Salesopedia’s topic this week is listening. Is there a more important ability in sales? The article – Active Listening and Active Rainmaking – discusses techniques for being an active listener. The tips are excellent, but I particularly enjoyed this insight: Often times the technical training and development of service providers hinders their ability to be good listeners. Due to the nature of their work, engineers, lawyers, accountants, and consultants of all types are extremely knowledgeable in their particular area of expertise. In order to get their jobs done and done well, they often need to be directive and tell people what to do to complete the tasks on which they… Read More
Continue ReadingInformation Is Money
One thing that consistently stands out in sales is the ability to gather information. I’m not talking about personal information like family, home, education and the rest. That information is important for building rapport, but many salespeople (i.e. schmoozers) never move past that level. The national sales team with whom we work has a strong sales manager who is constantly beating this drum. He implores his team to go beyond the excitement of a potential deal and start asking the straight questions about competition and pain. The sales manager’s approach is excellent in that they sell in a competitive market where customer loyalty is almost lacking. The service is viewed… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Most Difficult Sale
We interviewed a candidate yesterday for an outside sales position who comes with a different background to our client’s company. The purpose of the interview was to further discuss his abilities before putting him in front of our customer. We were pleasantly surprised that his sales skills and history are even stronger than we first expected. Here’s why – he took over a territory in a complex, technical sale in which his employer had a bad reputation. The reputation was deserved. The task for this salesperson was daunting…and he succeeded in turning the territory around. Overcoming a bad reputation in the marketplace is more difficult than new business development with… Read More
Continue ReadingWho Needs Contracts?
I was on a sales conference call with one of our national customers this morning. The sales manager went around the horn asking each salesperson what contract/documentation they use when closing a new customer. The company is lacking a structured contract. I know, scary. But the salty old sales guy in the group who has had success over the years had a great reply. Sales manager: “Jim, you’ve been doing this a while. What do you use for a contract?” Jim the sales guy: “A handshake and a smile.” Good thing I had my phone muted.
Continue ReadingHidden Keys To Building Rapport
I am most interested in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) when it comes to enhancing communication. We have been through some rudimentary training on this topic so ManageSmarter.com’s article – Rapid Rapport and Riches – piqued my interest. The long article covers many details, but here is a general definition of NLP: NLP is a behavioral technology created in the 1970s by Richard Brandler, a student of mathematics and Gestalt’s Therapy, and John Grinder, a professor of linguistics at the University of California Santa Cruz. Neuro refers to the nervous system, through which we experience the five senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. Linguistic is language and non-verbal communication systems that… Read More
Continue ReadingCreativity In Selling
Much of the filtering that occurs in sales hiring incorporates the all-too-familiar standards of industry experience and college degrees. The interview follows a step-by-step history of their career much like the old TV show This Is Your Life. The candidates have learned the proper rote responses to most of the questions. It is a dull process that leads to marginal results. But what about creativity? Creativity often gets overlooked or ignored in sales hiring. “Creativity belongs in marketing.” “Salespeople should be money-motivated, driven hunters who complete one-call closes.” Boring and antiquated. Creativity is the overlooked, undervalued aspect of selling that can be the differentiator between an above-average salesperson and a… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Managers Must Set Expectations
I had a sales manager many years ago whom I really disliked. We had little in common, he went out of his way to annoy and he was cheap. I mean really cheap. Anyway, he did one thing that changed me as a salesperson – he asked me for qualified information on any prospect I put on my forecast. It sounds simple, but trust me, it was effective. He wanted to know why they were on the forecast, who was the decision maker, what was their budget, what was their time-frame and who was our competition. I was selling high-tech, capital equipment so this information was crucial to advancing a… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Leads Stall
Selling Power offers up an article that explores reasons for bloated pipelines. That never happens in sales, does it? The article – Warning: There€™s a Gash In Your Pipeline – presents some excellent suggestions for why this happens and how to correct it. Robert Kear, SPI€™s chief marketing officer, observes that the lead generation challenge stems partly from the erroneous view that lead generation is a quantity problem; that the more leads you can get, the better. Instead, he says, the lead generation challenge is about maximizing value awareness with the right potential buyers. Right. It is a qualitative issue. I enjoyed Kear’s solutions offered in the article. But the last… Read More
Continue ReadingOne Sentence That Sums Up Value
We’ve referenced this quote before, but JustSell.com has it in their daily email and it catches my eye everytime I read it. Harvard Business School Professor emeritus Theodore Levitt once said, “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.“
Continue ReadingCold Call Potpourri
Some more general points from this morning’s cold calling discussion: Some other items to consider: -Be positive – it is only a phone call -Stand up-your tonality is better, you’ll be less anxious and less distracted -Don’t get verbal diarrhea -Have a hook, don’t try to do a data dump -Qualify the next step – no fuzzy phrases (“I’ll think it over”) In the end, you need to be able to answer (well) this question from the prospect: What do you know about our company? We use a modified approach when phone screening candidates. We ask them how their skills and experience fit the criteria listed in our ad. The Rock Star… Read More
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