At first glance, a referral is a pretty simple thing.  For most salespeople, managers, and trainers, a referral is just a name and phone number that a client has given the salesperson once the salesperson has completed the sale and has done a good job for the client.

Once a salesperson has received a referral, contacting the referred party is just as simple.  The salesperson either will call the referred party mentioning to him or her that the client, which they know, referred the salesperson to them, or will ask the client to write a referral letter to the prospect and then the salesperson will call the prospect after they have received the letter.  A very simple, straightforward process.

Unfortunately, this process is totally and completely wrong, and has been proven by millions of salespeople to not work worth a darn. Nevertheless, this is what is taught in almost every sales course in the world.  And not only is it a waste of time and effort, it deceives the salespeople who don’t succeed with it into believing that the fault lies with them, not with a “system” that doesn’t work.

Generating a large number of high quality referrals requires far more than “doing a good job and asking for referrals.”  It requires a systematic process of planting referral seeds, watering them at every chance, weeding out problems and issues, and then reaping the rewards.  That is what my PWWR (pronounced Power) Referral Generation System does.

If you want to generate a large number of high quality referrals from your clients, you must understand what a referral is based on.

A Referral is Based on a Foundation with Four Pillars-and you can control 3 of them:

The relationship between you and your client:  you can control this pillar of the foundation.  By instituting the full client relationship building process in detailed in Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007), you can create a strong relationship with your client built on mutual trust.  Clients don’t give referrals because they like you or even because you did a good job.  Clients hate to give referrals and unless they have a deep trust that you will not embarrass them and that you’ll deal honestly with the prospect they refer, they won’t be willing to give quality referrals.

Your client’s purchasing experience: you can control this pillar of the foundation.  You must discover exactly what your client’s expectations and priorities are, then meet-, and hopefully exceed them.  You cannot afford to guess or “think” you know what these are-you must know exactly and you can only do that by discussing them with your client and then making sure you meet them or exceed them-nothing less will do.

The relationship between your client and the prospect: you have no control over this pillar.  Clients will refer you to people they have very strong, positive relationships with and people they have very negative relationships with.  If the prospect trusts and respects our client, some that trust and respect will be automatically imbued to you.  On the other hand, if the prospect distrusts or doesn’t respect your client, some of that distrust or disrespect will also be imbued to you.  Your job is to find out exactly what the relationship between client and prospect is and then plan you approach accordingly.

Your initial contact with the prospect: you control this pillar also.  If you have built your relationship with the client properly, your client will be happy to contact the prospect in whatever method you desire.  As outlined in Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income, there are a number of methods of contacting clients, each with their own pros and cons, depending on the strength or weakness of the client/prospect relationship.

As seen above, you have control of the majority of the pillars upon which a referral is based.  If any of the above is weak, your likelihood of generating quality referrals will decline and the weakness must be made up elsewhere.  In actuality, if one of the first two segments is weak, you will not be getting quality referrals-period.  However, you can mitigate the affects of the last two.

If the relationship between client and prospect is weak, use a stronger contact method.  Moreover, if the contact method is weak, convert the method into a stronger one.  For example, if your contact method is a phone call to a prospect who has a weak relationship with your client, try to bring in one or two other clients the prospect may know by reputation to build additional credibility.  Better yet, try to arrange a conference call between the prospect and your client.

Generating a large number of quality sales isn’t done by chance or luck, and neither is generating a large number of high quality referrals. Just as you need a well thought out process to consistently sell, you need a well thought out process to generate quality referrals.   You can significantly increase the volume and the success of your referrals if you understand the dynamics that generate quality referrals and then control those dynamics.

My Client Is a Jerk: Three Keys to Transforming Relationships Gone Wrong
By Charles H. Green

Have you ever had a difficult client? I don’t mean the client from hell, I just mean garden variety difficult. Difficult clients come in lots of different flavors.

• There’s the client who will not take the time up front to share critical information, explore ideas, or otherwise involve you in early stages;

• There’s the client who just cannot make a decision, regardless of how much data or analyses you provide at their request;

• There’s the client who is frozen by politics or fear or ignorance, who will not face facts about critical issues;

• Finally, there’s the client with personality issues, who argues, or rejects, or is otherwise disrespectful to you and your team, and who often shows favoritism to someone else rather than us.

Fortunately, there is a common thread to all these cases, which-if we understand it-can help us succeed.

The common thread has nothing to do with the clients. The common thread is us.

The Client Situation

First, let’s get some perspective-about our clients, and about ourselves.

We’ve all said, if only in our heads, “my client is a jerk.” But “my client is a jerk” is a terrible problem statement.

First, the client is unlikely to accept it as a problem statement, it’s highly subjective, and it’s quite unverifiable.

And frankly, people in a position to hire outside professionals typically have evidenced some degree of success in life. While it’s popular lately to describe the prevalence of “assholes” in business (see Bob Sutton’s excellent book), my guess is their frequency is overestimated. Most clients are intellectually and emotionally intelligent.

Most clients have spouses, or parents, or siblings, who seem to be quite capable of loving them. Most have a boss who has promoted them. It is wise to assume that, even if their behavior is bad, they have some ability to get by in life. True psychotics are pretty rare in business.

Furthermore, truly bad behavior more often than not comes from decent people who are stressed out. If someone is behaving badly, it’s a good bet that they are afraid-of losing something they have, or of not getting what they want.

If you can identify that fear, then you can replace demonization with a real problem statement-a far more productive approach. If, further, you can talk about that fear with your client, you will create a lasting bond that can serve you both well.

Our Own Situation

What’s true of clients is equally true for us. Particularly in selling, we are loaded with fears. We are afraid, first of all, of not getting the sale. And it goes deeper. We’re afraid of our boss, peers and loved ones knowing that we might not get the sale-afraid of their judgement. We’re afraid of the judging of the client, too-feeling that if we don’t get the sale, it means they think less of us.

But we ourselves carry the ultimate judges around in our own heads. We allow ourselves to be hijacked and held hostage by our own ideas of what constitutes success, or being “good enough,” or whatever value judgments we distill from our past, and apply to ourselves. There’s a thin line between having high standards and beating up on oneself.

If we allow ourselves to act from those fears, we are likely to run from judgment. One of the most emotionally attractive ways out of the tyranny of self-judgment is to blame others. It was not my fault, we want to say; the dog ate my homework. It was a bad hair day. Or-this sale was doomed because I got stuck with a difficult client. If you’d had my client, you couldn’t have done much either. It wasn’t my fault-it was the client.

But blame is more useless to us than our appendix. At least when an appendix gets inflamed, we recognize it and operate to remove it. When blame flares up, people at first commiserate with you, encouraging it. Then as it metastasizes into resentment, people begin to move away from you. Resentment, it is said, is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Misery may love company, but company doesn’t return the favor.

Blaming a client never got you the sale, and it never will; but it may keep you from getting the next one. People don’t like blame-throwers. Clients especially don’t.

If there is such a thing as a truly “difficult” client, the only valid lesson to draw from the experience is to avoid similar clients in future. And that is a lesson best kept to yourself.

Self-Diagnosing

What’s true of clients is equally true for us. Particularly in selling, we are prone to fear, hence to blame. And that leads to nothing good.

The first thing to do is to notice our thoughts. Practice taking a “snapshot” of your thoughts when you are stressed.

Ask yourself, “what is the problem here?” If your mental snapshot answer starts with, “my client won’t…” or “my client doesn’t…” or “I can’t get my client to…” or “my client never…” then you need to step back and reframe your thinking. You are stuck in the blame game, spinning your wheels, and going nowhere.

You need a problem statement that has you in it, first of all. And almost always it should be a problem statement that is joint. If you and your client can’t even agree about why you’re not getting along, you’re certainly not going to make much progress on the substantive issues you want to work on.

Good problem statements are joint. Jointness is reflected in language, e.g.:

• Our problem is we have differing views about the priority of X and Y

• We seem to have a problem in communicating when it comes to Q and R

• It looks like we differ about the timeframe to be considered here.

If you have a “difficult” client, find a “we” statement you can each agree to that gets to the heart of the disagreement.

Fixes

Sometimes, all we need to do is jointly reframe an issue and, voila-our clients no longer seem so difficult.

It never hurts to go back to basics. One reason people act badly is that they have not had someone listen to them. Really listen. Deeply. Without reacting with suggestions or action steps. Just for the sake of understanding. “Just” understanding our clients often ends up being the catalyst that changes everything.

But sometimes, we need to do some advanced work on ourselves-in particular, to find out what we have become attached to that holds us hostage. Here are a few.

a. Don’t hold yourself hostage to the outcome. We should have points of view-that is part of what clients pay for. And we should argue clearly and forcefully for what we believe is right. But we are not responsible for our clients’ actions-only for informing their actions as best we can.

No one ultimately controls another human being without their consent-even at gunpoint. Holding ourselves accountable for changing others is a recipe for misery. Do the next right thing-then detach from the results. You don’t own the outcome.

b. Check your ego at the door. The best way to lose the sale is to try very hard to get the sale; the best way to lose the argument is to try very hard to win the argument. It is not about you. The only one who thinks it is about you is you. Focus on the client, not yourself.

c. Be curious. Is your client “difficult?” Be curious as to why. What is he afraid of? What is at stake for her? What is your role in the situation? What are you afraid of? On what basic issues do you see differently? What do you think the client sees as the problem statement? What problem are you both trying to solve?

There aren’t any difficult clients. Not really. There are only relationships that aren’t working well. And nearly all of those can be fixed. But it must start with us.

As Phil McGee says, “blame is captivity; responsibility is freedom.” To get free of “difficult clients,” take responsibility for fixing the relationships.

Charles H. Green is founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates. The author of Trust-based Selling and co-author of The Trusted Advisor, he has spoken to, consulted for or done seminars about trusted relationships in business for a wide and global range of industries and functions. Centering on the theme of trust in business relationships, Charles works with complex organizations to improve trust in sales, internal trust between organizations, and trusted advisor relationships with external clients and customers.

The price of your goods and services is always a primary concern to your prospects. Whether you like it or not, price is top of mind with the majority, if not all, of your prospects; and you probably find the question of price comes up in your conversations with prospects long before you have had the opportunity to build value in your product and service.

The price question presents you with a serious dilemma-how do you honestly answer the question of price, yet at the same time save a detailed conversation about price until you have had the opportunity to build the value in your product and service that justifies its price?

The early introduction of the price question seems to put you in a position of having to choose between two rules of selling that appear to be antithetical to one another at this point-always answer your prospect’s questions honestly and directly, and never discuss price until you’ve built value in your product or service.

Fortunately, you can honor both rules.

The key to addressing the price question is understanding why the question is asked in the first place.  Many salespeople see the price question as an objection-it isn’t.  It’s an honest question by the prospect who is trying to determine their interest level in your product or service.  Just as you are trying to qualify your prospect, they’re trying to qualify your product or service, as well as qualifying you, and one of the major qualification questions they have is price.  They’re simply asking the question too early, before they have sufficient information to determine whether your product or service justifies the investment.

The easiest way to handle the question is to give the prospect a direct answer and then bridge back to your investigation of their wants and needs to build value.  Depending upon the product or service you’re selling, your answer to price may be specific-”This truck is twenty five six fifty four”-or general-”depending upon your specific needs we find when we do the needs analysis, the complete instillation of the software and training can range from a few thousand dollars on up.”

Your statement then needs to be immediately followed up with a question to bridge back to investigating their needs to help you build value.

In the truck example above you might then ask, “Will you be pulling a trailer often, or just on occasion?”  In this example your full statement would be, “This truck is twenty five six fifty four.  By the way, will you be pulling a trailer often or just on occasion?”  You’ve answered your prospect’s question, but you then lead them back into a discussion of their needs, which will help you determine what vehicle will best meet their needs, give you information to highlight the features of the truck that will meet those needs, and the benefits of those features that will give value to the price of the truck.

In the software example, the full statement might be something like:  “Well, Nancy, depending upon your specific needs we find when we do the needs analysis, the complete instillation and training of the software can be anywhere from a few thousand dollars on up; by the way, what other applications do you run that our software will have to be integrated with?”  Again, you’ve given an honest answer to the price question since at this point you don’t know what the package will cost.  Instead of trying to answer an impossible question, you’ve given the typical cost range and then followed with a question that will put the conversation back on track of investigating your prospect’s needs, allowing you to gather the information you need to build value in your product before you get into a serious price discussion.

Price questions need not create problems for you or for your prospect.  Price is a natural concern for the prospect, but knowing a price without understanding the real value of the product or service is meaningless.  Your job is to answer your prospect’s question and return the conversation to a point where you can build value for your prospect, so they can appreciate the price in context of value.

If you refuse to answer the price question you run the risk of insulting or angering your prospect-not to mention the damage you do to your credibility and trustworthiness.  But if you begin a serious discussion of price before you’ve had the opportunity to build value, you ask your prospect to make an investment without having a basis to determine whether the investment is justified.

By addressing your prospect’s question briefly but honestly, and then moving the conversation back to investigating your client’s needs and wants, you can successfully delay a detailed conversation about price until you’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate why your product or service justifies its price.

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PWWR: Grow Your Own Referral Garden
What If They Don’t Purchase?
Why Clients Resist Giving Quality Referrals — Part 1 of 2: The Problems

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We in sales work in what we like to claim is one of the highest paid professions, yet statistics indicate we are, in fact, employed in one of the lowest paying professions.  In fact, we are engaged in a business that is unevenly divided between a relatively small group of highly skilled professionals, earning some of the highest wages in the world, and a huge group of unskilled and semi-skilled laborers, earning unskilled and semi-skilled wages.

One of the Lowest Paid Professions

Take a look at the following income statistics for some other professions (these are MEDIAN incomes from 2006^*, meaning half those in the profession make less than the income listed, while the other half make more that the income listed):

Truck Driver:
Median income for those with less than 1-year experience:  $30,539
Median income for those with 10 years experience:              $48,654

Business Banker:
Less than one-year experience:   $42,000
10 years experience:                      82,539

Registered Nurse:
Less than one-year experience:    $44,969
10 years experience:                       58,988

Dentist:
Less than one-year experience:     $98,041
10 years experience:                      122,248

Family Physician:
Less than one-year experience    $101,423
10 years experience:                      130,593

CPA:
Less than one-year experience:    $47,218
10 years experience:                       68,968

Attorney:
Less than one-year experience:    $57,494
10 years experience:                     102,709

Engineer:
Less than one-year experience:    $55,011
10 years experience:                       81,221

Plumber:
Less than one-year experience:    $35,697
10 years experience:                       50,107

Carpenter:
Less than one-year experience:    $28,885
10 years experience:                       50,319

Now, here’s the median income for sales:
Less than one year’s experience:   $32,500
10 years experience:                       47,240

Notice something?  The only professions we start at a higher rate of pay are truck driver and carpenter-but by the 10^th year we’re trailing them, as well as every other profession listed, in median income.

Can We Really Call This a Profession?

Why do so many of us make so little?  What do the other professions do that we don’t?

One glaring factor is education and training.  Seven of the ten non-sales professions above require a minimum of a college degree-along with additional specialized training.  Only two-banking and carpentry-don’t require a professional license of some sort (OK, some engineers don’t have to be licensed either, but a great many do). 

And sales?  With a few exceptions by product or company, no degree required.  Specialized training?  None required and little, if any, sales training provided by most companies.  Certainly, most companies provide product training; they want their salespeople to know the company’s products and services.  But most companies offer little sales training. 

Selling is one of the few professions where the ‘professional’ is often left to train him or herself because, after all, anyone can do it.  Give someone a phone and a list and they’re a salesperson, right?

Few professions or trades allow an untrained individual to “practice” their “craft,” because until trained, they don’t have a craft to practice.  That’s certainly not the way most companies and salespeople see selling.

No rational person would accept a doctor or lawyer who had not received extensive formal training in his or her profession and then proven a minimum level of competence by passing a professional licensing exam.  Likewise, we expect those engaged in skilled trades such as plumbing and truck driving to also have both formal training and certification in their profession.

The reward for their training?  For many, the rewards of their training are job satisfaction and enjoyment, but the primary reward is increased wages.  We naturally expect that the more time-and money–invested in one’s professional training, the larger the income reward. 

A doctor will invest 8 to 10 years beyond college in learning the basics of his or her craft and is rewarded with one of the top wages in the country.  An attorney will invest 3 or more years beyond college and is likewise rewarded with top wages.  Plumbers go through an apprenticeship and extensive testing to acquire their license and are rewarded with a top hourly wage, and those plumbers who continue their studies beyond the Journeyman stage and proceed on to become Master Plumbers are rewarded with even more income.

Yet few salespeople have undergone extensive and comprehensive sales training.   We, as a group, are woefully under trained, yet we expect to make professional wages. 

The typical company gives their sales team members less than 50 hours a year in formal training-and the majority of that training isn’t sales training but is rather product training.  Studies have discovered that the typical salesperson invests less than 30 hours a year-two hours a month–in study and training outside of what they receive from their company.

As a group, we are among the least prepared and skilled of any profession or trade.  Is it any wonder we are also one of the poorest paid?

The Professionals Among Us

Nevertheless, there are a great many highly skilled professionals in the sales industry, men and women who through hard work and substantial personal investment of their time and money have developed the knowledge and skills to reach the top of their profession. 

Although many average and less than average salespeople rationalize these top performer’s success as nothing but luck, having been given a book of business by a favorable manager, or as simply being a ‘natural,’ that is seldom the reality of their success. 

Top producers for the most part entered the sales profession in the same way as most salespeople-by accident, without knowing anything about selling, without the contacts and skills needed to succeed.  Most struggled for months or even years before they discovered the ’secret’ to success. 

Virtually all of these top producers were given the standard advice to always be prospecting, ask for referrals, spend time in building rapport, find and solve the prospect’s needs, ask for the order.  Like most salespeople, they were told what they should do but were never taught how to do it. 

It wasn’t until they began to acquire training on their own through reading, listening to tapes and CDs, attending seminars and workshops, and diligently applying what they learned that they began to move from unskilled laborer to true sales professional.  Many, if not most, in this group invest anywhere from 200 to 300 hours per year or more in personal training and skill development-that’s 7 to 10 times the investment in training as the average salesperson.  Is it then any wonder they are not only better prepared to sell, but make 2, 5, 10, 20 or 30 times what the average salesperson makes?

Professional or Semi-skilled Laborer-It’s Your Choice

You don’t become a sales professional or stay an unskilled or semi-skilled laborer by accident.  You either do those things that will make you a highly paid professional, or you do those things that will keep you in the unskilled or semi-skilled labor category. 

You get to choose whether you want to become a professional and enjoy professional wages-or whether you’re happy being an unskilled laborer.  There are thousands of quality books, CDs, seminars, workshops and other training opportunities available.  You can pinpoint your specific needs and find a multitude of training resources to address them.  All you need do is commit yourself to getting and applying the needed training, and then do a simple Google search to find thousands of learning opportunities.

If you’re waiting for your company to train you, you stand an excellent chance of never growing beyond a semi-skilled wage.  You control your destiny.  Yes, it takes a commitment of time, energy and money-but rewards are not only a far more enjoyable and satisfying job, but also one that will provide you with the income you dreamed of when you entered sales.

* Salary information has been gathered from several sources such as salary.com and various industry sites.

Use Psychology to Create Sales-Winning Relationships
by Gregory Stebbins

A participant in one of my recent seminars asked me, “Can I rearrange my client’s office during a sales presentation?”

The sales person had gone to an initial meeting where the chairs in the office were about eight feet from the customer’s desk. He wanted to know if it was OK to just pick up one of the chairs and move it next to the desk and start his presentation.

How would you have answered this question? Believe it or not, your answer could have huge implications on this meeting’s success.

Everything in a customer’s office tells you a story about him or her-from the way the space is arranged to the items that have been collected and displayed.

Archeologists can dig up ancient cities and create a pretty accurate description of the inhabitants’ lifestyle just from the arrangement of the ruins and pottery fragments. As sales professionals we must do the same thing with the artifacts surrounding our customers, so we can communicate better and develop longer lasting relationships with them.

Here’s how you can promote a desirable impression and create sales-winning relationships by understanding space and the hidden message in things.

How to Promote a Desirable Impression By Understanding Space

In 1966, when anthropologist Edward T. Hall described set measurable distances between people as they interact he defined four distances:

• Intimate distance - 6″ to 18″, for embracing, touching or whispering
• Personal distance - 1.5 feet to 4 feet, for interactions among good friends
• Social Distance - 5 feet to 12 feet, for interactions among acquaintances
• Public Distance - more than 12 feet, for public speaking

How does this relate to your sales process?

Think about one of your customers. Divide her office into concentric circles, starting from where she sits. The distance between the circles is about the width of her desk. Anything close to the person-usually within arms reach-is the most important part of her office. This space generally contains her most precious, most valuable items. It is filled with clues that reveal to the trained sales professional a wealth of information about the customer and her needs and motivations.

As for the office the salesperson asked about rearranging, the chairs were set at the “social distance,” which the customer was communicating as appropriate for interactions among acquaintances (or in this case, sales people). For the sales person to pick up his chair and move into the next circle-personal distance-would have meant that he was declaring that the two of them were friends.

From the customer’s point of view this may or may not have been true. The customer could have reacted positively and allowed it. Or she could have reacted negatively and asked the sales person to leave. In any case, changing to another distance is likely to cause tension and would not promote a desirable impression.

A better strategy would be to ask permission to move the chair closer to the desk. Or, he could say that he had difficulty hearing the prospective customer clearly and then asked permission to move the chair.

How to Create Sales-Wining Relationships by Understanding the Hidden Message in “Things”

Analyzing your clients or prospects’ rooms will tell you their motivations and behavioral styles. By paying close attention and analyzing the hidden message in things, you will know how to best serve your customer.

If his desk is meticulous, it indicates a high degree of close tolerance, sometimes called analytical. Or his desk could be very messy indicating an engaging personal or social trait, sometimes called influencing. These are all clues to guide you in making a presentation that will have the greatest appeal and impact on your customer.

The books on the bookcase will tell you what is currently or has been important to him. Trophies, plaques and diplomas all tell you that he is motivated by recognition. While pictures of tropical isles indicate an idealistic approach to life and business. All of this information will guide you in presenting your case so the customer really “grasps” it.

Knowing how to analyze and use keys to the customer’s psyche is what separates the ordinary sales representatives from the sales professionals.

Here’s the point: By understanding sales psychology and enhancing your interpersonal skills you will make more sales. I guarantee it-and this is not just an idle claim. With more than 30 years of in-the-trenches sales experience and a Doctorate in Psychology, I’ve applied a wealth of knowledge, know how, and high impact techniques (like those described here) to help over 20,000 sales professionals improve their sales careers.

So, please take my advice. Take a moment to scope out your prospective customer’s office. It’s vital to developing longer lasting client relationships. The information about the person’s motivations and behavior is always available to you. Are you available to the information?

Sales Psychology Expert Gregory Stebbins has helped over 20,000 sales professionals become the point of differentiation while their competitors struggle with how to differentiate their product and service. In his book PeopleSavvy for Sales Professionals, he unveils for the first time his simple but groundbreaking plan to win your customers’ trust and business forever. Get your free sneak preview at http://www.peoplesavvy.com/book.htm

Managers Continue to Teach Their People How To Avoid Full Accountability
By Keith Rosen

“What is that guy doing now?” It was just an odd maneuver. Something out of the ordinary from what would have typically been an everyday experience at the drive through of a Burger King. (Hey, my kids love it and no, they don’t eat this ever day; just a treat!) I was on my way back home after spending the day with the family, unaware that within the next several minutes I’d be having a breakthrough which led to the development of many of the concepts and strategies you’re going to read about in my book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions.

I watched the customer in front of me drive from the first to the third window of the drive through which happened to have been closed. “What an odd maneuver,” I thought, as I noticed that the typical handoff through the drive through window was not in play. Instead, the cashier came outside, headset in tact and bags of food in hand, to deliver it directly to the window. The customer, happy to receive his order, drove off.

As I pulled up, I wondered if I too would suffer the same fate as the customer before me. Then it happened. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a digital timer mounted above the cashier’s head near the window. At that moment, the manager at the drive in window waved me forward, without my food. “We will bring it out to you. Just pull up, please,” he requested.

The manager sent a young man out to my car and handed me my food. Wanting to understand this odd tactic, I couldn’t let it go. “I’m curious, why did we have to pull up, especially when there was no one behind me?”

“The timer,” he replied. “That’s how the manager is rated in performance. We’re supposed to serve each customer under a certain period of time.”

As a manager, is this truly a feat you’d want to be known for? This manager actually succeeded at beating the clock, yet at a greater expense and one that most managers are blind to. Then, with a puzzled look of disbelief, these managers are mystified when their staff doesn’t meet expectations of performance. This manager unknowingly or worse, consciously did his company, every customer, as well as every person on his team, a major disservice.

Is there really any wonder why there is such a shallow pool of real talent in the workforce? At some level, across every business unit, industry or profession, this is what our managers are teaching the workforce - how to skirt and dodge full accountability! And then they sit and wonder why they can’t attract better people into their organization who are fully accountable for their performance and success. Hmmmmmm.

Keith Rosen is the President of Profit Builders, LLC, (www.ProfitBuilders.com) a provider of leadership and sales coaching and corporate training. He is the author of Time Management for Sales Professionals. His last book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling has been featured in Inc. magazine and became a Best Seller on Amazon.com.

“I know exactly what each of my sales team is doing-I know they maintain their contact management program religiously because they have to turn in a detailed report daily and an even more comprehensive report at the end of the month.  We know exactly who they contacted, what transpired, where the sale stands, and what the customer is going to buy.  We know everything we need to know.”

“How accurate is the information?”

“That I can’t say although our sales managers are supposed to be going over the reports with each member of the sales team and spot checking accuracy.”

“How well do the reports track with your actual sales numbers?  More specifically, how well does each team member’s report track with their sales numbers?”

“Of course there is discrepancy between the reports and actual sales.  Some things that are expected to close don’t, others don’t place as large an order as expected, others don’t buy when expected.  Those things happen.  If you’re asking if we use these reports for our sales projections, the answer is no.  We establish our objectives and each sales person’s quota and they’re expected to meet those numbers.  Projections are independent of these reports.”

“What are the reports for?”

“We track the team member’s activity so we know they’re doing what they are supposed to be doing.  It’s an activity management tool, not a projection tool.”

“What do your team members get out the process?  What’s the benefit to them?”

“They log each future activity for each prospect and client and that activity is then displayed on their screen on the day they have scheduled the activity.  They must complete the activity and check it off or the system will alert their manager.  They have an automatic tracking system to help them keep their prospect and client activity up to date and to make sure they don’t drop the ball.  The system won’t allow them to overlook a commitment they’ve made.  It helps them monitor prospects and clients and manage their time and work.”

“How much time do they have to spend maintaining the contact management system and doing the daily and monthly reports?”

“I don’t know.  Probably no more than a few minutes each day; maybe an hour to do the monthly report and another 30 minutes meeting with their manger to review it.”

“How much time does it take your managers to monitor and review the reports?”

“I really don’t know that, either.  I’d suspect maybe a half hour each day and no more than a day, a day and a half at the most, for the monthly reports, including meeting with each team member.”

“David, what do your salespeople and managers think of this system?  You said they use it because it is mandated that they do, but do they find it helpful or do they see it as nothing more than a way to be micromanaged?”

“We got complaints at first, but that was to be expected.  I really don’t hear too much complaining now except from the salespeople who aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing.  I think most see it as a major aid in keeping them up with their clients and prospects.  I’d be really surprised if many were unhappy using it.”

“Would you mind if I spoke to some of them and got their opinion?  I’ll certainly let you know what I find but I’m not going to reveal which salespeople I spoke to.”

“No, feel free.  I think you’ll find most are happy to use it.”

The above is an actual conversation I had with a new client a couple of weeks ago.  I suspect if you’re from the sales side of business, you can guess the attitudes of the salespeople toward the client management system.  They hate it.  They see it as both a time waster and a way management can micromanage them.

They don’t complain about the system too much-it’s been mandated, so they rebel by doing the least they think they can get away with.  If they don’t have enough contacts, they make them up.  They put in as few future tasks as possible.  They check tasks off as being done when they haven’t.  They give management what they believe management wants.

This company’s client management system is as worthless as the old handwritten activity reports they used to get from their salespeople.  The only difference is now the reports are easily accessed by all the company’s management, not just the salesperson’s immediate manager.

David’s company isn’t alone.  There are tens of thousands of companies that have bought client management systems that are just as worthless.  Like David’s company, they justify their system by convincing themselves there is a real benefit in it for the salesperson when in fact its real purpose is to baby-sit a sales team management doesn’t trust.  It’s automated micromanagement.

Unfortunately, when I informed David of the attitude his sales team has toward the system, his response wasn’t, “what do we need to do?”  Instead, it was, “I’ll talk to the managers and get everyone in line.  I didn’t invest in this thing for it to be abused or ignored.”

If your system isn’t giving tangible benefits to your sales team or if your team members view the system as a management spy tool, you are more than likely getting the same results as David-worthless information that is designed to get you off the sales team’s back.

Ask yourself these three questions about your contact management program:

1. What tangible benefits do my salespeople get from the program that helps them grow their business or be better salespeople?
2. What is the REAL purpose of the program-to help the sales team or micromanage them?
3. How do the salespeople view the program-as an aid to their business or as a spy for management?

If your answers aren’t salesperson centered, you’re fighting a losing battle.

Warm Leads in Cold Weather
By Umberto Milletti, Cofounder and CEO of InsideView

As the economy worsens, inbound sales opportunities quickly dry up and sales teams are forced to become increasingly proactive. Just picking up the phone and calling a sales target is generally not enough, but that is particularly true during the economic times we are currently in. Your Rolodex is static; in a down economy, people move around, lay-offs happen, even entire companies disappear. In order for your sales teams to strike up promising conversations in a tough economic climate, they need to have a clear and compelling reason for initially calling.  They need to know who to call (calling somebody after they just blogged about being laid off could lose a business relationship permanently.) Updated inside knowledge of what is going on with the company and the person you are selling to can make the difference between beginning a relationship or ending one.

Let’s face it:  While cold calling is incredibly impersonal, and rarely successful, it is a necessary part of the sales process. In a cold economy though, it becomes much more challenging, and the need for a warm lead is significantly increased. Fortunately, social sites across the Web are hot with the latest activity on a myriad of subjects and industries, and in the process, are publishing enormous amounts of rich, useful content for sales teams. In fact, much of the most insightful and timely content for sales people on the Web can only be found via social Web sites. For example, you can only learn that a mid-level sales manager with whom you used to work at a now-defunct start-up just joined a company you’ve been focusing on through an RSS feed from LinkedIn.  That same update wouldn’t be available from Reuters.

Distilling rich, up-to-date insights from the social Web is a prime example of how Sales 2.0 solutions are revolutionizing the sales process. With the Internet as the new business platform, now all stakeholders - prospects, customers, salespeople and marketers - can connect, learn, plan, analyze, engage, collaborate and conduct business in ways that were not even imaginable a few years ago. Sales 2.0 is about leveraging the wealth of information and interactive possibilities on the Web to accomplish customer engagement rather than just customer-data harvesting. Today’s “smarter” and better informed prospects are requiring sales people to be better versed both in their products and their prospects, rendering Sales 2.0 a two-sided interactive process. It is no longer just who you know that will make business deals happen but “what you know about who you know” along with “when and where you should know it.”

Here are some of the ways that we’ve found that the social Web can make the difference for sales professionals:

Know where your target is actually working (or not): Company moves, promotions, new roles and departments

Know company updates: Did the company that you got denied from last quarter just post record profits? That would be a pretty good time to give ‘em a call back.

Know industry news: Is there a shake-up in one of your target industries that will lead to more opportunities for your company?  What is the commentary going on surrounding the news?

Know it quickly: With all of the examples above, its best if the information can come to you. The sooner the better, so you can have time to properly prepare your sales approach while still getting in early.

By now you’re probably thinking, “This is all great, but who has the time to spend scouring the social Web?”  And you’re right:  There is just too much stuff on the Web to research randomly on your own.  But Sales 2.0 is also about increased productivity and speed and the emerging Sales 2.0 tools accomplish this by intelligently utilizing the massive amount of resources on the Web. For example, at InsideView, our vision was and is to help sales teams save time by integrating our business search and intelligence application, SalesView, directly into the CRM tools they’re already using: Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce and Oracle, just to name a few.  That way, they can get important sales insights from across the social Web while their list of sales targets remains right in front of them.

Customer relationship management is a fundamental element of success in an economy like the current one, and the leads you have need to be good ones.  While the world outside gets colder, remember that in a Sales 2.0 world, warm leads are waiting for you on the social Web.

Umberto Milletti Bio

Umberto Milletti is the cofounder and CEO of InsideView, the pioneering business seach and intelligence service. Before founding InsideView, Umberto was an executive and co-founder of DigitalThink, a leading provider of Web-based corporate training services. Beginning in 1996, Umberto held a number of key roles at DigitalThink, serving as GM, Products; VP, Technology; and VP, Marketing & Product Management. Umberto helped lead DigitalThink to a successful IPO, and ultimately to its sale to Convergys.

Maximizing Your Price - The Value / Benefit Equation
By Mark Hunter 

Price increases are currently occurring at a faster rate than we’ve seen in the US economy for nearly 25 years.  The driving forces behind these increases seem to be the rising costs of labor, raw materials, etc.  Although these are certainly valid, the real reason for these price increases should stem from the value of the product or service you’re selling, not the cost associated with them.   Unfortunately, for the past two decades, there have been many companies leaving billions of dollars of profit on the table because they’ve been basing their pricing on cost rather than the value / benefit equation. 

Why should anyone pay more for something than the amount incurred to produce it?  For many companies, this seems like a logical question.  They determine the cost of their goods and services from a cost-plus model which says that the price you charge should not be out of line with what it costs you to produce it.  However, if this was true for all items in today’s marketplace, then we’d all be paying a lot less for tickets to concerts and sporting events, as well as items like computer software, DVDs, etc.  When companies understand that the real profit is made by pricing their items according to the value / benefit of what the customer is going receive from their product or service, their bottom line will reflect it.  Over the years, I’ve found that the larger the company, the more confident they are with their role in the marketplace, and thus the more confident they are in pricing themselves based on the value / benefit equation.  Small companies, on the other hand, are less confident and are more likely to set prices using the cost-plus model.  Although there are many successful companies that use the cost-plus model including Costco and Wal-Mart, I believe it’s imperative for every salesperson, no matter who they work for, to push themselves to the value / benefit equation.

The value / benefit equation is very simple.  It is built entirely on understanding the benefits that the customer is going to realize from using your product or service.  To discover these needs, a salesperson is required to not only ask them questions during the sales process, but also to really ascertain how their product or service will be used for the long-term.  Do not equate value to low-price.  On the contrary, the best value is many times the highest price (or at least what appears to be the highest price initially). Take, for example, the price to fly from New York to Los Angeles.  I’m sure a person could take a bus across the country for a lot less money, but the value / benefit equation would be low for the bus trip because of the time it would take.  Conversely, flying would cost more initially, but provide you with far more time once you reached your destination.

As a salesperson, you should never allow yourself to get steamrolled into a price increase discussion with a customer that is centered solely on raw costs.  Whenever you present a price increase, always begin by asking them questions about the benefits they receive from what you’re providing them.  This allows the customer to better understand the importance of you and your company to them.  Encourage them to explain how you fit into their supply-chain model or how you impact their overall business process.  The key is to get the customer to share with you something specific and unique about how you help them.   Then, to further drive this point home, ask them follow-up questions based on what they tell you.  Their specific responses will reiterate the fact that you and your company are an important asset to them.  Once you have achieved this level of dialogue, you can then share your price increase.  Because they realize how crucial you are to their success, they will be less likely to raise any objections.  At this point, you will have achieved the value / benefit equation you’re looking for and the higher price you deserve.

Despite the grim economy that seems to be driving many price increases, the outlook doesn’t have to be hopeless for salespeople.  By focusing your customer’s attention on the value / benefits your products or services offer, you can help them see that it is imperative that they continue in business with you because of how you and your company contribute to their overall success.  

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.