Focusing on the Important
I wanna share what I consider to be one of the most important statements that I make during my live presentations. People and companies tend to underperform to their capabilities, because we rush to the urgent at the expense of the important. Again, people and companies tend to underperform to their capabilities, because we rush to the urgent at the expense of the important.
And so my thought for you today is this. What’s on your list of what is most important in your efforts as a sales person, or if you’re an owner of the business entrepreneur, what’s on your list of the most important things that you need to be tackling right now? And then let’s think about what was on that list in the last five to ten days, and were you working on that or were you distracted by the things that are urgent.
My suggestion here is this. Grab five things that are absolutely important to you as a sales person, business owner, business leader that are absolutely essential in your business. Stay focused on those for the next week to two weeks. Scrape away the urgency. Focus on the important, and watch the difference in the results. That’s it. Simple as that.
COACHING: IT’S NEVER OVER
Goal Setting
- Have specific goals been negotiated with each associate?
- Do they require a stretch, yet are realistic?
- Have they been updated to reflect the market/ environment?
Ongoing Feedback
- For jobs well done, has recognition and praise been timely?
- Are suggestions for improvement communicated in a way so that the associate will be receptive?
- Have I offered help?
Two-way Communication
- Have I developed an effective working relationship with each associate, and is it unique to each person?
- Is communication truly open? Can people disagree without anxiety?
Day-To-Day Coaching
- Is some portion of each day spent asking questions of the staff?
- Is it planned? Does this activity include note-taking?
- Is follow-up action taken as indicated?
- For each associate, can you point to one instance when day-to-day coaching paid off?
Team Meetings
- Do you conduct regularly-scheduled team meetings, dedicated solely to developing greater s skills in your team?
- Do you discuss case studies?
Individual Development
- Can you name two developmental experiences for each associate .over the last six months?
- Do you have a specific training plan for each associate , negotiated and agreed upon between the two of you?
Personal Growth
- Do you know the aspirations and ambitions of each of your associate?
- What motivates each one? Are you delivering your part towards making those things happen?
Empowerment
- Have you practiced asking, “What is your opinion?” as opposed to solving the problem?
- Do associates have the ability to commit on the spot? If mistakes occur, are your associate supported – and the experiences viewed as learning opportunities?
Recognizing Results
- Does each associate know his or her standing?
- Are the top performers recognized and rewarded?
Assistance
- Are you there for your associate – proactively?
- Are you regularly reviewing goals, plans, and performance?
- Are you providing regular encouragement and suggestions?
To be an effective coach you have to be in the field with your sales associates on a frequently scheduled basis.
Three Types of Field Calls
1. Joint (Both are experts)
2. Training (Coach controls–salesperson invisible)
3. Coaching (Salesperson controls–coach invisible)
Pre-call Questions
- What is the purpose of this call?
- What is the value of this account to us?
- Who is the decision-maker?
- What is his/her highest value need?
- What is our customer market share?
- Who is our principal competitor? Why?
- Are we positioned to take over this account? How?
COACHING NOTES
Date _____________________
Salesperson _____________________________________________________________
Sales Manager ___________________________________________________________
Today’s Coaching Objective(s):
Observation Reminders Primary Note
- Call purpose defined? Call 1
- Followed through last call?
- Knew social style? Call 2
- Knew HVN*?
- Conference room reserved? Call 3
- Opening transition?
- Interviewed? Call 4
- Listened?
- Developed HVN’s? Call 5
- Suggested action?
- Offered proof? Call 6
- Benefit statements?
- Asked for the business? Primary suggestion for improvement:
- Met objectives
- Delivered ideas?
- Length of call?
- Expressed positive energy?
- Built trust?
- Created next action (positioned)?
* Highest Value Need(s)
Corporate Culture Action Ideas
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
You can smell a culture. Spend 30 minutes or less in a company and you can describe the culture. It may be difficult to identify your own culture because you have become so much a part of it. However, every organization has one, and it’s vital to identify the key factors in yours and intentionally manage that culture. It’s imperative that a company’s leadership stop to recognize the importance of a proactive corporate culture, its bottom-line effects on performance. Implementing some of the ideas below can make an immediate, positive improvement to any company’s culture.
RECOGNITION IDEAS
- Acknowledge Company Anniversaries
- Handwritten Notes
- “Caught In The Act” Certificates
- Acknowledging Birthdays
- “Out Of The Box” Awards
- Associate Of Month- Quarter- Year
- “Ring The Bell” When Success Happens
- Send Digital Photo Cards
- Create Contests
COMMUNICATION IDEAS
- Vision Sharing
- Daily Huddle
- Monthly Announcements
- Quarterly Updates: Live & DVD
- Quarterly Themes
- Email Blasts
- Voice Mail Blasts
- Annual “State of the Company”
- Newsletters / Yearbooks
- Orientation
- ”Re” –Orientation
- Progress Reviews
- Associate Surveys
- Lunch with the President
- Key Metrics / Financials Sharing
- Senior Leadership Field Visits
Relationship Selling
Friday, November 11th, 2011
A sales professional is someone who:
1) Gets business from a prospect who is already committed to someone else
2) Helps his or her business sources to reach their full potent
3) Constantly upgrades his or her clientele
And there in lies a problem. How do you gain the attention of these attractive prospects? How do you overcome their commitment to another supplier? How do you combat their indifference to wanting to see you?
A core theme of the Relationship Selling system is that if two people want to work together, the details won’t stand in their way. Another key idea is that success with a client comes by giving “value-added” service. You accomplish this by delivering more than your client expected when he or she decided to try your service. “Golden handcuffs” tie business sources to you. Your image, knowledge, sensitivity, attitude, and success create those bonds. You become someone’s business partner because they discover it is in their best interest to work with you. Another way to say this is that a sales professional helps his or her clients be more successful.
Building a relationship starts by overcoming their indifference toward you even before your first meeting together. You shouldn’t call on a probable prospect unless you have “pre-marketed” yourself. A good approach campaign, in which you pre-market yourself, changes the acceptance rating considerably. Create a positive image in your prospect’s minds by sending them helpful ideas and general market information. The greater the positive image you build, the greater your success will be.
PATH TO SUCCESS
Sales success begins at the bottom. Our first objective is to define the highest value needs of the prospect. To do this we must conduct a meaningful interview in a favorable environment. When calling prospects for an appointment, or just before reconfirming the time and place, ask if they would reserve their conference room for your meeting. Tell your prospect that you will have some things to demonstrate, and that the conference room would be helpful.
Our real purpose is to get the prospect away from his or her telephone during the interview. At that time you will want to determine four primary things:
1) Highest value needs (HVNs) held by the prospect
2) Social style of the person
3) Current relationships with competitors
4) Objections to be resolved
Professionals never recommend an action until they have fully determined the problem, opportunity, or need in the relationship. How would you feel towards a physician who prescribed a medicine prior to conducting a thorough physical? You might sue for malpractice a lawyer who suggested language for your will without determining your wishes.
Interviewing For Results
But when you call on someone, do you “show up and throw up”? Do you dump product information on them? We all know that traditional salespeople talk too much. Relationship sales professionals listen – and listen – and listen! A salesperson that shows up and throws up also should be sued for malpractice. There is a considerable difference between a traditional and possibly manipulative salesperson and a relational, non-manipulative one. Traditional salespeople spend most of their time on pitching and selling features. But RELATIONSHIP SELLING focuses on finding customer needs and problems and offering solutions to meet those needs. Less emphasis and time is devoted to aggressive selling and more to building relationships and providing value to the customer.
It is suggested that we spend the same amount of time in an interview as we are doing now – our emphasis should be on information gathering and “needs analysis” rather than pitching features. When you are in front of a prospect, how much time do you talk and how much time do you listen? It is important to remember that the listener controls the interview. We don’t sell our products or services to someone unless they perceive it is in their personal interest to have us do so. Therefore, we must determine their interests and highest value needs.
Once we know those needs, we know that we will do business with him or her . We just don’t know how long it will take to do so.
Fulfilling Unmet Needs
Moving up the critical path, we next determine our prospects social style. We need to be sensitive to a prospect’s style, so that we can prepare an appealing presentation for him or her. When asking about a prospect’s current business sources, find out the strength of those relationships. You already should be aware of any unmet needs. While interviewing someone you will be able to determine what their objections are going to be when you ask for their business. If someone surprises you with an objection it is because you did not ask enough questions or you did not listen during the interview phase of the selling process.
If we know our prospects’ needs, social styles, and objections, we are in a position to offer solutions that they will find not only acceptable but also desirable. Thus we can “motivate” prospects to move in our direction. It’s amazing how many experienced salespeople “wing it” here. Sales professionals should have a notebook full of concrete reasons a prospect should work with them and their company. Our solution should suggest an action that will move us into, or towards, a business relationship. If we are not successful initially, we position ourselves to continually call on our targeted prospects. Our goal is more to move our relationship along that it is to concentrate on a single transaction.
Prospects tend to react negatively when a salesperson pleads, “just give me a try and I’ll show you what I can do,” because the statement has become trite. It’s far better to suggest some action that will directly benefit the prospect.
We are not suggesting that we avoid asking for the business; but don’t be in a hurry. We want all this top prospect’s business – not just a single order. When you feel the time is right to ask for your prospects’ business we suggest an open-ended question: “Considering what we have been discussing, do we have a basis for doing business together?” The answer will determine your progress and where the relationship is headed.
If you have demonstrated your knowledge, sensitivity, and constructive help the answer will often be “yes” with some qualifications.
Make Fewer Sales Calls
We start building strong business relationships by targeting a select number of prospects. A successful career as a sales professional is built upon maintaining a limited number of highly productive clients and not on seeing how many calls can be made in any week. “Focus precedes success” is a core concept of the Relationship Selling Process.
Every sales professional should have a written list – by name – of those you have targeted as future business partners. Determine in advance – through your intelligence sources – prospects that you would to be doing business with in the immediate future.
This target list may have as few as ten names for established, career – oriented account executives, and as many as 60 names for a beginner. An exact number will depend both on you and on your industry.
A salesperson – no matter how successful – should develop at least one new client per quarter.It is essential that we continually upgrade our clientele in order to increase our production. Since we can work only with a limited number of clients, they must be the best available sources of the kind of business we want. Prospects are open to a new salesperson who will help them to be more successful. Despite this fact, most prospects are reluctant to change, and the more successful they are, the more this is true.Our goal is to have a predetermined number of clients as business partners. We must select them carefully because it is going to take some time to win them over to us. Additionally, we must get to know our targets’ managers, since often they either assist us – or stand in our way.It is not cavalier to say, “Find out what someone wants and then deliver”. Doing so is far more effective than pitching your products and service in the hope that your prospect will respond. Top prospects are too sophisticated for this outdated selling style.
Preparing For Action
Once we have defined our prospect’s HVNs, we must decide whether it’s best to ask for a subsequent appointment in order to present our solution, or if we need to suggest some immediate action. We are influenced in this decision by how well we have determined needs, the prospect’s social style, his or her present relationships, and what the objections will be. If in doubt on these issues, continue your interview. Or if you’re pressed for time, suggest making another appointment. Tell your prospect you would like to gather some information and ideas to bring on your next visit. Make sure to schedule your following appointment before leaving!
To sum up, Relationship Selling consists of targeting a limited number of strong potential business sources, developing a relationship with each one, and then building and maintaining those relationships.
You can see that it doesn’t matter how many sales calls you make. What’s important is how effective each one is. See fewer people if you want to do more business, but be sure they are the right business sources for you.
Honesty and Integrity Drive Loyalty
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
A couple years ago I took my bike into my bike shop, which is a bike shop in southern California by the name of Edge. And I said to the owner of the shop, Hank, an awful lot of my friends are telling me that I ought to get racing wheels. And I’m a competitor in the triathlon sport and hadn’t had racing wheels yet. It’s a pretty hefty investment, a couple thousand dollars for the wheels. And Hank asked me well what am I averaging miles per hour on the bike, and I mentioned something like 15 miles an hour. And he said you know what until you get to about 18 to 20 miles an hour, quite frankly I think that that’s a poor return on investment.
Now this is a sale for Edge at $2,000.00 or higher, and the owner of the shop is saying not right now Jack. Let me show you something else that’s a lot cheaper that will get you some speed on your bike, and maybe down the road you can consider racing wheels. Now this is two years later that I’m in front of you. I have my racing wheels, but I have to tell you there are lots of bike shops that are running specials, that are cheaper than Edge in a lot of different ways I’m gonna guess, but I wouldn’t even know, because I wouldn’t even begin to think of going anywhere else other than to Hank who has gained my trust measurably more than anywhere else that I could think of going.
Now as an owner of a business or as a sales person, that’s the level of trust that we want to garner from our customers. And I couldn’t endorse a book better than Getting Naked by Pat Lencioni to really describe to you what it is that I felt as a customer doing business with Edge. And if you could get your business to operate in a similar way whether you’re a sales person or an owner of your business, I think you’ve got a long-lasting competitive edge. Give it a shot.
How to Become a Sales Professional
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
Relationship selling means different things to different people. However, on this we should all be able to agree: successful career development depends upon how well we strengthen continuing business relationships with our customers.
Some sales people have built numerous valuable business relationships over five years. Others have been in the business for one year five times -they do deals, but don’t establish strong professional relationships with their referral sources.
A very insightful measure into your success as a sales rep is how many “clients” you have developed. We define a client as someone who gives you, on a regular basis, 50 percent or more “if not all ” of his or her business. In essence, you are the partner of that business source.
Superstar sales people tell us that 80 percent of their business regularly comes from a few accounts. Others may envy their steady stream of referrals, but aren’t willing to discipline themselves to build strong business relationships.
Measure your activities against the standards and adjust your work efforts to build a more satisfying and profitable career.
THE RULES OF SELLING
1. Self renewal required
2. Personal and professional vision
3. Total quality management
4. Invest in yourself
5. See fewer people
6. Transfer of trust
7. Value-added partnerships
8. Recognize support staff
9. Be your own sales leader
10. Career growth
- SELF-RENEWAL describes the constant search for ways to improve your productivity. Productivity means becoming better, smarter and faster – a true professional. What are you doing to sharpen your axe?
- To become a superstar, or to reach the success level of your dreams, you must define your PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL VISION of your future.
- QUALITY MANAGEMENT for any company starts with the sales force. Our company can only work with the business which we, as sales reps, provide it. Therefore it is incumbent upon us to seek quality business from quality sources.
- As a sales rep we are the CEO of our own business. The more our income comes from commissions, the more this is true. As the CEO of our company, we must perform leadership activities.
- Most sellers call on too many prospects. I believe you should target a limited number of top-quality account prospects and then focus all call activity on this target list. The goal of every sales rep should be to build a limited clientele of high-producing business sources.
- Selling is the TRANSFER OF TRUST. If we analyze why prospects do business with a sales person, the bottom line is trust. A trusting relationship has first been built between them.
- A VALUE-ADDED PARTNERSHIP is a business relationship in which each partner receives more than expected. To achieve this relationship each partner must think like the other and strive to find ways to assist his partner in being more successful.
- No discussion of value-added partnerships would be complete without consideration of our partnership with our INSIDE SUPPORT STAFF. Frequently they are the unsung, unrecognized heroes of the day-to-day sales process.
- Success is achieved one step at a time. Success is evaluating past performance. Success is accepting personal responsibility. Success is remembering that – “if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.” We should BE OUR OWN SALES LEADER, as well as CEO of our business. And then act on our own advice.
- Maximize CAREER GROWTH starts with what we believe. Belief is the guiding factor, principle, passion, and faith that provides direction in life.
