The Sales Pro Insider Building Performance Profits and People

Ever notice two people whispering to each other and as you get approach them, they suddenly stop talking?  How do you feel?  Uneasy? Confident?Annoyed?  Curious?

Well, when I saw this quote by the actor Erroll Flynn I thought – this is so true in business!

It isn’t what they say about you, its what they whisper behind your back. 

Not to make you paranoid – but it is TRUE!  What people – customers or colleagues – say behind your back is a good indication on how well you are building value for those around you.  Are the ‘whispers’:

• Stating how valuable you are?
• How full of integrity and honesty your actions show?
• Questioning some of your recent actions?
• Saying to others ‘You HAVE to work this person, they are so great!”

To build long lasting relationships – meaningful business relationships that provide value to you and them - you need the whispers to include only the best things about you. To be statemetns that you wish they would SHOUT from a megaphone for all to hear.  When you consistently act from a place of genuine care, integrity and honesty you’ll never have to worry about the whispers, because you know they are good.

What can you do this week to generate GREAT whispers about you?  Are there unplanned contacts or actions you can take?  Think about – there probably is something you can do. And hopefully the recipient will be willing to share a loud whisper of the value you brought.

Filed Under: customer loyalty, sales tips on February 8th, 2010

TGIF -  Thank God It’s Friday!  Do you feel like that this week? You don’t have to.  Let’s make today – FUF!  Follow-up Friday. 

Fridays are great days for follow-up.  Many people are at their desk today trying to wrap up their week and tie up loose ends before the weekend starts. It’s often a GREAT opportunity to for you to catch them!  You can make it a very productive day to:

• Send information of value to a prospect
• Telephone contacts in your pipeline – prepare in advance what to leave as a voicemail message (just checking in doesn’t cut it)
• Respond to emails that have been sitting for days
• Complete the paper work that you have not had time to do the rest of the week
• Prepare for next week’s calls
• Set appointments for next week and the week after
• Review your goals and decide what you will focus on next week
• Take 60-90 seconds and just sit and breathe thinking about what you HAVE accomplished this week.

For me today is about preparation and opportunity.  I have a really great sales appointment this afternoon that I am excited about.  It’s with a long-time customer of my sales training. Today we are broadening our discussion to see how I might help them meet their broader human resource objectives of recruiting, training and coaching a top notch sales team. I know I can help them move that needle to save time, money and their effort! 

A good sales appointment today will mean I have a follow-up Monday

What do you do on Friday to wrap up your week?

Filed Under: Uncategorized, focus, maximize sales productivity, sales tips on February 5th, 2010

Every effective sales training course teaches sales professionals to ask open-ended questions.  These are the questions that start with who, what, why, when, how, etc.  Why are open ended questions so universally taught? Because:

• They solicit great information
• Get the person talking
• Allow you and them to find out if there is an opportunity
• Can show your expertise, IF you ask the right questions

All that sounds great, doesn’t it?  They really ARE effective.  But not 100% of the time.  Sometimes they can make a needs analysis seem like an interrogation.  Even though they are open they can be leading, forced, narrow, product focused and irrelevant.  Sales pros can come off like a robot reciting their list of questions so they can get to pitching their product! 

When we use the 3 ‘I’ approach, our open-ended questions include: 

1. Intent
2. Intelligence
3. Interest

Intent.  I’ve seen sales pros launch right into a list of questions that might seem irrelevant to the prospect.  The prospect thinks ‘What’s this have to do with anything?” Instead, we need to explain the intent of the line of questions so the prospect can put it in perspective and answer thoughtfully.

An example: Yesterday I received a call for someone who had something to offer.  They immediately asked me “So, what are you working on?”  My response?  “Wow, that’s broad, in what context?” They responded, “Whatever context you choose.”  Well, I was confused.  I knew what this person was selling and thought, should I answer my question based on that narrow interest or is he really trying to find out more?

So, I turned it back to him and said, ‘What are you working on?”  And then he responded. After 15 minutes I knew the flavor of his focus and we continued.

But why should I have had to work that hard?  If I knew where the discussion was going we could have both saved time.

To share intent can sound like this.  “We are going to talk about your human resource needs. What we have learned is that understanding  how this fits into the overall company’s goals and objectives helps us narrow down the approach and we will be able to give you a more accurate picture of how we might help.  The first questions are focused on that broader picture. Then we’ll get more specific.”  Then we go into our list of questions.

Intelligence.  Your questions reveal a LOT about you. Here’s how to raise your ‘perceived’ intelligence level:

• Explain the intent  of your line of questions and ask questions that broaden the dialogue to a bigger more strategic discussion. 
• Focus on the solution or value desired versus just the product.
• Wait to LISTEN once you have asked  a question. When you ask more intelligent questions, the person may need to think before responding (this is usually a good thing).  How long? According to research, they might need 15-25 seconds to think and respond.  That’s a long time to wait, but it can payoff.

Interest.  The questions should be interesting to the person. How?  Make the questions relevant to the situation and person. When it’s about THEM, it’s interesting TO them. Every aspect of the sales process should be wiift focused – What’s in it for THEM? – and this includes your questions!

There you have the 3 necessary “I”s for making your needs analysis informative and not an interrogation. 

Of course I have learned many of these things the hard way.  With confused looks from prospects as I took a direction that surprised them. What have you learned about open ended questions?

Filed Under: Open ended questions, Sales training, skills on February 4th, 2010

You know the saying, ‘I learned everything I ever needed to know in kindergarten?’ One of the kindergarten lessons on fire safety can be very effective in working through customer complaints and objections.

Yesterday a speaker shared a joke about two men who were chatting about their lives over drinks. 

The first man said, “Whenever my wife and I have a disagreement, she gets all historical on me.”

Man 2 said, “Don’t you mean she gets hysterical on you?’

“No,” said Man 1, “She gets historical.  She brings up everything that I have ever done wrong since we first met.”

I know – a cheesy joke.  Yet, how true is this when you have a customer who is unhappy?  Do they come to you with hysterics?  Or do they get all historical and bring up EVERYTHING they have ever been unhappy or dissatisfied about?

What to do in either case?  Follow one of our ‘kindergarten lessons.’  Stop, drop and roll! 

These 3 steps are used as the technique for when you are ‘on fire’ physically?  Ever felt  ‘under fire’ with a customer complaint or objection?  Well, we can use the same technique in those situations! 

Stop.  Stop talking.  Pause and listen.

Drop.  Your ego and defenses.  You won’t get very far if you also become hysterical or historical.

Roll.  Roll forward in a discussion that is open and focused on resolution.  How? 

1. First, assure them of your intent to help resolve the objection, question or complaint.
2. Then ask them an open question to draw out more information.  At first you might get more hysterics or history.  That is okay. 
3. Listen, paraphrase and ask another question if necessary. 
4. Restate that you want to help them and ask if they will explore possibilities with you.  (You’ve just changed the situation into a collaborative problem-solving opportunity.)
5. Work with them to share ideas, examples, ask for feedback and their ideas.
6. Agree on a course of action.

I think for myself the first part of stopping is the toughest. I want to jump right to telling them why they are wrong…and I make it worse.  Instead when I take that breath and stop.  I actually move forward more easily.  And very importantly, I help my customer stop the hysterics or the history lesson to resolve the issue. 

Something to think about isn’t it?  What do you think?

Filed Under: Negotiation, collaborative selling, sales tips on February 1st, 2010

What does it take to be successful in the sales world?  Intelligence, drive, a good work ethic, being customer and company focused, knowing ‘how’ to sell in your industry and so much more.  Yet all of this can be boiled down to two broader items:  confidence and competence.

In my sales training courses, we build competence and confidence.  When my prospects ask me which is more important – I’m stumped.  It’s both!  Being confident with competence is what is necessary.  Strengthening each of these lasts and gives a healthy ROI to the training!

Let’s look at the alternatives:    

• Confidence with incompetence:  You know these folks – lots of bravado and nothing to back it up.  They create a trail of destruction – inside and outside the company. Often these are what people label the dreaded ‘used car salesman’ type.
• Lack of confidence with incompetence:  Not much to say, hopefully they find another career quickly. The sad part?  Often they are the NICEST people – just miscast in sales.
• Lack of confidence with competence:  They know what to do and CAN do it – but their lack of confidence can rear its ugly head in so many unproductive ways – procrastination, lack of making contact with prospective buyers, and over preparing for everything.

A competent and confident sales professional knows WHAT to do, HOW to do it and does “it”.  They are consistent, productive and proactive.

It’s Friday – let’s have some fun with this one.  Please comment with examples of salespeople you have run into that fit into one of these groups. 

Filed Under: consultative selling, productivity, sales tips, skills on January 29th, 2010

Once a week we have a Smörgåsbord night for dinner at my house.  (Somepeople might call this leftover night – we don’t.)  It’s the time when we gather all our little tidbits of this and that food and have a FEAST!  Well, today is a sales Smörgåsbord.  Lots of little tidbits from around the world of sales for you. 

1. Jonathan Farrington is offering YOU a free seat in his February 3rd Top Sales Expert Masterclass:  How to Become a Sales Superstar in 2010.  Click here for free registration.
2. Jill Konrath continues her philanthropy with Get Back to Work Faster – visit the site for a free book, free resources and webinars.  Share this with those who need to…get back to work!
3. SmartSelling Tools is offering a written tool – a 100 page eBook titled Increase Sales Productivity in 2010: Sales Tools and the Path to Productivity Gains - full of great tools that can help you be more productive this year.  Click  here.
4. Free eBook from Top Sales Experts with lots of great articles and advice.  Great reads to have with you so that when you are waiting for an appointment, you can make great use of your time.  Click here for the ebook.
5. Sharpenz.com offers a free ready-to-go sales training kit. the kit is for a 30 minute ‘live’ training with a group.  If you aren’t a sales leader, get your free copy and share it with your manager – you’ll score brownie points and get a productive ‘boost’ for your skills and energy!  
6. And last, but not the least of this fabulous Smörgåsbord, Sales Pro Insider, Inc.  (that’s me!) is giving the new eBook Timely Tips to Achieve Your Goals is being downlaoded by dozens of sales pros each day!  Get your copy by signing up for the Timely Tips ezine – sent every 3 weeks and full of little tips and ideas to help you get the most out of your day and contacts.

I hope you’ll find plenty to feast on with today’s sales Smörgåsbord. 

If you have any ‘treats’ to add – leave a comment!

Filed Under: productivity, sales tips, sales tools on January 27th, 2010

It’s Monday morning.  I’m tired.  The weekend was long and ended with a funeral for a 39 year old mom with young kids.  What an energy zapper.  And I have a long To Do list for today including an important sales call (aren’t they all important?).

How about you?  Ready to go this morning?

Sometimes its hard to be productive when you have ZERO pep.  Isn’t it?  So what to do?  Going back to bed is not an option.  Taking the day off isn’t either.  So I need to find a way to dig in and find ‘it’ today!

Here’s my plan to find ‘it’:

1. Before looking at my long To Do list, I am taking out my goals.  I am going to read through them and remind myself of WHERE I am headed.
2. Then I am going to really think hard about the rewards I am seeking by achieving the goals.
3. And next I am going to look at my To Do list for today and this week and make sure I have activities listed out that will move me forward.
4. Then I am going to start with the #1 priority (this blog post was the first #1 and I am almost finished !

Just writing these actions has me feeling more energetic!  I think it is because I have a plan now.  That works for me. I will have a productive day

What you need to discover is what works for you? How are you going to get ‘it’ going today so that THIS week is productive and powerful?

If you want help in being more productive, starting with your goals can help.  I did complete the Timely Tips to Achieve Your Goals eBook.  It’s a quick process to help you write and plan to reach your goals.  An easy-to-use goal planner is included!  All you need to do is sign up for the Timely Tips ezine here to get your copy.  If you are   already a Timely Tips subscriber, I sent you a link over a week ago to access yours.  If you don’t have it – send me an email. 

Filed Under: goal setting, maximize sales productivity, productivity, sales tips on January 25th, 2010

Great Expectations is more than a Dickens book – its a powerful force in business life.  It drives customer loyalty, frustration, sales and so much more.  ‘Managing expectations’ isn’t good enough anymore…driving and exceeding expectations is the ‘real’ differentiator of pros from rookies.  

Don’t get me wrong, managing expectations is important.  But matching expectations to reality should be the goal.   The effort to sync up reality with expectations runs throughout the sales cycle, implementation or delivery and the relationship. Exceed expectations and you’ll do great.  Miss or just manage expectations and you’ve got a hard road ahead.

Let’s look at a few points in the sales process and the ‘reality” for the sales pro and the customer.

Throughout the whole process your reality may be very different from their reality.  What’s important is to:

• Define and clarify expectations along the way 
• Explain intention and HOW things will go or
• WHY you are asking for certain information
• Ask open ended questions throughout all your discussions to determine their reality.  It might be way different than you think. 

I know this sounds easy on paper -and in ‘real’ life – its tough.  People have different ways of communicating, or not communicating.  They are busy and don’t want to take time, or they are clear them self on certain points, needs, information, etc.  Recapping discussions with clear WHAT’s next, WHO is doing what, WHEN time frames, and HOW you are proceeding will help you get in front of the reality to build great expectations together.

Filed Under: consultative selling, sales tips on January 22nd, 2010

Ever been in a conversation with a customer or prospect that missed the mark?  Whether we are responding to objections, trying to communicate value or understand their situation, a key component of being an effective communication is to match intensity.

Matching intensity is not an easy idea. It was first explained to me by an industrial psychologist about 10 years ago. I kind of understood what he was saying and then started observing.  What I found is that many communication ‘misses’ are caused by this mis-match of intensity!

You may have heard that we should ‘mirror’ the prospect or match them emotion for emotion.  And that can be effective.  But  with so many emotions, will that always work? Do you want to match:

• Anger with anger?
• Frustration with more frustration?
• Irritation with irritability?

Probably not.  What we need to do is match the INTENSITY of what they are communicating with like intensity.  Here’s an example:

Customer:  “You just gave me the wrong product after a long wait, I’d like a refund.”  with a medium tone and loudness.

Sales Rep very calmly: “Yes, there was an error in fulfillment. What would you like us to do?”

Customer: “I would like you to take back this product and give me a refund like I asked.” Louder and more anxious.

Sales Rep: “Well, we can do that and the refund will take 30 days to process  through your account.” Very calmly with a lower voice

Customer: “I don’t think YOU get this. I have already paid and waited 30 minutes and now  you gave me the wrong item, I was an immediate refund.” Incredulous and loud.

The calm Sales Rep: “I’m sorry to hear that. We would hate to lose your business. The way we are set up is that we will issue a credit in 30 days.”

Customer: “Well that doesn’t make sense!”  Irritated and increasingly frustrated.

And on the discussion went.  What happened?  The rep was saying some of the right things and trying to be  understanding, but by staying very calm and low-key the customer escalated their emotional reaction and intensity because they didn’t think the rep was ‘getting it’.   This is a real situation – that went further involving a store manager who was ‘calm and collected’ and everyone just kept missing my signals of irritation (yes, I was the irritated customer).  What I needed to know was that someone “GOT IT” and that the gift I was expecting now wasn’t here in time for the holiday. 

The disconnect in intensity led to misunderstanding, less engagement and trust. It also has led me to not do business with that company for many years now.  They weren’t showing understanding OR listening to me.  Yes, they heard my words – but they weren’t getting the intensity and emotion of the importance of it. 

 Instead if the rep had been more animated and emphasized his concern with an increase in tone and energy, we might have headed in a more mutually agreeable direction.

What’s that mean for all of us?  Even when something goes wrong, when we try to  understand and connect with the person – we can increase the customer’s level of satisfaction and loyalty.  In fact,  a study by the Washing D.C. firm Technical Assistant Research Programs found that you can increase customer retention by communicating effectively during a difficult situation.

The key is to match intensity level of whatever the emotion.  It is not to get emotional with them.

This just isn’t about complaints – its also about excitement!  If you are presenting a solution and you notice the energy changing in your prospect – pay attention and adjust. 

The adjustment might need to be up or down in intensity – its getting to the right level that matters.  Sometimes I see reps get MORE intense and animated thinking that will get a higher level of interest.  What it usually does is cause the other person to dismiss the discussion as superficial.

For many of us – its not comfortable trying to figure out emotions its much easier to pick up on intensity.  Some ‘intense-level’ signs to watch for:

• Tone of voice
• Energy level
• Pace of speech
• Level of animation and movement in their body
• How close they are standing
• The degree of eye contact
• Whether they are using ‘feeling’ or ‘thinking’ words

Not an easy concept to grab – but one that can make a HUGE difference when you want to build an intense connection with your customer.

Filed Under: Communication, customer loyalty, sales tips on January 20th, 2010

What happens when you hear an objection?  Do you freeze?  Do you run?  Do you get defensive?  There are many ways to respond to objections – and most will kill your sale!  But when you listen to the objection and respond appropriately, the sale will live on!

My energetic and unbelievably talented colleague, Colleen Francis of Engage  Selling just posted her two-step formula for responding to objections on her blog today:

Here’s a proven two-step formula that can help you handle any pricing objections your prospects throw at you.

 Step 1: Shut up!

 Whenever you’re faced with a difficult question or objection, the first thing you need to do is take a deep breath, make eye contact with your prospect and silently count to three.

 It is amazing how many clients will answer their own objections, or at least give you some much-needed information, when you simply say nothing. Don’t be afraid of silence. Practice it until the three-second pause becomes one of the most effective tools in your arsenal.

 Step 2: Ask questions.

 You can ask up to three questions before you have to answer an objection – provided you ask the right questions in the right way.

 The key is to acknowledge what the customer is saying and then offer them a compliment before asking your question.

 Which questions should you ask?

 Once you’ve acknowledged the objection, ask them a question that is both direct and phrased to elicit more information. Try the following.

 Prospect: “Your price is too high!”

Sales professional: “Thanks for sharing that. How much too high are we?” or “You’re right; we are more expensive than most. How much were you hoping to pay?” or “I appreciate your honesty. Is our price a showstopper?”

 Prospect: “I need a discount!”

Sales professional: “It’s good of you to be looking for the best deal. How much of a discount do you need?” or “Making sure you’re getting the best deal for your company is a good idea. If we can’t budge on the price, does that mean it’s over between us?”

I agree wholeheartedly with the two step approach.  One caution:  Be careful NOT to ignore the emotion that the customer is displaying when they share the objection.  Match the intensity of the emotion with your response/question.  Or there will be a disconnect.  In fact, this is so important, the next Sales Pro Inisider post will address intensity and emotion.

For today, Colleen Says “Shut Up”, I say “Be Quiet” for at least 3-5 seconds when you hear an objection. Then open your mouth and the discussion with a good question to learn more about the objection.

Filed Under: Sales Objections on January 18th, 2010