared the stage with fellow entrepreneurs, Joan Rivers, Mark Victor Hansen, Dan Kennedy, Harry S. Dent, Christopher Howard, Bill Glazer, Alexandria Brown and many others. His strategies have been used by countless global organizations throughout the world. Ari’s mission is to help business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals, break through their fears of selling as well as create a better lives for themselves, their families and, of course, their clients. Unlock The Game® is quickly becoming the standard for how to create genuine trust for anyone who sells a product or service. Take a Free Test Drive at:
Ari Galper
is the World’s #1 Trust-Based
http://www.UnlockTheGame.com
Sales Expert and the Creator of Unlock The Game®, a new sales mindset and approach that has revolutionized the world of selling. With a Masters degree in Instructional Design, which strongly analyzes the way people learn, and supplying nearly two decades of experience in direct selling in a variety of industries, Ari has pioneered a breakthrough sales system – Unlock The Game®– through his experience working with iconic compa-
The Lies Buyers (Accidentally) Tell You
nies such as UPS and QUALCOMM over the past twenty years. Built on the concept of authentic communication and trust, Ari’s visionary approach to selling relieves the pressure for both the seller and buyer, producing profound results. With over 45,000 subscribers, clients and members (growing at over 1,000 per month) from 38 different countries, including business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals, Ari has trained the best of the best and continues to be the most respected and followed sales thoughtleader in the industry. Ari has been featured in a multitude of leading sales and business books for his unique and special trust-based sales approach. Interviewed
Lies? The buyer is lying? To me? So that sounds mean, slightly awkward, and completely at odds with conventional wisdom. Wouldn’t it make the most sense that buyers would tell you exactly what they want? Down to the tiniest detail? Yeah. It doesn’t work that way. Buyers don’t know what the truth is. Not in an ugly manipulative sense. Heck, they don’t know what they don’t know. And for some reason, we tend to over-analyze every darn thing they say. Stop thinking that you need to deliver exactly what your buyer tells you he wants. You don’t.
on networks such as CNN Money and Sky News,
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You just need to listen to what they are saying to you. And what they’re not saying to you… That’s right. If you let a prospect do a little talking, they will tell you everything that you need to know to provide them a winning solution. Especially what they don’t say. Sure, they may not know all the details and possibilities of the leading tools and solutions that you are offering. And, of course they won’t know all the reasons that your services are better than your competitors or all seventeen advantages to choosing your “industry leading” solution. But they will share with you what they envision as a remedy to their problem. And when they do, you just need to listen. Listen to the tone, the urgency, the range, the excitement, the pronunciation of each word that your prospect speaks. Listen. Learn. And then throw it all away. Pay attention to what they didn’t ever say.
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You just need to listen to what they are saying to you. And what they’re not saying to you... Did they really say: ● That
you “had the deal”… you “were their leading choice”… ● That you were “exactly what they were looking for”… ● That
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Did they? Or is that what you heard? You know enough to insert your services or solution into the discussion using your buyer’s own words. You know enough to: ● Not use jargon. ● Use your buyer’s pain. ● Not use “talking points”. ● Use empathy and imagination.
You have to master the art of finding out the reason behind what your buyer is saying to you But are you creating a solution for what your prospect hasn’t even talked about? Because that’s what your prospect was really talking about in the first place. By the way, here’s a powerful truth about business: “It’s always what it’s not…”. What you see and hear and feel are NOT the real reasons behind the excuse that you are getting.
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If you hear yourself saying things like “But that’s what Mr. Buyer said…” you know that you are being hooked into a potential lie your buyer is telling you. Now don’t go get all offended and start calling your buyer names. Separate what the buyer says from the person saying it. Think about what you do when you feel trapped or want to back out of something without coming across as a jerk. You make a completely illogical, socially-acceptable excuse. You get away with it because everyone around you is too nice to gently coax the truth out of you. Right? If you going to be a high achiever and an efficient seller then you have to master the art of finding out the reason behind what your buyer is saying to you. Want a few secrets? Try replying “What makes you say that?” to anything that you hear from your prospect. And do it back-to-back-to-back-to-back-toback. Do it until you find out the real reason. You won’t find yourself slipping back into sales doldrums when you manically focus on providing your buyer what they really need, even if you have to pry it slowly and professionally out of them. After all, isn’t that what you really wanted to do in the first place? To be an all-star. | — by Dan Waldschmidt
Dan Waldschmidt Since birth, Dan Waldschmidt has been refusing to accept business as usual. Sure, he had a paper route, but he turned his into a money-making machine (though he opted not to tell his mom about his increased profits). He ran track like plenty of other kids, but he pushed himself to break his high school’s mile record. He got the usual entry-level job right of college, but then he changed the sales process, earned millions of dollars for the company, and became CEO by the time he was 25. These days, Dan is partner in a private equity technology accelerator and a former technology CEO. He is an early-early-early adopter of game-changing technology. He blogs regularly on his motivational selling blog Edge of Explosion. He is husband to a cute gal named Sara and father to two energetic boys. He’s just an ordinary dude who happens to have an outrageous vision. And he wants to change the world…So read the blog, check out his resources, send him an email. Whatever you do, don’t just sit on the sidelines! http://danwaldschmidt.com
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Presentations That Move Right To
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If you’ve ever seen figure skating, you know what a pleasure it is to follow the skaters on the ice because they move so gracefully from one step into the next, seemingly without effort. They don’t move in a jerky, disjointed fashion; if they did, you wouldn’t want to watch them. Much the same can be said of winning sales presentations. You want to tell a sales story that moves gracefully and persuasively from beginning to end, that builds excitement from point to point, and that flows naturally to a conclusion and next steps. To change metaphors, you don’t want the presentation equivalent of “Chopsticks” or Muzak. You want a presentation that hits buttons, that rocks ‘n’ rolls with advertisers, that moves them like jazz, that gets them all revved up to advertise with you. How do you do that? Assuming that you’ve got the right offering, a large part of the answer is by using well-thought-out transitions. Transitions are links, bridges, or phrases that connect the various parts of your presentation into a seamless, compelling story. What follows are transition examples to move sellers and their messages easily and successfully from “Hello” all the way through to the closing step. (You can use these as is or tailor them to fit your style and situation.)
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(Weak) YOU: “OK, enough about the weather. Uh, let me tell you about XYZ web site.” BUYERS THINK: “Oh, Lord. Save me from another self-centered, clueless rep!” Transition phrases like those below get the presenter, the presentation, and the buyer into the same groove right away. Simply begin by stating the advertiser’s objectives and business situation. (Stronger) YOU: “The purpose of our meeting today is to help you drive traffic to your site” or “What I wanted to talk to you about today was an idea to help you...“ “As you told me, you’re facing... [fill in the background facts of your advertiser’s situation]” or “Last time we spoke, you said... [background facts]” or “As we both know... [background facts]” (A confirming question is a good idea here. For example, “Is that right?”) BUYERS THINK: “This rep is on the ball. He (or she) actually knows something about me and my business! I think I’m going to like this.”
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The Hardest Transition Let’s start with the very beginning of a presentation, often the most awkward moment in a sales call. Number one below has no transition; number two does. Notice the difference in effectiveness. Buyers always do.
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Lead to Your Recommendation
Create Momentum and Excitement
Next, bring your buyer deeper into the presentation by using a setup or framing question to bridge from the advertiser’s world to what you are selling or recommending. YOU: “Given this scenario, how can we help?” or “So, the question is, ‘What is your best option?’” or “With this background, how does XYZ add value?” A bridging question creates a sense of anticipation in your advertiser for what is to come. Then, answer the question with a brief overview of your recommendation or idea. For example, “The answer is...“ or “There are three reasons to use XYZ...“ Use a reinforcing transition to link back to your buyer’s objectives. For example: YOU: “...which will help you meet your objective” or “As a result, you will see many more visitors to your web site.” BUYERS THINK: “Great! Tell me more!”
Typically, you have three to five major blocks of information to present, each usually with more than one visual or point. Let’s say you are presenting these major blocks of information: ● What your site and/or service is/does ● How it does it ● Your competitive advantages ● How you would work with this client ● Costs Selling advertising and web services is often more complex than selling other kinds of media. Many web presentations are quite long (more
Move Into the Supporting Details A simple phrase takes you and your advertiser into the body of your presentation. YOU: “Let’s begin with... “ or “The first thing we’ll look at is... “
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It is very easy for buyers to become bored, lost, or both in your many PowerPoint screens
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about that in next month’s column). It is very easy for buyers to become bored, lost, or both in your many PowerPoint screens. To minimize that risk, use connecting phrases like these to move from point to point within each block of information. YOU: “In addition...“ “Moreover...“ “Another benefit is...“ BUYERS FEEL: a growing sense of excitement and the appeal of your message.
Double That Momentum Couple the transitions within blocks of information with transitions between blocks of information. YOU: “So, again, XYZ web site is the fastest growing in its category. And the story gets even better when you look at how much visitors to our web site spend. (Click. You’re onto this next block of information.) or “So, you’ve seen how popular XYZ is and how responsive our users are. Now, what special advertising opportunities will you have?” (Click. You’re onto this next block of information.) BUYERS SEE: cumulative benefits and are increasingly caught up in the possibilities of your web site’s story and what it means to them.
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You want a presentation that hits buttons, that rocks ‘n’ rolls with buyers, that moves them like jazz, that gets them all revved up to do business with you YOU: “To get these benefits, the next step is simple. Just...“ or “Going forward, all that’s needed is for you to...“
Transitions in Action Ease Into Your Summary Summaries are always easy when you use a simple client-centered lead-in transition like either of these: YOU: “In summary, you want to (drive more traffic to your site)” or “We started by saying you want to... “ BUYERS: silently agree. Then, restate your recommendation. Add a final linking transition, YOU: “As a result, we will help you increase the traffic to your site.” BUYERS THINK: “Yep, that’s what I want. What’s next?”
Move Naturally to the Next Step(s)
We began by saying that you want presentations that move easily and persuasively from beginning to end. Strategically placed transitional bridges and phrases create that flow. 1 They draw your advertisers into your message. 2 They keep attention and build excitement for your story. 3 They make you a better presenter. The result will help you get more advertisers saying, “Yes,” more often to your recommendations. Going forward, the next step is simple: Incorporate transitional thinking into your future presentations and enjoy the results! | — by Anne Miller
Don’t disappoint them. Lay out the next step(s) with one of these phrases. Anne Miller is a leading sales and presentations specialist. She works with people in high stakes situations sell millions of dollars worth of products, services, and ideas in one-to-one or one-to-a-thousand settings. Her clients come from financial services, professional services, and the media. Anne is the author of four books. Her latest is “Make What You Say Pay! The Language That Opens Doors, Closes Deals, & Wows Crowds”. To subscribe to Anne’s Seamless Selling Newsletter, please visit her website at www.annemiller.com
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Value Selling Warren Buffett Style I
’m currently reading Warren Buffett’s autobiography, The Snowball. Released in 2008, it is a truly remarkable book and highly recommended reading into the most successful financial investor of our time. Halfway through this book is the following quote from Buffett: “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” This statement about price is more than an insight into Buffett’s mind. It is a mantra that directly relates to selling, price and most of all value. Pricing is a subject that regularly comes up in our sales training. In sales, we all tend to get a bit passionate and more than a bit nervous about price. Reactions include:
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What should I do when I get a pricing objection? ● Our customers never want to pay the price we set – they think we are too expensive. ● I always seem to lose out to competitors because of price.
Pricing objections, setting prices and establishing value are all indeed some of the trickier sales issues. But sense can be made of all of it with Buffett’s line. Here it is again: “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
Now, extend that to the product or service that you are selling. Customers feel the same way as Buffett: for them, it’s much better to feel like they are buying a wonderful product from you at a fair price, than to feel they are getting just an OK product at a knock-down price. So the answer to all of your pricing concerns is simple: you have to position your solution as the most wonderful option available and your price as fair for that option. We call it building value or value selling. Value selling is best imagined with the following analogy: imagine a set of weighing scales because this is usually how customers assess you. On the left set of scales is the price. On the right is value. If the price on the left is $100, then there better be $100 worth of value on the right, because the customer will believe that is balanced or fair. If you can build more value on to the right set of scales then the balance starts to work in your favor and you are much more likely to get the deal. Fair is good, for customers won’t think they are getting ripped off.
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But value is better. Ideally you want the right “value” side of the scales much weightier than the left. That way customers will know they are getting a great deal and will buy quickly before you change your mind. Try this simple exercise when you are shopping: when you look at an iPod, a new shirt or a holiday, work out consciously whether you think the value exceeds the price. TK MAXX for example is a fashion house that consistently builds the value side of the scales. Shoppers literally can’t believe their luck paying $80 for a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes that Scarlett Johansson was photographed wearing a couple of weeks prior. TK MAXX understands value selling. So your job when selling, according to Warren Buffett (who knows a thing or two about successful selling) is to focus on value.
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4 Most Common Presentation Mistakes Over the last 20 years, I have trained thousands of people in presentation skills. I always require my delegates to deliver a short presentation before I start training them, so that I can evaluate their starting position. I can now share with you the most common mistakes presenters make prior to training and more importantly, how you can avoid making the same mistakes!
Mistake # 1 - No clear objective Your job is to think of ways to build value into the sale. Don’t forget that value arrives at the ball dressed as many things – guarantees, positive relationships, after sales service, care and consideration, future discounts, price guarantees…the list goes on. Warren Buffett is a man who could count on one hand the amount of times he has paid a wonderful price for a fair company. Instead, he pays fair prices for wonderful companies. By living out his mantra in the way you sell you will find that customers will want to pay you the price you want simply to get their hands on what you have. | — by Matt Drought
Matt Drought is the Founding Director of Natural Training, a sales training company based out of
This is the most common and by far the most serious mistake. Presentations without a clear objective are doomed to failure before they have even started. The audience have come to listen to you for a reason. They are giving up their valuable time to attend your presentation. If you don’t provide a return on investment for them, they will leave your talk dissatisfied. If no-one in the audience does anything differently as a result of listening to you, what was the point of your talk? Remember that each person in the audience is probably not interested in what you do. All they are interested in, is what you can do for them. So don’t give presentations to make the audience aware of what you do, or an area of your expertise. Instead, ask yourself WHY the audience need to know about your subject and what they should do to enjoy the benefits of your proposal. This will completely change what you say and usually, how you say it. It is
London and servicing the world. Natural Training focuses on developing the natural style of sales people with innovative, full immersion sales training courses that deliver outstanding ROI. Matt’s 15-year selling career has included FMCG (Cadbury Schweppes), technology (IBM/CSSL) and advertising (TMP Worldwide). Matt is a student of selling and human behavior and writes weekly on the Natural Training Blog and has a fortnightly
Think of your audience as reasonably bright 13 year olds
newsletter called One Minute Pause. http://www.naturaltraining.com/
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no good just having a subject to talk about - you need to give yourself a mission!
Mistake # 2 - Too much detail Giving a presentation is a scary business for the vast majority of us. One of the big fears is ‘drying-up’ and not having enough to say. Subconciously, we are easily ‘programmed’ to cram our talk with lots of material. This is why so many presentations overrun their time slot. Also, you will only ever be asked to give a presentation on an area of your expertise (your job). Don’t underestimate the volume of expertise you have built up over the years. Because we talk about what we do (and hopefully what fascinates us), there can be a strong urge to tell the audience all about it. Unfortunately, the audience will not be nearly as interested in your job as you are. If they were, they would be doing your job! People cannot handle very much detail when listening to a talk. It all becomes too much for them and they switch off. Even if they didn’t, what would they remember at the end of your talk? Think of the last film you watched. How much of the detail (dialogue) can you recall? The chances are you can only remember the broad
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It is no good just having a subject to talk about – you need to give yourself a mission! outline and whether you enjoyed it or not. So, omit as much of the detailed information from your talk as possible. If the audience really need it, provide it in a handout at the end of your talk. They can handle detail when it’s in writing.
Mistake # 3 - Complex language and monotone delivery These two mistakes usually come together as a package! Many business presenters deliver their messages using abstract and complex language. To deliver it fluently takes up a vast amount of processing power in the brain. There is nothing left for the emotion to come through in the voice, so we get a monotone delivery, projected in a serious voice. Think about how we communicate with our fellow human beings every day. We use
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very simple language and lots of emotional variety in our voice. In other words, we ‘chat’. It’s all very informal. Complex language delivered in a serious voice is the opposite of normal communication and is therefore alien to the audience and incredibly difficult to listen to. Think of your audience as reasonably bright 13 year olds and you’ll then get the language about right, which will allow you to chat to them rather than lecture them.
Mistake # 4 - Constant visual support. Why do we see so many PowerPoint slides in most business presentations? Because the slides have not been prepared for the audience at all. The presenter has prepared them for himself, to remind him of what he wants to say. The audience does not want to see everything you say. Supporting everything we say with the written word or images is an unnatural (and therefore alien) way of communicating. It also gives the audience a big problem. They cannot read and listen at the same time. So, resist the temptation to produce a slide for everything you are going to say. You only need to show a visual aid when words alone are insufficient to convey your message. Visual aids are a visual aid to understanding and should be shown only when the audience NEED to see them. Notes are for you, to remind you of what you want to say and are of no interest to the audience whatsoever. In summary, have a clear objective that will give value to the audience. Spare them the detail. It may fascinate you, but they’ll find your talk too hard to follow and just switch off. Use simple, ordinary everyday language and deliver your messages with emotional variety and enthusiasm. And finally, only show the audience visual aids when they need to see them - so that they can ‘see what you mean’. | — by Bob Malloney
Bob Malloney , a soft skills trainer for over 20 years can help you to make a real difference to your working life, all from the comfort of your PC. Register now for a free, no obligation 7-day trial at > www.videocoaching.tv Article
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6 Business Presentation Tips That Your Customers Will Love In business, like in life, presentation is important. Your customers’ perception of your sales staff, your backoffice staff, and your brand help to mould how they perceive your business and their likelihood of doing business with you. Here are ten tips that you can follow which will entice your customers to sign on the dotted line.
Look Smart: As the saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover. Unfortunately, people do and you can use this to your advantage. Make sure you’re looking well groomed for the occasion. The consequences are far less severe if you overdress, rather than under-dress, so keep this in mind when deciding on suitable attire.
Don’t Burry Your Head In Your Notes
Source: http://www.abcarticledirectory.com/ p // y /
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Don’t Read From A PowerPoint Presentation: Slides are meant to enhance your presentation; not to be your presentation. Try to use PowerPoint presentations to show graphs, images and figures that are harder to understand when spoken. You should also try to make slides easy to digest; this means the customer will be focused on you more, and your slides less. Practice Makes Perfect: Try to practice doing your presentation as much as possible. Try to focus less on the exact wording used, and more on the overall message. Ask a friend or co-worker to listen in and here what they have to say. While you may not have to follow their feedback word-for-word, it is hard to judge your own presentation when you’re the one presenting. It’s even better if you present to someone within your business who you don’t know as well. Don’t Burry Your Head In Your Notes: It’s easy to bury your head in your notes when doing a business presentation. Try not to. One of the best ways to avoid this is to ensure that you don’t prepare what you’ll say word-for-word. Only work on an overall message. Or, if you must read from notes, only lower your head at the start of each sentence; read what you have to say; and then lift your head and address your audience. Retro tip: pick something, or someone, at the back of the room to focus on.
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Objection-Handle As You Go This is particularly the case when you have prepared too much. Try to only prepare by creating a list of bullet points, and this will allow you to make your business presentation sound more conversational. Through making impromptu comments you will be able to address this issue, and allow your prospects to focus on what your business can deliver. Objection-Handle As You Go: When you are dealing with a small group, address their issues as you go. Make your prospects feel comfortable to ask questions when they come up, and address them before moving onto the next part of your presentation. This may kill the flow, but when the customer wants to interrupt let them. If something is nagging them, and they cannot get it out of their mind, then it will be harder for them to focus on what it is that you want to say. | — by Naz Daud
Naz Daud is the founder of CityLocal. If you are interested in buying a Internet Franchise & Business Opportunity, especially a business model for your own online home business, check out his websites www.citylocal.co.uk and Ireland
Adopt A Conversational Tone: When presenting, it is easy to sound like your doing a book reading.
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Business Directory & Internet Franchises. Article Source: http://www.abcarticledirectory.com/
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This article is an excerpt from the new book Top Dog Sales Secrets.
Jennifer was nervous. She had just given the final presentation to the decision-making committee from a Fortune 500 manufacturing company she’d been trying to close ever since she received the RFP nine months earlier. As she got into her car and pulled out of the parking lot, she knew something was wrong. Up until the presentation she felt that her connection with the key contact was strong, and her relationships with the other influencers in the account had also seemed solid. But for some reason, her presentation had not generated the enthusiastic reaction she had anticipated. She racked her brain, going through the checklist of issues she had uncovered, but couldn’t think of anything she had missed.
Jennifer was stunned. Her company had a far superior billing platform than her competitor
A Sad Day Two weeks later, Derek, the director of procurement from her prospect called to break the news that the committee had signed a contract with her competitor. As the news sunk in she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. How much time had she spent working on this account? She had put more effort into this one than any other account in her pipeline, spending months gathering information, visiting locations, and interviewing people up and down the company’s chain of command. This hurt. Stammering, she asked, “Why did you choose them over us?” Derek, who had grown to like Jennifer, tried to let her down easy. “Jennifer, we think you and your company are great. We especially like you and really appreciate all of the time you spent with us. You helped us learn things about our business that we didn’t know. But, at the end of the day, we felt like your competitor had a better invoicing and billing process that would allow us to manage our costs across multiple divisions. If it helps any, I was in,
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your corner. I just think your competitor did a better job presenting his solution.” Jennifer was stunned. Her company had a far superior billing platform than her competitor. She knew this was important but thought, based on her interviews, that waste reduction was a higher priority. She tried to explain this to Derek, but it was too little too late. Apparently, her competitor had known that billing was a big issue and dedicated a large portion of his presentation to invoicing and billing solutions.
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The Confirmation Step However, I believe there is an additional step that most trainers and 80% to 90% of sellers leave out. This is the step I learned from my dad. Executed correctly, this one step, with the exception of qualification, will have a greater impact on your closing ratio than any other in the sales process. In this step, which comes after Discovery and before your Presentation, you sit down with your prospect or
A Sales Lesson from a Lawyer My dad is considered by many of his peers to be one of the top trial lawyers in the United States. During the summers, when I was growing up, he would often take me to court with him. It was during those trips, while watching him and others that I learned something important about lawyers. In court, when presenting or selling their cases to the jury, attorneys never ask questions for which they don’t already know the answers. In other words, by the time they get to court (despite what you see on TV), there are no surprises. They make their cases to the juries systematically using evidence and witnesses that have been vetted through pre-trial discovery and depositions. They have even taken time to research the jury members to gain a clear understanding of what is important to each of them. Learning this lesson as a kid paid off for me as a sales professional. As I applied the pre-trial discovery process to selling I found that I closed more deals, negotiated better terms and conditions, and developed stronger relationships. And, I was almost never dealt surprises during presentations or closings. In fact, while I was anchoring my relationships, and strengthening my cases, my competitors were running around trying to learn top secret closing techniques that would magically deliver the deals. The real secret to closing is working with qualified prospects and executing the sales process. Once you’re working with a qualified prospect or customer your sales process generally will cross through three or four major steps – depending on your product or service. Those steps are Discovery (or information gathering), Presenting, Closing, and in some cases Implementation and Transition. Of course there are many sub-steps, but these are generally acknowledged as the major parts of the sales process.
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In the Confirmation step you allow your prospect to correct any mistaken assumptions you’ve made, fill in any gaps, and most importantly you allow him to prioritize the issues that are most important to him customer (sometimes this means multiple people in an account), and confirm and verify the information and problems you have uncovered. In the Confirmation step you allow your prospect to correct any mistaken assumptions you’ve made, fill in any gaps,
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and most importantly you allow him to prioritize the issues that are most important to him. Usually this step only takes a 15 to 30-minute conversation over the phone or in person and is set up like this, “Hi Bob, this is Jeb Blount, SalesGravy.com, thank you for taking so much time with me to help me understand your needs and issues. I can’t wait to present my solutions at our meeting next week. Before I do that though, I want to be sure that I don’t waste your time with unimportant things. Since I’ve uncovered a lot of opportunities to help you I was wondering if I might have 15 minutes of your time to review my assumptions just to be sure I’m on track to help you get what you want. Would 3 p.m. tomorrow work for you?”
Closing was simply a result of understanding clearly what was important to your customer and building an ironclad case for your solution
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ship. I also know none of my competitors will take this extra step. Using the Confirmation step, you go into your presentations with no surprises. You know exactly which solutions to present, which problems to solve and on which hot buttons to focus your attention. You systematically make your case and wow your audience with your knowledge and understanding of their business issues. By the time you get around to signing the contract, closing the business seems almost anti-climatic because closing wasn’t something you did or some cheesy technique you used, it was simply a result of understanding clearly what was important to your customer and building an ironclad case for your solution. Closing was simply a result of understanding clearly what was important to your customer and building an ironclad case for your solution. | — by Jeb Blount
Jeb Blount has over 20 years experience in sales and marketing. As a business leader he has extensive experience turning around and righting troubled organizations. He has a passion for growing people and the unique ability to see potential in everyone. Over the span of his career he has coached, trained, and developed hundreds of Sales Professionals, managers and leaders. Jeb is a sought after seminar leader and public speaker known for his ability to inspire his audiences to action. With his most popular keynote, PowerPrinciples, he teaches business professionals to leverage their talents to reach their dreams by employing five critical strategies: ● Define What You Want and Write it Down ● Invest in Yourself ● A Little Bit Every Day
Confirmation Makes Closing Easier
● Get a Coach
This simple act sets up an informal meeting during which Bob confirms my assumptions, prioritizes what’s important to him and tells me exactly what I need to do to close him. It shows him that I care about his needs and concerns, demonstrates my commitment to excellence and gets me in front of him one more time before the presentation, which further strengthens my relation-
● Take Action
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His first book PowerPrinciples has just been published and is now available. Contact Information: Jeb Blount Sales Gravy Web: http://www.salesgravy.com e-mail: Jeb@salesgravy.com
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Negotiating and the Three Ts’
Trust, Time and Tactics uccessful negotiating requires you have a strategy. The clearer your strategy before negotiating, the more successful you will be. At the core of the strategy is what I refer to as the “3 Ts of Negotiating: Trust, Time, and Tactics.”
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you about their company. The more they tell you that is not known by others, the more trust they have in you. ● Perceived trust is blind and will get you in trouble very quickly. It often comes when the other party is a good communicator and is easy to get along with.
– The more trust you and the other party have in each other, the less need there will be to negotiate. The risk is in knowing whether the trust is real or perceived. ● Trust only comes through time and the quality of interactions you have had with the customer. To gauge the level of trust you have established,consider what the other person has told
– The more time you have before it’s necessary to finalize the deal, the greater your leverage. If time is of the essence to you, do not allow the other party to know what your timeframe is. A good negotiator will use it to their advantage by knowing timelines the other party is dealing with – without revealing anything other than what is necessary to help you close the negotiation.
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– People use tactics to negotiate when they do not have an established level of trust with the other person or they don’t have time working in their favor. The number and type of tactics a person will use is in direct proportion to the lack of trust they place in others. One way of looking at the role these 3 Ts play in negotiating is to think of the sum of the three equaling 100%. If you have a high degree of trust in the other person and they have trust in you, then there is no need to use tactics or leverage time. In this case, trust might be 100%. On the other hand, if you have very little trust in the other party, then you need to rely on tactics and time to complete the
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negotiation. The worst case would be where you have zero time to negotiate and there is no trust between the two parties. In this case, the only “T” you have is tactics. Your ability to increase the level of trust will always allow you to decrease the importance of time and tactics. Start today paying close attention to the level of trust that exists between you and each of your customers. I encourage you to really think about this, even if you are not currently in a negotiation situation. Wise salespeople know how to assess each T with each customer. The more adept you become at this, the better negotiator you will become. Are the three Ts part of your strategy? They should be. | — by Mark Hunter
Mark Hunter , The Sales Hunter, is a consultative selling expert committed to helping individuals and companies identify better prospects, close more sales, and profitably build more long-term customer relationships. To find out more, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com .
Using Success Stories
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uccess stories are amazingly powerful tools to help prospects understand the value of your offering. A Success Story is an edited-down case study or testimonial. It’s a true story about a customer, their issue/challenge, and how you/your company/ product/service were able to help. This should be brief and to the point, no more than 2-4 sentences long. Human beings are story tellers. We like to hear stories: we like to tell stories. Using a Success Story in your scripts can be very, very powerful. You can use Success Stories in your appointmentsetting script, in the script you use if your entire sale
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takes place over the telephone, and in your face-toface meetings with prospects. Success Stories allow you to illustrate benefits without having to say, “And the benefit to you, Ms. Prospect, is…” When you tell a story about how you/your company/ product/ service were able to help overcome another customer’s challenges, your new prospect will instinctively understand that you’ll be able to help them in a similar way. Success Stories act as third party endorsements – a recommendation of your company/ product/service by a neutral third party.
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An example: If a restaurant puts a big sign in their window say, “We’re the best restaurant in town,” everyone knows that the restaurant bought and paid for the sign and put it up in their window. This is advertising. A restaurant review in your local paper that says “It’s the best restaurant in town” would be a third party endorsement. The reviewer would be acting as a neutral party endorsing the restaurant. Another example would be if a friend encourages you make a reservation because “It’s the best restaurant in town.” This is also a third party endorsement, an endorsement from someone who has nothing at stake. People perceive third party endorsements as being far more credible than advertising, especially if they think the recommendation comes from a neutral and knowledgeable source. When you tell a Success Story it acts as a third party endorsement. Even though you are the one telling the story, the Success Story is actually about someone else—your customer, the neutral third party. You are simply stating the facts.
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A note here: Success Stories must be true. Although I am using the word “story,” these examples cannot be fiction. You must always be honest with prospects. If you are not, it will come back to hurt you. Here is the formula for a Success Story: ● The Customer’s Problem ● What You/Your Company/Product/Service Did ● How the Customer was Helped
Success Stories are always focused on the customer, their challenges and how you were able to help
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Let’s say that you’re a printer. A Success Story might be something like: “XYZ Company sent us the file for the job that needed to be printed. They were in a panic because there was a problem with the file and they were on a tight deadline. Because of our experience we were able to quickly solve the problem and open the file. We got the job printed before their deadline.” Or let’s say you’re a commercial real estate broker. A Success Story might be along these lines: “We recently worked with ABC Law Firm. They needed more space and less expensive space and thought they were going to have to move their offices. Instead we helped them find additional space in their building and helped them renegotiate their lease so that they actually saved money and avoided any business disruption.” Success Stories are always focused on the customer, their challenges and how you were able to help. Occasionally in training and coaching sessions someone will show me their script and I’ll find that the Success Story is something like this: “ABC Company bought 100 units of our new Ultra-Widget. They were so happy that they came back to us and bought 500 more.” This is not a Success Story. While it might be an illustration of a personal success (you sold more units), it is not a Success Story that will resonate with a prospect. What’s the difference? The first two examples are all about the customer. The last example is about the sales representative. Don’t make this mistake. | — by Wendy Weiss
Wendy Weiss , The Queen of Cold Calling™, is an author, speaker, sales trainer, and sales coach. She is recognized as one of the leading authorities on lead generation, cold calling and new business development and she helps clients speed up their sales cycle, reach more prospects directly and generate more sales revenue. Her clients include Avon Products, ADP, Sprint and thousands of entrepreneurs throughout the country. She has been featured in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur Magazine, Selling Power, Sales & Marketing Management and various other business and sales publications. She is the author of, Cold Calling for Women, 101 Cold Calling Tips for Building New Customers in a Down Economy and the recently released, Sales Winner’s Handbook, Essential Scripts and Strategies to Skyrocket Sales Performance. Visit www.wendyweiss.com to download the free report: Getting in the Door: How to Write an Effective Cold Calling Script.
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Are you finding that you’re just not getting the number of quality referrals you want from your clients? Chances are you said yes because that’s the case with most sellers. Oh, sure, we all have some clients that will give us referrals all day long. Just ask and they’ll give you name after name. Other clients, the majority, aren’t nearly as generous with their referrals.
The biggest problem in both cases is so often the referral we get isn’t much better than pointing at a name in the phonebook at random. How can you guarantee that you get great referrals? Simple. Make sure the client gives you a great referral by finding the referral for them to give you,
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rather than relying on them coming up with a quality referral to give. The reality is that clients really don’t know who we’re looking for and most of them just don’t have a real incentive to invest the time and energy to come up with a great referral for us.
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But we know who is a great referral for us. And certainly we’re willing to invest the time and energy to find a great referral (if we’re not, we have some real serious issues to deal with). Since we’re the one with the need; and we’re the one with the desire; and we’re the one who knows who makes a good referral for us, why would we rely on anyone else other than our self to come up with the referral? So how can we come up with the referral for our client to give us?
Here are three steps to guaranteeing you get great referrals from your clients:
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Get Your Client On-board to Give Referrals. Most sellers wait until after the sale has been completed before they bring up the idea of referrals. Bad idea. Most clients need time to get comfortable with the idea of giving referrals, so bring up referrals early in the relationship. Don’t ask for referrals; just
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let your client know that your business is built on referrals and then drop referral seeds as the sale progresses. Since your prospects and clients aren’t stupid, if they hear you mention referrals often in a casual manner, they’ll get the impression referrals are important to you and they will be expecting you to ask for them at some point.
Make it easy to give quality referrals—you’ll get a ton of them if you do
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to. The more you uncover the more quality referrals you uncover.
Make sure the client gives you a great referral by finding the referral for them to give you, rather than relying on them coming up with a quality referral to give
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Find Out Who Your Client Knows. We’ve already established that in order to get great referrals you have to do the work for your client, so do it by discovering during the course of the relationship who they know that you know you want to be referred to. How do you find out? Through small-talk (who do they mention in conversation they know); paying attention to what’s in their environment (pictures, association directories, membership plaques, and such); their background (where did they work previously); their work (what vendors and suppliers do they interact with). Your job is to be a detective and to uncover the relationships they have with people or companies that you know you want to be referred
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Don’t Ask for Referrals, Ask for THE Referral. Now when it comes time to ask for referrals, you’re not going to be like every other seller and ask a weak question such as, “Donna, do you happen to know anyone else (or another company) that might be able to use my products or services (or that I can help—or any other such weak question)?” Instead you’re going to ask for a specific referral: “Donna, I’ve been trying to connect with David Jones for some time without success. You mentioned that you’ve worked with David for several years, would you be comfortable introducing me to him?” You know she knows David. You have reason to believe David is a good prospect for you. Don’t waste Donna’s time with that weak general referral question; ask to get connected to a person you know she knows that you know you want to connect with. Referrals can be the foundation of your sales business if you just develop the skills necessary to be a referral-based salesperson. If Donna knows three people or companies you know you want to be referred to and you can get introductions to them from her, how much time and energy have you saved getting those three introductions through referrals instead of cold calling or sending out direct mail or hoping to bump into them at a networking event? Forget what you’ve been taught about asking for referrals. Referral generation is a PROACTIVE process where you do the work, not your client. Your client doesn’t have the motivation, you do. They don’t have the understanding of who makes a good referral like you do. Your client doesn’t have the time to invest in figuring out a good referral like you do. It’s your business, not theirs. Make it easy to give quality referrals—you’ll get a ton of them if you do. | — by Paul McCord
Paul McCord founder of McCord Training, works with sales teams and sales leaders to help them increase sales and profits by instituting effective strategies to find and connect with high quality prospects in ways prospects accept, respect and respond to. Author, speaker, trainer and consultant, Paul’s clients range from giants such as UBS, New York Life, Siemens, and GE, to small and mid-size firms, as well as individual sales leaders. Visit his website: http://www.dynamicsalesgrowth.com
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s y a 5 W ove To L ur Yo er m o t s u C
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t the core of every great break up is at least one person who feels the other person didn’t work hard enough. Or maybe the thought never crossed their mind because they were too busy being wowed by someone else who simply tried harder. Today’s post is about never losing that “Lovin’ Feeling” with your clients:
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Surprise Them!: I order my shirts from Paul Frederick and they aren’t cheap. Every now and again, without warning, they will include a tie with my shirt order. I hate to admit this, but I’m like a little kid who just got the free prize from collecting cereal box tops! Gold star Paul Frederick! I’m a frequent guest at the Omni Hotel and they have the surprise thing down pretty well. One evening they sent fresh fruit up to my room, one morning it was some orange juice and bottled water. Here’s the point, it doesn’t have to be a million dollar, give away
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the store thing, just get in the habit of surprising your clients. And while I’m up on my soapbox, when was the last time you surprised your significant other? I thought so! Make a note to surprise people in your personal life too! Balance dude!
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Find A Way to “Wow” Them When You Screw Up: Everything you ever heard about Disney is true! I should know, I stayed there for 10 days with my family back in 2006. We went to a dinner show one night and the waitress was visibly hustling from table to table. Somewhere in the mix, she forgot my son’s lemonade. When she returned to our table, my son very respectfully called it to her attention. She immediately apologized (doesn’t that have a way of immediately diffusing a situation?) and said “Wait until you see how we fix things when we make mistakes at Disney.” What happened next blew my mind. She returned with an entire pitcher of lemonade (complete with a very cool straw and glow cubes).
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So let me see if I get this, what was once a mistake has now turned into a “Wow”? Here’s the best part, I figure that between telling that story to everyone I’ve trained since then and mentioning it in my blog (twice) this story has reached over 15,000 people. I can see the Mastercard commercial now . . . Price for the lemonade: $2.00, Way Cool Straw & Glow Cubes: $2.00. Wowing a disappointed customer and getting word of mouth advertising from his blogaholic Dad . . . Priceless Baby!
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Make Your Client Look Like A Rock Star To Their Boss: Think about it. Who doesn’t need some good press these days? One of the best ways for you to do this is to proactively go to your client with ideas and resources. By the way, ideas and resources shouldn’t always require payment. This is one of the many ways you and I provide this thing everyone keeps regurgitating called “value.” Now if you are amongst the clueless who think everyone is already doing this, then make it a habit of asking this question in your Needs Analysis: “When was the last time your sales rep came to you (proactively) with an idea?” Get ready for a head tilt as they try to remember. One way you stay fresh with ideas is to carve out weekly thinking time to, well, think about your client’s business. Tip: Regard this thinking time like you would any other appointment in that once you set it, you keep it!
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shades, a cd and an all-access pass to your business along with a card that reads “You’re always a rock star to us.” The next time you are taking them to lunch, perhaps there’s some place different you could take them. Example: In NY there’s this restaurant called The Milleridge Inn. It’s an old Inn from the 16th century and at the holidays they really do the place up and have Carolers going from table to table. My clients used to love it when I would bring them there at the holidays! Sales Managers: Have a sales meeting in the near future and brainstorm ways for everyone to be that “breath of fresh air” to your clients. Oh, and if you can’t think of anything, your competitor probably will. Relationship Note From Uncle Paul: Most relationships fail when that spark packs up and leaves. We need to never forget the days of the courtship before the marriage... you know, when we actually tried to do cool things to get to that “I do.” Relationships require continual effort and they can never be left to run on autopilot!
Make Your Client Look Like A Rock Star To Their Boss
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Be A Breath Of Fresh Air!: File this one under “I’m just sayin” but business folk can be wound way too tight these days. At times it’s just way too freakin serious. We’ve forgotten to put “laugh and lighten up” on our To Do lists! Assignment: Go down to the card store and pick out a few funny greeting cards that you are going to send your clients. If you can’t find one, then at least pick up a cool thank you card and simply thank them for being your client. How about putting together a rock star kit for them complete with cool
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Better Relationships Require Better Communication: Ridiculously obvious sales advice in 3,2,1... The key to better communication is in asking better questions. Most sales reps make it through the “Needs Analysis” part of the process with barely a passing grade and then they stop asking thought provoking questions as if they are saying “But dude I already did that step!” You have to continually ask the questions nobody else asks. You have to get them thinking, get them sharing and maybe, just maybe, you and I can ascend to “Trusted Advisor” status. Only this time, it’s for real because we know all their dirty little secrets and have become their confidant. Let your competition come have at it once you reach that status! In the book of used and abused sales axioms (between “Feel, Felt and “Find” and “Sales is a numbers game”) is a saying that “People buy difference.” If in fact, this used and abused saying is true (methinks it is), then what say you sales dude or dudette . . . What is your difference? How do you make your customer experience better? And how do you turn on the Barry White and show them the love? Perhaps its time we treat our client like the hot date everyone is trying to hit on! | — by Paul Castain
Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics where he oversees the training and development of 700
Treat Your Customers Like Royalty to Gain Loyalty Even when someone is not buying our product or service and with the current economy, we could be slower then usual, I say- ramp up your customer service techniques. Now for some of us who say – ”I don’t have clients”. Look at it this way – we ALL do. Some just may be ‘internal clients’ and are disguised as co workers and colleagues Here are 10 tips to keep in mind:
sales Jedis. Prior to working for Consolidated Graphics, Paul was the Director Of Corporate Solutions Sales for Dale Carnegie & Associates and the owner of two successful businesses. Over the last 27 years, Paul has trained and mentored over 3,000 sales professionals, written sales training content for several Fortune 500 compa-
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Understand how your clients’ expectations rise and change over time. What may have been good enough before no longer applies. Ask them and understand how to better serve them to help them with their business and needs.
nies and is the creator of Castain’s Sales Playbook which just won a Sales Pop award for best sales website! Paul is an accomplished speaker and speaks on a variety of topics customized for your event. He marries good content with a delivery style that is fun, energetic and motivational.
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Differentiate yourself from the competition. Provide personalized and responsive service and go ‘beyond the call of duty’. Treat them in a way that they will appreciate and remember.
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Raise the bar for yourself. You’ve heard of ‘dazzling the client’ – now find ways to do it. Be more flexible, faster and more efficient.
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Never be content. Find ways to stay ahead of the pack. I find everyday there is so much to learn and new ways to implement. Make it your goal to learn and apply something new everyday.
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Manage expectations. Build a firm foundation of trust and deliver what you promise. Then if something comes up, you will find the client more understanding and forgiving. A great line I heard once was to “under promise and over deliver”.
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Take personal responsibility. You want your name to be golden to them and make sure you live up to that standard. Make it easy for them to do business with you and let them ‘sleep at night’.
“under promise and over deliver”
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Bounce back with effective service recovery. Things happen that are often out of our control. When it does, go into major ‘repair mode’ and do whatever it takes to restore great customer goodwill.
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Appreciate. When your clients complain-they can be your best allies because they will tell you what you really need to know. Listen with your ears totally tuned up and then fix the problem. And thank them!
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See the world from the customers’ point of view. Take off any blinders and take the time to step into their shoes. Actually become a customer for your competition. See what the actual client sees and the way they might feel and then work to make it better then ever.
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Service is the currency that keeps our economy moving. Customer service is always in fashion!! Strive to improve each and every day. Go through your client base today – both internal and external and think of one thing you can do differently. Remember your clients become your biggest advocates because they praise and brag about youwhich builds your brand and that leads to a stronger and bigger network. | — by Andrea Nierenberg
Andrea Nierenberg is an author,trainer,speaker and communications consultant. Called a “networking success story” by The Wall Street Journal, Andrea is founder and president of The Nierenberg Group since 1993. With over 26 years as a leader in sales and marketing, Andrea is an in-demand business expert both at home and abroad. Her company partners with an array of the world’s leading businesses in diversified industries. www.nierenberggroup.com Andrea is the author of four business books—all on Networking, Marketing and Business Development. Andrea speaks in cross-cultural settings around the globe and her travels have taken her to business hubs across the U.S., Asia, Europe, India and Africa. Andrea has been featured in all types of media from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal to industry publications and is frequent guest on local TV news. Prior to establishing The Nierenberg Group in 1993, she was publisher and sales director of Target Marketing Magazine and served in “Corporate America” in sales and marketing.
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