How to Pull Off a Sales Boost
Every now and then a boost in sales is called for. At times, you’re “feeling it”, and setting a new personal record might be up for grabs. Maybe you’re behind on sales and something needs to turn around. The normal…
Selling Strengths Can Work Against You
While recently leading a webinar I mentioned how creativity, which I consider one of many selling strengths, can work against me. Being creative helps me solve client problems and present ideas in ways that help others understand. Creating is also something that…
Is Your Sales Compensation Plan Working For You or Against You?
Remember when your parents would say, “You’ll understand the value of this when you grow up?” They were trying to convince us to do what they were saying in hopes that someday it would make sense and we would appreciate…
What Do You Expect of Your Sales Team?
How is your sales team doing at meeting your sales expectations? Are they hitting their goals, following the sales process, completing their admin tasks and meeting your activity expectations? …..Sorry, I’m having a hard time hearing that loud, YES! But…
Just Play and Win Sales
The competitive nature of selling can be a double-edged sword. On one side competition can turn up ones motivation and on the other side it can distract you from being your best. The chase becomes more important than what needs…
Sales-Team Meetings – Interesting or Boring?
What are the body posture and faces of your sales team telling you during your sales-team meetings? How willing are they to engage into discussions you initiate? I hope they’re engaged, but let’s face it weekly sales-team meetings can become routine and easily fall into a rut. When that happens at a small business the meetings usually stop taking place. If you ask the team if they want to keep having the meetings, they’ll be polite and tell the boss, “If you want to.” But what they want to say is, “These meetings are boring.” There’s no one else to blame but us, the sales leader. What can we do about it? Let me give you some ideas on how to keep your sales-team meetings interesting.
Is Your Company Culture Attractive to Top Sales People?
Are you ready for sales growth through top performing sales talent? If so, it’s a good idea to examine your company culture. If you’re looking for someone who will take the bull by the horns and work till the goals are accomplished, your company culture will play a role in attracting this type of salesperson. This blog is about understanding culture so you can assess if your company is ready for this type of fire power.
High Return – Low Cost Sales Training
When I’m making a purchase I want the most out of the money I spend. Sometimes I’ll buy the most expensive choice and other times the least. But in either case I’m looking for the greatest value for what I spend. When it’s time to provide sales training for your sales team you’ll be faced with a wide range of costs and programs to evaluate. Ian Altman, in his article How Much Does Sales Training Cost written for Forbes/ Leadership presents figures of $500 – $5000 (per sales) rep for public trainings and $3500 – $25,000 (per team) for private training. Within that range of training choices lies an incredible value that’s worth every dollar you’ll spend. But in this blog, I won’t be addressing those choices. Instead, I want to share how a low cost sales training through a team book study can possibly be the value your looking for at a cost of $15-$200 per sales rep. I’ve been leading these book studies with great results for years and so can you, if you follow some simple steps.
Who’s A Better Salesperson, You or Your Prospect?
Just for fun, imagine one of your prospects from a recent selling opportunity who has no sales experience is asked to join your sales team and sell in your place. They are now the salesperson and you are their coach. You can coach them from the office, but you can’t meet with prospects and customers any longer because that is their job. Would you be willing to put your income and job security in their hands? Here’s the scary part of this story. It’s already happening to most of you during your current selling situations. When you’re not allowed to meet with all the parties involved in the buying decision (the buying team) you’re left with little choice other than hoping your prospects can do your selling for you.
It’s not always easy to be granted access to the buying team, but it should be your goal to do so. Improving your ability to convince your initial contact of the value of having you meet with their buying team will be very profitable. Here are nine steps to help you be more successful at doing your own selling while better serving your customers.
Meaningful Selling Conversations Don’t Happen by Accident
Do potential client/customers trust you? Of course they do, right? How do you really know? Most of us base this answer on a gut feeling more than on factual information derived through meaningful selling conversations. The best indicator of trust according to Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig, authors of Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play is the “flow of meaningful information” between a buyer and a seller. This of course begs the question, “What is flow of meaningful information?” Let’s take a look at that question as well as eleven behaviors you can practice to build trust.
How Much is Fear Effecting Your Selling Conversations?
I’m thoroughly enjoying the book, Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play by Mahan Kalso and Randy Illig. The authors not only provide an easy to implement methodology but they address what we as sales people need to do to get and keep things real. So what is getting real? At the core of “getting real,” is honesty. This includes honest communication between a seller and a buyer during selling conversations as well as being honest with our self. Honest communication is not only about what we say, it also includes what we’re not saying. When our intentions are in service of our buyers and we are transparent and honest in our communication, we make room for the buyer to be completely honest with us. The four-letter word that prevents us from reaching this honest place during selling conversations or managing people is FEAR.
Retrofit Your Sales Communication Tools
We sell in a time that has an abundance of sales communication tools at are our disposal. The more tech forward tools include email, smartphones, text, and social media for the most part. Then of course, there’s what might be considered “old school” tools like faxing, a hard copy letter and a hand written note.
Some of these “old school” methods are not being used much any more as times and technology has changed. At the same time some methods that took their place can become less effective due to the volume of messages being sent daily. To stay at the top of your sales game you can’t fall into a trendy trap. The smart sales person will assess what selling and marketing methods are obsolete, new and effective, and which need a retrofit. Let’s take a look at the old and new methods of communication and see if we can find some new ways to use them to keep our selling conversations plentiful and moving along.
Make The Value Connection
The value that matters most in a sales conversation is the one the customer can connect with. Are your prospective customers making a value connection with your offering, or is it possible you are trying to convince them of the value you believe in?
When the iPhone hit the market I couldn’t see the value in paying $400 for a phone when others were free. On top of that I was required to toss in an additional $360 annual fee for a data plan. It looked cool, it was kind of big, but it wasn’t what I needed. At that time I believed my Motorola phone was the best value I could buy for my needs. It wasn’t till a year or two later that I made the connection with the value I was missing in the iPhone.
Steve Jobs and the Apple team understood the value. Why didn’t I see it? The sales person saw the value, they showed it to me, told me all the great things it could do, and let me play with it. Yet, I still couldn’t connect the value between the iPhone and my needs.
Selling Meetings – Prepare Twice and Meet Once
Dear Salesperson,
I’ve seen the hard work you put in all day. I see you making calls, doing research, sending emails and making more calls. You put in this effort to produce selling meetings required throughout your sales process. You then prepare for your meetings and engage. May I ask, “Are you really prepared as well as you should be for each meeting you enter?”
Selling meetings are where decisions are influenced and made. In most cases it’s during these meetings where we have the greatest impact on the outcome of a sale. If selling meetings carry this much opportunity shouldn’t we ask ourselves, “Are we really prepared for our next meeting?”
The Joy of Selling In The Present
In my personal selling experience as well as watching others sell, I’ve come to appreciate selling conversations that are enjoyable. They’re not a struggle or stressful. There’s no guessing or worrying involved. They’re simply a series of conversations that are enjoyable. We keep the conversations enjoyable by staying in the present. When you focus on the end (the order) during a sales conversation you can easily remove yourself from being present. Of course “the order” is a point of reference and a job priority, but it’s important to keep it in the proper perspective. The order will take place at the proper time if your buyer chooses to purchase with you. Before that happens staying present in your selling conversations will keep the process enjoyable and profitable.
Desirable Sales Traits
It’s easy for me to write about sales people because I’m one myself. Being a salesperson provides me an insider’s perspective on who we are and what makes us tick. The most desirable sales traits of a good sales person can cause a little disruption in the company as well as help them sell. I’ve included in this blog a list of “Desirable Sales Traits for a Hunter/Closer” type-rep and how they play out in the sales arena and in the office. It’s my hope that having this dual perspective can help you develop more support and belief in your team, which will lead to greater sales results. It should also provide you a guide on what to look for when hiring your next rep.
Increasing Sales Can Begin With a Yellow Sticky
I remember when Angie joined our team. She was just out of college and eager to do her job well. It was her first sales job and she plunged right in. For months she was selling her quota of forty units per month. Being new to sales she would often worry her way to those last few sales to hit her goal. One day I asked her if she would be interested in increasing sales and earning more money. She said, “Of course, I try to but I can’t seem to get past forty.” I suggested we make fifty her new imaginary quota and she went for it. We posted a yellow sticky with the number 50 on her computer monitor to add a little focus. It worked! She started selling fifty that month and it become her new norm. Could it be that easy to increase sales?
Tune Into Your Customers Buying Process
We’ve all been in those situations when a salesperson is trying to build your interest after you’ve already decided to buy. If the salesperson would just stop talking you could place the order. Then there’s the times when you’re not ready to consider buying and you’re being asked when you would like delivery. In either case, the salesperson is not recognizing which stage of the buying process you’re in and is actually working against the sale. Staying in tune with your customer is key to having an enjoyable and more often than not successful selling conversation.
What Type Of Loyalty Are You Developing?
When you are at the check out at most big box stores you can expect to be asked, “Are you a rewards member?” The rewards are designed to encourage us to buy at the store more frequently. Loyalty is being developed toward the reward but not to the company or people working there. I wonder if this was intentional or simply an evolution? What about you? What type of loyalties are you building around you?
The Selling Skills Blueprint To Strengthen Your Sales Team
If you’re a salesperson, you’re usually measured on sales revenue or account additions. When you’re ahead of the game it comes with a pat on the back and maybe a bonus. If you’re behind you get a reminder to work harder and make more calls. Have you ever thought, “Is that all there is, make more calls and work harder?” After all, that‘s what you’ve been doing.
If you’re a business owner leading your team you might be wondering what else you could suggest to them. If there was only a selling skills blueprint that would help you both know what skills to improve on? There is, and it’s packaged in a sweet little sales improvement tool called Profiles Sales CheckPoint TM
A Narrow Market Niche Can Lead to Preferred Sales and Profit
Most people will support the notion of having a narrow market niche as long as there is enough lead flow. Which sales person wouldn’t want to solely work with their ideal type of customer since it’s easiest to work with customers that appreciate the value and niche expertise they represent. It all sounds good until there aren’t enough leads. As a company or sales person are you tempted to reach outside your market niche to pick up some quick business, or do you stay committed to fixing the niche lead shortage? This is when you find out how committed you are to your focus or niche.
More Sales and Less Stress…Sound Nice?
If you’re a top performer you’re always looking for more sales. You also know the details of wrapping up new business can be stressful and get in the way of finding new opportunities. It can seem like no matter how hard you work, it’s tough to find that breakthrough into a higher earning level. You’ve increased the revenue per account and you’re selling to more accounts, but the time needed to squeeze in any more business is becoming a challenge. You seem tapped out but you want to earn more. Sound familiar?
Shhhh..Use These Listening Skills and Sell More!
No one calls and asks me for help to improve their listening skills. I’m often asked to help with approaching people or phrasing sales messages, but not how to improve their listening. Why do you think that is? I think it’s because most people consider listening as passive and talking is active, which leads us to believe there is not much to improve with our listening. Would it be okay with you if you said less and sold more? You can do it, if you become a more active listener.
You can improve your sales winning percentage by improving your listening skills. Before making any improvement you’ll need to acknowledge that hearing is not listening. Hearing is passive and listening is active. Hearing is usually a part of listening, but it’s not all of it. If you can agree with me on this, the following process to listening improvement will make sense and can lead you to more sales.
The Most Important Decision In The Sales Process
In every selling process a buyer will make many decisions that lead to their final buying preference. They decide to research your product, take your call, meet with you, or visit your office. Every email they choose to respond to is a decision; each piece of information they agree to hand over is a decision they make. We, as sales people, often think in terms of sales stages as our yellow brick road to a sale. We will only reach that sale if the buyer’s decisions allow us to arrive at the final decision making event. So, what’s the most important decision to focus on to improve your selling results?
You’re Paying Your Sales People HOW MUCH?
The HOW MUCH in this blog title could be describing overpayment or underpayment of your sales team. Where does your pay plan fall? Are you paying your sales people too much or could it be you are under paying them? Creating a sales pay plan isn’t terribly difficult but it’s trickier than finding a simple salary range for non-sales positions. I’ll answer the two most common questions asked of me regarding sales play plans. (1) How much should I pay my sales people? and (2) How should I structure the pay plan?
Fishing Secrets That Will Help You Land Big Accounts
There was a season in my life where all I thought about was fishing. I didn’t take it up until my late 20’s and for about 10 years I couldn’t get enough. Looking back now, I can see how it was all part of my life preparation to teaching more people about sales. Since I didn’t grow up fishing, I needed to learn how catch trout and salmon on the river from other experts. You’re reading my blog to be more successful at selling; I was stopping by fly-fishing shops to learn how to catch big fish. The parallels between sales and fishing are uncanny. Here’s what I learned about fishing that applies to landing big accounts.
My Top 10 NFL Success Quotes for Selling
Two of my favorite things in life are watching NFL games and helping sales people figure out the game of sales. When you listen to many of the interviews by winning NFL players and coaches you’ll hear tips that can help you be a better salesperson and manager. When you have a chance to listen to others that have been successful, there’s an opportunity to apply what they have done to your profession or life. With that in mind, these are my Top 10 NFL Success Quotes for Selling.
Seven Ways to Improve Your Sales Forecasting
Business becomes much more enjoyable when you can predict what your sales and profit margins will be. The problem is sales forecasts are usually less reliable than predicting the weather. Mark Denning, CPA and Author of “Drive Your Business to Financial Success” states in his book, “The key variables with the highest risk and level of difficulty to forecast are revenue and gross margin.” These are two areas your sales team plays a big role in setting and achieving. Rather than use a crystal ball, here are seven ways to have 20/20 vision with your sales forecasting.
Sales Meetings Can Be Money-Makers
Have you ever heard sales people complain about attending sales meetings? You might hear comments like, “What’s the sales meeting for?”, “Do you know how long it’s going to be?” or “Do I need to be here?” Does your company have sales meetings? I’ve checked back with some former clients and asked how their sales meetings are going, and to my dismay I hear, “We haven’t had one for awhile.” Let’s be honest. Meetings can be overdone and a waste of time, but they don’t have to be. You can have Money-Making Sales Meetings and here’s how.