Sales and Sales Management Blog

March 11, 2009

Guest Article: “Don’t Gamble on Low Probability Prospects,” by Jeb Blount

Filed under: Closing Sales,lead generation,prospecting,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 11:27 am
Tags: , , ,

Don’t Gamble on Low Probability Prospects
by Jeb Blount

In the chorus of Kenny Roger’s famous song, “The Gambler,” the old gambler urges the young man to, “know when to walk away, know when to run.” I’ve given the same advice to thousands of Sales Professionals – advice that has rarely been heeded. Packing up and walking away from a deal that is going nowhere is one of the hardest things to do in sales. Even some of the best salespeople I know have continued to work on accounts that, from any observer’s point of view, were a complete waste of time, only to regret the energy, time, emotion, and resources they poured into it once the deal was lost.

Then there are the legions of salespeople who never seem to let go. They hold on until the final painful moments when prospects, who never had any intention of buying, finally break the truth to them. They make excuses to their sales managers and they angrily blame the buyer, market, or competitors.

I hear the same sad stories again and again. Deals lost and time wasted on prospects who were not the decision makers, were already under long-term contracts, were just shopping for price to keep their current vendor honest, or who were not in the buying window. Each working day salespeople across the globe are surprised to find out, after investing blood, sweat, and tears, and of course promises to the boss, the account they have been working on won’t close. And to make things worse, many of these salespeople were completely blind to all of the clues that were blinking like neon signs saying,”this prospect will not close, move on!”

On the other hand I know Sales Professionals who have a keen sense of the viability of a deal. Using solid questioning strategies, a simple mental checklist, and intuition they quickly extract themselves from the sales process once they believe working with their prospect or customer is unprofitable or a waste of time. This rare ability serves them well because it allows them to focus their most valuable resource – time – on accounts that have a high probability of closing. Even though sometimes they may be wrong and pull away from a prospect too quickly, it is better that they move on than take a chance and waste massive amounts of time on a prospect that could potentially never close. From years of observation, these are the Sales Pros who produce the most consistent results year in and year out.

So how do these Sales Professionals know when to walk away and sometimes run? What methodology do they use?

The good news is you can train yourself how to walk away from low probability deals. The first step is becoming familiar with the concept of probability. This is what the old gambler is trying to teach the young man on the train. Imagine if you walked into a casino and over every table there was neon sign that gave you the probability that you would win if you played that particular game. Some of the tables flashed 20%, some 50%, and still others 80%. Where would you place your bets? If you were smart you would walk away from the 20% tables and play the 80% tables.

This is how the best sales professionals look at their pipeline. Instead of viewing all of their prospects as equal, they look for neon signs that indicate the probability a deal will close. And they only spend their scarce resources only on high-probability deals. They gauge the probability of each prospect using a variety of indicators to act as that neon sign. They uncover these indicators through advanced and patient questioning of the buyer, influencers, and themselves with questions like:

Am I dealing with the economic decision maker (this is the person who has the power to say yes and write the check)?

If I’m not dealing with the decision maker can I get to that person?

Is this prospect under contract or outside of a budgetary buying window?

Can I add value to this prospect’s situation by solving problems?

Is the buyer exclusively focused on price?

Is the buyer willing to establish a personal relationship or are there walls up that I can’t break through?

Are there influencers and coaches in the account who are on my side?

Does my incumbent competitor have a solid position in the account that will be very difficult to dislodge?

Is there a level of dissatisfaction that I can exploit?

Am I being allowed access to the information, people, and material I need in order to develop a winning proposal?

Are there economic circumstances that may make this prospect a risky customer?

Are the buyer(s) engaged and doing their part to move the deal forward?

If sold, is there a strong chance that the account will not be approved by my management team?

Using the answers to these questions, and many more, top performing Sales Pros gauge the probability that a particular deal will close. And what sets these high-performers apart is their steadfast discipline to walk away from anything that falls below their probability comfort level.

Over my twenty year career in sales, one of the common attributes I have found in these top producers is when asked why they have such high closing rates they almost all say, “because I only call on prospects who are going to buy.” In other words, they only spend their time with high-probability prospects. You see, these top performers clearly understand the value of time for Sales Professionals. Time is the great equalizer. Every salesperson is given the exact same 24 hours each day – no more and no less. The difference between the top performers and everyone else is how they use that time. Top performers know that the real secret to improving their closing percentage is the self-discipline to ask hard questions of, and about, each prospect. In doing so they work less, earn more and close more deals.

Considered one of the leading experts in sales and sales leadership, Jeb Blount, author of PowerPrinciples, has over 20 years experience in sales and marketing. 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 thousands of Sales Professionals, managers and leaders. As a leader, consultant and coach he holds a core philosophy that in every endeavor there are a handful of key principles, the basics, which, if focused on intently, will drive peak performance and achievement.  Visit his website

March 10, 2009

Don’t Count on Your Company for Training in 2009

Filed under: business,Economy,management,Meetings/Conference,sales,Sales Management,sales training,selling — Paul McCord @ 9:58 am
Tags: , ,

Brainshark,  a leader in on-demand presentations, has just released a survey of how companies will be handling training, travel and conference budgets this year.  For those who have relied on company training sessions and conferences for the bulk of their training, the survey doesn’t look good.

Brainshark found that about 40% of companies plan on significantly decreasing meeting and conference costs.  Worse, 67% of large companies surveyed plan on cutting meeting and conference costs.  Over 60% are cutting travel and almost 30% are cutting incentive trips.

What do these staggering numbers mean for you?

More than likely it means you’re on you own.

Certainly, some companies will fill the void with webinars, tele-conferences, or on demand training presentations.  Many others, if not most, will simply pocket the savings.

There is a whole generation of salespeople who have never sold in a declining market.

Even those of us who are grizzled and tested have allowed our skills to rust as we’ve sold in a strong market these last years.

What has been working isn’t.  What we relied on yesterday isn’t generating results today.

If we want to survive and possibly even thrive today, we have to adopt more productive strategies to find and connect with prospects.  We have to learn to engage prospects in ways they will respect and respond to.  We have to learn how to approach prospects that put us and our products in a position of strength.

If we simply do more of what isn’t working, we’ll simply get nowhere faster.

That’s the reality of today’s marketplace.

Salespeople and Sales Leaders

Unfortunately, Brainshark’s survey indicates that very likely your company won’t be helping you do that.

In 2009 you’re on your own.  And this isn’t the year to be kicked out of the life raft.

Sales Leaders and Meeting Planners

There are cost effective ways of getting your sales team ready to tackle this market.

No, you don’t have to spend a fortune on meetings and conferences.  The hard costs you save can be millions, while the soft costs tens of millions.

Whether you’re a salesperson looking for help and guidance or a sales leader or meeting planner looking to change your team’s fortunes, give us a call and let’s see how we can get your sales moving and your bottom-line flooded with income.

Call me at 432-853-8685 or email me at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com

March 7, 2009

Guest Article: “Taking Your Sales Performance Up-a-Notch,” by Dave Kahle

Filed under: career development,motivation,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 10:23 am
Tags: , ,

Taking Your Sales Performance Up-a-Notch
by Dave Kahle.

“Selling is more difficult now that it was just a couple of years ago.” Most of the participants in my sales seminars nod solemnly when I make that statement. And then they begin to fidget in their seats when I follow that up with this: “And it will be more difficult next year than it is today.” They become really uncomfortable when I extend that idea: “And it will be increasingly more difficult every year thereafter.”

That´s a sobering truth that we don´t like to face. Yet, just a little bit of reflection will convince us of the likelihood of that statement holding true. Aren´t the products and services you sell growing more complex and sophisticated all the time? Aren´t the demands of your customers growing more complex also? Aren´t the processes that you use to do your job effectively growing more intricate every year? Isn´t competition growing more challenging every year? Isn´t your company changing rapidly, and expecting you to be a part of those changes?

Now, ask yourself one more question. What’s the likelihood that one day in the near future all of these trends will stop on a dime and everything will become simpler?

You know the answer. The job of the field salesperson will continue to grow more complex, more challenging and more difficult for the foreseeable future.

So what does that mean to you? It means that you will need to continually change and adapt constantly. It means that you will need to become proficient at learning new things and improving yourself. It means that from this point on you will have two jobs:

1.  Doing your job

2.  Constantly changing and improving yourself.

At first this seems unfair. There was a time, not so long ago, that a field salesperson could pay his/her dues, put in a strenuous few years, and then begin to coast as you leveraged the relationships you created and the product knowledge you gained. Those days are gone. In their place is the time compressed, stress laden, constantly changing atmosphere we currently inhabit.

It may seem unfair. You may have been born a few years too late. But, really, it´s not so different than other components of our economy. Aren´t manufacturers expected to constantly improve their products, and every now and then bring out a breakthrough new technology? Isn´t your company continually improving its processes? Aren´t your suppliers constantly bringing you ideas and services? Don´t your customers strive to continually improve their businesses and their processes?

So why should field salespeople be any different? They´re not. Welcome to the 21st Century. Welcome to the world of two jobs.

What does all this mean to you? It means that you have to work as diligently at improving yourself as you do at selling and serving your customers. It means that you have to invest time and money in your other job. It means you need to become serious about taking your performance up a notch — to the next level.

Where to start?

I like to compare this job of continually improving yourself as being like golf. Everyone can golf. I know that, because I have done it a couple of times. Eventually I put the ball in that hole. So, I, like millions of other people, can golf. But I can´t golf very well. That takes some effort.

If someone were to say to me that by this time next year I must be able to make my living golfing, I´d suddenly become very serious about it. I´d find the best golf coach I could fine, and arrange a whole series of lessons. I´d invest money in the best clubs I could get. I´d spend hours every day practicing. I´d invest major amount of time and money in improving my golf skills.

Continuous improvement in selling is like that. For the rest of your working life, you´re going to make your living, at least in part, by continually improving yourself. And, while everyone can do it, not everyone can do it well. Those people who learn to improve themselves well, to grow faster and better than their colleagues, will be those salespeople who will enjoy increasing income, more fulfillment, opportunities for greater challenge, and a satisfying personal life. It´s like golf. If you want to become better at it, you´ll invest time and money in improving that. Here are some ideas to help you along.

Start with a commitment of time and money.

Begin by accepting the idea that constant improvement is now part of your job, and make a decision to take it seriously, to invest time and money every week in the process. Remember, it´s like golf. To get good at golf, you´d invest time and money. To become proficient at continuous improvement, you need to invest time and money also.

Focus on best practices.

I recently received a phone call from VP of Sales, who was, he said, looking for the latest, new state-of-the-art selling techniques. I replied that he wasn´t going to find much of that. Almost all the behaviors of highly successful sales people are the same as they were a hundred years ago. The applications are more sophisticated, but the core behaviors are the same. Sales is still about creating relationships, understanding the customer, matching your product/service to the customer´s needs, negotiating next steps, leveraging satisfaction, planning and preparing properly.

There is no magic to selling, and there are no secrets. Those are just enticing words designed to sell the latest sales book. What there are, instead of magic and secrets, are best practices and core competencies.

Every profession in the world has evolved a body of knowledge about how to effectively practice in that professional. That body of knowledge is generally available to all the practitioners of that profession, and becomes the standard by which professionals in that field are judged.

Every time I get on an airplane, I´m comfortable in the knowledge that my pilot has learned the best way to fly this plane, and it doesn´t much matter who the pilot is, everyone of them has been trained in the best practices.

When I review the financial statements my accountant has prepared, I´m confident that those statements reflect her disciplined use of best accounting practices, and that every other accountant would recognize them.

When I go into see my doctor for my annual physical exam, I´m confident that he is using the best practices of his profession. That if I went to another doctor, because there is a recognized way to do this, the process and the results will be very similar.

And so it is for every profession. It´s the way the world progresses. We build on the wisdom and experience of those who have gone before us. We don´t need to reinvent the wheel when it has already been around for generations.

Why is it, then, that we think that every salesperson has his own way of selling and that is OK? Why is it, then, that we think salespeople should learn by trial and error, on the job? Would you expect your pilot, doctor, or accountant to figure it out for themselves? Are there any self-taught professional golfers out there?

There are best practices for the job of field salesperson. If you are going to continually improve, you need to study those practices.

It´s what you do, not what you know.

Occasionally I come across a salesperson who says something to the effect of this: “I knew all that.” Too bad, he/she missed the point.

The point is, continuous improvement is all about what you do, not just what you know. In other words, once you understand the best practices, you need to incorporate them into your routines. It is not enough just to know, you must do. Life is not about academics, and we don´t get paid for what we know. We get paid for the results we bring as a result of the actions we take.

If you are going to grow, you need to be constantly prodded to put into action those things that you already know. Most human beings, left to themselves, would rather watch TV and goof off than do the hard work of continually improving themselves.

Back to our golf analogy. I know how to grip the golf club, I know how to set up the shot, and I know how to swing correctly. But I very rarely do it! My problem isn´t what I know; it´s what I do.

So it is with sales people. Ultimately, continuous improvement is about what you do. It´s one thing to know something, it´s another to consistently put that knowledge into action.

I recall Isaiah Thomas, the superstar guard for the Detroit Pistons during their Bad Boy days. Isaiah had a new home built with an enclosed mini-basketball court. Why? So he could practice foul shots in his off time. Isaiah knew how to shoot. He had practiced that shot tens of thousands of times. But he was not as good at it as he could be, so he continued to practice.

How about you? Do you know it all? Or are you, like Isaiah, dedicated to continuously improving what you do?

Dave Kahle, a high-energy, high-content speaker, has a special gift for engaging his audiences and stimulating people to think. He’s a world-class speaker who has presented in 36 states and six countries. He brings a wealth of practical information to his clients.  Dave has acquired his message through real life experience. He has been the number one salesperson in the country for two different companies in two distinct industries.  Visit his website

March 5, 2009

I Ain’t What I Thought I Was–Are You What You Think You Are?

Filed under: attitude,business,sales,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 10:50 am
Tags: , , , ,

One of the easiest parts of my job has always been writing.  I’m not saying my writing is good, just that it has always been easy to do.  When I write, whether a book, article, or blog post, I turn a topic around in my mind for a few days and then when I sit down, the writing just flows.  I can knock out a 20 or 30 page chapter in 3 or 4 hours, a 3 or 4 page article in 30 minutes.  Devote maybe half again that much time to revise and correct and its done.  Easy.

This post hasn’t been easy at all.  The topic is too personal–it deals with a very real and serious problem I face-and one that to one extent or another I suspect you’re facing also.

I’ve started and restarted and restarted and restarted this post time after time.  The issue is how personal should this post be?  Not that I have a problem discussing my personal struggles-I just don’t want to bore you to death.  But no matter how I begin, it always comes back to the issues I have.  Those issues are at the heart of what we all face-what do we do in THIS economy? Today? Right this second?

Forgive me if this comes off as too self-indulgent-it isn’t meant to be.

If you’re like me, you’ve watched your market change radically-maybe even disappear altogether-over the past few months.  You might be staring at a pipeline report that’s as empty as our national bank account-I am.  You might be seeing your booked business disappear due to budget cutbacks-I am.  You might be wondering where in the world you’re next sale will come from-I am.  You might be wondering just how much McDonald’s really pays-well, we’re not there, yet.

If we want to continue to be successful-if we want to survive-in this economy, we have to rethink everything about our business, our markets, and our approach.  We have to discover where we can be relevant and have an impact today and tomorrow.  We have to be ready to change in short order.

Over the past several days I’ve spent a good amount of time speaking with a number of my friends and colleagues such as Jill Konrath, Jonathan Farrington, Keith Rosen, Lee Salz, Wendy Weiss, and Dr. Greg Stebbins about the current state of the economy, where the sales consulting and training market is and where it is going, and how we must adjust our businesses in this environment.  This is a group of men and women that I both trust and respect their insights and judgment.  Each is one that I am comfortable confessing my current business concerns to and who have the wisdom and integrity to give advice and guidance worth taking seriously.

And I haven’t been disappointed.  Each has given great advice and guidance.  Each has brought to the surface new opportunities and new avenues to pursue.  In many cases they’ve reinforced my own thinking-but accompanied that with a good, hard, swift kick in the butt.

I suggest that whether you are the leader of a large company or sales team, or an individual salesperson struggling with the direction of where your business should be headed, find several people outside your company, men and women you trust, who know you, who understand your business and your challenges, and approach them for a serious discussion about your issues.  Go outside your company.  Get broader perspectives from men and women you are comfortable opening up your inner fears and doubts to. You will learn a great deal about where you are and where you need to go.  They’ll point out things you haven’t seen, help you organize your thoughts, and very probably help you pinpoint areas where the obstacle to your success has been the limitations you’ve put on yourself.

We all have put limitations on ourselves.  We all have self-limiting beliefs about who we are, what we do, where we fit in the marketplace.

I have them.

You have them.

Everyone has them to some extent or another.

If we want to expand in today’s economy we have to bust through those self-limiting beliefs.  The problem is we can’t eliminate them if we don’t even recognize what they are.

I had (have?) several limiting beliefs that were brought to the surface in my conversations this week.

  • Although I’ve done work outside the financial services industry, the vast majority of my work has been with bankers, investment brokers, mortgage companies, insurance advisors, and others in financial services.  I had spent my entire career in financial services.  I saw myself as being a financial services specific expert.  That’s my market, my niche.  That is where my name recognition is.  That’s where my clients and consequently my references are.  Financial services companies are who I get referred to.
  • No one outside of financial services knows who I am.  In my industry name recognition and reputation is a key factor.  How could I break into new markets when no one has ever heard of me?  Am I going to have to start from scratch as I did years ago?
  • Virtually all of my references are financial services companies.  I have few contacts and references outside financial services and most potential clients will want examples of my work with like companies.  High tech companies will want references from other high tech companies, pharmaceutical from pharmaceutical, manufacturing from manufacturing.  How am going to overcome this?  Am I going to have to do free or extremely low cost training as I did at first in order to establish a foothold in a new industry?

These problems seemed very real to me.  I know how much work it took to get my business where it is and I didn’t want to ‘give up’ what I’d worked hard to create.  That, actually, was my biggest limiting belief-I was feeling sorry for myself.  I was allowing myself to wallow in misery.  I was steadfastly holding onto my image of who I am and what I do.

It certainly wasn’t during my first conversation that the light came on that my primary issue wasn’t the economy or the market, but rather me.  My thinking isn’t swayed that easily-and who really wants to admit that, as Pogo pointed out, ‘we have met the enemy and he is us?”

Yet over several days I ‘discovered’ a number of things about my business:

  • I have good name recognition outside the financial services industry as demonstrated by some recent, unsolicited, out of the clear blue calls and emails I had received.  For example, I received an email asking my availability for a speaking engagement by a division of FUJIFILM and a few days after that a call about a potential training contract from one of the largest general contractors in the country.  They had to have heard of me someway, right?  Over this week I’ve seen many other recent, tangible examples.
  • Finding and connecting with high quality, non price driven prospects who will allow companies to maintain margins and who will be loyal long-term clients is THE ISSUE most companies are facing in today’s market.  My business is focused almost exclusively in helping companies and salespeople learn how to develop high quality business by finding and connecting with prospects who are seeking real solutions to real issues and are not simply trying to buy the cheapest patch-up solution they can find and who will be the loyal backbone of the company’s or salesperson’s business for years to come.  What I do is in great demand and it is totally transferable to any business whose sale is primarily relationship based-and that includes thousands upon thousands of both B2B and B2C companies in hundreds of industries.
  • References need not be in the industry I’m marketing to-they just have to be able to address issues of importance to the prospect firm.  If XYZ client is talking to ABC Company about how I helped them increase their business and both companies use a relationship based sales model, the connection is there even though they are in different industries.  The important thing to my prospects is what I did, not who I did it for.

My business is stronger than ever.  I have an almost limitless pool of prospects.  My services are needed now more than ever.  My strength is what I do, not who I did it for in the past.

Now, if you’re sitting there thinking, “gee, what a dope.  All of this should have been as obvious as daylight.  Is this guy blind or just an idiot,” don’t feel too smug.  When I lay it out as above, yes, it seems pretty obvious.  But when one is wrapped up in the issue, when one has developed a vision of who they are and what they do over a period of years, the obvious isn’t necessarily so obvious.  You may be in the exact position I’ve been in-missing the big picture because of your pre-determined vision of what the big picture is.

These obvious revelations came about because I had the good fortune to have some folks to speak to who cared enough to take the time to help me work through some problems.  These revelations came about because I had people who were divorced from the situation and could see what was there, not what they thought was there.

I encourage you to look outside yourself and your company.  The obvious isn’t so obvious to you when you’re right in the middle of the problem, especially when you’ve already determined what’s what.  Sometimes what you believe to be the situation is 180 degrees turned from reality.  It doesn’t mean you’re stupid, incompetent, or adverse from changing, it simply means you’ve formulated images and concepts that rule your thinking and in order to bust out of that box you’ve put yourself into you have to have an independent analysis-and neither you nor anyone in your company can really do an independent analysis.  You’re too close.  You’ve invested too much in what you believe to be objective.

I suspect you’re just as blind I was.  I suspect the obvious isn’t so obvious to you.  I suspect you have a world of opportunities at your doorstep just waiting for you to recognize the obvious-if you can, if you can see past what you’ve come to believe about yourself and what you do, that is, who you believe you are.

My discoveries over the past week will not change anything about my business unless I take the next step in the process-change my business.  In a sense, recognizing the limiting beliefs I’ve operated under is really the easy part.  Recognizing the opportunities that are out there is great, but unless I implement the needed changes in what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, the opportunities will go unrealized.  I’ll have accomplished nothing.

And I’ve got a great deal of work to do:

  • I have to start marketing myself into new markets.  Join new associations, write for new publications, give presentations to new organizations.
  • I have to pick up the phone and start calling on new prospects in new industries.
  • I have to capitalize on my connections outside the financial services industry
  • I have to concentrate on new income streams.  For instance, like most in my industry, I have products-books, CDs, public seminars to sell.  I’ve never really made much effort to do so since my business was corporate centered.  I have to take those products-which are great products by the way-as a serious potential income source.
  • My website was not designed to be an attractor of business.  It has always been used as a supplemental resource once I’ve connected with a prospect.  It has to change.  It has to become a business attractor.  It has to be completely reworked, renamed, redesigned.
  • My marketing model has to be changed from the ground up.  For several years I didn’t have to go after business, it came to me.  Those days are gone.  I have to be an aggressive marketer once more.  God forbid, I have work again.
  • I have to find new ways of making what I do affordable in a tight economy.  Fewer and fewer companies can afford to hold in-person training sessions, conferences, and regional and national meetings.  The cost is just too great.  A one or two day training session for a large region of a company can cost anywhere from a tens of thousands of dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars.  There’s the trainer’s fee and travel, the travel expenses for the company personnel, probably some entertainment and many, many meals.  Very likely there’s the expense for the venue, additional personnel for coordination and set-up.  There’s the lost field time for the sales team.  Huge costs that just aren’t practical in today’s economy.  I must reformulate what I do into webinars where the company doesn’t incur travel and venue expenses, where the lost field time is counted in terms of the actual training time, not in days.  The costs for a business development session can be reduced by 80 to 90% or more-and without losing a bit of the effectiveness of the session.
  • Coaching of sales leaders has never been a significant part of my business.  But in today’s marketplace with massive uncertainty, pressure to perform, the threat of being replaced on a moment’s notice due to budget cutbacks, being absorbed by another company, or perceived under performance, managers are in need of coaching now more than ever.  Their future and their sanity may depend on it.  Objective outside advice, criticism, and direction is vital to staying on top-or getting on top.  I must take a serious look at the possibility of taking on coaching as a significant part of my business model.

My work has just begun.  My company will be very different in two weeks, two months, two years.  My old comfortable way of doing business is gone-or more correctly, is going.  It’s an exciting time filled with great opportunity and tremendous new challenges.  In many ways, I’m re-energized.  In other ways, I’m apprehensive.  Change is never easy and seldom smooth–and usually doesn’t proceed in a nice neat straight line.  There’s great comfort in the status quo.  But in this economy we’re not talking about comfort or ease, we’re talking about survival, change, growth, and possibilities.

What are your possibilities?  Where must you change?  Where is your growth as an individual and organization going to come from and where will it take you?  Few of us have the luxury of maintaining the status quo today. Don’t assume you that haven’t limited yourself.  Don’t assume that you know what all of your opportunities are.  Don’t assume that you have the answers-in fact, don’t assume you have any answers.  You just might find that didn’t know as much as what you do as you thought you did.

March 3, 2009

Guest Article: “Pre-Qualifying Works: Prejudging Your Prospects Doesn’t,” by Keith Rosen

Filed under: Handling Prospect,prospecting,sales,selling — Paul McCord @ 8:53 am

Pre-Qualifying Works; Prejudging Your Prospects Doesn’t
By Keith Rosen

To permanently eliminate any confusion, lets draw a distinction between what it means to pre-qualify and pre-judge someone such as a prospect. If you read my cold calling book, you know that I’m a strong advocate of pre-qualifying anyone before you invest your very limited and precious time in meeting with or speaking with them. Conversely, pre-judging someone is something you do that shows up in the filter or barrier you have in your listening.

Here’s another way to distinguish between the two. When you are pre-qualifying someone you are arriving at a conclusion that determines whether or not there’s a fit worth pursuing based on a defined set of criteria you uncover through the use of well crafted questions.

Pre-judging said simply, is all about you. Here, you are relying on your faulty and costly assumptions, thoughts and beliefs to determine their needs and whether or not this prospect will potentially buy from you.

When you pre-judge someone you’re making assumptions about them before you ask any questions or uncover any facts.

When you pre-qualify someone, you’re asking questions to uncover their unique and specific needs without making any assumptions so that you can determine very quickly if there is in fact, an authentic fit worth pursuing.

Keith Rosen is the preferred, experienced coach that top executives and sales professionals in many of the world’s leading companies call on. As a prominent, engaging speaker, coach and well-known author of many books and articles on selling, leadership, time management and achieving greater personal success, Keith is one of the foremost authorities on how to assist people achieve positive, measurable change in their attitude and in their behavior.  Visit Keith’s website

« Previous Page

Theme: Rubric. Blog at WordPress.com.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 4,396 other followers