Sales and Sales Management Blog

January 27, 2012

In 2012 the New Normal in Sales Is . . .

Filed under: career development,sales,Sales 2.0,selling,small business,technology — Paul McCord @ 2:20 pm
Tags: , ,

As with the beginning of almost every year we have a number of commentators and pundits proclaiming what the “new normal” is.

We’re told that the old normal was the government strove to keep unemployment below 5% and that the “new normal” is going to be to try to keep unemployment below 7%.

We’re told that the old normal in the auto industry was to try to increase the miles per gallon on a manufacturer’s fleet by selling enough high mileage units to raise the fleet average, and the “new normal” is no longer trying to sell large numbers of high mileage internal combustion engines but to sell hybrids and alternative energy vehicles.

In sales we’re told that the old normal was cold calling, face-to-face meetings with prospects and clients, and using salespeople to find, connect with, and sell prospects, and the “new normal” is that salespeople are an outdated and costly luxury and are, at best, nothing more than an archaic relic of the past that companies just haven’t come to the realization are no longer needed.

Many, including myself, find it amusing to read the “new normal” predictions knowing that for the most part they are nothing more than someone’s attempt to be relevant and gain some attention.

We’ll ignore addressing the issue of the “new normal” unemployment rate and the “new normal” in the auto industry and spend a minute or two discussing the “new normal” silliness in sales.

The “new normal” argument is based on several supposed changes in how buyers buy products and services.

  • One argument is that the Internet has fundamentally changed the way people shop and buy.  Proponents of this position argue that the Internet provides buyers all the information about potential products and services that they used to have to rely on salespeople for, making the salesperson obsolete.  Further, most companies now offer their products and services online, so not only can the buyer get all the information and comparisons they need online, they can complete the purchase online, making a salesperson completely irrelevant.
  • Others argue that in today’s highly competitive market where any company that creates a competitive advantage through product improvement or a more efficient process that reduces price can count on that advantage lasting only a very short time before their competitors catch up and return the market to equilibrium, there’s really no such thing as a competitive advantage.  In such a market all products and services are reduced to commodity status where price is the only differentiator and once price is the one and only deciding factor, salespeople are an unjustified expense whose only significant contribution is to increase the product or service’s cost.
  • And others argue that with the increasing popularity of social media and technology the sellers that are left will never have to leave their homes as they will be able to connect with, develop relationships with, and sell via a combination of social media and tale-meeting technology such as Go to Meeting.  For these commentators the new normal is a world where technology replaces face-to-face meetings and even the telephone.  Sellers who use their car, their phone, or even text are not only behind the times, they’re signing their own death warrant by not learning to adapt to the new reality of business.

Have you heard these proclamations of the”new normal” before?  You probably heard them last year—and the year before that—and the year before that.  This new normal is taking forever to get here but I guess if someone keeps claiming this is the year, sooner or later maybe someone will be right.

But I sincerely doubt it—at least any time soon.

First, let’s look at a couple of statistics that might shed some light on what salespeople are doing.

According to travel statistics, business travel has increased by almost 4% each of the last two years.  I find it somewhat surprising that there’s a significant increase in business travel when supposedly salespeople aren’t traveling.

In addition, every single recruiter I’ve spoken to indicate a significant increase in open sales positions, especially for experienced outside salespeople.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing that the sales profession isn’t changing nor am I arguing that social media and technology are not impacting how sellers sell.

My argument is simply that in 2012—and probably for the foreseeable future—there will not be a “new normal.”

  • Almost all sellers will find their offline activities will still be more vital to their success than their social media interaction.
  • Getting out of the office and in front of prospects and clients will still be the primary relationship building and selling format
  • More than likely business travel will increase again this year—and for the foreseeable years to come—including travel by sellers
  • Sales jobs will continue to be created with the corresponding opportunities for both experienced and inexperienced men and women
  • Social media will continue to be an area that sellers need to learn how to effectively engage—but the reality is it isn’t going to take the place of a seller’s offline activities such as cold calling, networking, and seeking high quality referrals and when a connection is made through social media, for it to be effective it will have to be taken offline.

In other words, for now and at least the next few years, the “new normal” will be the old normal.

Do those activities this year that have been successful for you in the past and you’ll be successful again this year.

It’s fun and exciting to talk about the “new normal,” but the fact is not much has really changed.

Human nature hasn’t changed since last year.

The phone still works and people still answer it.

Referrals will still get you more and better business than any other prospecting format.

You will still have to work to develop relationships.

You’ll still have to educate, be a real problem solver for your clients, and bring more value to the table than your competitors.

The world hasn’t shifted on its axis—yet anyway.

So take all the talk of the new normal with a grain of salt.  Don’t ignore social media and by all means use technology to the fullest, but if you want to be successful in 2012, pick up the phone, fill up the car, and hit the streets just like you did last year and the years before that.

Follow Paul on Twitter: @paul_mccord

October 13, 2011

Finish 2011 Strong While Laying the Groundwork for a Great 2012

Filed under: business,sales,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 10:22 am
Tags: , , ,

Although somewhat hard to believe, we’re now at the end of another year.  With only two and a half months to go, your year is virtually over.  That doesn’t mean your production has to be over, it means that more than any other time during the year, you must have a laser focus in order to finish the year strong and lay the foundation for 2012.

Unfortunately the last quarter and the first quarter of the year are the least productive for a great many sellers. 

A great many sellers slack off during the last quarter thinking that there really isn’t much business to be had since “everyone” is consumed with the holidays and spending little time attending to business—especially when it comes to making purchasing decisions.

Likewise, the first quarter is written off by many with the excuse that people really aren’t back to concentrating on work until the middle of February—and then they’re really just beginning to look at potential purchases, meaning that the actual production won’t close until the second quarter.

While the majority is assuring themselves that their low production isn’t their fault but is simply a reflection of the reality of the calendar, there is a much smaller group of sellers who are busting sales goals.

Are those sellers who are making record sales during the “dead” time of the year just lucky?  Maybe they sandbagged business to make their last quarter look great?  Possibly they are out giving radical discounts in order generate the business most other sellers can’t seem to come up with?

The fact of the matter is that none of the above reasons are accurate as they are nothing but the excuses the majority of sellers use to justify their low sales.

The last and first quarters don’t have to be the valley of death for sales.  With just a few simple activities you can bust your sales goal in both quarters.  What you do right now will determine what your end of year and beginning of year are like—and whether you enjoy great paychecks over the next few months or go on your annual starvation diet until next April.

Take control of your sales business and income by:

  1.  Clean out your dead prospecting wood.  Refuse to waste more time on dead end prospects.  Take a critical look at your pipeline and get rid of all the prospects who aren’t worthy of your time and effort.  Yes, seeing those names on your pipeline can be comforting because they pad the numbers, buy in your heart you know they’re nothing more than wishful thinking.  Get real, get rid of them and see where you’re really at.
  2. Double down on prospecting.  Shortly most sellers will begin slacking off on prospecting figuring that no one will take their call anyway.  Don’t allow yourself to fall into that trap.  In fact, take advantage of your competition’s laziness and INCREASE your prospecting activity.  Not only will it pay off in the fourth quarter, you’ll have a breakout first quarter of 2012.
  3. Stay in touch.  Again, while your competition takes the next two to three months off, increase your activity.  Don’t allow your prospects and clients to forget you.  While your competition may send a Christmas card, you should be working.  Most of your prospects and clients will be working just as hard this quarter as they did last.  Most will still be making purchasing decisions.  While your competition writes off the quarter, you can write business. 
  4. Solve problems.  Your prospect’s problems don’t go away because Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays roll around.  Business problems don’t take holidays or vacations.  Neither should you.  Concentrate on solving prospect problems and you’ll magically find that your production problems go away too.

Turning the fourth and first quarters into high production quarters doesn’t take luck or magic, it simply takes focusing on business.  Treat the end and beginning of the year like any other quarter and your production will be just as strong as the second and third quarters. 

The reality is that production declines in the fourth and first quarters because our activity declines, not because the business isn’t there. 

Make this year and next banner years by doing what your competition won’t—continuing to prospect and solve issues.  You’ll find your bank account will really appreciate your effort.

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.

May 18, 2011

Guest Article: “Identify and Develop the Competencies that Lead to Success in Sales,” by Sean Conrad

Filed under: career development,sales,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 1:26 pm
Tags: , , ,

Identify and Develop the Competencies that Lead to Success in Sales
by Sean Conrad

 

One of the questions sales managers often ask themselves is how they can get their entire team to produce like their star performers do.

You might be surprised to know that your employee performance appraisal process can hold a key. You see, most organizations include a competency section on their performance appraisal form. Managers are asked to rate their employees’ performance of core and sometimes job specific competencies, and put development plans in place to address skill gaps. But ask yourself: Are you assessing and developing the right competencies?

Here’s how to use your employee performance appraisal process to develop the competencies that lead to success.

First, don’t just use a canned set of competencies to evaluate your sales team’s performance. Instead, look at your star performers… What makes them successful in your industry and with your customers? What are the qualities, skills and behaviors that give them the edge when it comes to sales? Is it their listening skills? Is it their ability to research companies and prospects to get the background info they need to build rapport and identify needs? Is it their presentation skills, communication skills, persuasion skills, or technical knowledge? Every market and customer set is unique, and may require slightly different sales skills. You need to identify and clearly define the competencies that are demonstrably leading to success in your sales team.

Next, come up with clear definitions for those competencies. What do great, average and poor performance of these competencies look like? Document examples of how these key competencies are used and when they’re important. You’ll need more than a competency name and one sentence description. Provide enough detail so that your sales staff clearly understand the competency and what the various levels of proficiency in it look like. It can be helpful to do this exercise with a small team, and then have your descriptions reviewed by a few members of your sales staff to ensure your descriptions are clear and informative. Your goal is to clearly define and describe the competencies that underpin success.

Then, figure out what training and development activities can help develop these competencies. What book, articles, blogs, conferences or courses zero in on them? Build a list. Make sure you include a variety of learning activities that appeal to various learning styles so there’s something for everyone.

Finally, use these custom defined competencies on your sales team’s performance appraisal forms and regularly evaluate each sales person’s demonstration of them. Where skill gaps are identified, use the learning activities you’ve identified to create development plans for employees. Give your employees ongoing feedback and coach their performance. Track everyone’s progress and performance. Look for improvements in performance to validate the effectiveness of development activities and revise your list as required. Slowly but surely, you’ll build individual and organizational bench-strength in the competencies you’ve identified as critical to your sales team.

By identifying the competencies that contribute to your star performers’ success and using your performance appraisal process to systematically cultivate these in your entire sales staff, you can raise the performance level of your entire sales team.

Sean Conrad is a Certified Human Capital Strategist and Senior Product Analyst at Halogen Software, one of the leading providers of performance appraisal software. For more of his insights on talent management, read his posts on the Halogen Software blog.

May 9, 2011

Register for the 2011 Sales and Marketing Success Conference

Filed under: career development,sales,Sales Resources,sales training,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 8:15 am
Tags: , , ,

Article first published as ‘http://technorati.com/business/small-business/article/help-japan-and-attend-one-of/ Help Japan and Attend One of the Web Sessions of the 2011 Sales and Marketing Success Conference Beginning Monday, May 9</a> on Technorati.

The 2011 Sales and Marketing Success Conference, a five day web-based conference featuring 35 of the top sales minds in the world begins tomorrow, Monday, May 9 at Noon Eastern as Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies and SNAP Selling,  starts the conference off with a session titled Selling Successfully to Crazy-Busy People.

Each session will be a quick but highly targeted 30 minutes.

Each day features 7 different sessions, each lead by a different leading light in the world of sales training and coaching.

Just a few of the top names featured during the week are: Linda Richardson, Dave Kurlan, Colleen Francis, Nigel Edelshain, John Doerr, Wendy Weiss, Dave Stein, and many, many more.

Sessions will cover virtually every segment of the sales process, including how to successfully use social media, as well as sessions on leadership and sales management.

You can see the whole list of sessions HERE

And here’s even better news—when you attend any given session you’ll be helping the Red Cross in their mission in Japan.

Jonathan Farrington, the host of the conference says,

Just four weeks after the Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and a tsunami which delivered 46ft waves, we learn that the death toll is likely to top 25.000, and recovery is going to take not years, but possibly decades, maybe even a generation, at a cost of at least $250 billion.

This is our opportunity to show that the sales community – so often derided for being shallow and materialistic, amongst other things – actually has a very big heart.

We plan to charge just $5 registration fee per presentation, and we are limited to 1000 guests per session, so places will be allocated on a “first come – first served” basis.

Can I count on your support? Together we can make a worthwhile *contribution to the people of Japan.

That’s right, it only costs $5 to attend any one session and 100% of those dollars will be donated to the Red Cross specifically for Japan.  At the end of each session you’ll be given an opportunity to donate an additional $1, $5, or $10 if you so wish.

Here is a tremendous opportunity to contribute to the efforts in Japan and get great training at the same time. 

What a great deal!!!

I encourage you to seriously consider attending my session Friday, May 13 at noon Eastern time as I’ll be giving you the tools you’ll need to do the detective work to figure out exactly who your client knows that you know you want to be referred to—and knowing that will allow you to both greatly increase the number of referrals you get and, more importantly, get referrals to prospects that you know are great prospects for you.

Here is the registration page for my session.

Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to help yourself improve your sales while helping those who are in desperate need of help.

October 24, 2010

THAT GUY, Part 2: BE THAT Guy

Filed under: career development,sales,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 1:23 pm
Tags: , ,

In Part 1 we looked at the actions and attitudes of That Guy who is guaranteed to fail in sales.  We saw that That Guy comes in many forms from a self-centered know-it-all to a guy so fearful of rejection that he can’t make the prospecting calls that are the foundation of selling to the guy who spends all of his time putting on the airs of success so that he has no time to actually become successful.

So now that we know what the guy who fails does, it’s time to find out what the actions and attitudes of That Guy who succeeds are.  Whereas we found 14 easily identifiable actions and attitudes of that failure guy (we could have found many more but stopped at 14 for the sake of time), there are far fewer actions and attitudes of that success guy.

What are the success actions and attitudes of that sales success guy?

  1. That success guy concentrates on doing things that create sales.  Where that failure guy does busy work, that success guy spends his time connecting with quality prospects, meeting with them, taking care of them.  If the action isn’t directly related to making a sale or serving a client, he wants no part of it.
  2. That success guy takes responsibility for his own success.  Certainly, he takes advantage of every growth opportunity his company gives him, but he doesn’t rely on the company for his training and professional growth.  He invests his time, his energy and his money in his own training and coaching.  His success is his responsibility—and reward, not the company’s.
  3. That guy is the luckiest guy in the world.  Well, not really—he just appears to be lucky because he works hard to be in the right place at the right time.  He “stumbles” into so much business because he has put himself in front of so many people and developed so many relationships that when they do need something, he’s “lucky” enough to be there.
  4. That guy has the confidence to expose himself to success.  He knows not everyone will buy.  He knows that he’ll hit some homerun presentations, presenting solid solutions to prospect’s problems and still not make the sale.  He doesn’t let those disappointments control his life.  He’s a winner and he knows it.  He isn’t arrogant or conceited; he just knows that he has the skills and the work ethic that will produce the results he wants.
  5. That guy knows what he is doing and why he is doing it.  He has a disciplined, proven process that guides his actions—and consistently produces the results he wants.  Unlike that sales failure guy who wakes up in a new world everyday where he must constantly reinvent who he is and what he does, that sales success guy leaves nothing to chance.  He has a replicable process for every aspect of the sales process that he knows works.
  6. That success guy is driven to succeed.  He has to win.  He won’t, can’t settle for just being in the running.  There’s something in his gut that demands he find a way to be top dog.  If that means making more cold calls than anyone else, that’s what he does.  If it means working twice as many hours as his sales team mates, that’s what he does.  If it means investing more time and money in learning more effective strategies than his team mates, that’s what he does. 

That sales success guy is really pretty simple—he simply is committed to learning and executing proven, effecitve strategies that will result in producing the results he wants.  He doesn’t waste time.  He doesn’t feed his ego and starve his bank account.  He doesn’t do the things that lead to failure and expect to be successful.

You are That Guy.  The only question is are you that sales failure guy or are you that sales success guy?  The good news is it really is your choice.  You don’t have to be that sales failure guy.  You can just as easily be that sales success guy.  It just depends on whether or not you’re willing to do those things that lead to success.

October 18, 2010

THAT GUY, Part 1: Don’t Be THAT GUY

Filed under: career development,sales,Sales Failure,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 2:03 pm
Tags: , , , ,

No one wants to be THAT guy—the guy who is a failure, who can’t pay the rent, who just can’t get it together (ladies, be nice, I’m using guy as an absolutely sex neutral pronoun).  But we all want to be THAT guy—the one who is extremely successful, who has his life together, who everyone envies and wants to emulate.  

What separates THAT guy who is a failure from THAT guy who is a star?

When we boil it down it comes to actions and attitudes.  The problem is there are so many more actions and attitudes that lead to failure than lead to success.  Frankly that’s the reason it is so easy to fail and so hard to succeed.  The path to success is steep and narrow while the path to failure is wide and easily traversed. 

So, what are the actions and attitudes that that sales failure guy has?  Here are a few of the more prevalent actions that that failure guy engages in.  I hope you don’t see yourself in any of these:

1.  That guy loves to hang around the water cooler shooting the breeze with other salespeople.  Once they’ve discussed last night’s ballgame or hot date they don’t miss a chance to bitch and moan about the crappy products and services they have to sell, how lucky that big producer is who just seems to always be in the right place at the right time, how bad management is screwing them, and how they’ll never be able to make their unrealistic quotas in this economy.  That guy knows all the good gossip and all the office’s problems.   

2.  That guy also realizes that he can’t possibly make prospecting calls until he is fully prepared and that means he has to make his own collateral material since the marketing department has no idea what they’re doing.  He can’t use the junk marketing provides so he must spend his time creating a number of fliers and leave behinds just in case he does talk to someone interested in a product or service.  You’ll find that guy at his desk everyday getting ready to make the calls that he never makes.

3.  Many times that guy knows far more than anyone else in the company.  He certainly knows more than his manager and folks in the training department.  But he also knows more than anyone in marketing and certainly more than those dopes in the executive suite.  With only a few days in the industry, much less with the company, he has already figured out what’s wrong with the way the company is managed and with the way the company tries to sell.  In fact, that guy knows so much he won’t be with the company long enough to learn just how little he does know.

4.  Sometimes that guy is an absolute committed professional who will not compromise his professionalism–and everyone knows professionals don’t: cold call, walk into offices cold, send out unsolicited emails, try to talk someone into a conversation they might not want to have, intrude on someone, or ask an uncomfortable question like asking them make a definitive yes/no decision.  That guy can only deal with prospects that come to him since everyone knows that’s what professionals do.  Then he goes and stands with all of the other professionals at the unemployment line.

5.  Often you’ll find that that guy knows exactly how good he is and he doesn’t mind telling anyone who will listen—and he’ll make sure you listen.  He’ll let you know that he is going to be the biggest thing the company has ever seen.  He’ll tell you straight out how many people he knows who’ll buy, what incredible contacts he has, how good a closer he is, and how he has the skills and talent to blow the hell out of all the company’s sales records.  Unfortunately for him and the company he never actually does anything.  In Texas we’d call him ‘all hat; no cattle,’ that is, he talks the talk but doesn’t even begin to walk the walk.  By all means, don’t be that guy.

6.  A very close cousin to that guy above is that guy who makes everything about him.  All of his talk is about what he has done, what he is doing, and what he is going to do.  Sounds a lot like the guy above, huh?  Well he is—but he carries this ‘me’ attitude with him when he gets in front of a prospect.  Consultative selling?  Solution selling?  Meeting the prospects wants and needs?  None of these are important to that guy.  The only thing important is meeting his own wants and needs.  The conversation with a prospect is all about him—how this sale will make him number one in the company for the month; how he sells more of this particular product than anyone else in the company; how he can get the prospect an unheard of discount because he is the top salesperson in the company; how lucky the prospect is to be dealing with him instead of someone else.

7.  Sometimes that guy is an old school guy, using the high pressure, strong-arm tactics of the 60’s and 70’s.  That guy is not only still around, but you can easily find him breaking arms and bashing heads in some traditional high pressure industries such as auto sales, MLM companies, and some others.  Fortunately these industries are rapidly changing and have fewer and fewer old school, high pressure salespeople; but they’re still there and you’ll find them in almost every industry.  That guy’s a dying breed—as you’ll be if you’re that guy.

8.  There was a time when it was cute that every kid who played a sport or participated in any event was treated like a winner.  Everybody got a trophy for doing no more than showing up.  No one kept score because they all deserved to win and no one wanted to crush the kid’s delicate self-image.  Well, it isn’t so funny anymore.  Those kids are now adults and guess what?  That guy wants a big salary and lots of benefits for just showing up.  That guy thinks life owes him the rewards not because he earned them but because he and his parents bought into the Woody Allen nonsense that “80% of life is showing up.”  If you’re that guy you better change your thinking quickly or start looking for a new job.

9.  Are you that guy who thinks he’s Capital Ahab, passing by all the small fish while single mindedly hunting for Moby Dick?  That whale hunter guy is usually a short-timer.  That guy can’t be bothered with average sales.  They’re just a waste of time for after all, all he needs is to land one whale and that will be worth dozens of small sales.  While he’s out starving trying to land that elusive whale, his fellow sellers are making a good living brining in the fish that are all around.  Whale hunters have tall tales to tell when they succeed—but most are telling their tales in the unemployment line.

10.  We all know that guy who is a plastic mannequin of a salesperson—the one with all the right “stuff”—the gold watch, expensive car, high dollar clothes.  He hangs out at the right upscale bar after work.  He’s that guy who has all of the signs of success—but none of the actual success.  He works one or two extra jobs and lives in an apartment with no furniture in order to be able to afford the appearance of success.  He works harder to look like a success than if he actually worked to be a success.  Don’t be that guy who so desperately needs to be seen as successful that he’ll spend all of his time putting on the airs and never has time to actually become successful.

11.  That guy can also be an office hermit—so afraid of rejection that he spends all of his time in the office doing busy work and never getting out into the light of day.  That guy is a hard worker, no doubt.  He is in the office early and often leaves late.  He is forever compiling lists, creating collateral material, helping customer service, shipping, finance, the clerical staff and anyone else he can think of.  In fact, he is ready, willing, and able to anything that will keep him from having to leave the office.  That guy would make an ideal office staffer and might even work well in inside sales, but he is a complete disaster in outside sales. 

12.  That guy also comes in the form of an old-time gunslinger; shooting from the hip.  The problem is he isn’t Doc Holliday but is instead Don Knotts’ shakiest gun in the west.   He doesn’t have time to learn anything about the products or services he sells, no time to learn anything about selling, persuasion, or presenting.  Nope.  His game is to go out and wing it figuring if he talks fast enough and makes up enough crap as he goes along he’ll talk ‘em into buying.  Sales gunslingers end up in boot hill pretty quickly in today’s marketplace.

13.  That guy can also be the king of discounts, giving away the store to every prospect he comes across.  Have an objection?  He counters with a discount.  The product not right?  He gives a discount.  Thinking about a competitor’s product?  Discount.  Don’t like the color?  Discount.  Have the hiccups?  Discount.  To that guy the word margin simply means white space around the edges of his brochure where he can write the newest discounted price he is offering you.  In a tough market lots of sellers try to be that guy—don’t because they don’t last long.

14.  Finally that guy is sometimes an eternal optimist, hanging on to every “prospect”—and everyone is a prospect.  He’ll invest time and effort calling and visiting, he’ll do proposals until the cows come home, and he’ll give them all the specs and all the quotes they ask for—no matter how poor a prospect they may be; no matter how unable to afford his product or service they are; no matter how direct they have been in letting him know they’ll never buy from his company.  That guy just won’t cut the dead weight out of his database.  He won’t recognize the tremendous amount of wasted time and energy he puts into non-prospects.

Do you recognize yourself in any of the guys above?  I hope you don’t but probably 30% or more of all sellers fit in one or more of the above categories.  If  you are in one of the above descriptions, you’re flirting with sales failure for these are the behaviors that lead directly to failing miserably in sales. 

Don’t be that guy.

But hang on because in part 2 we’ll take a look at that guy you do want to be.

September 15, 2010

4 Steps to Busting Your Sales Slump

Filed under: prospecting,sales,Sales Failure,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 7:55 am
Tags: , , , ,

It amazes me the number of salespeople, business owners and even sales leaders that I talk to who complain that their or their sales team’s sales are hurting and when asked what they are going to do about it respond with “I (we) have to increase my (our) prospecting and marketing activity.”

Ah, it sounds like they have a grasp on the situation—at least until the next question is asked:  what activity?

Inevitably the answer is some version of “what I’m (we’re) doing now.”

Let’s see, here . . . They are currently doing certain prospecting and marketing activities that aren’t bringing in the business they need, so their solution is to increase the time and energy they are investing in doing the things that aren’t working in order to get them to work.

It sounds to me like they need to invest in a really good psychiatrist.

We Can’t Bust Our Sales Slump Because We’re Insane
We’re all familiar with the old saying that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.  We laughed when we first heard it—and we agreed.  We thought it such a silly idea that anyone would see that something isn’t working and then believe that the solution was to do more of it.

Ha, ha.  What idiot would be that dumb?

Us idiots, of course.

No, we’re not idiots and we’re not dumb.  But just as others have gotten so wrapped up in something that they failed to see the illogic in increasing the amount of time and energy they were investing in activities that weren’t producing the results they wanted, we also get wrapped up in trying to break out of our sales tailspins that we don’t see the folly of investing more time and energy in just doing more of what isn’t working.

We tend to think that a sales slump is simply the result of a lack of activity and consequently, simply increasing our activity will correct it.

That’s not the case.

The Anatomy of a Sales Slump
Sales slumps are generally caused by a combination of factors, any one of which could have been the original tailspin creating catalyst:

  1. Negative Expectations:  In sales attitude is second only to activity.  We tend to get what we expect if for no other reason than our prospects can read our expectations through our voice and body language and if we expect to fail, why should our prospect believe in us?

    Once negative expectations begin to weasel their way into our thinking, it’s hard to keep them from destroying our self-confidence.  Once our self-confidence is shot, for all intents and purposes we’re shot—our activity level falls off dramatically, we expect our prospecting strategies to fail, we “know” that it’s fruitless to try, so even when we do force ourselves to prospect we do so in a half assed manner.

  2. Insufficient Activity:  Although activity isn’t everything in sales, it is the single most important factor in success.  Intense activity can make up for a multitude of other sales sins.  Yet when activity seems pointless it becomes almost impossible to act.  Once the downward spiral begins we tend to get lost in our self-pity and we focus our attention on feeling sorry for ourselves instead of investing that energy in forcing ourselves to act.
  3. Wrong Strategies:  The prospecting and marketing strategies we have been using are no longer effective—either because we no longer believe in them or because they are wrong for our market. 

Busting Your Slump
So, if these are the three factors in a sales slump, the solution should be easy right?  Just change the negative expectations to positive ones, increase activity, and change up the prospecting strategies, and voila, presto-chango, you’re out of the slump.

If only it were that easy.

Busting out of a slump—or beginning to generate business if you are a new salesperson—is difficult.  It takes a great deal of resolve.  It takes dedication.  It takes learning long-term strategies to put your sales career on solid footing.

Here are four steps to getting yourself back on track (or on track if you’re new to sales):

  1. Begin Creating Your Winning Sales Attitude:  Changing your attitude from negative to positive isn’t an overnight process.  It takes time.  It takes effort.  And although you can’t wait to begin to bust your slump until your attitude has changed, you must be actively working to change your attitude while you’re digging yourself out of your slump.  A great place to start is Napoleon Hill’s Think and Get Rich.
  2. ACT:  This is the most difficult to do, but you must force yourself to act.  Fortunately if you’re working on your attitude and changing your prospecting strategies at the same time, forcing yourself to act will be a bit easier.  Action by itself will help clear your head and will begin to slowly bring in the business you so desperately need.  Yes, at first it will literally be forcing yourself to act.  There is no easy way. 
  3. Change Your Prospecting Strategies:  Whether your strategies are failing because you no longer believe in them or because they are wrong for your market is immaterial.  Finding and implementing new proven strategies will help your confidence, will take some of the feeling of hopelessness off, and will give you a new focus.  Just as a change of scenery can revitalize you, a change in prospecting strategy can also.  

    The problem is what strategies can you use that will actually produce the results you want?  Fortunately there are a number of possible strategies that can generate business quickly.  Let me mention a couple here:

    Orphans.  If you work in an established office you probably have dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of orphan files at your fingertips.  When was the last time anyone in your office worked those files?  If you work in the typical office the answer is “it’s been so long ago that no one even knows.”  But you know what?  There’s a fortune in those files just waiting for some industrious seller to mine it.  Now you can’t just start taking files at random.  There’s typically a great deal of information in old files that can help guide you to business.  Look for files that have been orphaned long enough that they might need to place another order or files that indicate they could be prospects for additional products or services.  Since you’re in the file, look for positive financial information—concentrate on those who may need and can afford you.

    Eat Your Way to Success.  You probably take a coffee break and/or go to lunch every workday.  Most of us do.  Most of us waste that time by spending it alone or with officemates.  Instead of wasting that time, turn it into business development time.  Take a client who is a great candidate for add on sales or a prospect—or a great referral partner prospect–to lunch or meet one for coffee every workday.  If you take a potential sale or referral to lunch every day, it won’t be long before your pipeline will be full.

    ‘For more detail on these two strategies as well as ten more proven, effective slump busting strategies pick up a copy of my newest book, Bust Your Slump: A Dozen Slump Busting Strategies to Fill Your Pipeline in 30 Days, available at Amazon as both a paperback and as a Kindle book.

  4. Learn Long-term Success Strategies and Skills.  Most of the strategies in Bust Your Slump won’t work for you long-term.  They are strategies that will increase your business quickly but they have a limited shelf life—how many orphan or dead files can you find?  While these short-term strategies increase your sales and your income, you must take advantage of that reprieve to learn and implement the long-term skills and strategies that will keep you from suffering another slump—or to get your new sales career on solid ground so you never suffer a slump.

You can overcome a career slump.  You don’t have to suffer with crappy sales.  You must, however, take the steps necessary to truly bust out of your slump or to put your new sales career on a solid foundation.  Just getting a spurt of new business isn’t good enough.  You have to attack the attitude and activity issues that are there and then go beyond that to creating or recreating your sales foundation.  If you’re not willing to do that you may as well go ahead and get out of sales right now since there’s really no use in prolonging the agony.

January 4, 2010

A New Year, a New Decade: Turn the Possible into the Actual

Filed under: attitude,career development,motivation,success — Paul McCord @ 10:47 am
Tags: , , ,

Today, Monday January 4, is not only the start of a new business year but a new decade as well.  Whether you’re a top producer or on the bottom of your company’s sales board, whether you‘re an old pro or fresh out of school, you start today, this year, this decade with the opportunity to create a completely new future.  

Maybe 2009 wasn’t what you wanted it to be—that is certainly the case for a great many of us.

Maybe the 21st century hasn’t lived up to your expectations yet.

Put all of that behind you now. 

The Timing is Right for Actualizing the Possible
I’m not a mystic, but there are times when there seems to be a shift in the universe, where what was, no longer has to be, and where the possible really can become the actual. 

Of course, we preach turning the possible into the actual all the time, irrespective of the day, the year, the decade.  And it is true, we can turn the possible into the actual at anytime.  But the turn of the decade seems to present a unique opportunity, one where change seems to come a little easier and where the impact of change seems more dramatic.  It’s a natural time for new beginnings.

The Change You Want Won’t Happen by Accident
Even though this is the year to turn your possibilities into actualities; it isn’t going to happen unless you make it happen.  Thomas Jefferson observed about his own life that “the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” 

You too can have luck smile upon you by doing what Jefferson did his entire life—make your own luck.  Jefferson was born into a family where he had money and status.  He could have just sat back and drifted along with few worries.  Instead, he saw possibilities for a new nation that would give citizens more freedom than nation had ever known.  He, like many of his contemporaries, wanted to turn that possibility into reality.  He invested his time, money, and energy, willing to risk everything he had—including his life–in order turn the possibility into actuality.  And his willingness to invest all he had resulted in changing his future from one of a soft, lazy gentleman of means to one of the most important figures in history.

Like Jefferson, you must be willing to make the commitment and the short-term sacrifice to turn your possibilities into reality.  Fortunately for us, we aren’t risking our life, just our time, energy, and at bit of our resources.  Nevertheless, turning our possibilities into reality can be just as life changing for us as fathering a new nation was for Jefferson.

  1. Figure Out Where You Want to Go:  Unless you know where you are going, you’re just drifting aimlessly—maybe you’ll drift somewhere you want to be, maybe you won’t.  Set specific, measurable goals.  At a minimum set goals for:
    1. Gross sales dollars
    2. Number of new clients
    3. Number of sales
    4. Monthly and annual income
  2. Figure Out Where You Need Help:  Examine your strengths and weaknesses, then figure out where you need specific help.  Is you weakness prospecting?  Maybe it’s building a relationship based on trust?  Possibly it’s in the area of persuasion.  Maybe you have several areas of concern.  If so, which area if improved would have the most immediate and/or dramatic impact on your career?
  3. Get Help NOW:  Now that you know where you need help, it’s time to put your time, energy, and money on the line—acquire the help.  Whether it’s a book, CD, webinar, seminar, or sales coach, don’t hesitate, get it and get it now.  Yes, you’ll have to work, you may well have to spend some of your hard earned cash, and you’ll have to change your behavior which is always hard to do.  In other words, it probably won’t be comfortable and there won’t be a guaranteed result. 
        Once you’ve overcome one area of weakness, start on another.  Although we never get to the point where we have perfected our sales skills, over time we will continue to get better and better.
  4. Eradicate Your Failure Demon:  Many of us have to deal with more than just weaknesses that limit our potential for success; we also must deal with a personal demon that is actively blocking us from success.  That demon can come in many forms.  It may be one that whispers “you can’t” or “that’s going to be hard, leave it until tomorrow.”  Once you believe the demon that you can’t, you can’t; once he convinces you to leave it until tomorrow, tomorrow will never come. 
        The “you can’t” and “leave it until tomorrow” demons haunt many of us, but even more common is the “you don’t deserve it” demon.  The “you don’t deserve it” demon takes our history and turns it into a bat to bludgeon us with.  Because we failed in the past, because we didn’t do this or that, because we don’t believe we’re good enough, because we don’t believe we’ve worked hard enough, because, because, because whatever, we don’t deserve to succeed.  The “you don’t deserve it” demon is incredibly powerful.  It can defeat the best training, the best product offering, the strongest success commitment.  It wears on us and influences us to unconsciously sabotage our potential success.
        If we want to succeed, we must defeat our failure demon, for, if we leave it to continue working on our psyche, we have little chance of success.  We must recognize our demon and then recognize that its argument is false—we can if we want to, we don’t have to put off until tomorrow what should be done today, and we do deserve success.  We must give ourselves permission to succeed—and then be ever mindful not to let our personal demon creep back in.
  5. Don’t Settle for Failure:  The above steps are critical but they’re still not enough.  You have to make the commitment to succeed.  Yes, you have to know where you’re going and you certainly have to improve your skills.  In addition you have to eradicate your failure demon.  But you still haven’t done enough.  You have to commit yourself to succeeding—to putting in the time and the effort, to seeing enough prospects, making enough presentations, signing enough contracts.  You have to be willing to not quit until you’ve met your goals. 
        Too many of us are willing to settle toward the end of the month for just getting close. We convince ourselves that we’ll make it up next month.  Of course, we don’t.  We just keep settling and the next thing you know; we need a miracle to meet our goals. Settling is just another word for failure.

Now is the time to make your possibility into your reality.  Take the steps necessary, commit yourself to improving your skills, eradicate your failure demon, and refuse to settle, and you’ll find that a new year and a new decade can create a new life for you and your family.

December 21, 2009

Guest Article: “The End of Sales Obesity,” by Daniel Waldschmidt

Filed under: sales,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 10:59 am
Tags: , , ,

The End of Sales Obesity (or 7 ways to tighten your selling abs)
by Daniel Waldschmidt

It’s that time of year.  You push back from the table with a awkward sense of “why did I gorge myself so much”.  Any movement out of your chair is slow and painful.  You just feel annoyed with yourself.  About the only word you can say is “ugggggh…..”

You didn’t even enjoy anything you were stuffing into your mouth.  It was in front of you along with the knife and shovel (a.k.a “spoon”) so you just kept pushing more down.  Plate after plate after plate….  (The toothpicks stacked up from the cheese cubes you ate could make  a little village.)

Sounds kind of like the holidays, right?

I was actually talking about how the typical sales dude spent 2009…. 

Stuffing down lead after lead.  Meeting after meeting.  Without taking the time to savor each opportunity.  Without a thought about what could be.  No need for practice or preparation — just choke it all down before the guy in the cubicle next to you can grab the lead.

It’s a classic case of sales obesity.

I got to thinking about it not too long ago.

Two weeks ago, the New England Journal of Medicine noted that about 34% of U.S. adults, or 72 million people, are obese.  That means that you weigh more than 30% more than doctors somewhere think you ought to weigh. 

I don’t really care too much about all these opinions.  Frankly, I’m not too fond of people telling me what to do in the first place.  What did catch me eye was a line almost at the end of the article. 

According the experts, you can add-up to four years to your life by slimming down.  Less pudding. More proteins….

Now that gets my attention.  Quality of life is important.  But so is quantity.  I may push the limits of all things “outrageous” and set the tone of living life extreme, but I still don’t plan on checking out any time soon.  (not if I can help it)

I feel the exact same way about closing big deals.  I don’t want to check out too soon.  And I certainly don’t want to get sloppy doing what I am doing.

And yet as I look back this year, I think I see some bad habits.

Frankly, I am upset about how sluggish I feel after plowing through a year of leads.  I don’t even remember most of their names or why they called me in the first place.  I speak and they come to to hear me, but I don’t get the opportunity to hear all their stories — to make a difference.  They called me for help, because they wanted to generate a lot more revenue, and I was too busy to really help them.  I need to do better in 2010. 

How about you?

Did you “qualify” your easy-money deals into your annual “102% of quota” report  without putting in the extra effort to land a few “super huge ones” that only require a little more discipline — a little more sales fitness?

Did you? 

Probably…  (and not because I love being the “Nagging Nelly” of sales writing)

That’s probably what happened BECAUSE that is what is easiest to happen.  Left alone, without a plan to stay in “selling shape”, we tend to just stuff ourselves with sales leads and hope that we close enough business to stay off of HR’s radar screen.

So what to do?

Here’s a few ideas for 2010:

  1. Create sales goals for yourself that are outrageous to your sales manager…
  2. Treat each lead with respect even you if you decide that you won’t sell to them…
  3. Manage your selling distractions proactively before they start effecting your performance…
  4. Say (and mean) “Thank you…” and “I’m sorry…” to stop negativity from controlling your attitude…
  5. Read and meditate on a wide range of books, blogs, magazines, and videos about your craft of selling…
  6. Keep trying even when it seems like what you trying to do is not working.
  7. Live without regrets — don’t contribute to future bad karma coming back to you.

If I can simply trade twinkies for four more years of my life, I would be crazy to ignore that opportunity.

And it’s the exact same for selling big deals.  Why would you want to stay sloppy and slow when you could be a rockstar?

So I am declaring the end of “sales obesity”.  Let’s get back in shape together…

What do you say?

Care to hit it out of the park with me in 2010?

Dan is the writer of THE DEW VIEW! blog, partner in private equity technology accelerator, former technology CEO, engagingly entertaining public speaker, father to (2) energetic boys, early-early-early adopter of amazingly new technology products, husband to a cute gal (named Sara), and overall ordinary dude with an outrageous vision…

Today’s News:
My friend and fellow Top Sales Expert, Nancy Nardin is offering 6 great Sales Stocking Stuffers over on her site.  Some are free, none cost more than @29.95 and all are designed to help you sell more.

Head over to Nancy’s and stuff your stocking and increase your sales

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