A few weeks ago, I wrote about what I called “the escalation of needs,” in which I described the change I’m seeing in selling. Today’s salesperson must work at a higher level, be more savvy, and more polished than ever before. However, based on emails I’ve received about this article, I’m not sure that I made my point very clearly. Maybe “escalation of needs” is the wrong phrase.

When I started my business in 2004, I would tell people that I was a sales trainer, and they would respond by asking, “Do you do product sales or service sales?” My response was always the same – that sales in the modern era was all about service. Everyone had great products, so the sale was about wrapping a great service model around those products and showing why you were the best resource. That was one evolution of selling, but there’s been another, more significant evolution.”

The evolution in the last twenty years has been from transactional selling to relationship selling. The new evolution – or maybe it’s a revolution, and I’ll explain why in a moment – is toward conceptual selling.

Let’s use, as an example, an industry that I spent quite a bit of time in as a salesperson – bearings, power transmission, and industrial supplies (that’s all one industry handled through one distribution channel, not three separate industries).

In the mid-90s, much of the selling was still based on products. Here are the features and benefits of my product, here’s how it fits your situation, please buy it – and as you’re buying the product, you’ll buy it from us. This was reinforced by our company’s emphasis on product training (I once went to a 3-day school on ball bearings), and on the emphasis on vendor ride-alongs to sell their products. Very little time was spent on our service model, and the relationships that were built were specifically between the salesperson and particular contacts at the customer. Not surprisingly, most customers split their business between us and competitors, depending on who had the “best” products. We were selling mostly to mid-level or low-level managers like stockroom or maintenance managers.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, smart salespeople evolved to a service selling model. Salespeople (including me) approached customers saying, “Look, we have great products. I’ll be frank; so do our competitors. You should buy from me because my company has the service eithic and expertise to better take care of your needs. When you’re in doubt, we’ll pick the products ourselves, and when you know what you want, we’ll make sure you get it, on time, when you need it.” This model worked better because instead of competing for transactions, we were competing for customers. And once you won that sale, you typically got a majority (although not necessarily a full share) of your customer’s spend in your product category. Since the company’s processes and people were so integral to the sale, the key relationship was between companies. Most of the time, the contacts remained the same, although sometimes we ended up in an assistant plant manager’s office.

Also in the late 90s came a concept called “Integrated Supply.” In the integrated supply concept, a salesperson approached the corner office and said, “Let’s agree that great service and great products are expectations, not bonuses. What we bring to the table is the ability to handle the entire procurement process for everything you consume in your plant. You’ll still get the great products. You’ll still get the great service. But, you can focus on your core business because you will no longer have to make mundane buying decisions about everything from conveyor rollers to toilet paper.” The concept of integrated supply was sold to the ultimate decision maker (Plant Manager, President, CEO, etc.), and all the supplies came along with it.

In the industrial environment, integrated supply took hold in the mid-2000s, and most large accounts buy this way now. This means, of course, that salespeople who are selling product or service to those same mid-level managers as before are left on the sidelines.
The same phenomenon is happening in multiple industries. For instance, the copier and office technology industry is evolving from product (buy our copier because it’s the best) to service (managed print services where we handle everything from copiers to toner to paper and charge you per-click) to conceptual (let us install software that manages your entire document process, from creation to duplication to archiving). It’s probably happening in your industry – and if you’re not working, or getting ready to work, at a conceptual level, you’re going to get left behind.

That’s my whole point. When selling went from transactional (product) to relationship (service), some good product salespeople got left behind because they couldn’t transition. There are still a number of transactional salespeople out there (and transactional sales processes), and they are struggling. However, that transition was less difficult, because in most cases, the contact remained the same – so the major change was in approach.

Today’s evolution is tougher, because now relationship salespeople are getting left behind. They’re finding that their relationships aren’t with the right people to keep them alive in their customers. A great relationship at mid-level does no good when someone sells the concept of a different process to the mid-level person’s boss.

I’ve been saying for some time that the successful salesperson of the next 20 years will be far different from the successful salesperson of the last 20. Here’s how I see the successful salesperson of the next 20 years:

• Highly polished and professional: The successful salesperson of the future will be able to meet, and win sales, with the top officer in the company. He or she will be able to speak to the CEO as an equal, not as a supplicant. This means more than looking good in a suit.

• Great businessperson: The salesperson of the future will need more than expertise in products and services; they will need to understand how to read a P&L, how to help build and grow their customers’ businesses, and understand instinctively how to address issues like opportunity costs, hidden costs, and other high-level and big-picture issues that officers face.

• Versatile: That said, the salesperson of the future will still need to shift gears and work with the downstream implementers and influencers that will put their concepts to work. Yes, you’re going over the head of the midlevel managers when you approach the CEO – but if you do it right, they never feel like they’ve been disrespected.

• Well trained: Finally, that salesperson will need to be incredibly well trained in all three sales models – transactional, relationship, and conceptual – and know when to use each.

If that sounds like a big challenge, it is. But challenging is different than impossible. Are you up to the challenge?

Is there a person reading this email who would deny that selling is a tough profession?  I doubt it – if you’ve been in the business for more than six months.  Selling is very tough.  I have a good friend who’s working as a salesperson after seventeen years as a nurse.  She once told me, “Saving lives is easy.  Sales is hard!”

So, when she called me yesterday to tell me that she was having a rough day – she’d made dozens of phone calls with only three contacts and no appointments – I gave her some advice that nearly blew her mind.  In fact, it might blow yours, too, but I’ll tell you what it was.

“Stop,” I said. “Just stop.  Take a sanity break.”  I could literally hear her jaw drop over the phone.  See, I know what my line is supposed to be.  “Keep at it, stay positive, work harder.  Persistence pays off.”  That’s true.  Persistence pays off.

Except when it doesn’t.

Can we be 100% honest and real with each other?  Like I said, I know what I was SUPPOSED to say.  Every manager, sales trainer, and author knows what they are supposed to say in that moment.  A good rah-rah, go-team-go speech, and she’ll be hitting her numbers in no time.  The problem is that, in reality, it doesn’t always work.

As I’ve said many times before, sales achievement is a simple equation.  Quality of activity, multiplied by quantity of activity, equals results.  The trouble is that sales is a MENTAL game, and your mindset can greatly affect the quality of your activity.  In this case, I quickly assessed that her mindset was so low that the quality of activity was near zero – and she would probably burn some contacts that might have done business with her in a different mindset.

It happens.  If we’re honest with each other, it happens to every salesperson.  It happens to rookies.  It happens to experienced pros.  And yes, it happens to the Sales Navigator.  We all have those days when we are figuratively getting our posteriors handed to us on a silver platter.  Maybe prospecting is going badly, maybe a couple of proposals didn’t come through, or whatever – but you’re on a bad run.

This is the moment where a bad run can get interrupted, or it can get worse.  You must assess your mindset.  Ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I mentally in a place where I can put those setbacks behind me?
2. Is my mindset such that I can be positive enough to turn a bad call into a good one?
3. Am I ready to receive success?

In other words, do a quick head-check on yourself.  If your mind isn’t in the right place, you might burn opportunities that shouldn’t be burned.

As tough as this moment can be for a salesperson, it’s tougher for a sales manager.  We have an internal conflict.  We know what advice we’re supposed to give (GO TEAM GO), but as human beings, we also recognize that sometimes it isn’t the best advice. Go with your gut here; ask yourself the same questions about the salesperson’s mentality.

If your head isn’t right, it’s sanity break time.  This is something that’s up to YOU.  You need a way to disconnect from whatever bad day you’ve been having, but it should be a way that’s meaningful to you AND easy to transition back into work.  Let me give you examples.

I often work from my home office. So, an easy reality break is to go pet my dogs.  I’ve never failed to make a sale to my dogs in my entire 27-year career in sales.  And after about 20 minutes of that, my mind is right to go back to work.

On the other hand, one of my other ways of disconnecting is to go into the garage and work on a car.  That works great at the end of the day, but there isn’t much I can do to a car in 20 minutes, so that’s not a good midday fit.  I also like to take a quick ride on my motorcycle, but if the weather is bad, that doesn’t work.  You might need multiple options for a sanity break.

One that works well for some people – but not for me – is to read a good book for 20 minutes.  It doesn’t work for me because, if the book is really good, I can’t stop at 20 minutes.  WHAT you do isn’t as important as recognizing the need to disconnect and reconnect.  I would advise one thing, though.  When you disconnect, REALLY disconnect.  Get away from your desk, silence your cell phone, get all the way out of ‘work mode’ and get right back in again.

Sometimes what makes you effective isn’t your ability to persist or to push through – it’s your ability to hit “control-alt-delete” on your mind and reboot.  Don’t be afraid to do so every now and then.

And if you’re a sales manager, don’t be afraid to let your people do so.

I’ve said for years that the ancient sales art of ‘schmoozing the gatekeeper’ is dead.  D-E-A-D, as in doornail.  And yet, I had a conversation the other day that reminded me that it is not, and that sometimes, salespeople do have to know about gatekeepers.

Before I dive into that conversation, I want to remind you that, for the most part, today’s gatekeeper is technological, not personal.  The “gatekeeper” is the dial-by-name directory, it’s voice mail, it’s a million other ways that people have invented in order to keep from reaching over, picking up a telephone, and answering it.  With that in mind, every now and then, there is a gatekeeper, and what follows is one such tale.

She recounted the conversation thusly:

Salesperson:  Hello, may I speak to Jim?

Gatekeeper:  Is Jim expecting your call?

SP:  No, but it’s an important matter that Jim will want to talk about.

GK (she noted that it’s a small office, and Jim was standing right there, shaking his head): Jim’s not available at the moment, can I take a message?

Let me interject something here.  It rarely happens these days that the person who answers the phone (usually a receptionist but not in the case of my story) offers to personally take a message for you, instead of send it to voice mail.  When someone offers to take a message, you leave a message.  Human involvement in this process is always better than anonymous technology.  That said, the conversation went on:

SP:  I’d really rather leave a voice mail.  Could you put me through, please?

GK:  I’d be happy to personally take a message and get it to Jim.  Can you tell me what this is regarding?

Interjecting again.  At this point, the jig is up.  If the gatekeeper didn’t already know that this was a cold call from a salesperson (unlikely), she knows it now.  The only real solution is honesty.  The worst thing you can do is become rude or demanding – but yet, that’s what the salesperson did.

SP:  Look, I’d just like to leave a voice mail.  Can you please put me through?

GK:  I’ll take a message.

(CLICK) the call ends here.

Here’s the funny part.  The salesperson blew an opportunity.  The gatekeeper is a friend of mine and doesn’t hate salespeople at all; in fact, she always gets messages to the decision makers, and if they’re nice to her, she says so – and those people usually at least get a phone audience with their target contact, if not an appointment.  This guy will not.

So what happened?  I think several things made this call go badly.

First, the salesperson obviously wasn’t mentally equipped to deal with a live message taker.  Voice mail, hard as it is to believe, has conditioned some people to think that dealing with a live human is somehow wrong.

Second, he believed too much in the power of whatever he’d say on a voice mail.  Here’s a hint:  The best voice mail messages get a response about 10% of the time.  Best case scenario.  Your voice mail message isn’t magic.

Third, he never learned that anyone in the building can block him from a sale; hence, we treat everyone with the courtesy that we do the decision maker.

How could this call have gone differently?  Had he handled it differently, I think it would have gone something like this:

Salesperson:  Hi, could I speak to Jim, please?

Gatekeeper:  Is Jim expecting your call?  (This, by the way, is the moment where the jig is really up.  How you react to this question will determine your chances of getting to your prospect.)

SP:  I didn’t catch your name?

GK:  It’s Mary.

SP:  To be honest, Mary, no, he’s not expecting my call. My name is Troy, and I’m with (Company X).  You’ve probably guessed that I’m a salesman doing a cold call, and you’re right.  But, I really do have something that will help Jim (insert strong benefit/win statement here), and I think he’d at least like to know about it.  It’s helped other companies like yours. So, I’m calling to see if I can get just a little bit of his time.

Mary:  Well, if you leave a message with me, I’ll make sure that he gets it.

Troy:  No problem.  Could I give you one sentence to write down verbatim, and then I’ll give you my contact information?

Mary:  Sure, that would be fine.

Troy:  (Gives strong benefit statement, then contact info).

Mary:  I’ll be sure that he gets it.

Troy:  Thanks, Mary.  If I don’t hear back, can I call you again in a few days?

Mary:  That would be fine.

CALL ENDS.

You may be sitting there thinking this is a fantasy-world call, and maybe you’re right.  But, in this case, had the salesperson been polite and respectful, this is EXACTLY how that call would have gone!  Further, the gatekeeper would have suggested that Jim return the call.  Granted, this doesn’t happen all the time, but when there is a live gatekeeper, it’s not difficult.

1. Know when the jig is up; i.e. when you’ve been spotted as a salesperson. It’s almost always quicker than you think.
2. Get the gatekeeper’s name.
3. Treat the gatekeeper with respect and as a person who can make decision, because he/she can. Maybe not FOR you, but definitely AGAINST you. Make sure that the gatekeeper at least stays neutral.
4. Don’t be fake. They can spot phoniness a mile away and will block you.
5. Just sincerely articulate your pitch and why you will help. Then make sure you follow up.

It happens nearly every seminar that I do.  During the question and answer session, a salesperson – many times a very good one – describes a situation where the customer is putting them through the proverbial mill.  The situation they describe often differs, but the result is the same – the customer is leading the salesperson around by the nose.

It might be coincidental, but much of the time, these same customers are not necessarily BUYING a lot from the salesperson – but they have the POTENTIAL to buy a lot.  These tend to be what I call “neon light” accounts – accounts where every salesperson sees a neon light above the building saying “great potential here!”  Hence, salespeople line up at the door for an opportunity to beg for business, and are ready to do nearly anything to get that business.

You’re probably already seeing the problem.  Too often, these accounts know exactly the potential that they possess, and have no problem wielding said potential to play one salesperson against another, one company against another, etc., to get the most advantageous terms.  Sometimes the eventual terms mean that nobody is really making any money!  I don’t begrudge these customers for doing whatever they can do secure the absolute best buys for their companies.  That’s business.

But we salespeople don’t have to participate.

In this particular situation, the salesperson was explaining a very common scenario – she gets RFP’s, can’t contact the decision maker, fills out the RFP’s, doesn’t get business.  We’ve all been there.  And the only thing that will break this cycle – the only way YOU have a chance of getting anything good to happen – is to use a word that frightens salespeople more than any other.

NO.

That’s right.  Say, “no.”  Tell the customer that their process of doing business simply isn’t compatible with yours.  Let the customer know that you’d love the opportunity to do business with them, but you need to do X.  In this case, the need is to speak with the person who is making the actual decision, not the person who is gathering information.

At this, the salesperson began to protest – the fear factor was kicking in.  “Well, I’ve tried to tell them before, but they just keep doing what they’re doing.”

The problem was that the salesperson had in fact said no.  But, she hadn’t LIVED the no.  In other words, she had the conversation, and then the next time the RFP came in, she dutifully filled it out and responded.

It’s not enough to say “no,” you must LIVE the “no.”

I often wonder how much overall sales time is wasted by salespeople who simply respond to RFP requests without ever getting business – and how much more productive those salespeople would be if they devoted that time to finding other customers that were more interested in establishing relationships and working cooperatively.

Whenever you feel like the customer is putting you at an extreme disadvantage, you’re probably right.  At this point, ask yourself if the customer is really working cooperatively or just wasting your time to keep another salesperson honest.  If it’s the latter, don’t be afraid to say “no.”

And live it.

If you don’t protect your time and resources, no one will do it for you.

Today, I saw an interesting meme on Facebook.  Most Facebook memes are, of course, meaningless at worst and semi-humorous at best.  This one was pretty good, though.  It said, “You talk to yourself more than anyone else.  Make sure that what you say is meaningful.”

That started me thinking about our self-talk.  We all have a self-talk, whether we admit it or not or whether it’s out loud or not.  I’ve always found that my self-talk has a lot to do with my success, whether the self-talk is right before I speak or right before I sell.  I’m guessing that you feel the same way, so the question is – what IS your self-talk?

If your self-talk isn’t contributing to your success, maybe it’s time to rethink it.  Here’s my template; you don’t have to follow it exactly, of course, but if yours isn’t working for you, you might adopt parts of it that work.

Me:  The first aspect of the self-talk I give is about myself.  Don’t get me wrong; I don’t go down the Stuart Smalley route of “I’m good enough, I’m strong enough, and gosh darn it, people like me,” (although if that works for you, do it) but I do like to review some recent successes.  If I’m giving a speech, I recall a recent speech where I got a great response.  If I’m selling, I remember some recent wins that I put on the board.

The Other Party:  Now, I review what I know about the “other party;” if it’s a customer, I recall what I’ve learned about the customer, and if it’s a speech, I recall the audience.  To take it farther, in a sales call, I will bring a cheat sheet of details about the customer.  In a speech, I can’t do that, but I will review the key points of what I know about the audience, their needs, and their wants. To be completely frank, I’ve often wondered if I’m not doing this in the wrong order.  After all, the customer or the audience is far more important than me!  Should I be reviewing them first? Perhaps – but I’ve been doing it this way for 25 years and it works for me.

The Conversation:  The final review for me is the start of the conversation.  In my experience, this is the hardest part of a speech or a sales call.  For the remainder of the sales call (or speech) to be successful, I need to open meaningfully, and do so without yet getting a “feel” for the mood of the customer or audience.  In a sales call, I’ll review my introduction and the first 3-4 questions that I plan to ask.  In a speech, I’ll review my opener, which might be a question for the audience or a story that sets the table for the speech.  I find that once I’m past this point in a speech (or a sales call), that experience lets me be in the moment and lets the conversation flow.

My Tools:  I’ll do a quick check – I always call it my “paranoia check” – to make sure that whatever tools I plan to use are intact and working.  In a sales call, I typically take in a cheat sheet of details about the customer, a question list, and perhaps my speaker one-sheet.  I seldom use more than that.  In a speech, I’ll have done my ‘technology check’ well before the audience arrives, making sure that my Powerpoint works, that my slide advancer has battery power, that the microphone works, etc.

With those four points of my self-talk, I can walk into a speech, or sales call, with confidence.  And now, if you attend a speech, arrive early, and see me testing my Powerpoint, you’ll know why.  And if you happen to see me sitting in a parking lot in front of a building where a potential customer might be….and through the car window you see me talking to myself…..let me be.  I’m not crazy, I’m just doing my self-talk.

We can see it all around us, every day.  Good relationships gone bad – whether personal, professional, networking, even romantic.  And many times, the people involved don’t know why.  Right now, you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, Troy, those relationships are so different that it’s simply not possible for all of them to go bad for the same reasons!”

You’re partially right.  The truth is that there are a huge number of moving parts in any relationship, and those moving parts differ greatly between the types of relationships.  You want different things (hopefully) from a business relationship than a romantic one, for instance.  But the reasons that these relationships go bad boil down to three characteristics.

Those characteristics are Knowledge, Ability, and Desire.  In any type of a relationship, everyone has a certain level of effort or investment that they will put into a relationship, and that level is governed by Knowledge, Ability, and Desire.  This means:

The person has Knowledge of what the other person wants in the relationship;

The person has the Ability to provide those things;

And the person has the Desire to provide them.

Let’s look at a networking relationship.  We’ve probably all had potential referral partners that turned out to be successful, and others that turned out to be unsuccessful.  A ‘successful’ relationship is one that generates good referrals – an unsuccessful one is one that does not.  In this case, our three characteristics would look like this:

Your potential referral partner would have to have the Knowledge of what makes up a good referral for you.  It would be your responsibility to teach your referral partner what makes up a good referral – a type of contact, or a situation, that indicates a need for your services.  If they don’t know what makes a good referral, they are unlikely to give one.

The potential referral partner would have to have the Ability to provide those referrals.  That means they’d need to have access to the people you want to talk to.  For example, if you’re looking to speak to owners of small businesses below $10 million, and your potential referral partner has a contact base made up of office managers of larger companies, you’re unlikely to get good referrals simply because they don’t have the contact base.  You can’t expect referrals to people that your contact doesn’t know.

Finally, the potential referral partner would need to have the Desire to provide you with referrals.  This is the one area that’s really out of your control.  If you’ve spelled out what you want in terms of referrals, and the referrals are within the new partner’s ability to give, and they simply don’t give them, it’s an issue of desire.  They don’t have the necessary desire to help.

A successful relationship of any type requires all three of the characteristics.  Even in interpersonal relationships, we see relationships crash because of a lack of one of these.  In analyzing your business relationships, do both of you have all three?  If not, is there a way to instill all three?  If not, you might consider spending your time elsewhere.

Recently, customer conflicts have been in the news, thanks to United Airlines.  UA has exhibited some textbook examples of how NOT to handle a customer conflict (including not starting one), but UA, along with all airlines, has one thing going for them that most of us don’t.  Federal law.  It’s actually a federal crime to NOT obey the command of a flight attendant or any other member of a flight crew, so they can pretty much do what they want and the police will enforce their dictates.

The rest of us don’t have that backing us up (although I’m sure many of us wish we did), so we have to resolve customer conflict the old-fashioned way:  through people skills.  With that in mind, let’s look at some ways to handle an upset customer.

Since the customer conflicts on the airlines are a unique situation that, many times, is initiated by the airline itself, let’s put that scenario off to the side and look at the much more common scenario where an upset customer contacts us, either by phone or in person.

1. Let them vent. This is critical.  The first thing an upset customer wants is to be heard.  Our instinct in these moments is to try to calm the customer down, to interrupt the negativity, to change the direction of the conversation.  That’s the wrong thing.  When you interrupt the person while they are venting, you actually escalate the situation – which means that when you have to work to calm the person down, you actually have more work to do.
2. Analyze the problem. Once the customer has vented, it’s time to start doing a little digging.  Your customer has likely given you the EFFECT of the problem; i.e. the way that it hurts them.  Your job is to find the CAUSE of the problem.  Do so as best you can without verbally casting blame or doubt on the customer.  Even if the customer is at fault – and they might be – right now is the wrong time to put that blame there.
3. Fall on your sword. Now is the moment for a big ‘mea culpa.’  What your customer wants to know is that you’re sorry, that you empathize, and that you really do regret that the problem happened.  So do that right now.  Don’t get mealy-mouthed, either, and blame ‘this department’ or ‘that person.’  You are the company, so take the responsibility for the whole company.
4. Ask for their input. Once you have an idea of the problem and its cause, you probably have a way to solve it.  Your instinct will be to quickly solve the problem as best you can.  Don’t.  Instead, ask the customer what THEY would like to have happen to make things right.  The customer will likely be shocked and pleased to be involved in the solution.  You might be scared that the customer will ask for something unreasonable – and most of the time, you’ll be surprised that customers usually tend to ask for reasonable rectifications.  Sometimes they’ll ask for less than what you might have given.  This step also lets them partner in the process.
5. Give options if possible. If there’s more than one way to resolve the issue, ask the customer for their preference.  Again, this partners the customer in the process, and helps them to feel empowered.
6. Do what you tell them you’ll do. This should be obvious, but when you make a promise, you must keep it.
7. Follow Up. Once you’ve put the resolution into action, it’s time to follow up and make sure that the resolution has satisfied the customer’s issue.

If you execute these steps faithfully, many times, your relationship with the customer can come out stronger than it would have been without the problem happening.  And you probably won’t make national news!

As I write this, I’ve just returned from a trip in Spain that was one of the greatest of my life – professionally and otherwise.  For those who don’t know, I was engaged to do sales training at DocuWorld Europe, a program put on by DocuWare, a document management software provider.  I did the English speaking sales training portion.

In my room, I had about 40 people representing 15 different countries.  For most of these people, English was a second (or third) language, which presented some unique aspects – I won’t even call them “challenges.”  To make a long story short, the training was a fantastic experience for all of us. This was an all-day program, which allowed for more of a “shared experience” environment than a strict seminar environment.  And as part of the program, these wonderful Europeans (and one American) reminded me of something that I learned last year.

Sales is a universal language.

By that, what I mean is that we tend to think of business having great differences between cultures.  After this program, in which I had people from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the United States represented, I feel pretty comfortable in saying that the art and science itself of selling is probably about 95% universal worldwide – and the 5% difference is just in the details.

In fact, some of the really gratifying moments in the program were moments when I’d describe a technique (usually when answering a question), and one of the repeat attendees said, “You taught us that last year, and I tried it, and it really works!”

With that in mind, let’s talk about some of the challenges that are being faced worldwide by salespeople right now.  We’ll talk more about how to overcome those in coming weeks.

The effects of the Internet:  This, I think, is the primary challenge being faced by salespeople worldwide.  The Internet is the ultimate double-edged sword for salespeople.  Never before has something that is such a useful tool also been such a direct competitor.  The Internet is unquestionably useful for expanding our networks, prospecting in new and different ways, and in general disseminating our message.  It’s also a huge challenge because it allows customers to come to the table with far more knowledge than in the past.  It’s just that sometimes, that “knowledge” is really misinformation.  How can we as salespeople maximize the positives of the Net without falling victim to the problems?  This is something we’ll explore for much of the year.

The need to find the right prospects:  The most common question on both sides of the Atlantic is, “How can I reach the decision maker?”  There are several answers to this question.  First, you have to know who the decision maker is.  Many salespeople start out by selling to the wrong person, thinking that they’re selling to the right person.  Second, once you have the right person, you have to approach them with the right words.  Third, once you get their attention, you have to craft a sales call that will make the most of that person’s time.  None of this is easy, but all of it is worthwhile.

Building buyer urgency:  “How can we get our customers to pay attention to our proposals, and to put urgency behind them?”  That’s a huge question worldwide.  The truth is that we cannot “inject” urgency, no matter what a snake-oil trainer tells you.  We can, however, find genuine causes for urgency, and bring those causes to bear in our presentations and proposals.  Using GENUINE reasons for urgency will get you farther than all the phony-baloney techniques in the world.  And yes, I have a methodology for that, and we’ll talk about that later this year.

Fear of change:  I’m not talking about the customer’s fear of change here (although this, too, is a topic we’ll spend time on).  I’m talking about the fear that salespeople have of trying something new and different.  It’s amazing, really; even when the current techniques aren’t working anymore, salespeople will automatically respond, “I don’t think that (the new technique) will work for me.”  The truth is that no new technique will work – until and unless you try it.  And on this note, I should point out that one big difference between European salespeople and American salespeople is that – in my very small sample size – European salespeople are more likely to try to put something new to work as quickly as possible.  Don’t let fear of the new hold you back.

There are other points, and we’ll talk about them all this year.  For now, though, I’d just like to close this column with a sincere “thank you.”  Thank you to DocuWare for bringing me back to Europe for the second year in a row, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you to my European friends old and new who have welcomed me into their careers.

I am hoping to cross paths with as many of you, wherever you are in the world, this year.  This is already one of the most exciting years of my career, and it’s only going to get better from here.

I’m writing this from my room at a lovely resort in Portopetro, Spain, on the island of Mallorca.  On Wednesday, I’ll be delivering leading-edge sales training to the DocuWorld Europe conference, put on by DocuWare, for the second year in a row.  I’m excited about the training, but this article isn’t about DocuWorld.  It’s really not even about me.  It’s about one man who made a huge difference for myself and my wife.

We arrived Saturday in Barcelona, and immediately drove to Fraga.  Fraga is a little town of about 15,000 people, and the sole reason we went there was because it was the closest place to Sunday’s World Superbike Championship race with an unbooked hotel – the Hotel Casanova.  The Casanova is a great hotel, built in 1954 and still completely in the Mid-Century Modern design, with nice rooms.  One person at the Casanova changed our entire experience.

I should point out that Fraga is not a tourist area of Spain.  I was spoiled last year, because we stuck mainly to tourist areas, and hence there was someone who spoke English nearly everywhere.  Fraga is not such a place.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that the only English speaker in the city was the constantly smiling woman who checked us in to the hotel (she was the only hotel employee who did speak English).

This didn’t present a problem while walking around town, although we frequently got a look that anyone who has sold in small town America is familiar with – the look that says, “You’re not from around here, are you?”  Some things are the same the world over.

Our lack of Spanish – and their lack of English – presented a problem for us at dinner.  We sat in the bar/cafeteria, ordered iced teas (hint – in Spain, say “Nestea”), and chatted, but when we attempted to order food we just got a shaking head.  Suddenly an older, well dressed man appeared.  He also spoke no English but he mimed eating motions and we nodded vigorously.  He then led us back into a very nice, white-tablecloth restaurant that was basically hidden from view of the lobby.

To make a long story short, we got a meal of sautee’d pork sirloin and potatoes in an exquisite cream sauce, a starting course of cheese tortellini, crème brulee, a bottle of the house red wine, and of course our Nesteas, for a grand total of 33 Euro for both of us – about 40 bucks U.S.  More than that, we got great service by the same gentleman and an attitude from him that made us feel completely at home and still has us smiling two days later.

We never got his name, but we will remember him fondly.  As we will the Hotel Casanova.  We may never pass that way again – but if you are in the area, you could do much worse than staying and dining there.

Here’s the point.  Had it not been for him, we’d have felt very much like the outsiders that we were.  But one person made all the difference.  In today’s Internet age, it still takes people to create experiences, and that’s the lesson to come forth from this article.  What difference are you making for your customers?

If you’re still stuck in the mode of taking orders and showing features, that’s what the Internet does best.  You’re not going to survive.  If, however, you’re willing to find ways to be a difference maker, opportunities will present themselves every day.

Yesterday, I ran into an old high school buddy of mine.  He and I had faced each other across a wrestling mat twice in junior high, before I decided that wrestling wasn’t my thing (I won two matches – both against him), and so when we were assigned to be partners in Weightlifting class in high school, we were initially less than excited.  As it turned out, we became great friends and weightlifting partners all through high school, because we pushed each other hard.

When we began, in my sophomore year (Freshmen were in junior high in my district), I weighed 160 pounds and could bench press 120 pounds.  Weak.  But, Charles and I worked hard, pushed each other hard, and by graduation, I weighed 170 pounds – and could bench press 240 pounds.  In my weightlifting experience, there are several lessons that apply to selling.

First of all, when we started lifting, we focused on milestones.  I’ll be honest.  We focused on milestones that LOOKED good.  For instance, when we started lifting, we put the “small” weights (25 pounds and down) on the bar because that’s all we could lift.  The bar weighed 45 pounds by itself; the biggest weights were 45 pounds.  Hence, to LOOK really good, we worked our way up to lifting at least 135 pounds.  I remember how good it felt the first time I put those ‘big’ 45 pounders on the bar and got it all the way up off my chest.

As we continued forward, we focused on other milestones – for instance, adding the 10 pound weights to the 45s, then the 25 pounders, etc.  Again, every milestone was based on how it looked, but it WORKED for us.  Charles and I both built strength (not just on bench press – but this is the one that I remember well) based on those milestones.  The last semester of high school, we pushed each other hard to be able to lift 225 pounds.  Why?  Because that meant that we could put TWO 45 pounders on each side.  Yep, a visual milestone.  As I recall, it was in the last month of school that we each managed to hit that mark.

LESSON NUMBER ONE: To improve, you need milestones to get where you want to go.

Another lesson that I remember is how, over the summer, our strength would atrophy because we weren’t lifting every day.  That should seem obvious – but that first lift of junior year it was quite a revelation to put my previous spring’s maximum on the bar and find out that I couldn’t budge it.  And that was with doing pretty physical work over the summer.  In fact, between junior year and senior year, I made it a point to lift every week at a minimum.

LESSON NUMBER TWO: If you’re not going forward, you’re going backward.  I couldn’t simply maintain a level of strength – I was either building strength or losing it.

As it turned out, I did actually gain strength over that summer.  Not much, but a little.  Then, after high school, I stopped weightlifting.  The results were, well, predictable.  That 240 pound bench press is but a distant memory, and even though I’ve started lifting again, I’m still firmly stuck at junior year levels.  That’s a blow to the ego – but I do believe that, at some point, I’ll pop those four 45-pounders off my chest again.  It’ll just take awhile.  In fact, I think it’s going to take longer to get BACK there than it did to GET there.

LESSON NUMBER THREE:  It’s easier to STAY in shape than it is to GET in shape.

One challenge I see in my chosen profession is that too many salespeople get complacent.  They don’t continue to develop their skills, find new customers, and seek out new challenges that make them better.  They stop reading books, they don’t train or retrain, they don’t even conduct meaningful business reviews.

And, like my strength when I stopped lifting, their customer base shrinks – and they can’t understand why.

Today’s customer is more demanding than the customers of 10, 15, 20, or 30 years ago.  They are better informed, better educated, and more savvy in terms of how they deal with salespeople.  In dealing with them, you have several options:

1. You can take the low road and try to win on low price.  That’s never a permanent solution.
2. You can keep doing the same things you did in the past, and watch the customers move past you and on to other salespeople.
3. You can update and improve your skills to meet and exceed today’s customer’s expectations.

Today’s salesperson must be able to have a higher level of customer dialogue than salespeople of the past.  You must be able to get to the need behind the need.  You must be able to diagnose and prescribe the EXACT solution to the customer’s problem.  And then you must use advanced persuasion techniques to win the business.  The old stuff won’t get it done.

And, as my example above shows, if you’re not in constant development, you won’t be able to keep up with the marketplace.  So, of the three examples above, which salesperson are you going to be?