Category Archives: General Sales Stuff

Be Mindful of Their Time

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Some years ago, a rep popped in to give me a quote. Even though I mentioned at least 5 times how hectically busy I was, he still engaged in story after story about his wife, kids, old school pals and more. Almost an hour later, I was literally hopping from foot to foot and finally had to politely edge him closer to the door in order to “escape”.

As a sales professional, do you really want your customer to be praying that you’d just shut up and leave? Do you really want them to start avoiding taking your calls? Or when a customer sees your car pull up unexpectedly, would you want her to quickly hide in the storeroom to avoid spending 2 hours with you?

As Jill Konrath so aptly describes, customers and prospects are ‘crazy-busy’ at the best of times. They don’t have time to waste. Especially the real decision-makers.

Sharper Buyers, Sharper Sellers

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Buyer diceI was chatting to a senior procurement manager recently. When he asked me what I did for a living and I said that I helped business owners and sales managers sort out their sales challenges, he laughed and said that he hoped that my work didn’t include ‘hard-sell’ sales training. Intrigued, I asked him to elaborate.

He said that he can sum up a salesperson from the minute they walk into his office. Some take ”the look to see what I can make small talk about” approach whilst others immediately whip out their laptops and presentation folders to start their “show and tell”.  He said if he picked up that they hadn’t done their research ahead of the meeting, he’d politely end the meeting within 10 minutes.

I smiled wryly because it just reinforced my thinking that many procurement folks have wised up to the ‘same old, same old’ style of selling. If you’ve been reading the SalesBrief for a while, you might recall that I’ve mentioned a training course for procurement people that specifically addresses how to outsell and negotiate with the average salesperson. That was 8 years ago. Imagine how many more South African buyers have attended that programme since.

So ditch the 15 alternative closes, drop the contrived approach and just be authentic. Sure, you have to ask for the order at the right time. Sure, there is a sales process that should be followed but not in such a way that you look and sound like a Sales 101 robot. Nowadays, the chances of getting five yeses in a row as a way to close a deal are getting slimmer and slimmer. Why? Because the person on the other side of the desk could be well aware that this is a staged and/or manipulative sales approach. As a result, you could personally be viewed in a negative light.

In 2015, selling is about the customer, their needs, their challenges and the way they buy. That’s the part of the ‘sales approach’ that needs your focus.

Integrity, authenticity and collaboration rules. Buyers are sharp.

The Role of Trust in Sales

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As Sales Managers, we are entrusted with a team of individuals who have faith in use and depend on us to lead, manage and guide them to success in their sales careers. People mostly rise to the expectations we have of them. In what ways do you instil confidence, trust and belief in your team to deliver results.

And by the same token, as salespeople, what ways do we instil confidence, trust and belief in our sales manager that we will deliver results?

You Can’t Ride Two Horses …

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One of my business mentors – a highly-respected Irishman, academic and entrepreneurial guru – once gave me a valuable piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten.  He said “Suzanne, you can’t ride two horses with one arse” (Please excuse the terminology guys but I’m keeping it real).

It was a comment he made after listening to me explain how I was struggling to manage two major projects at the same time. The fact that I was splitting my time and efforts was affecting the success of the projects. I was not making any headway. He was right, I was no Zorro. I took his advice, chose the one project I knew would be a winner and dropped the other. It was the best move I’ve ever made.

The same advice applies to sales. We need to focus on the ONE thing we were employed to do:  Bring in the business.

Don’t lose your sales focus because someone else is seeking your assistance with their problems. The moment you start regularly spending loads of your time helping to re-configure the CRM system, assisting the export department with their paperwork or getting sidetracked with sorting out production issues, it shows up in your sales results.

At the very least if you can’t get off “the other horse”, you have to ensure that management knows exactly how your precious selling time is affected by being expected to do additional tasks.

Stand firm on this. Otherwise you’ll pay the price in your performance review.

Remember To Dump Your 2012 Sales Baggage

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There’s no use in holding onto old sales baggage. Whilst it’s best to do a mental sales “detox” on a daily basis, sometimes we forget and before we know it, we’re carrying a whole load of sales junk that weighs us down mentally. It’s a sure way to dampen our spirit and enthusiasm for this brilliant career path we’re on. Selling is as fun, exciting, interesting and rewarding as we make it.

So forget the orders that didn’t happen, the delivery frustrations, the missing documents, the duff up with the commission calculations and all those little things that can side-track us from doing what we love – being in front of prospects and clients, trying to help them to offer a better service or product to their customers.

Start 2013 off on a clean sales slate. Dump last year’s B2B sales trash and take only the lessons learned and the very best memories into the New Year.

Here’s to Your Abundant Sales Success in 2013 – we’re with you all the way.

You’re Not Making Progress – Now What?

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I read somewhere that if you’re not moving forward then you’re going backwards. Selling can make you feel like that. One step forward, two steps back.

You get one exciting new prospect, you lose two other opportunities from your pipeline. You close a deal, two others get put on hold. It’s the nature of selling – dealing with rejection, disappointment or loss should be par for the course for us all. It should be “like duck off a water’s back”.

A classic article about sales archetypes in Harvard Business Review some years ago refers to good salespeople as “happy losers”. Quite a strange term, not exactly complimentary (I was a bit miffed at first) but what the author meant is that good salespeople get over seemingly “bad” news quickly, they get up again quickly after being knocked down, they get stuck back in quickly – without batting an eye.

So if you’re just had a sales door slammed in your face, don’t spiral down into the murky depths of sales despair. Smile. Laugh. Brush it off. And move on. Quickly. Get that till ringing again. Chi-ching.

Setting new sales targets? Be more scientific about it.

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A great deal has been written by the experts in sales consulting cyberspace recently about the negative impact of simply increasing the sales target year-on-year by ” X” percent.

One of my first questions when consulting to senior management on this issue is “What is your reasoning for this year’s sales target increase?” Only some are able to articulate the process of how they arrived at the actual figures.  Most are based purely on historical data or straightforward financial calculations relating to retaining profit margins.

International sales research gurus, CSO Insights recently questioned why companies are continuing to increase sales targets year-on-year in the face of such a tight economy. Makes sense to me. If your entire sales team didn’t make their targets in 2010, (and missed out on any commission associated with it) then why would you still increase THAT unattained target by an additional x percent instead factoring in their actual sales? This, whilst being denied any additional budget for sales training, additional staff, support systems or basically anything that would assist the sales team in driving the new numbers.

This issue is too complex to go into detail in this little newsletter I’m afraid, but it is something that needs to be discussed thoroughly both at senior level AND with the top achievers in the sales team who are closest to clients and prospects in niche markets. 

All I’m suggesting is that more work needs to be done on setting targets in the first instance.

Just to clarify: I’m not making a case for simply reducing sales targets or keeping them static. After very careful consideration to the how, where, what and when of the sales of a company, it may become obvious that existing sales targets are actually way too low, given the amount of untapped opportunities in some emerging niche markets and the amount of resources you’ve pumped into sales.

The bottom line: Each sales rep must know how and be able to present his or her detailed territory growth strategy to their sales manager in a professional manner, based on their sales cycle, the actual numbers previously attained as well as detailed research and understanding. And then be held accountable for results. 

The sales manager needs to be close enough to the sales team to confirm or reject the proposed growth strategies based on measured facts (including activity levels), not just on his or her point of view or a  thumb suck. And be held accountable for results too. 

This more scientific approach will either validate or invalidate existing and/or new sales targets. Whilst lofty, realistic sales targets may spur some people on to achieve more than they thought possible, those which are seen to be unrealistic will simply be a demotivator to most folks out there.

Moving the goal posts too often and too far is interpreted by most sales achievers as “trying to con me out of my commission.” This is one of the reasons why we always find so many excellent salespeople in the job market, no matter what state the economy is in.

Here’s to your best personal sales year ever, regardless of the “number” placed on your goalposts.

Is April An Annual “Go Slow” Month for Sales Folks?

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April – the bane of many a sales rep’s existence here in South Africa – eclipsed only by December (and the first half of January)  in terms of slow sales.

There’s less selling time because of all the public holidays, all of our prospects have disappeared, half of our co-workers are missing from their desks, all of our deals are so much harder to close …

Is this true or is it our mindset that’s holding us back from achieving stellar sales results?

Here we are, at the beginning of a brand new month, the start of Q2 and in fact we’re only losing 3 selling days in April, not half the month as some folks would like us to believe.

There are many selling activities that don’t have to stop just because it’s holiday season. Prospecting, lead research and client communication can all be stepped up. So what if your key contact is basking on the beach or watching a hippo take a bath – the whole company hasn’t closed down – what about the other 5 people involved in that buying decision that you haven’t spoken to yet?

Selling always requires innovative and creative thinking and action – the month of April puts us to the test.