Sales and Sales Management Blog

February 19, 2010

Guest Article: “The Seduction of Low-Hanging Fruit,” by Jill Konrath

Filed under: Closing Sales,prospecting,Qualifying Prospects,Sales Failure,Sales Process,selling,time management — Paul McCord @ 10:06 am
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The Seduction of Low-Hanging Fruit
by Jill Konrath

I remember the first time it happened. It was on a Thursday, about 4 pm, and I was worn-out after a day of cold calling. I hadn’t uncovered even one viable prospect. Enough was enough! Time to go back to the office and do some paperwork.

When the phone rang, I answered it tiredly. But by the time I hung up I was a new person. I had just talked to one hot prospect!

Her company was BUYING! Not just looking – BUYING! They needed several new systems to handle their growth. And they wanted to make a decision quickly.

“Can we come in for a demonstration,” she asked.

How could I refuse! They came in the following Monday and we spent about two hours together. We discussed their needs and I showed them several possible options. Things seemed to go really well. In parting, they asked me to call back early the next week.

Tuesday morning I left a message. Wednesday and Friday too. My calls were never returned. It wasn’t till a week later that I finally got my prospect on the phone. She thanked me for my hard work, fast service and excellent demonstration. Then, very apologetically, she told me they’d selected another vendor.

I asked “Why,” but her answer was evasive and focused on minor details. Of course, price was thrown in too – as it always is when you lose.

I’m embarrassed to tell you that this happened to me more than once. And sometimes I invested an inordinate amount of time and effort in those so-called “hot prospects.” I coordinated elaborate meetings and prepared detailed proposals. I even rearranged meetings with prospective customers who weren’t quite ready to move ahead.

Can you guess what happened? That’s right. I almost always lost the business.

Lest you think I’m not too smart, it didn’t take me too long to figure out something was wrong. My proposals, presentations and demos were fundamentally sound, so it had to be something else. But what … When I talked to the more seasoned sellers, I was cautioned on wasting my time with ‘low-hanging fruit” – in other words, companies who are ripe to buy.

They told me that many of these prospects already have made their decision, but are checking the market for two reasons: 1) To prove to higher-ups they did a thorough investigation, or 2) To leverage competitive offers to reduce their preferred vendor’s pricing.

Yikes! That explained a lot of things. Naively, I had assumed that I had a fair shot at every deal.

Learning how to ferret out those opportunities where it was worthwhile to pursue low-hanging fruit was hard. I had to be much more straightforward than I was used to being and ask questions that made me uncomfortable. But by doing this, I saved myself lots of hard work. And, I had more time to spend on prospects where I could win.

* * ******************************************************************

It’s not only individuals who are seduced by low-hanging fruit. Sometimes whole companies are sucked into these ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes.

Several years ago one of my clients introduced a new product targeted at a highly profitable niche owned by their competitor. They were late to this market and, in essence, their product was a higher-priced copycat with enhanced capabilities.

In the months preceding the launch, sales reps continually fed marketing stories about all the money being left on the table because the new product wasn’t ready. They told marketing about all the prospects who called wanting to know when their new system would be available. Everyone was drooling. So many buyers, so little time.

Their entire launch plan focused on the low-hanging fruit. Sales reps, armed with proposal templates and PowerPoint presentations highlighting competitive strengths, were chartered to go after companies on their “Hot Prospects List.”

Hard as I tried, I couldn’t convince them of the folly of this decision. The seduction was complete.

So what happened? In the six months immediately after the launch, very few systems were sold. Their only orders came from existing customers where reps had strong, long-term relationships with key decision makers. Within two years the company quietly exited this market niche because it was too costly to penetrate.

The lure of low-hanging fruit never completely goes away. The chance to make easy money is just too seductive.

I still have to caution myself when I encounter these opportunities. The worst thing about them is the wasted time that could have spent with prospects where my chances of winning were much higher.

Lessons Learned

1. In most cases, you can’t get into a sales process late and expect to win. If your competitor already has a strong relationship with the customer, they’re in the driver’s seat. They’ve likely already established decision criteria that only their company can meet.

2. Be willing to ask tough questions. If your new prospect is ready to buy, make sure you ask them:

- Who else are you looking at?

- Has your company done business with these companies before?

- Why would you consider switching?

If your prospects express strong dissatisfaction with a competitor, you might have a real opportunity. But if they’re just looking around, be wary of investing too much of your time and company’s resources trying to get the business.

3. Your best prospects will be those companies where you already have an established relationship OR where you get in early, before customers are making a decision. In the latter case, by uncovering and developing account needs, you’ll build the strong relationship you need to win the order when they’re ready to make a change.

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big  Companies, is a recognized sales strategist in the highly competitive business-to-business  market. A popular speaker at sales meetings, she helps her clients crack into  corporate accounts, speed up their sales cycle and generate demand for their offering.  Visit her website http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com

October 28, 2009

Interview of Sharon Drew Morgen on Buying Facilitation

Filed under: Client Relationships,Handling Prospect,sales,Sales Failure,Sales Process,selling — Paul McCord @ 9:42 am
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I interview my friend, New York Times best-selling author and creator of Buying Facilitation®, Sharon Drew Morgen.  She discusses what Buying Facilitation is and her new book, Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it:

Sharon Drew Morgen Interview

I encourage you to visit Sharon Drew’s website and grab a copy of her new book Dirty Little Secrets at either Amazon or the book’s website.

October 8, 2009

The REAL Dirty Secret about Selling that Will EXPLODE Your Sales Career

Filed under: sales,Sales Failure,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 11:48 am
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How often have you heard the hype that if you just buy this list of prospects your problems will be solved, or if you’ll just get this book, pay $899 for this sales ‘secret,’ or use this sales system you’ll only have to work three days a week? 

How many websites have you gone to that have a never ending sales pitch with ‘testimonial’ after ‘testimonial’ about what a great book or system is being offered that will change your sales career forever–but doesn’t give the slightest idea of what you’re going to buy for only $79.95?

How many promises of THE sales secret, the AMAZING OVERNIGHT results you’ll get with THIS process, the UNBELIEVABLE income from this technique that only the most successful salespeople know, or the BREAKTHROUGH system that GUARANTEES your sales success have you seen?  Hundreds?  Thousands?

We’ve all seen them.  Probably at least every week if not every day.  The ads, the claims, the promises are everywhere.  It used to be there was a huckster on every corner, now there’s at least one on every Google search results page.

You know why they’re there don’t you?  They’re there because we want them to be there.  We encourage them by going to their webpages, by buying their products, by believing–no desperately hoping that there’s really, truly a secret that if we just knew would make selling so easy and profitable that our lives would be complete.  No more cold calling.  No more unkept appointments.  No more rejection.  No more worry.  No more depression.  We’d never have to put in 60, 70, 80 hours again. 

If we just knew. 

If it just existed—and it must exist because there are so many out there telling us it does exist and we see the successful salespeople who seem to have it all (and so easily, too!). 

Those guys gotta know something we don’t know. 

If we only knew. 

We’d pay almost anything to find it, to learn it, to be able to have the easy life like those lucky big producers who bought or stumbled upon the secret.

Yep, we’re why those hucksters exist.  Because we want them to—because we DEMAND they exist.

And the funny thing is we’re right–there really is a secret that if we just learn it and implement it will change our sales careers forever. 

The best part is we don’t even have to pay for it. 

In fact, we already know the secret—we just don’t like it.  It isn’t the secret we want it to be.

The REAL secret to sales success isn’t contained in that super duper list the broker is going to sell to you and you alone; it isn’t contained in that secret sales system that only costs $899; it isn’t in that 24 page e-book with all the testimonials from people identified only by initials that that self-proclaimed guru is offering you for only $99.99.

Naw, it ain’t in any of those.

That’s where we want it to be.  We want so badly to just pay our $899 and everything will change.  The only thing that changes is the balance in that huckster’s bank account—oh, and your bank account, too.

If you really want to be successful in selling forget the tricks, the schemes, the false promises and false hopes. 

Instead, do what the top producers do:

  • Learn successful processes for identifying, finding, and connecting with quality prospects.  There are a number of very effective prospecting and marketing processes.  Learn and implement several.  Don’t let anyone tell you there’s only one way to find and connect with prospects.  If they’re telling you that, they’ve already lined you up in their sights to be had.
  • Learn and implement a dynamic, proven sales process.  Again, there are several highly effective processes.  Find one that fits your personality, your market, your product or service.  Learn it, implement it, perfect it.
  • Commit yourself to learning the essentials of being a successful seller—how to communicate; how to negotiate; how to manage your time in order to give your prospects and clients a purchasing experience that keeps them loyal—and talking about you; how to deal with the questions, the issues, the problems that will recur time after time after time in your career.
  • Learn to walk away when you can’t perform as a prospect demands or when your product or service isn’t right.  Knowing when to walk away is just as important as knowing when to fight for the sale.

In short, the REAL dirty secret about selling that will EXPLODE your sales career is that selling is hard work that demands you learn to be a professional seller, not an order taker.  That you commit to doing the things you must do to create the sales opportunities you want—that means not only investing the time, but spending that time in activities that generate sales, not in activities that insulate you from the anxiety of potential rejection; that you learn effective processes rather than shooting from the hip; that you be proactive instead of reactive.

Top producers aren’t top producers because they were lucky, because they had a better list than you, or because they paid for ‘the secret.’  Top producers are top producers because they learned that the secret to becoming a top producer was investing the time, energy, and dollars required to learn, implement, and perfect proven processes to find, connect with, sell, and service great prospects, and they then committed themselves to getting dirty by getting in the trenches and doing the hard work of turning those processes into a successful sales business.

Want to be a top producer?  Forget the magic and commit yourself to getting dirty. 

October 5, 2009

Can B2B Salespeople Succeed Without Cold Calling?

Filed under: cold calling,prospecting,sales,Sales Failure,selling — Paul McCord @ 9:12 am
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A couple of months ago I was on a Roundtable discussion with Wendy Weiss, Nancy Solomon, Tibor Shanto and Jonathan Farrington over at the Top Sales Experts when the question arose as to whether business-to-business salespeople can be successful without cold calling.

My answer at that time—and still my answer today—is that of course sellers can be successful without cold calling, just as they can be successful without generating referrals or networking within their target market industry associations or consistently connecting with their prospects and clients through a disciplined communication program or by eliminating any given element of a strong, well defined business generation plan.  There’s nothing magical about any individual prospecting method.  They all work to one extent or another depending on how much time and effort the seller commits to learning and perfecting the particular method.

But I think the question that was asked really isn’t the right question.  It isn’t a matter of can one succeed without cold calling (or generating referrals or networking where one’s prospects congregate), but rather why would one try to succeed without taking advantage of all of these proven strategies?

Now frankly, I’m not a big fan of cold calling in its most basic sense of “smiling and dialing.”  I think there are far more effective phone strategies for business-to-business salespeople.  But whether one uses the issue discovery strategy I use and teach or just picks up a list and starts dialing, the phone should be an integral part of how we connect with our prospects. 

My business is built primarily on referrals, strategic networking, and using various media to connect with prospects.  I’ve been very successful at using these strategies to connect with and meet some of my best prospects.  Referrals and networking allow me to meet a great number of specific prospects I know I want to reach and using media such as books, articles, giving speeches and presentations, and being quoted as an expert in business and industry publications has brought many great prospects to me.

But no matter how good at generating referrals I am or how much time I invest in networking where I know a large number of great prospects will be or how many prospects my use of media cause to call me, there are still great prospects out there that I just can’t reach any other way than picking up the phone.  I’m willing to bet you’re in exactly the same situation as I am.

During my three decades in sales, sales management, and consulting/training, I’ve met thousands of sellers who would rather commit murder than pick up the phone and call a total stranger.  The fear of calling someone with the intent of setting an appointment is so overwhelming for some salespeople that they would rather fail in sales than pick up the phone.

The fear is real, just as the fear of public speaking is real.  But just as you can overcome the fear of speaking in public, you can learn to master your fear of using the phone to prospect.

Although you can be a successful seller without using the phone to connect with strangers, you’re asking to succeed the hard way and you’re putting yourself at needless risk.  The cold hard fact of the matter is that you can succeed without using the phone but you’re far more likely to fail than to succeed.

If you were in a fight for your life would you volunteer to have one of your hands tied behind your back?  Of course you wouldn’t.  No one would handicap themselves in such a manner when their life was at stake.  So why would you handicap yourself by caving into your fear of connecting over the phone when your business life is at stake?  Why would you volunteer to tie one of your hands behind your back and invite disaster?

We sellers have two primary ways to conquer our fear of using the phone:

The Nike “Just do it” method:  Easy to say, hard to do.  Just do it.  Just pick up the phone and start dialing.  This is the preferred method of many companies and managers—it doesn’t cost the company anything and being tough and doing what you know “needs to be done” is what “professionals” do.  Not surprisingly it doesn’t work very often.

Building Confidence and Skills:  Where the Nike method requires little, this strategy requires a great deal.  It requires an investment of time and energy—and more than likely money—to learn and perfect the skills necessary to confidently pick up the phone and begin connecting with quality prospects.  The salesperson or company will most likely have to invest in a trainer and coach to help the seller learn the required skills.   The seller will have to invest the time and effort to learn, to practice, to screw up, and to be coached.  But as the lessons are learned, the confidence increases and as the confidence increases, the phone becomes a tool that can be conquered, not feared.

If you insist on ignoring the phone as a way to connect with prospects, good luck.  Many sellers have succeeded without the phone.  Far, far, far more have failed.  It’s your choice, but why would you want to substantially increase your chances of failure?  The phone may never become your friend, but it doesn’t have to be your enemy.  If your company won’t invest in helping you learn how to master the phone, invest in yourself.  Your bank account, your career, and your family will be glad you did.

September 29, 2009

Questions, Objections, or Dead Ends?

Filed under: Client Relationships,cold calling,Communication,sales,Sales Failure,selling — Paul McCord @ 10:22 am
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How do you handle cold calls when you get them at home or the office?  Although I haven’t bought anything from anyone who initiated their contact with me through a cold call in years and years, I accept almost every cold call that comes into my office.  No, I have no intention of purchasing whatever the product or service they are selling is, but I’m curious to find out how the seller on the phone is going to try to gain my attention and what they will do with it once they have it.

One of the things I’ve noticed is how many sellers seem to be unable to distinguish between a question, an objection, and a statement ending the conversation.

My observation from dealing with hundreds of sellers on the phone—and please don’t assume this is a cold caller issue alone as a great many sellers make these mistakes whether on the phone or in-person although they seem to be more prevalent in phone conversations—is they cannot distinguish between a straightforward question about their product or service, an objection to purchasing, and a direct statement ending the conversation.

This doesn’t mean that all sellers handle these situations in the same manner, but there does seem to be two primary schools of thought—two primary reactions—in how to deal with questions, objections, and conversation ending statements.

The “OK, I’m outta here” school:  The first method of handling these situations seems to be to simply fold up the selling tent and end the sales interview immediately upon getting what is perceived to be any resistance what-so-ever. 

Ask a couple of honest questions about the product or service and the seller seems to become discouraged and simply gives up.  State an objection to purchasing and they are ready to get off the phone.  Make a direct statement indicating you want to end the conversation and they can’t get off the phone fast enough.

They do not differentiate between probing questions to discover more information about their offering, an objection to making a purchase that could possibly be dealt with, and a desire to end the sales interview.  To them, they all indicate resistance and resistance means “no sale.”

The “I can’t hear you” school:  The opposite method of handling these situations is to also treat them all the same, but this time instead of rolling over and giving up, the seller presses on, ignoring the questions, ignoring the statements, forcing the prospect to either acquiesce to the sale or to finally hang up on the caller.

These are the sellers who have been trained that a ‘no’ never means no.  An objection is something to be ignored because it is nothing but a delaying tactic.  A statement seeking to end the conversation is nothing but an objection and objections are to be ignored because they are nothing but delaying tactics.  If you’re a really a good salesperson, you ‘lead’ the prospect to make the decision that is right for them, which is, of course, to make the purchase.

Why are these sellers so oblivious to the obvious differences between a question an objection and a desire to end the conversation?  Why do some see everything as resistance and others never see resistance?

Certainly, a great deal of this has to do with the sales training—or lack thereof—these sellers have received. 

Those who give up easily have probably had little or no sales training.  Product training, maybe; but I doubt they’ve had much training in how to sell.

Those who push forward no matter what have been trained very well—trained to ignore, to push, to bully, to demand until the prospect either buys or finds a way to end the conversation which probably means resorting to cussing out the seller or hanging up on them.  These sellers have been taught well in the sense that their trainers have instilled the desired behavior in them, but they certainly haven’t been taught to be professional sellers.

I think both of these groups of sellers suffer from more than just their training or lack thereof.  I think there are a number of sellers that suffer from a serious lack of communication skills.  They don’t listen.  They can’t assimilate what the prospect is communicating.  They really don’t know how to respond to what they perceive to be unwelcome or unexpected responses. Their focus is only on getting the sale which means for some what they say is the only thing of importance, what the prospect says is nothing but a distraction; while for others once they’ve made their case, they have nowhere else to go.

Communication has always been at the heart of selling and is becoming ever more critical as our prospects have more and more alternatives to acquire the information and guidance they need to analyze their problems and issues and to develop solutions to those problems and issues.  Our prospects now have as much information at their fingertips as we sellers can ever provide them.  An increasing number are deciding they don’t need a salesperson at all—ever.

If we sellers want to be relevant to prospects, we better learn the communication skills that have always been one of the hallmarks of the top sellers.

September 21, 2009

Guest Article: “Why Customer Service Destorys Salespeople,” by Mark Hunter

Filed under: Customer Service,sales,Sales Failure,selling — Paul McCord @ 9:40 am
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Why Customer Service Destroys Salespeople
by Mark Hunter

One position that has not been impacted by the economy is sales.  Ask any CEO and you will hear that one of their biggest issues is finding and retaining good salespeople. Something happened on the way to a sour economy: Too many companies learned the hard way that their salespeople didn’t know how to sell. Instead, their salespeople were good at taking orders and providing customer service.  There is nothing wrong with this approach, as long as the marketplace is always going to serve up new customers and keep current customers in business. Does that kind of marketplace always exist? Unfortunately, no.

As a sales consultant who works with a wide number of companies, I am not surprised with the current state of sales.  In the past 20 years, books and soothsayers have inundated us with advice saying that the best way to grow your company is through great customer service. (Think of companies like Disney, Marriott and Honda, just to name a few).  These are certainly great companies, and I’m personally an avid customer of each one.  However, if great customer service is all that is needed to win, then why is each of these companies struggling in today’s economy?

I don’t offer up this example to generate an in-depth discussion on economics and market share.  Rather, I put it out there to say that customer service alone is not going to help a company achieve its growth targets.  It is essential for salespeople to be focused on selling as their first priority and providing customer service as their second priority.

Selling is about digging in and working with customers to help them see needs they didn’t realize they had.  It’s about helping customers see how the solution for which they are looking can be found in what you are offering.  Selling is not about sitting back and taking orders based on what the customer wants.  If that’s selling, then there really is no need for a salesperson.  The entire process could be done on the internet or over the phone.  I know that observation just hit a sore spot to many of you reading this. Possibly, you’ve watched your industry be decimated by the power of the web. Nowadays, many customers can get what they want, when they want it and how they want it, all through their computer.

If your job was lost because of the internet, then let me share something that you may not like to hear, but is simply true: you weren’t selling; you were merely taking orders.  I am not putting myself on a pedestal, because one of my first sales jobs I thought I was a salesperson (at least, that’s what my business card said). In reality, I was doing nothing more than going around to grocery stores and taking orders from store managers.  I wasn’t selling. I was conveying information and providing customer service.

Today’s economy is crying out for salespeople. Are you someone who is willing to be assertive in making phone calls, meeting with customers, and spending time doing what I refer as the “deep-dive” with high-potential prospects to secure the really big business.  If a salesperson is not willing to go face-to -face with a customer, then they have absolutely no right to be in sales.  The only thing they are doing is hurting themselves and their employer.  The fastest test I know to measure a person’s aptitude towards selling is to ask them to explain in detail how they develop leads and handle cold calls.

When a company looks to outsource the lead generation process, or spend so heavily in advertising to try to create enough leads for everyone, then they are setting themselves up to fail.  Over time they will wind up with a sales team focused on capturing the easy sales. They do this by making everything a customer service moment.  This is akin to a pro-athlete thinking because they are a professional, they no longer need to stick to a physical workout program.   When a pro-athlete stops their conditioning program, they may not experience a falloff in performance immediately. Over time, however, the decline will be evident. The same is true for salespeople who are not routinely in the game of prospecting and developing new customers. They will lose their edge. The decline will be so slow that they won’t realize it is happening, let alone why it is happening.

Each client with whom I have the privilege to work hears this message:  The responsibility of finding and retaining new customers is the responsibility of every employee.  Salespeople by the very nature of their position must take the lead and be assigned weekly, monthly and quarterly goals of prospecting calls they must make.  Management owes them the tools that encompass an effective sales process. This process must include employees outside of sales whose primary responsibility it is to provide customer service. After all, salespeople should focus first on selling.  They need the time to achieve this realistic expectation.

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability.  For more information, to receive a free weekly email sales tip, or to read his Sales Motivation Blog, visit www.TheSalesHunter.com.

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