Sales and Sales Management Blog

January 24, 2012

Guest Article: Avoiding the Activity Trap, by Jeb Brooks

Filed under: career development,success,time management — Paul McCord @ 11:01 am
Tags: , , ,

Avoiding the Activity Trap
by Jeb Brooks

Many salespeople make the assumption that activity leads to results. “As long as I’m doing something,” they argue, “results will come.”

This is a mistake. It’s the best way to get stuck in the activity trap. The activity trap occurs when you begin working too hard to make the sale. Sales is much more simple than a lot of salespeople make it out to be.

Above all, your interactions must be meaningful. If all you’re doing on a call with a prospect is saying ‘hello,’ all you’ll hear is ‘hell no.’ Instead, your activities need to fall into one of these four productive buckets:

  1. They educate your prospects.
  2. They uncover essential information about your prospect.
  3. They reveal pivotal information about your solution to your prospect.
  4. They close opportunities (for the good or bad).

First, Educational activities provide information to your prospects that make them more receptive to your messaging. These kinds of activities help them understand the business impact you can have on their operation. They help them understand that you have something meaningful to say to them. Examples include:

  • Sending useful content (e.g., articles, whitepapers, etc.) to them
  • Sponsoring roundtable discussions for your prospects to meet your happy customers
  • Publishing pamphlets about your solution
  • Providing well-documented case studies to your prospects

Activities that allow you to uncover essential information about your prospects are some of the most important. The most common is the face-to-face (or phone-to-phone) meeting. These probing meetings allow you to ask meaningful questions that help (1) demonstrate your expertise in their field and (2) gather information you need to make a meaningful recommendation to them. They include:

  • Surveys
  • Interviews
  • Focus Groups
  • Sales Interviews

Revealing your recommended solution to your prospect is — obviously — essential. Doing it, though, requires more than just activity. Instead, meaningful sales presentations are carefully targeted to your prospects particular situation. This can be done in any number of ways, but is dependent on effectively uncovering practical information in your probing meeting.

  • Webinars
  • Formal Presentations
  • Demonstrations
  • Tours

Finally, the most directly meaningful of all sales activities are those that close business. This is typically in some kind of interaction between a salesperson and a prospect-turned-customer. Alternatively, you might discover that a particular prospect isn’t a good fit for your solution. This, too, can be good because it allows you to move on.

If your “activity” doesn’t fall into one of those four buckets, it’s probably wasteful. Many outside reps believe that activity begets results. With one slight change, the statement becomes true:

The Right Activity Begets Meaningful Results.

Jeb Brooks is Executive Vice President of The Brooks Group, one of the world’s Top Ten Sales Training Firms as ranked by Selling Power Magazine. He’s a sought-after commentator on sales and sales management issues, having appeared in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal. Jeb authored the second edition of the book “Perfect Phrases for the Sales Call.” He regularly writes for The Brooks Group’s popular Sales Blog <http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog>. Follow him on Twitter: @JebBrooks

January 12, 2012

Are You Too Fat and Happy to be Successful?

Filed under: attitude,career development,motivation,sales,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 10:24 am
Tags: , , ,

It may surprise you to learn that I speak to a number of sellers and sales leaders every month who although they mouth the right words, their actions say they’re fat and happy and way too contented to become successful.

What I hear most often in today’s economy, of course, is the complaint of not enough business, no one is buying, the competition is cutting prices to the bare bone or some other form of the statement that business is tough and in order to be successful you have to be sharp, aggressive and willing to put in long, tough hours.

But that’s not the only message I’m hearing.  A few times a month I’ll hear how a seller or company is doing just fine, that although business is down from before the recession, they feel they are doing better than most and they’re still making money.  From others I’ll hear that although their income is down and a new home or new car isn’t in the cards, they’re still doing OK, meaning they’re quite  evcomfortable.

I’m always curious when I hear a seller or a company express comfort and/or satisfaction with their situation when, at the same time, they’re admitting that sales are down, income or profits aren’t where they were, and they don’t expect to see a significant change in the next year or even two.

Really?

Comfortable?

Satisfied?

No sense of loss or itching desire to get back where they were?

Inevitably I find that they either have reached the peak where they have no desire to exert the energy to move beyond or they have accepted the recession as the new norm and believe that their current level of success is all they can expect in this new reality.

Seldom do I get this response from the top sellers and the top companies.  Most often this attitude is expressed by average and even below average sellers and companies, ones that were probably looking for the path of least resistance even prior to the economic downturn.

My experience from years of working with and speaking with thousands of top sellers and top companies is they are never satisfied.  And when they find themselves moving backwards—even if the cause is something out of their hands such as a major economic downturn—they fight even harder to get back to where they were and then beyond.

Once you have reached a point where you’re fat and happy, you’ve peaked; you’ve reached a point where you will not—you cannot—become more successful.

Success demands discontent with where one is at.  It requires a level of dissatisfaction and discomfort.  For top sellers and companies success is an ever elusive goal that can never be reached—and it isn’t quelled and extinguished by an outside force such as a recession.  In fact, those outside forces that seek to kill their desire to succeed only fuel their fire.

Have you reached a point where you’re comfortable and can relax knowing you’re successful?  I hope not, for if you have, you’ve probably reached your peak, and if you have, where can you go from there other than back down?

January 9, 2012

Four Signs It Is Time to Throw in the Towel

Filed under: attitude,career development,sales,Sales Failure,selling — Paul McCord @ 1:03 pm
Tags: , ,

A question I’m asked more often now than in the past is “how do I know if it’s time to look for another career?”  With the economy in dire straits it is more difficult to sell now than in the past.

For many sellers who began selling prior to the current economic morass, when selling was pretty easy and many sellers were gobbling up the sales and commissions, they’re having to radically change their thinking as they discover selling isn’t as easy as they thought.

Those who began selling only since 2007, today’s economy is the only selling environment they know.  In a sense, that’s a real advantage.

Although it would seem reasonable to assume that most of the sellers who entered the field prior to 2007 would have adjusted to the new reality by now, I find that many still haven’t and are still having a difficult time trying to get mentally and emotionally adjusted to the fact that what they did in the past isn’t working today.

And, of course, many of the newer sellers are struggling with the traditional problems of learning how to sell which are compounded by having to compete in a very tight and cut throat market.

Thus, I find myself addressing the how to know when to quit question more today than in the past.

I wish I could give a more cut and dried answer, but in reality there are so many factors involved in that decision that for many a cut and dried answer would do more harm than good.  Are the seller’s struggles things that he or she can take responsibility for–or do they lay outside their ability to control?  If the issues are ones they have some control over, are they willing and committed to addressing them?  If they are, do they have the time to do or has their time literally run out?

These and many other questions need to be addressed to really come to a decision on whether it is time to give up a career in selling—for a great many sellers.

However, for many others I think the answer really can be and should be cut and dried.  If any of these five issues apply, you need to make a quick exit, stage left:

  • No Passion or the Passion is Gone:  If there’s no passion for selling or if the passion that had once been there is gone, it’s time to hit the streets.  I’m not talking about a passion  particular products or services (if you’ve lost that passion but still are passionate about selling, all you need do is find a company whose products or services you can get passionate about).  I’m speaking here of a general passion for selling, a desire to provide the goods and/or services that will solve buyer’s issues or wants.
  • A Dread of Doing the Selling:  I’ve known men and women in selling positions who loved the ancillary work of creating selling materials, putting together lists, attending sales meetings, putting together proposals, and attending networking events but who dreaded and hated the actual selling.  For them the fun was in the busy work while the actual work of selling was despised.  If you hate the actual selling, get out and get out quick.
  • Unwillingness to Invest the Time and Money to Become a Professional:  The unfortunate truth is that few companies provide every bit of training a seller needs.  Companies by nature are more interested in providing product training than sales training.  Product training and sales training are not the same, although many sellers and companies want to think they are.

    Professional selling has nothing to do with the stereotypical fast talking huckster and everything to do with being skilled in understanding human nature, having strong analytical and problem solving skills, being an excellent communicator who is more attuned to listening than talking, and having the process that will enable you to work with a prospect to analyze and then solve their issues.

    It is the seller’s responsibility to acquire these skills and since few companies provide all of the needed training, the seller must be willing to invest their time and money in becoming the best seller possible.  If you’re not willing to make the time and financial commitment to become the highest skilled seller possible, a new, less demanding career would be an excellent choice.

  • No Commitment to Succeed:  Having a passion for selling does not necessarily translate into a commitment to succeed.  Selling is a tough business.  It certainly isn’t a 40 hour a week business.  For most sellers the selling part is the easy part, it’s the finding and connecting with high quality prospects and then the follow-up and problem solving that’s the hard part.

    Selling takes a great deal of energy, both physical and emotional.  It also demands a level of commitment that few other positions demand.  In a word, whether you’re a top seller making a million or more a year or an average producer making 6o or 70 thousand, selling is hard work.

    For a great many the time demands and the physical and emotional energy needed is simply too much to ask.  They want the rewards without having to make the investment.  They either can’t or aren’t willing to take the passion and put it into motion.  And frankly, unfulfilled passion is more of a tragedy than having no passion at all.

  • Undivided Focus on Money:  Selling can be extremely lucrative.  On the other hand, many, many sellers starve because they don’t have the commitment, passion and dedication.  Unfortunately for some, money becomes the only focus in the sale.  They don’t care about the prospect, the company they are selling for—and in many cases for themselves as they are willing to sell their soul to the Devil in order to get a few bucks with a “whatever it takes” mentality.

    If the only reason you’re in sales is money, get out as you’ll eventually find that you either hate what you do or, more likely, decide that the end justifies the means and you’ll do whatever it takes to pry the dollars out of the prospect’s hand.

    Selling is a high potential income SERVICE business and when the service becomes secondary to the income, ethics and honesty have a way of becoming secondary also.

Do any of these ring a bell?  If they do, it’s time to get out.

If they don’t and you’re still questioning whether or not it’s time to throw in the towel, I advise you to get with someone you trust—a mentor, coach, or maybe your manager—and work through to discover the issues you’re facing and whether or not you can and if you are willing to take the necessary steps to overcoming them.

Selling is tough and you need to be tough to succeed.  But if you’re struggling and are wondering if it is time for a new career, do yourself a favor and make an honest analysis of the situation before you make your decision.  If you decide to stay, you’ll know where your issues lie and what to do about them.  If you decide to leave, you’ll know you made the right decision and won’t be wondering for years to come what might have been if you’d stuck it out.

 

Connect with Paul on Twitter @paul_mccord

Or on Facebook at McCord Training

December 28, 2011

Focus Your Time on Selling, Not on Busy Work

Filed under: career development,sales,selling,success,time management — Paul McCord @ 11:06 am
Tags: , , ,

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.

Follow Paul on Twitter @paul_mccord

December 6, 2011

Eating with the Big Dogs–Taking the Next Big Step in Your Sales Career

Filed under: career development,goals,motivation,sales,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 11:56 am
Tags: , ,

Last summer I received an email from Beth, a pharmaceutical salesperson with slightly more than two years of experience, asking me what she should be doing in order to take the next big step in her career.  She is a slightly above average seller in her company—actually one of the better sophomore performers.  Since joining the company she has taken her manager’s advice and only compared her performance and numbers against the other salespeople with less than three years experience (her manager told her not to try to compare herself to the more experienced sellers as she would likely become discouraged).

I sent her an email asking a number of questions, one of which was what her short-term and long-term goals were.  She responded that her short-term goal was to be the top seller in her company in her “class,” and her long-term goal was to become one of the top 5% producers in the company.

In response to my question as to what she was currently doing to improve her sales she responded that she was taking advantage of all the training her company provided, was an avid reader of sales books, and constantly talking to her colleagues about what they found worked and what didn’t.  As we continued to communicate it became obvious that she considered her colleagues to be the other sellers in the company that were either selling at the same volume or had about the same amount of experience.

Although of excellent quality, unfortunately the vast majority of training her company provided was product training, not sales training.  Consequently, Beth was becoming extremely proficient at discussing her products but wasn’t getting the training she needed in the various aspect of selling.  In a very real sense she was more of a walking product brochure than a salesperson.

My recommendations to Beth were threefold:

  1. Start Eating with the Big Dogs:  Rather than hang out and discuss ideas with others in the company who are at or below her production level, she needed to be interacting and learning from the top producers in the company.  The only thing others at her level can teach her is how to stay at the production level she is currently at—worse, those below her can only teach her how to fail.  If she wants to grow she needs to learn from those who are where she wants to be. I encouraged her to start inviting those big producers to lunch.  She should look at them as mentors and teachers—and as colleagues.  Spend as much time as she could learning everything she can.  Listen to them on the phone; hitch a ride as they make sales calls if possible; find out what they read and who they value as teachers and mentors.  Emulate success, not mediocrity.
  2. Take Control of Her Training:  Since the company is primarily concerned with investing their money training their sales staff on their products, she will have to take control of her sales education.  She’ll have to invest her time and money in learning how to be a top notch seller. Beth’s situation is hardly unique.  In fact, a great many companies—probably the vast majority–neglect sales training in favor of product training.  Many companies (and sellers) mistakenly believe they are the same thing.  Not only are they not the same thing, neither is very effective without the other. At first Beth wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about spending her money attending on-line and live training seminars and workshops.  After all, she argued, her company should be paying since her skills were going to be used to sell their products.  True, I agreed—except her skills were going to be with her for life, not just while she was selling for the company she currently works for.  Her product knowledge is to a large extent company specific, her sales skills will be universal and benefiting her for life.  With that explanation she agreed—reluctantly—to make the investment in herself.
  3. Compete Against The Best, Not the Easiest:  I encouraged her to stop comparing her production and progress only against those with the same amount of experience but to compare herself against the best in her company and her industry.  If she wants to be a top dog she has to compare herself against the top dogs—even if at the moment that comparison isn’t comfortable. If she is only competing against others at her level she is giving herself a false trophy.  Her goal isn’t to be one of the best mediocre producers but rather to be one of the top producers in her company—and ultimately her industry.  With that in mind, certainly she can take some pride in the steps she makes, but she really can’t allow herself to bask in glory just because she out sold a bunch of other middle of the road sellers.  She has to keep her eye on the ultimate goal and only compare herself against that goal. Does that mean she’ll be ever frustrated—and possibly become discouraged and quit as her manager suggested—by comparing herself against a goal she isn’t close to achieving?  Not at all.  She should be able to see her progress as she continues to close in on that goal.  Like a long-distance runner, she might click off the landmarks as she passes them, but she must know how she stacks up with where she wants to be and keep her eye on the ultimate goal.

It has been almost a half year since my interaction with Beth.  I received a call from her last week.  She has implemented all three suggestions.  She feels she still has a lot of sales training to go through.  She still hasn’t made her goal of being in the top 5% of her company’s sales force.  But she has progressed from being in the top 40% to closing this year in the top 25%–with a very realistic opportunity of being in the top 10% next year.

Beth ain’t there yet—but she’s making great progress very quickly.  She says that so far the biggest impact has been eating with the big dogs—she had no idea how differently they did things than the way she and her fellow mediocre sellers did them.  The sales training is paying off.  Knowing how she stacks up against the big dogs gives her new motivation to make big steps, not just the little ones that she previously thought were reachable.

If you’re looking to take the next big step in your career do the same as Beth—start eating with the big dogs and leave the other average sellers behind; take control of your own sales training; and compare yourself with the big producers, not just the ones you think you can compete with easily.  It will make a difference—and like Beth, you might find the difference comes pretty quickly.

July 22, 2011

Are Your Roadblocks to Success Really Real?

Filed under: attitude,career development,sales,Sales Failure,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 12:10 pm
Tags: , , , ,

Ray is a seller for a software company that I have been working with for a few weeks.  Although he is a strong seller, he wants to develop more effective prospecting strategies so he can bang on the phone a less while increasing his sales.  We’ve been working on increasing the quality and quantity of the referrals he gets from his clients.

We began by reviewing his then current method of trying to get referrals.  It was no surprise that he used the typical, “do a good job and ask for referrals” method.  It was also no surprise to learn that he didn’t get many high quality referrals.  Mostly he just got names and phone numbers of companies that were either poor prospects or not prospects at all.

He did get a referred sale here and there, just enough to keep him asking, but not enough to really make a difference in his production.

He agreed with me when I explained why the “process” he was using to get referrals didn’t work very well.  He recognized all the problems—clients uncomfortable with the request, clients not having time to think about who to refer, clients not knowing who to refer, him feeling uncomfortable asking as he knew he was making his clients uncomfortable by putting them on the spot.

He also agreed with me when I showed him a much more effective and natural way to work with his clients to generate high quality introductions to prospects that he knew he wanted to be introduced to.

We did some role playing.  We made a list of possible introductions he could get from his clients.  We reviewed all the steps he needed to take and all the potential issues and problems that could arise.

Ray was ready to begin talking to some clients and getting some quality introductions.

Off he went—and quickly back he came.

He had gone to talk to a client he had just finished selling and installing the software and training the staff.  The client was a plumbing company.  The software was a package of accounting and payroll modules.

The sale had gone well.  The software was doing exactly what it should.  The client and his staff were happy.

Ray had identified a great prospect who he really wanted his client to introduce him to—another plumbing company in town.  His identified prospect was one Ray had been trying to connect with for months but couldn’t get the owner to take his calls or acknowledge his letters or emails.  He was getting nowhere—but he also believed this was a great prospect for him.

His plumbing client was going to be the key to getting in.

That is until he went to see his client.

When Ray was visiting with his client, he thought about all the reasons his client wouldn’t give him an introduction to the other plumber—that other plumber was a competitor after all and that other plumber was bigger than Ray’s client; why would the client want to give the competitor anything that would help them?  In addition, Ray knew that his client was bidding on a big project and that other plumbing company was probably bidding on it too.  There were just too many reasons for his client to turn him down, Ray reasoned.

Knowing that he was off to get his first introduction commitment, I called Ray that afternoon to get a report.  I was dismayed with what I heard.

Why again, I asked, did Ray believe his client knew the other plumber and were friends?

Because there was a picture in the client’s office of the client and the other plumber each holding a huge Bass and were both smiling and obviously comparing them.

Ah, I reminded him, they really were friends.

Anything else?

Yes, Ray said, his client used to work for the other plumber.  In fact, they still do some jobs together where the other plumber will sub-contract Ray’s client when needed.

Ah, they’re friends and they work closely together.  In fact, Ray’s client makes money off the other company.  Sounds like cut throat competitors to me.

So why did he determine it would be useless to ask his client for an introduction to the other company?

Well, Ray said, they’re competitors.  Why would his client want to give a competitor an advantage?

What advantage, I asked?  Did his software package improve his client’s quality as a plumber?

Well, no, not really, Ray answered.

Did the package give him an advantage when competing for business?

Sorta, Ray said, in the sense that it made his company more efficient.

Efficient enough to blow his competition out of the water?

No.

If his competition had the same package would it blow Ray’s client out of the water?

No.

So, I asked, what’s the problem?  Give me one good reason why his client wouldn’t recommend to a friend and someone he works closely with something that might help him save time and money if the chances are that that something really isn’t going to hurt him?

Ray couldn’t, of course, come up with a good reason.

He went back, asked for and got the introduction—and eventually a new client

So often when they can’t find them out there naturally, sellers put roadblocks in their way themselves.

Ray was so concerned about getting a negative response that he thought of all kinds of reasons why his client would say ‘no’ instead of why the client would say ‘yes,’ and that predetermined ‘no’ almost cost him a sale.

How about you?  What are the predetermined reasons you can’t pick up the phone and call that great prospect?  What are the predetermined reasons you can’t close that sale?  What are the predetermined reasons you can’t get that job?

Don’t be Ray—don’t defeat yourself before you even try.  A great many of those roadblocks that keep us from success have been put there not by others but by ourselves.  What roadblocks have you created?  Find them and get rid of them.  Life is hard enough without you defeating yourself.

July 16, 2011

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Secret to Sales Success

Filed under: career development,lead generation,prospecting,sales,Sales Failure,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 10:49 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

A little over one hundred years ago the father of a young 8 year old girl named Virginia O’Hanlon encouraged her to write to a then leading New York newspaper, The Sun, and ask the question she’d just asked him—if there were in fact a Santa Claus, for all of her friends were telling her that he really didn’t exist and she wanted to know if they were correct.

The Sun answered Virginia in one of the most famous editorials ever published—Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus.  The reply was a resounding YES, there is a Santa Claus and the writer of the editorial laid out his proof.

Unfortunately, today all too many deny there is a real secret to sales success also.  Like Virginia’s friends, the claim is made that there really isn’t one single thing that if done can guarantee success in sales.  No, they say, you must become a master of every aspect of selling and then you’ll be prepared to become successful.  Oh, sure, they’ll admit, a few here and there appear to succeed by blind luck, but they’re the exception, not the rule.  Forget your silly search for the magic bullet of selling and resign yourself to learning the minutia of sales before seriously turning your eye to becoming truly successful.

Many, many others are all too eager to promote the idea of the sales secret—and to let you know that they are the sole keepers of the great secret that so few have known.  Better yet, they tell you, they’ll be happy to share the secret with you, but since it is such a valuable thing and should only be shared with those who are truly deserving of knowing, they must make sure you are worthy.  But since they really don’t have any other way of discerning who is and who isn’t worthy, they must charge an exorbitant fee to keep the riff-raff and undeserving from attaining it–and since you have the money to acquire it, you must be worthy and deserving of being given the great secret (as soon as your check clears, of course)..

Lucky for you I know this great secret and I’ll give it to you—and it won’t cost you $1,995.  Won’t even cost $995.  Heck, I’m not even going to charge you $9.95.  I’m simply going to give it to you—no charge.

Why in the world would I give such a tremendous secret away for nothing?  Because I know that once learned, the vast majority won’t put it into practice.  You see, the secret is simple, but it is far from easy.

Anyone can take this secret and become a successful seller—just how successful will depend on their commitment to implementing it.

So what is this secret?

Is it a super-duper sales process?  No.

Maybe a super special leads list?  Nope, not that.

How about some special words that will immediately connect with prospects?  Not that either.

Could it be a special super power like a super hero has?   Now we’re getting warm.

The secret is a super power of sorts–one that few are capable of acquiring.

This super power is tough-mindedness.  It’s the ability to out work and out prospect your competitors.  It’s the ability to take the rejection, the ‘no’s’, the frustration of making calls and not reaching anyone, of being stopped dead by a gatekeeper, by having the phone slammed down in your ear, of networking until you feel like you can’t network anymore–and to then do it again and again and again until you’ve reached your goals.

The secret is simple—if you have the determination and commitment to prospect longer and harder than anyone else, you will become successful.

I’ve seen this truth worked out time after time as new sellers enter the field and out work and outperform even the top sellers in their office. They know nothing–but work their tails off and sell like crazy. Unfortunately, many times after they “learn” that they’re not supposed to be having the success that they’re having their production craters. They’ve “learned” how to be average. Sometimes we simply learn the wrong things–such as there isn’t a secret to sales success.

This isn’t to say that all the other things in sales aren’t important.  They are.  You need a great sales process; you need to know how to probe and discover needs and wants; you need to know how to solve issues.  There is a great deal that every professional seller must learn.

But there is still one key to being successful in sales above all others—prospecting.

The better you become at qualifying suspects; the better you become at finding and solving real needs; the better you become at finding and connecting with your quality prospects; the easier success will be and the less time you’ll have to spend prospecting.

That being said, even if you know nothing about sales, have the world’s worst close ratio, have no discretion in who you spend time talking to. and haven’t the slightest idea of the difference between a closed-end and open-end question, if you outwork your competition in prospecting, you will reach a measure of success.

Don’t let anyone tell you there isn’t a simple secret to success in selling that alone can make you successful because there is.  It certainly isn’t complicated—but it is hard.  And it can be claimed and implemented by anyone. 

By all means, acquire a great sales process, learn the most sophisticated and effective prospecting strategies you can, learn to become great at identifying and solving prospect issues, learn all you can to make selling easier, but if you aren’t having the success you want, take heart—you now have the secret.

Take it, claim it as yours, implement it, and enjoy the rewards.

And know that even if your competitors know it too, few, if any, will claim it as their own because it simply costs too much for most.

February 15, 2011

Free Roundtable Discussion: The Changing Face of Professional Selling Tuesday February 22, Noon Eastern

Filed under: career development,Sales Resources,success — Paul McCord @ 10:21 am
Tags: , ,

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change” - Charles Darwin  

Whatever got you where you are today will not be sufficient to keep you there. A rapidly changing environment is the regular background against which organizations must develop.  

Change is continuous and will become more rapid as we move forward over time. The one constant that we can rely upon in commercial life is change – everything is changing, everyday.  

We can choose to embrace the changes, adapt, and thrive, or we can resist, and risk extinction.

The questions we should all be asking ourselves right now are:

What will the sales landscape really look like in five years time?

Who will survive?

How will they survive?

Who will perish?

Join seven of the world’s top sales experts and recognized thought leaders in the sales space, for what promises to be a highly thought-provoking debate.

The Panel

Joanne Black – is the leading authority on referral selling, and the author of No More Cold CallingTM: The Breakthrough System That Will Leave Your Competition in the Dust. Wherever genuine sales thought leaders have congregated, you will always find Joanne, and also in that company, you’ll discover….

Paul McCord – is the president of McCord Training, author of the Amazon and Barnes and Noble best-selling book on referral generation, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2008), and SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar, not forgetting Bust Your Slump, which he released last year. www.dynamicsalesgrowth.com  

Colleen Francis – is the president and founder of Canada-based Engage Selling Solutions — a thriving sales-training organization that delivers tailor-made, winning solutions to sales and marketing professionals internationally. Colleen is high-energy and high-commitment, personified.

Jeb Brooks – is Executive Vice President of The Brooks Group, one of the world’s top Sales Training Firms as ranked by Selling Power Magazine , Training Industry, Inc., and The American Business Awards. Over its 35 year history, The Brooks Group has helped more than 2,000 sales-driven companies in nearly 500 industries select, hire, train, and retain top performing salespeople.

Nigel Edelshain – is the man who first coined the term “Sales 2.0″ and he is CEO of Sales 2.0 (LLC). Sales teams trained by Sales 2.0 get radically superior results by employing social media and Sales 2.0 tools in their sales processes. Sales 2.0 works extensively with companies in sales-intensive industries like IT services, insurance, software, printing and telecommunications  

Dan Waldschmidt – is one of the founders of IntroMojo, a popular inspirational speaker, expert author, and a sought-after strategist on creating edgy conversations in the marketplace. He blogs regularly on his popular motivational selling blog Edge of Explosion

The Chairman

Jonathan Farrington – is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant. He is Chairman of The JF Corporation and CEO of Top Sales Associates, the creator and CEO of Top Sales World and the man behind the Annual Top Sales Awards.

‘When a collection of brilliant minds hearts and talents come together – expect a ….. lively debate”‘

When? Tuesday February 22nd at 12 Noon (Eastern) 5pm GMT

How Much? Registration is FREE

Where? Please register HERE

In fact, don’t just join, join in!

August 2, 2010

Great, You’re Dealing with Your Self-limiting Beliefs; What About Your Self-destructive Habits?

Filed under: career development,sales,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 8:58 am
Tags: , , , ,

We’re all familiar with the destructive nature of self-limiting beliefs.  We’ve been warned about them; scolded about them; shown how to eradicate them.  But what we don’t hear much about are the equally—if not more—dangerous self-limiting habits that we all have.

Most sales trainers, managers, and motivational speakers preach to no end about the evils of self-limiting beliefs and give a plethora of positive thinking exercises to counteract them.  The core belief is that what we believe—what we really in our heart-of-hearts believe—must manifest itself in our actions.  So if we believe that we are lousy at prospecting, we’ll find a way to guarantee that we are lousy at prospecting—we sabotage ourselves in order to verify one of our basic beliefs about ourself as a salesperson, i.e., that we’re lousy at prospecting.

The idea behind recognizing and changing our self-limiting beliefs is that when we change our belief from a negative (we’re lousy at prospecting) to positive (we’re an effective, productive, skilled prospector), our actions will also change to reflect our new found belief—instead of sabotaging our prospecting efforts, our positive beliefs will force us to find ways to succeed at prospecting.

In theory that’s a pretty fair philosophy.  Except it’s shortsighted because it only addresses part of our problem—our actions are influenced by our beliefs but the actions that hinder or prevent our success are more than just reactions to what we believe about ourselves as salespeople and sales leaders. 

Need an example?

Well, let me first give an example of an action that MAY be a direct response to our belief that we are lousy at prospecting.  Since we are lousy at prospecting, we decide that before we start cold calling we’ll take a few minutes and surf the Internet in order to “relax” and get “ready.”  We start by spending four or five minutes surfing around a couple of news and sports sites.  After a few minutes we make a couple of cold calls and discover that we hadn’t relaxed enough.  As the days pass, without noticing, we’re spending more and more time trying to relax in order to get mentally prepared to cold call.  Before we know it, our relaxation exercise is our prospecting time.  Did we develop this habit simply because it’s easier to surf than make cold calls or did we fall into the habit as an unconscious response to our belief that we’re lousy at cold calling—and besides, it’s a waste of time anyway?

Does it really matter since either way the habit is killing us?

Well, how about an example of a habit that will also kill us but is very definitively not a result of our self-limiting beliefs about ourselves as a salesperson?  From our earliest age we’ve been late for everything.  In fact, we’re one of those preverbal people whom people claim will be late to our own funeral.  At work we’re always rushing to get to our appointments but no matter what, we always seem to walk into our prospect’s office two, three, five, sometimes ten minutes late.  We never have enough time to put our presentations together.  We have to slap something together at the last minute and never have time to practice before we have to meet the prospect.  Surely this isn’t a self-limiting habit developed in order to validate our belief that we’re a lousy presenter or lousy salesperson.  Maybe it just says we’re crappy at time management or that we’re arrogantly self-centered or that we are just plain sloppy about everything we do.

Again, does it matter?  Wherever the habit comes from, it’s killing us and must be dealt with if we want to succeed.

Although we hardly ever hear about identifying and eradicating our self-limiting behavior–our destructive habits—it is just as important as changing our belief system.

How, then, do we eradicate our self-limiting beliefs?

Let me quickly give four steps to identifying and eliminating self-destructive behaviors that I’ve used with dozens of sellers and sales leaders—and myself—that have proven to work:

  1. Replace Negative Beliefs:  I’m not going to go into this in any detail as all you need do is Google “self-limiting beliefs” and you’ll get over 217,000 links to articles, books, ebooks, seminars, workshops, and anything else you can imagine about dealing with your self-limiting beliefs.  Simply let me say that positive self-talk, positive affirmations and other techniques to deal with negative beliefs do work and should be incorporated into any effort to deal with negative habits.
  2. Identify Your Self-limiting Habits:  Of course, this goes without saying.  The hard part is how do you do it? My experience has been that we can discover a number of our self-limiting habits ourselves by simply becoming attuned to what we do, especially what we do just prior to things that we dislike or are uncomfortable doing.  Over the next few weeks pay close attention to what you do.  Since habits are most often unconscious behaviors, you’ll probably have better luck if you keep a log of those things you catch yourself doing over and over.  It could be something as simple as stopping for a cup of coffee every morning on the way to the office or as complex as creating a personal emergency that must be attended to every time you’re asked to work late or retorting with a smart remark anytime someone questions something you say. 

    Unfortunately, we usually can’t find all of our negative habits on our own.  We need help.  Enlist assistance from those close to you: spouse, manager, coach, mentor, or close friends.  More than one observer is ideal.  Observers must be people who know you well and who you trust.  Explain what you’re doing and ask them to observe you over the next weeks and give you feedback on the habits—good, bad, or indifferent–they notice, as well as any habits they are already aware of.  You may not like what you learn, but if your observers are really trying to help, the information you get will be valuable.

    Simply recording the habitual activity isn’t quite enough.  Can you figure out what the action is attached to?  For instance, stopping and getting a cup of coffee is associated with going to the office.  Discovering an emergency that must be attended to is associated with being asked to work late.

    What might be the reason for the action?  Getting a cup of coffee might just be something pleasant—or it might be a way to delay going to the office.  Creating a personal emergency is a way of getting out of staying late.

    Ultimately, you have to decide if the action is negative, positive or neutral—and whether it is a habit that you need or want to change.  I’ve found that if you’re not really committed to eradicating a self-limiting habit you won’t succeed.  If you’re not committed, move on to another habit that you will be committed to eliminating because

    if you only half way try to break a habit and fail, all you’ll be doing is reinforcing your self-limiting belief system.  Instead of gaining on your belief problems, you’ll be feeding them.

     

  3. Replace a Negative Habit with a Positive Habit:  Instead of simply trying to eradicate a negative habit, proactively work to replace it with one that will help you advance toward your goal.  Trying to eliminate a behavior leaves a space, a void where the action used to be.  If you’re like me, if I have a time void I’ll find something to fill it and often that something is something negative. Why put yourself in a position where you’re consciously trying to create a void that could easily create stress and anxiety?  Instead of creating a void, change the negative behavior with a predetermined positive behavior.For example, instead of wasting time surfing the net in order to “relax,” purposely set aside two or three minutes prior to cold calling to sit quietly with eyes closed and envision yourself making three successful cold calls.  Or instead of waiting until the last second to create your next presentation, schedule your presentation creating time several days prior to the scheduled presentation date and then give yourself a reward if you finish the presentation X days prior to the presentation date.  Move from chaos to proactively managing your time and reward yourself for successfully doing so.
  4. Don’t Accept Failure:  Allow yourself the freedom to backslide without becoming discouraged and giving up.  Habits, no matter what their origin, weren’t created overnight and they won’t be changed overnight.  You’ll probably find yourself slipping back into old habits.  That’s fine.  It’ll happen.  But just because it happened doesn’t mean you’ve lost the war.  You just lost a single battle.  If you give up you’ll be guaranteeing you’ll have that much more to overcome to reach your goals—and reinforcing a self-limiting habit of giving in when things get tough.

It’s been said that we humans are creatures of habit.  So we are.  The great thing is we get to decide if our habits are going to be positive or negative.  No one else can make   that decision for us.  Let’s make them habits that work to fulfill our wants and needs rather than ones designed to sabotage us.

July 8, 2010

5 Motivational Aids—Keep the Passion Flowing

Filed under: career development,motivation,success — Paul McCord @ 11:13 am
Tags: , ,

If you want to be successful you have to be motivated. 

What is motivation?

Is it desire?  No.  We all desire things—happiness, success, money, love, whatever; but just because we want it doesn’t mean we’re willing to do what it takes to get it.

Is it vision?  No.  We can all envision ourselves with the things we want without taking the slightest step to acquire it.

Is it energy?  No.  There are millions of salespeople spending endless amounts of energy everyday toward their goals but not reaching them because their energy is misspent.

Is it commitment?  No.  There are millions who are committed to success who fail daily.

Motivation is a unique combination of desire, commitment, and energy—let’s roll these into a single quality called passion–to reach a goal no matter how difficult it may be or how long it may take to reach.

Passion—that unique combination of desire, commitment, and energy—in and of itself can virtually force you to succeed by demanding you do those things necessary to be successful.  Passion won’t let you rest.  It won’t allow you to quit.  It won’t allow you to become sated until you’ve reached your goal.

Passion demands your best effort.  It pushes you to go beyond the satisfactory to the extraordinary.  It forces you to reach heights you thought impossible.

Passion is pretty heady stuff.  It keeps you on the edge.  It sharpens your senses, keeping you alert to opportunities.  It awakens the creative juices.  It helps keep the doubts and worries at bay.

Unfortunately, passion isn’t limitless.  It has limitations and weaknesses.  Although strong, it must be reinforced or you risk having it burn itself out.

How do you keep your passion burning?

Here are 5 down and dirty ways to reinforce your passion and keep it burning strong:

  1. Love what you do.  There is no substitute for doing something you absolutely love doing.  If you can hardly wait to get out of bed in the morning to get your day started you’re already half way to success.  Certainly we can’t all be engaged in something we absolutely love, but if you can, even if only on a part-time basis, go for it.
  2. Set tangible, realistic short-term goals.  The more often you see tangible progress, the easier to maintain your passion.  Set short-term, realistic goals.  If you consistently see small goals being reached, you’ll soon begin to see large goals being reached.  By the way, reasonable goals don’t mean easy to reach goals.  Goals should consistently stretch you and your abilities.
  3. Visualize outcomes.  Athletes use visualization for a reason—it works.  If you are afraid of making presentations, visualize yourself making great presentations.  If you fear cold calling, visualize yourself being successful at cold calling.  Visualization is a form of practice.  In a study a couple of years ago researchers found that students who only visualized practicing a piece of music were as proficient at playing the piece as students who had actually practiced the piece on the piano.
  4. Use positive affirmations.  Repeating positive affirmations strengthens and reaffirms your internal belief system.  We cannot do what we do not believe we can do.  On the other hand, if we sincerely believe we can do something, no matter how ‘impossible,’ our brain can find ways to get it done.  Once we believe, our brain begins to go work to figure out a way to turn our belief into reality. 

    Our brain will believe what it hears and what our eyes see.  If it has heard and witnessed failure for years and years, it believes we will fail.  Fortunately, we can change that.  It will take time.  We will have to consciously retrain it.  We’ll have to give it positive reinforcement through what it hears—our positive affirmations—and what it experiences—our small successes as we reach our short-term goals.  But just as it learned we are a failure, it will learn we are successful—but this time we can control what we feed our brain.

  5. Use outside reinforcement.  Motivation—passion—is internal.  It isn’t something that is created externally.  That doesn’t mean that external stimulus can’t reinforce our internal motivation.  The problem is that external stimulus such as motivation books, tapes, seminars, and such burn out quickly—usually within just a few days, sometimes within just a few hours.

    That quick burn doesn’t mean external stimulus can’t be valuable.  It can be extremely valuable.  A motivational tape can give us a great burst of energy prior to an important presentation; a motivational seminar can get our creative juices flowing in new directions; motivation quotes can realign our minds at moments of exhaustion or weakness. 

    Keep favorite motivational tapes and quotes ready at hand.  Take the opportunity to attend motivational seminars and presentations.  Remember the ‘high’ is fleeting—but you can drink of it anytime you need it.

Companies spend billions of dollars every year trying to find the magic motivational bullet.  They’ll never find it because it isn’t something they can order in from a motivational speaker.  We either have it or we don’t.  But if we don’t, we can take the steps necessary to find it and nurture it.

And it isn’t expensive, difficult, or time consuming.

Find your passion and you’ll find your success.  If you’re a sales leader, help your sales team members find their passion and you’ll find your success.

Next Page »

Theme: Rubric. Blog at WordPress.com. Fonts on this blog.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,814 other followers