Sales and Sales Management Blog

September 12, 2008

6 Great Free Sales Efficiency Tools

Filed under: Sales Resources,technology,time management — Paul McCord @ 9:08 am
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Here are 6 great tools that you should take a look at.  Some are necessities, some are just cool, some are both.  All are FREE.

Backpack: Backpack is a great free resource that allows you to organize your files, create a calendar, including reminders that will be emailed to you, set up files about anything, including upcoming meetings and events, schedule events, and much more.  The best part is not only can you access all of the features from any computer, but reminders for events, meetings and ‘to do’ items can be sent to your mobile phone as text messages.  In addition, you can share your information with colleagues, friends, clients, prospects, your manager, or anyone or any group you desire.

Remember Me:  Remember Me allows you to connect with prospects and clients via texting on your mobile phone.  You can send your business card, let the prospect browse your products and services, set up custom greetings, add you to their LinkedIn account, and more.  Not only that, your prospect can send their business card back to you which is automatically inserted into your CRM, Outlook, or address book.  Yep, it’s free.

FreeConferenceCall.com: Free Conference Call allows you to hook up to 96 participants on a conference call free.  Well, almost free-each participant has to pay long-distance charges by their service provider, but even that typically is only a couple of dollars at most.  You can record calls of up to six hours free of charge and then distribute those recordings via email, RSS, download as a WAV file, or access it through their recording call in line.  There is no limit on the number of conferences you have.  Have more than 96 participants?  No problem-but it isn’t free.  You can have up to 250 callers at a time using an 800 at a cost of 6 cents per minute per caller, or up to 200 callers on their standard call in line for $99 per month.

CutePDF: Everyone needs a PDF writer.  Some are expensive, some are free.  CutePDF is free and has some great features such as no watermarks and no pop-up ads.  A great basic PDF writer.  If you need a few more advanced features such as writing booklets, combining PDF files, and such, there is a PRO version for just $49.95.

Google Notebook:  Allows you to clip notes, images, links from the Internet and save them without leaving the site.  You can access them from any computer or your cell phone and send and share them with others.  You can have multiple files, share all or parts of them, save and store as much as you want and organize it any way you want.

Sticky Notes:  Now you can have sticky notes on your desktop.  Reminders, hot ideas, to do lists, or anything you want to remember can be posted in a sticky note to your desktop.  You can even print them or send them via email.  You can save them, hide them, show them, roll them, show only the heading, and lots more.  Get rid of all of these sticky notes on your desk and put them on your desktop.  Sure, you’re likely not remember them, but when you do need them, you’ll know where they are.

June 6, 2008

Rachel’s Fixin’ to Prospect Issue Revisited

Filed under: career development,cold calling,lead generation,Networking,Personal Marketing,prospecting,sales,selling,time management — Paul McCord @ 7:40 am
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I received several emails about my post discussing Rachel’s prospecting issues from a couple of days ago. The basic message in each email was that the post was timely and the admonition was needed—but what did I recommend for Rachel?

Without going into all of the details of the recommendations I had for her, let me give three of the most basic recommendations I gave her.

But before I do that let me revisit one aspect of her issue—spending time preparing to prospect. Rachel’s problem is one well know to us Texans. In the vernacular of Texas, she had a “fixin’” problem. We Texans spend a great deal of time “fixin’ to”. We’re always fixin’ to do something. Ask a Texan what they’re doing and they’ll tell you they’re “fixin’ to prospect,” or “fixin’ to make a presentation,” or “fixin’ to eat,” or “fixin’ to take a shower.” We’re so involved with fixin’ you’d think we never actually do anything.

Rachel was always fixin’ to prospect and seldom actually engaged in prospecting. So the solution was to change her focus from fixin’ to doin’.

Rachel’s three primary new prospecting activities:

Calling. Her company’s primary prospecting method is cold calling. She had a list of several hundred names to call of which she had made contact with very few. Her first task each day is to speak with a minimum of 15 individuals. That in itself is a big task. She may have to make 100 to 150 dials to connect with and speak to 15 prospects. If she makes 20 dials an hour, she could be on the phone 5 to 7 hours a day.

Networking. Rachel loves to network, but she had been spending her time at networking events that by their very nature presented limited opportunities. She attended three or four networking events a month held by various local chambers and she also attended two networking breakfast groups. During her 8 months of selling, she had made contact with less than a dozen quality prospects and had acquired none as clients.

Her experience with networking events had paralleled that of most salespeople—there were very few quality prospects at the chamber events and those prospects that did attend were surrounded by her competitors. The networking breakfast events were as fruitless, as most of the other members of the groups were not in a position to meet her prime prospects since few sold products or services to her prime prospects.

Rachel was encouraged to change her networking focus from chambers and breakfast groups to organizations where a large number of prime prospects would gather—the associations of various industries. She is in the process of deciding whether to invest her time with the dentist, manufacturers, pr, or commercial real estate associations in town. She’ll eventually join and become active in two, possibly three of these organizations.

Speaking. Rachel has developed a presentation about financial independence for women and is beginning to book presentations at various business, industry and women’s organizations in town. The presentation is educational, not a sales pitch. Her goals are modest—get in front of and meet as many potential prospects as possible. To date she has only given three presentations, but has already begun developing relationships with more than a half dozen quality prospects—more than she would have met in a month when she spent her time fixin’ to prospect.

Although Rachel and I have been working together for only three weeks or so, she has already tripled her monthly average of new prospect contacts. Her secret new weapon? She isn’t fixin’ to do anything any more—she’s actually doin’ prospecting now. Most of her day is spent on the phone, her networking and speaking is done either before or after working hours or during lunch—works great because they don’t interfere with her phone work.

Three weeks isn’t long enough to know whether she’ll have the discipline to continue with her new focus or whether she’ll be able to convert her prospects into clients, but she now has a real shot at success simply because she went from fixin’ to do something productive to doing productive activities.

June 5, 2008

Guest Article: “Seven Ways to Thrive as a Leader in a 24/7 World,” by Kevin Eikenberry

Filed under: career development,Leadership,management,success,time management — Paul McCord @ 8:16 am
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Seven Ways to Thrive as a Leader in a 24/7 World
By Kevin Eikenberry

Blackberries and Wifi and blogs (oh my!). And your list likely goes on – email, IM’s, forwarding your phone number, wireless everything and 24 hour news channels. While it might be trite, we truly live in a 24/7 world.

Many of us didn’t grow up in a world quite like it is now – with the plethora of options for being connected, getting information and communicating. It wasn’t that many years ago when email and cell phones were new. Now a cell phone that connects to your email is old news!

The challenges of a 24/7 world are many, but as a leader there are four that are especially important to consider – both as an individual and in your role as a leader.

* We have the option of always being connected.
* We are awash in information.
* We have too many sources of information to choose from.
* Many people are increasingly addicted to all of it.

One crucial step to thriving in any situation is to identify and understand the challenges you face, and then identify ways to overcome, benefit from or eliminate those challenges. The ideas that follow are meant to help you do all three of these things.

Your Seven Ideas

Remember that these ideas about thriving, not merely surviving. This may mean that one or more of them is a bit more radical than you have considered or even think prudent. While you have to use your own judgment, I encourage you to do more than consider these ideas – but actually try them!

* Manage your expectations of yourself. How much time do you want/need/have to be a connected info-holic? (Please note that these are three different questions – ask yourself all of them). Consider your answers carefully, and then make choices about your own expectations of yourself in an informed way.

* Manage your expectations of others. As a leader you may choose to be connected and/or be on your computer at all times of the day or night. Unless you have a conversation with your team, they likely will begin to model your behavior. Maybe you choose to do email or send links to ideas you find at an odd hour, that’s fine, but you need to explicitly tell others what your expectations are for them. Let them know that “just because I’m online at 5 am doesn’t mean you need to be” or whatever is appropriate in your situation.

* Turn off Tuesday afternoons. Face-to-face communication and the phone are amazing communication tools, and sometimes you will get more creative work done if the TV or web browser or email inbox is closed for awhile. Whether you pick Tuesday afternoons, Friday mornings, or whatever, consider a time during the work week when you disconnect from your toys and tools – and if you are a leader to have others do it as well. Personal experience and a variety of organizational experiments show that productivity may go up dramatically during these times.

* Find information sources and tools that work for you. Focus primarily on the tools that work for you. Use them appropriately and focus your attention on them.

* Turn off at night. At least one night a week (preferably more often) turn off the cell phone and don’t open the computer. If you find yourself lost without the computer open, you need this advice the most. If you really want to be reading and/or learning, open a book. Encourage your team to do this too – especially if you find yourself getting messages from them at all hours of the night.

* Chill out and think. This idea addresses all four challenges mentioned above. If you remember what it was like before Web 2.0, interactive cell phones and more, you know that you could still get real work done. If you don’t remember or weren’t alive yet, trust me, you can get real work done. This idea is to just relax a little bit. When you are disconnected and unplugged be good with that. You don’t have to have your Bluetooth headset on during dinner, and you don’t have to take (or make) a phone call while in a public (or private) restroom. Relax a little. Use your disconnected time to think, rather than react to your technology.

* You can’t do everything (so don’t try). Even if you are really wired to technology, and even if you love it, know that you can’t know everything about everything, because everything is so much bigger than it used to be. There will always be one more video site, cell phone option, all news blog or website. Be OK with that and refer back to idea #4.

A final note. A smart friend of mine called as I was writing this article and reminded me that some leaders are on the other end of this spectrum – either anti-technology or at least not challenged by these issues. If this is you, you need to recognize that many of your team could use the ideas above. And maybe you need to be a little more open minded to learn some of the benefits they are gaining in this 24/7 connected world – without falling into the their traps.

Potential Pointer: The communication and information options that are available to you in our 24/7 world are amazing! Always remember those options are tools designed to serve your needs, not make you a slave to them.

Kevin is Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services.

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Business-2-Business Cold Calling–No, You Don’t Have To

Last month I conducted a one-hour teleseminar on how to turn business-to-business cold calls into strong, interest generating calls that result in appointments. This was supposed to be a one-time offering since I don’t really work in the area of prospecting via the telephone.  However, the seminar was such a hit and so many have requested that I do it again so that others in their company can attend, I’ve decided to offer it once more during June.

Let me give you some of the reactions from the last teleseminar:

David Collins said “this is by far the most productive teleseminar I’ve ever attended, bar none. Your approach isn’t like anything I’ve heard before and the best part is after a week of using it, I can say without any hesitation, ‘It Works!’”

Lynn Groves says “I’ve taken numerous telephone seminars and teleseminars and none come close to giving me the real honest to God help this seminar has given me. Funny, this seminar at $67 is one of the least expensive I’ve attended and is worth more than all the others put together.”

Andy Ramos says “without a doubt, the most effective seminar I’ve attended in the last three years.”

What are they raving about? They’re talking about what they learned that gets them to:
• the decision maker without having to lie, deceive gatekeepers, or try to manipulate people
• how to create real interest in the decision maker
• how to know before they call what the company’s needs and issues are
• how to get their voice mail messages returned almost 100% of the time
• how to make a real, welcome connection with the decision maker, not a cold call
• how to set themselves apart from every other salesperson even before they make the call

This isn’t some miracle cure or slimy gimmick. This is a disciplined, effective process that turns time wasting, ineffective cold calling into a real conversation and connection with decision makers.
Join me on Tuesday, June 17 at 5PM Central Time (6PM Eastern, 4PM Mountain, 3PM Pacific) for the most effective phone training you’ll ever get.

REGISTER HERE—still only $67.00 for this career changing teleseminar.

Seating is LIMITED and we ran out of room for the last seminar, so register early

June 4, 2008

“But I’m Always Prospecting”

Filed under: cold calling,lead generation,marketing,Personal Marketing,prospecting,sales,selling,success,time management — Paul McCord @ 5:17 am
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That was Rachel’s response when we began talking about her failure to generate enough business to make the cut with her broker/dealer.  Rachel is a relatively new salesperson who has been struggling for months and she and her manager have been trying to find a way to get her on track.  Her manager called me in to interview her and to develop a training program for her.

It didn’t take long for the conversation to get around to her activities, in particular her prospecting activities.  She was baffled by her lack of sales success because as she said, she was ‘always prospecting.’

Rachel showed me a list of several hundred names and phone numbers she had on a call list—a few dozen had check marks beside them, even fewer were scratched through.  She showed me the stacks of fliers and letters she had mailed out.  She showed me a list of networking events she had attended over the past couple of months.  She showed me a passel of follow-up emails she had sent out.  She told me that her business card had been added to every corkboard in every restaurant, laundromat, and other business that had a board to display customer’s cards.

Rachel had been busy; there was no doubt about that.  The problem was although she had been busy, she hadn’t been prospecting.  Instead of prospecting, she had been doing ‘things’—creating filers, writing letters and emails, attending non-qualified networking events, making some phone calls.  Like many salespeople, Rachel confused doing preparatory and busy work for prospecting with the activity of prospecting.

Although she spent a great deal of time doing busy work, she spent very little time actually prospecting.  She felt she was always prospecting, but in reality she was always finding ways not to prospect.  She engaged in a great deal of activity, but the activity she engaged in wasn’t the activity that would produce business; instead, it was the activity that made her feel good, made her feel productive, allowed her to convince herself that she was being extremely active.

We salespeople tend to focus on activity—after all, activity is what gets us in the door, gets us the business we must have in order to succeed.  But activity alone is fruitless.  Activity for activity’s sake is just as sure a way to failure as inactivity.

Rachel believed she was highly productive because she felt productive, she was always busy, she was doing more than most of the other salespeople in her office, and her manager was always encouraging her to ‘do even more.’

Prospecting isn’t preparation to prospect; it isn’t finding easy ways to feel like you’re getting your message out; and it isn’t simply being busy all of the time.  Prospecting is a very specific activity—connecting with quality prospects.

If you cold call, that means being on the phone, not getting ready to get on the phone.  If you network, it means actually being in front of and meeting prospects or garnering introductions to prospects from referral partners, not researching events or even spending time at non-qualified events where you’ll meet few, if any, prospects.

Investing time and energy in the wrong activities has killed as many sales careers as inactivity has.  As salespeople we have three very basic duties—finding and connecting with quality prospects, working with those prospects to help them satisfy needs or wants, and insuring that they are taken care of during and after the sale.  Everything else is busy work and busy work doesn’t make a sale, doesn’t generate income, and doesn’t move us toward our sales or income goals.

Before you engage in any activity consider whether that activity is income producing or not.  If it isn’t directly producing income, does it really need to be done?  If not, move on to an activity that will directly lead to a sale.

February 25, 2008

Don’t Allow ‘Busy Work’ to Interfer with Selling

Filed under: career development,sales,selling,time management — Paul McCord @ 5:58 am
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Like many salespeople and small business owners, I find staying focused during prime selling hours to be difficult.  As a sales trainer, coach, and consultant, my days are filled with activities that try to pull me away from selling.  Yet, like every other company, selling is the life blood of my business—its what keeps the doors open and the company healthy and growing. 

 Interruptions, minor emergencies, emails, phone calls, and a myriad of other issues and concerns are constantly trying to draw my attention away from my primary business activity—selling.

Listen, I have only certain hours during the day that are my prime selling hours. If I lose those hours, I lose revenue; I lose precious time that no matter how hard I work, I can never regain. Consequently, it is important I keep my focus on true sales activities between 8am and 5pm.

Nevertheless, there are things that must be done and some of those things simply won’t wait until non-selling hours.

So what did I do?

My solution has been to set aside four ½-hour times during the day when I will address non-selling issues. Twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon I set aside my selling and marketing activities in order to return calls, handle ‘emergencies,’ and the other ‘busy’ work of my business.

Of course, if a real emergency arises, it takes precedence over all else. But real emergencies are rare.

This process has allowed me to concentrate on selling and prospecting without worrying that other aspects of my business will suffer. Anything that comes up will be addressed shortly—but without interrupting my selling time.

It takes discipline to get into the habit of leaving things lie for a little while. But those things that used to find ways to cut my selling time in half—or more–are now much controllable.

This post was originally posted on Sales Team Tools as my contribution to a series of tips on the best habits for sales professionals.

Paul McCord can be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com

February 5, 2008

Fear, Failure and Choices

Filed under: career development,motivation,sales,selling,time management — Paul McCord @ 7:53 am
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This past week I acquired a new coaching client.  Nothing unusual about that–except this client, like many in the securities industry, finds himself in the position of having 120 days to develop a practice capable of sustaining his family—or he is out of the industry.  He just finished his 13 weeks of training, passed his series 7 and 63 exams, and is now on a four-month do or die schedule.

I have the opportunity to speak with thousands of sales people from dozens and dozens of industries.  Depending on their industry, their “life support” (their initial guarantee, draw or salary) to help them get started may have been as long as a couple of years—or as short as, well, none at all.  Almost without exception, each had to work their way through their initial start-up stage with the stress and fear not only of failure, but of potential financial disaster if they failed since many had to dip into savings in order to meet their basic obligations, not to mention having funds to help them market themselves.  My newest coaching client is just starting his ramp-up period—and he is fully aware of just how short four months is.

For most of us, the fear of failure is a strong motivator.  No one likes to fail, no matter what they are trying to accomplish.  A salaried employee wants to succeed at their job.  An hourly employee wants to succeed at theirs also.  However, both the salaried and hourly employee knows that they have the security of a future income—even if they simply do the minimum to retain their job.  For us in sales, the minimum required to retain our positions is producing at least enough income to survive.  Whereas the salaried or hourly employee is given tasks and all of the means to accomplish those tasks and is then rewarded with a set income, we salespeople are given a task, many times without the means to accomplish it, and then must create our own reward—be it large, small, or, God forbid, non-existent.

Not only do we have the fear of failure, but our failure may well have life altering consequences for numerous people.  Our fear of failure goes well beyond the personal disappointment, embarrassment, and depression of failing at a task.  Our failure literally puts our family in jeopardy.  Our failure may very well mean debt collector calls, reposed autos, foreclosed homes, and no food on the table.

In addition, often like my new client, we have a very short timeframe within which to succeed or fail.  Time is an ever present enemy.  We hear the clock ticking—even in our sleep.  We wake up to one more day gone, one more day closer to the ultimate consequences of our actions.

Yet, that ticking of the clock can be either our chief motivator—or the cause of our paralyses.  For most salespeople time is a dominate factor in our actions.  We either find the clock a massive kick in the pants that moves us—forces us— forward and we find the strength, creativity, and determination to succeed; or we become mesmerized by the metronomic ticking, incapable of productive movement as we watch the hands of the clock inexorably move toward our final hour as a salesperson. 

Even after we get over the hump and begin to establish a consistent monthly commission income, the clock ticks away.  A slump, a slowing economy, an unexpected illness, and a hundred other factors can catapult us back to the edge of the precipice of joblessness and financial crisis. 

As a salesperson, we must prove ourselves each month, each week, each day, each hour.  The clock is unforgiving.  That mortgage is due on the first of each month no matter what your previous month’s sales were like.  The bank expects their car payment, utilities must be paid, and food must be bought. 

How do you beat this relentless, heartless enemy?  The simple answer, though massively difficult for many, is action.  Selling is a high energy, fast moving sport.  More akin to jai-alai than baseball or football, it requires a tremendous amount of concentration, dedication, and mental and physical activity with few breaks to recuperate. 

A more accurate and precise answer is that it is through well thought-out, highly targeted action.  Many salespeople mistake simple action for progress.  Action, though crucial, is hardly enough.  Undisciplined, random action contributes to our failure just as surely as inaction does.

What is targeted, disciplined action?  Targeted, disciplined action is action that directly contributes to putting prospects in our pipeline and clients in our database.  In simple terms–prospecting, making sales presentations, signing contracts, and handling client issues.  Everything else—all of the designing of fliers, organizing of files, making of lists, reading and studying product brochures, and all of the other “stuff” we do, may directly result in our failure.

Not that these other ‘busy work’ activities aren’t important, they are.  Nevertheless, they are secondary to our primary mission and they don’t contribute to our success in a meaningful manner if performed during selling hours.  If engaged in during selling hours, these non-income producing activities hinder, rather than aid our production.  These non-essential activities should be set aside and performed only when some direct selling activity isn’t possible.

In order to free ourselves for the activity of selling we must have a plan in place that will allow us to spend our time and energy performing our four primary activities.  This means using our non-selling hours to formulate our future moves.  Instead of shuffling through stacks of leads or searching the internet for our next call as we sit at our desks “prospecting,” these activities should have been preformed the evening before so our prospecting time is really spent prospecting, not doing prospecting research.  Instead of gathering our data sheets in preparation for making calls, they should have been gathered and put in a logical order during our non-selling time.  Instead of discussing marketing methods with the new salesperson in the next cubicle, we should have phone in one hand and be dialing with the other.

It’s your money you’re leaving on the table.  If you don’t get it, someone else will.  If you wile away your time and choose to fail, you’re directly contributing to someone else’s success.  Success is a choice.  It’s a simple choice that takes great disciple and effort, but still a choice.  A tremendous number of highly talented people fail in sales every year—every month, in fact.  They simply choose to fail by making the wrong time choices.  They allow the clock to win.  On the other hand, many with little talent succeed simply because they are unwilling to fail.

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